Life in their hands

The latest craze to hit Japan is a computer pet called the Tamagotchi. It is pocket-sizes toy with a tiny screen on which a bird is born and then reared by its owner. But beware, the Tamagotchi will die if it is not properly looked after.

When I first heard that Japan's latest craze was a computer pet you can keep in your pocket, I scoffed at the idea. I mean, who on earth could get attached to silly egg-shaped game on a key-ring? Within no time, Tamagotchi were selling like hot cakes. Originally priced at less than $20 each, they were soon changing hands on the black market for $800.

The Tamagotchi starts as a pulsating egg on the screen. After five minutes, if hatches into a demanding chick, which wants to be fed, played with, and have its dropping cleared away regularly. Like many small creatures, it's prone to infections and needs to be given injections at the first sign of illness. All this is done with a series of bleeps and squeaks via three little buttons.

Consequently, within half an hour of ownership, my life had been taken over by this small plastic bauble. The whole office started taking an interest in my computer pet. They gave advice on how much to feed it, when to give it a virtual smack, and whether that was the politically-correct way to treat a computer bird. One colleague made a nest for the Tamagotchi. Some even offered to babysit. And we all anxiously awaited the day when it would grow a beak. When it finally sprouted wings, we cheered and sang the little jingle that the gadget plays when you press the buttons.

The Tamagotchi has captured the imaginations of the Japanese. It's ideal for a country in which many people lived in small houses or apartments, where there's no room for a real pet. It's even rumoured that a member of parliament takes his computers chick into the debating chamber.

But being a Tamagotchi owner is not all fun. The pets can grow into snake-like monsters if they aren't brought up properly. And they can be dangerous, too. People have been mugged for their Tamagotchi.

Internet

All the News That's Fit to Click

You can't carry a computer as easily as you can a newspaper, but you'll find a lot of other things to like about online newspapers.

More than 100 daily papers in the United States and Canada publish electronic editions. You can connect with them using your computer, a modem and Internet browser.

Online newspapers have the most up-to-date news. Both USA Today and The San Jose (Calif). Mercury News add stories to their electronic editions throughout the day.

"A good example was the Oklahoma City bombing (in April 1995)," said Steve Anderson of USA Today. "We had a photo and a story online within minutes of it happening." Most newspaper readers had to wait until the next morning for their news.

Ever wish you had saved a newspaper article after you threw it away? With electronic newspapers, you can go online and find old articles you need for class discussions, reports or your own personal use.

"Everything that's appeared in The Mercury News for the last 10 years is available on our Web site or America Online," said Barry Parr of The San Jose Mercury News. "There are more than a million news stories in our database."

And you can search papers from all over the United States for the information you need - The Mercury News has links to 16 other papers. In the future, electronic newspapers may add all kinds of new features, like audio and video clips of news you can see and hear on your computer.

Will traditional newspapers ever disappear? Not likely - electronic newspaper are just one more way to reach more people.

WEB JAM

Res Rocket Surfer hasn't headlined a major concert, and they don't have any gold records. But they've played all over the Internet globe as the world's first cyber-band.

Computer software called the Distributed Real-Time Groove Network (DRGN) lets groups of musicians jam on the Internet. It's like being in a chat room, but instead of talking, you play instruments.

Each player sends his part of the impromptu jam session live through the Internet. A musician in Germany might start the beat by playing drums. Then someone else in England adds bass? And a person in the United States plays the melody with a lead guitar - all at once.

When you start playing, DRGN blends the music together, making it seen like everyone is playing at the same time in the same place - even if there are delays on the Internet.

DRGN was developed by Matt Moller and Canton Becker in March 1996. "DRGN provides the opportunity for people to meet and play music together who would have never met otherwise," Moller said. "People will be able to form global bands easily without the hassles of geographical boundaries."