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friendlyfred, with all the resources available to CE companies like RCA/Philips, Creative Labs, Sony, Samsung, etc, there is something of a question in my mind as to why they have NOT come up with anything to equal or surpass the Odyssey's specs at its price point. Maybe that's why I keep hanging on to all my shares.
rs, I believe that is the normal progression. Typical MOUs are binding, yet fall short of the fully detailed contract. They can provide a way for each party to be reassured that the other is serious about doing business and can allow certain compensated activities to proceed prior to a full-blown contract being signed... i.e. we'll pay you $XXX to develop a cost analysis and $YYY for a proposed schedule of delivery, etc.
dougal, in its simplest form, a letter of intent is a letter from one company to another acknowledging a willingness and ability to do business. In my experience, it is the first formal (but often non-binding) step in nailing down a contract after an acceptable response to a Request for Quote has been received. JMHO, of course.
Berge, I can only admire our rice-fuelled brethren for their tactics... what better way to steal American technology than to allow it to wither on the vine, then scarf it up for a dime on the dollar. How very American; they have learnt their lessons well. (Amazing what a few kilotons of Yankee ingenuity can do for oriental capitalist acumen.)
Agreed, fellow cultic being... the concept of a Toshiba/Samsung consortium (with Digitalway as the OEM of choice) has crossed my mind. Of course, that is groundless speculation, meant only to raise the ire of our resident bashers. Then again, WTFDIC; I have already consigned my soul to the perpetual Woody.
Hmmmmm... "the entity includes at least one of the company's many investors" casts a rather broad net... seems to me that such a net might easily encompass such entities as Kodak, Samsung, Univeral/Vivendi and Samsung. Time will tell.
Strictly FWIW, the current efforts at disrupting this board seem to be curiously coincident with the impending potential for PPS appreciation pre-CES. Although I in no way would venture to suggest that a concerted effort be made by long term investors to shore up the PPS now by judicious buys and moderate the potential run-up by some modest profit-taking, such a course of action would definitely put a hurtin' on certain lowlifes hereabouts. This is strictly my humble opinion; past performance is no guarantee of future profits or an antidote to two-bit theatrics by third-rate thesps.
Uhhh, Matt... you left out one...
6) Long-term investors who have diligently held this stock for years, confident in their knowledge of what the company is, firm in their belief in where the niche EDIG participates in is headed, and comfortable in enduring the PPS movement while waiting for long-term validation of their investment choice.
Additionally, I take offense at your characterization of EDIG shareholders as a cult. I suggest that you look up the definition of that word ( http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/c/c0799700.html ), then try to reconcile that with the diverse opinions expressed on this board.
In point of fact, this board would be a far better place if NO ONE answered bashers and liars. A few unpalatable posts are easy enough to ignore; it's the dozens of knee jerk reactions to such posts that succeed in degrading this forum (and amuse the morons to no end). Oh well; simple pleasures for simple minds, I suppose.
I too have bought at the bid on multiple occasions. A trade's price is not an infallible indication of the transaction type.
Speaking for myself, I never saw Drag 'n Rip as a big plus... maybe it would have some appeal to the technically challenged, but those folks don't comprise the majority of MP3 player buyers yet. (I personally would rather rip/preview CDs on my PC before sending them to my player.) As for Mac compatibility, again the vast majority of PC owners/potential MP3 jukebox buyers don't own a Mac. Maybe the 'gee whiz' appeal of such features lost out (at least in the near-term) to commercial considerations.
OT: A Turkey's Lament
When I was a young turkey, new to the coop,
My big brother Mike took me out on the stoop,
Then he sat me down, and he spoke real slow,
And he told me there was something that I had to know;
His look and his tone I will always remember,
When he told me of the horrors of ..... Black November;
"Come about August, now listen to me,
Each day you'll be thick, where once you were thin,
And you'll grow a big rubbery thing under your chin.
"And then one morning, when you're warm in your bed,
In'll burst the farmer's wife, and hack off your head;
"Then she'll pluck out all your feathers so you're bald'n pink,
And scoop out all your insides and leave ya lyin' in the sink,
"And then comes the worst part" he said not bluffing,
"She'll spread your cheeks and pack your rear with stuffing".
Well, the rest of his words were too grim to repeat,
I sat on the stoop like a winged piece of meat,
And decided on the spot that to avoid being cooked,
I'd have to lay low and remain overlooked;
I began a new diet of nuts and granola,
High-roughage salads, juice and diet cola,
And as they ate pastries, chocolates and crepes,
I stayed in my room doing Jane Fonda tapes,
I maintained my weight of two pounds and a half,
And tried not to notice when the bigger birds laughed;
But 'twas I who was laughing, under my breath,
As they chomped and they chewed, ever closer to death;
And sure enough when Black November rolled around,
I was the last turkey left in the entire compound;
So now I'm a pet in the farmer's wife's lap;
I haven't a worry, so I eat and I nap,
She held me today, while sewing and humming,
And smiled at me and said "Christmas is coming........"
OT: It has been said that
"East is east and west is west
And n'er the twain may meet"
Except in some sweet field of dreams
Where we are pure as lambs to love
As children who run free
Before we learn our differences
That bind us to the past
That blind us to our inner selves
How joyous we can be!
But Oh my dears, we dare not hope
For this is clear to see
That if the time shall ever come
When all of us are one
It will be late, Oh much too late
For either you or me
Gilgamash, the Yepp YP-900 is multicodec; it does MP3 and WMA. As to the iPod's monocodecism, I am reasonably certain that its metamorphosis into a Windows-compatible device may have resulted in several Apple marketing gurus being confined to the Cupertino leprosarium; to have added WMA capability might have led to said marketers' termination with extreme prejudice.
OT: Thanks to all who have requested access to the 'new' EDIG Private chatroom. Password access is to be decided by the current members (and new members coming aboard). We will try to get passwords out as soon as possible. Your patience is appreciated.
To Ignore, just use ucansee's link. To quickly determine a poster's number, just move your cursor over the Ignoree's name and look at the lower left of your screen; you should see the poster's number at the end of the displayed link. In my case, you'd see http://www.investorshub.com/boards/profile.asp?User=4779. The '4779' would be the number used to ignore all my posts.
Sunpoop, I try to read the majority of posts here each day, usually between 5 and 8 PM EST. So far, I have not noted much in the way of bashing. I am not prepared to delete posts by regulars who are venting or otherwise expressing negative thoughts towards the current state of affairs at EDIG. As for new or infrequent posters, I do try to pay special attention to the tone of their posts. If I feel that our rules are being violated, I won't hesitate to take action. OTOH, things aren't especially rosy in Poway these days; I see no value in trying to make it seem otherwise on this board.
A PS to certain posters: I've let a few personal attacks slip by lately; however, my patience is growing thin. Long or ex-long, makes no difference to me... if you want to get personal with someone, you'd best do so in a Private Msg.
A subtle reminder....
This board was not established, nor shall it ever act (despite our bashers' fondest dreams), solely as a solar enema for e.Digital shareholders. Please refrain from acting like a pack of jackals just because someone is less than enthusiastic about the current state of affairs and management's potential culpability for same. Your time might be better spent in delving into a video iPod and Portal Player. There are a lot of intelligent people posting here; let's start acting like it, OK?
Movielink Brings Blockbusters to PC
by Josh Grossberg
Nov 12, 2002, 10:50 AM PT
http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,10828,00.html
Tinseltown's going on a hack attack.
In a bid to quash illegal pirating of their movies, five of the major Hollywood studios banded together this week to launch Movielink, a Website that brings flicks to the desktop.
While you can already download many films gratis via Morpheus or KaZaA, the participating studios are touting their better selection and quality in hopes of convincing fans to spend a little money. For between $2 and $5, you get VCR-quality movies instead of the shaky, underlit camcorder footage characteristic of the file-sharing sites and you'll have access to more than 170 titles from the vaults of Sony Pictures, Warner Bros., Paramount, MGM and Universal.
Among Movielink's offerings are such blockbusters as last year's Best Picture Oscar winner A Beautiful Mind, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Ocean's Eleven and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, as well as popular popcorn-crunchers like Air Force One and both older and contemporary classics like Breakfast at Tiffany's and Blue Velvet. In general, films will be available after finishing their theatrical run, at the same time as pay-per-view but before hitting cable and network television.
Cinephiles will be able to download a movie onto their hard drive, where it will remain for a month untouched before being automatically erased. At any point during those 30 days, users have a 24 hour-window to watch the full movie before it's deleted from their PC.
Consumers are required to have a connection speed of at least 128 kbps or higher, Windows 2000 or XP (sorry, Mac fans), Microsoft Explorer and RealPlayer. Movielink includes a VCR-like interface complete with fast forward, rewind, pause and play functions--but, natch, no recording.
There are no subscription charges and viewing movie trailers and other promo clips are free. Disney, DreamWorks and 20th Century Fox, which did not participate in the venture, as well as indie distributors have a standing invitation to make their films available on Movielink as well.
According to Movielink CEO Jim Ramo, the service is intended as a test case to see whether Web-based video-on-demand will have the same mass appeal for the 25 million and growing broadband users that DVD currently has with the home video market (total DVD sales topped $4.6 billion in 2001), or whether downloadable films will stay a niche product or be outright uncommercial.
Movielink also allows the studios to bypass middlemen like Blockbuster and cable operators to reach consumers directly, while avoiding the Napster-fueled nightmare the recording industry has endured in recent years.
There's also very little (legitimate) competition. The service's only rival is CinemaNow, which was started by Blockbuster, Lions Gate Entertainment and Microsoft.
And hopefully, when all is said and done, Movielink just might head off the rapidly-growing Napster War, which has hampered CD sales in the music industry.
But the big question, of course, is whether movie fans are ready to shell out five bucks to screen Harry Potter on their laptop.
"Ultimately people don't want to watch movies on their computers. As long as it feels like a computer interface where people are forced to watch it in anything less than top-notch resolution, it's not going to work for people," says film producer Ira Deutchman, founder of Fine Line Features and associate professor of graduate film division at Columbia University.
Given the technology's still in its infancy, Deutchman says it remains to be seen if the price is attractive enough to make it worth the effort. Even with a fast Internet connection, it still takes an average of three hours to download a feature film onto a hard drive (with a dial-up modem, triple that).
"It's going to be a question of convenience versus price," says Deutchman. "If they price it right and make it convenient enough, it could succeed."
Whether it fends off those pesky digital pirates, though, is another matter.
Stay tuned. http://www.movielink.com
Re AVN, etc:
In May of this year, Fujitsu debuted the AVN8802D. The AVN stands for Audio-Visual-Navigation, which describes the infotainment capabilities of the unit. It can play CD or MD audio, DVD videos, and provide visual maps via VGA display of mapping data stored on CDs and location data from the GPS receiver; it has no MP3 capability. ( See http://www.fujitsu-ten.co.jp/release/2002/200205201.htm )
The new AVN9902HD adds MP3, two 20 GB hard drives and a Memory Stick reader to the package. Presumably, one of the hard drives is for storing navigational data, etc, while the other drive is for storing MP3 files. Since we only got ~$250 per unit for our contribution of 4000 widgets, IMHO we just supplied the MP3 drive ('MP3 Changer'), probably by either modifying HDs supplied to us by Fujitsu or by supplying the circuitry necessary to control that drive. Since the AVN9902HD sells for a bit over $3000 in Japan, I seriously doubt that we built the entire unit. As to whether voice nav made it into the production unit, there is insufficient data (at least in English) to make that determination at this time. Maybe the topic will be clarified Thursday.
Why wait 'til Vegas?.....
Fujitsu AVN9902HD pix:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20021010/ten2_01.jpg
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20021010/ten2_02.jpg
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20021010/ten2_03.jpg
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20021010/ten2_04.jpg
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20021010/ten2_05.jpg
David, I presumed that you, jt, TorF, techstalker, etc would be pursuing other interests at the time of the SHM. Of course, I might be wrong. (I am reasonably certain that Lucile will give it a miss, as she is undoubtedly loathe to purchase the two tickets needed to accomodate both of her buttocks.)
Sinkman, I agree that 500 O 1000s is pretty paltry. OTOH, if Digitalway only required a 10% payment up front with the other 90% on net 30, 60, or 90 day terms, we might be looking at a substantial shelf presence by Turkey Day. All is guesswork at this point.
Again from a WTFDIK perspective, I'd think that Digitalway would front us their O 300s gratis, since I don't believe they are an EDIG design. IMHO, we are merely distributing that model for Digitalway. OTOH, if the O 1000s are to be in stock by Nov 15th as promised, they are probably FOB a Fedex jet right about now. (Especially if they want a production model for the upcoming dog and pony lovefest at the SHM next week.)
...we are offering 446,774 shares of our common stock to Davric Corporation, an institutional investor. The common stock will be purchased by Davric at a negotiated aggregate purchase price of $138,500, with the purchase price per share equal to $0.31.
We also are offering 300,000 shares of our common stock to Digitalway, Inc. ("Digitalway") in consideration for certain inventory (the "Inventory") received by the company. For purposes of this Prospectus Supplement, we have assumed that the Inventory has a value of $93,000.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886328/000089843002003900/d424b2.htm
My best guess is that the Digitalway monies are for an initial shipment of 500 Odyssey 1000s. BWTFDIK?
Re 'ELENCO STRUMENTI FINANZIARI' etc...
The ISIN Code provides a uniform structure for a universal code that identifies securities such as stocks or bonds.
The ISIN code consists of a total of 12 characters as follows:
1) The first two characters are taken up by the alpha-2 country code as issued in accordance with the international standard ISO 3166 of the country were the issuer of securities is legally registered or in which it has legal domicile. In case of depositary receipts such as ADR´s, the country code is that of the organization who issued the receipt instead of the one who issued the underlying security.
2) The next nine characters are taken up by the local number of the security concerned. Where the national number consists of fewer than nine characters, zeros are inserted in front of the number so that the full nine spaces are used. The first 6 positions are filled according and following the same structure used for the attribution of the Issuer Entity's code followed by an alpha-numeric-three characters. The last three characters identifies itself the category of the security such as Common or Preferred Shares, Classes and Commercial Papers.
3) The final character is a check digit computed according to the modulus 10 "Doubled add Doubled" formula.
In other words, of no interest unless you're trading in markets outside the US.
See also http://www.montetitoli.it/english/history.htm
Hmmmm... I can see it now....
Frequent flyer hackers pilfering digital movies onto their laptops whilst in flight. Adds yet another dimension to Air Piracy.
UCSD Connect today announced the finalists for the 15th annual Connect Most Innovative New Product Awards, offering a glimpse of the emerging technologies and industries expected to shape San Diego's economic landscape.
Products highlighted by this year's cast of nominees ranged from homeland security innovations and compact digital music players, to protein antibodies to help fight the common cold. The 21 finalists were selected from almost 130 entries, far surpassing the previous MIP record.
While the MIP award's mission is to honor top new products, Connect realizes that many of the breakthrough discoveries in the life sciences arena take years to come through the regulatory process to market. As a result, in recognition of the success of San Diego's biotech/life sciences community and number of products in the R&D phase, Connect added the Biotechnology Research and Development category.
The Connect MIP Awards Luncheon will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dec. 11 at the San Diego Marriott Hotel & Marina.
"Even with the challenging economic environment, the list of 2002 finalists is a testimony to the fact that San Diego continues to be a hotbed of technology and life science innovation," says Fred Cutler, executive director of Connect. "The addition of our new biotechnology category recognizes the strength and importance of the future technologies that will come out of the San Diego region."
The 2002 MIP Award finalists are:
Hardware:
AERONEX, Inc. - Micro INFINITY Gas Purification System - A system that removes gaseous contaminants such as dioxide, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide from process gases.
e.Digital Corporation - MXP 100 - A sleek, high-quality, extremely compact digital music player and voice recorder with the portability and durability for use in almost any environment.
SABIA, Inc. - SABIA Model P-3000 - An instrument for real-time analysis of the composition of industrial materials, such as coal and cement.
Software:
Akonix Systems Inc. - Akonix L7 - Software which provides a unique automatic safety net for intravenous medication error-prevention, by focusing on error management at the critical point of infusion delivery to the patient.
ALARIS Medical Systems, Inc. - GuardrailsSafety Software - A perimeter security gateway that detects and controls rogue protocols at the network edge.
Entropia, Inc. - DCGrid - Allows an organization to execute its compute-intensive applications and analyses more rapidly, more accurately, and more creatively, by allowing existing PC resources to become an integrated high performance computing resource.
Telecommunications:
AirFiber, Inc. - HFR - Wirelessly connects buildings with high capacity communications services, eliminating the last mile telecommunications problem that renders a majority of buildings without fiber-like telecommunications.
Ethertronics - DualNet MPCI Internal Antenna Module - Designed for mini-PCI cards, the DualNet antenna module leaves the PC Card expansion slot vacant for other applications.
Hughes Network Systems - Regional BGAN - A user terminal that works on THURAYA and future Inmarsat Satellites and provides 144kbps user rates in both directions.
Life Sciences:
Gen-Probe Incorporated - Procleix HIV-1/HCV Assay - An amplified nucleic acid test used by blood banks to achieve earlier detection of both HIV and hepatitis C in one test.
IDEC Pharmaceuticals - Zevalin - A therapeutic regimen for the treatment of relapsed or refractory low grade, follicular, or transformed B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Invitrogen - ZOOM IPG Runner - Provides a faster, cheaper, simpler and more accessible method of unraveling the complete protein makeup of the cell.
General Technology:
American Technology Corp. - HyperSonic Sound - A proprietary, ultrasonic-to-audio, parametric loudspeaker.
Solar Solutions LLC - AquaPak - An inexpensive, flexible plastic container designed for the transport, storage and solar pasteurization of water.
Verance Corp. - ConfirMedia - A revolutionary broadcast data service that gives subscribers the means to independently verify actual airplay of designated advertising across all major U.S. television, cable and radio networks and all major stations within the top 100 U.S. media markets.
Biotechnology R&D:
Diversa Corp. - Protein Therapeutics / Antibody Program - Technologies to improve protein therapeutics and to generate novel antibodies.
MitoKor, Inc. - MitoProteomics - Technologies to access and profile the mitochondrial proteome and to identify proteins with potential commercial importance as novel drug targets or diagnostic markers.
Perlan Therapeutics, Inc. - ColdSol - A bioengineered antibody fusion protein to be used as a nasal spray for prevention and treatment of the common cold.
Technology R&D:
Maxima CorpX. - Long Wave Infra-Red Free Space Optics - An optical wireless communication system that offers much lower atmospheric losses in fog and other atmospheric obscurants, and is cost-efficient and practical to apply in commercial communications systems.
Qalert - Qalert Mobile System - A self-activating emergency alert system for the protection of law-enforcement, firefighters, or security guards.
UCSD, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry - Explosive-detecting nanowires A simple, fast, and inexpensive sensor to detect trace amounts of explosives.
http://dbr.sandiegometro.com/
Wonder if they need any help.....
Singapore start-up first in new-venture contest
http://www.courierjournal.com/business/news2002/10/08/bu100802s290701.htm
A Singapore team planning to use Internet-based audio technology as a tool for China's Englishlanguage students won the $10,000 top prize in the University of Louisville's annual business plan contest over the weekend.
Maestro Success International hopes to supplant the unique Chinese fuduji -- a bulky reading machine widely used for language learning -- by developing and marketing a small, hand-held MP3 player featuring a text screen. Four of the budding startup's five principals received their master's degrees in business administration through U of L's Singapore program.
Maestro's mastery marked the first time an international team had won the 6-year-old New Venture Competition. UBS/
PaineWebber, start-up incubator bCatalyst and U of L's Entrepreneurship Council financed the contest.
''We've had international teams compete before, and they've always done very well,'' said Van G. H. Clouse, U of L's Cobb family professor of entrepreneurship. ''I think this year, with Maestro winning . . . it validates . . . our approach to offering our MBA and entrepreneurship (program) in our international locations.''
U of L faculty travel to Greece, Panama and Singapore to teach classes, and it partners with a German university to bring students to Louisville.
The potential of Maestro's venture lies in China's vast marketplace, where the company anticipates an increase in devices capable of playing MP3 technology to 4.3 million units from 500,000 units within five years. Maestro expects to have a 20 percent market share by 2007.
''Any business that is trying to tap into the Chinese market, which is obviously huge and growing -- those businesses have huge potential,'' Clouse said.
What is Maestro's target market?
''People in China who have computers and who do or can download information,'' said competition judge Greg Chapman, founder and manager of Anchorage Angels LLC. ''But that number is growing rapidly. The addressable market today is very small compared to the addressable market in a few years.''
Maestro's business plan attributes the strong demand for English-language products to a global economy, China's membership in the World Trade Organization and the 2008 Olympics, to be held in Beijing.
''Because of that, there's an enormous desire to learn English,'' said Louisville entrepreneur Paul van der Pol, who served as mentor for two of the U of L competition's five teams, including Maestro.
The company's research revealed that Internet access is vital to building market share. Maestro said the number of Internet users in China has risen 73 percent this year to 45.8 million people.
For the second consecutive year, the New Venture Competition offered 2-for-1 matching funds in addition to the first-place prize money. The incentive was offered to assist contest winners with successful launches and must be spent on startup expenses.
''Maestro won $10,000, but if they place all of that into launching the business, we will be able to match them with another $20,000,'' Clouse said.
Floyd Street Technologies of Louisville, which developed a hand-held tool for construction estimators, racked up more dollars in other competitions following its 2001 victory.
''They have actually launched the business. They are currently working on developing their prototype, and they are in negotiations with a major customer,'' Clouse said.
Touch & Go Technologies of Louisville took the $5,000 second place prize in the New Venture Competition. The company is developing software to allow restaurant patrons to place orders at touch-screen kiosks -- much like technology already in place at gasoline stations and grocery stores.
Looks like they'll have the Odyssey 1000 too:
http://www.digitallyunique.net/13830841.html
PS: The Satech site is just selling flash cards that happen to fit our flash players.
OT: Philips Shows Off Coin-Size Optical Discs
Miniature discs can hold 1GB of data, and could replace memory cards in future electronic devices.
Martyn Williams, IDG News Service
Thursday, October 03, 2002
Koninklijke Philips Electronics is using the Ceatec 2002 exhibition to give a recently developed miniature optical disc and drive its first major public showing--and the company couldn't be happier with the reaction from the Japanese public.
The discs, called small form factor optical storage or SFFO, are intended to replace memory cards in future generations of mobile electronics products and so have to be very small. In the case of Philips' prototype system, the discs are 1.2 inches in diameter but can hold up to 1GB of information.
"Usually Japanese companies come to Europe and show us their miniaturized technology but here we are showing them ours," said a beaming Jos Bruins, marketing director of the company's DVD and Super Audio CD products, as attendees made good use of magnifying glasses supplied by Philips to allow them to examine the prototypes.
Philips announced development of the system earlier this year but Ceatec marks the first time it has been widely displayed.
Betting on Blue Lasers
It is based on blue laser technology of the same type now being developed by Philips and other major electronics companies for use in optical disc-based video systems that are expected to replace DVD.
Blue lasers have a shorter wavelength than the red lasers used in DVD or CD and so use a much smaller space on the disc to store data. This is how Philips is able to squeeze 1GB, or roughly 50 percent more data than the maximum capacity of a CD-ROM, onto a disc the size of a large coin.
Looking ahead, Bruins said that in addition to further technical development work, Philips is also going to start investigating applications for the disc.
"We are going to have to look at what you can do with this," he said, adding the company sees many potential uses including as a medium for prerecorded content. One of the first tests Philips undertook in the lab was to record and play back MP3 audio from the disc, the company said.
Shrinking Competition
With its announcement and unveiling at Ceatec, Philips enters an area of the optical disc industry in which there are few competitors. With most companies concentrating on high end systems based around 4.7-inch discs for consumer video and computer data applications, little research has been announced regarding such a small form factor.
An exception to this trend is the miniature optical disc technology already developed and commercialized earlier this year by DataPlay in the U.S.
The DataPlay disc is a doubled-sided optical disc with a capacity of 250MB per side. Peripherals supporting the format are available from a number of companies, but the discs can only be written to once, like a CD-recordable, and unlike Philip's SFFO discs.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,105602,00.asp
Strictly IMHO, I wouldn't rate a straight video/audio player like the video Odyssey as a 'killer app'. On the other hand, a player with somewhat less storage capacity but with an onboard video/still camera, directional mike, and the ability to record 10 hours of XVGA or HDTV quality video on a single charge (as well as functioning as a jukebox/video player-recorder if desired) at $400 or less might rate a 'killer' appellation.
The references to the video Odyssey begin at 44 minutes into the archived broadcast.
Errata and Addenda to previous post: Collier said that the model with the external video output will appear towards the end of next year and would hold 30 (not 40) movies at "Super VHS" quality. The first video Odyssey will appear 'early next year', will hold 100 movies (resolution unspecified, but 'mastered to play on this player') and will also feature on-board encoding.
In reference to the new video Odyssey (which he had in his hand), Collier mentioned that it will be able to encode video in real time. Per JC, the capacity at SVGA resolution would be 40 movies (about 80 hours of video). He also mentioned that it will do either MPEG-4 or Divx encoding and will have a composite video output for direct playback thru normal video monitors/TVs.
Bosox, that picture is definitely not the Odyssey 1000 previously shown. The 1000 (and 800) have the Odyssey logo on the case above the screen. In the Graveline photo, the player is missing the logo above the screen and the screen appears to extend almost to the edges of the flat surface of the case.
(See http://www.twomobile.com/content/images/1221_large.jpg vs http://www.graveline.com/gfx2002/09-22-02-1.jpg .)
Collier's 576,000 shares "Includes options exercisable within 60 days to purchase 575,000 shares. Excludes unvested options to purchase 475,000 shares." per note 3 of the DEF 14A filing.
OT: My profound apologies to the board... I have had great difficulty in getting ahold of myself lately.
LMAO... Porn Corporation Makes Napster Bid
Mon Sep 16,10:10 AM ET
By RON HARRIS, Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - One of the Internet's leading purveyors of pornography has offered to purchase the Napster trademark and Web site address for nearly $3 million in hopes of cashing in on the bankrupt song-swap company's notorious reputation.
Barcelona, Spain-based Private Media Group Inc. offered to snap up Napster's most valuable remaining asset -- its unique brand identity -- for 1 million shares of Private's common stock, the bidding company announced in a release issued last week.
The company's chief executive, Charles Prast, said his company is interested in using the Napster trademark merely to place a familiar brand name on a peer-to-peer network for his pornography seeking customers. (hmmmm... mebbe they should get a TM registered for 'Wankster' instead - be a helluva lot cheaper - TR)
Not content to remain mired in the print pornography world, Private has branched out into the Internet and even offers adult content for mobile phones and PDAs like Palm and Pocket PC devices.
Earlier this month, a Delaware bankruptcy judge blocked the sale of Napster's assets to its chief investor, Bertelsmann AG. The former song-swapping giant prepared to convert its Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization filing into a Chapter 7 liquidation proceeding.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020916/ap_on_hi_te/napster_offer_3
Egbert, strictly FWIW....
I spent an hour or two a few years back looking into what patents had been filed with respect to the recording of digitized voice data on flash memory. As best as I could tell, e.Digital had the first such patent. I cannot say that this is an iron-clad fact, but I have yet to be informed otherwise. I wouldn't mind if others pursued the same line of inquiry at the patent office's searchable database, http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/search-adv.htm . (I used a combination of key words such as voice, digitized, flash, record OR recording, etc as a filtered inquiry into the contents of the patent abstract.) If EDIG does indeed have the first such patent, the possibilities are endless.
Odysseys on sale in the UK:
http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shopping/pages/productframe.html