WRIST PAGER * CUSTOM COOKIE Dick Tracy, Eat Your Heart Out It's a watch. It's a pager. It's super gift for your high achievers. BeepwearPRO is the world's smallest word pager, but it's the watch's high-tech innovations that send the wow meter off the charts.
First, the Timex Data Link system (Beepwear is a joint venture of Timex Corp. and Motorola Inc.) allows address book and scheduling information to be wirelessly download into the watch simply by pointing the watch at the Data Link software screen on the user's computer monitor. It can store 150 names and phone numbers.
Second, its Flex Time technology adjusts the watch to the correct time, even as the user changes time zones, via transmissions from the SkyTel network. SkyTel is the exclusive service provider for Beepwear paging products
BeepwearPRO receives e-mail messages or alphanumeric pages of up to 150 characters, holds up to 16 messages, and tracks up to 10 appointments with reminder alarms. The watch retails for $179 and can be activated through SkyTel for $11.95 per month for text messaging, less for numeric service. Contact Beepwear paging products at (800) 375-7813, or visit www.beepwear.com.
Got Milk? Forget mints on the pillow. How about a custom cookie with a picture of your company logo? Or your CEO's face? Or your newest circuit board?
Freedom Bakery, a San Jose, Calif.-based confectioner, has mastered the process of transfering digital images onto cookies. Using food coloring rather than ink, the company's 200 dpi cookie printer can reproduce any four-color image onto its frosted shortbreads. Cookies come in two sizes, either a 2.67" by 3.33" rectangle or a 4.7" x 6.7" oval and are delivered individually wrapped. The smaller cookies cost $1.70 each for orders of 100 to 199 cookies, with slight discounts for larger orders. The ovals cost $6.50 each for orders of more than 25.
The bakery's Web site (www.freedombakery.com) has all the information you'll need to order online, including help with uploading the scanned image. The company promises shipment within seven working days for orders of 200 to 1,000 cookies. For more information, contact Freedom Bakery at (408) 266-2253.
Lights, Digital Camera, Action If you're thinking of adding a digital camera to your department's tool box, consider one that doubles as a movie camera. Sony's Mavica MVC-FD91 has the ability to record short movie clips in a presentation-ready MPEG format. Forget having to encode the video files or fuss with connection cables, this camera saves the file onto an ordinary floppy disk. The video MPEG file (or photo file) can be transfered to your computer on the floppy, saved, then inserted into a PowerPoint presentation. It's that simple.
But here's the downside: Only 15 seconds of video can recorded at a time, and if you're only using it for still photos, the 2.1-pound camera is large compared to others on the market. Even so, imagine spicing up your training presentations with some testimonial clips from users, or bringing your site selection presentation to life with some snippets from your familiarization trip.
Other features on the MVC-FD91 include a pop-up flash, 14X optical zoom lens, and 2.5-inch color LCD screen. The camera produces images at 1,024 x 768 resolution--not as sharp as the megapixel digital cameras, but not bad. For more information, contact Sony Electronics, (800) 222-7669, www.sony.com.
Communication in a Box In a learning environment, closed captioning of video can be essential for attendees who are deaf or hard of hearing, and useful even for those who aren't--many people learn more efficiently by reading and listening rather than by read ing alone. Museum Technology Source, Winchester, Mass., is marketing a product, The Captioning Board, that takes the hidden closed caption encoded onto a video signal and sends it to an LED readout display.
Removing the closed captioning from the screen improves the impact of the video picture and makes the captioning easier to read. The Captioning Board works with videotapes, video discs, and DVD. Standard sizes range from two to five feet wide. For more information, contact Museum Technology Source at (800) 729-6873, www.museumtechnology.com.
If you know how to play Tic Tac Toe or TV's "Jeopardy" or "Family Feud," then you know the basic format options of Gameshow Pro 2, a software product that lets trainers or event managers create interactive gameshows.
Gameshow Pro 2, published by LearningWare Inc., Minneapolis, Minn., lets you input team names, topics, questions, and answers. The games can be designed for two to five teams, with options for the number of categories, the number of questions per category, length of time to answer, and point values. The software allows you to select basic or "wacky" sounds, "hide" bonus questions, and import graphics for picture questions.
Gameshow Pro2 requires a 486 processor or better, Macintosh 7.0 or Windows 3.1 or later, 8 MB RAM; 20 MB hard drive (for all three games), color monitor, video card, Sound Blaster-compatible sound card, and LCD panel or other projection system
The program costs $495 for a single copy. Multiple copy discounts and site licenses are available. Demos can be downloaded from www.learningware.com in either a Mac or PC format. For more information, call (800) 457-5661.