RELEASE: MARCH
All the Right Moves
MySportsGuru is a sports-instruction Web site built around meticulously drafted illustrations captured from real pros in action. After videotaping top instructors from groups like the Ladies Professional Golf Association and the Orvis Fishing School, MySports' gurus distilled the essential motions and created Flash-animated diagrams that are clear and even beautiful.
Whether you're getting ready to step up to the plate or into a mountain stream, MySportsGuru animations let you step through each lesson from various angles. The roll-casting lesson, one of several fly-fishing maneuvers covered, shows the proper grip, stance, and flick to make the line whip out and tickle the water.
Several other instructional dot-coms - How2, eHow, and Learn2 - offer sports advice. Learn2 even serves rough-hewn cartoons. But MySportsGuru tackles finesse moves like a golf swing that simple sketches can't convey.
MySportsGuru: www.mysportsguru.com.
RELEASE: SPRING
Friends and Family Portrait
We've seen frames for digital photos from companies such as Sony, Digi-Frame, and Hagiwara, but they show only the photos you put in yourself. The wood-finished StoryBox can also let you exchange photos with other people who have the device. By dialing into the StoryBox picture-exchange network, you can send the latest baby pics over to Mom's coffee table in Scottsdale. Then browse through the new photos your family and friends have sent you.
You can use StoryBox simply to showcase photos downloaded from your digital camera, but to really show off the $299 device's potential you'll have to plug into a regular phone line. After a few minutes of configuring itself to work from your home, the frame dials into a secure connection a few times a day to transfer photos between frames you designate. The frame, with an understated case designed by Summit ID, holds 40 shots, with notes and voice annotations.
Arrow buttons on top of the StoryBox select pictures and set basic display modes. To make more complicated settings, go to your frame's own secure Web page, where you'll find a clear layout and explanations. User-interface guru Don Norman helped design this innovative hardware-online interface, and we can expect others to copy the idea.
Along with family photos, the $6.99-a-month StoryBox Network can also feed the frame news, weather, sports, and stock info. (A true information appliance, StoryBox keeps things simple and does not surf the Net.) Picture frames on the mantelpiece show your close personal connections, but a StoryBox frame helps you stay connected.
RELEASE: MARCH
Upward Mobility
Palm V devotees can now cut the umbilical cord and enter the wireless information age. OmniSky has launched a wireless email and Internet package that combines a Minstrel V wireless "modem sled" that snaps around the Palm V, an email service that checks up to six accounts, and Web access.
The result is a product that beats the Palm VII at its own game. Where the Palm VII can display only scaled-down Web clippings, OmniSky offers both clippings and full-fledged pages. Where the Palm VII forces you to use a new email address, OmniSky lets you use an existing POP3 account. The Palm VII service charges 20 cents per Kbyte for transfers exceeding the set number specified by its three standard rate plans, which range from $10 to $40 per month. OmniSky's flat rate of roughly $50 a month covers unlimited use.
The gestaltian bundle of wireless hardware, software, and service will appeal to Palm V users who would rather snap on a $200 sled than upgrade to the Palm VII. The company also plans to develop a service for CE handhelds. "We want to be the AOL of wireless Internet," explains OmniSky president Barak Berkowitz. In other words, OmniSky anywhere.
OmniSky: (800) 860 5767, www.omnisky.com.
STREET CRED
The Short Goodbye
Par2-D2
Violent Laughter
The March of Progress
Flighty Mouse
Fast Outta the Gate
Broadband Gamespot
Read Me
Music
Goth Talk
Dark Passage
Got Skim?
Weather Vane on a Chain
just outta beta
Lenscraft
The Road to Nerdville
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