THE POWER GLOVE 

If you went through pangs of remorse when you were not able to provide your kids with a cabbage patch doll in ages past, don't let that happen again with this year's "hot" item -- the "Power Glove" by Mattel. The supply is limited, only 500,000 units will be produced and distributed for all of North America in time for Christmas. Some units are definitely en route to Canada, I've been told by executive Glenn Bozarth of Mattel Inc.

This sophisticated piece of equipment is more than just a toy. It is the cutting edge of a new type of interactive "show biz". The device allows the wearer to control his "cyberspace". Most have heard by now the description of cybernetics, the study of the relationship between man and his machines. With the Power Glove, you can control action between you and the television set. Computer-literate Dads will just love it.

Several upcoming new TV productions are now considering or making preliminary preparations, to incorporate this powerful advantage of control in inter-active TV shows. Networks suffering from a 20 percent drop in viewers during the past years know that new concepts are required to bring back lost viewers and retain present ones. Interactive TV, properly presented, may just do the trick.

Designed mainly for use with Nintendo games, the Power Glove (available in both left and right-handed versions) has a built-in joy or control stick. To play with the unit and a TV set, the glove must be plugged into a Nintendo game which is attached to your TV set. You first point the glove at the TV and press the "position" button on the glove. This allows the glove, through a triangulation calculation, to know where it's at. After that it can perform what appears, at least to adults, to be magic.

It is the potential developments from this device that intrigue me. Subsequent and improved models will permit handling of banking, shopping, stock market transactions and airline reservations, and playing even more sophisticated electronic games. Third-party venders will be able to create a game cartridge that contains a modem (the electronic translator that allows one computer to speak to another over standard telephone lines) and dial in directly to the services mentioned above. A network-wide telephone "game channel" may be established by Nintendo aficionados that would permit playing games on two or more TV sets at distant locations.

Television shows in the future may provide the option of selecting, from certain "inter-active shows", the ending: happy, sad or uncompleted. Possibly the names of the characters could also be changed to your family names. You could become a "soap" star without leaving your chair!

The Power Glove is great. Buy it. You don't want your child to be electronically deprived. Canadian price: $100.

More information: Glenn Bozarth Director of Public Relations Mattel Inc. 5150 Rosecrans Ave. Hawthorne, California 90250-6692.

Phone: 213/978-5150.

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