Knock, knock

If you want a widescreen television but do not have enough room or money to squeeze a large set into your living room, Sony has an answer. Its new Glasstron goggles use a virtual reality headset display -- a small LCD and lens system -- which creates the image of a widescreen television that appears to hang in space two metres in front of the viewer. The goggles are simply plugged into a television or a video disk player. Sony has added optional digital surround sound with Virtual Surround headphones, which combine the five channels from the television soundtrack into two, using phase shifts to 'fool' the ears into 'hearing' sound from the front and rear as well as the sides.