IMMERSIVE MULTIMEDIA THEATER Ð Spitz, Inc., a Chadds Ford engineering company that began as a manufacturer of planetarium systems 54 years ago and has worked with the defense industry for the past 25 years, has expanded into visual simulation with what it calls "Electric Sky TM." Electric Sky TM is an advanced, three- dimensional dome theater system designed to "immerse" an audience in entertainment or information by surrounding it with multimedia images and sounds. It uses Spitz' panoramic Immersa-Vision TM video format and combines technologies from the visual entertainment and virtual reality industries.

Spitz President Charles H. Holmes, Jr. calls the result, "a totally different kind of visual experience." In addition to using it for entertainment, he sees it as enhancing sales meetings, training sessions, teleconferences, community events and tourist venues. "We are trying to do something affordable," he says. "This is a whole new opportunity to do large format."
(Technology Times Vol. XX, No 1 Feb 00)

A NEW DIGITAL VIDEO CAMERA (DCR-PC100) was recently announced by SONY. It weighs less than 2 pounds, is hand held, creates high quality digital video and is Firewire compatible. It also doubles as a digital still camera and can interface with digital editing programs. Cost is below $2,000 and can be placed in workgroups for ongoing documentation and interviews. For more information see: http://www.sony.com/handycam