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Apple Computer Inc And Garageband.com Agree To Share Name
Garageband.com, the internet's largest legal source of free MP3 music, and Apple Computer have signed an agreement to share the name "GarageBand." The deal was signed in April 2003 but kept confidential by both parties until now. (for those who still wonder...)
Apple Computer has paid Garageband.com a one-time fee in order to use the name "GarageBand" for its music-creation software, part of the Apple iLife suite launched this week. Garageband.com ( http://www.garageband.com ) will otherwise retain its original rights to use the name for a vast range of products and services.
"We have tremendous respect for Apple's vision and leadership in the digital music space," said Ali Partovi, CEO of Garageband.com. "We've always shared their goal of empowering musicians, and today we're excited to share with them our name. Now, any musician can create music on Apple's state-of-the-art GarageBand software and promote their recordings on Garageband.com's award-winning web services."
At http://www.Garageband.com, ordinary listeners determine which songs make it to the top, and over 200,000 independent musicians compete for radio airplay (and coming soon, digital distribution on download services like Apple's iTunes music store).
Isn't it ironic...Napster fills in the blanks with CD deals
By Matt Hines
CNET News.com
January 7, 2004, 10:37 AM PT
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Napster is teaming up with Imation, a maker of optical media products, to market and distribute Napster-branded blank CDs and DVDs in North America.
The online music company also announced an agreement to sell the blank CDs, along with other products, via U.S. retail giant Target.
Imation, which sells a range of products from rewritable compact discs (CD-Rs) to storage devices, said Wednesday that it has signed a licensing agreement with Napster to become the music vendor's exclusive dealer of optical storage products. The companies said Imation would manufacture and distribute blank CDs and DVDs bearing the Napster name and logo.
Simultaneously, Napster outlined plans to market merchandise, including the Imation CDs and DVDs, at Target stores starting Feb. 15. The company said the "one-stop shop" collection would include prepaid Napster download cards, Napster 2.0 and Roxio software, blank discs from Imation with promotional codes for free music downloads, and Napster-branded CD cases made by Case Logic. Target will be the first national U.S. retailer to offer the entire package.
Napster hopes it will attract new customers by offering many of the tools necessary to begin downloading and saving digital music files, according to company executives. It believes existing subscribers will also buy the blank discs to create hard copies of files they download via its service. The company did not list pricing for any of the new products.
"This is an important first step in bringing the richest music experience to a mass audience, and Target is the ideal venue to reach customers," Mike Bebel, president of Napster, said in a statement. "Many people choose to place their music on optical media like the popular CD-R, so our partnership with Imation is a logical extension of Napster's brand and goals."
In related news, Napster announced that it is partnering with Digital 5, a maker of content-sharing software, to offer wireless access to its library of digital music to premium service subscribers. Under the deal, users of Napster 2.0 Premium can download files wirelessly onto devices loaded with Digital 5's applications.
Napster executives called the partnership another step in the company's strategy to combine its digital music service with networked home electronics devices other than personal computers and MP3 players. Digital 5's middleware is available in DVD players, televisions and stereo systems.
Napster made its name providing software that allowed people to swap music files over the Internet, but it was shut down in 2001 after the music industry filed a copyright lawsuit against it. In 2002, its remaining assets were purchased by Roxio, which makes CD- and DVD-burning software, and then relaunched last year as an authorized digital music service. It competes with online music providers such as Apple Computer's iTunes service by offering downloads of songs for 99 cents apiece or via a monthly subscription.
Legal online music digital services continue to show signs of solid growth, with iTunes claiming over 25 million downloads. However, providers have yet to garner the same response as their unauthorized--and free--predecessors. A recent survey published by the Pew Internet & American Life Project said the number of Americans who actively download music from the Internet fell to 14 percent in mid-December, compared with 29 percent in a similar study conducted in March, April and May 2003.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) continues to pursue individuals participating in unauthorized file sharing. Since September 2003, the industry group has filed roughly 400 lawsuits against purported music downloaders, claiming copyright infringement and seeking up to $150,000 per violation.
iPod, Therefore I Am
By Steve Gillmor
December 26, 2003
Apple's popular MP3 gadget is at the front lines of a battle for digital rights. Can the government, the entertainment industry and Microsoft stop it?
The phenomenon known as the iPod is emerging from the shadows of Napster and the Mac to become a force unto its own. As a designer toy, it offers the promise of mobility, the allure of 21st Century Art Deco and the gratification of impulse buying.
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But behind the scenes, Apple Computer's MP3 device is the bulwark of an increasingly serious battle for digital rights versus the virtual law firm of Achcroft, Valenti and Gates. With the help of an increasingly pliable Congress, Microsoft has moved rapidly to encapsulate digital content in a digital-rights-management layer of protection.
Opponents on both the left and the right have charged that Attorney General Ashcroft has wrapped an assault on personal privacy and constitutional rights in a blanket of paranoia surrounding the War on Terrorism. Riding this favorable tide, Microsoft and the content industry have turned our fair-use freedoms into an attack on private property. With laws on the books now constraining our ability to obtain hardware devices that allow the same type of copying we've enjoyed for decades, Microsoft is refreshing its product lines to embed the DRM bits in Office, Windows and its suite of servers.
Check out eWEEK.com's Windows Center at http://windows.eweek.com for Microsoft and Windows news, views and analysis.
Microsoft first pushed Windows Media Player out as a free upgrade via Internet Explorer. IE itself has been abandoned to maintenance status pending its incorporation into the next version of Windows, codenamed Longhorn. Microsoft's new Software Assurance licensing scheme also encourages enterprise adoption of the DRM-ready versions of Windows XP and Office System. Microsoft's forced retirement of JVM-tainted versions of Windows 98, apps, and servers conveniently paves the way for Jack Valenti and Company.
Apple also has a DRM strategy, but it differs from Microsoft's in a fundamental respect. Where Windows DRM mandates the pattern of renting entertainment for a specific period of time or form factor, Apple provides the ability to share copyrighted material between your Mac (and now Windows) machines and your iPod. Copying is limited to one Mac and its associated iPod at a time, but the illusion of portability between home, car, and on the go is preserved
iPod, Therefore I Am
Think of the iPod as a platform, however, and Apple's strategy becomes more apparent. Since the Newton PDA failed, Apple has studiously avoided the chasm between the Mac and the cell phone. Save for a passing nod to the enterprise by opening the iPod as a data storage and backup device, the only PDA-esque touches are Contacts, Calendar, and Notes functionality tied to Mac OS X utilities on the Mac.
With the release of the third wave of iPod devices, earlier this year, Apple collaborated on some third-party peripheral development. New add-ons from hardware manufacturer Belkin turn the iPod into a digital photo store, an audio recorder, and a short-range FM radio station for broadcast in the car and hotel rooms.
In effect, the iPod becomes a rich media container for information of all kinds. Camera phones such as my Nokia 3650 form the perfect third leg of the tripod. I use the Bluetooth capabilities to move images to my PowerBook or connect the other way to AT&T wireless data to retrieve mail and refresh my NetNewsWire RSS aggregator/reader.
There's already a cute hack that takes RSS feeds and routes them through Mac OS X's text-to-speech utility, then converts the audio result to an MP3 for import into the iPod. I can listen to my mail, RSS and recorded interviews on the car radio as I drive. With a few lines of AppleScript, I could automate voicemail in the opposite direction, recording notes or dictation and sending it via mail, iChat or even iChat AV for video clips .
As Apple opens the iPod's API to more software, the possibilities become even more intriguing. A video iPod could manifest itself not as an integrated device but as a peripheral rendering extension to the core data store. A Bluetooth module would close the loop between cell phone and laptop, further reducing the PDA to fifth-wheel status. The marriage of laptop, cell phone and storage/player devices creates a whole greater than the sum of its parts. The phone delivers a persistent low-bandwidth connection to the network, the laptop base station a Wi-Fi link, and the iPod transport between Macs and Windows. With iTunes now a distribution channel for non-MS DRM content across both platforms, the available audience for Apple's more-relaxed DRM model has room to grow.
This has implications not just for consumers but for creators of digital media as well. With shelf space becoming an artifact of the outgoing business model, the new coin of the realm for attracting artists to labels is the relationship with the customer. Just as Warner Records grew into a recording giant by catering to musicians' musicians such as Randy Newman, Jackson Browne and Warren Zevon, next-gen music companies can leverage the Mac's reputation as the tool of choice from writing to recording to distribution.
The same garage that launched Apple, HP, and a thousand bands, is now ground zero for a fresh wave of innovation—or the one-party system favored by incumbents in Washington and Hollywood. Fair-minded observers can find much to respect in Microsoft's approach to digital rights, but not at the cost of choice. With the election looming as a referendum on issues of security, rights and opportunity, and the Internet emerging as a major player for the first time, DRM may be democracy's Last Waltz.
OT Off-the-shelf MCU tweaked for ASIC-like duty
By Ron Wilson
EE Times
January 6, 2004 (11:12 a.m. ET)
SAN MATEO, Calif. — As the business models of standard-product IC companies evolve, a gray area is forming between the once clearly defined territories of microcontrollers and ASICs. A case in point is a controller that Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas developed for a new version of the Pixter digital drawing pad from Fisher-Price.
Pixter Color is an interactive tablet on which children (and unobserved adults) can draw images on a touch screen, edit and animate them, and record audio tracks to create complete animated cartoons.
When the Pixter family was launched several years ago, the products used an 8-bit MCU, as was almost universally the case for low-end consumer products at the time. But with the addition of color and more sophisticated image-processing and audio-processing capabilities, the platform outgrew the 8-bit chip, said Christophe Chene, senor director of IC marketing at Sharp Microelectronics (Camas, Wash.). Future plans in the Pixter line, such as an ability to establish data connections between units, would create even greater demands.
An obvious move for a vendor of very high-volume, low-cost products would be a modest system-on-chip design with a 32-bit CPU core. At least, that would have been the case two years ago. But in the present era of high initial design costs and uncertain markets, Fisher-Price went looking for alternatives.
The company, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc., went shopping not for an ASIC vendor or a design house but for an MCU vendor that would partner with it on a design. Sharp said it was willing to jointly develop an ARM-based standard-product; Fisher-Price would get an SoC-level controller with just the memory and peripherals it needed, and Sharp would get a family of MCUs suited to an entire category of toys.
Sharp was drawn to the deal, Chene said, in part because the Pixter family was rapidly converging on the functionality and form factor of another major MCU application area: personal digital assistants. "The Pixter can capture graphics and audio and perform some quite sophisticated image-processing functions. The line is really starting to blur between toys and PDAs here," Chene said.
The resulting LH75411 controller was developed to be a perfect fit to the Pixter's hardware and memory needs, Chene said. Based on a 70-MHz ARM7TDMI core, the chip includes color LCD controller circuitry; a 10-bit, eight-channel A/D converter, an integral touchscreen controller; and the usual assortment of counter/timers, programmed I/O pins and SRAM. Pivotal to the design were the the 32 kbytes of SRAM, which make it possible to execute the Pixter's algorithms locally, and outputs that can be configured to implement a 12-bit pulse-width-modulated audio output. The addition of an inexpensive external capacitor gave the Pixter the functionality of a moderate-quality audio D/A converter, Sharp said.
Sharp's MCU designers worked closely with Fisher-Price's system designers and with a contract manufacturer in China; the latter provided input on allocation of the chip's interrupts and other matters. Sharp also worked closely with the contractor on the final phase of code optimization to make sure that the chip's features would all fit without incurring additional assembly costs.
Is an MCU, then, an alternative to an ASIC design? In this case, Fisher-Price walked away with the chip it needed, and Sharp retains the rights to sell the part to other customers.
Gateway's Big Picture
By Rick Aristotle Munarriz (TMF Edible)
January 6, 2004
The road to reinvention is often paved with quicksand. That's a sad truth that Gateway (NYSE: GTW) is learning as it struggles to become a brand integrator.
That Gateway expects to post an operating loss over the pivotal holiday quarter is not news. The company has been bleeding crimson for some time now. However, it had initially guided investors to expect the top line to come in between $925 million and $975 million, but is now looking to post fourth-quarter revenue of just $880 million.
This is Gateway's reality check. While it was right to back out of the personal computer wars better waged by the likes of Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), the high-end markets of plasma TVs and media center computing haven't proven to be an oasis.
And with hungry consumer electronics specialists like Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) and Circuit City (NYSE: CC) angling for market share in digital cameras and home theaters, it's not going to get any easier for a direct seller like Gateway. Yes, there are pricing advantages to the direct model, but often at the expense of a strong marketing presence at the grass roots level.
Of course, knocking Gateway must be done with balance sheet in hand. The company has preserved cash despite a dramatic makeover and perpetual deficits. With $1.1 billion in cash and short-term investments, that's nearly $3.40 a share right there. Investors may be impatient, sending shares lower on the slower-than-expected quarter, but Gateway's got enough quarters to keep feeding the meter for a long, long time.
Eventually, Gateway will get it right. When it does, times like this, when the stock is selling for little more than its liquidity, may seem awfully like opportunities in retrospect.
iTunes DRM cracked wide open for GNU/Linux. Seriously.
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Posted: 05/01/2004 at 20:25 GMT
Get The Reg wherever you are, with The Mobile Register
Exclusive Norwegian programmer Jon Lech Johansen, who broke the DVD encryption scheme, has opened iTunes locked music a tad further, by allowing people to play songs they've purchased on iTunes Music Store on their GNU/Linux computers.
"We're about to find out what Apple really thinks about Fair Use," Johansen told The Register via email.
Johansen cracked iTunes DRM scheme in November by releasing code for a small Windows program that dumps the stream to disk in raw AAC format. This raw format required some trivial additions to convert it to an MP4 file that could be played on any capable computer.
But in the best Apple ease-of-use tradition, Johansen has now made this completely seamless, integrating it with the VideoLAN streaming free software project.
How it works
Johansen deduced that the system key that locks the locked music to a single Windows computer is derived from four factors: the serial number of the C: drive, the system BIOS version, the CPU name and the Windows Product ID.
"When you run the VideoLAN Client under Windows it will write the user key to a file. The user key is system independent and can thus be used by the GNU/Linux version of VLC," he explains.
While Apple's iTunes Music Store is restricted to Windows and Apple computers, and Apple only supports its own iPod player as a playback device, VideoLAN is GPL software that runs on a wide variety of computers including Linux, the BSDs, Solaris and even QNX. Although users are at present permitted to burn a CD with music they've purchased, only three Apple or Windows computers are "authorized" at any time. These terms may be tightened at any time, Johansen himself noted recently.
"The RIAA can at any time change the DRM rules," he wrote in November, "and considering their history, it's likely that they will when the majority of consumers have embraced DRM and non-DRM products have been phased out. Some DVDs today include commercials which can't be skipped using 'sanctioned' players. If the RIAA forces Apple to include commercials, what excuses will the Mac zealots come up with? 'It's a good compromise'?"
Reaction
"The restrictions are very frustrating for consumers, and frankly, are unnecessary," Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Fred Von Lohmann told The Register.
"Every song on iTunes Music Store has been available on the Peer to Peer networks within four hours. All the DRM does is frustrate legitimate consumers; it doesn't stop file sharing," he says. "The real innovation of the last several years was Kazaa and the other file sharing applications. These are leaps and bounds more relevant than iTunes Music Store."
Although the number of downloaders has diminished in the face of lawsuits by the RIAA, tens of millions of Internet users continue to share music on the P2P networks, dwarfing the number of locked-music downloads from DRM stores such as Apple's iTMS.
Apple is widely expected to announce more locked music playback hardware at the MacWorld show in San Francisco this week. But with support growing for flat fee licensing models even amongst record industry executives, today's DRM Goldrush (and the ensuing iTunes vs Windows Media war) could be a very short lived skirmish.
Johansen broke the CSS encryption scheme on DVDs - a case the Norwegian government finally let go - so he could watch a movie that he'd legitimately purchased on his Linux PC. Now millions of Linux users can do the same with iTunes locked music. You can download the code here.
Micro drive holds 2 GB
By Junko Yoshida
EE Times
January 5, 2004 (11:33 a.m. ET)
PARIS — Hoping to piggyback the market momentum toward portable consumer electronics storage devices, Cornice Inc. (Longmont, Colo.) Monday (Jan. 5) will unveil a 1-inch hard drive capable of storing 2 Gbytes of data.
Cornice's first-generation product, a 1.5-Gbyte, 1-inch drive introduced last year, has already been integrated into more than a dozen portable consumer devices, including RCA and Rio MP3 players as well as Samsung's "digital gadget," featuring a JPEG camera, MPEG-4 movie functionality, stereo audio recorder and MP3 player.
By increasing storage capacity to 2 Gbytes, Cornice aims to propel its device into a variety of next-generation portable combo products ranging from video cameras and portable GPS devices to camera phones and high-resolution digital still cameras combined with MP3 players.
"The need for [larger] storage capabilities just continues to grow as more and more fully functional combo products come to the market featuring enriched A/V functions," said Kevin Magenis, president and chief executive officer of Cornice. Magenis even predicted the emergence of mobile handsets equipped with hard drives within a year.
Magenis said the Cornice product is not a traditional, removable hard-disk drive, since it's designed for placement directly on a motherboard. The stripped-down drive, developed specifically for consumer products, eschews many features found in PC hard drives, such as caching, male and female connectors, and redundant RAM and ROM. The Cornice drive shares electronics-such as a part of the flash-with a host product, to reduce system cost and complexity and to lower component counts.
The drive is now going through final qualifications and is scheduled to ship in volume in the first quarter. It will be priced below $70 in quantities of more than 100,000 units per year, according to Cornice.
The 2-Gbyte storage capacity is ideal for portable GPS devices, since it's enough to hold the map of an entire continent, Cornice says. The company is also targeting video cameras, Magenis said.
Because of the higher data transfer rate video requires, "we needed to optimize duty cycles and manage buffers much better," he said. "A bigger DRAM is needed as a buffer to hold video." Data will be read as needed and copied to host memory, to reduce power consumption.
Three unidentified customers have already signed up for the 2-Gbyte hard drive, the company said. A dozen customers will be showing off products using Cornice's 1.5-Gbyte drive at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.
Crackdown May Be Slowing Music Downloads
1 hour, 34 minutes ago Add Technology - AP to My Yahoo!
By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, AP Technology Writer
NEW YORK - The recording industry's legal onslaught against Internet song-swappers appears to be having its desired effect. The percentage of Americans who download music online has been sliced in half, according to a report released Sunday.
Only 14 percent of Internet users surveyed from Nov. 18 to Dec. 14 said they sometimes download songs to their computers, according to the report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and comScore Media Metrix, a Web tracking firm.
The downloading figure was 29 percent in a May survey on the subject, and also in February 2001.
The survey did not distinguish between use of free, "peer-to-peer" music-sharing sites such as Kazaa, and licensed, commercial downloading sites such as the new Napster (news - web sites), MusicMatch, Rhapsody and iTunes.
However, researchers believe the plunge largely affected peer-to-peer downloading, and attributed that to the Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites)'s strategy of suing nearly 400 individual song-swappers for copyright violations since September. Moreover, most of the licensed commercial sites didn't exist when previous surveys were conducted and this study said they have attracted high numbers of users.
Most of the RIAA's cases have been settled; though the record labels can legally demand $150,000 per song, people familiar with the cases have said most settlements have been for $2,500 to $7,500.
Usage of Kazaa fell 15 percent from November 2002 to November 2003, according to comScore. Other peer-to-peer music-sharing sites also experienced usage declines. The drop at BearShare was 9 percent, while WinMX lost 25 percent of its audience and Grokster plunged 59 percent.
RIAA chief executive Mitch Bainwol was heartened by the Pew study but said the lawsuits against individual users would continue in 2004.
"We would not look at any single measure and make a statement of victory," he said. "But what we do know is this: The lawsuits have had a profound impact on awareness and fewer people are downloading (illegally), and that's good news."
The music business suffered through another down year in 2003, with overall units sold dropping 0.8 percent, according to Nielsen SoundScan. CD sales fell 2 percent. But the fourth quarter saw an overall gain of 10.5 percent from the same period a year earlier.
The Pew survey found that music downloading remains far more common among Internet users between 18 and 29 years of age. Some 28 percent of people in that age group get songs online, compared with 13 percent of people in their 30s and 40s and 6 percent of Web surfers over 50.
Thirteen percent of white Internet users do it, compared with 25 percent of blacks and 20 percent of Hispanics.
The phone survey involved 1,358 people and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
___
On the Net:
http://www.pewinternet.org
Consumer group sues over copy protected CDs
Reuters
January 5, 2004, 7:10 AM PT
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A European consumer watchdog is suing the world's largest music companies for selling copy protected compact discs that won't play in car stereos and on computers, the Belgium-based organization said on Monday.
The group, known in Dutch as Test-Aankoop, said it has received more than 200 complaints from consumers who objected to a technology that prevents them from making a back-up version on a blank disc and limits playback on certain devices.
Industry observers believe Test-Aankoop's suit is the biggest European legal challenge yet to the music industry's controversial campaign to release copy-protected discs to minimize the impact that digital piracy is having on sales.
Test-Aankoop cited more than a dozen top-selling releases including Shakira's "Laundry Service" and Radiohead's "Hail to the Thief'" that could not be played on multiple devices.
EMI, Universal Music, Sony Music and BMG have been named in the suit, which is expected to be heard this week in a Belgium court.
Warner Music is the only one of the five major music labels not named.
The group said it wants the labels to end the practice of issuing protected discs and to reimburse customers.
"We are trying to establish legal precedent in this matter. Then, we expect other consumer organizations will follow," said Mechels Ivo, a spokesman for the group.
Since the introduction two years ago of copy-protection technology--which typically amounts to a layer of data embedded on the rings of a compact disc that prevent playback on all but a home stereo or portable hi-fi device--the music industry has been hit with torrents of criticism from individual consumers.
The question of whether consumers are entitled to make back-up copies of music they buy has also become a heated legal debate.
In defense of the technological measures, the music industry blames the practice of copying, or "burning" discs for creating a massive black market of online song-swapping that has eaten into sales for three consecutive years.
Test-Aankoop, whose name in French is Test-Achats, said it had contacted industry trade group the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) in the fall about the consumer concerns.
The IFPI could not be reached immediately for comment.
Test-Aankoop made international headlines last year when it triggered a crackdown on counterfeit batteries being sold on the streets for use in Nokia mobile phones. It said the batteries were prone to exploding or catching fire.
Universal Music, Porn Company Mull Deal
44 minutes ago
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Universal Music Group, the world's largest record label, is teaming up with satellite broadcaster DirecTV and a prominent pornography video company to launch a music channel featuring uncensored videos.
According to a report on Friday in the Los Angles Times Universal, a unit of Vivendi Universal_(NYSE:V - news), is in negotiations with DirecTV to offer the new subscription-based channel, known as "1 AM."
Universal and Vivid Entertainment Group, which is known for porn videos such as "Bad Wives" and "Women In Uniform," are expected to split ownership of the venture, the newspaper said, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Other partners in the channel will be the Endeavor talent agency and Shady Records, the Universal-backed label managed by rap superstar Eminem (news - web sites).
General Electric Co. (NYSE:GE - news) unit, NBC, is in the process of combining its television broadcast and cable networks with Universal's parks, film and TV studios.
Representatives of Universal, Vivid, DirecTV, News Corp., and Endeavor were not immediately available for comment.
The newspaper said ownership stakes of the channel are not set in stone, but Universal and Vivid are likely to each own 45 percent stakes, while Endeavor and Shady Records will have 5 percent apiece.
The main players behind the channel are Jimmy Iovine, chairman of Universal's Interscope label and Ari Emanuel, a founding partner of Endeavor, according to the report.
The channel is the latest in a string of efforts to challenge MTV's dominance of music video and pop culture programing.
Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE:CVC - news)-owned Rainbow Media Holdings launched Fuse earlier this year as an edgier upstart. Another venture, Hype TV, backed by Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, recently landed distribution through the television unit of Playboy Enterprises Inc._(NYSE:PLA - news).
DirecTV, the largest satellite broadcaster in the US with 12 million subscribers, is under the control now of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (NCP.AX)(NYSE:NWS - news) in a deal that cleared regulatory approval in December.
rr, that's how it is on the bleeding edge of tech. You either buy into having the coolest most convenient gadgets or you don't. Many have voted with their wallets for the HDD players and they seem to like them....warts and all
rr, your car battery analogy is a good one...try hauling a Wurlitzer jukebox along with you so you can have all your favorite tunes. Portability costs money and for people passionate about their music $80.00 or so for a year or more of complete musical freedom of choice is not such a high price to pay for their portable power supply....
Report on air-safety checks nears finish
By Gary Stoller, USA TODAY
Posted 12/31/2003 7:22 AM Updated 12/31/2003 11:46 AM
The General Accounting Office expects to report next spring on its investigation this year into the role of thousands of private companies that perform aircraft safety inspections on behalf of the government.
"We are at the last throes of gathering data," said Gerald Dillingham, the GAO's director of civil aviation issues.
Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., requested the investigation after a USA TODAY story on Feb. 17 reported that private U.S. companies — rather than Federal Aviation Administration inspectors — had certified the safety of an interactive entertainment system on a Swissair jet that crashed in September 1998.
The newspaper's story, DeFazio said in a letter to the GAO, suggested "the aviation industry was supervising itself without adequate controls and oversight by FAA."
The FAA said, after the crash, that the system's design and installation were unsafe and banned it. This year, Canadian aviation-safety investigators reported that wiring from either the entertainment system or another system caused the accident.
The FAA has relied on designees for years to compensate for shortages in inspectors and a growing workload. The number has grown steadily since the 1970s, and more than 5,000 designees now act on behalf of the agency.
Critics charge that designees may not be impartial certifiers, because they are hired and paid by the companies that want their products certified.
USA TODAY reported that FAA oversight of the Swissair project was lax and that the agency said its "designees" didn't follow certification procedures.
GAO officials say they are not investigating any of the companies or individuals involved in manufacturing, installing or certifying the Swissair entertainment system. "The scope of our review is to take a broad review of the designee program," said Teresa Spisak, the GAO's assistant director for civil aviation.
The entertainment system on the Swissair jet was manufactured by now-defunct Interactive Flight Technologies, a Phoenix-based company. Two former IFT employees said in March that the company brushed off workers' concerns about the entertainment system's safety, long before the accident.
Chevrolet enters small car market with Cobalt
Gary Gentile
Associated Press
Dec. 30, 2003 08:05 AM
LOS ANGELES - General Motors Corp. unveiled its 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt on Monday, the latest new Chevy in a revamped line designed to boost the brand's sales to 3 million units - a level last reached in 1979.
The Cobalt is Chevy's entry in the premium small car market and will compete against the Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic. It will debut in the fall with two versions for the 2005 model year.
"We know we face an uphill fight to regain passenger car share lost to the Japanese over two decades, and in recent years to the entry-level Korean imports," said Gary Cowger, president of GM North America, who gave the keynote speech at a media preview of the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show.
The show opens to the public on Friday.
Both the Cobalt sedan and the coupe will feature wood on the dashboard, leather interior and other premium features such as satellite radio, MP3 player and the company's OnStar emergency notification system. Pricing was not announced.
The Cobalt, along with several other recently announced Chevy models, will be backed by a nationwide ad campaign dubbed "An American Revolution" that features television spots shot by Hollywood action movie director Michael Bay.
The Cobalt is one of 10 new or revamped Chevys to be introduced over a 20-month period. Chevrolet accounts for more than half of GM's annual volume. The brand sold 2.6 million vehicles last year, down from 2.7 million in 2001.
The launch is part of a wider move by GM to fend off Asian competitors, especially to its truck and SUV lines. To aid in that fight, GM will also add three new models to its Saturn brand by 2007, including a small sports car.
"This shows how serious we are about the future of this brand," Cowger said.
GM also intends to shift its advertising focus in coming years to target consumers, rather than blanket television airwaves with costly commercials, he said.
GM will seek to replicate the success that Mercedes-Benz had when it took its 2000 M-Class on a 10-city tour, allowing potential customers to drive it on three test tracks.
Starting next month, GM will rent a million square feet of the former El Toro Marine Base in Orange County and invite owners of competing luxury car brands to a gourmet dinner and test drive of new Cadillac models.
Cowger said GM will also continue its 24-hour test drive program through March.
"It's not all about who has the biggest advertising budget," Cowger said. "It's about who is being heard and who's relevant."
The Los Angeles auto show traditionally kicks off the annual roadshow of new and concept cars. But most auto makers are holding their more significant announcements for the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, which opens Jan. 4.
Cowger said GM's decision to debut the Cobalt in Los Angeles is a recognition of the importance of the California market.
"These trends start here in California," Cowger said. "We recognize that. We're here in full force."
Would $100 iPod compete or cannibalize?
Last modified: December 30, 2003, 1:47 PM PST
By Paul Festa
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
With rumors rife that Apple Computer will unveil a $100 music player at Macworld Expo next month, analysts are split on the likelihood--and wisdom--of such a move.
The widely reported rumors, which Apple declined to address, suggest that the company will unveil an inexpensive iPod that will cover the end of the market dominated by cheaper MP3 players from Creative, Rio and Dell.
The risk in such a move would be undercutting brisk sales of iPods, which now range in price from $299 for a 10GB drive to $499 for a 40GB drive. In Apple's fourth quarter, ended Sept. 27, sales of the iPod generated $121 million in revenue, up 9 percent from the prior quarter and 128 percent from a year ago. The company has said the iPod business is profitable.
"I don’t think Apple currently needs to sell a $100 iPod at risk of cannibalizing sales of existing models and sacrificing gross margins," said Tim Deal, analyst with Technology Business Research in Hampton, N.H. "Apple already has the market lead, so I don't see the need for (the $100 version) when people are buying $299 and $399 models."
Still, other industry analysts think Apple will find more benefit than risk in a low-end iPod, which is expected to be flash memory-based.
"At $100, they would make excellent penetration into the flash market," said Ross Rubin, an analyst with eMarketer in New York City. "If the rumors are true about mini-iPods, it's a great opportunity for them to extend their brand toward a more-affordable player. Apple hasn't been the value leader in digital music. They've been the high-end. But they have stolen the category away from the Rio brand."
Other rumors suggest Apple will introduce new colors or perhaps replaceable skins for the iPod. And some analysts speculate that the company might announce--if not at this coming Macworld then later in the year--a media player for music and movies. Microsoft has detailed its plans for such a device, and products already exist from RCA and Archos.
"There's little question in my mind Apple will put out a portable media player this year (2004)," said Rob Enderle, analyst with the Enderle Group in San Jose, Calif. "It's important to (Apple Chief Executive) Steve (Jobs) to get there first."
MPMan.com obtains Chinese patent
MPMan.com, a major portable audio device maker, said yesterday it has gained a patent in China related to MP3 players, boosting its brand recognition and offering new opportunities for Korean manufacturers.
MPMan.com said Chinese patent authorities finally granted a patent for its MPEG portable sound system technology. The company first filed an application for the technology in April 1998.
Since MPMan.com applied for patent immediately before the spin-off from its parent company Saehan Information System, the formal recipient of the patent rights are Saehan and its then technology partner Digitalcast.
MPMan.com officials said the final registration procedure will revise the names of the patent holders.
Meanwhile, DNNA jointly holds the patent for MP3 player technology as it acquired Sonicblue, which took over Digitalcast.
MPMan.com expects its market position will solidify this year as it can charge royalties for its MP3 technology used by Chinese MP3 player makers.
In January 2001, MPMan.com acquired a patent for MP3 technology from the Korean Intellectual Property Office.
MPMan.com now holds patents for MP3 player technology in Korea, the United States and China, at a time when a growing number of people are embracing the new digital music format and devices.
However, MPMan.com is currently under court receivership after failing to grapple with a liquidity crisis. MPMan.com, which pioneered MP3 player technology development, fell into a cash crunch after spending too much on marketing in the budding stage of the new digital player market.
MP3, or MPEG Audio Layer 3, is an audio compression technology that is part of the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 specifications. Developed in Germany in 1991 by the Fraunhofer Institute, MP3 compress CD-quality sound by a factor of 12, while providing nearly the same quality. MP3 music files are played on software or a player that connects to a PC to transfer the files.
MP3 has made it easy to download quality audio from the Web very quickly, making it a worldwide auditioning system for new musicians and record labels.
Korean manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics Co., Reigncom, Digitalway and Cowon Systems Inc. now dominate the global MP3 player market, and MPMan.com's patent breakthrough is expected to help Korea to strengthen its position in the fast-growing sector.
Korean exports of MP3 players increased 44.2 percent during the first 10 months of the year, reflecting the enhanced quality of their products. Shipments during the January-October period stood at $128 million (1.53 billion won), compared with $88.9 million in the same period last year, said officials at the Electronic Industries Association of Korea.
By Yang Sung-jin
(insight@heraldm.com)
2003.12.31
OT Patriot Scientific sues Sony, others for patent infringement
By Anthony Cataldo
EE Times
December 23, 2003 (6:48 p.m. ET)
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Intellectual property provider Patriot Scientific Corp. today (Dec. 23) said it filed a lawsuit against Sony Corp. of America and other consumer electronics companies over claims that the companies violated one of its key microprocessor-related patents. The claim is part of a broader effort by Patriot to extract royalties from companies using microprocessors with clock speeds that exceed 120-MHz.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the lawsuit against Sony alleges that the Japanese consumer electronics giant makes at least 14 products that infringe Patriot's technology. Among the products are 11 Vaio desktop and laptop computers, DVD equipment and server systems, according to the complaint.
As part of the complaint, Patriot is asking the court for an injunction barring further sales of the products in question along with a discovery hearing to assess damages and royalty payments. All told, the company is seeking damages "in excess of several hundred million dollars" from the group of consumer electronic manufacturers, according statement by Patriot.
Patriot declined to provide the names of the other consumer electronics firms that it says have violated its patent, though it did disclose the case number for the Sony lawsuit. The company acknowledged that Sony was a target after being contacted by EE Times. Calls today to Sony's headquarters went unanswered.
Specifically, Patriot says the companies are violating its 5,809,336 patent. Granted in 1998, the patent describes a microprocessor with a variable speed system clock.
Jeff Wallin, president and chief executive officer of San Diego-based Patriot, said his company tried negotiating with the consumer electronics firms before deciding to file the lawsuit. "There's been dialogue with Sony and others," he said. "We're just trying to protect our rights and our high speed variable clock technology."
Recently, Patriot has made enforcement of its patent portfolio a cornerstone of its business strategy after deciding to emphasize sales of soft intellectual property cores over chips. The company sells a proprietary line of low-power, 32-bit RISC microprocessors called Ignite.
To that end, the company earlier this year set out an "intellectual property compliance program" that targets hundreds of companies using microprocessors that exceed 120-MHz. "We're looking at quite a few companies," Wallin said. "We're approaching this market segment by market segment. We feel there are many companies benefiting from this right now."
2004 to bring loads of 'free' Net music
Monday, December 22, 2003 Posted: 1505 GMT (11:05 PM HKT)
NEW YORK (Reuters/Billboard) -- The great digital music giveaway is about to begin. In the new year, some of the world's biggest brands will promote their products and services by doling out millions of free downloads through alliances with digital music services.
"You're going to see lots of free music given out via third-party companies," buymusic.com founder Scott Blum says. "It's not going to be Apple and iTunes driving the business. It's going to be companies like Pepsi and other third parties that are promoting digital music on bottle caps and on labels."
Indeed, Apple Computer has inked a deal with Pepsi to give away 100 million iTunes downloads in a promotion that kicks off in February with a Super Bowl ad.
And Miller Brewing will give away thousands of Napster-branded digital music players and downloads next summer as part of a new marketing alliance between the beer maker and Napster parent Roxio.
Other beverage suppliers, MP3 player manufacturers, airlines and credit card companies also are looking to get in on the act. Even fast food giant McDonald's confirms it has discussed marketing possibilities with a number of online music distributors.
Seeking connection
The promotions come at a time when brand marketers, particularly beverage companies, are looking to establish broad connections between music and their products -- a strategy well-served by digital music giveaways.
Music giveaways are understood to foster customer loyalty. What's more, they provide consumers with powerful incentives to use the related products, executives say.
The trend has major implications for the nascent digital music business.
Campaigns from Pepsi, Miller and others can educate consumers about online music in a way that is outside the scope of most digital music companies, Apple aside.
Quite simply, brand marketers have much bigger coffers to devote to marketing and promotion than upstart Web firms.
"We're going to drive a lot of trials of the iTunes experience," says Katie Lacey, VP of colas and media at Pepsi-Cola North America. "I think that will be a revolutionary promotion and a revolutionary opportunity."
Through its own marketing initiatives, Apple has helped drive sales of more than 25 million downloads since April. However, Pepsi is giving away four times as many tracks. And it's plugging iTunes on 300 million bottles.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs is on record as saying that the promotion "will go down in history as igniting the legal download market."
Some brand marketers are even going to try selling downloads. Pepsi rival Coca-Cola has unveiled plans to launch a download store in Britain. Mycokemusic.com will go live in January, offering 250,000 new and recent hits from 8,500 acts, according to the company. Specific licensing deals have not been announced. Tracks will sell for 99 pence ($1.71) each.
The site is expected to have a broad promotional component as well. To support the launch, Coca-Cola is planning a yearlong promotional campaign that will include free, exclusive tracks.
In the U.S., Coke sponsors a promotional music site called cokemusic.com, which highlights new music. No music is sold through the destination.
Sean Ryan, VP of music services at Real Networks, acknowledges that brand marketers are looking at all sorts of models for hitching their wagons to digital music. He says some companies are considering sponsorship relationships with music programming along the lines of the soap sponsorships that drove early daytime TV programming.
What all of this means for the value of the digital music market -- and whether the campaigns will inspire greater numbers of consumers to start paying for music online -- remains to be seen.
Emotional ties
Digital download giveaways are just the latest wrinkle in a deepening relationship between the brand marketing community and the music industry.
Youth-oriented lifestyle brands like to piggyback on the strong emotional ties that young consumers have with their favorite songs and artists.
Beverage companies -- such as soda companies and beer makers -- have been particularly keen on using music to boost consumer affinity with their brands and are forming more formal relationships with music companies to ensure they have access to relevant music.
During the past year, Pepsi has worked closely with Sony Music Entertainment on marketing initiatives. Coca-Cola has a similar relationship with Universal Music Group, particularly with Interscope.
"The current business environment lends itself to partnering," says Geoff Cottrill, group director of music for Coca-Cola North America.
The increasing synergies come at a time when record companies -- facing slumping sales -- are looking to promotional platforms beyond radio and music video networks to plug their acts. Tying in with a brand marketer can be a great opportunity to push music through nontraditional marketing channels, record executives acknowledge.
"There's a ton of opportunity, and we're trying to push the envelope," Pepsi's Lacey says.
Accounting for taste
The difference between current music-marketing initiatives and campaigns of old is the way marketers approach the industry.
More often than not, the focus is now on music as a whole rather than on a particular artist. That's because consumers listen to many artists within multiple genres, marketers say.
"Music taste today is like a fingerprint. Everyone's taste is different, and youth pride themselves on having personal music taste. So for us to focus on one artist or one type of music, we would be missing the bigger picture -- that people love music in general," Cottrill says.
RIAA: Shot Through the Heart?
15 minutes ago
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By Cynthia L. Webb, washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
The top brass at the Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) probably have "I Don't Like Mondays" on heavy rotation this morning, especially after a weekend where every story about their legal campaign against music piracy started off with words like "setback," "sharp blow," "struck down" and "stinging rebuke."
That's because a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled on Friday that the RIAA can't force Internet service providers to drop the dime on their customers who are suspected of illegally trading songs online.
The Washington Post took the "sharp blow" approach in its front-page story, while the Associated Press reported that "The ruling does not legalize distributing copyrighted songs over the Internet, but it will greatly increase the cost and effort for the Washington-based Recording Industry Association of America to track such activity and sue those who are swapping music online."
"Stinging rebuke" honors went to the the San Jose Mercury News editorial board, which opined today that the ruling "is also an invitation to Congress to fix copyright law not only to protect the entertainment industry but also consumers whose rights have been trampled." In a separate article on Saturday, the Mercury News said the ruling "means the secret identities of thousands of file swappers are safe for now."
• The Washington Post: Recording Industry Curbed On Music Suits
• The Associated Press via The New York Times: Record Industry May Not Subpoena Providers (Registration required)
• The San Jose Mercury News: Music File Swappers Prevail In Ruling
• The D.C. appeals court's ruling (PDF)
The Post provided more background on the case. "The ruling throws out two lower-court decisions that gave the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) the right to subpoena the names of thousands of suspected users of file-sharing software programs without first filing lawsuits," the Post reported, explaining that the RIAA used the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act as a tool to slap consumers with subpoenas to gather evidence for file-swapping lawsuits. The RIAA has sued hundreds of file-swappers and used the threat of more suits to get people to switch from free file swapping to shelling out dough for music. More on the ruling's effects from the Post: "Consumer advocates and Internet providers hailed yesterday's ruling as an affirmation of privacy rights for Internet users in the face of a mass attack by a single industry. The recording association said it would not be deterred from protecting the business of its members and promised additional lawsuits, saying it would seek the names in a more time-consuming way," the newspaper reported.
The Merc's opinion piece said with the advent of the DMCA, Congress created a "streamlined subpoena process" and "understood that copyright holders need a quick and efficient way to counter electronic theft. But it wrote the digital copyright law in 1998, before the birth of Napster (news - web sites) and its file-sharing offspring. So it's not surprising the law no longer meshes with technology. Unless it wins on appeal, the recording industry will lobby Congress to extend the subpoena power to theft via peer-to-peer networks. Before it consents, Congress must add protections, including notifying the individual involved, requiring judicial review and imposing penalties for abuse," the paper wrote.
• San Jose Mercury News Editorial: Consider The Digital Consumer
Meanwhile, the ruling is "likely to hamper one of the industry's most important strategies: lawsuits against illegal file sharers," The Wall Street Journal said today. "The court struck down a lower court's ruling that had ordered Verizon Communications Inc. to turn over the identities of customers suspected of sharing music via Internet peer-to-peer services. The ruling will make it more cumbersome for the recording industry to learn the identities of major online music swappers -- and thus significantly impede the record labels' ability to quickly file large batches of lawsuits against these individuals," the newspaper reported today.
• The Wall Street Journal: Music Industry's Move Against Swappers Hits Snag (Registration required)
The Shape of Lawsuits to Come
Despite the legal indigestion, the ruling does not mean that the RIAA has to figure out a Plan B. "While the appeals court decision means nothing for those already sued, it does make it more difficult for the record industry to identify others it suspects of online piracy, said Megan Gray, a Washington, D.C., attorney who specializes in intellectual property. Before, under specific provisions of the law, music industry attorneys simply had to ask a U.S. District Court clerk to issue a subpoena - without requiring a judge's signature - to the ISP for the identity of anyone they suspected of copyright infringement," Newsday said.
The AP said "[l]egal experts said they did not expect the appeals ruling to affect 382 civil lawsuits the recording industry has filed since it announced its campaign six months ago. It also was not expected to affect financial settlements with at least 220 computer users who agreed to pay penalties from $2,500 to $7,500 each," the article said.
• Newsday: Court Win For Illegal Music Downloads
• The Associated Press via The New York Times: Record Industry May Not Subpoena Providers (Registration required) (Same link as above)
"While it is a blow to the recording industry, Friday's decision is unlikely to derail the RIAA's ongoing lawsuits against hundreds of individual file swappers. The ruling focuses on the unconventional subpoena power that the organization had claimed in order to seek ISP subscribers' identities and does not address the legality of the lawsuits that have already been filed," CNET's News.com reported. "File swappers are generally anonymous on peer-to-peer networks, identified only by an Internet Protocol (IP) address assigned by their ISP. But names and addresses of subscribers can be determined by reviewing ISP records, which can connect IP addresses to individual accounts. Even if the court's decision is ultimately upheld against appeals, the RIAA still will have the power to identify and sue file swappers. The big difference, though, is this: The RIAA would have to file a 'John Doe' lawsuit against each anonymous swapper, a process that would be considerably more labor-intensive and time-consuming. That in turn could limit the number of people the association has the resources to pursue," the news service reported.
• CNET's News.com: Court: RIAA Lawsuit Strategy Illegal
Another Brick in the Wall
The company behind Kazaa, one of the most popular file-sharing platforms on the Internet, can't be "held liable for copyright infringement of music or movies swapped on its free software, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled Friday," The Associated Press explained. "The news came on the same day a U.S. federal appeals court ruled that the recording industry can't compel U.S. Internet providers to reveal the identities of users believed to be illegally swapping music online."
• The Associated Press via The Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Court: Kazaa Not Responsible For Swapping
River Deep, Mountain High
In an article today, The Los Angeles Times writes that the rift between the recording industry and file-swapping sites like Kazaa and Gnutella (news - web sites) is widening. "The gulf between the labels and the companies behind Kazaa, Blubster and other file-sharing networks seems as wide -- and impossible to bridge -- as ever. Not only are significant business and legal hurdles in the way, but there's also an ocean of bad blood between the two sides," the paper said. "Label executives continue to hold hush-hush meetings with leading distributors of file-sharing software, trying to find common ground. But they also seethe at the companies' refusal to change their software in ways that might deter piracy, using words like 'extortion' and 'rape' to describe their situation. Said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Assn. of America: 'It reminds me of negotiating with the mob. 'If you just pay us some insurance, your storm window won't break anymore.' There's an emotional reaction to that.'"
• The Los Angeles Times: Participants' Distrust Exposed In Privacy Battle (Registration required)
Tuning in to in-flight television with Song's new service
By Michael Prager, Globe Staff, 12/21/2003
Airlines have long tried to mask the undeniable fact that to travel, you have to leave home. Back in the '30s, for example, when Pan Am's China Clipper began overseas service, it offered dining on fine china and had beds.
ADVERTISEMENT
Analogues of those amenities -- hot food, blankets, and pillows for all -- eventually made it into coach. Other amenities were examples of trying to make flying even better than home: movies, magazines, and service at your seat.
But short of promotional blather and a sitcom or two, television has mostly been left in the living room; until last week, it wasn't available on domestic flights to or from Boston. Last week, however, the Delta Air Lines offshoot Song began offering 24 channels of in-flight TV on a West Palm Beach route, and it expects its 36 planes to have it by March.
On the Boeing 757 I checked out before the inaugural TV flight Monday morning, liquid-crystal display screens had been installed into every seat back. They are rectangular and about 6 inches wide, and they provide good -- if not great -- color images. They're controlled either by switches in the armrest or via the monitor itself, a touch screen that can not only switch channels but can switch over to a music trivia game that pits passengers against one another. You can also punch up the food menu.
Song officials say that once the fleet is plugged in, they will upgrade further so that eventually, the planes will offer pay-per-view shows, streaming MP3 audio that will let passengers assemble their own playlists, an interactive flight map, and perhaps other features.
The 24 channels offered are a broad array of basic cable fare that would please just about any traveler: CNN, CNBC, and MSNBC (but no Fox); the Learning, History, and Weather channels; and the Game Show, Cartoon, and Food networks.
What's missing, of course, are the broadcast networks, which will disappoint some, although fall ratings suggest that segment of the market is shrinking daily. It might be of concern to sports fans ruing the loss of NFL football, but if they time it right, they might catch some action on one of
the four flavors of ESPN. If not, there's always snowboarding on ESPN2. Another component of the in-flight entertainment is 24 channels of music, but it's no different from what you'd get on many airlines. Well, the earphones are different, at least: Instead of the big and cheesy foam-covered earphones of questionable quality, Song gives out ear-buds that passengers are invited to keep. During my brief trial, that was a questionable perk: the first two sets I was given, including one I popped brand new from the bag, worked only on one side. At first I thought it could be a faulty jack at my seat, but as I moved about the cabin trying different ones, I noticed that the plugs aren't a perfect fit for the jacks; eventually, Song might want to try a different style or manufacturer.
I experienced a couple of other glitches as well. At one of my seats, the screen froze as I tried to change video inputs. It had to be rebooted at the central controller, but that can be done individually, without affecting other viewers.
At another seat, I used the armrest to shift my weight around, and before I realized what was happening, I had changed the channel three times. It was a reminder that even as the most ubiquitous symbol of homelife takes to the air, it still isn't quite like home.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
moxa1, this business model sounds very familiar...
Mr. Yang said that ReignCom was outsourcing its production; he judged the company's production prowess as weak.
Research and development is being conducted in the company, but the design of the players is handled by Innodesign, a domestic design company. The iRiver is produced in China.
Perhaps we should forget NASDAQ and go for KOSDAQ!! LOL
cheers
Reigncom soars, shares double on Kosdaq debut
Reigncom, a local manufacturer of MP3 players, emerged as the new star on the over-the-counter Kosdaq market yesterday, soaring to above 100,000 won ($76) on its first trading day.
Market watchers said Reigncom shares closed at 105,200 won, which is more than double the initial public offer price of 47,000 won.
The 47,000 won IPO price also topped the list of companies that registered on the Kosdaq this year.
"Considering the 500 won face value of Reigncom, this is remarkable," said Lee Ho-jin, an analyst at Shinyoung Securities who predicted the winning streak will go on for some time.
Reigncom, more famously known for its MP3 Player "iRiver," boasts a 20-percent share of the world's multimedia player market.
According to company president Yang Duk-jun, who recently became Korea's third-wealthiest person based on the value of his Reigncom shares, the venture firm owes its success to innovative technology and strategic tie-ups with leading foreign players.
"We are joining hands with Microsoft Corp. next year to jointly develop a new portable multimedia player," he said, a fact that gave his shares an added boost on the market.
This year, Reigncom expects to rake in 220 billion won in sales, a huge jump from the 70 billion it raised during its first year in business.
As of yesterday, Yang's shares were worth an estimated 163.5 billion won, the highest following Lee Jae-woong of Daum Communication and Lee Hae-jin of NHN, an online search engine. Both companies are listed on the Kosdaq.
Other employees at Reigncom also benefited from the IPO as nearly half of the company's 260 staff each hold between 1,000 and 5,000 shares.
Citing strong fundamentals and growing demand on the market, local securities companies took a favorable stance on the MP3 player maker.
Good Morning Shinhan Securities suggested a target price 130,000 won for Reigncom shares, projecting that the venture company's net profit should rise an average 21.1 percent annually until 2006.
"The 130,000 won is the minimum line that reflects all the potential risks of competition," said an analyst at the brokerage.
Mirae Asset Securities spoke with a similarly optimistic tone but warned that investors should keep in mind the company's heavy dependence on MP3 players and the low entry barriers to the market that could breed stronger competitors.
By Kim Ji-hyun
(jemmie@heraldm.com)
2003.12.20
Very interesting on micropayments...
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/32440.html
Reign-who'? Think Rio
MP3 music maker bursts onto the Kosdaq
"We could not afford to carry advertisements on television or newspapers, so we focused on Internet advertising. We owe much to our young customers who wrote reviews on the Internet boards," said Yang Deok-joon, 52, the president and chief executive officer of ReignCom,
The MP3 player manufacturer has emerged as a Cinderella on the Seoul stock market; it was listed on the secondary Kosdaq market yesterday. The stock opened at 94,000 won, double the price of its initial public offering. Fifty seconds after trading begun, it stopped. The share price reached the daily 12-percent limit and closed at 105,200 won.
The 1.6 million shares, a 24-percent stake, that Mr. Yang holds in ReignCom are worth more than 160 billion won ($134 million). He launched the company in early 1999 with 50 million won in capital.
ReignCom is now the top MP3 player maker in Korea, with a 50-percent market share. The company also has a 22-percent world market share, although it began to make the portable digital audio device only three years ago. The company began producing units under its own brand name, iRiver, in January 2002.
In the last two years, the company has overtaken Samsung Electronics Co., Phillips and Apple Computer in sales.
Before founding ReignCom, Mr. Yang worked at Samsung Electronics for 20 years. The company first distributed semiconductors, but then began making MP3 players. "I judged that devices reproducing digital images, sounds and other content would prevail," he said.
ReignCom had difficulty securing distributors for its own products so it began to supply them to the U.S.-based SONICblue under the brand name Rio. In January, 2002, the company also launched its own brand.
"In particular, we did our best in after-sales services," said Jo Yong-jun, an official at ReignCom. "We repaired and delivered our units to customers' homes and offices at our expense."
An Internet advertisement with the theme, "Sorry, Sony" also got the company some attention here.
Mr. Yang said he expected MP3 players to evolve from the current simple audio devices to comprehensive digital content reproducers. "We will launch an MP3 player that can be used also as video and game player next year," he said.
Mr. Yang said that ReignCom was outsourcing its production; he judged the company's production prowess as weak.
Research and development is being conducted in the company, but the design of the players is handled by Innodesign, a domestic design company. The iRiver is produced in China.
Sales figures at ReignCom have jumped 263 percent per year on average since 1999. Net profits have soared by 518 percent per year.
The company forecast that its revenues would reach 230 billion won this year; the figure is three times the company's revenues in 2002.
by Kim Jun-hyun <symoon@joongang.co.kr>
2003.12.20
Willis Adcock, who brought Kilby to TI, dead at 81
By David Lammers
EE Times
December 19, 2003 (11:30 a.m. ET)
AUSTIN, Texas — Willis Adcock, who recruited Jack Kilby to Texas Instruments and supported the work that led to the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958, died here on Dec. 16 at age 81.
Kilby, already an accomplished inventor in the young field of solid-state electronics over a decade of work at Centralab in Milwaukee, had several job offers before him in 1958. After receiving a letter from Adcock, who was manager of TI's development department, Kilby decided to move to Dallas.
Kilby, who will be an honorary pallbearer at Adcock's funeral here on Saturday, said, “I always felt indebted to Willis. He hired me at TI and helped me do the work I wanted to do.”
Adcock retired as a vice president of TI in 1986, moving to the University of Texas at Austin as a professor of electrical engineering. He is survived by his wife, Sara McCoy Adcock, and seven children.
Adcock in mid-1958 gave Kilby approval to pursue the “monolithic” approach to connecting discrete components, even though Adcock primarily was involved with the “Micro-Module” approach supported by the U.S. Army, in which each discrete component had connecting wires that could be connected together. Kilby, according to an account by author T.R. Reid, disliked the Micro-Module approach because it closely resembled work at Centralab that had appeared unpromising.
During the TI corporate vacation that summer, Kilby developed ideas about how to use silicon to make resistors and capacitors, as well as transistors, ideas that led to the integrated circuit. He showed his notes to Adcock, who was interested but who expressed doubts that the approach could be built.
As a condition for pursuing the approach and diverting resources from the Micro-Module project supported by the Army, Adcock asked that Kilby use silicon make a working resistor, and a working capacitor, and connect the discrete components, according to author Reid's history of the integrated circuit: “The Chip: How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution.”
After that test circuit worked, Adcock gave Kilby the go-ahead to pursue the monolithic approach on a single piece of silicon. Adcock was present on Sept. 12, 1958, along with Texas Instruments chairman Mark Shepherd and other TI executives, when Kilby hooked up his phase-shift oscillator to an oscilloscope.
Reid describes the scene, saying that Kilby was nervous because no one had tried anything like this before. He checked the connections on the chip, fiddled with the dials of the oscilloscope, and glanced at Adcock, who gave him a “here goes nothing shrug.”
Kilby “checked the connections again and took a deep breath. He pushed the switch. Immediately, a bright green snake of light started undulating across the screen in a perfect, unending sine wave.”
The men, according to Reid's account, looked at Kilby, looked at the chip, looked at the scope, and then broke into wide smiles.
RealNetworks sues Microsoft alleging monopoly of digital media
RACHEL KONRAD
Associated Press
Posted on Thu, Dec. 18, 2003
SAN JOSE, Calif. - RealNetworks Inc. filed an antitrust suit against Microsoft Corp. on Thursday, alleging that its competitor illegally monopolized the growing field of digital media by requiring every Windows user to take Microsoft's media player.
RealNetworks alleged that the software giant has violated state and federal antitrust laws, sold software at a loss to boost market share, and exploited its monopoly to restrict competition.
The Seattle-based digital media company said Microsoft "pursued a broad course of predatory conduct over a period of years by abusing its monopoly power, resulting in substantial lost revenue and business for RealNetworks."
Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft called the lawsuit - the latest salvo in a bitter cross-town rivalry - "unfortunate."
"There is vibrant competition in this market, and Real Networks' own reported growth shows that they have thrived on Windows and many other operating system platforms," the company stated in an e-mail.
The lawsuit alleges that Microsoft, which builds the Windows operating system that controls more than 90 percent of the personal computers in the United States, "bullies" PC makers into installing its media player instead of rivals'. The company puts restrictions in its contracts so that PC makers that want to include Windows must also include media players and other software, the lawsuit said.
Microsoft forces Windows users to take Microsoft's media player, "whether they want it or not," to the exclusion of players made by RealNetworks or other competitors, RealNetworks alleges.
RealNetworks executives said Thursday they would seek more than $1 billion in lost business and injunctive relief. The lawsuit does not mention a specific amount in damages.
"While we much prefer competing in the market ... our board has made a carefully considered business decision to take this action to end Microsoft's illegal conduct and recover substantial damages on behalf of our shareholders," said RealNetworks chairman and chief executive Rob Glaser, who worked at Microsoft for a decade starting in 1983 before founding RealNetworks.
"We believe our business would be substantially larger today if Microsoft were playing by the rules," Glaser said.
RealNetworks filed the lawsuit against Microsoft in San Jose federal court because many of the witnesses who will testify live in Silicon Valley, said RealNetworks spokesman Greg Chiemingo.
The charges are similar to those brought by the European Commission, which has accused Microsoft of trying to squash competing audiovisual software by including its media player with Windows. European regulators are demanding Microsoft either produce a version of Windows without its media player or incorporate rival programs into the package.
The lawsuit comes as Microsoft tries to settle suits filed by competitors and the federal and state governments. The cases were filed in the wake of a 1999 federal court ruling that Microsoft abused its power to maintain its monopoly on the Windows operating system.
Microsoft agreed to pay $750 million to Time Warner Inc., which had seen an erosion in the market share of its Netscape browser as Microsoft's Internet Explorer grew. Microsoft also agreed to pay $23.3 million to Mountain View-based Be Inc. to settle that company's antitrust lawsuit.
In late October, Microsoft agreed to give $200 million worth of computer-gear vouchers to customers to settle class-action antitrust lawsuits in Kansas, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee and Washington, D.C. With similar cases settled in California, Florida, Montana and West Virginia, Microsoft's total payments to consumers exceeds $1.55 billion.
RealNetworks expects to spend approximately $12 million on the lawsuit in 2004, in addition to $1.5 million in the current quarter.
Industry analysts have expected the lawsuit for several quarters, as Glaser escalated the tone of his statements against the software giant. But they say the case could go either way.
"There's no question Microsoft feels it has the right to include its media player in any version of Windows, which is the same argument it had for the Web browser," said Tim Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies. "Now it's up to Real to prove whether Microsoft has violated antitrust laws."
RealNetworks stock closed Thursday at $5.34, up 8.8 percent from Wednesday.
Microsoft stock closed Thursday at $27.40, up 1.3 percent from Wednesday.
In 1995, RealNetworks became the first company to sell streaming media - software that allows people to send or receive huge amounts of data, such as music or videos, through Internet connections. More than 1.15 million people pay for RealNetworks products, which allow them to download MP3 music files, watch movie trailers, or listen to live radio stations broadcast on the Internet.
Microsoft, which would not say how many people use its player, began investing in streaming media in the mid-1990s.
In July 1997, Microsoft spent $30 million on a minority stake in RealNetworks but divested in November 1998, causing RealNetworks' stock to sink.
"There's bad blood between the companies," said Rob Enderle, independent industry consultant with the Enderle Group.
---
Editors: AP Technology Writer May Wong contributed to this story.
ON THE NET
http://www.microsoft.com
http://www.real.com
FWIW..re: portalplayer
From: Robert Putnam [robert@atcsd.com] Sent: Fri 11/14/2003 11:18 AM
To: xxxxxxx
Cc:
Subject:
Attachments:
View As Web Page
Thank you for your e-mail, David. We continue to work with PortalPlayer on OEM business opportunities.
Best regards,
Robert Putnam
Senior Vice President
e.Digital Corporation
13114 Evening Creek Dr. S.
San Diego, CA 92128
http://www.edig.com
Phone: (858) 679-3168
Fax: (858) 486-3922
robert@edig.com
AOL Members Now Have Instant Access to Apple's iTunes Music Store
Thursday December 18, 1:00 pm ET
Exclusive AOL Recordings Now Available on iTunes Music Store
DULLES, Va. and CUPERTINO, Calif., Dec. 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- America Online, Inc. and Apple® today announced that AOL members can now preview, purchase and download songs available on AOL Music, the world's number one music destination, by simply clicking an iTunes® button placed next to featured tracks. The iTunes button will immediately launch Apple's iTunes Music Store, the world's number one download music service, and automatically select the featured track for preview or one-click purchase and download. In addition, AOL members can use their AOL Wallet or card-on-file to conveniently purchase and download songs from iTunes. Starting today, AOL is also offering iTunes Music Store customers the opportunity to purchase exclusive and original music from its popular music programs Sessions@AOL and Broadband Rocks.
"Now for the first time millions of music fans on AOL, who watch their favorite artists perform in an intimate studio setting on Sessions@AOL, have the option to purchase the song digitally via iTunes and then download it right to their iPod," said Evan Harrison, vice president and general manager, AOL Music.
"Apple and AOL are making it easy for AOL's millions of U.S. subscribers to legally purchase and download music," said Rob Schoeben, Apple's vice president of Applications Marketing. "AOL members can now conveniently use their AOL screen names and passwords to log onto the iTunes Music Store and use their AOL Wallet or card-on-file to immediately purchase and download songs."
AOL members who purchase songs from the iTunes Music Store will have the benefit of Apple's groundbreaking personal use rights and 99 cents-per-song pricing, and access to online gift certificates for family and friends, an "Allowance" feature that lets parents automatically deposit monthly funds into their kids' iTunes Music Store account and more than 5,000 audiobooks. The iTunes Music Store offers a catalog of more than 400,000 songs from all five major music companies and over 200 independent music labels.
"'Man on the Moon' is my favorite live song. This version turned out pretty well and a little different from what you'd get at a concert," said Michael Stipe, lead singer for R.E.M. "I had a blast doing Sessions@AOL and hope you enjoy this little slice of it. Prep the iPods, here we come, and thanks for listening."
Select exclusive recordings from AOL's breakthrough original music programs, Sessions@AOL and Broadband Rocks, are available immediately on the iTunes Music Store. Intimate, in-studio recordings from Sessions@AOL include:
* 50 Cent, "P.I.M.P."
* Fleetwood Mac, "Landslide"
* Toby Keith, "I Love This Bar"
* R.E.M., "Man on the Moon"
* Sarah McLachlan, "Fallen"
* Jason Mraz, "The Remedy"
* David Bowie, "Rebel Rebel"
* Liz Phair, "Why Can't I"
* Iggy Pop, "I Wanna Be Your Dog"
* Jet, "Are You Gonna Be My Girl"
* Obie Trice, "Got Some Teeth"
* The Bangles, "Manic Monday"
* Pink, "Trouble"
Select exclusive live performance tracks from AOL's concert series
Broadband Rocks include:
-- Hilary Duff, "Come Clean"
-- Lou Reed, "Perfect Day"
-- Limp Bizkit, "Break Stuff"
According to AOL's recent Online Shopping Cities survey, music and video products top the list of planned online holiday gift purchases, with more than half of those surveyed planning to buy them. Sales of digital singles now outpace physical single sales by nearly a six-to-one margin, according to Nielsen SoundScan.*
AOL members can access the iTunes Music Store and more information at AOL Keyword: iTunes. Direct links to buy songs are being integrated throughout AOL's music programming and products beginning today.
* Figures cited are for the week ending Dec. 14, 2003.
America Online, Inc., is a wholly owned subsidiary of Time Warner Inc. Based in Dulles, Virginia, America Online is the world's leader in interactive services, Web brands, Internet technologies and e-commerce services.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings.
NOTE: Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh, iTunes and iPod are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Apple Computer, Inc.
Yahoo tunes out British music download service
Thursday December 18, 11:25 am ET
LONDON, Dec 18 (Reuters) - American Web media firm Yahoo Inc. (NasdaqNM:YHOO - News) said on Thursday it ended a contract with Britain's OD2 to bring music downloads to its UK users, exiting one of the most competitive markets in the music industry.
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The decision came as Yahoo finalises the integration of Dotmusic, a popular UK music site it recently acquired from BT Group (London:BT.L - News), into its Launch music service.
In March, then-owner BT announced an alliance with UK technology firm OD2 to bring downloads to Dotmusic subscribers.
Yahoo acquired Dotmusic for an undisclosed sum in October with the plan of merging it with Launch into one of Europe's biggest online music properties. The advertising-supported site will offer song streams, music videos and record reviews.
Yahoo made the decision to exit the download business just as many of its biggest rivals, including Microsoft's (NasdaqNM:MSFT - News) MSN and Time Warner's (NYSE:TWX - News) AOL UK unit, have launched or are planning to launch subscription download services of their own.
In an address to music labels this month, Jay Berman, the CEO of trade group the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), predicted that download services from Amazon (NasdaqNM:AMZN - News), plus Apple Computer's (NasdaqNM:AAPL - News) iTunes and Roxio's (NasdaqNM:ROXI - News) Napster, will debut in the first half of 2004.
"The timing doesn't worry us. (Selling music downloads) is not a high-margin business. In fact, it's a thin-margin business. The players in this area have other objectives, like iTunes. They're there to sell iPods," said Director of Entertainment and Media, Shannon Ferguson.
She added that Yahoo has not ruled out offering music downloads at some point in the future. But, she said, it would not do so unless the company decided to sell downloads to Launch users in all regions, including the United States.
"We want a globally consistent offer," she said of Launch.
Toshiba develops world's smallest HDD
Posted 12/17/2003 @ 12:54 AM, by Hannibal
It's 3GB and about the size of a nickel. Dig it:
December 15, 2003 (TOKYO) -- Toshiba Corp has developed a hard-disk drive that measures 0.85 of an inch in diameter, smaller than the record 1-inch HDD that Hitachi Global Storage Technologies released in November, company sources said on December 13. The drive, which is small enough to be used in mobile phones, can store up to two hours of high-definition moving images and just under 60 hours of music. Its tiny size will likely lead to the development of extremely small video cameras...
Toshiba aims to start shipping samples to makers of cellular phones in summer 2004 and begin full-fledged production in early 2005 at its Ome, Tokyo plant. After order volume rises, production will be moved to its HDD plant in the Philippines.
I was wondering what people would do with 3GB of storage on a mobile phone, and then I remembered this story. Ok, maybe practice of surfing for gigabytes of pr0n on a mobile phone in public will take off in, say, Japan, where my friends report that they've seen people openly looking at bizarre tentacle rape manga on the subway and where schoolgirls' used underpants were at one point available via vending machines (no kidding!), but I have a hard time seeing it take off, here. I imagine a better idea would be a phone/mp3 player with plenty of storage. Heck, if there were a 3GB phone/mp3 player available today I'd replace my dead iPod with it in a heartbeat.
[Discussion
Apple blasé about online music rivals
Tue Dec 16, 7:09 AM ET
By Michelle Kessler, USA TODAY
Who's afraid of retail giant Wal-Mart? Not Apple Computer (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs (news - web sites).
Jobs said Monday that more than 25 million songs have been downloaded from Apple's iTunes music store, launched in April. That topped analysts' expectations for the service, which charges 99 cents a song.
But iTunes, challenged now only by small players, will soon face big competitors. Wal-Mart (WMT) is expected to launch a downloading site before year's end. Sony (SNE) and Microsoft (MSFT) plan to enter the market in 2004.
Jobs says he has no plans to lower prices or dramatically change iTunes to address the new threats. "We're going to continue on our winning strategy," he said in an interview.
Wal-Mart usually drives prices down when it enters a market, says economist Mark Zandi of Economy.com. But Jobs says Apple already competes with low prices, such as rival Rhapsody's 79-cent downloads. Quality keeps customers loyal, Jobs says. Besides, Wal-Mart's Web store "did not set the world on fire," Jobs says. "We'll see if it (music site) is competitive." Walmart.com is the No. 4 shopping Web site, says Nielsen/NetRatings.
Nor does Jobs plan to let iTunes customers use portable digital music players made by other companies. Today, customers can download songs to nearly any PC but need Apple's iPod if they want a portable player. (Apple makes most of its money selling iPods, not songs, analysts say.) "Our strategy is to support the No. 1 MP3 player in the market," Jobs says. IPod has 50% market share, researcher NPD Group says.
Rivals such as Dell have introduced more flexible portable players for other services. Jobs says Apple "trounced Dell this quarter" in music player sales. Researcher Jupiter predicts the $80 million digital music market will hit $1.6 billion in 2008. The field is quickly getting more crowded.
Jobs also said that half of iTunes sales are entire albums, not individual songs. Some music critics and artists feared that selling songs individually would destroy the album format.
MP3 players turn into multimedia devices
Korea's major MP3 player makers are rushing to adopt digital multimedia features for their top sellers as more users seek functions in addition to music.
MP3 players already have altered the music distribution business, since an hour of near CD-quality audio files can be downloaded onto a player's memory within five minutes from a personal computer's disk drive.
Now the makers of MP3 players plan to add a high-powered multimedia player to their product lines next year.
The basic concept is that the new product will be fitted with a large-capacity hard disk drive and Microsoft's Portable Media Center operating system, offering video, MP3 music, photos and other digital media content.
Samsung Electronics, a major home appliance and handset maker, said it would unveil its multimedia player at 2004 CES, at a trade show in Las Vegas early next year. The new model will adopt 20-gigabyte memory, Samsung officials said.
Top MP3 player maker iRiver Co. also said it would roll out a similar model in the domestic market in the first quarter of next year.
Samsung and iRiver already have launched HDD-type MP3 player models, posing a challenge to Apple's bipod, which has long monopolized the HDD-type MP3 player market.
Manufacturers are now focusing on the potential of mainstream HDD-type MP3 players as multimedia-oriented devices. They support a variety of file formats including OGG, a file type that is free from license disputes. And its large memory capacity, if combined with new digital services such as satellite digital broadcasting, is expected to reshape the way people enjoy music and entertainment.
Manufacturers said even mainstream MP3 players with a built-in flash memory are adopting more multimedia features to stay competitive.
Thanks to the fast-paced development of new products with sophisticated features, Digital way, another leading MP3 player maker, and iRiver are clamoring to secure enough production to meet export orders.
Manufacturers also are refining the design of their products as young MP3 player users are sensitive to chic, trend-setting designs.
Digitalway is promoting lightweight MP3 players while other makers of MP players are using a design-oriented business strategy. Cowon Systems Inc. is promoting its mainstay MP3 player, iAUDIO, which features a design concept with a fashion-statement emphasis.
In 1999, Korean MP3 player manufacturers started with simple, no-frills models that had only 16 megabytes in memory. Technologies have upgraded dramatically since then, and an MP3 player with 1 gigabytes flash memory is now available.
Korea has led the global MP3 player market, an offshoot of other digital devices and the nation's booming high-speed Internet market.
By Yang Sung-jin
(insight@heraldm.com)
2003.12.17
MP3 players turn into multimedia devices
Korea's major MP3 player makers are rushing to adopt digital multimedia features for their top sellers as more users seek functions in addition to music.
MP3 players already have altered the music distribution business, since an hour of near CD-quality audio files can be downloaded onto a player's memory within five minutes from a personal computer's disk drive.
Now the makers of MP3 players plan to add a high-powered multimedia player to their product lines next year.
The basic concept is that the new product will be fitted with a large-capacity hard disk drive and Microsoft's Portable Media Center operating system, offering video, MP3 music, photos and other digital media content.
Samsung Electronics, a major home appliance and handset maker, said it would unveil its multimedia player at 2004 CES, at a trade show in Las Vegas early next year. The new model will adopt 20-gigabyte memory, Samsung officials said.
Top MP3 player maker iRiver Co. also said it would roll out a similar model in the domestic market in the first quarter of next year.
Samsung and iRiver already have launched HDD-type MP3 player models, posing a challenge to Apple's bipod, which has long monopolized the HDD-type MP3 player market.
Manufacturers are now focusing on the potential of mainstream HDD-type MP3 players as multimedia-oriented devices. They support a variety of file formats including OGG, a file type that is free from license disputes. And its large memory capacity, if combined with new digital services such as satellite digital broadcasting, is expected to reshape the way people enjoy music and entertainment.
Manufacturers said even mainstream MP3 players with a built-in flash memory are adopting more multimedia features to stay competitive.
Thanks to the fast-paced development of new products with sophisticated features, Digital way, another leading MP3 player maker, and iRiver are clamoring to secure enough production to meet export orders.
Manufacturers also are refining the design of their products as young MP3 player users are sensitive to chic, trend-setting designs.
Digitalwayis promoting lightweight MP3 players while other makers of MP players are using a design-oriented business strategy. Cowon Systems Inc. is promoting its mainstay MP3 player, iAUDIO, which features a design concept with a fashion-statement emphasis.
In 1999, Korean MP3 player manufacturers started with simple, no-frills models that had only 16 megabytes in memory. Technologies have upgraded dramatically since then, and an MP3 player with 1 gigabytes flash memory is now available.
Korea has led the global MP3 player market, an offshoot of other digital devices and the nation's booming high-speed Internet market.
By Yang Sung-jin
(insight@heraldm.com)
2003.12.17
Flying billboards in the sky?
Air Canada considers increasing advertising on its planes to raise cash
NICOLAS VAN PRAET
The Gazette
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
ADVERTISEMENT
Passengers on Air Canada could soon face a bevy of advertising when they eat their meals, go to the bathroom, or even just look at the plane they're about to board.
The Montreal airline is considering allowing companies to slap advertising on meal tray tables and even on the side of its aircraft, said Air Canada official Isabelle Arthur.
That's on top of a slew of other localities the company's bosses have already approved as spots for advertising sales.
Arthur said ad space is available, but has not yet been sold, in Air Canada lavatories, on seat head rests, on beverage meal carts, and airport hangars.
Several companies already use so-called "non-traditional" vehicles to advertise on Air Canada. These include ads glued onto newspapers, seat pocket inserts, and the backs of boarding passes, Arthur said.
In addition, the airline sells so-called "traditional" print advertising in its enRoute in-flight magazine and broadcasts commercials on its in-flight entertainment. The airline also allows certain companies to advertise "in a very discreet fashion" in its 21 Maple Leaf Lounges, Arthur said.
"The sky's the limit when it comes to Air Canada advertising opportunities," Arthur said.
Air travellers are a highly coveted target market because they're an affluent and captive consumer audience.
Other airlines have experimented with different advertising in the past. German airline Lufthansa has had its planes decked out in ads by engineering company Siemens.
Last week, U.S. carrier America West said it is giving up all the table trays on its 143 plane fleet to advertisers like Mercedes-Benz and Bank of America.
Air Canada has been in bankruptcy protection for over eight months. Despite posting a
$17-million profit from operations in the last quarter, the airline lost $263 million overall because of restructuring charges.
Advertisers are desperate for new ways to reach consumers constantly blasted by, and deathly bored with, many television commercials. But experts say it's hard to pick new methods that don't alienate consumers.
"You can't take a (pee) these days without staring into some stupidity," said Rick Erickson, an independent airline analyst based in Calgary.
Erickson said Air Canada will focus more on selling broadcast commercials when, as he expects, it introduces a free-TV system at every seat, like that coming this spring at rival WestJet Airlines.
"That's more likely to occur than to see 'Buy A&W hamburgers!' on the side of food trolleys. That's a step too far. It kind of transgresses the cachet which airlines still like to project."
nvanpraet@thegazette.canwest.com
© Copyright 2003 Montreal
ITunes Music Store Downloads Top 25 Million Songs
Business News [12-16-2003] more news
Apple today announced that music fans have purchased and downloaded more than 25 million songs from Apple's iTunes Music Store since it launched in April 2003. The 25 millionth song, purchased last Friday afternoon, was "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" by Frank Sinatra.
MusicDish Network SponsorApple also announced that over $1 million of iTunes online gift certificates and allowances have been purchased since the features were added to the iTunes Music Store on October 16, 2003.
"With over 25 million songs purchased and downloaded to date, the iTunes Music Store is hands-down the most successful online music store," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "Music fans are buying and downloading almost 1.5 million songs per week from the iTunes Music Store, which is a rate of 75 million songs per year."
Apple is the only company to offer music fans a complete solution for buying, managing and listening to their digital music collections anywhere with the unique combination of the iTunes digital music jukebox software, the pioneering iTunes Music Store and the market-leading iPod digital music player.
The iTunes Music Store offers Windows and Mac users the same music catalog of more than 400,000 songs, the same "gold standard" personal use rights and the same 99 cents-per-song pricing. The second generation iTunes Music Store launched October 16 includes: online gift certificates for family and friends; Apple's innovative and patent-pending online "Allowance" feature which allows parents to automatically deposit funds into their kids' iTunes Music Store account every month; more than 5,000 audiobooks which can be purchased with one click and listened to on a Mac or Windows computer as well as on iPods; Celebrity Playlists; and new exclusive tracks from more than 60 artists. The iTunes Music Store offers music from all five major music companies and over 200 independent music labels.
Quadruple-witching may stir US stocks Friday
Tuesday December 16, 2:26 pm ET
By Doris Frankel
CHICAGO, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Wall Street could be headed toward increased volatility and volume this Friday as investors rush to adjust their positions during "quadruple-witching" -- when four different types of options and futures contracts expire.
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The so-called witching hours for stock options, index options, index futures and single-stock futures occur each quarter on a Friday.
The event could spark sudden spikes and dips in the stock market when December derivative contracts stop or settle at different times, as some investors either exercise positions or roll them forward at the last minute.
Jon Najarian, chief market strategist with PTI Securities.com. noted some volatility could result from a number of outstanding equity options contracts in the technology sector which have not yet been exercised.
An equity option gives the holder the right to buy or sell a stock at a predetermined price within a set period of time.
"The potential driver for volatility are these at-the-money calls or puts that have extremely large open interest, such as Intel Corp. (NasdaqNM:INTC - News) and Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM:MSFT - News; options), and traders have the option to exercise them at the very last minute or let them expire worthless," Najarian said.
For example, if an investor sold at-the-money options contracts, he would have to cover the potential long or short stock positions, which would create buying or selling pressure in the underlying stocks, said Peter Dunay, chief market strategist at Wall Street Access.
An at-the-money option has an exercise price that is equal to the current market price of the underlying stock.
But, at the end of the year, many players are taking profits on some of the best-performing stocks to lock in gains before quadruple-witching, said Tim Biggam, chief options strategist with Man Securities.
"The recent intraday swings in the overall stock market have allowed traders to unwind their positions early this week," Biggam said.
Most December index options and index futures, such as those on the Standard & Poor's 500 (CBOE:^SPZ - News) index, cease trading on Thursday and settle at Friday's opening.
Options contracts on the S&P 100 (CBOE:^OEX - News) index stop trading on Friday afternoon, while individual December stock options cease trading at Friday's close.
A fourth ingredient to the brew is single-stock futures, which made their U.S. debut in November 2002.
At OneChicago and NQLX -- the two electronic exchanges that offer futures on individual stocks -- December single-stock futures close and settle by the end of Friday.
OneChicago offers 94 single stock futures and 15 Dow Jones Microsector index futures, while NQLX lists 66 securities futures products.
Single-stock futures are contracts that allow investors to buy or sell 100 shares of an individual stock at a certain price on a set future date.
But some traders do not see major volatility in that product because many players had rolled over their positions as early as last week.
"On Dec. 10, OneChicago traded a record 243,198 securities futures, and that was primarily a roll from the expiring December contracts out into the January and other 2004 monthly cycles," Najarian said.
Interesting read..The Thrill Is Gone
December 14, 2003
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Airline Travel Isn't What It Used to Be--and It's Not Just Because of 9-11. Forced Into Action, the Industry Is Attempting to Redefine the Flying Experience. By Michael Walker
Very early one morning, a limo deposited me, my laptop and my carry-on at the United Airlines terminal at LAX. Until recently—recently being Sept. 11, 2001—flying out of Los Angeles or any airport in any great city, even at the crack of dawn, was dusted with the vestigial glamour and excitement of the Jet Age. LAX was one of the glammest. The Theme Building vied with the ravishing Boeing 707 and Eero Saarinen's TWA terminal at JFK International Airport in New York as the preeminent symbol of Jet Age élan. (When it opened in 1961, the restaurant—slung beneath the building's parabolic arches—required jackets for men.) The airport's smart International Style terminals, its celebrities — Twiggy! Sophia! the Beatles! — squinting into the Southern California sun fresh off a flight from Rome or London or Paris, confirmed the preeminence of jet travel and, by extension, of L.A. in the bustling New Frontierish world order.
Instead, what greeted me at LAX was the strange brew of pandemonium and tedium perfected in societies where unfettered travel, along with other civil liberties, exists only in theory. A 25-yards-long queue snaked from the terminal, where an Ellis Island-like tableau of sweating, cursing new-millennium masses yearned only to know which wretched line to join. I made my 7:30 flight with three minutes to spare after first being told to remove my belt, wristwatch, keys and titanium glasses while juggling my wallet, boarding pass and driver's license as my boots were swabbed for traces of explosives. Stuffed into the aft cabin of a sold-out 747, I thought about a conversation I'd had with Robert van der Linden, the curator of air transportation at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
"Most people's expectations about flying date from the popular culture of the '60s—the Jet Age and the mythmaking in that," Van der Linden said. "How many movies begin with a 707 taking off or landing?" While watching the Steve McQueen classic "Bullitt," Van der Linden said he was struck by the scenes at the San Francisco airport. "This was 1968," he said. "There was no security. No one was checking IDs. There were no metal detectors." He paused, adding with considerable understatement, "It was a lot easier to fly then."
Among the casualties of the 9-11 terrorist attacks was a concept as wispy and sentimental as the cirrus in the pale blue yonder: that flying was somehow inevitably linked with style, glamour and sophistication. The appalling images of United and American airliners being piloted into the World Trade Center towers would seem to have obliterated whatever romanticism airline travel still possessed; vehicles for uplift—literal and metaphorical—transformed into weapons.
"I think when all of us saw that second plane hit it re-contextualized the airplane in all of our minds," says John H. Hill, curator in charge of aviation for the San Francisco Airport Museums.
Running a gantlet of full-body searches to an oversold Airbus, it's hard to imagine flying was ever anything other than a forced and sometimes fearful march. But flying was once indisputably glamorous. Pan American stewardesses were required to speak two languages (three was preferred), first-class compartments were outfitted with snug cocktail lounges and dinner might include chateaubriand carved seat side. Some of this lives on in the Lucullan first-class services on transoceanic airliners, but for the most part, flying's shaken-not-stirred superfabulousness has been downgraded to standby. In fact, the upheaval subsequent to the 9-11 attacks was merely the finale to a long, insidious slide in standards throughout the industry. "Airline passengers are fundamentally changing their expectations," says Dean Headley, a professor at Wichita State University's department of marketing who publishes an annual report on airline performance. "Ten years ago people still expected airlines to be nice. That's gone."
Now, "going to the airport is even less glamorous than going to the station to get on a commuter train," says Clay Timon, chairman of Landor Associates, the San Francisco company that created brand identities for, among others, Delta, Northwest, Japan Airlines, Cathay Pacific, and Song, Delta's low-fare airline-within-an airline.
The airline industry is in its worst straits since the 1991 Gulf War, which tipped Pan Am and Eastern into liquidation. Although American, Northwest and Continental eked out profits in the third quarter of 2003, and United, which declared bankruptcy last December, dramatically reduced its losses from a year ago—the long-term prospects remain uncertain. The airlines lost more than $10 billion in 2002 and have cut more than 100,000 jobs and parked hundreds of planes in the Mojave for lack of passengers. Planes are flying at near-capacity partly because there are fewer of them flying. Some analysts estimate the airlines won't fully rebound before 2005, and that further bankruptcies and even liquidations are inevitable. "Nobody knows what 'normal' is anymore," says Glenn Engel, an airline analyst at Goldman Sachs. "If this is the new normal, it's going to be a very long and painful restructuring."
But while the airline industry is in an unprecedented financial crisis, it is also suffering from a less-publicized crisis of identity. With the public accustomed to airports reconfigured as security mazes leading to planes where first class-passengers slice their turbot with plastic cutlery, the underlying culture of airline travel is increasingly at odds with the reality of flying as an exercise in garment-rending frustration. (That goes for the cabin crews, too: a Northwest Airlines flight attendant was recently convicted for spiking a crying infant's apple juice with Xanax on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit last year.) Yet airlines continue to perpetuate rituals dating from the Eisenhower administration and even earlier. Service in the "cabin," no matter how slovenly the passengers or surly the stews, is overseen by a "purser." Your flight is under the command of a "captain" assisted by a "first officer" operating from a "flight deck," nomenclature dating to the flying boats of the 1930s. The cockpit door may be barricaded and the pilots within agitating to pack heat, Saarinen's magnificent TWA terminal shuttered and the Concordes headed for museums, but the hardened post-9-11 passenger is expected to swallow threadbare euphemisms—"in the event of a water landing," anyone?—from the "Coffee Tea or Me" era.
"I think the airlines cling to them because they feel that the people flying the plane should have a level of formality," says Jared Blank, an airline analyst for Jupiter Research. "But when juxtaposed with the actual flying experience, it seems strange rather than reassuring."
Now that flying has been brutalized into a bottom-line obsessed commodity serving a clientele that has, so to speak, seen the man behind the curtain, an update would seem to be in order—less Oz, more Kansas. "We've reached a certain element of irrelevancy in what the airlines are offering versus what people want," says Patrick Smith, a pilot for a major airline. "You've got two extremes: the old-style, doting-on-the-passengers, and the Southwest Airlines cattle call. Maybe what people are looking for is neither one of those things."
At this nightmarish confluence of an uncertain economy, spiking jet-fuel prices and ruinous labor contracts—which the Air Transport Assn., in a report to Congress earlier this year, titled "Airlines In Crisis: The Perfect Economic Storm"—there lies a glimmer of hope. For the first time since the industry was deregulated, the airlines are being forced to reconsider their business models—in fact, their whole raison d'etre. And in that reinvention there may emerge a more coherent and—gasp!—user-friendly flying experience. It could scarcely get much worse.
"The airlines for the past 25 years have been killing any reason to care about their product," says Henry Harteveldt, a travel analyst with Forrester Research in San Francisco.
The first crack in the go-go airline worldview began with the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. Before that, ticket prices were set by the Civil Aeronautics Board, a federal agency that invariably approved petitions from the airlines to raise fares to cover costs. "Airlines couldn't compete on price, only on amenities," says Van der Linden. "That's why you had all this really good food, anything to get you on the airplane." Deregulation destroyed the old-boy airline network, eliminated the CAB and exposed the airlines for the first time to unrestrained competition. To use a favorite trope of Hollywood development geeks, deregulation was a "paradigm shift."
"The day in 1978 when they deregulated the airlines, it was all over," says Blank. "It sounds terrible, but because the masses could fly, the airlines needed to squeeze as many people on that plane to make the revenue."
As fares plunged and fuel prices spiked, airlines scrambled to slash expenses. Out went the first-class lounges, the wasteful space between rows. No-frills airlines such as People Express, offering rock-bottom fares and minimal cabin service, briefly flourished before being driven from skies by the majors' sheer size and marketing innovations, such as frequent flier programs. By the mid-'90s, airlines were making record profits as the boom supplied a seemingly bottomless demand for business travel.
Having tamed the upstart airlines, the majors kept fares high for business travelers unable to qualify for cheap advance-purchase fares, while nibbling at service standards. "Even in the '90s, the cost of food dropped from $4.50 per passenger at the beginning of the decade to almost $3 at the end," says Engel. Skimpier meals were only the beginning. Fuel-efficient narrow-body aircraft replaced commodious jumbo jets on transcontinental flights. Passengers fumed. "Air rage" was coined.
And it was here, at their moment of greatest prosperity and omnipotence, that the airlines overplayed their hand.
Headley recalls seeing a bumper sticker that read: GET IN, SIT DOWN, BUCKLE UP AND SHUT UP. "That's kind of the way airlines were treating people when demand was through the roof," he says. "I'm convinced that, in '98 and '99, when they were practically printing money, that the airlines knew exactly how far they could push their customers. The airlines are heavy users of consumer research, and I think in the late '90s they knew what that was and were absolutely taking it to the limit. They knew they were pushing people over the edge but didn't care. It's really haunting them now."
The incredible irony is that this pound of flesh was extracted from the airlines' best and most profitable customer. During the height of the boom, business travelers accounted for 20% of passenger volume but 40% of the airlines' revenue. Held hostage by schedules, business travelers paid—and still pay—thousands more for the same seats and service as tourists on excursion fares. Meanwhile, the airlines began heavily promoting electronic tickets—which cost 25 cents to process versus $25 for a paper ticket—and, to marginalize travel agents, online reservations through their Web sites. The latter turned out to be a double-edged sword. With online booking, the airlines were handing an element of control back to the beleaguered business traveler. "They were charging him three to five times as much," says Headley, "and then they gave him a tool that, with a little planning smarts, gave him a chance to level the playing field."
Then came the bust of 2000. Then 9-11. Business travel, with its fat margins, collapsed and has yet to revive. As traffic plunged, Congress approved a $15-billion bailout for the industry. Just as the music industry painted itself into a corner by ignoring the song-downloading phenomenon while charging $18 for compact discs, so did airlines become overly reliant on business as usual. It may be too late for some.
"I fully expect that some existing major airlines will disappear in the next 10 years, either through mergers or an inability to sustain their operations," Harteveldt says.
As the major airlines search for a new paradigm, they are closely studying the business model of an airline that started flying out of the moribund Long Beach airport only two years ago but has hit on a formula that fulfills the needs of both hardened road warriors and leisure fliers—and, thus far, makes money: JetBlue.
Launched in 2000, JetBlue provides single-class service shorn of traditional frills such as meals but has leather seats and live satellite television. The airline's non-unionized cabin crews and more flexible work rules, among other factors, allow it to charge a fraction of the unrestricted coach fares of the majors. And it has been profitable practically from the start; shares in the airline have almost tripled since March alone. JetBlue took several pages from Southwest's playbook, flying a single type of fuel-efficient aircraft—the Airbus A320, which streamlines maintenance—and targeting underused airports such as Long Beach. JetBlue's cost of flying a passenger one mile — a standard measure of airline operating expenses—is the lowest in the industry. "It costs United nearly $1,000 an hour to operate an A320," says Harteveldt, the travel analyst. "It costs JetBlue [about] $300."
Nevertheless, the post-deregulation era is littered with the wreckage of start-ups that competed solely on price. What helped put JetBlue over the top was polished service that neither the majors nor low-cost mainstay Southwest, with its dowdy aircraft and wisecracking flight attendants, could match. David Neeleman, JetBlue's CEO and founder, once appeared on a panel at Yale University with Donald Burr, the founder of People Express. Neeleman says he told Burr that, regarding People's famously low fares and famously cramped cabins, "It was fun to pay 19 bucks for the experience but you only do it a couple times.' And he agreed."
JetBlue's cabin staff are quietly efficient, and its logo and livery are postmodernist homages to globe-trotting carriers such as Pan Am. Aside from Sir Richard Branson's ever-flamboyant Virgin Atlantic Airways, JetBlue is probably the only airline that succeeds in having an apprehensible, contemporary sense of style. As the majors retrenched and clung to their threadbare service rituals, JetBlue proved that there was a market for low fares matched with smart, modern, judicious customer care and feeding.
"We've tried to say, look, we'll get rid of the food because you don't care about it anyway," Neeleman says. "We'll have some cool snacks instead and we'll be liberal with those. We'll do tray service so you can get up when the seat belt sign is off and not have a flight attendant tell you to sit down because you're blocking the beverage cart. And we'll do it all with a smile, as opposed to with a whip."
All of which makes the few-but-cool amenities of JetBlue look less like a niche success and more like a business model with a future. "Some of the big airlines have so traded down their economy-class cabins that you're sometimes getting less of cattle call on JetBlue than on one of the majors," says Timon. And where business travelers mostly shunned the first wave of low-cost airlines, the now intense budget-consciousness of corporate travel departments coupled with the generally pleasant, professional atmosphere on JetBlue has further blurred the advantage of flying one of the majors. "Most low-fare airlines are people's second choice," says Engel. "JetBlue seems to be unusual in that people seem to like to fly it."
Jetblue's approach is being emulated not only by fellow low-cost airlines such as Southwest, which is considering upgrading the essentially nonexistent amenities on its sprawling fleet of 737s, but by giants such as United. With good reason. As the majors cut capacity to stem losses, low-fare carriers have relentlessly picked up the slack; they now account for 25% of the domestic airline market. Through smart marketing and word of mouth, new low-cost airlines have rapidly achieved brand recognition that differentiates them from the monolithic old-school airlines. "Never in the history of the deregulated airline industry has there been a better time for start-up airlines to come in and challenge the established carriers," says Harteveldt.
Now the low-cost airlines are embarking on an expansion tear that increasingly will put them in direct competition with the majors. Orlando-based AirTran, an enduring thorn in Delta's side since it was re-branded from ValuJet in 1997, has 110 planes on order to supplement its fleet of ultra-efficient Boeing 717 jets and now flies to Las Vegas and L.A. Next year JetBlue will put into service a fleet of mid-size jets that will serve smaller markets, while Southwest will take delivery of 47 new planes. Harteveldt points to Frontier Airlines, which has been pecking at United at the latter's Denver hub in much the way AirTran has plagued Delta in Atlanta. Launched in 1994 with two planes, Frontier now flies 39 aircraft and is the No. 2 airline in Denver with about 15% of the market. "They're swapping their old 737s for new Airbus A319s with in-seat TVs, free meals and snacks, plus Web check-in," Harteveldt says. "They're giving you more of a product than United."
Which leaves the majors in the awkward position of trying to beat the upstarts while joining them. Delta drove JetBlue out of Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport only six months after it entered the market by waging a brutal, scorched-earth fare war. Nevertheless, Delta and United have launched low-cost airlines-within-an-airline, an approach abandoned in the '90s by United with its United Shuttle, which never was able to reach cost parity with discount carriers. (Virgin Atlantic plans to start a low-cost-with-frills spinoff in the U.S., perhaps based in L.A., by next summer.)
The difference this time is that Delta's Song and United's Ted—besides their gratingly twee, and in Ted's case, utterly baffling, names—are a tacit admission that the brand equity of the flagship airline is no longer enough. By culling amenities and competing on price, Harteveldt says, "the major airlines have failed to make their brands stand for anything." As a consequence, "brand loyalty is dead—54% of airline travelers do not view themselves as brand loyal." Blank agrees: "The majors have commodity products," he says. "JetBlue and Song have tried to elevate that. JetBlue is most akin to Target—reasonably priced while offering a level of funkiness you can't find at K-Mart."
Song is essentially the Delta Express affiliate reconstituted with putatively hip attitude, swanky snacks such as Altoids for purchase, and planes configured with seat-back satellite TV, streaming MP3 audio and interactive video games. Launched in April, Song flies primarily between the Northeast and cities such as West Palm Beach, Fla. (though it has added an L.A.-Orlando route), and caters to leisure travelers, a market segment taken for granted during the boom but now coveted with the collapse of business travel. Ted will start flying in February with four A320s—the same model as JetBlue's—from United's hub in Denver, and expand to 45 planes and service to L.A. and San Francisco from Las Vegas. United executives have said that cost savings wrung during its bankruptcy protection will allow it to operate Ted at a competitive cost structure, despite using United pilots.
The irony is that from a passenger-amenity perspective, these offshoots are arguably superior to the parent airline. There's an extra inch of legroom between seats on Song aircraft than in coach on Delta, and Song charges much lower fares—which can only muddy passengers' comprehension of what advantage the major carriers ultimately offer.
"People don't understand why a 2,000-mile flight on Song, with seat-back TV and brand-name food you can buy, costs $300, but a 2,000-mile flight on Delta costs $2,000," says Blank. "Song doesn't compete with Delta from the same cities, but you're getting a better experience."
Inevitably, innovations from the spinoff airlines will migrate to the parent carriers. Delta has said it will use Song partly as a laboratory to try out new approaches that it may incorporate into its flagship brand. (The airline is also experimenting with enhanced one-class service aimed at business travelers under the Delta trademark, with planes once used for the Boston-New York-Washington shuttle.) Already, the majors are incorporating some of the marketing cues employed by low-cost boutique airlines while fast-tracking at-home check-in. The push is to move as much of the reservation and ticketing process as is practical to the Web or to check-in kiosks at airports. "By 2006, no one will have domestic paper tickets," predicts Blank.
Still, despite the sometimes grotesque inconvenience of the past few years, flying has never been more ubiquitous or affordable. "This spring, air fares were approximately the same in real dollars as they were in 1988," Headley says. Adjusted for inflation, he estimates, they should be 30% to 40% higher. "For the traveler, flying is pretty much of a bargain right now." That hasn't stopped anybody from complaining, but perhaps it should. "You cannot find a $100,000 mansion in Beverly Hills," Harteveldt points out. "If you are paying $299 for an airline ticket, that's a phenomenal value. Your expectations should be a seat on plane that carries you safely to and from your destination on time, not Cary Grant expectations."
Surely the most promising development is that, for the first time in decades, the airlines are being goaded to innovate by new carriers who aren't simply slashing prices but are redefining the flying experience and presenting passengers with options. Eliminating the preposterous food and passing on some of those savings in the form of better seating and entertainment is empowering to passengers for whom the airport security process is draining and humiliating. The truth is that flying ceased to be novel, let alone glamorous, years ago, a bit of nostalgia the airlines have been reluctant to surrender. JetBlue won people over precisely because it refused to pretend flying is fun. "In the 'good old days' when you flew you in your coat and tie, it was a big deal," Van der Linden says. "Now it's something people endure."
It is telling that analysts now refer to airlines such as United, American and Delta as "legacy carriers" to differentiate them from new-generation start-ups such as JetBlue and Song. Likewise that JetBlue's proposed new passenger facility at JFK would surround and metaphorically dwarf Saarinen's classic TWA terminal, preeminent symbol of old-school airline dynasties.
"Legacies can be wonderful," Harteveldt says. "But if you look at any legacy, there's always a generation that screws up. If United, American or any of these guys who helped create the best air transport system in the world want to see the second 200th anniversary of the Wright brothers' first flight, they've got a lot of work to do."
Ok, who remembers the project where we were involved with a voice recognition system for (blind?) in Wayne County (MI)?? Now THAT is an old dot...
OT for now..HP to Provide Laptops to Mich. Schools
26 minutes ago
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By AMY F. BAILEY, Associated Press Writer
LANSING, Mich. - A state board on Tuesday approved Hewlett-Packard Co. as the provider of laptop computers and other technical services for a statewide sixth-grade program.
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company agreed to charge no more than $275 per student per year in its bid for the state's "Freedom to Learn" program. It also will provide technical support, insurance and training.
George Warren, head of Hewlett-Packard's K-12 business, said the deal is a big one for the company. "No one has ever won a deal this big. This is the biggest deal to hit this market ever," he said about the "Freedom to Learn" program.
The State Administrative Board on Tuesday signed off on the Joint Evaluations Committee's recommendation to make Hewlett-Packard the provider for the statewide laptop program.
Now Hewlett-Packard and the state have to agree on an official contract that sets up specific terms and conditions, said Debbie White, spokeswoman for the Michigan Virtual University.
Warren said he hoped to finish the four-year contract this week.
Meanwhile, funding for the laptop program is in flux. Lawmakers are considering cutting $22 million in state funding from the $39 million laptop program to help resolve the state's $834 million budget deficit. The state Senate last week approved a supplemental appropriation bill that would cut all the state funds from the program, leaving it with only $17 million from the federal government.
But the federal dollars can only be used by schools with high concentrations of free and reduced lunches for low-income students. Only one-quarter of Michigan's 3,000 schools, about 38,500 sixth graders, would then be eligible, the state Department of Education (news - web sites) said.
Schools have until Jan. 16 to apply for a grant under the program through the Michigan Virtual University, White said. Schools will have to pay $25 for each student to have a computer through the program.
Those schools that received grants under a smaller laptop program last year and apply under the new program could see laptop computers in their classrooms as early as Jan. 31, White said.
Warren said he expected a larger portion of grant winners will be announced in August and those schools would get laptops for the 2004-2005 school year.
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On the Net:
Freedom to Learn: http://wireless.mivu.org/
Hewlett-Packard: http://www.hp.com/
By all means send them in Cassandra.eom