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American Morning

Latest Gizmos for Students

Aired August 13, 2001 - 10:22   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: School bells are ringing a bit earlier this year for many kids across the country. A new survey featured in "USA Today" finds that more schools are opening before Labor Day, some of them as early as the first week of this month, August. The survey shows that 76 percent of schools opened before September 1 last year. During the 1988 school year, only 51 percent of districts opened before Labor Day.

Some of the reasons behind the early school year, academic demands and the pressure to get in mandated state testing before the Christmas break.

Now, my kids are a couple of the kids who are going back to school bright and early, as least they'd better be there by now. And but lots of kids are going back and they're taking with them lots of new gadgets and things that are going to help them get through the school year.

We're joined this morning by a guest who's going to show us some of the newest things that are out. Janice Chen is editor-in-chief at "Computer Shopper" magazine and she's brought some of the latest gizmos for students of all ages, as you can see. Good morning. How are you?

JANICE CHEN, "COMPUTER SHOPPER": Good morning. How are you?

HARRIS: I'm great and very interested to see what you brought with you. Let's jump right in.

CHEN: OK, sure.

The first thing that I brought was the Gateway Solo 1200 and it's a notebook computer so it's the most expensive product that I brought with me.

HARRIS: How much is this one?

CHEN: It's $999. but considering that it's a full fledged computer that you can run CD-ROMs and, you know, pretty much anything that your kid is going to want in terms of, you know, school, homework and getting on the Internet, it's actually a really great price for a fully loaded computer.

HARRIS: That is a decent price. Now, would that actually replace a set top, desktop unit?

CHEN: Absolutely. And the great thing is that being a portable unit, it's good for students that are going back to college, as well.

HARRIS: OK. Good deal. And this would be something that would, almost any kid can really get a benefit out of?

CHEN: Absolutely. Absolutely.

HARRIS: Any age group. All right, what else is that? What do you have there?

CHEN: And then I also have the Polaroid PhotoMAX Fun 620, and it's a really inexpensive digital camera. So it's only about $70 and considering that, you know, giving kids access to creating things like Web sites is a really good idea these days, a lot of people want to buy a digital camera for their kids but it's a, you know, they're prohibitively expensive, to a certain extent. So there's inexpensive ones coming out now, which is a really great product for kids going back to school.

HARRIS: Yes, you know, that's a good point. I was surprised to find out just how much those digital cameras cost. I was pricing some myself recently.

CHEN: Right. Yes.

HARRIS: And I'm glad you explained that because I was wondering why a kid would need a digital camera anyway. OK.

CHEN: Oh, yes, for product -- for projects for school. I think, you know, a lot of kids are working on the Web a lot more now, maybe creating Web sites.

HARRIS: All right, what are...

CHEN: So they're actually great.

HARRIS: Good deal. So what else do you have there?

CHEN: I have this one, which the kids really love. It's the Cybiko Extreme. It's actually coming out in the fall but the current one, the Cybiko, is a product that a lot of high school students have been into. It gives you basically an organizer so you can put addresses and your date book information. But it also lets you wirelessly communicate with other friends that have Cybikos. So you can play games over it. There's a scientific calculator, all sorts of things. And it's about $150.

So it's a little bit expensive as just a toy, but because it gives you all the other organizer features, it's actually not a bad price.

HARRIS: That's actually quite useful. That's actually pretty smart. And you won't feel too bad about losing it if it only costs 150 bucks. That's not too bad. CHEN: Right. Right.

HARRIS: All right, anything else?

CHEN: And then a kind of similar product is what many people, many parents probably have already heard of is the Palm personal, you know, a PDA, a personal digital assistant. This one is the Palm M100, which is one of the most inexpensive Palm devices. It's about $130 and it gives you access to basically an organizer so you can do your addresses and your date book and everything, but also it's a -- it lets you download all sorts of applications that are out there. There are thousands of applications that kids can upload to their Palm Pilot, basically, and lets them use it for, you know, as many different applications as you can think of.

HARRIS: Yes, boy. You've got a -- that's a great little package of high tech gizmos you've got there. I have to admit, I'm showing my age now, but I remember when it was a big deal to have a calculator to take to school.

CHEN: Oh, yes. Absolutely. And there's a calculator in here, too. And the cool thing is this last one that I've brought, which is the smart pad. And what you can do is you can connect it to a Palm device and the student can write just on a regular paper and it'll transfer all the information that you write on the regular paper into the Palm device.

HARRIS: You're kidding me?

CHEN: No. It's totally cool. So you can take it into your classroom and take notes on it and then you can take the Palm device and synch it to your computer and that way you can take all your notes with you. So then this is a $200 product.

HARRIS: That is scary. That's very, very good.

Janice Chen, thanks a lot. We'll have to check with you next year to see if you can top this list.

CHEN: No problem. Thanks for having me.

HARRIS: Good luck to you. We'll talk with you later on.

CHEN: OK.

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