While federal officials assure us that they are right on schedule preparing for the Y2K computer bug, Alan Greenspan’s Federal Reserve Board has ordered the U.S. Treasury to print an extra $50 billion in cash.
The fed wants to have the greenbacks on hand in case people get scared later next year and start making panic withdrawals from ATM machines to see them past Armageddon.
DUDE, SPEECH RECOGNITION
DUUUUUUH
You can stop worrying about why Johnny can’t read and start fretting about why he can’t type.
Enter “Naturally Speaking for Teens,” the red hot new computer voice recognition software designed by Dragon Systems Inc., a league leader in industrial-strength speech-to-text software.
For $60 (microphone included), notes Dragon’s VP Roger Matus, adults can buy their teens software other than violent games and still hope for a holiday “thank you.”
The teen version is set to recognize the pitch and cadence of youth including voice changes. Likewise, the built-in vocabulary is kid slang-friendly and the stuff a user must read aloud to train the software for his/her voice is orders of magnitude more hip than the adult version.
MESSAGE CLEAR
BILL’S HEAD IN THE CLOUDS
You can accuse the Microsoft haters at special interest group ProComp of being strident, but you can’t fault their sense of humor.
Their Web site (www.procompetition.org) features a screen saver in which the fluffy white clouds on the Windows 95 opening screen spell out the word “Surrender.”
GO AHEAD
MAKE MY DIGITAL DAY
Gun safety experts are going to break out in a hypertext hissy fit when they see arms-maker Remington’s new collaboration with computer game house Activision.
“Remington Top Shot,” a CD-ROM simulated shooting game, supplies a player with an arsenal of weapons ranging from an 870 pump shotgun to an M-60 machine gun to either hunt simulated game like deer and ducks or to shoot holes in simulated human beings during “police-style” training sessions.
DVD DEBACLE
SPIN CONTROL
1998 was going to be “the Year of DVD-ROM,” pontificated PC industry oracles last January.
In their dreams.
Trade rag Electronic Buyer News’ now says people are staying away in digital droves from DVD-ROM drives, which use CD-sized discs capable of holding 4.7 gigabytes of computer data or movies on each side, which is far more than the 650 megabyte CD-ROM discs that have been the standard for half a decade.
People are turned off, says Buyers’ News’ Mark Hachman, because DVD-ROM drives move at paltry 4x speeds for the most part while even an el cheapo CD-ROM now spins at 32x.
