With the possible exception of kissing, few human pleasures seem more immune to digital enhancement than the creation and enjoyment of wine. For centuries, human eyes have selected overripe grapes for sauternes. Human hands turn champagne bottles daily. Drinking a big wine indulges most of the senses: You admire the color after you swirl the liquid in the glass, then stuff your nose into the goblet to soak in the bouquet, and squish the wine around in your mouth to cover your whole palate.

But what if—with computer assistance—you could trace the origins of a superb claret back through the years to its very grapevine? Someday, you could tell some snobby sommelier, "Yes, I'll have the vintage ' 02, field 12, row 136, vine number 11." That might, indeed, be the outcome of technological changes sweeping through California's wine country, where growers desperately want to do a better job of separating the good grapes from the mediocre, even if that means winemaking has to become a more digital endeavor.

After all, vintners buy land for as much as $25,000 an acre, and can spend an additional $10,000 to $15,000 in development costs, according to Don Gordon, senior analyst for Vestra Resources, a software company catering to the agricultural and forestry industries. Richard Camera, director of Hess Collection's vineyard operations, says that just a small amount of sour grapes "can poison a lot of wine. The whole batch winds up in an $11 bottle of cabernet—rather than a $25 bottle."

Mr. Camera, therefore, is working with Vestra on a geographic information system to take to a whole new level the Excel spreadsheets he had been manually maintaining on soil, irrigation, and other factors. The database, called GIS, works with a Global Positioning System to provide exceptionally accurate pictures of the land. Those pictures, and the data tied to them, can then be used to track grape quality, irrigation, the effects of different fertilizers and pruning techniques, and so on—all the way down to the level of individual vines.

With so many variables, "the human brain can't pull all the information together," Mr. Camera says. "Computers can make more sense of it."

It'll be a while before Mr. Camera can use GIS in all Hess's vineyards. In the near term, he hopes to use it to make sense of 14 years' of wine-tasting notes compiled at the Mount Veeder property.

Up a ways on Highway 29, Robert Mondavi Winery has twice collaborated with NASA's Ames Research Center on vineyard issues. Back in 1993, Mondavi participated in a project to understand the impact of phylloxera, a louse that attacks the roots of grapevines. Using remote sensing technology, digital cameras snapped multispectral photographs of the vineyards from 15,000 feet, using visible and near-infrared light. The data were translated into a vegetation index that measured the plants' chlorophyll. Plant "vigor" variations showed up on a color-coded map, with yellow, green, and purple markings showing different stages of leaf growth and readiness for harvest.

Previously, Mondavi picked grapes by vineyard blocks, which meant that underripe and overripe grapes in the same lot would get mixed together. Building on the initial NASA work, Mondavi tried picking grapes more precisely, based on plant vigor. In one stunning test, some 70% of a block of chardonnay grapes that would previously have been included in a "lackluster" lot made it into Mondavi's premium reserve wine.

California wineries already rely on computerized weather station networks to gauge temperature, rainfall, and soil moisture. Every few minutes, the stations take climate readings and send them to a central computer, which also provides statistical models predicting the probability of insect or mold problems and issues alerts on frost.

The next-generation computer systems will also estimate crop yields and the timing of the harvests of the different grape varietals, says Paul Skinner, president of Terra Späse, a wine-industry consultancy. In trial runs last summer, "predicted yield ran within 2%" of the actual results, he says. Not bad "in a year where people were off by as much as 50%."

So the day is coming when such knowledge may be linked to logistical systems that line up storage facilities and even arrange just-in-time delivery of wine barrels from France.

Yet winemaking will undoubtedly always retain its aura of incalculable craft and experience. Certainly it does for the father of Vestra's Mr. Gordon. He runs a family vineyard where he seems to keep all relevant knowledge in his head and doesn't particularly need high-altitude cameras. As he once told his high-tech son: "I can go on top of the hill and see the variability."

IT'S ALIVE! IT'S ALIVE!

The plot creaks more than the sound effects in "Monster Home," the Web's first feature-length, interactive mystery movie. But as Charlie Chan might have deduced, the movie gives us an important clue—in this case, about how storytelling will develop on the Internet.

Created by Image Business, "Monster Home" has all the murky production values of a 1940s B movie. An eerie mansion provides atmosphere. An unseen presence watches over uneasy visitors. And the scenes—which can be viewed in any order—come off as fuzzy, muffled, and amateurish. But as filmdom's Dr. Frankenstein famously said of his monstrous creation, the costumed Boris Karloff, "It's alive! It's alive!"

The whole exercise is an experiment, says Geoffrey Shea, president of Image Business. "We are trying to find the best way to tell a story on an interactive medium like the Internet," he explains.

It's a tough case to crack. Currently, Image Business and others interested in Internet storytelling primarily get their financing when "large companies throw money" at what they see as technology projects, Mr. Shea says. For example, Bell Canada, the major backer of "Monster Home," provided half of the $100,000 production cost through its Broadcast and New Media Fund. But Mr. Shea says, "I would like to have an audience-based revenue model in which each watcher pays a dollar to see the film."

While not a smash, "Monster Home" has drawn a creditable 70,000 viewers since its introduction in 1998. And it has cleared up at least one Internet riddle: What is the attention span of a Net viewer? Not the 60 to 90 minutes for "Monster Home," which Mr. Shea and backers learned is too long. Image Business is therefore working on a new approach linked to e-mail, in which a drama would be viewed in doses of "only a few minutes for each viewing," Mr. Shea says. The movie would unfold over six weeks, with e-mail prompting viewers about new episodes. Mr. Shea also has decided he won't sell ads on the Web site of his entertainment offerings. Instead, he'll sell ads in e-mail. "You can guarantee viewers and can identify who they are," he notes. And without fingerprints!

While "Monster Home" is free, to view it requires RealPlayer plus G2, which costs about $30, and Shockwave Director and Flash Controls, which are free. Both can be downloaded from a link to the "Monster Home" Web site.

For more information: www.monsterhome.com.

E-GADS! E-CULTURE!

Like yogurt, most of us need an infusion of active culture to define our taste. Now, it's easy.

CultureFinder.com offers a national on-line ticketing service and compendium of high-brow events.

Simply fill in the when and the where on the event that interests you, and the site takes you through your options. Tell CultureFinder how many tickets you want, how much you're willing to pay, and your seating preferences. Then gently tap the "Buy the Tickets!" button. The service's ever-so-helpful "Ticket Butler" chooses "the best tickets available for you," the site promises. It will have them waiting for you "to pick up at the box office on the day of the show."

The new CultureFinder e-ticketing service started with about 60 partners from among the nation's symphony orchestras, theaters, opera companies, and other tony establishments. These provide an inventory of about 10,000 tickets.

"We're adding between five and 10 new ticketing partners a week and expect the number of tickets available to double every month," says Eugene Carr, founder and president of CultureFinder. CultureFinder estimates that sales of arts tickets in the U.S. total more than $3 billion a year, with about a quarter of seats going unsold.

"We're making daily improvements to the service," Mr. Carr says. One of the latest is an e-mail "Ticket Tips" newsletter, a weekly service that provides early notice of recommended events and special offers. It covers seven cities: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. CultureFinder charges a service fee of $4.50 a ticket and warns that customers may be hit with additional service charges or handling fees—"as much as $10 to $12" a ticket—from a venue or a venue's agent.

Alas, CultureFinder may not be for everyone. As Dorothy Parker once lamented, "You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think."

For more information: www.culturefinder.com.

THE DIGITALVILLE SLUGGER (BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED)

Remember "Wonderboy," Robert Redford's supernatural baseball bat in the 1984 movie, "The Natural"? Technology has caught up with fiction by delivering an electronic fat bat that is, well, a big hit.

Worth Inc., the sports equipment manufacturer that brought aluminum and graphite bats into the nation's pastime, has introduced the Copperhead ACX. It's an aluminum bat that uses ACX piezoelectronic dampers, which, in English, means that the impact of bat on ball is used to produce electricity before it becomes vibration. Worth officials say the shock absorbers create an "unlimited sweet spot."

Mark McGwire will never swing this baby in the Bigs. But it's getting good buzz in high school, college, and amateur baseball competition, for which it was designed. ACX piezoelectronics, which are being tested for use in canceling vibrations in the F-18 fighter jet, have already been applied to skis, snowboards, and mountain bikes.

A light in the handle flickers to let the hitter know that the piezoelectronics are working and that it's OK to point to the bleachers. The light doesn't require an external power source; it derives its energy from the collision of bat and ball. Derrick Olsen, baseball category market manager for Worth, says the bat has proved just as durable as the company's more conventional varieties.

Worth prices the bats higher than most batting averages: The two models cost $279 and $299. But the real drag on sales has been the NCAA's recent decision to alter the allowable sizes and weights for baseball bats in championship games, a ruling that, in effect, will apply also to regular season college play. The association has been concerned that nonwooden bats launch balls at speeds that increase injuries in collegiate sports. "We will try to adjust to the new standards," Mr. Olsen concedes.

For more information: www.worthsports.com.

INSIDE BASEBALL

The mention of radar usually conjures up thoughts of air-traffic controllers or the phrase, "May I see your license and registration?" But Rawlings, the century-old sports-equipment manufacturer, is making a pitch for its Radar Ball.

The Radar Ball looks and feels like a normal baseball, but inside is a computer chip that—like the radar gun made famous by televised Major League games—can measure the speed at which the ball is thrown. The Radar Ball doesn't really involve radar, but houses a tiny processor for which Rawlings has proprietary use.

Here's how it works: The pitcher taps a tiny screen on the ball three times to activate it and bring the setting to a double zero reading before he starts throwing. Something called an inertial switch lets the ball know when it has been released from the pitcher's hand and starts a clock. The impact of a catcher's mitt stops the clock.

The distance is already known. The adult version of the Radar Ball is calibrated for the standard 60-foot, six-inch throwing distance between the mound and home plate. The Little League version is preset for a 46-foot span.

The processor simply divides the distance by the time of flight and converts the result into miles per hour, which it displays on its screen. The ball holds the reading while the catcher returns the ball, even if it hits the ground.

The Radar Ball, which is powered by a 1.5-volt watch battery, costs $40 for the adult sphere and $35 for the youth pill.

Warning! Avoid contact with the Worth Copperhead ACX bat—or any other baseball bat. If the ball is hit, the 90-day warranty on the microprocessor is invalidated.

For more information: www.rawlings.com.

AND SPEAKERS WON'T HAVE TO DUCK TOMATOES

Talk about atoms migrating to bits! A new Web-conferencing offering (from a spinoff of the organization that brought us the graphical user interface and Ethernet) promises some of the benefits of human teleportation—along with a slew of interactive bells and whistles.

The offering, PlaceWare 3.0 Conference Center, comes in two flavors: "Auditorium Places" is designed for a one-to-many presentation and can handle up to 1,000 attendees. "Meetings Places" supports smaller collaborative workgroups, or breakout sessions from an auditorium-style conference.

Advantages are more numerous than simply saving time and not worrying about packing enough socks. First, because PlaceWare can be used by any group linked over the Internet, it lets companies choose any combination of places for meetings. (Try working that out with a hotel conference center.) Moreover, presenters can flip or annotate PowerPoint slides, which "attendees" can then download. Presenters can doodle on electronic whiteboards and conduct Web tours with streaming audio and video, says Andrea Luskin, director of product marketing for PlaceWare.

Speakers can also conduct real-time audience polls. Meanwhile, bored attendees can use chat boards to exchange banter and observations among themselves, all without risk of being shushed or glared at by other attendees. Likewise, questions from the audience can be posed electronically to a moderator while the presentation is going on, Ms. Luskin says. Of course, the proceedings can be recorded, as well.

PlaceWare requires no downloads or plug-ins by the audience, who need only a telephone, an Internet connection, and a Java-enabled browser to participate. The cost of PlaceWare 3.0 is roughly $220 a person. The price tag is an additional $110 per person for those who use PlaceWare's Web hosting service.

The product was developed by PlaceWare, formerly a unit of Xerox's famed Palo Alto Research Center, which not only developed Ethernet and GUIs, but also such other important innovations as the computer mouse and icons.

For more information: www.placeware.com.

VIRTUAL IMPULSE BUYING

You walk into a retail store and there it is: that CD, tennis racket, or leather jacket you just can't live without. A new e-commerce vehicle, Impulse Buy Network, is trying to transfer this gripping shopping experience to the Internet.

"Generally, with electronic commerce, you go to the Internet knowing exactly what you want to purchase," says Mark Goldstein, president and chief executive officer of Impulse Buy Network. "We've created a merchandising platform that uses software to help sellers push out products to likely buyers."

The idea is akin to putting candy by a supermarket cash register. In this case, Impulse Buy Network sets up point-of-purchase displays on some of the most active sites on the Internet, including America Online, Yahoo, GeoCities.com, Deja News, and PointCast. The displays offer name-brand merchandise such as a book from Barnes & Noble, a video from Disney, or a trinket from The Sharper Image. Site visitors click on the displays' "special" offers to view more information and purchase the product.

A crucial point: Once a visitor makes a purchase, he returns to the page where he was before clicking on the display. Typically, clicking on a banner ad takes a visitor off to another site, which means he has to navigate through numerous pages to buy a product and means it's hard to return to the site where he was before. Making the point-of-purchase displays into self-contained opportunities to buy a specific product makes them more likely to generate impulse purchases.

Mr. Goldstein says Impulse also manages to convey a heightened sense of urgency about product availability. "We're in the clicking-the-buy-button business," Mr. Goldstein observes.