One of the more exciting features I discovered in the Reader application was its ability to play digital audiobooks that may actually replace my reliance on traditional audiocassetes for my daily commute. I was surprised and excited to see an option in Reader to "listen" to a book. I looked up this option in the Reader guidebook and learned that Reader is designed to work with software from Random House's new subsidiary http://www.audible.com to play any of their 12,000 digitized audiobook collection. The downloadable proprietary files are playable on many of the popular handheld devices including the Rio 500, 600, and 800, the Franklin Bookman, the HP Jornada, the Casio Cassiopeia, and the Compaq Ipaq.

I was totally intrigued so I went up to the Audible website and was astounded to find such a wide selection of novels offered as digital files at a significantly reduced price from traditional audiobooks. Furthermore, they offer plans where you can agree to select as few as two audiobooks a month for only $9.95 regardless of how expensive the selection is individually. They also offer a Rio 500 player (which plays MP3s as well as audiobooks and retails for over $239) for only $49 (after $50 mail-in rebate) if you join just the "Light Reading" plan for two books a month. Since I often go through three to four books a month, this is an outstanding bargain especially considering I can select even the unabridged titles which often retail for over $75 in traditional audiocassette form.

Audible offers the books in four formats ranging from highly compressed format 1 (1 hr of audio = 2 Mb) up to high-fidelity format 4 (1 hr of audio= 14.4 Mb). The only thing that users need to understand that may be a bit confusing at first is that each device accepts only certain formats. For example, I downloaded a format 4 book and attempted to listen to it with my Microsoft Reader. I couldn't get the file to play and spent time checking the Microsoft Knowledgebase to see if there was a problem. Finally, I called Audible's tech support and learned that Microsoft Reader only interprets format 1. I downloaded a format 1 version of the file and it played fine. I should have doublechecked the audible website format compatibilities list. It shows that Microsoft Reader works with only format1 (what can I say, it was a Monday!). However, I could play the format 4 file with Windows Media Player or Audible's own Audible Manager.

Audible keeps a record of all purchases and maintains a link in your personal library to enable you to download any of your files in any format as many times as you wish, so you don't have to worry about hard drive crashes or even long-term storage of large audio files. I joined the Light Listener program and selected the unabridged versions of Robert Graves' "I, Claudius" and "Claudius the God" - over 37 hours of entertainment - for my first month's premium of $9.95 and ordered the Rio 500 special. As a new customer they also gave me a free copy of John Grisham's "The Bretheren" and "Left Behind" by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. (There are other new customer free titles - these were the ones I was interested in). I eventually hope to get a pocket PC (the Compaq IPaq certainly stomped the competition in a review I read) so I can take advantage of other Windows CE applications but would like to wait until they increase their memory capacity and add miniaturized hard drives before I make the leap. Even at 32Mb, the iPaq is a bit limited without the addition of the Flash Card jacket and that puts the device to almost the price of many desktops. At 64 Mb, the Rio can hold even one of my unabridged titles in its entirety and you certainly can't complain about the special price of $49 after rebate. Kudos to Random House!

Another interesting application I explored at Comdex was software that voice enables any web page. Conversa (http://www.conversa.com) provides the capability to browse the web by simply speaking the linked words or giving navigation commands like Page Up, Page Down, go to Homepage, Scroll Down, Scroll Up, Scroll Left, and Scroll Right. It's utility for handheld devices as well as for the physically disabled is obvious. It also frees up your hands for other tasks while you're researching and provides relief from repetitive motion nerve irritation. Their Web Express product is offered free for download from their website. I am in the process of evaluating it now and it is quite impressive. My main problem is that the servers in my office produce such a background hum I'm having a little trouble getting Conversa to understand particular sounds. It interprets linked words and such navigation commands as Go Back, Go to Home Page, Show or Hide Favorites Page Down and Scroll Down beautifully. I'm just having a little trouble with Page Up, Refresh, Scroll Up, Scroll Right and Scroll Left. I will be testing it in a quiet environment to see if the minor problems I am experiencing clear up. The product has a significant amount of intelligence built into it. If it indexes a web page and finds two links using the same word, it assigns numbercons to the links so you can speak the numbercon instead of the word to distinguish between the two.

There is also a CDK product designed as a plugin for Macromedia Dreamweaver to add particular greetings or instructions to your web pages as well. It is also available as a free download. Their commercial products include a Conversation Server that provides speech-driven access to networked information through a telephone connection.

Tablet PCs that transform into a desktop unit with a high resolution LCD screen when fitted into a cradle were also causing quite a bit of excitement. I watched a demonstration of the 400 Mhz Stylistic 3400 (http://www.fujitsupc.com/www/products_pentablets.shtml?products/pentablets/stylistic_3400) made by Fujitsu. The high usage cradle provides drop-in connectivity to USB, charging capability and adjustable viewing angle. Phillips made the touchscreen software that worked with it. It was very thin and light but apparently had the power of a desktop workstation.

I also stopped by the Digiscent booth (http://www.digiscents.com) for a demonstration of their new PC scent dispenser. The dispenser I saw at Comdex resembles some dispensers of room deodorizer I have seen although they also have models designed with "shark fins" and ones that look like an miniature UFO. The scent is released very subtly within a few seconds after a scent-tagged web page is loaded. I was a little disappointed to learn that the scents were not specified by discreet combinations of code like an RGB setting to specify an ink color. It was explained to me that scent combinations cannot be manipulated like colors. I guess there are no primary scents to use as a base for other scents like you would use the primary colors to produce an entire range of other colors. In the technology's current configuration, you specify a quantity of a particular preconfigured scent (smoke, fire, coconut) and the user must purchase cartridges containing these particular elements. If a gamer plays a typical shooter, he will exhaust the "gunpowder" scent faster than others in his cartridge. This seems rather limiting to me. Producing a custom scent for a particular web page product would seem difficult too, if the rendering of that scent depended on the user owning a particular cartridge set. Of course, the company's primary revenue stream will be the sale of the cartridges similar to printer companies selling their printers for a modest sum but charging $40 for a replacement cartridge. As for the accuracy of the scent, I suppose a pleasant smell of chocolate on a web page like Euphoria Chocolate would still be an enhancement even if the chocolate smell was not exactly like their own product. I would like to experiement with the technology because I think it would be as important to building an immersive learning environment as background sound. If an innercity child or a child with severe physical disabilities has never been to the ocean, an environment that combines the sound of the wind, waves, and gulls with the smell of the salt air and seaweed would have much more impact than pictures and background sound alone.

Biometrics continue to build momentum. This year iris pattern recognition (See article: http://www.telekomnet.com/writer_telekomnet/10-10-00_iridian.asp), facial geometry recognition and lip movement recognition joined the fingerprint, voice print, and retinal scans as alternative methods for biometric authorization. For high security environments, biometric vendors are recommending at least two methods of authentication. BioID, (http://www.bioid.com.tw/english/index.html) one such firm I spoke with, has a system based on a Novell NLM, that incorporates facial geometry, lip movement patterns, and voice print into a user's security profile. Facial geometry matches key points of the skull to a reference pattern so it is not affected by weight gain or loss, the addition of a mustache, or other efforts to physically disguise one's appearance. This pattern is cross referenced with the user's voice print and a pattern of lip movements when the user pronounces reference words like their last name. This is intended to thwart efforts to imitate someone's voice since someone may sound like someone else but do not move their mouth in the exact same way as someone else would. A reference template of a user's three biometric traits can even be done remotely via a network connection.

These technologies require netcams while the fingerprint folks displayed new mice with optical thumbprint readers placed on the side of the mouse where your thumb would normally rest. These applications may seem to have more utility for commercial environments than an academic environment but a recent study stated that password maintenance costs an estimated $200 per user per year and was ridiculously insecure compared to a biometric environment. BioID estimated the cost of their product at a one time cost of $100 - $150 per user and fingerprint solutions were available in the $50/user range. Even if biometrics were implemented for only faculty and staff, our data environments would be so much more secure and password management signficantly reduced. I was surprised to learn that the file storing the security information is composed of a mathematical algorithm rather than an image.

On the less serious side although certainly with possible serious application, Sony's Aibo, the robotic pup, continues to evolve. He is now cheaper (ONLY $1,500) and will accept memory sticks programmed with different behaviors. I think he may have the potential to be incorporated into research and therapy development for autistic or at-risk children if child development specialists would work with programmers to develop clinical applications. At Comdex, however, he was attracting so much attention and poked and prodded so much he was having a hard time keeping his ears and tail attached.

Another interesting, though as-yet expensive, technology was Dimensional Media (http://www.3dmedia.com/version1/flash.html). Using concave mirrors, a kiosk development company is able to produce a stand-alone device that will project a 3D color image into a free-floating space vertically or laterally beyond the source object. The hologram appears for all intents and purposes to be a solid object if viewed from about 4 feet away. The object is viewable without any head gear of any kind. One example included the projection of a computer generated mascot who seemed to leap out at you from the kiosk opening. The most impressive was the M-360A, a full 360 degree kiosk that looked like a cigarette refuse barrel but projected a spinning sphere from its center. You could walk clear around the hologram and view it from every side. At present, because the technology is so expensive, their target markets would be museums or vendors of expensive merchandise like jewelry which would pose a security risk if openly displayed. The technology has been employed at the Smithsonian Institution, the Whitney Museum of American Art and at a number of trade shows.

Another product featuring 3D imaging was Xgaming's Cybershades (http://www.xgaming.com/cyshades.htm) which combine software, an infrared transmitter and inexpensive wireless glasses to produce 3D images. Unlike other "shutter glasses" products, these glasses use drivers that work with most of the newer 3D graphics cards to produce the desired effect. Shutter glasses produce a 3D effect by making your video card process two images instead of one then interleaving them. One of these images will be the perspective for the left eye, and the other for the right eye. Then the 3D glasses will alternately darken the left eye panel then the right. This process is performed so rapidly the eyes are forced into seeing one image. They were selling the product for only $79 at Comdex (srp $119) - quite a bit less than most of the other headgear exhibited costing about $800.

The rapid globalization of the internet has produced companies offering a plethora of website globalization services. One company, Cyrsh Technologies, (http://www.cyrsh.com/), provides a 30-day free trial of their site registration service that makes a website searchable anywhere in the world with (supposedly) any language by crossreferencing keywords in multiple languages and redirecting traffic back to a website by analyzing search criteria for phoentic text or common spelling errors. Their free iCyrsh™ Agent adds Cyrsh's phonetic Error-Tolerant™ and cross-language search capability to any Windows-based PC.

Movies: While visiting my daughter in Indiana last month, I finally had a chance to see the multiple-Oscar winning film "American Beauty". Maybe I'm just not a connoiseur of "artsy" films but I found the story really strange and Kevin Spacey's acting, although interesting, not what I would consider an outstanding performance. Hollywood is trying so hard these days to be politically correct that I am quickly growing tired of films that seem to go out of their way to exploit society's stereotypical attitudes towards homosexuality even if it is only a subplot. Another film that made me grit my teeth at Hollywood's obvious attempt to craft a film to fit a particular demographic was "The Beach" starring Leonardo DiCaprio. This film romanticized the young yuppie-to-be world traveler who traisps around the world looking for a high whether it be sex, drugs, or dangerous situations,. I have little respect for these types of individuals who are so self-absorbed, so I found the film irritating. I also find utter stupidity difficult to watch. When the first group of young travelers swim to this fabled island with a "perfect" beach and stumble into an obviously cultivated field of marijuana and start running around in ecstasy, I couldn't help snorting out loud "and who do you suppose put it there!" Of course the nasty drug lords show up and start chasing them. Later in the film another group of equally idiotic travelers show up only they aren't so lucky. The drug dealers mow them down in a graphic scene intended to add a sufficient violence quotient to keep the adolescent males in the audience gratified.