TECH WATCH

By DANIEL EISENBERG AND ANITA HAMILTON

THIN IS IN

The good news about Fujitsu's new FlatScreen television is obvious: it's just over four inches thick, and it hangs on any wall as simply as a Picasso. A designer's dream, surely. But the less good news may be more important: the picture is murkier than images on most old-style television sets, and the Ivana-thin display costs, ahem, $25,000 (for the 42-in. incarnation, on sale at Hammacher Schlemmer). Nonetheless, TV analyst Allen Griffin says the set is a good omen. The breakthrough "plasma" technology that made these high-end boxes possible should push higher-quality, lower-cost versions into the price range of mortals sometime near century's end.

AT&T'S DIME-A-MINUTE SURPRISE

Even as AT&T was slathering the airwaves with promises of a 15[cents]-a-minute rate last week, the Wall Street Journal caught the phone giant offering 10[cents]-a-minute rates to persnickety callers who phoned AT&T and asked for the best possible deal. AT&T--which declared itself profoundly "unembarrassed" by the revelations--said the 10[cents] rate would be offered only on a "case by case basis." And although AT&T won't say what it takes to qualify, they did hint that bigger bills were more likely to get bigger discounts. "Our effort is on retaining old customers, not getting new ones," said an AT&T spokesman. "It's far more expensive to get new ones." That may not remain true if AT&T's secret plan angers more consumers than it keeps.

SPARE PARTS: THE LURE OF A GREAT, CHEAP, USED PC

For a high-tech executive with a Ph.D. in physics, Brian Kushner had an unlikely inspiration. If used cars helped push America into the automotive age, perhaps used PCs could do the same for the information era. The result: Recompute, Kushner's year-old used-computer store, which just went national. The mail-order house, based in Austin, Texas, takes personal computers with 486 or Pentium processors and refurbishes and resells them. Most of the boxes are just short of state of the art but fine for everyday computing. And at $600 to $1,000, they've quickly become a hit. The key to the business is upgrade mania, as corporations "retire" machines in favor of the latest, greatest technology. "I'm a great advocate of Microsoft and Intel," Kushner says. "I love every product introduction." Kushner's only problem: his idea may be too good. PC leviathans Compaq and Packard Bell are rushing new $1,000 PCs to market. But Kushner may have an edge, at least among buyers who'd prefer a used Porsche to a new Nova.