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WebTV just implemented an upgrade that subscribers should know about.

First, RealAudio has been added.  That's one step in the right
direction.  I hope support for Shockwave, PDF, QuickTime, QuickTimeVR, and
frames isn't too far behind.  BTW, until this Web spoofing stuff can be
resolved, WebTV should stay away from adding support for JavaScript or
ActiveX.

Second, they've added background music.  The music seems to repeat after
an hour or so, but it's pretty good.  What they need to do is to support
viewer selection of a musical genre.  Personally, I like The Music of
Cyberspace series.

Third, they've made it possible to switch users without logging off and
logging on again.

There were a few other additions, such as checking for e-mail even when
the unit is off, but the above are the main upgrade features.

BTW, it was totally painless to add the upgrades.  It took about 10
minutes, but it was a simple click on the remote control.  That's it!

WebTV, albeit a consumer product, is the best example of why NCs are
needed:  Ease of maintenance!  And WebTV does NOT have goofy functions, 
like logging off by hitting the "Start" button (boy, isn't that intuitive!).

For your enjoyment, here are four useful URLs (each is an article):

http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,6043,00.html

http://www.packet.com/schrage/today.html
  (this one, because it ends with "today.html" may not last for long!)

http://techweb.cmp.com:80/ng/nov96/fcompare.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/web/docsroot/library/cyber/techcol/1202techcol.html

For a pointer on the Web TV phenomena (including WebTV, and the systems from
  Sega and Bandai), go to:

http://users.visi.net/~cwt/tv-inet.html

David Scott Lewis
thewebguy@acm.org
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From owner-online-news-digest@marketplace.com Wed Jan  3 02:07:51 1996
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