Advanced Mythology by Jody Lynn Nye Page A

camera feature would be good for is teleconferencing. You just point the lens back at yourself while looking at the person you’re talking to on the screen. Of course there’s a wireless headset so you can set the unit down or have it on your lap. It makes the Mark One’s uses almost infinitely expandable. It’ll share data through the usual modem configuration, but there’s an infrared eye right here,” she pointed to a minute square of dark plastic at the rear of the screen section. “You can make your own videos and send them out on the web in no time. It could revolutionize newsgathering. It’s got clip art and moving clips you can use to customize your video. The character generator works off the word processing system. But look at this.” With the stylus she scribbled out a command, and the image on the little square screen changed to show a pair of spaceships zooming through the black void shooting red laser bolts at one another. “It updates high-res video instantly.”
    “That’s beautiful,” Keith said. “Is it real?”
    “You mean, is it a working prototype? It is. Here. Look. I’m running a computer adventure game. The processor is very fast, but it consumes very little energy.”
    Several of them leaned forward. Doug had his hands stretched out as though he’d like to get them on the little unit, but they let the marketing director continue to demonstrate the device.
    “You can watch movies on it—the power-saver feature can run the hard drive flat out for more than twenty hours, and it can record from over-the-air signals. You can download books from the net. It’ll hold a library’s worth, including illustrations. It can store MP3 files, or play music recorded on mini-CD. It’s practically a whole personal entertainment system. Everything but the dance floor,” Jen Schick added.
    “Do you want us to use that?” Janine Martinez asked, pausing from making notes. She put the end of her pen in her mouth, raised her eyebrows quizzically. The crew from Gadfly looked at each other, exchanging silent questions.
    “Maybe,” Mann said, cheerfully. “Give us a name first, and we’ll go for the whole download.”
    They seemed outwardly to be happy-go-lucky, casual people, but underneath they were watching and wary, steel-lined, not going to take anything they didn’t like. They hadn’t gotten to be a multi-million-dollar venture without being determined.
    “So,” Mann asked, “what do you think?”
    “I am in love,” said Doug Constance. “It’s so small, but it’s got everything. It’s amazing.”
    “Other handhelds have these features,” Schick admitted, “but no one unit has them all incorporated into one. We do.”
    Keith just stared raptly, watching them turn the little screen around to face the keyboard, flip up so the digital camera eye is pointing at one of them, the little screen out to the side to use as a viewfinder, back again to use as a palm-top surface.
    “What about wireless Internet?”
    “At present the Internet function is disabled, but it’s ready to go as a telephone and wireless browser,” Mann said. “I’m not letting it connect because I just don’t want anyone lurking on the web to scope out the configurations prematurely. This is a big deal for us.”
    “Of course,” Dorothy said. “We’re all enormously impressed.”
    “Touch the Internet icon, then write in any URL,” Lehmann said, pointing over Keith’s shoulder, as he took the device around the table, demonstrating it for each PDQ staffer in turn. “You’ll be able to web surf in full color with practically no lags. The important things about it are the long battery life and the thinness of the components. They’ll bend but not break.”
    Fold, flip, turn. Keith saw his own eyes stare back at him from the little screen. They were wide with excitement. This was the most exciting techno-toy he had ever seen. He had to have one for his own.
    “Factotum?” suggested Jason Allen.
    “Oh,