Newsweek's new multimedia guide

["Yvonne T. Rothenberg" <ytrothen@MAILBOX.SYR.EDU>]

I have just seen a copy of Newsweek's new CD-ROM product called a
Parent's Guide to Children's Software 96. It is a neat product which has
lots of reviews geared to parents and children. According to Newsweek,
this is an "unbiased, comprehensive guide to children's software that
includes the world's first multimedia reviews." The disk enables people
to see and experience titles without having to install lots of disks. It
includes reviews of 50 best products as rated by the editors of Newsweek.
It also includes a 184 page book with printed report cards on more than
250 products. The editors used the following evaluation criteria: made
use of multimedia; encouraged decision making; gave consistent feedback;
provided multiple layers of sophistication, required interactivity
allowed for self pace and exploration. In addition, ease of use,
appealing graphic design, replay appeal and rich content were factors in
judging. This disk is easy to use and fun to explore. It gives a little
sample of each product.  I think it would be useful for those times when
parents ask what to buy for the holidays or for the students to look at
when they want to get ideas of products to buy.  It's out in the software
stores now.