<COMMENT>Magazine</COMMENT>
<P><DC=0,192,0><JC>---TECHNOLOGY TODAY---</JC>
<P><DC=128,128,128><JC>REVIEW: DATASCREENS</JC>
<P>
<P>By now, you've probably seen the TV ads for WorldCorp's new line of universal storage media, the "Datascreen". Datascreeens, as the name implies, have one major improvement over the old datacubes: Built-in displays. This is a stark advantage over the previous "bring your own screen or augmented neural interface" datacube model, even if the display is quite small.
<P>
<P>You'd be justified in thinking "Datascreen" is basically a fancy name for a PDA, but if you're expecting to pick up a fully featured PDA for 40 credits, you'll be sorely disappointed. The Datascreen has very limited firmware and input options and is really only good for two things: Storing data and viewing or listening to that data.
<P>
<P>And it does that admirably. The Datascreen is small, but has a fairly high resolution, good colour depth (though the black colour is often more dark-bluish-gray), and even a pretty solid viewing angle. Its main limitation is that, as with the old datacubes, you need to connect the Datascreen to a computer to transfer text or images to it, which means it still can't be used as a notepad.
<P>
<P>We expect the Datascreen will instead find use as a portable notice device similar to how its predecessor is used at many workplaces - and now that you no longer need to bring a laptop to examine its contents, more people should find it useful. All we need is for the price to drop to 20 credits, and we can officially declare the datacube dead and buried.