C|NET CENTRAL
TRANSCRIPT
- EPISODE 3 -

Original air date:  4/15/95




HOSTS:  RICHARD HART and GINA ST. JOHN

(MUSIC) 

GINA:  It's here.  The watch of the future.  It gives you game scores, 
stock quotes and much more.

(MUSIC) 

RICHARD:  Conquer your fears.  Foil your phobias.  All without 
leaving your home.

VOICEOVER:  I never knew I was nervous of heights;  but I am 
nervous of gangplanks.

RICHARD:  It's called “virtual therapy,” and you're going to see how it 
cured one woman's very real fear of bridges.

GINA:  And John C. Dvorak reviews the best and the worst in CD-
ROMs. 

JOHN:  Before we go, let's take the sex quiz.

VOICEOVER:  Are you a sex expert?

JOHN:  Expert, of course.

(MUSIC) 

RICHARD:  I'm Richard Hart.

GINA:  And I'm Gina St. John.  These stories and more coming up on 
c|net central.

(COMMERCIAL)

(MUSIC) 

RICHARD:  Hi, I'm Richard Hart.

GINA:  And I'm Gina St. John.  Welcome back to c|net central, your 
new home here in San Francisco where you'll always find the latest 
in digital technology.

RICHARD:  A good example of that is our recent computer animation 
of the Simpson-Goldman murders, which it seems has appeared in 
reports in every newspaper and television show in the last couple of 
weeks.

GINA:  It was pretty powerful.  We've gotten an awful lot of 
responses, and we'll share those with you later on.

RICHARD:  It's just one example of how people are using digital 
technology, which is what this show is all about.  A good example 
today is something called virtual therapy, an innovative use of 
virtual reality.  c|net central correspondent Kate Kelly is here to 
introduce us to a woman and her doctor who used it to cure her of a 
very real fear of bridges.

KATE:  That's right, Richard.  This is the first time that virtual reality 
technology is being used to help treat psychological disorders, and 
the results are so astonishing that mental health experts are 
scrambling to find new ways to take advantage of it.

(MUSIC) 

VOICEOVER:  I started to get very nervous.

(MUSIC) 

VOICEOVER:  I would drive with one hand and dig the nails of my left 
hand into the palm of my hand--anything, trying to divert myself--
and that is how I made it across the bridge. 

KATE:  It's called acrophobia, a fear of heights, and for 15 years this 
fear, this panic, kept Gesine Anger of San Rafael, California, a 
prisoner. 

DR. LAMSON:  In my own case, I had experienced panic, racing heart, 
sweatiness...

KATE:  Dr. Ralph Lamson is a Marin County psychologist who also 
suffered from acrophobia.  And, like all unnatural fears, Dr. Lamson 
and Gesine Anger had to confront theirs to overcome it.  Which can 
take years unless you travel into the virtual world.

VOICEOVER:  This is a head-mounted display.  It has two tiny little 
television sets right in front of your eyes.  That's going to be 
displaying the environment to you.  It has headphones over here.  
It's going to be giving you something called binaural or spatialized 
three-dimensional sound.

(MUSIC) 

KATE:  In the virtual world--the three-dimensional environment 
created by powerful graphics and animation computers--fears like 
acrophobia can be safely confronted in controlled settings.  

VOICEOVER:  The goal is not to threaten people, but to help them--
"habituate" is the term--to become comfortable there so that they 
know that they are going to be OK.

KATE:  On your TV, virtual reality probably looks simplistic, almost 
cartoonish.  Even virtual reality software designers wearing special 
3D glasses admit that it's not that impressive.  

KATE:  Must be hard to work here, you know.

EMPLOYEE:  Uh, all this new stuff?

KATE:  All this new stuff.

EMPLOYEE:  All right.  If you'll reach up and...

KATE:  Once you have the head gear on and the controls in your 
hands, the virtual reality world can be mesmerizing.

KATE:  You know, I'm afraid to move my feet because I may fall off 
this thing.  I do feel like I'm going to fall off this.  Now, what 
happens?  Do you have, what, a virtual splat?

KATE:  As a tool for psychologists, it can seem very real.  Dr. Lamson 
talked us through the virtual reality scenario he had the folks at 
Division create for his special study on acrophobia.

DR. LAMSON:  They go to a door and that's where they first encounter 
a view that looks a lot like this view out here, looking across a bridge 
that looks a lot like the Golden Gate Bridge with no hand railing and 
hills in the background. And right in front of them, they go out onto a 
patio and a plank extends from the patio towards the bridge, but not 
quite to the bridge.  And what they're asked to do is to go out on this 
plank and look over and down.

KATE:  I took the same trip as Dr. Lamson's patients, carefully 
maneuvering my way across the virtual bridge.

KATE:  It's amazing.  My hands are actually sweating.  (LAUGHING)  
And I never knew I was nervous of heights, but I am nervous of 
gangplanks.

KATE:  It was this kind of reality that gave Gesine Anger the key to 
unlock the door to those fears. 

GESINE ANGER:  That is something that I believe was one of the keys 
to helping me:  virtual reality didn't control me, I was controlling it.  
I feel very liberated.  I just enjoy the beauty that surrounds the 
bridge.  I am very relaxed, and I really feel that I conquered 
something.

KATE:  Well, perhaps the most surprising result of Dr. Lamson's 
acrophobia study was the speed of recovery.  Ninety percent of the 
patients who tried virtual therapy were able to overcome at least 
some of their fears.  Now, we should emphasize that virtual therapy 
is brand new, and that more studies are under way to test these 
encouraging results.  Richard?

RICHARD:  Yeah, and what I like about this, Kate, is that it's an 
example of something which turned out to be useful in a way that its 
designers never really intended.

RICHARD:  OK, from time to time you're bound to hear the term 
"killer app"--meaning killer application--and it's come to describe 
absolutely "must have" computer programs, the very latest, hottest 
software.  Here now, are some killer apps that we found.

(MUSIC) 

RICHARD:  Welcome to the world of Movie Flo', where you can 
manipulate digital Play-Doh.  You can stretch 'em, you can bend 'em.  
See what it does to Bill Clinton as he's transformed from President of 
the United States into plastic man.  You can experiment by 
manipulating regular photographs and films into works of modern 
art.  Movie Flo', that's F-L-O, costs a lot of dough.  It's intended for 
commercial use, priced at around $900.

And how about an interactive tour to the stars?  You can go digital 
when finding out your horoscope pretty cheaply.  It's called "Instant 
Astrologer," sells for $19.95, and it has it all--romance, careers, life 
and happiness.  Enter your birthday, birth time, and let the computer 
match your zodiac.

And you could use your computer to check out one of the world's 
best ski resorts--Vail, Colorado.  Point and click your way across all 
of the mountains and the bowls, zoom in on individual trails, and get 
tips planning your next ski vacation--hotel and restaurant listings, 
too.  The Interactive Guide to Vail goes for $39.95.

GINA:  Well, I haven't had the chance to do any spring skiing, but I 
did get to go to L.A. and try out the newest--and I think the 
smallest--information-gathering gadget.  It's called the Seiko 
Message Watch, and yeah, it gives you the time...but it gives you so 
much more.

(MUSIC) 

GINA:  Los Angeles, California.  Land of sunshine, movie stars and 
wireless communication.  

(MUSIC) 

GINA:  There are two million pagers in the City of Angels, but only 
mine can give me a weather forecast and a Clippers score.  I carry a 
Seiko.  

(MUSIC) 

GINA:  This is my watch. (LAUGHING).  I got a new watch.  Seiko, 
baby, here we come.  They call it the Seiko Message Watch.  I call it 
information overkill.  It's a pager and a personal message receiver in 
a wrist watch.  (LOOKING AT WATCH)  It's 4 o'clock, and the prime 
rate is still the same.

(MUSIC) 

GINA:  Would you like to know the prime interest rate?  If you want 
to know, just let me know.  As a pager, the Seiko can receive 
telephone numbers, call home or call an office number, and even 
code messages.  Here's code 3, my agent has finished her colonic.  

(MUSIC) 

GINA:  It  says, "CALL OFF ICE."  You know what it says?  The watch 
contains a chip which is actually a tiny FM data receiver.  In each 
market, Seiko Communications leases unused portions of FM radio 
signals to broadcast information.  Right now, in the L.A. area, you can 
get weather forecasts, the Dow Jones average, the current prime rate, 
winning California lottery numbers, voice-mail notifications, and local 
sports scores.  Of course, it'll also give correct time, date, and, most 
importantly, air pollution indexes.  Excuse me, I'd better go inside.

RICHARD:  Now wait a minute.  What does this watch not tell you, 
Gina?

GINA:  Well, it doesn't tell you the price.  It runs about $79.95.

RICHARD:  Which is not bad, I don't think.  But you have to pay a 
monthly fee, right?

GINA:  That's about $10 a month. 

RICHARD:  And it works no matter what city I'm in?

GINA:  Well, right now you can get it in L.A., Seattle, Portland, and it 
will soon be available on the East Coast.

RICHARD:  Next on c|net central, John C. Dvorak will tell you which 
CM-ROMs to skip, and a cowboy who drives cattle down the 
information superhighway.

(MUSIC) 

(COMMERCIAL) 

(MUSIC) 

GINA:  OK, we asked a lot of people a lot of questions when we 
started putting this show together.  What kind of help do you need 
with computers?  And one response we heard over and over:  "Help 
me find good CD-ROMs."  So we found this guy.  He's John C. Dvorak, 
probably the best-known computer columnist in the free world.  
Isn't that right, John?

JOHN:  Also in the Soviet Union.

GINA:  Oh.  (LAUGHING)

JOHN:  You know, not too long ago, if you said, "CD-ROM," people 
would say, "CD what?"  Well, that's why I'm here.  I've got a simple 
rating system called "Buy it, try it, and skip it."  If a CD-ROM is an 
absolute winner, I'll give it a "buy it," meaning it's worth the money, 
it's not a technical nightmare, and you won't soon get sick of it.  Next 
is "try it"--you might like it if you're into the topic.  But I can't 
guarantee it, so you've got to test it out.  And finally, there's "skip it," 
meaning don't waste your time or money, it's crap.  That's it--buy it, 
try it or skip it.  So, let's get down to business.

Our first title this week is called Dark Forces--the fate of the galaxy 
rests on your shoulders.  Can you handle it?  You'll find out when you 
play this shoot-'em-up action adventure game for adults based on 
the Star Wars universe.  You're right smack dab in the middle of a 
brand new Star Wars story with all the old favorites, like Darth 
Vader, who I thought was dead, and a few new characters like the 
deadly mechanized super storm troopers.  There's actually a 
compelling story behind this game, not typical for shoot-'em-ups.  
The graphics are even better than the original Star Wars movie, 
believe it or not, but the best part is the fast-paced gaming.  Dark 
Forces sells for $59.95 and is available for the PC.  I say buy it, 
there's lots of play time in this CD-ROM, you'll get your money's 
worth.

Now, on to the next title.  Her favorite topic is sex.  You've heard her 
on the radio, maybe.  You've read her books, perhaps.  And now that 
spunky lady of sex chit-chat has come to your local CD-ROM drive.

DR. RUTH:  Hello, there.  Are you sexually repressed?

(MUSIC)

JOHN:  That's right.  It's Dr. Ruth in her office.  Go ahead, explore.  
Listen to Dr. Ruth's talk show.

DR. RUTH:  Hello.

VOICEOVER:  I'm calling from Honolulu, Hawaii.

DR. RUTH:  Bravo!

JOHN:  Check out the anatomy chart.  Watch video clips that 
sometimes don't work.  

DR. RUTH:  Kissing is a neglected art.

JOHN:  Real helpful, huh?  There's a slide show--entertaining, but 
useless.  Before we go, let's take the sex quiz.

DR. RUTH:  Are you a sex expert?

JOHN:  Expert, of course.  Dr. Ruth's encyclopedia of sex sells for 
$29.99 and is available for the PC.  I say try it.  My staff hates it, by 
the way.  Don't spend any money on it until you check it out.  Test it 
at a store or at a friend's house, if you can find it.  It could make for 
an amusing hour or two.

Now, the next title is a clear indication of things to come, perhaps a 
bad trend.  A lot of your favorite stuff from Hollywood is showing up 
on CD-ROM, so look out.  It might be a hit television show or a 
blockbuster film, but it could be a bust on CD-ROM.  That's exactly 
the case with the Seinfeld Screensaver and Planner.  The planner is 
terrible.  No alarm clock, no "to do" list.  All you can do is write in 
entries at a given time like, "6:30, clean out sock drawer."  You can 
make your own letterhead in fax form with Seinfeld photos, but who 
would want to?  Let's see, there's Jerry, and George on the toilet, and 
finally there are the video clips, the only possible reason to buy this 
product.  But look at it--it's tiny and grainy and sometimes it doesn't 
even work.  The Seinfeld Screensaver and Planner sells for $39.95 
and is available for the PC.  I say skip it.  Stick with Seinfeld on TV.  
I'm John C. Dvorak.  That's it for this week, I'm out of here. 

GINA:  All right, thanks a lot, John.  Richard?

RICHARD:  This is one of dozens of digital navigators now on the 
market.  They range in price from $500 to $5,000 and know exactly 
where they are by using GPS, the Global Positioning System of 
satellites.  Not long ago on c|net central, we showed you a unit that 
lives in the dashboard of a car.  They're putting them into airplanes  
and even working on a version that looks like a wristwatch.  And it 
turns out it's a useful tool to the cowboy.  Well, at least one cowboy 
we know can send and receive data from anywhere--without leaving 
the saddle.

(MUSIC) 

(BACKGROUND NOISE) 

RICHARD:  Texas--cattle-driving country.  The Chisolm, the Red, the 
Comanche.  Century-old cattle trails etched 1,500 miles in the red 
rock soil from Ft. Worth to Mile City.  Only now, it's paved.

(BACKGROUND NOISE)

RICHARD:  This is a cattle drive for city slickers who pay $200 a day 
for the experience.  This is Joe Martin, who is reporting on the event-
-not for a TV show or a newspaper, but for the Internet.  Joe is a 
cowpoke, but when he reaches for his holster, he pulls out a 486 
computer.  Bullets, heck, he doesn't even shoot film.  His camera is 
digital.  Head 'em up, log 'em on.  All of this, of course, makes him a 
cyber-cowboy.

JOE MARTIN:  Cyber-cowboy, I don't know.  Cyber-cowboy is a 
cowboy that gets to come do this while still making a living.

RICHARD:  The occasion is called the Great American Cattle Drive.  It's 
an authentic re-creation of the legendary drives from Texas to 
Montana a century ago. Because Joe records it on a digital camera, he 
doesn't have to worry about developing film on the ride.  Because he 
dumps the pictures into his laptop, he doesn't have to Fed-Ex them to 
his editor.  And because he has a cellular phone, you and I can enjoy 
his work minutes after he creates it on the Internet through Joe's 
company, CyberSim.

(MUSIC) 

RICHARD:  All this leaves the working boot boys and girls a bit 
befuddled.  

JOE MARTIN:  That's what makes a memory unit.  It's an active color 
matrix monitor.  I got a dual PCMCIA.  First, they ask me what this is 
and I go, "It's a digital camera."  And they go, "Oh, what are you 
doing with it?"  And I go, "I'm taking photos and loading them back 
to the Internet."  And they go, "Oh."  Hardly ever killed anybody with 
one of these.  Mind if I take a picture?

MALE:  No problem.

JOE MARTIN:  All right.  Perfect.

FEMALE:  Internet.  Is that like a fishnet?  No...  

JOE MARTIN:  Every day, or that evening of that day, you see the 
photos from that day.  To work with all this gadgetry, I'd have to be 
at home at the office.

RICHARD:  Next week on c|net:  log on to the steamier side of 
cyberspace and take a virtual tour of your dream house.  All on c|net 
central.

(COMMERCIAL) 

(MUSIC)

RICHARD:  What next?   If I type in kgb.gov, will I end up in Russia 
some place?  

GINA:  I don't think so. 

RICHARD:  You never know what you'll find on the Internet.  

GINA:  You're absolutely right.  As a matter of fact, it was from the 
Internet that we received most of our responses to the Simpson-
Goldman murder animations that we ran just a few weeks ago.  As a 
matter of fact, you can download it right now onto your computer 
from our Internet site, and you can send us messages, comments and 
letters like the one we received from eric@stex. 

GINA:  Eric writes, "The depiction of the Simpson incident was 
inappropriate, I feel.  Lifelike computer representations such as the 
one your program displayed have the air of being biased."

RICHARD:  On the other hand, others responded like Fred at America 
Online, who writes, "I liked the computer re-creation of the murders 
of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman.  How did your experts come 
to the conclusion that both were attacked simultaneously?"

Well, Fred, the investigators at Failure Analysis--and by the way, 
they are the leading experts in computer re-creations--based their 
animation on location of wounds on the victims' bodies, the positions 
in which those bodies were found, and other evidence such as 
photographs and testimony all available in court.  As a matter of fact, 
they went to the site and made their own measurements.

GINA:  We have also been getting a lot of questions about our online 
service, c|net online.  Linda@cyclops writes, "I watched your episode 
and then connected to your World Wide Web site.  Are there plans to 
expand your site?"

GINA:  You bet.  And we want you to help build these big plans that 
we've got.  By all means, send your suggestions to 
suggestions@cnet.com.

RICHARD:  You know, while you're at it, why don't you send Gina and 
me your artwork, your home-brew screensavers, your home 
computer videos, anything digital you think we might be interested 
in.  Just send it along to central@cnet.com.  And here we are, talking 
about this Internet thing again, and as often as we explain it here, 
there are still many of you who aren't quite sure what it is. 

GINA:  Well, our Dave Ross has his own thoughts about the 
Information Superhighway, and you're going to hear them because 
he always gets the last word.

DAVE ROSS:

If you know anything about computers, you've heard about the 
Internet.  And if you've heard about the Internet, you probably have 
one question:  "Just what IS it?"

Well, I'm here to answer that question today.

The Internet is a way to link your computer to the computer of 
someone who doesn't know you, when they're not looking.  So 
instead of fruitless searches for files on your own machine, you can 
run fruitless searches for files on other people's machines.  And the 
neat thing is--they don't care!

No wonder an estimated 30 million people use it!

And the Internet is truly changing our lives in ways we can't even 
conceive yet.  Sure, it gives us computerized shopping, replacing 
flesh-and-blood social encounters with cold, lifeless electronic data 
entry.  Sure, it links cities so that a teenager working in New York 
can reprogram traffic lights in San Francisco, or route 911 calls to a 
Burger King in Dallas.

But the Internet is so much more.

What the Internet is really about is INFORMATION, putting the sum 
total of human knowledge literally at your fingertips.  And the 
technology is truly astonishing.

I should explain that the Internet uses special transfer protocols.  
Actually, it breaks data up into self-contained digital...All right, how 
about this?  It uses special software known as Gophers and Web 
browsers...  Wait!

(PICKS UP TWO TIN CANS LINKED BY A STRING)  OK, here.  This is 
your computer.  This is another computer.  And THIS is the Internet.  
You make a request for information on this end:

(YELLING INTO CAN)

"Who was the seventh president of the United States?"

In a few seconds, the answer comes back:  "Michael Jackson."

(SLAPS CAN)

"Andrew Jackson."

Doesn't always work the first time.  And then you get a bill for $23.

Actually, of course, the Internet is not quite like this.  If this was the 
actual Internet, I'd have to enter a password to use this can here, 
then register my name, and look up the address of the other can.  
And while I was doing that, some Bulgarian programmer would 
break into this can and erase my tax return!

But that's the charm of the Internet:  the way it's bringing the world 
closer than it really needs to be.

I'm Dave Ross.  And I get the last word.

RICHARD:  Thanks again, Dave.  And by the way, your can says on it...

GINA:  gina@cnet.com.

RICHARD:  And mine says richard@cnet.com.

GINA:  You also have a little bit of pork and beans still on the can.

RICHARD:  Well, as long as there's no Spam in there, I'm OK.  That's 
all for c|net central this time!

GINA:  Thanks for tuning in and logging on!

(MUSIC) 

END OF TAPED MATERIAL

