New multimedia products. (Multimedia PC)(software packages and an upgrade kit) (Product Announcement)

Reading Can Be Fun

Digital Theater has announced a series of edutainment CD-ROMs, called The Learning Carnival. The first entry in the series, The Reading Carnival, is designed to get children ages 6-10 actively involved in reading - and keep them entertained while they learn. Children can enjoy a variety of activities while they explore sections on Animals Facts, Superhero Stories, and Fascinating Facts.

The Reading Carnival features 150 separate screens, six stories, a 630-word pronunciation glossary, eight spelling games and reading quizzes, 18 creative problem-solving games, 60 screens of natural animal photography, and a 20-screen interactive coloring book.

Digital Theater

(404) 446-1332

$49.95

Circle Reader Service Number 530

Culture at Your PC

Here's your chance to sit back and be entertained - and learn about fine art at the same time. Having Cameron's Fine Art Poster Catalog on CD-ROM is like owning a museum full of masterpieces. There are 550 bitmap works of art, 100 WAV-format stereo music files, and over 30 AVI-format video files of sculptures.

The art is categorized into several different segments. Pictures at an Exhibition is a tour of 100 replicas of the world's most famous artists, including Old Masters, impressionists, Post impressionists, and Contemporary painters. Each one comes with a short history of the painting and painter (including the museum currently displaying the work of art). While viewing the art, you're entertained by a classical music clip, which includes a notation of the musical title and composer.

Sculptures on Video displays historical facts on pieces ranging from the T'ang Dynasty to Rodin; it plays a video clip of the sculpture rotating with accompanying music.

Cameron Enterprises

(800) 765-1-ART

$49

Circle Reader Service Number 531

Little Critters on

CD-ROM

Explore the world of baby animals with Kid's Zoo, an adventure for prereaders and early readers on either disk or CD-ROM. Children as young as 3 can learn about the animal kingdom and its young. The program includes an interactive encyclopedia that lets children explore mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates through a variety of avenues - animal type, size, lifespan, speed, and even footprints. They can also learn through a series of games that assess their understanding of animal names, appearances, habitats, and sounds. Some of the activities involve matching an animal to the sound it makes or matching an animal to its geographical habitat.

Using the program's paw pointer, children can learn about baby animals through eight activities, including a talking storybook, Baby Animal Movie Theater, and five multilevel games that encourage children to learn and explore as they're challenged by the various levels of the different activities. Upon completion of each game, children are rewarded with congratulations, applause, and a computer-rendered movie created with the program's interactive movie technology.

Knowledge Adventure

(818) 542-4200

$79.95 (CD-ROM version)

$59.95 (disk version)

Circle Reader Service Number 532

More for Your Money

The Sound Galaxy PRO 16 Multimedia Upgrade Kit is quite a bargain. The kit costs hundreds of dollars less than the separate components, and you get five popular CD-ROM titles. The package includes Aztech Labs' new NX PRO 16 sound card, a Mitsumi ATbus CD-ROM drive, head-phones, and a microphone.

Aztech Labs claims the NX PRO 16 is the most compatible sound card on the market; it supports the Sound Blaster Pro, Microsoft Windows Sound System, Ad Lib, Disney Sound Source, and COVOX Speech Thing.

The bundled CD-ROM titles include Microsoft Works, Macromedia Action! 2.0, Battle Chess CD-ROM Enhanced, Toolworks Encyclopedia, and Toolworks Atlas.

Aztech Labs

(510) 623-8988

$639

Circle Reader Service Number 533

High-Tech Show

and Tell

Ask Me Multimedia Center has recently introduced a new multimedia software package, called SUPER Show & Tell. It's Windows based, it allows the user to create interactive multimedia presentations in a freeform environment, it's user-friendly, and it supports all popular graphics, animation, sound, and digital video formats.

The program's key attraction is its universal appeal. For example, it's appropriate for business and home office users (including sales and marketing), home PC hobbyists, and teachers.

Businesspeople can use the program's colorful charts, still-frame picture and text with sound and motion to make their presentations more effective. Hobbyists can use it to create interactive resumes or home photo albums Teachers can use it to make their own interactive educational tools.

Ask Me Multimedia Center

(612) 531-0603

$149

Circle Reader Service Number 534

Take the Plunge

Wish you could explore the world's oceans? Oceans Below, from The Software Toolworks, has just the journey for you, and you won't even get wet. Choose your favorite ocean, prepare for the trip and learn all about the undersea world from the floor up.

Select from over 20 topics of information, as well as over 45 minutes of video clips, synchronized sound, photographs, and original music. Learn about local sea life, explore shipwrecks, and feed or ride any of the fish in the habitat you've selected. It's like going to the aquarium without leaving the comfort of your own home.

The Software Toolworks

(415) 883-3000

$49.95

Circle Reader Service Number

Using Technology to

Humanize History

Few museums are as emotionally moving as the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, and multimedia plays a large part in communicating that emotion. This is an interactive museum focused on World War II and general issues of intolerance. Its goal is to provide in-depth information for a wide audience.

The main floor is filled with exhibits, while the second floor allows visitors to interact with 30 different computer workstations. The workstations free visitors to research what they're interested in via user-friendly touchscreens.

Visitors can view video footage with first-person accounts and testimonies of Holocaust survivors and liberators.

Eight main topics include 5000 different subjects. The database contains 39 volumes of Time/Life Books, MacMillan's Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, and Encyclopedia Judaica, as well as hundreds of specialty articles not available anywhere else in the world. There are also 57,000 archival photographs, documents, and maps. You can work your way down through a learning tree to the topic of your choice, or you can pick a particular element of that topic and swim laterally through the database for a more focused look at a subject of particular interest.

Museum of Tolerance

(310) 553-9036

Admission prices vary

according to age and group

size. School groups are

admitted free.

Circle Reader Service Number 536

Multimedia Bonanza

Trying to build your own MPC system? Aris Entertainment may have the solution for you, and it costs only $14.95. The company has begun shipping MPC Wizard 2.0, which gives CD-ROM and Windows 3.1 users the most up-to-date VGA and sound drivers for their multimedia systems.

Like its predecessor, MPC Wizard 1.0, MPC Wizard 2.0 contains the largest collection of VGA and sound drivers for Windows 3.1 on a single CD-ROM. This latest version adds nine Microsoft Video for Windows runtime videos, 20MB of additional drivers, 60 color photographic images, and 60 audio tracks. You also get Aris's standard Media-Clips interface to view the pictures, hear the sound tracks, and watch the Video for Windows live-action videos. All the videos, sound clips, and images may be used royalty-free in any presentation, as long as credit is given to Aris.

Aris Entertainment

(310) 821-0234

$14.95

Circle Reader Service Number 537