Sarah Holland
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Nov 06/00) - Consumers are going gaga over high-tech.
It seems people love to play with gadgets, gizmos, toys and accessories -- anything electronic -- and there are exciting new creations on the market.
 Casio WQV-1CR |
The watch has one megabyte of built-in semi-conductor memory and can store up to 100 images. You can take a picture, view it and then instantly save or delete it. There is also an auto date stamp feature that records the date and time of the picture. Another feature is 24-character memo text. You can take a picture of someone and put in their name and phone number.
As mentioned, the picture is not high quality but the watch is a novelty.
The Palm m100 handheld palm pilot is the latest in a long line of mini- computers. The m100 includes the regular palm pilot features of a date and address book, to do list, memo pad, note pad, clock-at-a-glance, calculator and games.
There are also interchangeable face plates in red, purple, gold and silver. The m100, with two megabytes of memory, features AvantGo's Web Channel manager and a link to Microsoft Outlook. You can back up all data on your desk-top computer and download e-mail from your computer for mobile review.
Computer companies seem to be targeting teens and students with this product. But palm pilots are also popular within the business community.
Although the producers are marketing the younger crowd, Desmond Payne, manager of Radio Shack in Iqaluit, says the current models are business-oriented.
"You have to learn a very cryptic language to use the palm pilots," said Payne, adding that teenagers probably wouldn't learn such language for the sake of being organized.
Attachable accessories for the palm pilots include a Kodak camera and GPS (global positioning system).
One of the newest digital cameras on the market is the Olympus C-211 Zoom Digital Printing Camera. The 2.1 megapixel camera takes photos up to 1,600 x 1,200 resolution. You can review pictures on screen and produce digital prints on Polaroid instant print film.
Not much has been released on Windows 2001, but there's been some talk. The codename for this program is Whistler. Microsoft wants to merge the best features of Windows Me and Windows 2000 for this latest version. Whistler will feature more custom personal-user interface, speech recognition technology and the ability to translate handwriting into onscreen text.
Several new visual styles will be included, such as one-click style templates that completely change the onscreen look of Windows and the desktop.
Computer reviewers say they expect to see separate business and home versions of Whistler and believe it will be available in late 2001.
One of the new products available in the North is Sony's new digital camera.
"This new camera can record pictures on CDs," said Payne.
Recording images onto a CD basically means you're getting more memory for less money.
"The image quality is getting better, prices are coming down, they've come into their own as of late.
"The average person buys them now, as opposed to a computer enthusiast or photographer."
MP3 players are also a hot item, said Payne.
"Creative Labs' Nomad Jukebox is one we just got in stock. It can save six gigabytes of music onto something the size of a CD player."
Six gigabytes is over 100 hours of music, he added.
"These MP3 players are huge lately."
In fact, all high-tech products are huge as the electronic world continues to expand.
