The evolution of General Magic. I'm Fred Fishkin with Bootcamp, a report on computers and technology. It is a company that had developed a gee whiz platform called Magic Cap, that was used on electronic devices from Sony and Motorola. The aim is the same, to help you better organize everything from email to appointments, but now General Magic has created a virtual assistant that you access by telephone or on the web. The service is called Portico. (sound) General Magic CEO Steve Markman...

"Fundamentally, it allows you to get control over all of your communications and information. Centralizes voicemail and email for you, lets you tell it what's most important to you so it only keeps that information that's most important to you. And then it will alert you that that information has arrived."

You can give out a toll free number and tell Portico where to forward your calls to. The speech recognition in the service is phenomenal. Users don't feel like they're dealing with a computer... (sound) You can even access your voice mail over the web using Real Audio. Sixty minutes of use a month starts at 19.95 and goes up from there. You can find more information at generalmagic.com