June 20: The San Francisco Examiner declares that the "Interactive Future is Here," as Viacom acquires ICOM Simulations, maker of CD-ROM games like Dracula Unleashed. "CD-ROM drives are among the latest miracles of technology to emerge on the consumer electronics scene..."

June 21: Wall St. Journal reports on Strauss Zelnick, Fox film exec who left to join software start-up Crystal Dynamics. "...Mr. Zelnick's flight to Silicon Valley reflects a widely held belief here [Hollywood] that the current motion picture and television industries are mature businesses, and that the cutting edge of of entertainment lies in new technologies, not just delivery of movies on demand but video games and perhaps new forms of entertainment."

July 18: S.F. Examiner does a feature on Wired magazine: "Magazine for Technoids." "Its success may be a sign of the changing times, or maybe it's just a slick magazine that makes you think the times have changed."

July 25: N.Y Times reports on Viacom's new interactive programming lab, with a picture of ITP grad and Viacom employee Rachel Leventhal. "Viacom is very hip to what it's going to take to move into the next zone of interactive," Denise Caruso is quoted as saying.

Aug. 8: After the summer success of Jurassic Park, the S.F. Examiner reports on how computers are reshaping films. "This heralds a sea-change in filmmaking thinking. Once upon a time, you'd have to physically build the film's world and then shoot the actors performing in it; increasingly, though, live action is becoming simply one element to mix with others from a digital palette."

Aug. 8: N.Y Times reports on Apple's new AV Macintoshes, its most powerful to date. "With its new models, Apple has refortified its position as the champion of multimedia, a loosely defined category that includes CD-quality sound, video images, voice, animation, photo-realistic graphics and other embellishments."

Aug. 8: Times also reports on AT&T's many alliances. "...AT&T has ensconced itself in almost every corner of the communications business as it advances toward its vision of instantly linking people everywhere to each other and to any kind of information."

Aug. 27: Wall St. Journal reports on AT&T holding talks with cable companies; "info highway" hype accelerates.

Aug. 31: A week after local telcos win the right to enter the cable TV business, InfoWorld editor Robert Cringely argues in a N.Y. Times op-ed piece that the telcos "fudged the truth" to get the ruling. "Within days of the FCC ruling, the phone companies 'discovered' technology from AT&T Bell Labs that allows them to send a digital video signal, complete with stereo sound, over existing phone lines."

Sept. 2: Wall St. Journal lauds Who Built America, Voyager's CD-ROM as a great new educational tool. "...The spread of CD-ROM technology has introduced a new class of software, programs that are complete multimedia 'electronic books,' which users -- usually students -- can browse through a screen."

Sept. 13: Viacom offers to buy Paramount, taking the "info highway" hype to a new level.

Sept. 16: N.Y Times does a huge feature on interface guru Brenda Laurel. "The whole course of our development... " she is quoted, "has been a march toward finding better ways to share the contents of our imaginations with eachother."

Sept. 21: QVC lauches counteroffer for Paramount; hype near its pinnacle. [see Tom Goldstein interview]

1994 promises no end, as it marks the 25th anniversary of the invention of the microprocessor and the ArpaNet (now the Internet), as well as Woodstock and the moon landing.