Aside from the polished wood tables and muffled voices, the courtroom in the Northern District of Ohio in Cleveland seems more like one of NASA’s control rooms than a scene from Perry Mason. Television screens dot the room. A flat-screen monitor sits between every two seats in the jury box. Various Web pages dance across the screens of scores of laptop computers. A digital camera stands on alert.

The Ohio court is one of several hundred such courtrooms in the U.S. that have been decked out for the Digital Age. These fully loaded courtrooms are part of a broad movement to give a 21st-century edge to a profession steeped in tradition.

Introducing digital equipment is helping to rev up a sluggish legal process by giving the judge and attorneys instantaneous access to evidence and case documents, as well as the ability to share information more quickly and directly with the jury. Juries are better informed. Trials move faster. Judges see more cases.

"Technology makes the trial much more interesting for the jury and the judge because it makes it move at a fast pace," says Marjorie Cohen, an attorney with Chadbourne & Parke of New York.

The law firm has been using personal-computer networks and video technology in the courtroom since it represented the defunct DeLorean Motor in 1998. In that trial, both sides were able to submit videotaped testimony from witnesses who weren’t able to travel from Britain—among them, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The depositions were displayed on television monitors throughout the courtroom in the New York Supreme Court, one of the nation’s most digitally advanced.

"Jurists, afterward, told me they thought the technology helped them quite a bit," Cohen says. She says video depositions are more persuasive than transcripts of testimony "because you can show the demeanor of the person."

Going beyond videotape, many lawyers are using videoconferencing to question, from the courtroom, witnesses based overseas. In a case involving a Japanese company, both sides fully expected it would take years to bring all the witnesses over to the U.S., according to Nicholas Croce, president of Doar Communications, which develops courtroom technology. With videoconferencing, he says, the trial was able to proceed in a matter of weeks.

Perhaps most useful is technology’s ability to manage the volumes of documents that trials produce. Attorneys for both sides in the DeLorean trial submitted a total of more than 2,000 documents, along with scores of pieces of physical evidence. Using a digital evidence presentation system developed by Doar, attorneys identified evidence with bar codes and took digital photographs that were indexed and stored on CD-ROM. Attorneys were then able to conduct speedy, accurate searches for any evidence.

Croce says that storing and presenting evidence electronically, rather than physically managing it, can reduce trial time by as much as 40%.

Digital evidence presentation systems also allow lawyers to show the relevant materials to jurists more easily through their monitors. "From the jury’s perspective, they get to see the material in a clear and concise way, not just from someone holding up a piece of paper," Croce says. "Attorneys have tools to persuade that they didn’t have before."

Courtrooms also are making attorneys’ lives easier by building Internet ports directly into counsel tables, so lawyers can conduct research while still in the courtroom. As the court reporter types up witnesses’ testimony, the transcript is sent over a network to monitors throughout the courtroom, where lawyers have immediate access to it. In the past, lawyers would typically have to wait until the next day for a transcript.

Increasingly, civil courts are permitting attorneys to file court documents over the Internet and are giving lawyers 24-hour access to case files, docket sheets, and documents.

Despite the obvious advantages, Croce estimates that today just 2% of courtrooms in the U.S. are wired. The primary reason is financing, although habit and courtroom tradition appear to be holding things up, as well. Another huge challenge is adapting technology to the wide range of skills and experience in a typical courtroom, which includes not just the professionals—the judges and attorneys—but also witnesses and jurors.

Still, while the process could be off to a faster start, justice is going to be served. "If courts have the financial wherewithal and judges have the interest, then it happens," said David Whelan, director of the Law Technology Resource Center of the American Bar Association.

Flynn is a free-lance writer in San Rafael, Calif. She covers emerging technology and new media and is a regular contributor to the New York Times business section and other publications. She can be reached at ljflynn@aol.com.

MAY I HAVE AN EKG WITH THOSE FRIES, PLEASE?

Feeling tired? Stressed out? Soon there may be something you can do about it.

Before you hit the hay, you can strap on an armband from BodyMedia, a start-up company, to monitor your body’s heart rate, respiration, caloric-burn rate, and other vital signs, while you sleep. The information will be transmitted wirelessly to your personal computer and then zapped to the BodyMedia Web site, where it will be interpreted and displayed for your review in the morning. You can get a graphic readout, say, of your blood pressure and other general-fitness indicators, or an indication of whether you are making headway in conquering problems such as sleeplessness.

Actually, there is no need to limit yourself to nighttime. If you like, you can wear the armband around the clock and have your vital signs monitored 24 hours a day.

Sound like a hypochondriac’s dream? Perhaps. But BodyMedia founder Astro Teller—the grandson of hydrogen-bomb architect Edward Teller—hopes to make it easier for people to lead a healthy lifestyle by getting personalized health information.

To supplement the monitoring of vital signs, a BodyMedia client can give the Web site information about meals and daily exercise routines. If the site’s HealthManager service spots any red flags, it will tell you where to go for help and how to improve your health. (Cut out the double cheeseburgers, for example.)

Sensitive information won’t leak out, either, according to BodyMedia. Personal data are secure, because users must key in a password to see information on the company’s site.

BodyMedia says its armband monitor, scheduled to hit selected markets this spring, will cost less than $500. The HealthManager service costs $50 a month.

For more information: www.bodymedia.com.

(WRIST)WATCH CAREFULLY

For those worried about having their computers misused or stolen, there is a new watch that automatically unlocks your computer when you walk up to it, and relocks it when you walk away.

Ensure Technologies and watchmaker Golden State International have teamed up to develop a line of stylish wristwatches that use wireless technology to make sure that only you can use your desktop PC or laptop. The watches beam encrypted passwords to receivers in the PC. When the receiver recognizes the password, the computer is unlocked. If the password isn’t detected, software will secure the keyboard, the screen, and the mouse to prevent a stranger from logging on. The wristwatch will work its security magic within a range of about 50 feet.

Why a wristwatch as opposed to, say, an encoder ring or plastic ID badge? It’s because people are much less likely to forget their watches when they head out to work, says Ensure President George Brostoff.

Golden State International, which makes watches for such brands as Fila and Timex, says the new security model, expected to hit the market by June, will feature the company’s Ologi line of timepieces.

Pricing hasn’t been set, according to the companies. But whatever the cost, they may have at least one ready customer in Irwin M. Jacobs, chief executive of wireless technology developer Qualcomm. In September, his laptop was swiped while he attended a journalism conference in Irvine, Calif. The computer contained confidential corporate data going back several years.

For more information: www.ensuretech.com or www.ologi.com.

PUT A LID ON IT

Attention theater lovers and restaurant patrons. Help is on the way to muzzle those annoying cellphones and pagers before they disrupt Hamlet’s soliloquy or the marriage proposal you are trying to utter at a quiet restaurant.

BlueLinx, a start-up company, says its Q-Zone technology can turn public places into "quiet zones." Within those zones, the rings and beeps on all wireless devices can be automatically turned to low volume or to vibrate mode.

BlueLinx says its technology relies on Bluetooth, the wireless technology that allows electronic devices to "talk" to each other at high speed over a distance of about 30 feet. BlueLinx says it uses Bluetooth to create nodes with the ability to announce to all wireless devices within a specified area that they should put a lid on it. When a wireless gadget leaves the area, its ring or beep automatically returns to its normal setting.

The Q-Zone nodes can, of course, communicate only with devices that have been built to handle Bluetooth communications. But that seems likely to, over time, mean just about every device. Makers of everything from cellphones and personal digital assistants to printers and personal computers have said they will adopt the standard so that just about any type of electronic device can communicate with any other, without all the cables that are currently used.

BlueLinx Chief Executive Jeff Griffin and his wife, Mary Beth, founded the company in August 1999 after a ringing cellphone disrupted a church service. "Everyone turned to look at the person—who was mortified—and at that instant Jeff had the ‘Aha!’ flash, realizing we could use Bluetooth to create quiet zones," Mary Beth recalls. Among the prospects: churches, conference rooms, courtrooms, and funeral homes.

BlueLinx hopes its Q-Zone nodes will be available in 2002, beginning in the U.S. Pricing is expected to vary depending on a venue’s size and shape.

For more information: www.bluelinx.com.

UNTANGLING THE WIRED WORLD

You need a high-speed local area network, or LAN, to hook up your company’s employees, but you want to avoid the hassle and cost of pulling up the floors to run wire throughout the offices, conference rooms, and public areas. What to do?

A new wireless LAN standard could be the answer. Wireless LANs, though available for years, have attracted few users because they have run at pokey speeds. But the new standard—802.11b—is more than five times as quick as its predecessor, 802.11, which the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers adopted in 1997.

How zippy is "b," as it is called? It allows for data communication at 11 megabits a second, compared with the two megabits a second that was possible under the earlier standard. Perhaps more significantly, "b" provides for slightly faster data transmission than currently occurs over wires in most offices, which typically use a standard known as 10-megabit Ethernet.

Installation is relatively simple. Wireless "access points," which cost about $1,000 apiece, are placed at various locations in an office or building. Special cards, costing about $200 each, are inserted into all of the company’s computers so they can communicate with the office network through those access points. Users typically can stay connected to the network as far as 150 feet from an access point; multiple access points can, obviously, provide connections throughout a building or campus.

Industry executives say that "b’’ is aimed at companies of all sizes, as well as at universities, hospitals, and even homes. One possible use: Employees could schlep their laptops to a temporary conference room and immediately gain access to presentations or spreadsheets on the company’s network without plugging a cable into the wall.

Another standard that could be approved next year—802.11a—could conceivably hit speeds as high as 100 megabits a second.

For more information: www.wlana.com, www.ieee.org or www.wi-fi.org.

THE EYES HAVE IT

Jetsetters seeking instant airport check-ins should turn their eyes—particularly, their irises—here.

An eye-scanning system that can identify people by the colored parts of their eyes has been undergoing tests at North Carolina's Charlotte/Douglas International Airport. More than 5,000 US Airways crewmembers and airport employees have been using the system to gain access to restricted areas. Passengers also have participated in a demonstration of the technology, which resembles a system used to ferret out bad guys in the 1980s sci-fi film Blade Runner

"It works very well. We've essentially had no problems with it," says Jerry Orr, the airport's director.

The test was among the first commercial uses of iris-scanning technology, which also has been deployed in automated teller machines. EyeTicket, which developed and operates the employee system, also offers two others: an airline ticketing, check-in, and boarding service for passengers, and a ticket-free admission system for sporting and entertainment events.

Here is how the technology works: A black-and-white video camera—running at 30 frames a second—records a digital image of a person's iris from a distance of as far as one foot. After a person has been scanned, he can be identified in a second by having him look into a digital camera.

Why the iris? It has more than 266 characteristics, such as blood vessels and freckles, making it even less likely that two people will have identical irises than that they'll have identical fingerprints. Another plus for the new system, according to EyeTicket: The iris stays the same throughout a person's life.

EyeTicket says the technology eventually could replace boarding passes and tickets, making it possible for passengers to board more quickly. The company declined to say how much the technology will cost.

For more information: www.eyeticket.com.

THE MOUSE THAT MAY ROAR

You are standing before Seattle's Space Needle and you want information about the landmark. You whip out your cellphone or personal digital assistant, point it at the soaring structure, and punch a button or two. Voila! You get statistics, historical nuggets, and other information about the structure, all for viewing on your wireless device's screen.

The reason: GeoVector is using the Global Positioning System, plus sensors, wireless technologies, and other elements to turn a cellphone or other type of wireless device into a "virtual mouse" that retrieves information about objects when you point at them and click.

The company's technology hinges on a tiny electronic compass that uses the earth's magnetic field to tell a device the direction it is pointing. Using the GPS to locate precisely where you are, GeoVector can pinpoint the object you are interested in. (At least, the system works if you are pointing at something large, such as a building. The GPS isn't yet exact enough to allow for pointing at small objects.)

GeoVector has collected information on millions of buildings and other objects of interest. In San Francisco, for instance, GeoVector users have more than 350,000 objects to choose from, including the Golden Gate Bridge and numerous restaurants. Thanks to the GPS, detailed directions to a museum or other desination also can be provided.

The system can still work even if you are in an area without cellphone coverage. You can have GeoVector download all the information on an area before you go there—the GPS and direction-finding technology will continue to work like normal.

Telecommunications carrier Vodafone was scheduled to launch a trial of the technology in New Zealand during the first quarter. No details on pricing are available, but GeoVector executives say the cost of the pointing-system technology is "marginal." They intend to generate revenue by licensing software, as well as such applications as virtual tour guides, to wireless carriers.

For more information: www.geovector.com.