The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 82

82 THE BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE OCTOBER 17. Some may detour from TVs electronic superhighway mimic the Internet's wide-open spir- it and broad scope. "Cable compan- 5 ies tend to have a very monooliHtic $. attitude, but phone companies are much more into open architecture and universal service," he said. 'This will turn out to be much healthier for consumers." But no matter which interactive i TV services if any catch on, one I of the technology's inherent risks cannot be eliminated.

"All this interactivity could an that people stop interacting with people and only interact with ma-, chines" said Reitter of Eon. "I'd hate to be known as the guy who started that." ere. IBM Corp. and Sears Roebuck Co. have lust more than $.100 million trying to succeed with Prodigy Services a personal computer-batted service offering shopping and data.

Even an earlier attempt at Interactive TV Warner Cable's Qube, launched in 1977 lost an estimated $20 million before It was unplugged in 1986. Negroponte finds an instructive model in the growth of the Internet, the vast global computer network that already connects 20 million users and that is growing at the rate of one million members a month. He says that in buying TCI, Bell Atlantic may be in the best position to $16-billion powerhouse that Bell Atlantic and TCI have created might not be quite so anxious to fast-forward the development of Interactive services. Many of its central promises have already been explored Bnd abandoned in some form or another. Publishers like Knight-Ridder Inc.

and Times-Mirror Co. tried delivering news to computers over phone wires, and and ultimately gave up. Two-way videophones, released and re released over the years by American Telephone and Telegraph haven't found many tak- Fore! Golf programs put you in the action from tee to green Computer file games and the nightly news. "People are ready to have their television be something other than a one-way entertainment medium," Reitter said. "But what it offers must be simple, intuitive and have very distinct benefits." He said consumers have indicated that they want pay-as-you-go plans rather then flat fees and that they are more interested in entertainment than information.

This is hardly surprising, given the almost $6 billion a year that video games generate. Perhaps the most comprehensive test of consumer demand has been conducted since 1989 in Cerritos, where GTE Corp. has essentially built a small-scale version of the data superhighway. There, the company has concluded that "on-demand video will be the driving force of these networks," reported Donald Bache, general manager of advanced operations testing at GTE. "The only question is, can we offer movies as economically as the tape rental stores? And the answer is yes, eventually." Bache added, however, that the technical hurdle of storing the videos the so-called video jukebox still requires "some diligent work." Not surprisingly, he said consumers expressed a strong preference for remote-control devices, rather then laptop-like keypads, to communicate with set-top converter boxes.

Noll, for his part, says video on demand will never be as cheap as store rentals. "Consumers aren't dumb. They already have VCRs, and can get movies for two bucks," he says. "Bell Atlantic doesn't understand the entertainment business. They are believing their own hype." A related GTE interactive service, a premium cable channel called "Main Street," is already available in several Boston suburbs, including Newton, Needham, Wayland, Wellesley, Weston and Watertown.

It offers 50 different services, including such information aa airline schedules and shopping. "In terms of interactivity, it really gives you what will be available over the next three to five years," said Jerry Barlow, GTE's Needham-based director of branch management. "It's a real taste of the future." If the past is any guide, the new discussed applications, like distance learning, where different communities can share a course in Russian or Latin, "aren't going to pay the carrier's electric bills. It'll be things like home shopping," Borten said. In fact, Bunshaft reports that 2(5 of Litle clients among them Hammacher Schlemmer, the catalog marketer of high-end electronics and office accessories, and Performance Bikes have made a commitment to "look at ways to use the interactive marketplace.

With postage and packaging going up, they are interested in this channel." Many of the forthcoming tests -cable giant Time-Warner Inc. along with its partner, US West, the regional phone company, will start experimenting in Orlando, Fla. in April. Viacom Inc. and American Telephone Telegraph Co.

are setting up in Castro Valley, and focusing on offering movies on demand. That service is also the basis of a trial that TCI and its partners have been conducting in Littleton, Colo. It stands to reason that beaming movies over high-capacity wires into living rooms can't miss with consumers, since videotape rentals and sales rake in $16.5 billion a year. "If you can emulate the videotape rental process so that you don't have to pick up the movies, and they won't cost you extra by being lost under the sofa for a week, you know consumers will like it," said Nicholas Negroponte, founder and director of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology- Not necessarily. "Consumers are telling us that movies on demand are not the overwhelming gorilla in the jungle," said Frank Reitter, vice president of consumer marketing at Eon Corp.

in Reston, Va. "It's not the killer application that will drive everybody in and send them clamoring for interactivity." Eon, which plans to begin testing a wireless interactive TV service this spring, has been researching interactive technology for seven years. Its service cannot offer video, but will include shopping and the ability to use a remote control back" to certain TV shows, such as football INTERACTIVE TV Continued from page 81 imagine." Nobody disputes the fact that earlier experiments, in areas ranging from electronic information delivery to home banking, have failed miserably. And current testa conducted by companies like Eon Corp. and GTE Corp.

seem to produce less than startling, and sometimes contradictory, results. Some fear that that void could give commercial forces, like catalog marketers, the loudest voice in shaping the emerging landscape. They are very interested in figuring out how to make this platform work for them," said Bob Bunshaft, manager of new product marketing at Litle a Salem, N.H.-based company that works with direct marketers. JThey need a new channel for selling merchandise." The lack of compelling consumer demand, some analysts argue, doesn't matter very much, because the coming barrage of interactive services based on digital technology and transmitted through fiberoptic cables is unlike anything consumers have seen before. "People don't really know what this is," said Red Burns, chairman of the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University.

"When they think of TV, they think in terms of channels. But there will be no channels. There just will be a space that will be divided lots of ways." To be sure, the notion of 500 channels immediately raises fears of such ennobling fare as MTVs "Bea-viB and Butt-head" floating perpetually through space, always available and barely avoidable. "We're used to the way TV is, and we can't really conceive of what all of this means," said Rick Borten, a Marblehead consultant who is president of the Communications Policy Group, and has surveyed cable subscribers in three states. "It's like asking people, Would you like to commute to work in a glimp? They don't know what to say except, mat's a glimp?" Borten, however, says that because consumers can't issue strong opinions about the new technology, "itU be much more directed by the opportunities of marketers." Often- HE WIND OFF THE PACIFIC WAS FERO- cious when we stepped up to the 18th tee at Pebble Beach.

"This is the most breathtaking finishing hole in golf," Jack Nicklaus said just before we teed off. We lofted a long, fading the green, make allowance for wind, trees, pick a club, and then "swing" by hitting the space bar. If you're, not careful, you can hit a severe hook or slice. Then you face a second shot, an approach and putting. The program gives you an amazing amount of control over the distance, direction, and height of each shot The most striking thing about this program is the detail.

The screen shots are routinely beautiful, with rolling hills, menacing white traps, multicolored flowers, and flowing rivers. The flag on the green flaps in the wind (and if you want to play God, you can make the wind gentler). The sounds are wonderful: You hear a nice "smack!" when the clubhead hits the ball, a disappointing "splat" when you land in a sand trap, and a splash when your drive slices into a lake. The gallery claps politely when you put an approach Bhot close to the pin, and it lets out a classic golf-tournament-crowd-style moan when your putt rims the cup. Accolade provides computerized versions of several famous golf courses in the United States and Britain for the game.

These are VGA-graphics, 256-color creations that tend to be lavish with features: rocks, many different kinds of trees and flowers, cliffs, cacti, etc. Having played a couple of these courses in real life, we have found that the computerized versions tend to look very much like the real thing. But the most interesting thing about the Jack Nick- laus Signature Edition game is the corps of computer golf buffs around the world who are constantly designing new courses for the game. If you call the Accolade bulletin board (408-296-8800) or the "Sports Simulation" fo- rum on CompuServe, you will find scores and scores of golf courses that people have ere- ated for this game. fc Brit Hume is the While House correspondent for ABC News.

T.R Reid is the Tokyo bureau chief for the Washington Post shot across an expanse of deep blue ocean onto the fairway; then we maneuvered carefully around the huge fairway traps to the green. Next we faced a long, rolling putt for birdie; when the ball dropped into the cup with a satisfying "plop," the crowd let out an enormous cheer. That round at Pebble Beach felt so good that we decided to head off to Augusta National to play a round at the Masters course. The flowers were in spectacular bloom when we stepped up to the first tee. "A beautiful opening hole," Jack Nicklaus said before he hit his drive.

In the age of the personal computer, it is not going to surprise you one bit to read that we played these famous golf courses without ever leaving home. We traveled from Pebble Beach to Augusta National and to a host of other famous courses last month through the assistance of a charming piece of software called "Jack Nicklaus Signature Edition Golf and Course Design," from Accolade. Our summer was unusually busy this year, with several major projects that all came to a head in late August Once the heavy lifting was over, we decided to relax with a new computer game. The $60 "Jack Nicklaus" golf program turned out to be perfect; we were totally addicted to the thing for a couple of weeks, and now we load it up now and then to pass the time on an airplane. There are several software golf games on the PC market, but we've always been partial to the Jack Nicklaus version.

Like the others, this game puts a golf hole on the screen. You stand on the tee, check the best course to 1 I i r- r- bOOOOOOOOOOOOQOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO "I Can't Afford To Leave My ERA In A CD." HOG Long Term Stock Fund Performers Now No-Load for Your Retirement Fidelity Asset Manager 15.12'? Ik Annual tiara' Antwai Wsium Fidelity Contrafund fc 4 1 17.63s Mmial Rttnn 29.09 25.78 Aftflual Htlufg rAwwit Raturn Fidelity Growth Income Portfolio "17.27 18.85 i. Annual Return Annual Return Awiusl fteium With today's low CD rates, your ERA may be struggling to keep pace with inflation, much less growing to meet your retirement So now, more than ever, you may want Fidelity to help you find alternatives that may offer more for your retirement savings. Add Growth to Your IRA When you're investing for your retirement, you should take a long-term perspective. With time on your side, you might coasider growth-oriented investments, offering higher potential returns than fixed-rate CDs, for a portion of your retirement money.

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