News Junkie Toy Box   

S?re, you can live without the new multimedia software offered by the likes of CNN, Time and USA Today, and sure, the computer upgrades you'll need to run them all (CD-ROM drive, 4 megabytes of RAM, 256-color SVGA monitor, sound board) cost a fortune. But, well..it is that time of the year:

Newsweek InterActive

Nifty features : Sharp photographs; colorful moving charts; "hypertext" links in cover stories that, when selected, provide background material (i.e., click on the word "ticket" and up pops a chart showing comparative prices in various sports).

Practical stuff : Issue 1 includes cover stories on the state of the environment and the problems facing major league baseball with articles, video clips, color photos and charts. There are also 200 related Washington Post articles, 13 Newsweek back issues, several hours of AP radio excerpts and a full-text search function.

Street Price : $40; $130/four-issue subscription (DOS)

Comment : The "gee-whiz" champ. It does contain two commercials, but you can skip 'em.

1993 Time Almanac

Nifty features : Current events quiz with 1,500 questions; campaign buttons used as point-and-click icons to access White House election info back to 1924.

Practical stuff : Complete text of issues from 1989 through 1992; selected articles and Time covers dating back to the 1920s; full-text search; 350 photos; 400 charts and maps; an hour of video clips (i.e. George Bush pledges "no new taxes"); 11 profiles with photos and video of figures such as JFK and Albert Einstein; basic material such as congressional directory, zip codes, country profiles and historical documents.

Street Price : $40 (MAC/DOS/
Windows)

Comment : Best reference work of the bunch. A similar program, Time Man of the Year, has back issues for 1992 but fewer extras.

Business Week 1000

Nifty features : Users can sort and rank 1,000 U.S. firms by such criteria as market value, profits and sales; video clips of editors introduce each section.

Practical stuff : Roundtable on several topics with executives from 13 companies; a multimedia portrait of Chrysler's recent turnaround; database of company data compiled by Standard & Poor's; profiles of 25 top executives from General Motors, Xerox, AT&T and other companies.

List Price : $150 (MAC/Windows)

Comment : For the same money you could get the magazine for four years.

CNN Newsroom Global View (with Worldclock)

Nifty features : Zoom-in atlas with relative times in major cities; neon spinning-globe "screen saver"; chartmaker to compare data from different countries.

Practical stuff : An hour of CNN video clips on African politics, the fall of communism, global communications, the peace process, environmental issues and regional hot spots, plus articles from such publications as World Press Review,
Human Rights Watch and Congressional Research Reports. Atlas measures precise distances and supplies longitude and latitude
readings.

Street Price : $40 (DOS)

Comment : A must-see for policy wonks; the MTV generation will get stuck at the neon globe.

USA Today, The '90s
(Volume 1)

Nifty features : Jazzy theme melody; "SmarTrieve" lets you find articles by typing in plain-language questions such as "What events preceded the war in the Persian Gulf?"

Practical stuff : Contains 100,000 articles from 1990 through August 1992, as well as some graphics, video, photos and audio. Detailed reports on AIDS, the fall of communism, the gulf war, the recession and the battle of the sexes, along with a dictionary, atlas and timeline of major events.

List Price : $70 (Windows)

Comment : For some reason, it's not surprising that 100,000 USA Today stories fit on one computer disk.