MP3 in a pen?

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Mar 3, 2000

NEW YORK (NYT) -- Several new audio players have the look and feel of anything but digital technology. The recently released Rome, for example, resembles a cassette tape, a pleasant retro shape for those MP3 users old enough to remember cassette tapes. The new Sony VAIO Music Clip has the weight and dimensions of a pen you might have received as a high school graduation gift.

The novel shape of the Music Clip makes it ideal to carry around, whether in a shirt pocket or dangling like a pendant around your neck. The player also has 64 megabytes of flash memory and a USB port for quick downloading. At $299, it's an expensive way to listen to music, but the price is not out of line with other 64MB players.

The Music Clip does sacrifice some function for form. A small LCD tells only the track number and has limited playback and EQ options. Technically, the Music Clip isn't even an MP3 player -- Sony calls it a "personal network player" -- although it can play MP3 files once they have been converted to the ANTRAC3 compression format with the help of the accompanying software. The company, which also owns a lot of the music it wants you to listen to, promises that the VAIO will be able to play other downloadable music files in the future.

If the Music Clip succeeds, we can expect digital devices in other retro clothing. How long before MP3 players begin to look like transistor radios, player pianos or even an old-fashioned home entertainment center, complete with teakwood cabinet and, for a few dollars more, a fully compatible Barcalounger?

Who's afraid of the big, bad Net?

NEW YORK (NYT) -- Dilbert may be right about the frustrations of the American workplace, but when it comes to his take on the evils of computer technology, he appears to be surprisingly out of touch. At least that is what can be concluded based on a survey released this week. Americans -- especially working Americans -- are having what National Public Radio calls a "love affair" with computers and the Internet. About 87 percent of adults under 60 said that computers were making life better for Americans, and more than 80 percent of all adults surveyed did not expect that it would eliminate their jobs. Nearly two-thirds of respondents selected the computer as either the most or the second-most-significant technological innovation of the last 100 years, well ahead of the automobile, television and the airplane.

NPR sponsored the survey with the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. The results, which are posted at www.npr.org, are based on telephone interviews conducted in November and December with more than 1,500 adults and 600 children, ages 10 to 17. Among children, 91 percent said that computers were making life better for Americans. The study also offered a few glances into how other technologies are seeping into our lives. As many as 89 percent of Americans under 60, it reported, have used a cellular phone. And when asked which was more trustworthy, e-mail or the U.S. mail, a slim majority of children picked e-mail.

One finding could have unintended repercussions, either raising questions about the study's accuracy or putting an end to a tired joke. More than 80 percent of adults (and 87 percent of those under 60) said that they had done what some would call an impossible feat: program a VCR.

Still silly at 50

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Now in middle age, Silly Putty isn't just for silly kiddies. The bouncy, pink-colored substance sold in the plastic egg has endured a half-century in the changing American toy scene. Yet adults also continue to find novel uses for the stuff. The failed rubber substitute is being used to clean ink off keyboards, to strengthen hand muscles in physical therapy and to relieve stress at the office. Geologists use it to model geographic events; doctors put it over the eyes of patients during CAT scans, and Silly Putty secured tools during the Apollo 8 moon launch.

Not bad for something initially viewed as a failure.

About 6 million containers of Silly Putty were sold last year, though perhaps its most famous use -- transferring images from the Sunday comics -- often doesn't work now because of new inks and printing processes. The goofy goo has even gone high-tech, marking its birthday with a new Web site, a display of materials and artifacts in the Smithsonian, and a contest to find "The Silliest Uses" for Silly Putty. Its manufacturer, Binney & Smith of Easton, Pa., celebrated the stuff's 50th birthday Thursday by offering a gold- metallic version of the plaything.

Building on cheerleaders

FORT WORTH (NYT) -- Three years ago, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines had a brainstorm. Anyone who flies the airline knows its staff takes a comparatively irreverent, fun attitude toward the whole business. The company prides itself on its perky disposition. So it launched a savvy effort to recruit cheerleaders and their presumably equally peppy friends and family to work for the airline. Southwest now sends representatives across the country to cheering events like the National Cheerleading Association All-Star National Championship to, as they say, "plant the seed."