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Microsoft Exec Rips ITunes
Apple's music service is too restrictive for Windows users, he says.
Jim Dalrymple, MacCentral.com
Friday, October 17, 2003
On the eve of the ITunes Music Store introduction for Windows-based PCs, Microsoft's general manager for the Windows Digital Media division, Dave Fester, posted his thoughts on ITunes for Windows. In his comments, Fester concludes that ITunes is too limited for Windows users.
"Unless Apple decides to make radical changes to their service model, a Windows-based version of ITunes will still remain a closed system, where IPod owners cannot access content from other services," said Fester.
"Additionally, users of ITunes are limited to music from Apple's Music Store ... this is a drawback for Windows users, who expect choice in music services, choice in devices, and choice in music from a wide variety of music services to burn to a CD or put on a portable device. Lastly, if you use Apple's music store along with ITunes, you don't have the ability of using the over 40 different Windows Media-compatible portable music devices. When I'm paying for music, I want to know that I have choices today and in the future."
Winning Over Users
When asked how the ITunes Music Store differs from Windows-based services, Fester talks about Napster and the different types of options it will offer users. Fester concludes that it will be the best experience that ultimately wins over consumers.
"All told, music fans should look for services that offer the best experience and take advantage of the best digital media platform available on Windows. With Windows Media 9 Series, you get faster starts, better quality music, and support for the most devices," Fester said.
For its part, Apple Computer still feels it has the best offerings in the market today and didn't seem too worried about Fester's comments.
"If someone buys music from another source and it can't play on the number-one digital music player, that would probably be very disappointing for them," Rob Schoeben, Apple vice president of Application Product Marketing, told MacCentral. "With our solution, we provide seamless integration of all the component parts that you want and it creates a compelling enough experience that you can do what you want to do--and that is enjoy music."
"We think the leading portable music player, the leading music store, and the best jukebox is a fantastic offering for consumers," said Schoeben.
Windows iTunes sparks mixed reactions
By Ina Fried
CNET News.com
October 17, 2003, 3:53 PM PT
A large number of Windows users have jumped at the chance to try Apple Computer's iTunes jukebox software--and reactions are ranging from unabashed praise to complaints of bugs.
Apple won't say how many people have downloaded the free software, but an executive said that it has been extremely popular since Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced it Thursday.
"The downloads have been going full tilt constantly," said Peter Lowe, Apple's director of marketing for applications and services. "We've been delivering a lot of Windows software over the last 24 hours."
The company's support discussion boards were filled with praise, concern over glitches and the usual gripes over what wasn't included--in this case, support for additional music formats and digital music players beyond Apple's own iPod.
Many of those who have downloaded the software were Mac users of iTunes and said they were glad to be able to run the same software on Windows machines they used either at work or at home.
"I've been using iTunes at work for a couple years now and love it. However, I have never found anything nearly as good for Windows until now," said Keith Hanlon, a freelance musician who also works in marketing and Web design for a drum store in Columbus, Ohio. "I am thrilled that iTunes for Windows is exactly the same as the Mac version."
However, not everyone has been so happy with their iTunes experience on the PC. One of the most serious complaints came from a number of Windows 2000 Professional users, who said installing iTunes appeared to crash their machines.
Patrick Nielsen Hayden, a science fiction book editor in New York, said he installed the Windows version on his PC but then was unable to use his machine. "On restart, Windows 2000 Pro got up to its "splash screen"--the screen displaying the product's logo. (It)got about halfway across the progress meter...and froze solid," he wrote in an e-mail.
Hayden said the experience was "very discouraging" but that he would try again after reinstalling Windows. "I'm actually much more of a Mac person at home; it's just that we have this PC with a big hard drive, and I was hoping to park the household MP3 collection on it instead of (on) one of the Macs," he said. "Maybe it'll work on a second attempt."
Apple's discussion boards featured more than a dozen other people reporting similar problems.
Apple's Lowe said the company is looking into the issue.
"We have seen some isolated reports of people locking up after restart," he said. "We are investigating that."
Apple recommended that those who have the problem boot their machine in Windows' "safe mode" by holding down the Shift key while restarting and temporarily uninstall iTunes. Some customers also reported having problems while restarting in safe mode, though.
Among other gripes were complaints that iTunes recategorized Windows users' music into new folders, although Apple said if the default settings are used, iTunes is not supposed to rename or move any music files.
In general, Lowe said, the reaction from both customers and reviewers has been overwhelmingly positive.
"We're really, really pleased with the reaction," he said.
OT Damn shame..Sad End to Search
Boy Missing in New Hampshire Mountains Found Dead
Oct. 17 — A 10-year-old Massachusetts boy missing since Monday in New Hampshire's White Mountains was found dead today, authorities said.
Authorities confirmed that they had found the body of Patric McCarthy.
"He has been found. Unfortunately, he is not alive," Sgt. Bruce Bonenfant of the Fish and Game Department told The Associated Press.
Patric's body was found about 2 ¼ miles from where he was last seen playing Monday afternoon. He disappeared while racing his stepbrothers back to the family condo in the White Mountains.
Hundreds of volunteer searchers joined authorities in combing through dense woods and 20 square miles of forest in Lincoln, N.H., looking for the boy, who had been visiting the area from Massachusetts' Cape Cod.
Patric lived with his father in Bourne, Mass., but for his 10th birthday — which was Sunday — he went with his dad, stepmother and two stepbrothers to the mountain condo.
He became separated from the other two boys — 13-year-old Gabe and 7-year-old Noah — while racing back to the home. Officials said he may have tried a shortcut and taken a wrong turn into the wilderness.
Details emerge on next-gen Windows file system
Posted 10/17/2003 @ 11:54 AM, by Ken "Caesar" Fisher
File systems may not be the center of many water cooler conversations, but Microsoft's next-generation plans have been the subject of much rumor mongering and guesswork amongst Windows enthusiasts. Currently, the NT File System (NTFS) rules the roost, providing the storage foundation to NT, Windows 2000 and XP (with slight changes, here and there). However, there's talk of a next-generation technology called WinFS, which some people expected would totally replace the now-aging NTFS. It has become clear that WinFS is instead going to be a kind of database qua filesystem solution that will be built atop NTFS.
NTFS is only one component of the revamped storage system in WinFS. Another key building block is the querying capabilities of Microsoft's SQL Server relational database, according to Microsoft. WinFS also will incorporate the data labeling capabilities of Extensible Markup Language (XML), Muglia said. "Think of WinFS as pulling together relational database technology, XML database technology, and file streaming that a file system has," he said. "It's a (storage) format that is agnostic, that is independent of the application."
Microsoft is taking a step in the right direction here. File systems are perhaps the most antiquated feature of modern OSes. Although there have been rare innovations such as BeOS' journaling file system, most solutions seem rather archaic when compared to the other innovations in computing in the past decade. Moving to a more database-like solution should make data storage, retrieval, searching, and linking much faster and more convenient. Still, much of the convenience will rely on the use of metadata-that is, data about data-to describe files, but as of yet there's been no sure fire way to get users to enter or manage metadata. You can already see this by analogy with most people's MP3 collections. Most users rely on filenames, e.g., 07-Rockin the Suburbs.mp3, to identify a song or artist. The more ambitious of us create hierarchies of directories to provide more information, and to make things easier to find (e.g., C:\Music\Rock\B\Ben Folds\Rockin the Suburbs\07-Rockin the Suburbs.mp3). But if you've ever used a program like MusicMatch or iTunes, you also know that you can use MP3 ID tags to organize your library within those applications, without touching the actual file structure. The latter solution is the best one if a) you have all of your ID info filled in, and b) you only use one client to play your files (because the Library is built and maintained by only the app in question). What Microsoft wants to do is take metadata like MP3 IDs and make them accessible to all applications and services through the file system, for all kinds of data. Such a solution, if implemented the right way, would also let applications add their own metadata to files, without breaking them. So, for example, an MP3 player could store per-song EQ settings, play counts, and other non-ID tag information in the file without making the file unplayable.
That said, "built atop NTFS" leads to me to think that this is going to be more of an update to the indexing service than a change to the file system per se. However, more details should be available by the end of the month, so let's play wait-and-see.
p.s. Ben Folds rocks.
OT Chips Push Up Electronic Firm’s Profits
By Phil Waller, City Staff, PA News
Fri 17 Oct 2003
12:27pm (UK)
Electronics group Samsung said today an “explosive increase” in sales of memory chips for mobile phones and digital cameras had helped it unveil a higher-than-expected rise in quarterly profits.
The firm, whose UK electronics division has its headquarters in Chertsey and a business telecoms arm in Manchester, said revenues in its flash memory chip division grew by 40% to £1.3 billion.
That helped the South Korean group’s net income in the third quarter to rise to about £955 million, on a 77% rise in operating income to £1.06 billion and a 15% rise in sales to £5.7 billion.
Samsung said the strong performance was noteworthy because it was achieved despite falls in the US dollar, soaring oil prices and faltering domestic consumption.
Samsung makes products including computer monitors, fax machines, digital cordless telephones, microwave ovens, mobile phones and MP3 Internet music players.
Samsung Electronics entered the UK market in 1984 and now has a turnover of more than £300 million and employs 120 staff.
Since the opening of the UK headquarters, additional sites have been added including an European customer service and distribution centre in Telford, a research centre in Middlesex and a manufacturing plant in Wynyard.
The UK business has five product divisions covering consumer electronics, telecoms, fax machines and printers, computer peripheral products and notebook personal computers.
The group’s three mainstay divisions – memory chips, mobile phones and TFT liquid crystal displays – all set new quarterly revenue records.
Samsung said the revenue growth in its flash memory chip division was unprecedented.
“Samsung is well on its way to realise its recently-announced goal of becoming the number one flash memory maker by 2004,” the group said.
The group’s telecommunication network business, which includes the mobile phone division, also had a good quarter with 17.7% growth in revenues to £1.9 billion.
Strong demand for high end mobile phone handsets with colour screens, cameras and camcorder functions drove unit sales up by 25% during the second quarter.
The news comes after the world’s biggest mobile phone maker, Nokia, signalled further growth for the handset market yesterday.
Sales in Samsung’s TFT LCD division, which is seen by some as the next generation driver of the IT industry, increased by 26% to £727 million.
Virgin branches out into electronics gear
Thu Oct 16, 6:26 AM ET
By Edward C. Baig, USA TODAY
Sir Richard Branson wants to sell you a low-cost MP3 player and a cheap airline ticket. It's all part of the charismatic 53-year-old Virgin Group founder's grand plan to conquer the American market. (Chat transcript: Virgin founder Richard Branson)
The British billionaire was in town to celebrate Virgin's new line of 15 electronics gizmos, ranging from a $40 portable CD player to a $500 portable TV/DVD.
The products, which carry the Virgin Pulse name and same silver shade as on Virgin Atlantic airplanes, are being exclusively sold in Targets and Virgin Megastores. The launch comes 18 months after Virgin, with partner Sprint, started selling cell phones. Almost 1 million subscribers have signed up.
Branson's challenge with Pulse is to thrive on a low-margin battlefield dominated by the Sonys and Panasonics of the world, and getting ever-congested with newbies such as Dell and Gateway. He hopes Pulse engenders a warm, fuzzy feeling that extends to other Virgin brands. "If somebody buys one of our electronics products and likes the experience, they're more likely to fly on our airline," he says.
Virgin has always taken a venture-capital-type approach to business. For all of Branson's successes with airlines and records, other pieces of the empire have sometimes sputtered. But Silicon Valley-based tech analyst Tim Bajarin thinks electronics will succeed. "Like (Apple Computer's) Steve Jobs (news - web sites), Branson has the golden touch. ... When he puts his money and power and marketing dollars behind something, he makes things work."
The rest of Branson's American assault will come from the skies. He is uncharacteristically cagey when it comes to specifics for Virgin USA, the low-cost airline he plans to launch next year. As a foreign entity, Virgin cannot take a bigger than 49% stake, so Virgin must have a partner. "I'm going to be killed for saying this, but it will be a fully frilled low-cost airline."
Branson is not sanguine about saving the supersonic Concorde. His offer to rival British Airways of 1 million pounds per plane (about $1.7 million) was soundly rejected; and Air France wouldn't take his calls.
Branson is banking on a friendlier response in the USA. Among the new Pulse entries is a stylish alarm clock. The Virgin boss winks at the marketing possibilities. If it wakes you, Branson says, "Virgin is the first thing you're going to think of when you get up in the morning."
Apple unveils iTunes, Music Store for Windows
33 minutes ago Add Technology - MacCentral to My Yahoo!
By Peter Cohen MacCentral
At a special event held today at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Apple CEO Steve Jobs (news - web sites) unveiled the long-awaited iTunes software for Windows. The service provides not only digital music playback features for Windows users, but also offers them access to the iTunes Music Store. Both iTunes and the iTunes Music Store have hitherto been limited for use by Macintosh (news - web sites) users.
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Apple, AMD, Intel - which one's right for you? Plus, tricked-out laptops and the power of Athlon
iTunes for Windows is identical to its Macintosh counterpart. And like its Mac counterpart, iTunes for Windows is available for free download from Apple's Web site. (The site hadn't been updated as MacCentral posted this article.)
iTunes for Windows sports the same features Mac users have grown accustomed to in their software -- the ability to burn their audio files to CDs and rip files from CD to MP3. What's more iTunes for Windows supports Rendezvous file sharing. Rendezvous is Apple's term for an open zero-configuration networking standard. As it's deployed in iTunes, users can access each other's playlists through the iTunes software as long as they're working on the same physical subnetwork as each other (ostensibly, a local area networking environment in a home). Music can also be shared between Macs and Windows computers.
Accessing the iTunes Music Store through the Windows iTunes software is the same process as well -- in fact, Jobs noted during his presentation that both Mac and Windows versions of iTunes access the iTunes Music Store the same way, through the same servers. As a result, files purchased from Mac or Windows iTunes software is identical: the music is encoded using Dolby Advanced Audio Codec (AAC) and has the same Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology deployed, with the same restrictions: iTunes allows users to rip their Music Store-bought files to CDs as many times as they want; they can also share music on up to three computers, or synchronize their music with an iPod.
System requirements for iTunes v4.1 for Windows call for a PC equipped with Windows XP (news - web sites) or Windows 2000 (news - web sites). Use of the iTunes Music Store requires a valid credit card with a U.S. billing address.
Click here
NYSE to Fine Floor-Trading Firms Involved in Improper Practices
Thursday, October 16, 2003
NEW YORK — The New York Stock Exchange (search) said on Thursday it will seek hefty fines against five floor-trading firms (search) for improper practices that could have cost clients millions of dollars.
The exchange did not disclose the names of the firms, known to be its five biggest specialist members, but said it informed the Securities and Exchange Commission (search) of its plans and is working with the federal regulators to bring the probe to a close.
The announcement comes at a critical moment for specialist firms, which manage the buying and selling of shares on the exchange floor, and for the NYSE, which is still reeling from the resignation last month of former Chairman Richard Grasso (search).
The 211-year-old exchange is the last major exchange still using the traditional open outcry trading system, handled by specialist member firms. The specialist system is increasingly finding itself under attack, with Fidelity Investments, the largest mutual fund, saying earlier this week the exchange should replace specialists with computers.
The NYSE is also finding itself under attack for the way it runs its own shop. Interim Chairman John Reed (search) was recruited out of retirement to revamp the exchange's governance after Grasso resigned last month following disclosure of his $188 million compensation and benefits package.
Grasso's pay deal was developed and approved by executives from some of the firms he was charged with regulating, and critics have long contended the exchange is soft on regulating member firms.
The five firms targeted by the probe, disclosed earlier this year, are LaBranche & Co. Inc. (LAB), , Van der Moolen Holding NV (VDM), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS)'s Spear, Leeds & Kellogg; FleetBoston Financial Corp. (FBF)'s Fleet Specialist; and Bear Wagner Specialists LLC, partly owned by Bear Stearns Cos. Inc. (BSC).
The NYSE said the firms in question at times inappropriately enacted their own trades before executing customer orders. At other times, it said, a specialist had customer buy-and-sell orders on the electronic order book that should have been executed with or against each other, but instead the specialist traded for the firm account to the disadvantage of the customers.
Speaking before Congress, Reed said the specialist trading system was working well for investors and the "benefit of having an auction system seems to rest on solid ground."
The NYSE said in a statement that it will implement new software to deter similar conduct in the future.
But large traders do not agree the system is working well.
"Nothing has really changed (in the past few days) other than people having been more vocal about these long-standing concerns," said John Wheeler, manager of equity trading at fund company American Century Investment Management.
He said the NYSE had a "once-in-a-hundred-year opportunity" to make structural changes.
The SEC declined to comment.
Meanwhile, shares of LaBranche fell 11 percent, to $11.15 in trading action in New York, and Van der Moolen fell 16 percent in Amsterdam.
Fleet said it had no details on the news, and Bear Stearns declined to comment. Goldman Sachs said it would not comment on the investigation until it had greater clarity. A spokesman for the NYSE declined to comment beyond the exchange's release.
"The viability of the business model is at stake following the NYSE investigation, with possible SEC intervention," said analyst Ralf Jacobs at Kempen & Co, which cut its rating for Van der Moolen to "reduce" from "neutral."
LaBranche said it was told in September by the NYSE that its trading activity under investigation amounted to roughly $5 million for the period of 2000 to 2002.
But on Wednesday, the NYSE told LaBranche that figure could be higher, although LaBranche said it would still be less than 5 percent of its total trading revenue during that period.
LaBranche said that based on its own review it believes that the amounts in question are "substantially less."
Van der Moolen spokesman John Abbink said his firm was likely to feel the effect of any fine in the fourth quarter, taking it either as a charge or a provision.
"This is obviously very painful news, particularly now that the viability of the specialist function is under mounting pressure," said Fortis Bank analyst Maarten Bakker, who cut his recommendation of Van der Moolen to "sell" from "buy."
Good read from the bottom up...
Thank you. Steve Leaves stage. Broadcast over
- Jobs back on stage, saying thank you. We love what we do, and we work hard on it because we love it.
- Song ended. Everyone clapping
- Sarah singing again
- Sarah talking... proud of Steve Jobs and what Apple's done.
- Introducing Sarah Mclachlan... playing on stage now
- And now... London. Mick Jagger.
- Dr. Dre: Congrats on the iPod.
- Next to Los Angeles - DR. Dre
- Bono says he appreciates what Apple's done and that's why he's here to "kiss corporate ass. I don't always kiss corporate ass"
- "I'd like to teach the world to iTune... uh, sorry, wrong company." - Bono
- "Really happy to be here. It's like the Pope of software meeting up with the Dali Llama of integration" - Bono
- Bono is video chating with Steve Jobs
- First to Dublin.
- Some of the arists wanted to say a few words, but they are out touring. So, am going to use iChat. "Gotta use a Mac for that" (applause)
- REM, Black Eyed Peas, Grateful Dead - only place to find it online is iTunes, Coldplay.
- Now, talk about Artists. A Bunch of exclusive content.
- So, 100 million songs in the first year.
- Jobs: Historic promotion. Clearly going to make music lovers happy, and soft drink lovers happy, and labels and artists happy. Pepsi happy, and Apple happy. Everybody wins promotion.
- Pepsi, Diet Pepsi or Sierra Mist bottles.
- Introducing President of Pepsi (video)
- Just enter the code from the cap and download your favorite song. Starts on Feb 1, 2004 at the Superbowl
- Jobs: What else to get to the 100 million goal? We are giving away 100 million songs. Partnering with Pepsi. Pepsi is going to make 300 million bottles with 1 in 3 a winner. Give away them all in a 60 day time period.
- We're taking AOL's #1 music destination, and combining it with iTunes. It will be an unmatched offering.
- Introducing CEO of AOL - Jon Miller
- AOL users don't have to put in their Credit Card. Can enter their AOL ID and that's it.
- Talking about AOL's music store. Going to put iTunes buttons next to every song/album on AOL's music site. Will launch iTunes and show the song/album
- Exclusive partnership with AOL and Apple.
- But what if that's not enough? What else should we do? We're going to make it really easy for 25 million online users to discover music to get iTunes... to do that, we are announcing a partnership with AOL.
- Now, taking it to windows
- How are we going to do it? Mac customers will buy 30 million at current rate in year.
- Now, we are clearly the market leader here. We set some goals. We wanted to sell 1 million in the first 6 months, but sold 1 million in the first week. Reset goal to 10 milllion in 6 months, but reached it in 4 months. Now... want to sell 100 million songs in a year - by April 2004.
- http://www.itunes.com
- New iTunes available on both platforms Today! And is Free download.
- Grateful Dead on iTunes
- New exclusive content on the featured artists. Best of the Eagles. Not on CD yet, but can get it on iTunes today.
- Demoing Gift Certificants. Can buy or redeem. Sending on to Phil via form. Sending $50. "Happy Birthday Phil". Confirm purchase. How do I redeem one? I get it in my mail. Click on redeem now. Boom. brings up iTunes. Do you want to redeem it on this machine? And that's it. You get the credit in the itunes store.
- Showing Celeb Playlists. Dave Brubeck's, Sting's. Playing demos of songs they have chosen.
- david mccullough's biography of "john adams", recommending eb white's "charolette's web" again, listening to preview, showing browsing, it uses Mac-like scrollbars and widgets on Windows. robin williams, some are tagged with "explicit". fresh air on NPR - 767 Terry Gross programs
- Previewing Audio Books - Hillary Clinton, and others...
- genre pages have "really blossomed"
- biography information now
- Now can sort albums by album name, or best sellers on artist pages, or Original release dates.
- Playing Hey Mama, buying songs, playing songs.
- Now demoing the store on a PC
- iTunes Radio Stations
- Playing Songs with visualizer on PC, smart playlists
- Playing Songs
- Launching iTunes for Windows
- Do something, I've never done before... give a demo on a PC
- Can mix and match your 3 authorized computers (Mac or PC)
- Apple is the "gold standard for personal use rights"
- Also the Best Music Store "on the Planet". Exactly the same as Mac store. Identical.
- iPod now comes with iTunes
- Music Match limits burn speeds unless you pay $20.
- Compares it to WMP and MusicMatch. iTunes has full speed encoding, MP3 CDs, iPod compatible. Others are limited in features or prevent it altogehter. iTunes shares Music up to 3 computers via Rendezvous. The others don't. No upgrade costs for iTunes. Free.
- Jobs says it is the best jukebox on the PC
- Jobs says it is the best jukebox on the PC
- Runs on XP and 2000
- Probably the best Windows app ever written. :)
- Windows iTunes - exactly the same thing
- One more thing..."Hell froze over"
- Celebrity Playlists. Music lists from celebs - Sting, Dave Brubeck, Herbie Hancock, Michael Stipe etc...
- Allowance - instead of giving your kids your CC#. Can give an allowance (recurring monthly gift certificate basically). No need for credit card for the accounts. Perfect for kids.
- You get an email with a Redeem Now, and gives you a Credit in your iTunes account. Can by anythingin the iTunes Store.
- Gift Certificates - most requested - select between $10-$200 to send to anyone.
- Perfect "round tripping" - syncs and knows where it stopped off. So, when you sync, the mac or ipod will remember where you left off
- One click shopping for iTunes Book Store
- Showing iTunes Book pages
- Free previews of Audio Books
- Audio Books, alongside the music. Deal with Audible.com. Multiyear exclusive deal. Over 5000 books on iTunes.
- Over 200 indie lables.
- # could be higher if they let in every song. Claims these are quality songs
- More Music - Today at 400,000 tracks by end of the month
- Today, 2nd generation of iTunes
- iTunes Market share - 70% last week of all legal downloads
- 600,000 songs a week
- 13 million songs
- People don't want to rent music.
- Good integration, 99cents, unlimited iPods, 3 Macs
- Talking about iTunes Music Store
- new iPod Ad previewed. Rock and Roll iPod Ad.
- Showing the iPod Ad that's been on TV - Hey Mama
- Photo Storage - $99 Accessory. Connects to bottom of iPod. syncs with iPhoto.
- $49 Microphone and speaker, syncs into new version of iPods. Record 670 hours.
- Marketshare of iPod is 31% - #1.
- 336,000 iPods sold in this last Quarter.
- First thing - the iPod. It's amazing. These third gen iPods are as thin as two cd jewelcases, now up to 10,000 songs in 40GB iPods.
- Steve Jobs comes on stage
- there's a grand piano on the stage
- "Please turn off all cell phones and pages"
- Music playing.
Intel and Sony Music Collaborate to Bring Advanced Music and Entertainment to Intel-Based Cell Phones
Thursday October 16, 11:00 am ET
SANTA CLARA, Calif. and NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 16, 2003--Intel Corporation and Sony Music Entertainment today announced they will work together to enable users to access music, images, videos and other Sony Music Entertainment content on powerful, Intel-based cellular phones and PDAs.
Together, the companies will optimize Sony Music Entertainment's mobile applications, services and content for mobile devices running the Intel® Personal Internet Client Architecture (Intel PCA) -- providing users with PC-quality digital music and video on their cell phones. The two companies also plan to co-develop future applications and services for Intel-based phones, including applications that will enable consumers to use PC-based multimedia content on their cell phones.
"Music, and music videos in particular, promise to be among the most exciting applications for mobile devices," said Ron Smith, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Wireless Communications and Computing Group. "Through this collaboration, users will be able to take Sony Music's premium entertainment content with them anywhere and be able to enjoy a quality experience."
"Sony Music Entertainment's work with Intel promises to deliver the rich, multimedia applications that consumers expect on their phones," said Philip Wiser, chief technology officer, Sony Music Entertainment. "We're excited about working together to create products and services that take advantage of the advanced video, audio and 3D animation capabilities supported by the Intel PCA architecture. By optimizing our products for this powerful platform, we expect to enable a very compelling end user experience for Sony Music's mobile applications, services and content."
Intel and Sony Music Entertainment will work with cell phone makers and wireless carriers to make Sony Music's mobile applications and services available on Intel PCA-based phones on advanced wireless networks around the world. The Sony Music portfolio of mobile products and services enables wireless carriers to offer subscribers a variety of personalized services including the ability to download and experience images, ring tones, music videos and other music entertainment services. For phone makers, collaborations such as this enable exciting device and content bundles and provide an opportunity to showcase new and improved phone capabilities to customers.
The initial products from the collaboration are expected to be available through carriers and handset makers in 2004.
About Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment Inc. (SME) is a leading global music company that produces, manufactures, distributes and markets recorded music and entertainment in a wide range of formats, including video, CD, DVD, MD, SACD and via the Internet. The company comprises three divisions: Sony Music (domestic U.S.); Sony Music International (all countries outside of the U.S. and Japan); and Sony Classical (the worldwide classical music division).
About Intel
Intel, the world's largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom.
Intel is a trademark or registered trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact:
Intel Corporation
Mark Miller, 916-356-3767
mark.o.miller@intel.com
or
Sony Music Entertainment
Keith McCarthy, 212-833-5047
keith_mccarthy@sonymusic.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Intel Corporation
Tis' the Season to Get Jiggy
by Hwang Dae-jin (djhwang@chosun.com)
Updated Oct.12,2003 20:15 KST
With Christmas and holiday seasons coming up, companies that make MP3 players are introducing their newest product lines. One of the hottest selling items is an MP3 player with a large gigabytes (GB) capacity, which also comes with a hard disk drive (HDD) installed.
The largest MP3 manufacturer in Korea, iRiver, has developed a MP3 with a 10 GB HDD, more than 5,000 of which were sold on the domestic market within 3 weeks of its release.
Cowon Systems, Inc., whose MP3 players that can be worn as necklaces, is preparing another new product "iAudio 4" that is a size of a cigarette lighter. The iAudio 4 weighs 30g grams, 12 grams lighter than the previous model, the CW-300, and iAudio 4 is 10 millimeters thinner, both vertically and horizontally. Cowon also plans to join in the HDD MP3 player competition soon, with their own 20 GB HDD player.
Samsung is planning to release it YP-900, with a 10 GB HDD, that can hold 2,500 songs. The firm has even remodeled its Yepp customer service web page. Costumers can now get online replies within two hours and can get a plyer fixed within 12 hours. Samsung aims to take 40 percent of the domestic MP3 player market.
For Techies, School Bells Mean 'Let the Games Begin'
By IAN URBINA
Published: October 15, 2003
sk teachers whether cellphones, PDA's and other gadgets have become magnets for in-class mischief and distraction, and most will say they are not a problem.
But talk to students and you get a different story.
"They are everywhere this year," said Danny Berger, a junior at Fieldston High School, in Riverdale. "A lot of people have cellphones and MP3's. Just today, my friend who listens to music all day sold his older MP3 player to another student because there is a newer one out now. Palm Pilots have an infrared way you can beam stuff to other Palm Pilots, so during class you can play a game of Pong with another student from across the room."
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At Stuyvesant High School, the tales are similar.
"Someone brought in a universal remote and walked through the halls turning on all the TV's in classrooms," one Stuyvesant junior said. Another student mentioned that when his hair was still long enough to hang past his ears, he could wear small headphones for his MP3 player and listen nonstop. Still another added that her friend often used a minilaser pointer to put a moving red dot on the teacher's backside whenever he turned away from the class.
At Wagner Junior High School, cellphones seem to be the gadget of choice for subterfuge.
"You never see them, but you always hear them," said Christian Albrizio, a sixth grader at Wagner. "Practically every class, one goes off and the teacher has no clue where it is. It's hilarious. Kids could put them on vibrate, but I think people let them ring just to drive the teachers crazy."
Another sixth grader, Brian McKenna, waved his Nokia camera phone. "I take pictures with mine and everyone wants to look," he said. "Only in the halls, of course, never in class," he added with a smirk.
Previously, cellphones and pagers were banned from school premises in New York City. But after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the ban was loosened as many parents felt safer if they knew their children could call home in an emergency. The phones and pagers are now permitted at school but must be turned off and put away during the day.
Most teachers and administrators recognize the increased presence of these electronic gadgets on school premises, but they do not consider the situation out of control.
"You'd be amazed at the things even our youngest kids bring to school," said John Barnes, a principal in training at Wagner Junior High. "I do think there are more this year than before. But for the most part they don't abuse the privilege."
Anne Manwell, a teacher of molecular biology at Stuyvesant High School, had much the same view. "They are pretty serious about their work," she said. "Really, it doesn't happen much in class that they use their cells or Palm Pilots."
School-related organizations offer a similar assessment. Ron Davis, deputy press secretary of the United Federation of Teachers, said, "We have not heard any complaints from teachers about these devices."
As for the Department of Education, a spokesman said, "We have not received any reports on this, not in terms of confiscations and not in terms of disciplinary actions."
Jill Levy, president of the Council of Supervisors and Administrators, agreed. "We have not heard about any problems with cellphones or hand-held computers," she said.
But some parents hear otherwise.
While waiting for her daughter, who is in the sixth grade, Lissie Carrasquillo explained, "Sophia tells me that she watches other kids text-messaging each other during class all the time. We went on a class camping trip in the woods. The school said absolutely no cellphones. The kids all brought them anyway."
Some administrators concede that things go on below the radar.
George Morgan, an assistant principal who has been at Wagner for three years, at first said: "Cellphones aren't a distraction here since our kids tend to respect the rules. They're pretty serious about learning." But when asked about MP3 players and phones with text messaging, he seemed less certain. "You know what, I am not up to speed on this stuff. Text messaging and all these other things — I said that it's not happening, but maybe I just don't know."
Nationally, close to a third of American teenagers now carry cellphones, according to the United States Department of Education, in part because prices have dropped 20 percent in the last two years.
But cellphones are not the only obstacle to classroom learning. Calculators, too, can pose challenges.
As if keeping focus in geometry were ever easy, now the Pythagorean Theorem is up against Dino Puzzle and Block Dude, both of which are games pre-programmed in the TI-83 Plus Silver Edition graphing calculator, made by Texas Instruments. Countless other calculator games are just an Internet download away.
"I'm not going to say what chemistry teacher it was, but I sat in his class yesterday and played a game on my friend's calculator." Jeremy recounted. "The teacher didn't much care so long as I listened to the information and produced on the test."
Some gadgets also have the potential for cheating.
"I have heard that during the regents math exam, kids go to the bathroom and use their cellphones, which have calculators built in, to solve equations." said Anne Manwell, who teaches molecular biology and research methods at Stuyvesant.
Jeremy said he knew a student whose entire Latin text was loaded into his Palm Pilot. Another student said that wrist calculators resembling watches were great places to store math and science equations.
Not all students are convinced that high tech is best for all purposes. "Look, if you are going to cheat, still nothing beats leaning over and looking on the next guy's paper," said one Stuyvesant junior who asked to remain anonymous.
CyberKey Provides More Details of On-Demand Entertainment Web Portal
Wednesday October 15, 9:30 am ET
CyberKey(TM) utilizes patent pending Digital Rights Management (DRM) to securely deliver encrypted content such as music, video, photos, files and business and lifestyle software applications to a universal serial bus (USB) flash memory device, CYBERKEY(TM), which enables enforcement of copyrights, content portability and security. Additionally CyberKey improves the performance and reliability of USB-based flash memory drives by employing patent pending memory management, application launcher which enables applications such as email, PIM's and MP3 players, to run from a CYBERKEY, and software upgrade capability
ST. GEORGE, Utah, Oct. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CyberKey Corporation, Inc. (Pink Sheets: CYKY - News) today gave more details of its on-demand entertainment web portal.
ADVERTISEMENTCyberKey is building an on-demand entertainment web portal which initially will focus on digital music, and will soon thereafter add movies, video, edutainment, and lifestyle software applications. "The CyberKey on-demand entertainment web portal will focus technologically on providing an intuitive user interface with search tools and all of the other amenities and services internet music lovers want," said Jim Plant, CyberKey Chairman and CEO. He continued, "the end result will be music downloads as simple as opening an email attachment, while enabling copyright protection to the fullest extent of the law for copyright holders."
Users will appreciate how transparent CyberKey has implemented DRM on the CYBERKEY. CyberKey DRM is totally implemented on the CYBERKEY, with no server of service intervention. Because a CYBERKEY looks like standard flash memory to the desktop computer it can also be used with other DRM systems such as those from Microsoft, Liquid Audio, RealNetworks, and Intel. With a CYBERKEY users can download music files that are in any format supporting the operating system their CYBERKEY is attached to such as WMA, Liquid Audio, AAC, ATRAC3, RealAudio, etc., in the case of Microsoft Windows. CYBERKEY supports Windows, Macintosh, and Linux today since these popular operating systems support USB flash memory.
CyberKey's DRM solution focuses on the end user and not the computer they use. With DRM enabled on a USB flash memory device, which fits in the palm of a hand or on a key chain, a CYBERKEY is 100% transparent to end users, enables enforcement of copyrights, and requires nothing from a desktop computer, server or internet service provider.
CyberKey will provide CYBERKEYs to end users through service providers, OEMs, and systems integrators, in addition to customers of its CyberKey branded on-demand entertainment portal. CyberKey is currently discussing a variety of marketing relationships with a number of major sales channel partners and content providers in the entertainment industry.
With a CYBERKEY, users can easily transport large amounts of music, video, data, files and software applications from any USB enabled computer to any other USB enabled computer or device such as MP3 players. USB is a standard communication interface on most personal computers, and a growing list of consumer devices. CYBERKEY are "plug and play" devices capable of natively on most popular operating systems with device drivers. A device roughly the size of an adult's small finger, CYBERKEYs can today securely store up to one Gigabyte (1GB) of electronic content each, including copyrighted material such as music, video, books, email and other sensitive business files and applications, which can now be protected using CyberKey's patent pending DRM technology. CyberKey will deliver larger CYBERKEYs in the future to accommodate larger files and file libraries for content such as movies, music, three dimensional graphics, and large data base applications.
CyberKey Corporation is based in St. George, Utah, partners with industry leading market makers to deliver secure USB drive based solutions to vertical markets and content owners, distributors, service providers, and resellers. CyberKey solutions solve real world issues in entertainment, education, government, military, automotive, financial services, and medical industries. CyberKey technologies allow users to securely untether large amounts of electronic data, files and the software applications from one electronic device to another by utilizing patent pending USB-based DRM solutions. CyberKey solutions create new market opportunities for existing industries, applications and users. For more information, visit CyberKey's Web site at www.cyberkeycorp.com.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: CyberKey Corporation
Cassie, streaming is gaining traction not downloading (with the exception of iTunes). The wintel download services are either dysfunctional or just dawning which was my point to you in that post.
New Internet Speed Record Set by Euro - U.S. Labs
1 hour, 5 minutes ago
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GENEVA (Reuters) - Two major scientific research centers said on Wednesday they had set a new world speed record for sending data across the Internet, equivalent to transferring a full-length DVD film in seven seconds.
Missed Tech Tuesday?
Apple, AMD, Intel - which one's right for you? Plus, tricked-out laptops and the power of Athlon
The European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN (news - web sites), said the feat, doubling the previous top speed, was achieved in a nearly 30-minute transmission over 7,000 kms of network between Geneva and a partner body in California.
CERN, whose laboratories straddle the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, said it had sent 1.1 Terabytes of data at 5.44 gigabits a second (Gbps) to a lab at the California Institute of Technology, or Caltech, on October 1.
This is more than 20,000 times faster than a typical home broadband connection, and is also equivalent to transferring a 60-minute compact disc within one second -- an operation that takes around eight minutes on standard broadband.
Using current technology, a DVD -- or digital video disc -- film of some 90 minutes length takes some 15 minutes to download from the Internet.
Olivier Martin of CERN, which is also the European Laboratory for Particle Physics and home to a hugely ambitious particle-smashing project to unravel the fundamental laws of nature, hailed the feat as a milestone.
It would bring closer researchers' final goal of abolishing distance and making collaboration between scientists around the world efficient and effectively instantaneous, he said.
Harvey Newman of Caltech, another of the world's major research centers, said the achievement boosted hopes that systems operating at 10 gigabits per second "will be commonplace in the relatively near future."
The previous fastest transfer -- 2.38 Gbps -- was achieved in February this year by a joint team from CERN, Caltec, the U.S. Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Linear Accelerator Center at Stanford in California.
Baggage handler to deal maker..hadn't seen at least this version
JOHN GILLIE; The News Tribune
Sometimes, Bill Boyer has discovered, the truth can be just too improbable to believe.
The 38-year-old Boyer, who is single, recently met a woman who asked him what he did for a living. He told her truthfully that he was the chief executive officer of a Tacoma-based airborne entertainment system company, the owner of a Lakewood espresso bar and the proprietor of a day spa. And at night and on the weekends he's worked as a baggage handler for Alaska Airlines.
"She told me I was lying and walked off," he said. "From now on, I'm just saying I'm a baggage handler."
As he spoke, Boyer sat in the conference room of APS Inc., four stories above downtown Tacoma's Broadway Plaza. He is the company's chief executive officer.
How Boyer rose to that position is a story of how someone with well-focused ideas, energy and loyal associates can turn an ambitious dream into reality.
He's made a deal with 20th Century Fox to provide movies and television content, with a San Diego electronics company to design and produce his 2.4-pound entertainment player, and with Alaska Airlines to use his product on its transcontinental flights.
And now that he's broken the ice with one airline, Boyer says, his company expects to announce new deals with several more airlines in the next few weeks.
Boyer's story is indeed improbable.
It began two years ago as his employer, Alaska Airlines, started expanding its travel network to the East Coast from Seattle.
Alaska, which until then had concentrated its routes on the West Coast, had planes that could make the five- and six-hour flights to Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., and Miami, but they weren't equipped to show movies.
Alaska employees wondered why the airline wasn't equipping its fleet with movie screens.
The answer came from Dave Palmer, the airline's managing director of marketing. Palmer told employees in a newsletter that the existing in-flight entertainment systems were ill-suited to Alaska. They were expensive (up to $5,000 a plane) and heavy (2,000 pounds of extra weight), and the ones that depended on satellite feeds didn't work in the Mexican and Canadian airspace that Alaska crossed on many of its flights.
With air traffic taking a nosedive after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the airline couldn't afford to install the systems.
Boyer, who had worked as a baggage handler for Alaska on weekends for 15 years, drew up a sketch of a self-contained player and showed it to Palmer. Boyer already had some credibility as an entrepreneur with the airline.
Two years before, Boyer had invented a plastic bumper that fitted onto the end of portable baggage conveyors used to load planes. That bumper protected the planes from damage from the belt.
Palmer said the player was a good idea, but he needed to work a deal with Hollywood for movies and other content.
Boyer wrote a dozen studios before Fox replied.
"They opened my eyes to a whole new set of concerns," he said. The studios were most concerned with protecting their copyrighted movies and shows from piracy.
He sought help from friends more familiar with electronics than he.
Ray Henson, a former Intel software engineer who patronized Boyer's Lakewood coffee bar, helped him devise security for the movies and TV shows and found a San Diego company that agreed to design and build the player.
The player, which can be propped up on the seat-back tray, contains a 20-gigabyte hard drive, a 10-hour battery and a 7-inch screen. A row of simple buttons allows users to select from 10 movies, three half-hour TV shows and 10 hours of digitized music.
The players feed their sound into disposable earphones that APS furnishes with each rental.
Alaska, which has exclusive rights to use the player for the first few months, will stock 48 players in each plane used in transcontinental flights. Coach passengers may rent the players in advance for $8 a flight or on the plane for $10 from the flight attendant. For first-class passengers the players will be free.
The player solved a number of problems for Alaska, which has a reputation of being a pioneer in using new technology.
"Offering our customers the latest high technology in-flight entertainment system in the industry is in keeping with our commitment to offer technology that makes flying more satisfying for our customers," said Alaska senior vice president Gregg Saretsky.
The whole stock of players weighs 115 pounds a plane compared with the ton of a built-in system. And passengers will have a choice of movies and other content, Boyer said.
"Last week, I flew to New York. The airline I flew had one movie I'd already seen on the trip there and the same movie coming back," said Boyer. "With our system, the passenger will have a choice."
The APS system also will include a card deck-sized credit card verification system for the flight attendant, eliminating the need for a passenger to handle cash.
That credit card system will also be equipped to handle other charges for beverages and other items the flight attendants sell.
Boyer first saw the credit card system at a coffee show more than a year ago. He bought the rights to use the system in the air and simplified its menus and shrunk its hardware.
A dozen airlines are interested in using the credit card system even if they don't buy the entertainment system. Tests of a credit card system show it increases beverage sales by 60 percent on a typical flight, he said.
The APS president sees several other uses for the entertainment module beyond air travel. Boyer has already talked to cruise lines about using the system, and passenger railroads, hospitals and the military are potential customers.
And APS and the airlines can sell advertising on the screens to companies looking for travelers heading to their cities.
He's even talked with the Seattle Seahawks and two other professional football teams about buying the modules. The company could download game films, playbooks and instructional materials on the modules for players' and coaches' review on the way to and from games and for the players to review in their homes and hotel rooms.
The rush of interest in APS products has put Boyer's baggage handler career on hold. He's officially on leave. Though he has raised $2.5 million from friends, relatives and other investors to move the company forward, Boyer still hasn't taken a paycheck from the company.
"I don't want to make the mistake that so many of the dot-coms made. We've kept our company lean. But I think maybe it's time that even the CEO gets a paycheck," he said.
John Gillie: 253-597-8663
john.gillie@mail.tribnet.com
William J. Boyer Jr.
Title: President and CEO of APS Inc.
Born: Frankfurt, Germany
Age: 38
Education: University of Puget Sound, Western Washington University
Marital status: Single
Career: Alaska Airlines baggage handler since 1988, espresso shop and day spa owner
Car: Jeep Grand Cherokee
(Published 12:01AM, September 24th, 2003)
That's it..everyone gets a digEplayer with content secured by DivX and e.Digital technology...
Wednesday October 15, 01:22 AM
Actors join the fight against "screeners" ban
By Bob Tourtellotte
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Several top actors and past Academy Award winners are joining the battle against a controversial ban on Oscar movie "screeners" by voicing their opposition in a newspaper advertisement, a film industry source has said.
Signers of the ad, which will appear in the Wednesday edition of industry papers Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, include Oscar winners Adrien Brody and Susan Sarandon as well as "Matrix" star Keanu Reeves, said the source who is connected to IFP/Los Angeles, a group helping spearhead the drive against the ban.
The ad will ask the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents Hollywood's major studios, to reverse their decision to issue screeners to Academy members who vote on the awards.
The ban on "screeners" -- videotapes and DVDs of movies vying for awards -- has raised a major outcry by filmmakers, directors and now actors who say it will limit the number of people who will see contending films and discriminate against smaller independent studios.
The MPAA instituted the ban out of concern the videos and DVDs will be illegally copied and sold on black markets or distributed for free over the Internet, which happened last year.
The MPAA and member studios currently are waging a major campaign against movie piracy, especially on the Web.
But filmmakers worry that the ban will give studio movies an unfair advantage over low-budget and independent films when they all begin competing for a slew of awards given out in coming months, culminating in the U.S. film industry's top honours, the Oscars, to be awarded in February.
The actors' ad follows a similar "open letter" by famed directors such as Martin Scorsese and Robert Altman that ran in newspapers last week and called the ban an "unwarranted obstacle" in Hollywood's annual awards race.
MANY VOICES, MANY ISSUES
Other groups such as film critics and award shows organisers have voiced concern, too.
Last week, Kathy Connell, producer of the Screen Actors Guild Awards said, "we are concerned that if screeners are not made available, our members will not be able to view all eligible performances." The Screen Actors Guild represents 118,000 actors.
The Writers Guild of America West, which represents screenwriters, issued a statement on Monday saying "to place a gag order on 'screeners' is to tilt the playing field from small films to large."
A spokesman for the MPAA stuck to their statement issued last week, saying it welcomed new thoughts and ideas on the issue but that for now, the screener ban remains intact.
Within the industry, the issue is hotly contested because awards and nominations get more people into theatres and have a direct impact on sales of videos, DVD and television fees.
Major studios have the marketing muscle and money to get the attention they need, whereas independent filmmakers depend on publicity from awards. Actors and directors argue they might not make low-budget films without the hype awards season brings.
But the issue has perplexed Hollywood insiders, too, because many fear piracy and a future filled with the sort of declining sales that have played havoc with the music industry.
"We have to look for a solution that will suit all interests," said another source who asked to remain anonymous. "Piracy is a huge problem, and everybody is interested in protecting intellectual property."
Yes, the very same. Wonder what she knows and when she knew it LOL?
Now that DRM restrictions are being accepted, even the older subscription services are seeing a surge in volume.
Now where did you get this info? The older subscription services are wheezing failures! Musicmatch just launched , Buy.com is a disaster according to most, Napster 2.0 hasn't launched yet nor Amazon, AOL, DELL. Is there no point of fact that won't be spun in the most negative light in regards to our little company? For shame....
Verance Announces Watermarking Solution
for Protecting Film and Video Content
Universal Pictures first to deploy new Verance watermarking solutions
San Diego, CA – October 14, 2003 - Verance, the leading provider of tools and services to track, manage and enhance the use of media content globally, announced today the launch of a new product line to provide media and entertainment companies, consumer electronics companies, and computer software and hardware companies with effective and affordable solutions to protect against the unauthorized use of film and video content. The products will provide the first ever system for protecting motion pictures throughout their entire release cycle, from theatrical release, through PPV and VOD release, rental and retail distribution on packaged and electronic media, to analog or digital broadcast.
The new products, which are planned for commercial availability in early 2004, are based on Verance’s proprietary and patented audio watermarking technologies, which were adopted as a worldwide industry standard by the music recording industry in 1999. Since its adoption, Verance’s music content protection system has been used to protect hundreds of thousands of sound recordings and has been incorporated into over 1 million consumer products.
“A common baseline of content protection is essential for the promise of the digital media marketplace to be realized,” said Clifford H. Friedman, Chairman of Verance Corporation. “By offering a single platform for the cross-format protection of both music and video content, Verance’s solutions can provide an unmatched combination of benefits.”
According to Mr. Friedman, “One of the key elements for Verance in the design of this system is flexibility—first, to increase the value proposition for the consumers of content, while at the same time protecting the artists, rights holders, and distributors. Verance’s goal is to work with the consumer, information technology, and software industries, in cooperation with the artists, their managers and respective Motion Picture and Music companies, to deploy a solution that will satisfy all parties in a reasonable time frame. Universal Pictures’ adoption of the Verance watermark technologies represents a tipping point, moving the industry from a phase of technology evaluation and study, to one of accelerating market acceptance.”
Quotes From Selected Industry Sources
Jerry Pierce, Senior Vice President, Technology, Universal Pictures:
“The Verance audio watermark technology presents an extremely compelling platform with which Universal can address critical content protection needs across legacy and emerging media formats. In looking at the choices available to creators of film and video entertainment, the advantages of Verance’s solution are clear.” (In a separate statement made earlier today, Universal Pictures announced adoption of Verance audio watermarking technology for protection of film and video content and other applications.)
Reed Stager, Vice President Corporate Licensing and Marketing, Digimarc Corporation:
“Digital watermark technology is of great importance to video content protection, and Digimarc is very pleased to see Verance moving to address this need. The adoption of their solution by Universal Pictures represents a key endorsement for their work and enables the industry to better manage and protect their content. We look forward to working with Verance and the entertainment industry to see this solution deployed.”
About Verance
Based in New York with a technology center in San Diego and with field offices in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, Verance provides patented audio watermarking technology solutions for broadcast monitoring and airplay verification, as well as for content use management and copy protection. ConfirMedia broadcast verification customers include major broadcasters, advertisers, advertising agencies and entertainment companies. Verance content use management licensees include major worldwide recording companies, consumer electronics companies and information technology industry leaders. Additional information about Verance and ConfirMedia can be found at www.verance.com or www.confirmedia.com.
Universal Pictures to Use Verance Audio Watermarking on All Films
Universal City, Calif. -- Universal Pictures announced on Tuesday that it has signed a multi-year agreement to use Verance Corporation's digital audio watermarking technology on all of its theatrical releases and DVD and VHS home video product, as well as pay-per-view, video-on-demand and free-to-air television broadcasts. The technology embeds inaudible data into a movie that provides content identification, forensic tracking and copy control information to Universal. Among other things, the watermark will allow the movie studio to track any potential piracy leaks back to their original source. "The security derived from the Verance watermark allows us to be more confident in the technology we use throughout all stages of product distribution," said Jerry Pierce, senior vice president of technology for Universal Pictures.
http://www.universalstudios.com
http://www.verance.com
Apple to Unveil Windows Online Music
2 hours, 57 minutes ago
Add Technology - AP to My Yahoo!
By MAY WONG, AP Technology Writer
SAN JOSE, Calif. - For a few months, Apple Computer Inc. enjoyed its own lofty spot in the legitimate online music world. Not anymore.
Picking the Perfect PC
Apple, AMD, Intel - which one's right for you? Plus, tricked-out laptops and the power of Athlon
When Apple dives into a broader market with a Windows-compatible version of its iTunes Music Store on Thursday, it will join a growing list of rivals, including Napster, MusicMatch, Rhapsody, and soon also Dell, America Online and Amazon.
Apple officials would not discuss details of the launch, but analysts and record industry sources expect the Windows rendition to mirror the successful Macintosh version that kick-started the latest influx of legal song download services.
Apple won generous licensing terms from all five major record labels for its online music store, which has sold more than 10 million tracks since its April 28 debut.
Songs are 99 cents per download or $9.99 per album. Users can copy, or "burn," single songs onto CDs an unlimited number of times, but not more than 10 times with the same playlist. Customers can transfer purchased songs to up to three computers and to Apple's iPod portable music player.
Record companies have since doled out similar usage rules to other services, and though some have larger music libraries than others today, industry analysts expect that all the digital music outlets will eventually have similar catalogs.
So the challenge lies in how the services differentiate themselves.
"We have a bunch of very comparable services each with their own natural constituencies, and the ability to market to their constituencies is what will determine their success," said Josh Bernoff, a Forrester Research analyst.
Early bets on front-runners so far are going to Napster, Apple and MusicMatch — Napster for its deep brand recognition from its freewheeling song-swapping days, MusicMatch for its built-in connection to the widely used Windows Media Player, and Apple for its seamless integration with its popular iPod portable music player.
U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster predicts that with the added Windows version, iTunes will gain 20 percent of the online music market, and Napster about 30 percent.
The iPod, which is compatible with both Macintosh and Windows computers, is the top selling hard drive-based portable music player, according to market research firms IDC and the NPD Group.
Apple already has spent millions of dollars on a marketing campaign for the iPod, and analysts say the ads easily can become promotions for the online music store. Like other services, the iTunes Music Store also is vying for unique content from artists to help draw sales.
On Wednesday night, the rock bands Thursday and Thrice will perform at the Apple retail stores in New York City and Santa Monica, respectively, recording material that will be sold exclusively on the Apple online music store.
Once again an oversimplification presented as the gospel. Yes, legal content has been encrypted for some time now from the download services, however, their selections were very limited and hence there was no economic incentive for edig to incorporate the DRM even though they could do so imo. Now there are a number of music download services launching that will have several hundred thousand song selections and so to be competitive our music players should incorporate DRM and I'm sure they will. Is this really so hard or is it just hard for some people?
Agreed drag and boogie..the volatility potentially created by the bashing/hyping is what's preyed upon by the "neutrals" errr..daytraders/moderators...errr well you know what I mean. But hey, these message boards don't have any effect on the stock price anyway as we all know.....right.
Napster: Rebirth of a Reformed Rebel
Web Site Returns as Pay, Not Pirate, Music Service
By James Kim and Steve Enders, Tech Live
Oct. 13— Napster is ready for play.
Last Thursday marked the much-heralded return of Napster, with a media blowout that looked a lot like the over-hyped product launches from 1999.
Ahh, 1999: the good old days of stealing music. It was then that Napster made its biggest impact — the year it sparked a file-swapping revolution and drew fire from the recording industry.
We all know what happened after that: The company effectively went out of business, and the RIAA declared war on file swappers everywhere.
But today's a new day.
People seem genuinely interested in paying a small fee for music, though unabated swapping continues on P2P networks such as KaZaA. Moreover, the music industry is amenable to letting companies such as Napster and Apple distribute songs for a price.
No ‘Half-Ass Sound’
Rapper Ludacris attended the Napster 2.0 event and vouched for the benefits of paying for decent tunes.
"It's not like going to another Web site and illegally downloading and getting some half-ass recording sound," he said. "Basically, sometimes you don't even get the whole song, so this is the right way of doing it."
Another benefit to Napster: It offers the largest catalog of music available yet: 500,000 songs.
Apple's iTunes Music Store set the bar high for usability, selection, and price, but Napster's looking to outdo the Mac-only service.
Three weeks ago Musicmatch launched its own PC-centric music service, which has impressed critics and reviewers so far.
At last Thursday's launch party in New York, Roxio CEO Chris Gorog gave reporters the first tour of Napster 2.0. Roxio, the Silicon Valley-based consumer software company, bought all rights to Napster in a fire sale last year.
"With Napster 2.0 you are going to be able to e-mail your favorite songs to your friends," he said. "You'll be able to share playlists back and forth. It really is quite similar, in that respect, to the original Napster."
Similar indeed, but also very different.
Under Napster’s Skin
Our first impression of the interface is positive. Napster is easy to download and install. (It automatically detected and uninstalled a previous version of pressplay on our system.)
We easily navigated through the first few clicks on a familiar yet reworked interface. Smooth buttons and aesthetically pleasing artist photos, album art, and of course the smirking Napster icon adorn the uncluttered site.
The new Napster interface features three primary buttons.
Home
Similar to iTunes Music Store, the top page includes a rotating featured-artists section with new album releases and a "Just Added to Napster" area. You can access genre pages such as alternative, classical, country, and dance. The homepage also features radio, magazine, and message board tabs.
Browse
There's plenty of information in this section, including tabs for artists/albums, Just Added, Now Streaming, Charts, and Members' Collections. Napster gets points for conveniences such as artist bio info, members' favorites, and of course the option to buy a track at any time using a single click.
Bonus points go to the Browse Members' Collections section, which was a key element of the original Napster. Here you can even browse and download others' playlists (premium service only).
Library
A simple Explorer-style interface includes your own imported MP3 collection and your WMA downloads. A fire icon indicates that you've purchased the track (so it's burnable). A download icon indicates the file has restrictions (this applies only to the premium service).
The blending of the new (iTunes-style), old (pressplay), and older (original Napster) is clearly evident. The interface has a universal search box (search by album, artist, track, or member). A Now Playing column graces the right side, which includes the software player, album art, and the playlist area.
Regular Service vs. Premium Service
Simple as it is to navigate, the interface has so many elements, so many twists and turns, that it can be difficult to figure out the rules that govern Napster 2.0. (Unlike the first Napster, for which there were no rules.) Users will have plenty of options for purchasing music a la carte, previewing tracks, or joining as a premium member.
Napster Members
Becoming a member simply means you've downloaded and installed the Napster application and signed up with a member name, password, and e-mail account — just like the old days. Here's what membership gets you.
Shop online and purchase albums or individual tracks at 99 cents per track or $9.95 per album. This isn't much different from iTunes or Musicmatch.
Search a catalog of more than 500,000 WMA tracks. We're impressed so far with the general selection and categorization of music.
Check out what other users are streaming.
Burn purchased music to CD, transfer an unlimited number of tracks to a portable device, and download to three computers (very much like iTunes or Musicmatch).
Manage your music library and create playlists. Napster assumes you'll abandon your existing jukebox software for an all-inclusive experience. You can import your existing MP3s and WMAs to the new Napster.
Premium Service
For about $10 a month you'll get extra features, including some elements of Musicmatch 8.1's RadioMX as well as pressplay's "renting" songs. Having these options makes sense — and cents for the music industry.
Download unlimited files to your computer and listen as long as your premium service remains active.
Stream all tracks at any time.
Stream preprogrammed Napster radio stations or customize your own.
Participate in community features such as browsing other members' collections and meeting other Napster members on the message boards.
Activate an inbox so you can receive track lists and notes from other users.
Ways to Burn, Transfer, and Play Tunes
Streaming
If you're a premium member and you've got a broadband connection, streaming songs is the way to go. The dozens of pre-programmed radio stations, custom radio stations, and music videos, in addition to the relatively vast music selection, makes the premium service extremely attractive. You can even check out what other users are streaming.
The only reservation I have is that fact that you'll spend additional dollars to get the music onto your portable or onto CD. Still, Napster 2.0's emphasis on streaming will serve them well in the distant future.
Portable players
You can transfer and play music on most WMA-compatible players. The only caveat: You must use Windows Media Player 9 Series to transfer tracks between player and computer, unless you use the Samsung Napster Player (YP-910). This product — set for release Oct. 19 and expected to be fully supported by Napster — sounds like an attempt by Roxio to re-create the iPod/iTunes relationship. It will be sold exclusively through Best Buy stores.
Burning songs
The built-in burning software is from Roxio, of course. Download the Napster Label Creator for free. Not all burning software is supported.
All-inclusive?
Roxio CEO Chris Gorog said in a statement, "Napster 2.0 is unequivocally the most complete and comprehensive music service in the world." But you won't be able to use Napster 2.0 to rip CDs.
Building bridges
Early adopters using living room media center PCs will enjoy the fruits of Napster 2.0. It's already specially configured for the new Microsoft XP Media Center 2004 and will also come loaded on Gateway media center devices and Gateway PCs.
The Bottom Line
Napster 2.0's official launch on Oct. 29 will further broaden the digital-audio field for the PC audience. The combination of a music store, extra premium features, a sweet interface, community features, and its recognizable name should spell success for a grown-up Napster.
Gene Munster, senior research analyst with US Bancorp Piper Jaffray, thinks so too.
"If you look at the brand, the Napster brand dwarfs all others," Munster said. "So I think this is a situation where the dark horse is going to actually win."
Tech Live producer Lindsay Martell also contributed to this article.
Ahhh..could it be that licensing that DRM from those companies and offering that capability costs money...something that has been in short supply of late? Nawww that answer is not nefarious enough for the kind of innuendo engaged in here.
James Kim wrote on TechTV's Website
Coming soon: Dell DJ
Yes, Dell will have an MP3 player by the holidays. I have a beta unit. Without going into details, I can says it rocks. A nice interface, a smooth, curvalicious, and durable design, and sweet blue lights will make it a popular choice in the coming months.
http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/product...3539831,00.html
MTV considers offering music downloads
By Peter Thal Larsen in New York and Tim Burt in London
Published: October 9 2003 21:54 / Last Updated: October 9 2003 21:54
MTV, the leading music television broadcaster, is considering a move into the fast-expanding online music business by offering downloads of songs on its websites.
Executives at MTV are studying the possibility of launching a legal music download service that would compete with Apple, the computer group, and smaller services such as Roxio.
Tom Freston, chairman and chief executive of MTV Networks, said the company was studying the move "very carefully", although no final decision has been taken.
MTV's move would mark a significant endorsement of online music at a time when the world's largest entertainment companies are fighting increasingly bitter battles against illegal file-sharing services. Although Apple has seized the initiative with its iTunes music store, other large groups such as Microsoft and Sony are scrambling to catch up.
MTV, whose channels are watched by 400m people worldwide, would be in a very strong position to promote its service to its viewers.
"Bands and labels don't really have brand names in the way MTV does," Mr Freston said. "MTV and VH1 could play some wholesome role as aggregators, linking to other sites."
Record industry executives reacted positively to the possibility of MTV entering the online music business. After initially trying to control the development of downloading, record companies have concluded that a greater number of online distribution channels should boost sales.
Apple reported last month that 10m songs had been downloaded from its music service, currently only available to Apple Mac users in North America. But Mr Freston said that while sales had taken off, he expected further growth in the market.
"We're really on the cusp of the legitimate digital music revolution."
Mr Freston questioned the wisdom of recent moves by the Recording Industry Association of America, the music business lobbying group, to sue persistent music downloaders. However, he admitted he did not have a solution to the problem.
"They're up against a culture of file-sharing that has evolved and engrained itself in consumer behaviour. That's a formidable obstacle, so they're almost damned if they do or damned if they don't."
Plans for Napster Launch Revealed
Song-swapping pioneer will be reborn as a paid service later this month.
Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service
Thursday, October 09, 2003
The music comes back to Napster on October 29, when the silenced song-swapper gets reborn as a legitimate and law-abiding online music service, Napster's parent, Roxio, announced Thursday.
Advertisement
Now in beta testing, Napster 2.0, as the new service is called, will offer U.S. music fans a digital music library with more than 500,000 songs available for individual download for $0.99. Albums will also be available for $9.95.
In addition, Napster is selling $9.95 monthly subscriptions, which give users unlimited listening and downloading, 40 commercial-free radio stations, and community features such as the ability to share playlists and to e-mail tracks to other Napster users.
Free Features
For no charge, anyone can download the Napster 2.0 software and use the service to watch music videos on demand, listen to 30-second music clips, access Billboard charts, read Napster's online magazine "Fuzz," and use a music recommendation engine.
Users can also upload music files from their hard drives to Napster 2.0, in order to have all their music files in one place. Fans can preregister for the service now at Napster.com. The company's statement doesn't say when or if Roxio plans to roll out Napster outside of the United States.
Napster also announced a partnership with Samsung Electronics to develop portable audio devices. The first Samsung-Napster player will be available starting on October 19 in Best Buy stores.
A Place on the PC
A partnership with Microsoft will make Napster the featured music service on Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004. Napster will also be included in Windows Media Player 9.
Finally, buyers of Gateway Media Center PCs will receive one month of access to Napster 2.0 free of charge if they purchase the system during the fourth quarter. Later this year, Gateway will be the only PC vendor to ship Napster on all of its consumer desktop PCs, along with 150 preloaded songs.
Napster's first incarnation was as a renegade file-swapping service that music fans used to exchange songs for free. But as Napster's popularity grew, the major record labels went after it in the courts, alleging copyright infringement; the actions led to the service's closing over two years ago.
Roxio, a digital media software maker based in Santa Clara, California, acquired Napster's intellectual property and technology patents for around $5 million in November 2002, saying that an online music service would complement its line of CD- and DVD-burning products.
Unlike its predecessor, Napster 2.0 has content agreements with the five major record labels and with hundreds of independent labels.
OT Ex-Apple CEO Regrets Nixing Intel
Stephen Lawson, 10.09.03, 1:40 PM ET
Apple should have adopted the Intel architecture when it had the chance, former Apple leader John Sculley said Tuesday.
In the late-1980s, when Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) was using the Motorola (nyse: MOT - news - people ) 68000 series chips and considering its next step, Intel co-founder Andy Grove tried to convince the company to migrate to Intel (nasdaq: INTC - news - people ) chips, Sculley told a standing-room-only crowd at the Silicon Valley 4.0 conference, held at the Computer History Museum, in Mountain View, Calif.
An experienced team from Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple studied the idea but turned it down. Apple concluded that Intel's CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer) architecture ultimately would not be able to compete against RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) processors, which had a more advanced instruction set, he said. Apple later adopted RISC.
"That's probably one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made, not going to the Intel platform," said Sculley, Apple's former chairman and CEO, now a partner in New York investment firm Sculley Brothers.
As it turned out, Intel was able to keep its CISC architecture and bring the RISC instruction set into it. What Apple had underestimated was the power of Intel's overall system as a manufacturer, bringing billions of dollars to bear on the problem and solving it through evolution, Sculley said.
"They never had to do a heart transplant," he said.
Had it gone to the Intel platform, Apple would have had more options, he said. For one thing, not embracing the endless commoditization of Intel-architecture chips meant Apple couldn't compete on price against "the Dell (nasdaq: DELL - news - people )s of the world," he said. The die was cast. Apple took another path and ended up a different kind of company, Sculley said.
A smaller one, perhaps.
Copyright 2003 Networkworld Inc. All Rights Reserved.
OT Microsoft to develop broadband TV for telcos
Thursday October 9, 11:44 am ET
By Lucas van Grinsven, European Technology correspondent
AMSTERDAM, Oct 9 (Reuters) - U.S.-based software maker Microsoft (NasdaqNM:MSFT - News) said on Thursday it would develop software to deliver standard television over the Internet, targeting telecoms operators wanting to expand their business.
ADVERTISEMENTA prototype of the software will be shown next week in a speech by Microsoft founder Bill Gates (News) at ITU Telecom World 2003 in Geneva, one of the world's largest telecoms trade shows.
Bell Canada (Toronto:BI.TO - News) and India's Reliance Intercomm will work with Microsoft to develop a commercial product by the end of 2004, said Ed Graczyk, Microsoft TV Platform marketing manager.
"Bill (Gates) on Monday will be talking about software innovations for the telecoms industry. We think there are a lot of benefits in Internet-based television," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Telecoms operators across the world see selling television as a way to boost the take-up of fast Internet connections such as Digital Subscriber Line (DSL). Most European carriers are known to have run trials last year, but very few are offering a commercial service for quality reasons.
Microsoft said that through the compression technology of its Windows Media Player 9 it can now offer standard broadcast quality television over an Internet connection of 1 Megabit per second (Mb/s). High definition TV will be offered if a consumer has a broadband Web connection that allows four to five Mb/s.
Most DSL offerings in Europe and North America offer slightly lower speeds than 1 Mb/s, but in South Korea and Japan average broadband speeds can be as high as 10 Mb/s.
Microsoft said Internet television should be cheaper to bring to consumers than current cable TV which is transmitted over a separate video network with MPEG compression technology.
CHEAP BOXES
A set top box to receive and decode Internet TV could cost as little as $50 in four years time, down from a bill for materials of $150 now. The current $150 already puts it on a par with some of the cheapest digital TV set top boxes.
Set-top box makers such as Britain's Pace Micro Technology (London:PIC.L - News), France's Thomson (Paris:TMS.PA - News) and U.S. chip giant Intel (NasdaqNM:INTC - News) will work together to create these cheap set-top boxes in which the video decoding will be baked into semiconductors.
"Ultimately it can be so cheap that it can be built into a DVD player, a personal computer or a gaming platform," Graczyk said.
Transmitting TV over the Internet should also be beneficial to cable TV operators, many of which also offer broadband Internet as a separate service. At the moment, they need to maintain two different networks, one for MPEG video and one for Internet.
"Over time, most cable TV operators want to move to a single Internet infrastructure which is easier and cheaper to manage," Graczyk said.
Microsoft has been active in TV software for some five years, targeting cable TV operators. Only recently it has started to win deals and carry out trials with some of the major cable operators after it launched a dressed-down version of its software, designed around electronic program guides and video-on-demand such as films.
Its initial interactive TV software had many more features, such as email, games and web browsing, which suffered from teething problems and required expensive set top-boxes. After the burst of the tech bubble, cash-crunched cable companies could no longer afford to subsidise these boxes.
Microsoft TV competes with News Corp-owned (Australia:NCP.AX - News) NDS, OpenTV (NasdaqNM:OPTV - News) and Liberate Technologies (Nasdaq:LBRTE - News).
And likely we will be doing repairs and maintenance I would surmise??
Dear Online Music Follower,
Over the past several years, EMusic has stood alone in its
commitment to providing digital music consumers a service
that offers flexibility and portability. We remain the
ONLY service offering downloads in the standard MP3 format.
We are also unique in our focus on music from the leading
independent labels. Unlike other services, we understand
that many music consumers want to go beyond the Billboard
charts. We remain firmly committed to continuing to
provide avid music fans an alternative to the mainstream.
We are pleased to inform you that EMusic.com Inc. is being
acquired by Dimensional Associates LLC ("Dimensional"),
a private equity group focused on providing innovative
online music distribution services. Dimensional shares
EMusic's consumer-focused philosophy of providing low
cost, convenient access to great music. Dimensional
plans to continue this by enhancing the EMusic service
with new features and content and you can look forward
to hearing more once the acquisition has been completed.
Although our current privacy policy
http://www.emusic.com/help/privacy_policy.html
remains in effect, when the acquisition is completed,
EMusic's privacy policy will be changing to reflect
Dimensional's ownership and your Personal Information
(as defined in the privacy policy) will be transferred
to Dimensional. Please take a few moments to review our
new policy:
http://www.emusic.com/help/privacypolicy.html
which will take effect around October 30, 2003.
As always, EMusic is firmly committed to consumer privacy
and we believe the new policy continues to reinforce this.
If you would like to be removed from EMusic's email
newsletter lists, please click the link below and
follow the instructions:
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If you have other questions, please use the link below to
contact customer service:
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We appreciate your continued interest in EMusic.
Sincerely,
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Digital Music: Readers Chime In
Wed Oct 8, 1:58 PM ET Add Business - BusinessWeek Online to My Yahoo!
By Charles Haddad
Everywhere Internet Audio? Not in my house. That's what scores of readers wrote me over the past two weeks. It seems the biggest obstacle to this new idea, which I advocated in my last column, is music fans [see BW Online, 9/24/03, "A Wireless (news - web sites) iPod Can Torpedo the Pirates"]. They don't want to trade in their CDs to some ether-grid of digital music, available anytime, anywhere.
Yet it was equally clear from the torrent of mail I received that some form of network for music is coming. A number of the best minds in Internet technology are working on making music available across digital platforms, whether iPod or Web browser. "We believe that network services around your media collection is the next phase that will leap-frog the desktop media players as well as file-sharing apps," says Ian Rogers.
Rogers isn't just blowing digital dust. He was part of the team that created Winamp, a Windows music player, and Gnutella (news - web sites), one of the first file-sharing networks. Now he and his partner, Rob Lord, are working on something they call Muse.Net, a network media player.
NO OWNERSHIP. Still, even Rogers concedes that the obstacles to virtual music are impressive. The biggest may be the pervasive misconception that consumers own the songs on their CDs and iPods. "I want to own my own shoes, my pants, and my Xbox (news - web sites)," Mark Adams, a partner in a marketing communications company in Houston, wrote. "And I want to own my music."
Sorry, Mark, you may own your pants, but you don't own your tunes. Under current copyright laws, all you own is a personal lease on that music for an indefinite period of time. That's why it's illegal to burn and sell copies of your CDs. It's this misconception that drives file-swapping. People, especially young ones, think if they gain possession of a song -- whether on a CD or their hard drive -- they own it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Everywhere Internet Audio can't take away the ownership users never had. It just changes the location of the music you lease. Instead of residing on CDs or on your hard drive, it sits on a server, which you can access at any time, from anywhere. You'd already own the rights to your collection, whether through a subscription or one-time fee.
It would be no different than a cell phone, which connects to a network every time it's switched on. And as with cellular service, an ether-music network would remember who you are, keeping track of personal playlists and recommendations.
CHEATING WILL PERSIST. This scheme offers a big advantage to the recording industry. If you didn't buy your music, the stolen property could be encoded to expire, digitally evaporate. And that would, at least for a while, slow pirating.
Is this a real, lasting advantage? Probably not, suggest several correspondents. "As long as people justify in their own minds that they aren't doing anything wrong, the black market will exist en masse," says reader David Rhodes. And others point out that pirates would soon leap in to help them cheat the system. Certainly, that has been the case with software.
Readers did raise two objections that are all too true. The first is that Everywhere Internet Audio might well tighten the stranglehold that the five biggest recording companies already have on popular music. They "would make money every time I listen to music," says Scott Snyder, a regional sales manager/engineer in Madison, Wis. "This industry would charge me for whistling a tune, if it could."
CAN'T DISCONNECT. The second objection I find even more disturbing. Ben Timberlake, a newspaper reporter in Canon City, Colo., worries that an ether-grid of music would close off his last excuse for disconnecting from a world that's growing ever more interconnected, ever watching, monitoring everything from your e-mail to driving habits. "It's bad news for music fans who like to unplug now and then."
Everywhere Internet Audio may not be the answer to piracy and reshaping the music industry, but it's a good place for the debate to begin. Music and the way it's distributed and listened to are changing. Consumers can embrace that change and try to shape it to our benefit. Or do what the recording industry has done for so long: stick in the earplugs and pretend we can't hear the winds of change.
OT REVIEW: Nokia's N-Gage Packs Performance
57 minutes ago
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By MATT MOORE, AP Business Writer
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - The category-busting Nokia (news - web sites) N-Gage combines a cell phone, pint-sized video game player and an entertainment center in a compact, daring package.
But whether this 4.83-ounce dynamo lives up to its hype remains to be seen. I found it to fall short in several respects.
The visually arresting N-Gage went on sale in 60 countries this week, including the United States. It costs slightly less than euro300 in Europe, and the suggested U.S. retail price is $299, though some wireless (news - web sites) carriers are subsidizing the device and offering it for less.
For that you get multiplayer gaming, a feature-packed mobile phone that supports Bluetooth wireless networking and Internet access, plus an MP3 music player and an FM radio.
The N-Gage's color screen is crisp and bright, but small (176 by 208 pixels, about the size of a playing card) — and that felt restrictive when I was browsing the Internet.
At 5.2 inches long and 2.7 inches tall, the N-Gage's shape is reminiscent of the GameBoy Advance video game player. It fit into my big hands with ease, minimizing strain and maximizing comfort. The five-way directional controller is akin to Nintendo (news - web sites)'s, but set on the left side of the device.
For old-school-style video games like Sega's "Sonic the Hedgehog," the action is consistent and the N-Gage processes the graphics quickly and fluidly. But when I dabbled with 3-D games like "Tomb Raider," the small screen took away some of the luster.
Perhaps the biggest drawback is the way the N-Gage loads games. Multimedia chips were selected as the storage medium, and to swap out those chips to change games, you have to take the back off the N-Gage and slip out the battery. Not something you want to do on the fly.
I would have preferred a slot along the side of the device, as with Sony Ericsson (news - web sites)'s P800, a combination camera, personal digital assistant and phone, which holds a memory stick that can be inserted or ejected.
Gaming aside, the N-Gage is also a full-fledged music device, playing not only FM radio but also MP3s, which can be downloaded from Web sites or transferred from a personal computer using a USB cable.
Transferring MP3s to the device is a quick process, by most standards. However, the N-Gage ships with a 16- or 32-megabyte chip, and many users will probably want to add on more memory if they wish to store music.
The headphones that come with the N-Gage don't offer a very rich sound, but are tolerable considering the overall price of the package. The audio sounded much better when I plugged in a set of high-quality headphones.
The recording feature also lacks some definition. With a decent condenser microphone, my old minidisc player clearly outperforms the N-Gage — a strike against N-Gage's bid to be all things to all people.
But, let's not forget that the N-Gage is also, and perhaps even primarily, a phone. The "tri-band" device can be used just about anywhere in the world and has full e-mail support.
But it's an awfully awkward phone to hold to your ear. The best way to talk is hands-free, not optimal in a crowded bus when the conversation is sensitive.
Even so, Nokia says the N-Gage is geared to gamers, not people seeking a new cell phone. It's expected to compete directly with the GameBoy by Japan's Nintendo, which already has an established user base and hundreds of games.
The current selection of games for N-Gage is narrow — only seven are available now. Nokia says it's lining up software deals to bring more games to users, and recently acquired Sega.com to boost its catalog.
Currently available games available include Gameloft's "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell" and "Rayman," as well as Activision's "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater." Games scheduled for release next year include "Sega Rally Championship," "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon" and Nokia's own "Pathway to Glory."
Nokia has never put so much marketing muscle into pushing a phone. The Finnish company, which sells 39 percent of the world's cell phones, has put the N-Gage in nearly 30,000 stores and aligned itself with several wireless carriers, including Vodafone, mm02 and, in the United States, T-Mobile.
Nokia also is offering N-Gage users access to the "N-Gage Arena" — an online community that features live play against other people, game downloads and gaming-related news — for free during a trial period. Nokia hasn't said what the price will eventually be.
The N-Gage is based on an attractive idea. Instead of stuffing pockets with cell phones, game players, mini-disc and MP3 players and recorders — which require separate, incompatible battery chargers at that — one could just carry a single unit that does it all.
The N-Gage provides a hopeful step toward such a practical fusion, but is not quite there yet.
___
Associated Press Writer Mans Hulden contributed to this report.
from Dave on agora...
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/tech/kcswanson/10117883.html
Cassie of course we will need your real name LOL...
SEC OKs Plan to Open Proxy Door for Shareholders
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission (search), moving to give investors more power to shape corporate boards (search), gave initial approval Wednesday to a plan that lets shareholders place nominees on the official ballots sent to all shareholders.
The commission's unanimous decision sent the proposal out for 60 days to receive comments from the public, with a final vote to follow on a plan that is being resisted by big business and championed by investor activists.
"This is going to be a very controversial proposal ... No matter what we do or doetings for voting on directors and key corporate governance issues.
Resolutions and nominees by shareholders are routinely excluded from the proxy by management. As a result, at most annual meetings, shareholders vote solely on nominees for director seats that have been hand-picked by management.
If the SEC proposal wins final adoption later this year, managers in 2005 would have to start letting shareholders put their own nominees for director seats in the proxy statement if one of two "trigger" events occurs.
One trigger would be the putting forth of a demand for proxy access by a shareholder, or group of shareholders, owning at least 1 percent of voting shares outstanding for at least a year, and a subsequent favorable vote on the demand by more than 50 percent of the votes cast on it, the SEC said.
The other trigger would be when 35 percent or more of votes cast on one or more director nominees were "withhold" votes.
"This is a proud and historic day at the commission. We're in the process of shifting the balance of power between corporate managements and shareholders. No longer will managements be able to ignore dissatisfied majorities of shareholders," said SEC Commissioner Harvey Goldschmid.
If a trigger is tripped, the company would have to open its proxy to a shareholder nominee only if the nominating shareholder or group of shareholders has owned more than 5 percent of outstanding shares for two years or more and intends to hold its stake through the next annual meeting.
Nominating shareholders also would have to show through SEC filings that they don't intend to take over the company. In addition, the shareholder nominee would have to be independent from those making the nomination and from the company.
The number of shareholder nominees a company would have to put in the proxy would be limited to one for a board with eight or fewer directors; two for a board with nine to 19 directors; and three for a board with 20 or more directors.
Foreign companies traded publicly in the United States would be exempt from the proposed rules, the SEC said.
Corporate lobbyists have complained the SEC proposal could be divisive and costly, damaging business efficiency.
SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins, while voting with his colleagues to move the proposal forward, raised concerns about possible legal challenges based on state law complications.
Investor activists support the proposal and some want it to go further, arguing shareholders need more clout to wrest control from managers of rubber-stamp boards like those that failed to prevent the scandals at Enron Corp. (search) and elsewhere.
OT Philips developing wearable medical monitoring system
By Junko Yoshida
EE Times
October 8, 2003 (12:13 p.m. ET)
PARIS — Philips Research has developed biomedical clothing designed as a wireless healthcare monitoring system.
Philips demonstrated its prototype Wednesday (Oct. 8) at a fire brigade emergency center in Hamburg, Germany. Scientists at Philips Research in Aachen, Germany, claimed the new technology, designed for continuous healthcare monitoring and automatic online diagnostics, can be built into clothing.
Although there are other “wearable” healthcare monitoring systems capable of tracking patients or triggering event recorders, Philips's wearable system is unique “because it can interpret the data and provide automatic online diagnostics — continuously,” said Josef Lauter, principal scientist at Philips Research.
The system is designed to receive input signals from two sources: sensors, woven into clothing, to pick up electrocardiogram signals; and accelerometers to detect motion. Once signals are received, electronics incorporated in an ultra-slim module — measuring 10 cm in length by 2 cm in width and 2 mm high — kicks in for signal conditioning.
Incorporated into the electronics are: an ultra-low power DSP for running a signal-analysis algorithm and interpreting the data; flash memory for storing records; a flexible battery; and a wireless link.
The monitoring system can warn patients of problems, assist clinicians in diagnoses and automatically alert emergency services when necessary. When a serious health condition is detected, the system can trigger local alarms or wirelessly link with cellular or telephone networks to call for help, according to Philips Research.
The system's technology platform allows the use of “any wireless technology -- including ISM, Bluetooth, DECT or GSM,” said Lauter, “depending on a precise end application.”
Sensitivity, low power and convenience were the three biggest hurdles researchers had to clear before completing the prototype, according to Lauter. “Our goal was to develop something that people can wear and forget. Finding the right technology combination and developing a methodology to make the system truly convenient has been the hardest challenge for us.”
Philips' prototype is designed to function continuously for three months before the battery must be recharged. The prototype uses 64 MBytes of internal memory to store up to three months of patient data.
Lauter predicted it would take two to four years before the prototype becomes available commercially.
OT Creating A Killer Product
Fri Oct 3, 4:26 PM ET
By Clayton M. Christensen Michael E. Raynor
How do you create products that customers want to buy--ones that become so successful they "disrupt" the market? It's not easy. Three in five new-product-development efforts are scuttled before they ever reach the market. Of the ones that do see the light of day, 40% never become profitable and simply disappear.
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Most of these failures are predictable--and avoidable. Why? Because most managers trying to come up with new products don't properly consider the circumstances in which customers find themselves when making purchasing decisions. Or as marketing expert Theodore Levitt once told his M.B.A. students at Harvard: "People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole."
Much of the art of marketing focuses on identifying groups or segments of customers that are similar enough that the same product or service will appeal to all of them. Managers need to segment their markets to mirror the way their customers experience life--and not base decisions on irrelevant data that focus on customer attributes. Managers need to realize that customers, in effect, "hire" products to do specific "jobs." That's one reason why retail formats like Home Depot and Lowe's have become so successful: Their stores are literally organized around jobs to be done.
Consider the recent efforts of a fast-food chain that wanted to improve milk shake sales and profits. The chain first took the usual "focus group" route, assembling panels of customers to ask if making the shakes thicker, more chocolaty, cheaper or chunkier would satisfy them more. The chain got clear inputs on what the customers wanted. But after the changes were made, nothing much happened to sales or profits.
So a new set of researchers came in. Their task was to understand what customers were trying to get done for themselves when they hired a milk shake. This approach helped the chain's managers see things that traditional market research had missed.
The researchers spent an 18-hour day in a restaurant. What they found was surprising: Nearly half of all milk shakes were bought in the early morning. Most often, the shake was the only item purchased, and it was rarely consumed in the restaurant. What was going on here?
Turns out most of the customers had hired a shake for very similar reasons: They faced a long, boring commute and needed something to make the trip more interesting. They weren't really hungry but knew that if they didn't eat something soon, they certainly would be hungry by 10 a.m. They also faced constraints: They were in a hurry, often wearing their work clothes, and had only one free hand.
To get this job done, some customers hired bagels. But bagels got crumbs all over their clothes and the car. If the bagels were topped with cream cheese or jam, their fingers and the steering wheel got sticky. Sometimes they hired a banana. But it got eaten too fast and didn't really solve the boring-commute problem. The breakfast sandwiches the restaurant served (sausage or ham with egg) made their hands and the steering wheel greasy. If customers tried to drag out the time they took to eat the sandwich, it got cold. Doughnuts didn't last through the 10 a.m. hunger attack.
The milk shake did the job better than almost any available alternative. It could take as long as 20 minutes to slurp one through the thin straw. That staved off boredom on the commute. It could be consumed cleanly with one hand, with little risk of spillage. The customers felt less hungry after consuming the shake than after using most of the alternatives. And never mind that it wasn't the healthiest thing to consume. Making you healthy wasn't the job the milk shake was hired for.
The fast-food chain's traditional marketing research focused on its milk shake sales against those of the competing chains. The predictable script: Gain by cutting into the business of others. But that's not really the point here. In the customer's mind the morning milk shake really competed against boredom, bagels, bananas, doughnuts, instant breakfast drinks and, possibly, coffee.
So what should the chain do? What would enhance the value of that morning milk shake for the bored commuter? Why not put in tiny chunks of real fruit to add a dimension of unpredictability and anticipation--attacking the boredom factor. A thicker shake would last longer. A self-service shake machine that could be operated with a prepaid card would get customers in and out fast.
Improvements like this would succeed in building sales--but not by capturing milk shake sales from competing quick-service chains or by cannibalizing other products on its menu. Rather, the growth would come by taking business from products in other categories that customers sometimes employed, with limited satisfaction, to get their particular jobs done. And perhaps more important, the products would find new growth among "nonconsumers." Competing with nonconsumption often offers the biggest source of growth in a world of one-size-fits-all products.
Sony's founder, Akio Morita, was a master at watching what consumers were trying to get done and at marrying those insights with solutions that helped them do it better. Between 1950 and 1982 Sony successfully built 12 different new-market, disruptive-growth businesses. These included the original battery-powered pocket transistor radio, launched in 1955, and the first portable solid-state black-and-white television, in 1960. Plus: videocassette players, portable video recorders, the now-ubiquitous Walkman and 3.5-inch floppy disk drives, launched in 1980.
How did Sony find these foothold applications? Morita and a trusted group of about five associates observed and questioned what people really were trying to get done. They looked for ways that miniaturized, solid-state electronics might help a population of less skilled and less affluent people to accomplish, more conveniently and at less expense, the jobs they were already trying to get done through awkward, unsatisfactory means. Morita and his helpers had an extraordinary success rate in finding these footholds for disruption.
But Sony's disruptive odyssey ended in the early 1980s. For nearly the next two decades Sony's innovations were merely sustaining in nature--that is, they were simply improved products targeted at existing markets. PlayStation, for example, has been very successful, but it was a late entrant into a well-established market.
What happened? In the early 1980s Morita began to withdraw from active management in order to become involved in politics. To take his place Sony hired marketers with M.B.A.s to help identify new-growth opportunities. The M.B.A.s brought with them sophisticated, quantitative, attribute-based techniques for segmenting markets and assessing market potential. The clipboards and the spreadsheets were no match for Morita's intuition at finding new markets.
For today's new-technology industries, the challenge is to enable new customers to do things they've always been trying to do, but to do them more conveniently and predictably. Take the BlackBerry, the handheld wireless (news - web sites) e-mailer made by the Canadian company Research in Motion. RIM got its disruptive foothold competing with nonconsumption by bringing the ability to receive and send e-mail to new contexts such as waiting lines, public transit and conference rooms. But what's next?
One option would be for RIM to believe its market is structured by product categories, as in: "We compete in handheld wireless devices." If so, they'd see the BlackBerry competing with the Palm handheld, Sony's Clié, mobile-telephone handsets made by Nokia (news - web sites), Motorola and Samsung, and Microsoft Pocket-PC-based devices such as Hewlett-Packard's iPAQ.
In order to get ahead of these competitors RIM would need to develop better products faster than the competition. Sony's Clié, for example, has a digital camera. Nokia's phones offer short text messaging. If it defines these as the competition, RIM would need to build some of these features into its next-generation BlackBerry device. RIM's competitors, of course, would be thinking just the same thing. Which would create a headlong, arms-race-like rush toward undifferentiated, one-size-fits-all products that perform poorly any specific jobs that customers might hire them to do. Such products are likely to end up more like the Swiss Army knife: a pretty good knife, terrible scissors, a marginal bottle opener and a crummy screwdriver.
But what if RIM structured the segments of this market according to the jobs that people are trying to get done? Just from watching people who pull out their BlackBerrys, it seems to us that most of them are hiring it to help them be productive in small snippets of time that otherwise would be wasted, like reading e-mails while waiting in line at airports.
What's the BlackBerry competing with? When not using a BlackBerry, people often pick up a wireless phone. Sometimes they pick up the Wall Street Journal. Sometimes they make notes to themselves. Sometimes they stare mindlessly at the CNN Airport Network or sit with glazed eyes in a boring meeting. From the customer's point of view, these are the BlackBerry's most direct competitors.
So in addition to adding wireless telephony, BlackBerry could add financial news headlines and stock quotes to help compete more effectively with the Wall Street Journal. And mindless, single-player games or automatically downloaded Letterman-like top-ten lists might help the BlackBerry gain share against boredom. Features that do not help customers do the job that they hire the BlackBerry for wouldn't be viewed as improvements at all.
Brands are, at the beginning, hollow words into which marketers stuff meaning. If a brand's meaning is positioned on a job to be done, then when the job arises in a customer's life, he or she will remember the brand and hire the product. Customers pay significant premiums for brands that do a job well.
But some executives worry that a low-end disruptive product might harm their established brand. Case in point: When Kodak wanted to bring out a "single use" disposable camera, people within the company's film division vigorously opposed the move because the inexpensive plastic lenses used meant that the quality of the photographs wouldn't be as good as those taken by 35mm cameras.
It didn't matter. The Kodak Funsaver was a product that customers bought for a specific job: They wanted a camera on vacation but either didn't own one or had forgotten to bring one along. The Funsaver competed with nonconsumption: Customers whose alternative was to have no photos of their two weeks at the lake were perfectly happy with the quality. The disposable-camera market is now $2 billion annually.
At a fundamental level the things that people want to accomplish in their lives don't change quickly. New products will succeed to the extent they help customers accomplish more effectively and conveniently what they're already trying to do.
Consider the hundreds of millions that have been spent to apply new technologies--the Internet and e-book displays, specifically--to reshape the college textbook industry. Innovators have attempted to develop and sell tablets that can display downloaded e-books. And with many textbooks you can click on a Web address to obtain far more information about the topic than could possibly be included within the limits of a book. Would we expect these investments to generate significant growth? Our guess is that they will not. Although we would like to believe that all undergraduate students are rigorous seekers of knowledge, the job that many college students are really trying to get done, from our observation, is to pass their courses without having to read the textbook at all.
These companies have spent a lot of money helping students to do more easily something that they have been trying to not do. It would probably take far less money to create from the same technology a service called "Easycram.com"--a utility that would make it easier and cheaper for students to cram more effectively for their exams. This would likely work because cramming is something that students already are trying to do, but with marginal efficacy. There are a lot of textbook-avoiders on campuses--a huge market of nonconsumption.
After a subscriber logs on, Easycram.com would ask what course he needs to cram for--say, College Algebra. Then it would ask which of the listed textbooks the professor expects him to have read by now. It would ask him to click on the type of problem that he is having trouble with, and it would walk him through a tutorial. The next year, Easycram.com would need to offer a new and improved service, one that makes it even easier and faster to cram better--inching up from the least-conscientious to the sporadically diligent tiers of the student population. After a few years two students might be overheard in the college bookstore anguishing over the exorbitant price of a textbook: "You know, my brother took that course last year. He's a good student, but he never even bought the book. He just used Easycram.com, and he did great." Bingo: a new-market disruption to help customers achieve what they already had been trying to do.
Adapted from The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth,by Clayton M. Christensen and Michael E. Raynor (Harvard Business School Press, 2003).
I was a little concerned when I saw that e.Digital had abandoned their application for the trademark, "powered by e.Digital". I emailed Robert and this was his reply:
Thank you for your e-mail, XXXX. It was abandoned because we did not believe it was sufficiently descriptive. A new trademark is being filed that we believe is better and more descriptive.
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