Kiosk shows are always showcases of the slick, shiny and exciting - there are usually plenty of brushed-metal surfaces and aesthetically pleasing devices to go around, gardens of delight for fans of both pure technology and money-making (and saving) implementations of that tech.

It's a safe bet, however, that there has never been a half-million-dollar car on the floor of such a show. But attendees at the 10th annual KioskCom event got to spend some quality time around (although, sadly, not inside) a drop-dead-gorgeous Bentley, the centerpiece of the Slabb booth.

Slabb's kiosks, like the Bentley, pay attention to the marriage of form and functionality, and how one enhances the other. The information kiosk next to the car, which was far less intimidating to approach and touch, fit perfectly with the gently sloping profile of the Bentley, an extension of one machine into another.

If the Bentley turned heads, one of the projects on display by Apunix raised an equal number of eyebrows - followed by an equal number of "ooh's and "aah"s.

The Spirit Touch program might well be the first comprehensive application of self-service technology to the world of spirituality and religion. Representatives from Apunix stood in the booth - which was decked with faux stained glass windows - in ministerial garb. (High-tech ministerial garb, though: iPod Shuffles adorned their necks in lieu of white collars.)

Apunix programmer Robert Gunnlaugsson demonstrated the company's Spirit Touch program.

On one side of the booth, patrons could select a sermon from a touchscreen and see it displayed on a large display nearby. A kiosk dispenses a bar-coded "prayer card," complete with information on the user's faith, prayer list, address and e-mail. A swipe of this card in a payment terminal allows parishioners to make their weekly donations - then prints coupons for after-services lunches at partner restaurants.

The kiosk also allows parishioners to download missed sermons to their iPods or other portable media players through a card-reader/port interface. On the back-end, Apunix programmer Robert Gunnlaugsson said it is easy for churches to drop media files into folders, making them immediately available for download.

Apunix president Peter Berens said the whole system was developed in just two weeks - and although it hasn't been installed in any churches yet, enough word-of-mouth buzz was built during its development that several churches and community centers have contacted him, wanting to become beta test sites.

Passersby to the Planar booth would be forgiven if they did a double-take when looking at the company's monitors - one of them in particular, which was brighter than all the rest.

Planar used KioskCom to debut its LV-15, a 15-inch monitor with a luminance of 550 candela per square meter. Typical displays have luminosities in the 300-350 range.

"There's a market need for brighter displays," said Planar's vice president and general manager Douglas Barnes. "The market is demanding more luminance. A lot of our customers in the kiosk world really like the higher luminance, as it allows for use in near-daylight conditions."

The juxtaposition was startling - seated next to other units with lower luminosities, the LV-15 stands out in much the way that HDTVs stand out when placed side-by-side with analog sets. And that, Barnes said, is probably going to drive more adoption of higher luminance in future Planar models - because once your eyes become accustomed to brighter, cleaner displays, they won't want to go back to a picture that they perceive to be "dark."

While most self-service devices exist to streamline processes and (hopefully) generate revenue, they occasionally do work of a much higher calling. Attendees that spent some time at the Fivepoint booth got a taste of one such story.

When Hurricane Katrina had finished doing her dirty work to the Gulf Coast, a massive rebuilding and cleanup job remained (and, indeed, remains). City of New Orleans project head Peter Bodenheimer, who was on-hand at the Fivepoint booth, was tasked with finding a way to make it fast and easy for individuals to get the permits needed to begin rebuilding their homes and businesses.

In partnership with Fivepoint, the city greatly expanded its "Crescent City Connect" kiosk program to 18 machines, each of which allows individuals to apply for (and, if approved, print) building permits in about five minutes.

"I don't even want to think about where we'd be without this deployment," Bodenheimer said. "We lost half of our staff. There is no way we would have been able to handle (the demand) without this."

The demand has been high, but the kiosks have been equal to the task. Bodenheimer said 51,000 permits have been generated since October 2005 - and 20,000 of those were printed at the kiosks. The machines currently average 400 permits a day.

Bodenheimer said the city went with Fivepoint not only because the company was able to deliver the machines quickly (about two weeks), but tbecause hey exhibited an above-and-beyond attitude: When the kiosks were delivered, road closures meant they had to be unloaded more than a mile from their intended place of installation. Fivepoint vice president Ed Crowley personally helped move the machines by handcart.

"Needless to say, when Ed asked me if I would come to the show and stand with Fivepoint, there was no way I would say `No,'" Bodenheimer said.

A few other notable products and technologies that could be found on the KioskCom floor included:

• I-Engage stopped traffic with its 3D foot-modeling kiosk; shoppers stand on the device, hike up their pants, and a series of sensors makes a three-dimensional map of their feet. The device, which is currently in about 10 malls in the San Francisco area, then interfaces with nearby shoe stores for product recommendations (and, in the future, with online services like Zappos). 
• KIOSK, formerly Kiosk Information Systems (click here to read about the name change), offered a typically large and diverse array of solutions, including a tourist information kiosk designed for Holiday Inn, the new self-check-in for Alamo Rent-a-Car, a TIO billpay kiosk (click here to read more about TIO's new name), Amtrak ticketing, gift and loyalty card dispensing, health information, gaming, and municipal bill collection. At another corner of the KIOSK pavilion, Burn-A-Song demonstrated its burn-on-demand entertainment concept, which is unusually robust, thanks to the company's success landing rights to major-label content.
• At St. Clair Interactive's booth, emphasis was heavy on the company's much-acclaimed store solution for Giant Food, as well as a newly launched touchscreen ordering system for Dairy Queen in California.
• TouchMate turned heads with its brightly colored, cleverly shaped kiosk line - designs that are whimsical, yet utterly practical.
• Netkey exhibited version 6.5 of its software suite, along with real-world examples of it hard at work. Programs on display included an HR solution for Swift Transportation and a test deployment for Office Max, which helps customers find the right ink cartridges for their printers.
• At the IBM booth, attendees could check out the Virgin HealthZone kiosk, which encourages club members to track their weight, blood pressure, body fat and other mission-critical "human statistics."
• SCA Promotions - which has been in the "hole-in-one golf contest" business for 20 years, and in the promotional kiosk business for just under one year - demonstrated its colorful and engaging prize kiosks, designed to drive traffic to marketing events and harvest customer information.
• Newcomer Pelham Sloane displayed an all-in-one desktop PC with integrated touchscreen. The company, which is three years old, has chiefly worked in the healthcare and automation fields. But company spokesman Robert Neal said Pelham is beginning to build relationships with integrators in other verticals.