By DANIEL EISENBERG, MARTY KATZ, MICHAEL KRANTZ AND NOAH ROBISCHON

SWEET SMELL OF...SILICON?

Convinced that smelling is believing, Arizona-based Ferris Productions Inc. last week unveiled the Experience System, a virtual-reality game station with an olfactory add-on.

A mere $12,000 buys the system: a heat-sensitive chair that contours to the body and simulates zero gravity; a million-pixel, head-mounted display that feeds the eyes, headphones that fill the ears, and a quarter-inch hose that fits under the nose.

Our test-sniff report: though it is relaxing to smell "brine" while virtual scuba diving, the cybertrees in the "forest" begin to hint of Pine-Sol after a few minutes, and a flight though the "atmosphere" leaves a trace of burning tires.

The company promises more smells over the next year. Not on the list, however, are sex-attracting pheromones. Although Ferris co-founder Scott Jochim has had plenty of requests, he worries that each whiff could be "addictive." Sure, but so is the smell of money.

GHOST IN THE MACHINE

New-media enthusiasts bedeviled by vaporware--products hyped before they exist--should thrill to the rare appearance of its opposite. Call it ghostware: technology that is alive and well today with no one (or almost no one) sensing its presence.

One example of ghostware haunts America's 3.1 million alphanumeric pagers (a.k.a. alphas), those sleek '90s icons that deliver, along with the usual phone numbers, written messages such as "Running late" or "Where's my heroin?" Almost all today's alphas, unbeknown to their owners, can also receive E-mail. That means Mom can beckon you home by sending a message over CompuServe or your husband can slip an electronic grocery list across the Internet and onto your hip. (If you have a pager, one phone call to your service provider should be enough to turn on the mail.)

The next step is interactivity. Wireless Access, a Silicon Valley start-up, has invented an innovative product called SkyWriter that includes an onscreen keyboard and a thumb-guided cursor for pecking out and transmitting messages. It works: five minutes after a Time reporter first picked one up, he managed to create and send E-mail--while navigating rush-hour traffic. How good is the technology? Three weeks ago, Microsoft shelled out an estimated $25 million to increase its small stake in Skytel, a pager company that will sell the SkyWriter this fall. Bill Gates, it seems, believes in ghosts.

CYBERIAN LANDSCAPES

For this summer's crop of well-intentioned but clueless souls endeavoring to turn their drab backyards into earthly Edens, the 3D Landscape CD-ROM could be as valuable as seeds or hoes. With this instructional software from Books That Work, budding green thumbs can design their own realistic gardens on an easy-to-use computer grid, dragging and dropping into place any of 800 plants and flowers. Advanced features let users take a 3-D tour of their creations or watch the virtual gardens blossom and fade as the seasons pass. One tip: Don't add water. (Books That Work, 1-800-242-4546, $59.95)

INTEL OUTSIDE

Even though microchip giant Intel has been living in a world of sunny profits and growth, industry watchers are impressed to see that CEO Andy Grove has been quietly preparing a rainy-day strategy. Aided by some of his top engineers, Grove has invested more than $200 million in glitzy applications like virtual reality and on-screen PC televisions. The reason: these programs make extreme demands on the average computer, prompting feature-hungry users to upgrade to new, extra-fast microprocessors--something Intel happens to make millions of each year. For techies who have gone Pentium, Grove's bounty should prove a boon: today's PCs will surely justify the upgrade with Intel-funded gaming and communications programs. A look at three of the best:

INTERCAST: Intel engineers have figured out a way to use the vertical blanking interval--the portion of the TV signal normally reserved for closed captions--to send Net data alongside broadcast video. The result is a scrappy but functional version of interactive TV that lets users browse the Web while watching miniature televisions on their specially equipped PCs. Among the first possible providers: nbc News, which could beam out Web pages with its nightly broadcast. While Tom Brokaw talked about Bosnia, viewers could click their way through a Balkans map or send E-mail to the U.N.

RSX: Intel is another company working to make virtual reality less virtual and more real. Their target: your ears. The RSX system brings nearly CD-quality 3-D sound to Web-based VR. With two stereo speakers, the program can simulate Doppler effects, explosions and even the sound of a circling helicopter that fades from left speaker to right and back again.

PROSHARE: Next week Intel will unveil the newest version of this year-old video-conferencing program. The system, which requires ISDN wiring and (surprise) a Pentium chip, lets scattered users collaborate in a shared online "office."

--By Daniel Eisenberg, Marty Katz, Michael Krantz and Noah Robischon