Technowatch : Picture This: Improve Your Memories Using Photo CDs

Forget faded family photographs. Now you can keep pictures in perfect shape forever on Kodak’s Photo CDs.

Although Photo CDs were introduced in August, 1992, they’ve been vastly improved since then. The latest models offer photos with remarkable clarity and gorgeous color when inserted in a special CD player and viewed on a regular TV set, even better on a high-resolution one. They also play on most CD-ROM drive computers.

Each five-inch disk can store up to 100 35-millimeter photos, and images can be transferred to the Photo CD from old or new negatives or slides, color or black-and-white. If you want prints as well, a photofinisher can make them from the disk.

Kodak says its gold-colored Photo CDs are permanent. But even if the photo quality never declines, we can hope the price eventually will. Right now, it costs from about $1 to $4 per picture to put it on a disk, compared to about 25 cents for one regular paper print.

Technology junkies will love the options: Viewing your photos via a CD player allows you to enlarge or crop them, rotate, pan and arrange the images in any order.

If you have a CD-ROM drive computer, you can enhance or rearrange portions of each photo. Kodak also has several new computer programs you can use to add voice, music and text. There is also an interactive capability to help you set up question and answer segments for use, say, as a teaching aid or for sales presentations.

Kodak offers three Photo CD players to be used with televisions. All come with remote control and double as music CD players with high-quality stereo sound.

The PCD 870 plays three disks and costs about $250; the PCD 5870 has a five-disk carousel and costs about $450; the PCD 970 is a battery-operated portable player with stereo headphones that easily connects to any standard TV and costs about $450. They’re sold at electronics outlets, or call Kodak at (800) CD-KODAK.

When You’re On a Roll

Listen up, skaters. Rollerblade has new skates with brakes. Really.

The company that pioneered in-line skating nationally in the 1980s has just introduced five in-line models with a new braking system called Active Brake Technology (ABT). The system offers beginners an easier (and less painful) way to stop and gives advanced skaters better speed control, Rollerblade representatives say.

With ABT, you can brake while keeping all eight wheels on the ground instead of having to lift one foot. The brakes are activated when you move the braking skate forward, causing the brake at the back of the skate to automatically lower and make contact with the ground.

The five ABT models are priced from $149 to $339. To find a nearby retailer, call (800) 232-ROLL.

Bigger Than It Looks

Space Bag is a new storage sack you won’t believe until you see it. Thanks to Silicon Valley technology, the reusable Space Bag has a one-way valve that allows the bag to “shrink” a three-foot-high stack of sweaters, comforters or pillows into a package six to nine inches tall.

Space Bag is simple to use. Fill it with soft items for storage, then insert a vacuum hose in the valve to suck out the air. Any home vacuum cleaner with a hose will work, including the small hand-held ones. Once the air has been taken out, you can hang the bag in a closet or store on a shelf. The bag also protects items from moisture, mildew and moths.

Space Bag comes in two sizes. Small (22 inches by 34 inches) can hold up to 10 sweaters and costs $14.95; large (36 inches by 52 inches) can store two king-sized comforters and several pillows and costs $29.95.

To order, call New West Products in Menlo Park, Calif., (800) 233-5152.