C|NET CENTRAL
TRANSCRIPT
- EPISODE 11 -

Original air date:  6/10/95


HOSTS:  RICHARD HART and GINA ST. JOHN

(MUSIC)

GINA:  Today Batman and Casper go interactive on the Internet.

RICHARD:  In the '50s it was just a dream, but the video phone is 
finally here, only it's in your computer.

(MUSIC)

GINA:  Hi!  I'm Gina St. John.

RICHARD:  And I'm Richard Hart.  Those stories plus the greatest 
gadgets for Dad this Father's Day.

GINA:  And John C. Dvorak with his latest CD-ROM reviews, even one 
from "Time" magazine.  It's all coming up, so stay tuned.

(COMMERCIALS)

RICHARD:  First off today, the recent frenzy in the world of video 
telephone.  You know the first telephone to use a camera was 
demonstrated in 1939, yet it wasn't until fifty-three years later that 
we got our first consumer version with a color image from AT&T.  
Even then, it didn't sell too well until somebody realized maybe 
instead of putting the camera on a phone, we ought to put it on a 
computer.  That changed everything.  Now the business of video 
conferencing is booming.

(BACKGROUND NOISE)

RICHARD:  The picture phone was one of the crowning achievements 
of late '50s technology.  It mixed high-tech wizardry with a simple 
household appliance, the telephone.  But the picture phone never 
lived up to its promise.

VOICEOVER:  To actually place a video call in the late '60s, the 
equipment size was enormous and the costs were in the hundreds of 
thousands into the millions of dollars.

(BACKGROUND NOISE)

RICHARD:  But hold on, don't put away that mirror and comb yet; the 
video phone has been revived.  Bypassing the telephone and the TV, 
today's communications gurus are taking advantage of the fastest-
growing home appliance since either of those:  your computer.

BRENT DUSENBERG:  We'll have people at home making a video call 
just like they would pick up the phone to call Grandma.  They'll now 
dial her and use the video phone.  

(BACKGROUND NOISE)

RICHARD:  Desktop video teleconferencing uses the same technology 
that business and government have employed to conduct remote 
meetings and conferences for years, but instead of using huge room 
systems with large cameras and cumbersome audio equipment, the 
desktop version uses your own personal computer.  We talked to 
Christine Perey, from her home south of Sacramento, California.  
Christine is a telecommuter.  She works in the computer industry 
while maintaining an office in her mountain home.

CHRISTINE PEREY:  Just glance outside and see that there's deer 
walking by--that's absolutely fabulous.  I would like to work in a 
professional team.  I can't do that because I've chosen a lifestyle that 
is remote from any corporate team I can imagine wanting to be a 
part of.

(BACKGROUND NOISE)

RICHARD:  Christine's link to the corporate world sits on her desk.

CHRISTINE PEREY:  The components of this system are a Pentium, a 
monitor, and a camera which allows me to focus at any distance.  On 
the screen we can see the window that manages the applications.  
The applications include video, telephone, sharing, conferencing, or a 
directory where I can enter and delete entries.

RICHARD:  Desktop teleconferencing uses either specially installed 
digital phone lines called ISDN lines or POTS lines.  POTS stands for 
"plain old telephone system."  An ISDN line costs about a hundred 
dollars to install and about twenty-five dollars to maintain monthly.

CHRISTINE PEREY:  There's a level of trust that we build when we 
hear one another talk and see the rest of the body language.

RICHARD:  Perey says there's something very important about face-
to-face conversations, but there are disadvantages as well.

CHRISTINE PEREY:  Well, what I've found in video conferencing is 
that you can't run and you can't hide.  If you're having a bad hair 
day, everybody will know.

BRENT DUSENBERG:  A lot of people don't want to be on camera, don't 
want to be seen, you know, the facial expressions, because on a 
phone call, you don't know what gestures are being made; but on 
video, you see everything.

RICHARD:  Chatting face-to-face is all well and good, but is there 
anything else you can do with this technology?  (BACKGROUND 
NOISE)  Lori Wigle from Intel showed us how her company's desktop 
teleconferencing works.  It's called ProShare.  Sharing is what this 
system does best.  From her office and my office in different parts of 
the state, Lori and I worked off the same documents.  First, a map of 
Los Angeles.

LORI WIGLE:  Say, for example, you were interested in a piece of 
property.  What I can do is use a pen tool and draw a circle around 
that, or a square in this case.  You want to try it?

RICHARD:  You mean I can draw a circle around it from here?

LORI WIGLE:  Absolutely.

RICHARD:  We also viewed a videotape through her window.

LORI WIGLE:  So, what we're going to see here is a video created to 
explain debugging a problem with a truck and its tires.  We have a 
number of customers who are interested in doing this on aircraft and 
any area where the engineers are in one place and the problem may 
be in a different place and they can save a lot of time and travel 
expenses.

RICHARD:  The technology isn't quite there yet.  Even using the high-
priced systems with ISDN lines, the picture is still shaky and grainy.  
But if you're ready to answer that phone face-first, then here's what 
you'll need.  This ProShare system costs just under a thousand 
dollars, including hardware, software, and camera, and it runs only 
on ISDN lines.  The AT&T Vistium video conferencing systems start 
at about $2,800 and also only run on ISDN lines.  PictureTel also 
offers two desktop systems that start at $2,500--again, using only 
ISDN.  ShareVision costs about $1,600, but it only runs on POTS lines.  
Unlike the other systems we've shown you, ShareVision works on 
both Mac and PC.  The newly released Apple QuickTime video 
conference system costs $1,750.  It can run only on ISDN phone lines.  
Frame rates are also important.  The video that you see on television 
runs at thirty frames per second.  This PictureTel system, as well as 
ProShare, Vistium, and ShareVision, run about half that speed, which 
is why the picture still looks choppy.  The cheaper systems run even 
slower and sometimes can resemble a slide show.

CHRISTINE PEREY:  If the technology isn't there today, that's OK 
because there's nobody for me to call.  If we're not there today, May 
1995, December 1995, check back with me.

(BACKGROUND NOISE)

RICHARD:  You know, there's a way you could do video conferencing 
at no cost at all, if you already own a camcorder and have access to 
the Internet.  That's how we're seeing Gina right now.  Hi, Gina.

GINA:  Hi, everybody.

RICHARD:  Wave at all the nice people.  She is so photogenic.  The 
program is called CU-SeeMe.  You can download it from many 
different sites on the Internet and other online services.  It works on 
both Windows and the Mac platforms and it uses the Internet to 
send images.  It's from Cornell University and it's freeware.  OK, it 
doesn't do color, the image moves slowly, but you can't beat the 
price.  Right, Gina?

GINA:  Right.  Straight ahead on c|net central, we've got the latest in 
CD-ROMs with John C. Dvorak.  And Hollywood goes interactive on the 
Internet.

(COMMERCIALS)

GINA:  Promises about the future of the Internet range from 
shopping in 3D malls to video on demand.  Well, one promise, that of 
online money transactions, took a giant step forward a week ago 
when Wells Fargo made account balances and histories available on 
the World Wide Web.  They are the first bank to offer services on the 
Internet.  Eventually, Wells Fargo and other banks plan to provide 
more transaction features like transfers and bill payment over the 
Net, but some customers fear that their financial information, or 
worse yet, their money, could be intercepted by hackers.  Wells 
Fargo claims its current site on the World Wide Web is secure, but it 
may be some time before the Internet replaces the local bank.  Look 
for other large banks, like Citibank and Bank of America, to offer 
similar services in the coming months.

RICHARD:  From banking to blockbusters, movie makers have now 
discovered the Net, too.  Until now, when you wanted to decide on a 
movie to see this weekend, you used to do what, maybe consult the 
listings in the newspaper?  Word of mouth from a friend?  There's 
another place to turn now.  That's because movie makers have put 
clips, animations, audio, pictures of the cast, even things that are not 
in the movie on the World Wide Web.

(BACKGROUND NOISE)

RICHARD:  The year is 1939.  Magazine articles and posters are the 
main tools movie moguls have to tell audiences about one of the most 
expensive films ever made.  Now, fast-forward to 1995 and get a 
look at the whole new way today's moguls are spreading the word 
about their latest big-screen, big-budget creations.  This year, for the 
first time, the World Wide Web is taking Hollywood by storm--and 
vice versa.  Welcome to movie magic via modem.

SCOTT ROSENBERG:  The movie studios are looking to reach as many 
people as they can through as many different media as they can.  
The World Wide Web reaches people between the ages of what--14, 
18 to 30 or so--which is precise movie target audience.  And it's a lot 
cheaper than buying TV time and so they've found a way to put 
advertisements online that don't quite look like advertisements.

(BACKGROUND NOISE)

RICHARD:  Here's the season's first big opener:  "Casper the Ghost."  
As with any movie in the theater, you simply watch the story unfold.  
But at Casper's Web site, you chart your own path through a haunted 
estate filled with mysterious clues.  Along the way you're asked to 
give the old place a new paint job and submit it to the spooks for 
approval. 

"Batman Forever," moviedom's third Caped Crusader extravaganza, 
has a lot riding on becoming a summer blockbuster.  So it's no 
surprise the Batman Forever Web site is an extravaganza, too, with 
behind-the-scenes clips you can download and watch at home.  And 
there's a chance to match wits with the Riddler.

But here's the new movie with the closest ties to the digital universe:  
"Johnny Mnemonic," based on a short story by William Gibson, the 
author who first coined the term "cyberspace."  Johnny can probably 
also lay claim to the season's most challenging World Wide Web 
hangout.  Among other things, it features a genuinely tough 
scavenger hunt with some genuinely big prizes.

VOICEOVER:  You can play this big contest and win a computer if you 
can figure out all the clues of how to download the information out of 
your head as if you were Johnny Mnemonic.

VOICEOVER:  The Johnny Mnenomic game I thought was really fun.  I 
found it extremely difficult, though.  I pretty much gave up after 
solving clue eleven, which took about an hour.

VOICEOVER:  It's a combination of text-based clues which are literally 
all over the world on the Internet; you have to find them at various 
Web sites.

RICHARD:  But what do all these electronic amusement parks really 
represent?

SCOTT ROSENBERG:  The movie studio Web sites are fine if you 
understand that they're advertisements.  If you understand that, I 
don't think there's anything wrong with them.

RICHARD:  But don't tell that to anybody who's waited and waited to 
download one of the nifty items, especially when it never arrived.

SCOTT ROSENBERG:  The movie studios go overboard and they throw 
in the kitchen sink, which is great except when you sit down at your 
computer at home with a modem maybe going at 14.4K per second; 
you might have to wait five or ten minutes to look at thirty seconds 
of video.  And meanwhile, you're doing this to look at what is 
basically an advertisement.

RICHARD:  Not everything having to do with movies on the Web is 
studio-paid promotion.  Cyber-Cinema, Hollyweb, and other 
noncommercial sites feature everything from a look at what's playing 
where, to a history of the cinema.

SCOTT ROSENBERG:  That has more of a potential on the World Wide 
Web to give movie fans unbiased information.

RICHARD:  But if the World Wide Web had been around in '39, you 
can bet the makers of "Gone with the Wind" would have had a site 
like this make-believe one we created here at c|net, and enticed you 
to see the film by letting you be the first on your block to hear Rhett 
Butler say...

VOICEOVER:  Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

GINA:  Thanks, Richard. It's time now for our multimedia review 
with John C. Dvorak.  Did you dig up any good CD-ROMs for us this 
week?

RICHARD:  Actually, I got a couple here that are worthwhile, believe 
it or not.

GINA:  Really?

JOHN C. DVORAK:  Yeah, the first one is called "Extreme Sports."  It's 
designed to get your adrenaline pumping.  You get to vicariously 
experience the most dangerous and thrilling sports from the safety of 
your keyboard.  Everything from hang gliding to rock climbing and 
lots more.  You have easy access to hundreds of photos and videos of 
men and women doing death-defying sports around the world.  The 
video's a bit pixelated, but it doesn't matter because the footage is 
very cool. The history of each sport is provided, along with exploits, 
stories documenting the extreme of the extreme.  "Extreme Sports" 
sells for $49.95 and is available on the PC.  I say, "buy it."  Even the 
worst kind of couch potato will enjoy this disc.

GINA:  Sounds like fun.

JOHN C. DVORAK:  You know, they left out the one really great 
extreme sport, though.

GINA:  Which one?

JOHN C. DVORAK:  The famous CD-ROM flinging.  Yeah.

GINA:  What else do you have for us today?

JOHN C. DVORAK:  Well, in contrast to this fine game is "How to be 
Perfect," which is probably Bobcat Goldthwait's worst comedy.  He's 
rude, humorless, and you're stuck with him the entire game.  That 
geeky guy you see is your computer persona.  There are categories of 
questions like dating, health, hygiene, and manners.  Select a 
category, and you're presented with a film from the '50s and then 
are asked a question.

VOICEOVER:  Will good table manners help your career advance?  A) 
Yes, B) No, C) Sometimes.

JOHN C. DVORAK:  If you answer right, you're rewarded with the 
second part of the film.  Wow, what a reward. The more wrong 
answers you get, the more of a raunchy slob your computer persona 
becomes.   "How to be Perfect" sells for $34.95 and is available on the 
PC.  I say, "skip it."  In fact, instead of throwing the disc away like I 
like to do, why don't we just take the whole package.

GINA:  Oh... well, what's the goal of the game?

JOHN C. DVORAK:  Ah, you know, it's pointless.

GINA:  Does he set Jay Leno's chair on fire?

JOHN C. DVORAK:  No, but I was going to set that box on fire, I'm 
going to tell you right now.

GINA:  What else do we have?

JOHN C. DVORAK:  We've got something cool now.  This is the "Time 
Almanac Reference Edition."  It stores the full text for every issue of 
"Time" magazine since 1989.  With Year in Photos, there's Carl Lewis 
setting the world record along with video highlights like Desert 
Storm.  You can literally take a walk back in time through the past 
eight decades.  Access the top stories, the election results, the Man of 
the Year.  By the way, did you know that Queen Elizabeth II was 
named Man of the Year?  As if that's not enough, there's a state and 
world almanac, along with full search capabilities.  A nice feature for 
your teenagers who have term papers due.  The "Time Almanac 
Reference Edition" sells for $79.95 and is available on both the PC 
and Mac.  I say, "buy it," it's cool.

GINA:  Well, it's kind of expensive.  This is $80.

JOHN C. DVORAK:  You think that's high?

GINA:  Yeah.

JOHN C. DVORAK:  Yeah, you're right, it is a little high, folks.  Get it 
down to $40 and everyone will be happier.

GINA:  Well, we ended on a positive note.  Thank you very much for 
your reviews this week, John.

JOHN C. DVORAK:  Thank you for having me.

GINA:  Richard?

RICHARD:  Gina, I think this cinches John's nomination for "Time" 
magazine's Man of the Year next year.  The man of the hour will be 
father on Father's Day.  And when c|net central continues, we have 
the ideal gifts for the digital dad.

(COMMERCIALS)

RICHARD:  Say, Father's Day is next week.  You didn't forget, did you?  
The c|net staff didn't let us down, either.  They've come up with a 
number of gadgets to delight the digital dad.  Beginning with the 
Voice Organizer, made by Voice Powered Technology.  It doesn't just 
record your voice, although it can do a lot of that with a megabyte of 
memory;  it can recognize what you're saying.  For instance, if I want 
to be reminded of something, I can just record, "Remember Gina St. 
John and Dave Ross," and then when the time comes, I'll be reminded 
in my own voice.  You can also tell it times and dates, like 10:15, 
6:30, Thursday, Sunday.  It recognizes all of those.  Of course, it costs 
$230.

A lot less is something called the Road Whiz Ultra.  It's from a 
company called Ultradata, and if you tell it what state and what town 
you're in, it will tell you the directions to and the distance to any 
other state or town in the U.S.  It knows all of the highways--state, 
interstate.  At every exit, whether there's a MacDonald's, a Chevron 
station, or a place to spend the night.  65,000 locations in all for 
about $60.  Although I do have to caution you, I used this not long 
ago and realized you have to know the exit number of your 
destination or it doesn't know exactly how far away it is.

Maybe Dad wants to cruise instead on the Autobahn or, I don't know, 
some river in France or Italy.  Then he might appreciate this.  This is 
called the Translator.  The Translator knows five different languages, 
with proper intonation and inflection and in fact...

(BACKGROUND NOISE)

RICHARD:  Hello, yourself--and in fact will train you to say these 
things in French, Italian, German, and Spanish until you're 
comfortable enough to say the phrase yourself.  65,000 phrases in 
all.  It costs about $200. 

DIGITAL VOICE:  Remember Gina St. John and Dave Ross.

RICHARD:  There's my reminder.  Gina?

GINA:  Pricey little gadgets are attention-getters, but it's the pricey 
big gadgets that get Dave Ross's attention...and he gets the last word.

DAVE ROSS:

I know a lot of you are parents.  And if you're parents, you have 
kids, and if you have kids, they want a new computer RIGHT NOW.  
And you tell them, "No, let's wait until prices drop."  That's because 
you've seen the computer industry's favorite chart.  Here it is.

(HOLDS UP CHART: "PRICE PER MEGABYTE")

You've seen this chart, right?  Prices for chips are falling so fast that 
by next Christmas they should be PAYING YOU to buy a computer.

So you wait a few months for this to happen, and then you go into a 
store and you ask for a computer that can run all the latest software, 
and they take you to a machine that sells for $4,000!

(SHOWS MAGAZINE AD)

$4,299 for this one.

Well, I did some investigating.  I went back to my old computer 
magazines.  Here's one from 1985.

(SHOWS OLD MAGAZINE)

You see this ad?  Guess what a computer that could run all the latest 
software was selling for back in 1985?  About $4,000.  It could run 
any software available in '85 at blinding speed.

Now I hear you say, "But Dave, that new computer has a 
microprocessor that runs faster than a cheetah!"

Yeah?  Let me tell you something.  The software designed to run this 
NEW machine will run just as slow as the software that was designed 
to run on this OLD machine.  It will be prettier, but that's just to 
distract you.

No, I've done extensive research and I've discovered a new universal 
constant.  That as the price per megabyte keeps falling, the price of 
the computer your kid wants never changes.  It's always $4,000.

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

GINA:  You know, kids aren't the only ones that have to have the 
really expensive computers, with all the software, with all the 
gadgets, and all the toys...

RICHARD:  Hey, wait a minute!  Some of us have a problem with this 
price thing, too--adults.  Now if you'd like to send comments to Dave 
or us or anyone else here at c|net, you can now--at letters@cnet.com, 
via email.

GINA:  That's it for c|net central this week.

RICHARD:  Thanks for tuning in and logging on!

(MUSIC)

(COMMERCIALS)

END OF TAPED MATERIAL
