Inside Mac Games Volume 4 #9/IMG 40 Sep 1996.iso/More Goodies/Inside Games Update/Inside Games Update.rsrc/TEXT_133.txt

Text File | 1996-09-03 | 31KB | 592 lines

INSIDE GAMES & ENTERTAINMENT UPDATE
Volume 3, Issue 4



3DO GOES NORTH
The 3DO Company (http://www.3do.com and on America Online keyword: 3DO),
determined to move forward on delivery of products for Christmas 1997, has
opened an office in Redmond, Washington. And, 3DO has hired Microsoft
veteran, Tony Garcia, as vice president of this office which is expected to
have more than 15 people on board by year's end. Garcia was responsible for
developing and publishing some of the most popular products of all time on
the PC platform, including Microsoft Flight Simulator and Secret Weapons of
the Luftwaffe. At their new, north-west location, 3DO will focus on the
development of next-generation PC products and on creating action products
for PCs. 3DO is already working on a product that exploits the graphics
advantages of new accelerated Pentium-class PCs.



ABC IS COMING UP ROSES
ABC Sports blocked CBS Sports out of the NCAA college football championship
by using the Rose Bowl as a trump card. Details of an arrangement was
announced last week by ABC, the Rose Bowl, the Big Ten and the Pacific-10
conferences, who agreed to join with the College Bowl Alliance to create an
end-of-season bowl game that would match the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the
country, thereby producing an undisputed national champion--but not until
1999.  ABC paid $500 million for the rights to the games but CBS said they
would have paid more to be included, and that their interest forced ABC to
raise its original $400 million offer for the package. To get a guaranteed
championship team, demands from the Rose Bowl and ABC had to be met to
create a new, seven-year arrangement that rotates the championship game
among four Bowl games, with ABC broadcasting all four bowl games every
year.



ABC: BOY MEETS WORLD, AGAIN
The number one television program for teens, Boy Meets World, will begin
its fourth season in a new time period this fall, Fridays at 9:30 PM
(ET/PT) on ABC. Ben Savage stars in this show that deals with coming-of-age
issues. This season, Cory Matthews (Savage) is a junior in high school with
an inflated ego. He and his best friend, Shawn (Rider Strong), and
girlfriend, Topanga (as in Canyon--wonder if anyone's called Grand
Canyon?--Danielle Fishel) thought that they had resolved all of the high
school issues, but that proves to be incorrect. Topanga and Cory's
relationship will go through some unusual tests when Topanga goes to
drastic measures to prove that Cory loves her for more than just her
beauty.



ABC WARNING: DANGEROUS MINDS AHEAD
Another movie, Dangerous Minds, has been made into an hour-long dramatic
series for ABC (Touchstone Television) TV starring Annie Potts (Designing
Women, Love & War, Ghost Busters). Michelle Pfiefer played the main
character (a not-too-convincing ex-Marine) in the movie. Dangerous Minds is
the story of LouAnne Johnson (Potts), a teacher determined to make a
difference to a classroom of tough, troubled but bright students in a
special high school program. Totally committed to her students, Johnson
remains fiercely determined to support her kids, many of them confronted
with seemingly insurmountable obstacles to their success.



Activision: BETTER WRESTLING AHEAD
Games that sell through over 100,000 units are looked upon with great
admiration by most digital entertainment publishers. When a game sells more
than 200,000 units, why, such is considered a hit. Such is the delegation
given to Toukon Retsuden. This title is the number one wrestling game in
Japan, having sold more than 220,000 units for the PlayStation for its
publisher, Tomy Company. Activision has now signed an agreement with Tomy
in which they acquire all worldwide rights, save for Japan, and they will
enhance this game for various international markets. In Toukon Retsuden,
you wrestle in one of four professional arenas. These arenas are complete
with cheering crowds, ring art, an announcer whose voice booms across your
PSX, and eye-catching backgrounds. There are 12 3D wrestlers, each one with
a unique repertoire of authentic, motion-captured moves. Some of these
actions include body slams, combos, pile drivers and reversals. There are
hammers, neck breakers, rope flings and that ever-so-popular thumb breaker.
You'll see the wrestlers choke, grimace and pant as they struggle in this
hand-to-hand grappling. No date has been announced for a U.S. release of
the this title.



America Online: GOBBLING GAMES
Sierra Online gave birth to ImagiNation Network. Then AT&T had a hand in
the online company as its parent. Now America Online (AOL) has become the
responsible party as they have purchased ImagiNation Network (INN) from
AT&T. The amount of mega-bucks involved has not been disclosed. Watch for
INN to become the lead partner for AOL's Games Channel. CyberPark(TM) is
INN's 3D virtual community and that will premiere on AOL. Developers may
glom onto a SDK for creating games that can handle multiple players and
Internet playability. INN will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of AOL
and will switch their current subscriber base to the AOL Games Channel.




Apple: A PERSONALIZED WEB
There's now a free site that lets you find and organize WWW sites according
to your own personal interests. This is all accomplished when you
electronically register at the site by entering your preferences--this
service then launches a database that automatically searches thousands of
Internet sites, providing you with a report of those that most nearly match
your interests. The site is called the Personalized Internet Launcher and
is from Apple Computer. You'll always find the newest and best sites that
would be of interest to you, and all of the database links are updated
automatically each day. These sites are also categorized, rated and
reviewed by Excite Corp. who created the Excite Internet search engine. The
Personalized Internet Launcher is integrated with Apple's Performa 6400
computer. However, any WWW user can become a member of this free service
simply by heading to http://www.myhome.apple.com.

Apple has also announced that the company is going to separate the GX
graphics engine from its printing architecture and distribute it to
developers as a static link library. This is, in part, due to the lobbying
by third-party developers for such to occur with QuickDraw GX. And this
move is good, for it will enable companies like Lari Software and PaceWorks
Inc. to release a free WWW browser plug-in that'll put the GX library to
use. You'll be able to publish highly detailed 24-bit vector graphics an
animation files that are a great deal smaller than similar 8-bit GIFs.
Called the Electrifier, it will be available from
http://www.electrifier.com.



Atlas Entertainment: NO MONKEY BUSINESS HERE
12 Monkeys from Atlas Entertainment's has become the seventh film this year
to gross $100 million internationally. This Terry Gilliam's science-fiction
thriller is currently playing in Japan, where distributor Shochiku has
grossed $10.9 million after four weeks in release. This results in an
international total of $101 million for the movie.



BERLITZ GOES NATURAL WITH SPEECH RECOGNITION
Berlitz(R) Think & Talk(TM) 2.0 has launched an update to their CD-ROM
software for learning Spanish, French, German or Italian. From The Learning
Company, a subsidiary of SoftKey International Inc., this update focuses on
building introductory conversation skills by immersing users in the foreign
language, making learning a language a more natural process. Available now
for Windows and Macintosh this software actually understands and evaluates
the user's pronunciation on a sliding scale from tourist to native. A
record-and-playback feature enables users to record their voice, play it
back, and learn from their mistakes. Other improvements include an
easier-to-use interface, better graphics, and new audio, which has improved
the quality of the sound and has enabled the program to fit on a single
CD-ROM disc.



Broderbund: IMAGIMAKER SERIES FROM BRODERBUND<B/>
A new line of children's creativity software has been launched by
Broderbund Software, Inc.  Entitled ImagiMaker Series
(http://www.broderbund.com), they that include creative painting, drawing,
animating and creative writing programs. All are designed for kids ages
three to 12 years. The Kid Pix series, for Windows or Macintosh and
Windows/Mac hybrid CD-ROMS, were developed five years ago and have sold a
record one million units in 10 different languages and 35 awards.

Kid Pix is a clever painting and drawing program that enables kids to
combine sounds and graphics on screen. The kids choose one of three art
projects; Kid Pix, SlideShow and Wacky TV. Kid Pix encourages wee ones as
young as three to paint, draw and stamp using Wacky Brushes, multi-color
fill patterns and over 300 stamps.

Kid Pix Studio takes Kid Pix one step further; it allows the child to
animate their drawing and painting projects.  Using one of the six art
projects: Kid Pix, Moopies, SlideShow, Wacky TV, Stampimator and Digital
Puppets, kids can be creative with their animated stories, photo essays or
for a school presentation. Sounds from over 80 song clips and sound effects
are the final touch for this project.

And for the authors in the audience, The Amazing Writing Machine is a
program that enables kids aged six to 12 to develop their ideas, creative
writing, and illustrating. There are five different writing projects:
story, letter, journal, essay, and poem. There are hundreds of layouts for
kids to choose from in order to illustrate their work using brushes, stamps
and drawing tools. Kids get their story ideas from hundreds of Bright Ideas
and then get to have their text read for them by one of the Reader Robots.

Then, in January 1997, Orly's Draw-A-Story will be available for
Windows/Mac hybrid CD-ROM. Orly is a storybook writing and illustration
program for kids aged five to nine set in tropical Jamaica. Orly is a
Jamaican girl who has a frog friend Lancelot. Together Orly and Lancelot
help kids enter their imaginary world and enhance this world with
illustrations that go with the adventure stories that Orly dreams up. Orly
also encourages kids to draw characters and scenery for her stories and
then she brings them to life.  Kids can write and draw their own stories
independently as well.



Bullet-Proof: LUCAS-LUCK
One of the most successful digital entertainment companies today is Lucas
Arts Entertainment. No wonder Bullet-Proof Software has signed a deal with
that company to sell video game titles between November of this year and
February of next year. These titles will, according to the company, sell at
least 100,000 units each. Two will be based on Star Wars characters.
Bullet-Proof will adapt these games for the Japanese market, to include
translating the written graphics into Japanese. Four of the titles will be
for the Sony PlayStation and one for the Sega Saturn.



Camelot: REACH OUT AND TOUCH SOMEONE IN CAMELOT
Debuting at MacWorld in August will be DigiPhone for Mac and DigiPhone and
DigiPhone Deluxe(TM) for the PC, from Camelot Corporation. These items
enable callers to make phone calls across the Internet without paying long
distance charges (yippee!). Shortly after the release of DigiPhone for Mac,
a free, 30 day version of the software can be downloaded from the Internet
at http://www.digiphone.com. Addressing critical business needs, this
software has features such as encryption, Direct Dial Technology, and the
Global DigiPhone Directory, all now available for Macintosh users.
Additional DigiPhone for Mac features include full duplex sound, caller
identification, call screening email messaging, call mute, personal phone
book, and adjustable sound quality. DigiPhone for Mac is LAN/WAN
compatible, serving as a secure company phone system across private area
networks. It is also cross platform compatible so that Macintosh users can
talk to PC users, and vice versa.



Country Music Hall of Fame: MEMORABLE INDUCTEES
The Country Music Hall of Fame has selected Patsy Montana, Buck Owens and Ra
y PRice as this year's inductees. They will be inducted during The 30th
Annual CMA Awards, which will be telecast on October 2nd on CBS from the
Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville. Starting this year, inductees are from
one of three categories: Open, Career Achieved National Prominence During
the 1950s, and Career Achieved National Prominence Prior to 1950.
Additionally, a non-performer will be inducted into the Hall o Fame in
1998.



Macaulay Culkin: TRULY HOME ALONE
With approximately $17 million in the bank, Macaulay Culkin has given up
acting--at least until his parents resolve their current custody battle
over him and his five siblings. The Culkins have been involved in this
custody battle for some period of time and, financially, they are running
out of money. Macaulay is seeking court permission to spend nearly $2
million of his money to buy his parents a home in Manhattan, as the rent on
their current apartment can only be paid for a few more months. The
parents, who are not married. live in separate apartments, have seven
children altogether and are fighting over the custody of the six that are
minors.



DreamWorks: FILM IN BRATISLAVA?
Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks studio's first movie thriller, The
Peacemaker, chose Bratislava and a nearby, former Soviet military base as
locations. The Peacemaker, starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman, is
about the theft of
Russian nuclear material. Some of the benefits of living and filming in
Bratislava, an old Austro-Hungarian city, are that the film costs a
fraction of what a location in Vienna would cost, streets could be closed
at will when necessary, the people are friendly--after all, they understand
that the filming is very good for them, financially.



ELectronic Arts: LONDON HAS BRIDGE FOR ELECTRONIC ARTS
Electronic Arts Inc.(EA), (http://www.ea.com) announced that EA's European
Studio (UK) found answers to their quest for the tools they need that will
enable them to edit motion capture data. Nichimen Graphics
(http://www.nichimen.com) offers those answers. With combined efforts these
companies will share the ability to develop and provide pioneering tools
for motion captured character animation and editing in N-World an
environment that, until now, could not be bridged. Additionally, Nichimen's
new Game Exchange product provides animation artists with a flexible method
for transferring animation data to multiple 3D game platforms. NGI has
integrated this technology with the 3D character engine technology acquired
from Acclaim (this was announced in this last May).



ENGAGE: Better Web'ing With Billboard
Bringing unique content to sites is but one method of generating interest
among those of us who cruise the WWW looking for cool stuff. ENGAGE has now
signed a new agreement with Billboard Entertainment Marketing. The result
of this deal will bring Billboard Live! Online to this online entertainment
provider. The first Billboard Live! venue is going to open on August 4th
directly from Sunset Strip in Los Angeles and is designed as a series of
luxurious, yet intimately themed, night clubs. Each of these multimedia
complexes will showcase new, as well as established, music acts. Then, at
their tables, customers within Billboard Live! will be able to logon
directly to ENGAGE and other high technology features via touch screens.
Those online will feel as though they are also part of the action by
clicking on cameras that are strategically placed throughout the nightclub.
The VIP Board room will enable celebrity chat. There will also be online
contests, music trivia games, tour info, and the ability to check out key
Billboard music charts before the magazine hits the streets.




FOX IS FOXY--KIDS COMICS ON CD-ROM
Four new multimedia comic book titles starring characters from Fox Kids
Network's Saturday morning animated lineup will spring to life as a result
of the efforts of Inverse Ink, a Division of TAO Research Corporation. The
award winning shows The Tick, Eek!Stravaganza, Life With Louie, and Bobby's
World will ship this October including user activated animation, morphing,
and new computer style art.



SMART LIKE-A-FOX, GOLF ROUND-THE-CLOCK
Fox continues to gobble up TV programming. Their latest acquisition is 33
percent of the stock of The Golf Channel (TGC). This is the second year of
operation of the world's first 24-hour golf network that continues to gain
in growth and strength, now boosted further by the Fox partnership. Fox was
attracted to TGC because of the quality productions and existing resources
of The Golf Channel. Likewise, TGC realized Fox will bring home cable
companies across the country, as well as potential advertisers to The Golf
Channel. The Golf Channel was the nation's first fully digital network to
launch, incorporating the latest in digital and fiber optic technologies
and state of the art equipment such as robotic cameras. Fox Television is,
as well, a perfect match with its progress in pushing the industry forward
with their creative, technical, production and marketing efforts.



Gartner: YOU LOSE NEWS
Information that shouldn't surprise anyone has come from a report executed by
Gartner's Digital Information Group called Winning the Digital News War.
It's a fact that traditional news organizations are losing out and getting
beaten up by electronic rivals such as America Online, Microsoft, and
Pointcast. If news services don't get more aggressive in their tactics,
they will continue to lose top-line revenue to media competitors who have
the resources to outspend and out-manouver them. As an example, the recent
divorce between Mercury News Center and America Online revealed that
Mercury built a highly successful regional news service on America Online.
AOL monitored it and others and saw sufficient interest to create its own
news domain called Digital Cities. A year later, AOL announced plans to
launch Digital Cities-San Francisco, specifically aimed at Mercury Center's
turf. Web publishers are warned to expect to make no money for at least the
first four years of their sites and to prepare themselves to lose some
money as customized information sites vie for customers. However, the web
is the future and publishers will regret any delay in committing themselves
to it.


Golden Books: LIVE IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT AND RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER!
Golden Books Family Entertainment Inc., the company that brought Rudolph
the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, Lassie, Felix the Cat, the Lone
Ranger and Underdog, announced a $91 million deal to buy the family
entertainment library of Saturday Night Live. THis is part of Golden Books
effort to diversify into video, TV, film and multimedia. This deal gives
Golden books, the largest publisher of children's books in North America,
the copyrights and licenses to animated and live-action characters, motion
pictures and TV programs.



IDG: THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT ZINE
IDG and its subsidiary, PC World Communications, Inc., is launching The Web
Magazine on September 17th, targeted toward the millions of potential
readers who are turning to the Web as a main entertainment and information
source.  This is the first entertainment-oriented magazine for the Internet
that ventures into the consumer lifestyle genre. The magazine will cover
the Web as a medium like television, film, theater or sports. Staff
editors, recognized journalists and popular culture opinion makers will
contribute to The Web Magazine. Included in the debut issue will be a piece
defending cybersex by Dr. Ruth Westheimer, an article by film critic Roger
Ebert on how his online browsing has made him a better film critic and a
feature on Disneyland's renovation of the not-so-futuristic Tomorrowland.
Other contributing editors will include National Public Radio's Ira Flatow
and the controversial broadcast jock, Alex Bennett.



Immersion Corp: STICKIN' IT WHERE IT COUNTS
There have been numerous advances in high tech. Displays, CPUs,
communications--all to the betterment of our working environments. Now
joysticks are becoming more and more sophisticated. Immersion Corp. has
debuted their I-FORCE force feedback technology. The unit packs motors anda
microprocessor into game controllers that then emulate the feel of whatever
is occurring on screen, such as skidding cars, crashing planes, bouncing
balls, compressed springs, or other physical phenomenon. I-FORCE
endorsements have been issued by folk like Advanced Gravis, CH Products,
Interactive 10, and SC&T International. Expect this technology to appear in
such I/O devices as joysticks, steering wheels and other computer
peripherals. The first such device to reach market will be the FORCE-FX
Joystick which will ship in time for the upcoming holiday season from CH
Products.




Itochu Corp.: BUILDING BRIDGES LEADS TO GAMES
Computer game software that is currently under development at Itochu
Corporation in Japan is due out this spring. The software, Nessa no Hoshi
(Planet of Burning Sand),  features battles between humans and aliens, and
will be available on Sony Corp.'s PlayStation. An interesting fact is that
planning and production of the software will be made by b-NET Inc., a Tokyo
designer of bridges who possesses advanced 3-D computer graphics
technology.



Just Systems: JUST STEVEN SPIELBERG
Japanese editions of multimedia video game software directed by Steven
Spielberg will be produced by Just System Corp. and marketed under a
contract with the U.S. company Knowledge Adventure Inc. This agreement
provides the Japanese software developer with rights to produce Japanese
versions of five games to be made by Spielberg over the next five years.
Just System plans to begin sales of two game titles, an adventure and movie
simulation, as early as the end of November.




Microsoft: VIRTUAL REALITY CONTROL
The popularity of 3D environments on the WWW as graphic interfaces
continues to grow. The most efficient and most powerful way to bring
virtual reality to the web is via the virtual reality modeling language,
known as VRML. Microsoft now plans to license a part of Liquid Reality(TM)
from Dimension X and incorporate VRML 2.0 support as part of its
downloadable ActiveX(TM) Control for the company's WWW browser,
Microsoft(R) Internet Explorer 3.0. Liquid Reality includes apps services,
editors, plus a high-level VRML 2.0-compliant API which is called the
Liquid Reality Core. The Microsoft license will cover reading, viewing and
writing VRML 2.0. Developers will be able to imbed behaviors into an object
through Java and the Visual Basic(R) programming system. Additionally,
Direct3D(TM) and DirectSound(TM) will be used in Microsoft's implementation
of VRML for real-time rendering services. This means access to the wide
variety of hardware acceleration and 3D graphics and audio hardware will be
transparent.




MTM: SUPERMEN TAKE CHARGE OF THE CAPE
MTM Entertainment's new series for syndication, The Cape, now has two
technical consultants: Former astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Bruce Melnick.
This  action-packed drama premiers the week of September 2, 1996 and delves
into the lifestyles of American astronauts and astronaut candidates. The
Cape is a compelling look at our space program and the professional lives
of NASA's chosen few, as well as a chronicle of today's astronauts' private
lives in the Central Florida beach community.



NBC: ATLANTA OLYMPICS GARNER MORE VIEWERS
The Olympics have been an extremely popular viewing option for television
fans. This year, according to NBC, the Centennial Olympics in Atlanta
overtook viewership of the 1992 Barcelona, Spain, games, by an average of
25 percent. In fact, the Sunday evening closing ceremony, drew a 21.8
rating and a 40 share, which is 54 percent more than Barcelona's closing
ceremony. These Olympics became the most-watched event in TV history with
206.5 million viewers. Second in viewership were the 1994 Winter Olympics
in Lillehammer, Norway, which drew some 204 million viewers.


NBC: CLUB TV
Another marketing effort to further expand recognition of TV networks has
resulted in NBC starting a viewer affinity group called NBC Club. For a
$24.95 annual fee, members receive discounts on NBC merchandise as well as
savings on products and services from advertising partners. ABC is
considering starting a similar club, a move that would take the marketing
efforts of two of the Big 3 broadcast networks into a new, brand-oriented
dimension. Such programs offer more tie-in opportunities for local and
national advertisers and permit the networks to get into the lucrative
database marketing field by accumulating viewer names, phone numbers and
addresses. Fox has been quite successful with its Fox Kids Club, but
doesn't plan a similar program for adults. CBS said it has no plans for
such a club.



National Football League: FOOTBALL REDESIGN
If you enjoy football, you're going to probably love the new NFL.COM web
site that'll debut on September 1st. An agreement between NFL Enterprises,
ESPN Enterprises and Starwave Corporation is going to result in the new
National Football League official WWW site, which will be accessible at
http://www.nfl.com. The redesign will offer real-time game day coverage of
games, league news that's up to the minute, team information, plus those
all-important chat sessions. Solid advertising commitments to the site have
already been made by Sprint and Gatorade(R) Thirst Quencher. Naturally,
there'll also be an online products catalog so you can order your favorite
NFL team branded goodie without leaving your computer.



NEC: THE POWER OF TWO
With competition fast and furious in the interactive entertainment world,
NEC Electronics and Sega Entertainment have joined forces to create games
for PCs. The PowerVR technology, which has been developed by NEC and
VideoLogic Inc., will be adopted by both companies who will approach PC
manufacturers to bring PowerVR technology into their product lines. The
plan is for Sega Entertainment to work up titles in various languages, as
well.



New Country: HOWWWWWWDDDY!
This famous salute from the country-wise star Minnie Pearl would be an
appropriate way to recognize folks that access New Country magazine.
Designed to be the most comprehensive and timely source of information on
country music available today, New Country magazine launched on August 1 at
http://www.newcountrymag.com. A breaking story on one of the artists to be
inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in October, a feature on Lyle
Lovett, BR5-49 and songwriting legend Harlan Howard, plus interviews with
Shania Twain and Mindy McCready. The site also contains an exhaustive
alphabetical discography, with its own browser, of all 2,300 albums that
New Country has rated since its first issue. The discography lists and
rates all styles of country music recordings, as well as some that reach
beyond country's boundaries.



Nintendo: HEEEER'S NINTENDO!
Finally, less than four weeks after the debut in Japan of the Nintendo 64
video game machine, the first true 64-bit system, Nintendo of America today
announced the U.S. will recieve more than 800,000 units. Along with its
flagship titles, Super Mario 64, created by video game inventor Shigeru
Miyamoto, and Pilotwings 64, Nintendo will bring 14 more exclusive 64-bit
titles to Japan's market over the next 16 weeks. The U.S. will see the
lineup of games by the holiday season (we hope).



OT Sports: TAILGATE PARTIES AND MORE
One of the newest sports sims publishers on the block is OT Sports. They
are going to be preparing a ROWDY FRIENDS TOUR. This is going to require a
40-foot bus that will visit each of the stadiums hosting Monday Night
Football games. These tour stops will feature a Tailgate Party in the
parking lot! Plus, OT Sports is going to play out the entire 1996 NFL
schedule and playoffs to predict who the winner will be for ABC's Monday
Night Football season. This information will be released in mid-August
before the regular NFL season begins.



ParaGraph International: VRML FAMILY OF PRODUCTS
A group of VRML 2.0 products for Microsoft(R) Windows(TM) and Macintosh(R)
3D space authors have debuted from ParaGraph International. ParaGraph's
Internet3D(TM) VRML 2.0 includes tools for 3D space, avatar and behavior
authoring, as well as multi-user server technology. This product brings the
first VRML 2.0 authoring tool to the consumer market: Virtual Home Space
Builder(TM) 2.0 (VHSB 2.0). VHSB 2.0 is an upgrade to ParaGraph's VHSB 1.0
product, is distributed by Broderbund. VHSB 2.0 is a free download to all
VHSB 1.0 customers from ParaGraph's web site at www.paragraph.com. Non-VHSB
users can purchase VHSB 2.0 from ParaGraph's web site or by calling
800-810-0055. A Mac version is due in the fourth quarter of 96. ParaGraph
also announced that it has started distribution of a beta version of its
next generation VRML 2.0 authoring tool, code named Internet3D Space
Builder(TM) (ISB), from its Web site.




PointCast: A NEWSY DUO
News will never be the same. Thanks to the news agencies that operate via
the Internet, anyone can receive whatever news they wish, whenever they
want, simply by logging on. The undisputed leader in broadcast news on the
net is PointCast. One of the most popular navigation services is Infoseek
Corporation. These two biggies have now come to an agreement wherein
PointCast Network users will have a new option that will enable them to
access additional and more detailed news and other information. What's
great about this combo is that the co-branded technology is going to be
available at no charge to existing PointCast viewers. You can download the
technology from the company's WWW site at http://www.pointcast.com. Simply
by clicking on the Tell Me More from Infoseek icon, you'll be hyperllinked
to the co-branded page where you can select from other, similar stories
that will be automatically displayed for you.

Also important to PointCast's growth is the fact that, at Macworld Boston
this week, the company will be demo'ing their Macintosh client for the
PointCast Network. Early fall is the time period within which a PowerMac
beta version is expected, with late fall for delivery of both PowerMac and
680x0 apps. PointCast develops its news from a variety of sources, ranging
from Reuters, SportsTicker, PR Newswire, Business Wire, and AccuWeather.
Content is also featured from Pathfinder, The Los Angeles Times and the
Boston Globe. CNN and other regional newspapers will be added later this
year.



Macromedia: ACING APPLETS
There's a new Java app that gives you a graphical user interface for
customizing those oh-so-cool Java applets. AppletAce is its name, and its
from Macromedia. The benefit is that you really don't need to know or use
HTML or Java programming with this beauty. In fact, you can download this
app from Macromedia's WWW site at
http://www.macromedia.com/software/powerapplets. You only have to enter
info into pop-up menus, or in text fields, to customize applets to bring