Your Technology

By M.M. Buechner

BYTE ME, ELMO

With children ages 3 to 12 the fastest-growing slice of the software market, it's no wonder so many kids' titles are previewing at this week's Electronic Entertainment Expo in Atlanta. A digital Elmo teaches pre-schoolers their ABC's and 1-2-3's in two of the first "edutainment" titles for the Sony PlayStation. And move over, Quicken: a Beanie Babies CD-ROM helps kids track their cuddly assets and guides them to some online trading sites.

SEGA STRIKES

Also at "E3" this week, Sega stages a comeback in console gaming with Dreamcast, a system due for U.S. release in the fall of 1999 (November '98 in Japan). The unit, designed with a version of the Windows CE operating system used in handheld PCs, is said to be visually richer and more precise than anything else on the market (128 bit, as opposed to the 64-bit Nintendo machine). Lackluster titles put Sega, onetime king of the consoles, far behind Sony PlayStation and Nintendo 64. Is Dreamcast the answer? Let's see the software first. REAL TEAM PLAYERS

At first glance Fireteam from Multitude looks like any other online shoot-'em-up, its Internet site a meeting place for any gaming geek with a modem. But a headset with a microphone adds a new twist. Real-time voice communication over the Net lets teammates talk--plan attacks, call for back-up--while their hands are free to run and gun.

--By M.M. Buechner