RELEASE: JULY
Into the Night
The world's best tapas restaurant has an hour's wait, Titan A.E. is all sold out, and you've forgotten the name of that martini bar with the free manicures. So a once-promising night on the town ends yet again in a brightly lit losers' den, which you've settled on just because it was there.
Scout Electromedia comes to the rescue with Modo, a $99 wireless handheld that lets you access recommendations on where to eat, drink, dance, and live la vida noche. Replacing the local alt-weekly paper - not to mention CitySearch.com - Modo hits the streets in six cities this summer, starting with San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York.
The IDEO-designed Modo looks chic, and using it is dead simple. It gets updates automatically every night through a cellular paging network. The only user preference setting is the city you're in, and the backlit, 85-dpi grayscale screen makes for easy reading on dark street corners.
The three-button interface, using Pixo's OS, lets you sort listings by type and neighborhood, read all the vitals, and tag favorites for later. If you're at a loss for ideas, the device serves you random suggestions. Or you can check out the Eyes and Ears screens, where local characters of various stripes share their own evening plans.
There's no subscription fee - you buy it, it works, and that's that. The revenue comes from ad banners and laser-scannable bar codes that afford Modo users special deals at sponsoring retailers. In future versions, the device will send as well as receive data, so Scout can harvest fees from reservations and ticketing.
Modo follows the current trend of wireless information on small screens - think of Sprint PCS Wireless Web or PocketNet showing stock quotes on cell phones. But Scout wants to push its device as a product that's purely for fun. The Modo presents another marketing challenge as well. Because its local listings are especially useful to non-city natives, the distinctive device could easily become a big sign that screams "out-of-towner."
Scout Electromedia: +1 (415) 896 0950, www.scoutelectromedia.com.
RELEASE: JUNE
Tomorrow Never Dies
Forget Beckett - "Waiting for Daikatana" has burned through countless lifetimes even before John Romero's much delayed samurai actionfest makes its long-awaited entrance. The heavy-metal weapons may look medieval, but time-tripping warrior lords know that their guns are really 25th-century blasters.
Eidos Interactive: www.daikatana.com.
RELEASE: JUNE
This Message Will Self-Destruct
Disappearing Email lets you Unsend that ill-considered message with one click, or set a Mission: Impossible-esque deadline whereupon your email will be rendered unreadable in someone else's inbox. The system encrypts messages like other secure email schemes, but stores keys on a central server, affording the sender more control. It's designed with Microsoft Outlook in mind but works with other apps. Commercial enterprises can license the system for $4 per mail-box per month, and a personal version - probably free - is due out in late summer.
Disappearing Inc.: (877) 723 3624, www.disappearing.com.
RELEASE: SPRING
Speed Racer
Only a mother could hate Honda's RC51, which brings Superbike-racing R&D to budget-minded speed freaks for just $9,999. The 1,000-cc V-twin electronic fuel-injected sportbike harnesses 126 horses in an innovative extruded-aluminum frame.
Honda: +1 (310) 783 3700, www.hondamotorcycle.com.
RELEASE: SPRING
Treble in Mind
SoundPets, plugged into a stereo source, give your ordinary speakers the vivid surround-sound feel of a pair of headphones. The ear-fooling secret is a signal-processing chip that reduces speaker crosstalk. Be warned: You'll want to immediately relisten to your entire music collection.
Binaura: +1 (650) 833 6999, www.binaura.com.
STREET CRED
Interplanetary Dance Fever
Backhandheld Computing
Take Me to the Bridge
Rhyme Machine
Another Frame Job
Violent Type
Conference Call in a Bottle
ReadMe
Music
The Gift of Fear
Just Shoot Me
Better Red Than Dead
Just Outta Beta
Sound Switcher
Wingo-Rama
Password Snatcher
Palm Cam
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