JUST OUTTA BETA
Model Craft
Release: June
Rolling down US runways for the first time this summer is the Boeing 777 wide-body jet. Should you find yourself boarding one of the first United Airlines "triple sevens," check out a few of its nifty details.
Poke your head into the cockpit, and you'll find yourself staring at a control system that resembles the interior of a Star Trek shuttle craft. Instead of reading old-fashioned mechanical dials, 777 pilots take flight information from full-color, active-matrix LCDs. In the near future, an onscreen, electronic checklist system will replace the old jumble of paper printouts. And to communicate with their onboard computers, pilots use PowerBook-style glass touchpads mounted on the cockpit's center console.
After you make your way through the roomy, 292 seat main cabin and stow your bags in the enlarged overhead bins, you'll find a personal video screen at your seat. Order up one of six in-flight movies or surf 19 channels of digital audio entertainment (videogames and in-flight shopping will be added later this year), then sit back and enjoy the ride.
Boeing 777: Approximately US$122 million. Boeing: www.boeing.com.
Release: August
Microsoft's second stab at a 32-bit operating system adds all the features that Apple, OS/2, and Motif users take for granted: spiffy graphics, long file names, drag-and-drop capacity, and reasonable file management.
Power users beware: Windows 95 multitasks with all the grace of an elephant riding a bicycle. There's more DOS beneath the hood than advertised (ThinkPads still emit the telltale beeps and burbles), and it takes some serious tweaking to get big DOS programs, especially games, to run at a tolerable speed.
A quick CheckDisk reveals a memory meltdown that's matched by the ungodly amount of real estate Windows 95 vacuums off the hard drive (around 30 Mbytes, before loading Microsoft Network). They call this progress? It's more like the OS equivalent of spamming.
Upgrading your operating system is like replacing your car engine - it's a messy, frustrating job and usually not worth the effort.
Windows 95: Less than US$100. Microsoft Corp.: +1 (206) 882 8080.
Release: August
John Barth. He's the guy who writes fat, densely structured but light-at-heart novels like Chimera and Giles Goat-Boy, then turns around to dabble in literary theory and science. Further Fridays, arriving in stores this month, is a collection of his musings on both topics.
In Barth's speculations, the arabesque, chaos theory, and postmodernism all manage to simultaneously embrace complexity and symmetry. Leave it to him to notice the uncanny visual resemblance between the intricate patterns of arabesque carpets and Mandelbrot fractals. And how 'bout this point? Postmodern literature exhibits "self-similarity" (to use the chaos-theory term) - all aspects of a novel reflect the larger theme but at a different scale.
The synthesis could seem contrived in the wrong hands. Fortunately, Barth avoids reading too much significance into the parallels he draws. Instead, he makes the case that artists should seek out the interconnections between their studies and developments in other métiers. Surely the same could be said for engineers and scientists. This book is a perfect place to start.
Further Fridays, by John Barth: US$27.95. Little, Brown and Company: +1 (212) 522 8700.
Release: June
I've always been able to spend hours creating images in Photoshop, but my other design tool, Illustrator, never gave me the same thrill. It was superior for specific jobs like creating logos, but lacked Photoshop's functionality.
Then I got my hands on a beta of KPT Vector Effects from HSC Software. Plugging in Kai's groovy extensions for vector-based programs (specifically Illustrator and Freehand), I became lost in a new world of exploding kidney-shaped swimming pools and bizarre '50s ashtrays. I shattered,
I extruded, I warped, I cast liquid shadows and multicolored halos. I could deconstruct shapes just by pulling points from here to there. Hours passed before I looked up from the screen.
Vector Effects also lets you cut corners. The 3-D Transform, Warp Frame, and Vector Distort extensions keep me out of Adobe Dimensions 99 percent of the time. Flare, KPT Neon, and ShadowLand imitate Photoshop's cool effects - though I still usually build most final shadow/lens flair/neon halos in Photoshop first before I import them. Other effects don't do anything new, but they do shave hours off creation time. Though it's not a feature on my beta copy, HSC says the final release will let you save settings to floppy - this way you can swap all the effects you like with your friends.
KPT Vector Effects: US$199. HSC Software: +1 (805) 566 6200, fax +1 (805) 566 6385, e-mail kptsupport@aol.com.
Release: Late July
When the Star Wars phenom went stratospheric 18 years ago, every kid bought the spinoff toys. The original manufacturer, Kenner, has rereleased four of the movie's signature spaceships: Han Solo's Millennium Falcon, the Rebel X-Wing, the Imperial Tie Fighter, and Luke Skywalker's Landspeeder.
Much like George Lucas's plans to update Star Wars with niftier special effects, Kenner has reused the molds from the original toys, with one high-tech revision: the paint injected onto the plastic makes the toys look as realistic as their movie counterparts. On the
X-Wing and Millennium Falcon, pressing buttons will produce authentic ship and laser-fire sounds straight outta the movie's sound effects library.
Accompanying these ships are newly sculpted versions of nine of the Star Wars characters. Apparently, Luke and Han have been working out over the years and popping those GNC tablets - damn, they're buff!
Kenner Star Wars toys: US$50 Millennium Falcon; $30 X-Wing Fighter; $20 Tie Fighter; $10 Landspeeder; $5 action figure. Hasbro Toy Group: (800) 327 8264, +1 (513) 579 4000.
Release: July
The Sega CD may be bordering on the edge of extinction - thanks in part to Sega's new 32-bit gameplayer, the Sega Saturn - but it's going out with a sadistic bang, on Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors.
These eccentric con artists/ magicians extraordinaire treat you to outrageous tricks, friend-suckering scams, and sick, twisted humor. Take, for example, Mofo the Psychic Gorilla: a floating disembodied head divines the playing card you pick from a regular deck by asking a series of bizarre questions. The catch is that you can lie to Mofo - he encourages it, even - and he still guesses the card. How does he do it? That's for you to know (after watching an instructional video), and for your suckers not to find out - unless they also get their hands on the tape and decide to beat your head in.
No Sega CD? Don't panic. Smoke and Mirrors is headed for PC CD-ROM in October and 32-bit game systems in early '96, with sharper video and even more scams to alienate your pals. - Zach Meston
Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors: US$49.95. Absolute: +1 (201) 818 4800.
Release: July
Home, home on the Net? Stealing a page from Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, AlphaWorld lets you stroll through a 3-D-rendered land and chat (in text) with the folks you meet. Purchase some virtual plywood to slap up a 'stead. But after the "competitively priced" monthly fees kick in, will anyone call it home?
Worlds Inc.: www.kaworlds.com.
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