High Technology Briefs

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Mar 16, 1995

Oklahoma State University-Okmulgee will host an exposition of new and emerging technologies April 8 during an open house celebration.

Each of the college's instructional departments will showcase a variety of advanced technologies, according to campus Provost Bob Klabenes. Equipment on display will range from a one-of-a-kind simulator nearly as large as a basketball court to tiny microprocessors used in a variety of computer applications. Students and faculty will be available to demonstrate equipment and conduct tours from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Visitors also will have a chance to surf the Internet while learning more about the information highway.

Activities are free to the public. Also planned are an arts and craft show by the OSU-Okmulgee Alumni Association, a "fun run," a model aircraft and railroad demonstration, a tractor pull competition, an ultralight fly-in and statewide high school student art show. The open house coincides with the Okmulgee Chamber of Commerce products and services trade show, housed in the college's Covelle Hall, and the Okmulgee Main Street's annual '50s Bash downtown, featuring a car show and 1950s-type activities. . . Apple Computer Inc. paced 1994 global shipments of multimedia personal computers in a year that saw the worldwide market quadruple, according to Dataquest Inc.

Multimedia computers add sound and graphic technology to traditional personal computer functions. Last year, 10.3 million multimedia computers were shipped worldwide, compared with 2.5 million computers in 1993, according to Dataquest, a market research and consulting firm. Apple led the world with 2.4 million multimedia PC shipments last year, or 22 percent of the market. The Cupertino, Calif.-based computer maker was second in the U.S. market, with a 20.5 percent market share.

Dataquest said Packard Bell Electronics Inc. led the U.S. multimedia PC market, with 24.3 percent. Packard Bell was second worldwide, with 19.2 percent of the market. Compaq Computer Corp. was third in market share both worldwide, with 11.9 percent of the market, and in the United States, with 13.5 percent. International Business Machines Corp. was fourth in both categories, with 8 percent of the worldwide market and 7.5 percent of the U.S. market. Rounding out the top five was Gateway 2000 Inc., with 5.8 percent of the worldwide market and 7 percent of the U.S. market.

Dataquest said sales of multimedia PCs soared in the home market, but generally lagged in the business market with the exception of specialized video applications. . . Microsoft Corp. has sent the final test version of its long-awaited Windows 95 operating system to manufacturing, a milestone that keeps the big software company on track to ship the software by August.

Mike Conte, group manager for Microsoft's personal systems division, said Wednesday the company will begin shipping the final test version of Windows 95 this week to personal computer users who have been testing earlier versions of the program. About 50,000 of the final test units are expected to be shipped in the next two weeks. By the end of this month, Conte said, Microsoft will kick off an even broader program to send preview versions of Windows 95 to as many as 400,000 users. This marketing push, unprecedented for Microsoft, is designed to allow big corporate PC users and others to prepare their organizations to adopt the new operating system.

Conte said the preview copies will be priced at $32, or about the cost of materials involved in producing the product. He expects about 200,000 of the preview units to be shipped in North America and the rest in other countries.

Windows 95 is the successor to the Windows 3.1 software, the operating system that allows computer users to run other programs. Windows runs on more than 70 million personal computers. The revamped program has encountered several delays, and some analysts remain skeptical that Microsoft will make its August shipping date. . . The stereotype is that e-mail sent over a computer network is a cold and imperfect substitute for face-to-face conversations. But a study by researchers at Evanston, Ill.-based Northwestern University says that people who communicate by e-mail may learn more about each other than if in person.

That clashes, by the way, with earlier research as well as the stereotype. But Joe Walther, the Northwestern researcher, said the original research was done over a "relatively brief time period." He said that e-mail relationships take longer to develop, but eventually become more revealing and warmer.

Walther used 32 groups of three people and gave half of the groups a series of tasks they could complete face to face. The others worked on similar tasks but were limited to e-mail discussions. During the first two weeks, members of the face-toface group knew more members in the group. But after six weeks, the people communicating by e-mail were more likely to "share a joke or say something about themselves," he said. . . Consumers are accustomed to rapidly falling PC prices. But, until recently, large monitors _ 17 inches or larger _ stubbornly stayed about the same price. And that price was a high one, $1,000 or more. But John Hastings, president of Atlantabased American Computer Exchange, says prices for big-screen monitors finally are dropping. He said that prices for big monitors had dropped 25 percent just in the last 12 months.