Other Tech

In 1964, AT&T introduced the Picturephone at the New York World's Fair. Forty-one years later, the phone companies are finally bringing out a product that combines voice and video. And they're calling it ... television.

Four years ago, Carl approached the custom-installation company that columnist John Sciacca works for - Custom Theater and Audio - and asked it to install his home theater. But he also wanted to have a fully integrated whole-house audio and video system, plus a computer network that would let him work anywhere in the house and on the road.

At $2,800, the least expensive Vaio PC in Sony's MX desktop line doesn't seem like much of a bargain these days, even for a 1.7-GHz, Pentium 4 with an 80-gigabyte (GB) hard drive, 512 megabytes (MB) of memory, the exciting "home" version of Windows XP, and two better-than-average speakers (the 15-inch Sony LCD monitor shown is $600 extra).

When the Compact Disc was introduced 22 years ago, it rocked everyone's world. Like any seismic change, it fostered its share of controversy and anger and even some name-calling. As a devout young digerati, I waited patiently for all the conspiracy theories to die away. I'm still waiting.