Just Outta Beta
True Pull
A few years ago, General Magic fell on hard times when Magic Cap, the operating system it had developed for handheld computers, failed to win customers over. The company attributed Magic Cap's tepid reception to businesspeople's perception of PDAs as unnecessary and burdensome devices. And, around the same time, the Net grew up, changing market conceptions of mobile computing.
Today, things are turning around for General Magic. The Sunnyvale, California, company is rolling out Serengeti, a next-generation electronic assistant based in part on Magic Cap's agent technology. What makes Serengeti interesting - and will allow it to succeed where Magic Cap failed - is that it pipes vital computer resources, including Internet data, through the most ordinary of information technologies: the telephone.
Roaming workers dial up Serengeti to check email, route calls, change appointments on shared office calendars, and access press releases, stock prices, and traffic conditions. This idea is not new: similar services, such as the Wildfire Assistant, send office data over the phone. But they're constrained by limited offerings, rigid menu structures, and older speech-recognition technologies.
Serengeti, on the other hand, does away with voicemail-like menu choices. Instead, General Magic has developed a so-called Voice User Interface (that's VUI to you), which rewards natural speech, including computer recognition of the same command said any number of ways and the ability to interrupt the system to ask for different information at will.
This is a true pull service - Serengeti offers relevant information through an easy-to-use interface over a common appliance. For anyone who has subscribed to push-media pager services, which set off a conniption in your pocket every time a company announces its earnings, the ability to regulate the flow of digital info and access it over the phone makes a lot of sense.
- Jesse Freund Release: late 1997. General Magic: +1 (408) 774 4000.
Bank on It
Smartcards can seem pretty dumb - there's nowhere to get ecash and a dearth of places to spend it. But now that VeriFone and Citibank have unveiled the Personal ATM, a tiny smartcard caddie that works over plain old telephone lines, digital-age dolers can expect a new push to make home dollar downloads commonplace.
Release: late 1997. VeriFone: +1 (415) 598 5505.
Rosetta Tome
Steven Johnson begins his book Interface Culture by posing the question, "Was the original cave painter an artist or an engineer?" His conclusion kicks off an examination of how today's interfaces - ATM screens, phone pads, and videogame controllers - create experiences and change lives.
Release: October. HarperEdge: +1 (415) 477 4476.
Iris My Case
Ecommerce evangelists may praise ecash, but NCR is trumpeting eyecash. NCR, the world's leading supplier of ATMs, will use Sensar Inc.'s IrisIdent biometric recognition technology to secure transactions and initiate new services, such as ticket reservations and stock purchases over bank networks.
Release: early 1998. Sensar: +1 (609) 222 9090.
It's a Trip
Renowned trailer-park SF author Paul Di Filippo's new collection of short stories, Fractal Paisleys, includes eight works previously published in periodicals and two original pieces. Read it and find out the unreal reason the Republicans controlled the US for 12 years.
Release: November. Four Walls Eight Windows: +1 (212) 206 8965.
Computer Screen Star
Lara Croft is back and badder than ever. Sure, Tomb Raider II has newfangled weapons, enemies, missions, and moves, but gamers can look forward to even more of the same ol' booty-kicking action. As we like to chant around the office, Go Lara, go Lara, go!
Release: November. Eidos Interactive: +1 (415) 547 1200.
Reality Virtually
SouthPeak Interactive's Temujin is a videogame that plays like an interactive movie. That's because the new title's Video Reality technology gives each scene an eerily realistic quality. And the intensely scripted mystery plot helps transform Temujin into a way-new whodunit.
Release: October. SouthPeak Interactive: +1 (919) 677 4499.
