The engineer showed the technology on a laptop playing a high-definition video. When she put the machine in hibernation and then started it up again, the video resumed playing almost immediately. She even removed the battery and replaced it, and the machine started up where it left off.

"If I did this in any other state, I'd be rebooting my system," she said.

Another technology aims to help people with multiple computers to keep their files and folders synchronized among the various devices. Instead of using a USB drive or sending files between PCs via e-mail, users can drag and drop files on the screen to transfer them from one PC to another over a Wi-Fi network.

The engineer contended it's better than cloud-based services for sharing content because the data remains within a user's own Wi-Fi network, which she argued is more secure.

A third technology downloads e-mails, Twitter messages and other content automatically while the machine is unattended. A person catching an early flight, for example, can set the PC to wake up in the night and download the latest information, so the user can run for the plane in the morning and have all their e-mail and other content already on the machine.