Every one a winner

If it's the latest thing it's a fair bet it was unveiled in Las Vegas. KULWINDER SINGH RAI hits the jackpot at the greatest gizmo show on earth

LAS Vegas, high-kitsch home of the high roller, undergoes a strange transformation in January. Scarcely has the seasonal blitz of New Year future gizmo-gazing died away than Vegas makes it real with the Consumer Electronics Show, the world's number one gadget-fest.

A glittering neon-fuelled showcase of all the goodies heading our way for 2000 (naturally, the Americans get them all early), CES is meant to be a trade-only show. It's not. Anybody with a semi- plausible business card and a few dollars can wangle entry at the door, as Hank, a cleaner from Ohio, was only too willing to demonstrate.

For Hank, it's true, the big draw was a rather less well- publicised attraction: the Adult Software Pavilion. Barely acknowledged in the show brochure, it's actually America's premier hardcore porn video exhibition, with personal appearances on offer from all the industry's leading, ahem, members.

To discover what fate holds in the liquid crystal ball, read on. (To find out where you can pick up the latest DVD reissue of Danish Vixens XXXX, ask Hank. If you can find him.) DVD: This year, assuming they can allay the piracy fears of bedwetting Hollywood executives, DVD Video will attain new heights with DVD Audio (think supercharged CD sound) and DVD Recorders. DVD Recorders will record up to four hours on a 4.7Gb disc, rising as larger capacity disks become available.

The only trouble is that there are actually three recordable DVD consumer systems set to slug it out for supremacy this year: DVD- RAM, DVD-RW and DVD +RW - all utterly incompatible with each other.

Worth sitting out until a

victor emerges, probably sometime in 2001. Altogether less contentious is the DVD camcorder. Hitachi and Panasonic showed off prototypes, with Hitachi promising a launch later this year.

Portable computers: Why put a PDA in your pocket when you can have one lurking on your wrist?

OK, it may look a tad ugly but Mat-suocom's imaginatively named OnHand wrist PC, going in Vegas for $250, has some serious computing credentials.

The 2MB 52g OnHand is designed to synchronise (via a neat docking cradle) with Personal Information Management programs on your PC, such as Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Organ-iser. Once that's done you can view your day-today schedules, email addresses, telephone numbers and expenses, all courtesy of the watch's weeny 102x64 pixel LCD screen. Oh, and yes, it tells the time too.

D-VHS: You thought VHS was enough initials already: D-VHS videos (VCR to you) can record virtually any video source in digital form onto high-grade VHS tapes, delivering up to 24 hours of recording time from a single cassette.

That's three months' worth of omnibus editions of EastEnders for any masochists out there.

OK, so no drop-dead sexy silver-discs, but these digital VCRs offer crucial advantage - backwards compatibility. As well as being able to record in digital (digital video camcorders are catered for too), D-VHS VCRs can also play any of your existing collection of video tapes, or indeed the latest Tom Hanks epic from Blockbuster.

What's more, you will be able to buy one soon. JVC launches its first model in the UK next month (the HM-DR10000) followed by models from Philips and Hitachi.

Digital cameras: If you've just paid out big money for what you thought was a state-of-the-art Megapixel digital camera, you might want to skip this section.

Still here? OK, here goes: Canon has just brought out a 3 Megapixel model.

Equipped with a nifty 2x optical zoom, fast USB connection and built-in flash, the rather covetable PowerShot S20 looks exactly like a traditional 35mm camera and performs like one too.

Canon claims it will let you produce 8x10in colour prints on your inkjet printer at home that are virtually indistinguishable from those made from "trad" 35mm film.

Personal video: It's video, Jim, but rather smarter than we know it.

TiVo's Personal Video Recorder is actually a computer hard drive in a box, that records video (up to 30 hours' worth), thanks to some clever software that can also learn your viewing preferences.

How clever? Clever enough to allow you to start recording, say, Changing Rooms, nip off for five minutes to make a cuppa, and then come back and continue watching where you left off while the unit is still recording the programme.

Combined with a digital satellite TV set-top box, you remove the need for any sort of VCR at all. With any luck, the UK will get an analogue, standalone TiVo PVR (made by Philips at around 200-250).

MP3: MP3 players that store and play music downloaded over the Internet were all over the show like a bad rash. Of the players on show, Creative Lab's Nomad Jukebox (a CD player-shaped hard-drive that can store 100 albums) and Sam-sung's Photo Yepp (a combination digital image viewer and MP3 player) were particularly nifty.

What if you've already bought a portable MiniDisc recorder but now fancy the idea of listening to MP3 tracks? Well, software company Voquette has come up with NetLink, software that lets you download, compile and transfer MP3 music files to your MiniDisc recorder via a supplied PC-to-MD adapter.

I'd love to tell you about how the US adult software industry is single-handedly driving sales of multiple-angle DVD movies, how a CyberSex suit works (it uses electrodes strategically placed in a wet suit to deliver mild shocks, apparently), but sadly there is no more room

Copyright 2000
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.