The latest revolution in consumer electronics is, well, tiny. But the potential impact may be enormous. Last week’s Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas-one of the largest trade shows in the world-featured a plethora of handheld products that do everything from keeping your schedule to quoting the Gospel, chapter and verse. For now, in the world of electronics, small is beautiful. And it looks as if these compact cases filled with computer chips are here to stay.
The recession notwithstanding, about 70,000 retailers and distributors (the show is closed to the public) jammed miles of convention aisles in Las Vegas over the weekend scouting out the latest gadgets. “Even if business is soft,” said Marianne Taylor, who owns a stereo store in Tennessee, “you can’t get left behind.” But it’s a dry season for consumer electronics, which thrives on new products. For the most part, the usual suspects were on view. The much-touted digital audio-tape recorders and high-definition television remained out on the horizon, costly or just plain unavailable. The one new product category taking off was what gadget sellers generically call pocket-size.
The term is broad, because the capabilities of the little machines range from translating Spanish to helping doctors prescribe drugs. Franklin Electronic Publishers sells a raft of handheld gadgets, including three $400 versions of the Bible (including the King James and the Revised Standard editions), in a sleek black plastic case a third the size of the printed version. Why spend $400 for a Bible? Because it has typewriter-style keys and some intelligence. Suppose you vaguely recall a verse containing “valley … shadow … death,” but can’t remember where it’s from. Just type those words and the electronic Bible immediately delivers the 23rd Psalm. The New Jersey-based firm may have struck the absent-minded clergy market; it has already sold 50,000 electronic Bibles in six months. Last week in Las Vegas both Franklin and New York based Selectronics Inc. introduced electronic encyclopedias: 6-inch by 6-inch, 12 ounce machines with a small keyboard. If you ask for “Einstein,” you get not only his biography but the entries on the theory of relativity and the 1976 avant-garde opera “Einstein on the Beach.” Another new handheld, aimed at people trying to learn English, translates from Spanish to English-then speaks, to indicate the proper pronunciation.
The most sophisticated of the new gadgets combine the attributes of address book, Filofax, calculator, notebook and telephone directory. Both Casio Inc. and Sharp Electronics Corp. make similar devices, with keyboards, small screens and the ability to reprogram themselves using software on a plastic insert the size of a credit card. One $80 program turns the little computer into an expense-account ledger-you type in expenses as you travel, then transfer the results to your office computer via a small cable. Another program lists the best vintages of wine. Yet another delivers a complete travel guide to a dozen American cities. You can type in “San Francisco, Downtown, French Restaurants,” and the Casio will almost instantly serve up a list of just those establishments. Both machines, costing under $300, approach the capabilities of laptop computers-except, of course, that the screens and keyboards are smaller.
Manufacturers are still discovering new possibilities in the melding of electronics and publishing. Selectronics announced a forthcoming electronic version of the Physicians’ Desk Reference, the standard doctors’ guide to prescription medicine. The same firm offered a pocketsize translator programmed by Berlitz. Not much larger than a credit card, the TriLingual can almost instantly translate nearly 40,000 words and 900 phrases between English, Spanish and French.
Two technical advances led to the shrinking of consumer electronics. One is the increasing memory and power of computer chips. A new spelling corrector introduced in Las Vegas last week contains 80,000 words and will recognize phonetic attempts-it knows that your spelling “sensashunal” probably means “sensational.” Yet the device is no larger than a credit card and weighs less than two ounces. (Hint for the college bound: just the thing to have up your sleeve when you write the essay questions on your SAT.)
The second breakthrough involves so-called flat-screen technology. Once computer information could be viewed only on the bulky cathode-ray tube found in most current televisions. Then came pocket calculators, with a single and often barely readable line of type. But Japanese manufacturers moved forward quickly with flat-screen color displays. At the Consumer Electronics Show, for example, Sharp showed a tiny color monitor, no larger than a cigarette box, that attaches to a video camera, allowing amateur videographers to watch their work. The same company also displayed a flat screen 14 inches wide-the precursor of televisions that hang on the wall like a painting. Such a set will accelerate the miniaturization of technology. Its electronics will be smaller than a brick, hidden away, tuned by a remote control.
Not everything is shrinking in the consumer-electronics business. Last year sales of the $3,000-plus “home theater,” combining big-screen television and stereo surround sound, grew 22 percent. Will such big price tags go over in 1991? “We’re one industry that isn’t terrified by rising gasoline prices,” says Gary Shapiro, a group vice president of the Electronic Industries Association. “When prices rise, people stay home and entertain themselves.” But it remains to be seen whether this year’s jittery consumers will fork out big bucks to view Tom Cruise nearly life size on bigscreen television. They can, of course, opt instead to buy a nice electronic Bible.
Photo: Pocket-size gadgets bring new life to a sluggish market: Sharp’s video camera with detachable color monitor, Franklin’s 12-ounce encyclopedia-at-your-fingertips
Ask any woman: even the most liberated man, lost on the road, is loath to pull over and request directions. But technology may come to the rescue. In Las Vegas last week, two manufacturers showed off electronic road maps that may be standard equipment by the end of the decade.
These maps are displayed on what are essentially small (4 inches by 4 inches) television screens that not only show the local roads, but also track your vehicle’s position. They’re even better than the guy at the gas station: a precise on-screen arrow continually shows your location, even on a two-lane blacktop in Iowa. Future versions will also give advice about the most efficient route to travel, and recommend hotels and restaurants.
The first electronic map will reach the American market early next year from the German firm Blaupunkt. It employs tiny sensing elements on your car’s tires, plus an electronic compass, to determine position and speed. The maps are recorded on compact discs, similar to musical discs, with sufficient storage ability that all of Germany, down to alleys, can be held on a single CD. Discs for the United States will soon be available; a handful will be enough to cover the continent. But the Blaupunkt TravelPilot is a luxury, initially priced at $3,500; each CD map, $100. The first customers will probably be salespeople often on the road in unfamiliar towns.
An alternative approach, shown in Las Vegas by Japanese manufacturer Pioneer Electronic Corp., determines your automobile’s position not by its wheels, but by receiving signals from global positioning satellites. The earth is ringed with 17 such satellites, now used by the Department of Defense and ships at sea, with seven more scheduled for launch by 1992. The Pioneer system, which features a bright color screen, already sells 1,000 units each month in Japan, at about the same premium price as the Blaupunkt. But there’s a bonus: the Pioneer electronic map can also play musical CDs through your car’s stereo. Pop out your compact-disc map, pop in Aerosmith. Pioneer has set no introduction date for the United States, but by the mid ’90s, electronic maps will almost certainly be an option on luxury cars-and the next automotive craze after the cellular telephone. Just don’t try talking on your car phone while looking at your electronic map as you’re doing 60 on the interstate. It’s probably safer to stop at the gas station and ask directions.
