Coming to a TV near you …

Are you tired of enormous cell phone bills?

Do you feel like a hostage to the phone company?

What if I told you there was a way to use the Internet to slash your phone bill 70 percent without complicated computer software or burdensome long-term contracts?

With One Button to WiFi you can call people from Argentina to Austria from your home, office -- or even from your car for pennies! Pennies!

But wait! There's more!

The futuristic, sandwich-size device that connects cell phones to the Internet to make dirt cheap international phone calls was just one of countless amazing products on display this week in Las Vegas at a convention for the infomercial industry.

"Anything sells on TV," said Steve Lipman, inventor of the desktop device that combines the value of Internet calling with the convenience of your existing cell phone. "If you are on TV for two or three months, every retailer in the world wants you."

Lipman, 50, showed off the device from a suite in The Venetian.

Other products on display in the room included Zorbeez, cloths that are 27 times more absorbent than paper towels; Snap-N-Slice, a hand-held device that slices everything from potatoes to eggs; and Pancake Puffs, a kitchen kit that makes small, round pancakes that are pitched as more fun than common flapjacks.

But One Button to WiFi was the star Monday morning.

The product is an infomercial maker's dream because it has all the important features to make it the next Popeil Pocket Fisherman or George Foreman Grill.

It solves a perceived problem. In this case that would be the inability to call people in Brazil or Saudi Arabia from your car without running up an enormous phone bill. It includes a small, tangible device that looks simple and useful on television. Perhaps most important, it does something that no other device or service can do at the price.

Billy Mays, the ubiquitous shouting pitchman who hawks Hercules Hooks and Oxi Clean, said the formula for selling hasn't changed much since the early 1980s, when he sold kitchen knives and something called the Wash-a-matik on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City.

"Create a need, get them to want it," said Mays, who rode through the convention area on an electric scooter, stopping to shake hands and chat with fans and colleagues. "People are people. No matter how innovative we get, they still think in a rational, simple way."

It's a formula that has boosted the infomercial industry -- a category that includes long- and short-form commercials, live shopping channels, Internet and radio sales -- from a punch line and subject of Bass-o-Matic satires to a niche that encompasses a retail market worth $300 billion globally, according to the Electronic Retailing Association.

Between displays for the Bonzai Chopper and a foot-operated toilet seat, representatives from companies such as Google, Sprint and eBay sought to schmooze with the product developers and marketing experts.

A monthly publication called the JW Greensheet tracks the industry's presence on television. The October edition was 167 pages.

"There are more (infomercials) because there are more channels to run on," said Clare Kogler of Jordan Whitney, which publishes the listings.

The listings also include reviews of infomercials. Kogler says products that are good subjects for infomercials are ones that "make you thin, rich or beautiful."

Lipman has already invested more than $500,000 to produce an infomercial that's been on television several weeks. Even as he made his way from the hotel suite to the show Lipman was approached by marketers who promised they could sell his product overseas.

He was eager to repeat a demonstration that includes him using his product to get a dial tone on a cell phone and call the Ritz Hotel in London for just 4 cents.

Bystanders stopped and listened as he asked the concierge for a weather update and got a recommendation that he bring an umbrella and Wellington boots if he plans to arrive shortly.

The attention clearly buoyed Lipman who grinned, smiled and lined up meetings to talk about the One Button to WiFi.

"This box is the magic box that does it all," he said, explaining why he's so confident it will sell. "I can hold this up on TV."