Plug & Play
Orchid Technology's Nu Sound is the first family of sound card products that combine full Plug & Play support, 16-bit stereo sound, wavetable synthesis, 3-D spatial audio enhancement, CD-ROM interface and 100% games compatibility. Plug & Play support makes installation much easier by eliminating the need to fiddle with jumpers and IRQs.

Video Contest
Videonics is sponsoring the "Thoughts and Dreams" nationwide School video contest to encourage educators and students (grades 7-12) to use video as a creative, educational tool for communication. Submitted videos will be judged on how well they use the tools and vocabulary of video to communicate the "thoughts and dreams" of the student producers. Prizes range from a grand Prize of $2,000 and a complete Videonics Editing studio to the Videonics Video Mixer and the TitleMaker 2000. The Video must be student-produced, less than 5 minutes in length, accompanied by a letter from the faculty advisor and must be submitted by May 15, 1995.

Marketing on the Web
National Instruments has established a World-Wide Web Server to give their customers easy and rapid access to large volumes of information to assist in the development, configuration and maintenance of instrumentation systems. It provides general company information, details on the company's laboratory application software and hardware along with the company's educational courses. Product technical support is provided by listing answers to commonly asked questions as well as application and technical notes. Sales office locations throughout the world, along with new product information, pricing and configuration guides are also provided.

More CD-ROM and linear video tutorials
Learning Word 6.0 and Learning Excel 5.0 Formulas and Functions are the latest CD-ROM interactive tutorials released by ViaGrafix. They have also released Learning ClarisWorks 3.0 for Mac, Learning Excel 5.0 for Mac and Learning Ami Pro for Windows.

New "object oriented" multimedia authoring technology
Autodesk recently previewed their new authoring technology at inter media95 which combines the power of traditional language development systems within a visual programming environment. You don't have to be a programmer to use it.

Games
Mad Dog McCree, one of the first live-action interactive video games for the PC is now available for the Mac CD from American Laser Games. [LCIII or better, 4 megabytes, double speed CD-ROM only, System 7) Drug Wars, is their latest full-motion live-action CD-ROM for PCs and the 3D0 version is scheduled for July. Fun shooting games!

Major price reduction
HSC Software has dropped the price of their award winning color imaging product Live Picture from $3,995 to $995, Any registered user will receive Version 2.0 free of charge which should be shipping at the end of March. Wow!

Business Multimedia
Osborne McGraw-Hill's book and CD-ROM combo The Business Week Guide to Multimedia Presentations has sold over 25,000 copies. Cinemar Corporation has announced its first CD-ROM titled Presentation World which provides the business professional training on how to effectively develop and deliver business presentations. Looks like the business uses of Multimedia are really catching on.

Comdex update
The Interface Group has sold its Comdex trade show division for $800 million dollars. Nice if you can get it!

New objects
Asymetrix Corporation's InfoModeler 1.5, the only visual database design tool that uses Object Role Modeling (ORM) will support Delphi, Borland's new high performance development tool.

Yes, this article was penned in using an NCR 3130 pen-based tablet PC. It adds a whole new dimension to writing. Pretty Cool!

Copyright © 1995 Rick Smith All rights reserved.