Rich's Ramblings

By Rich Schinnell

I am going to violate the NDA (Nondisclosure Agreement) that I signed with a major book publishing company to bring you all up to speed on a new product. I normally don't do this, but in this case I feel that the product is so unique and far reaching, you should know about it.

A few months ago, I was asked if I would be interested in reviewing a new type of book. I thought to my self, "Self, what could they have possibly done with books? Paper? Binding? Or printing? Books are books!" Well, I sure never expected what finally arrived via the FedEx guy. It was a small package that had a normal looking book enclosed along with some other trappings. Boy, was I ever wrong.

First, the book was about 1«" thick and had a small computer-type jack on the end. This intrigued me, so for the first time ever I opened the installation manual that came with the package. It advised me to connect the included cable to the keyboard port on my computer.

There were two types of connections on the cable, one for PS-2 type keyboards, and the other a standard 5 pin DIN jack. We're supposed to plug our existing keyboard into this adapter and the other end of the cable into the book's computer jack. The cable was a bit on the chintzy side, but I guess they didn't expect it to last for a long time, or they planned on selling spare cables. There was also a 3«" diskette inside the front cover of the book that said "type A:INSTALL."

I connected the book to my computer and ran the install program from the diskette. In no time there was sound coming from my PC's speaker. It was talking to me and welcoming me to the latest in gadgetry. It was speaking to me through the PC's speaker since I don't have a sound card. What a start!

This voice seemed to be quite clear even though I recognized a bit of a Scandinavian accent. The voice proceeded to tell me to press different keys on the keyboard in response to some questions. Now remember, this is all in DOS. The book somehow took over my PC's speaker, and contrary to some thinking, the voice was pretty clear. Great, but I was not prepared for what came next.

The voice asked me to speak several words using my normal tone of voice. What the heck was going on? I thought that it was fooling with my mind. But it wasn't! In fact, it repeated my name back to me after asking me to spell out my first name. Somehow, this new unique software had turned my PC speaker into a two way device. It was acting both as a microphone as well as a speaker.

The voice proceeded to ask me for more registration information as it was evidently processing this information to get me to register. When it was finished with the questions, it asked me if I had a printer on-line that could print something out. I said yes. It then began printing out a registration form that I could mail in for a rebate. Will wonders never cease?

This voice (which I named Sven) asked me if I would like to read the book. I said yes, and from that point on, it was silent as I read.

It was an interesting book on Network operation in the 21st century and what we should expect in the way of interesting products in the next few years. I had the book open and decided to go for another cup of coffee, and when I got back, the speaker was asking if I had trouble understanding something on page 85. I said no, I was just getting up for a break. How in the heck did it know that I was on page 85, let alone know that I had not turned the page for a while? This was amazing; evidently the book had some sensors installed to gauge one's reading speed, where one was at in the book, and such.

Sven told me that from now on, I should press a key on the keyboard if I am either going to stop or pause my reading. I said OK.

There was something else about this new weird book that amazed me. It looked like it had a lot of ROM (Read Only Memory) hidden in the back cover and was reading from it. There didn't appear to be any batteries in the book, so I surmised that its power source was coming from the serial cable voltage. What a neat idea; I am sure that someone is going to make a lot of money.

The voice then asked me if I was interested in more information. I said yes, and it proceeded to explain the reasoning behind this revolutionary new device. First, it pointed out that most people like to actually have a book in their hands and read the pages one at a time. Books wholly on CD-ROM just don't have the same feeling to many people. I, for one, like to read newspapers spread out on the kitchen table. Reading newspapers on my computer leaves a lot to be desired. I can't get up and walk around or take the paper with me to another room.

Continuing on, Sven then asked me if I would like to hear some music. I was eager, of course, to find out what it meant. First it asked what kind of music. Answering "Country Music" seemed to elicit a bit of contempt, but soon there was a good rendition of Patsy Cline singing "I'll Fall to Pieces" coming out of the speaker. Interesting, but that gets old quickly. I listened to almost an hour of different country and western singers without interruption.

Back to the book. As I was reading, every now and then I would pause, and the voice would interrupt the music to ask me if I did not understand something or needed a bit more explanation. Once I tested it by saying that I did not understand what Ethernet was. It then proceeded to give me a 15-minute dissertation on the origin of Ethernet. I noticed that the voice had changed, and I realized that the voice coming out of the speaker was Bob Metcalfe's, the inventor of Ethernet. You can interrupt the voice/noise by pressing the space bar on your keyboard or by speaking the word "stop.". I got the impression that the internal ROM had the voices of other luminaries and inventors referenced in the book available for quotes.

Damn, this thing is neat! If you are through reading for the day and close the book without putting in a bookmark, finding your place in the book again isn't a problem. It is so smart, all you have to do is ask, and it will tell you the page number that you were last on. Also, if you open the book to a page that's beyond the one you were last reading, it will remind you that you are skipping some pages.

From the literature included with this Beta version of the new books, each book will be a bit more expensive than a regular book, and it would be necessary to have a computer. Of course, you can buy the cheaper version of the book in printed form only; you can still read the book, but you'll miss the computer assisted reading option.

The book is supposed to work much better if you have a sound board in your computer and a microphone. But, it will work with DOS, but not Novell DOS, and it does support Windows 95 and NT.

The price that was mentioned was about 30 percent more than a plain book, so it isn't unreasonable to expect that this should really make some people rich. The book is expected to be available for marketing around the 5th quarter of 1998. That isn't too long to wait for such a unique product, is it? I understand that Borders will have the exclusive distribution rights for this new device.

My apologies to QUE books, the publisher of this new device. Hopefully, they'll understand why I had to break this news and violate my NDA. As a footnote, I did find out that the cable connector has a serial number module installed. This is for keeping the pirates away, but something tells me that this might be a serious problem for someone who loses his or her cable. But as a last resort, one can always revert to the standard method of reading printed material without the added computer assistance.

Rich Schinnell is the First Vice President for Capital PC and retired from the USN and Vitro Corporation. He doesn't have much to do these days, so he sits at his computer looking at all the new goodies and such, long before some of you get to see them. He can be reached via e-mail at schinnel@cpcug.org or by phone in the evening at (301) 949-9292. Being somewhat of a techie, Rich's home page is located at http://www.cpcug.org/user/schinnel.

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