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RELEASE: APRIL
Tech Live
The Gist: Geekly World News Tonight
TechTV reaches more than 23 million households, but the 24-hour cable news channel, formerly known as ZDTV, has been conspicuously light on live broadcasts - the lifeblood of major players like CNN and ESPN. Tech Live, the station's ambitious new show, aims to change this. The live newsroom broadcast airs from 9 am to 6 pm and 9 to 9:30 pm Eastern time, more than tripling TechTV's output of real-time programming. Its creators hope to define what technology looks like on TV, just as ESPN has done for sports, by presenting a distinctive home and the soon-to-be-familiar faces of its anchors. And by filling a sizable daytime block, Tech Live also allows TechTV to reduce its reliance on repeats and move popular programs like Silicon Spin and The Screen Savers into prime time.
So what does television's self-appointed headquarters for technology look like? The Tech Live studio was designed by Bruce Ryan, who also crafted the interiors for sitcom Will & Grace and the TV version of the computer game You Don't Know Jack. Ryan sought to be contemporary, but not threateningly so - the classic TV balance. Eschewing the sterility of clean rooms and computer labs, Ryan took inspiration from modern office furniture and architects like Frank Gehry. His design uses materials familiar from yuppie boardrooms and home renovations: graphite, steel, Plexiglas, tiny white halogen bulbs, and wood accents for warmth. Sets include the anchor desk, a product-demo area, and facilities for both in-person and remote interviews. A nice touch are the translucent panels that reveal newsroom activity in the wings.
The show's pacing is quick: Cameras move and zoom, cuing channel surfers that they've found the cutting edge. The busy, dynamic look continues with a bar at the bottom of the screen that constantly displays stock prices and breaking news. But as always, the show's success will depend on substance as well as style. Here's hoping Tech Live's producers find nine hours of daily material that holds its own against soap operas and CNN.
TechTV: +1 (415) 355 4000, www.techtv.com.
RELEASE: APRIL
Sony e Villa
The Gist: Top-shelf Net Appliance
Sony's $500 e Villa is the Cadillac of countertop computers. Like 3Com's Audrey, the shiny, metallic info-appliance provides an appealingly simple, instant-on interface for surfing, emailing, and other Netly basics. It also works as an Internet radio, and its flat, 15-inch portrait-mode screen is clearly best-in-class. Connecting via phone line or Ethernet connector and running on BeIA, e Villa is great for the PC-shy, or as a second machine for households that log in long hours.
Sony Electronics: (800) 222 7669, www.sonystyle.com.
RELEASE: APRIL
Artloop
The Gist: One-stop Shop For Exhibitionism
Becoming an art connoisseur online once required trolling museum, gallery, and auction sites, but Artloop collects all the knowledge you need in one place. The data-rich resource not only displays art, but also offers mini-biographies of artists and extensively cross-referenced histories of entire movements. The site doesn't stress etail, but it does let you track valuations. While its staffers establish a reputation as consultants to museums and private collectors, Artloop plans to pull in funds from discreetly placed ads.
Artloop: www.artloop.com.
RELEASE: SPRING
OnStar Virtual Advisor and Personal Calling
The Gist: Speak And Click At 65 Mph
If you balk at going through email while operating a moving vehicle, OnStar's voice-controlled Virtual Advisor may ease your mind: It reads messages and news reports aloud. A sister service, Personal Calling, lets you place phone calls without using your hands. These new tricks, which recently debuted in the Northeast and cost 18 to 39 cents per minute, are now available installation-free to any OnStar-equipped 2001 GM car, even if it's already in your garage.
OnStar: (888) 667 7277, www.onstar.com.
RELEASE: SPRING
HP LaserJet 4100
The Gist: E-powered Programmable Printer - Spam With Each Paper Jam!
Heading up a new line of printers, Hewlett-Packard's LaserJet 4100 has an embedded Java interpreter and its own email server. Applets enable it to call you when it's been out of paper for several hours and no one's refilling it, or email you its current status and configuration. Any Java buff can contribute their own routines to add new control features or upgrade the interface. The possibilities seem promising: HP has already demonstrated a sample applet that retrieves Web pages and queues them up for printing, based on URLs beamed via infrared.
Hewlett-Packard: (800) 527 3753, www.hp.com.
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E-Motion 360 Trek Pack Plus
Just for Fun, by Linus Torvalds and David Diamond; Rebel Code, by Glyn Moody
Gasaraki, Volumes 1-4
CubicEye
Mobile Monitor
eyemodule2
Y and mtDNA Chromosome Testing
ReadMe
Music
Showdown
Cyborg Citizen: Politics in the Posthuman Age, by Chris Hables Gray
TravelMate 739TLV
Just Outta Beta
orbiTouch
Startup.com
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