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Linux set to break through in consumer electronics
Thursday August 28, 12:19 pm ET
By Lucas van Grinsven, European Technology Correspondent
BERLIN, Aug 28 (Reuters) - Linux, the fast growing and freely available operating system, is set to be the software of choice for future televisions, set top boxes and dvd recorders, consumer electronics executives and specialists said Thursday.
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Linux, currently a software system mostly used to power big servers and personal computers, is also now emerging as a small set of computing code to drive devices like mobile phones, remote controls and TVs.
"The consumer electronics industry has chosen the Linux platform in large numbers. For us, Linux has several advantages," said Gerard Kleisterlee, Chief Executive at Philips Electronics (Amsterdam:PHG.AS - News), Europe's biggest and the world's No. 3 consumer electronics maker.
Low cost and the freedom to tweak the software are reasons why eight of the world's largest consumer electronics makers, including the numbers one and two Sony Corp (Tokyo:6758.T - News) and Matsushita (Tokyo:6752.T - News) of Japan, have set up an alliance to develop and promote Linux for consumer electronics products, last month.
Linux should also create a common standard to connect products from different manufacturers which currently build various proprietary systems into their devices.
At the sector's largest trade fair IFA in Berlin, the first Linux products are already on show and more will come soon,companies said.
Linux's key advantage over other operating systems is that the core software is freely available and widely embraced. In the cut-throat electronics business where profit margins are one or two percent at the best of times, every saving is welcome.
"The consumer electronics makers sell millions of devices while their profit margins are extremely slim. If they have don't have to pay royalties it works directly through to their bottom line," Martin Fink, head of Linux activities at Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ - News), told Reuters in an interview.
TINY LINUX
Linux's core software, also known as kernel, which drives the chips and other basic functions of a device, can be as small as one Megabyte if embedded in a consumer electronics product, Fink added. A single high quality digital picture or one minute of MP3 music can be stored on one Megabyte of memory.
U.S. electronics maker Motorola (NYSE:MOT - News) has launched a Linux mobile phone for the Chinese market, while Philips has a remote control running on Linux for all the electronic devices in a home.
The Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF) is working to speed up the start-up time of devices and reduce power demands.
Next target is the 164 million units a year global television set market, as well as the millions of set top boxes and DVD recorders. These devices need more powerful chips and versatile software like Linux to connect easily to other devices in the home and the Web. U.S.-based Microsoft (NasdaqNM:MSFT - News) has a slimmed-down version of Windows for networked home electronics.
Consumers are embracing home networks to hook up their computers with always-on, fast Internet. Consumer electronics makers believe that next they will want to play and display music, pictures and films from the Internet and their PC on TVs and HiFi sets, which is why they make them more powerful.
Worldwide, over twenty million consumers have a home network this year, a number that will double within two years and treble within four, said Juergen Thiel, a Western European sales manager at U.S. chip maker Intel (NasdaqNM:INTC - News). Intel said it would partner with Sony to develop these home networks.
Sony, Philips and Samsung Electronics (KSE:05930.KS - News) from South Korea all showed home network boxes that will transfer digital content from PCs and the Web to consumer electronics devices.
"Broadband Internet will create completely new opportunities. In Germany alone the number of broadband DSL subscribers will surpass four million this year," says Leopold Bonengl, head of Sony Germany. Some 12 percent of all European households currently have broadband Internet access. That could be around 30 percent by 2007, according to resesarch groups.
While some of the earlier boxes still run on proprietary embedded software, future generations that are expected to sell in the millions will use Linux, Philips said.
Hi-Fi Garden Chair Among Highlights at Berlin Show
1 hour, 21 minutes ago Add Technology - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Philip Blenkinsop
BERLIN (Reuters) - A hi-fi garden chair and vibrating headphones will jostle for attention with products from over 1,000 exhibitors at Europe's largest consumer electronics fair which opens on Friday.
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Faint flickers of recovery in Europe have given manufacturers hope after over two years of stagnation amid encouraging signs that devices launched at the last biennial IFA fair are gaining mass market acceptance.
Organizers are hailing 2003 as the year of the flat screen television as manufacturers showcase their latest LCD and plasma sets. DVD recorders, which made initial appearances at the fair in 2001, have also become more mainstream.
Hard disc recorders, seen as the video recorders of the future, and digital interactive televisions will also show the industry's pressure to embrace the new and ditch the old.
Hardware apart, consumer electronics firms are also pushing interconnectivity, linking home devices to each other often without wires as well as to the outside world with a broadband Internet connection.
Manufacturers hope consumers will be excited by the chance to use the TV to view holiday snaps taken on their digital cameras or to shut their windows with the television's remote control.
Philips Electronics, Europe's top and world number three consumer electronics maker, announced on Wednesday it had joined forces with four major European telecoms operators to launch products which can be hooked up to the Internet.
Sony Germany chief Leopold Bonengl said on Thursday broadband DSL subscribers would surpass four million in Germany alone this year. The Japanese electronics giant said it would launch a home network receiver in Europe this autumn, connecting existing hi-fis and TVs to other devices such as the PC.
Offerings designed to tempt early adopters include a pocket-sized video recorder, a car radio that also records and a cycling jacket that provides navigational guidance while warming the kidneys.
The vibrating headphones are designed for use by players of video games to make them feel more involved.
Meanwhile, one German company is premiering a remote control unit with buttons more clearly labeled, such as "loud" and "quiet," which it believes will appeal to older consumers.
For visitors with deep pockets and a discerning ear, the main draw may be a hi-fi system, claimed to be the world's most expensive and valued at around a million euros.
While IFA 2003 boasts a record 1,007 exhibitors, cost-saving has forced organizers to cut the fair to seven days from the normal 10, a move likely to depress visitor numbers which reached 370,000 last year.
If they are a reflection of the general population, they will arrive in a mixed mood.
Recent improvements in business sentiment within the euro zone have not translated into increased consumer confidence. Retail sales have also been sluggish.
European Union (news - web sites) retail sales slipped in May, figures released earlier this month showed, by 0.7 percent from April, although they were up 0.9 percent year-on-year. (Additional reporting by Lucas van Grinsven)
Buying..GMT CAPITAL CORP
better than a sharp stick in the eye...
GMT CAPITAL CORP
ATLANTA, GA 30328
(770) 989-8261
Position Statistics
Report Date: 6/30/2003
Total Positions: 95
New Positions: 20
Increased Positions: 24
Decreased Positions: 33
Positions With Activity: 57
Sold Out Positions: 6
Total Market Value (in $ millions): 316
Company Class Value
of Shares
($1000) Change
in Value
($1000) % Change
in Value Shares
Held
MIRAVANT MED TECHNOLOGI... COM $142 $142 New 140,130
VISION-SCIENCES INC DEL COM $141 $0 0.00% 76,800
APPLIED DIGITAL SOLUTIO... COM $135 $0 0.00% 346,400
COPYTELE INC COM $104 $0 0.00% 144,800
SIRENZA MICRODEVICES IN... COM $98 $98 New 25,500
OPLINK COMMUNICATIONS I... COM $93 $0 0.00% 58,550
DIGITALTHINK INC COM $90 $0 0.00% 30,000
RETEK INC COM $86 $0 0.00% 12,208
ZIX CORP COM $82 $0 0.00% 24,250
RIVERSTONE NETWORKS INC COM $76 $0 0.00% 60,295
IDENTIX INC COM $76 ($120) (61.29%) 12,288
CARRINGTON LABS INC COM $67 $0 0.00% 14,300
AVANEX CORP COM $64 $0 0.00% 13,750
INTERNAP NETWORK SVCS C... COM $63 $0 0.00% 55,000
SIEBERT FINL CORP COM $62 $0 0.00% 14,600
AWARE INC MASS COM $58 $0 0.00% 23,200
ADVANCED TISSUE SCIENCE... COM $55 ($27) (33.27%) 342,010
E DIGITAL CORP COM $36 $36 New 108,100
EMERGE INTERACTIVE INC CL A $30 $0 0.00% 41,050
K MART CORP COM $24 ($17) (41.79%) 236,710
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Page 4 of 5
Rio's Nitrus Tries to Crack IPod Market
4 minutes ago
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By MATTHEW FORDAHL, AP Technology Writer
So far, no gadget has come very close in mimicking the style and simplicity of Apple Computer's top-selling iPod digital music player.
Now, the name that started it all in 1998 — Rio — is trying to recapture its past glory following the financial blowup of its former parent company, SonicBlue. Recently acquired by Digital Networks North America, Rio is pumping up the volume with seven new models.
The first new release, Rio Nitrus, looks like a real contender. Like Apple's player, the Nitrus stores tunes on a small hard drive. The Rio is more compact and runs longer on a single battery charge. And its sound quality is excellent.
But Nitrus doesn't recapture the music player crown for Rio. The sleek black gadget is too pricey, its software lackluster and hard drive too skimpy for the price. It simply doesn't offer as much bang for the buck as the iPod, which itself isn't cheap.
At $299, the Nitrus offers 1.5 gigabytes of storage, enough for about 375 songs. The $299 iPod, Apple's low-end model for either Macintosh (news - web sites) or Windows computers, has 10 gigabytes of space — enough for 2,500 songs.
At just 2 ounces, Nitrus is slightly easier to handle than the 5.6-ounce iPod, and, shaped roughly like a wedge, it easily slides into a pocket. Still, button placement on the iPod is easier on the hand, while those on the Nitrus seem randomly scattered on the sides and front.
Navigation on the Nitrus is primarily controlled with a tiny red joystick — dubbed RioStick — that protrudes from its front. It nudges up, down, left and right to forward or skip back by tracks as well as to play and pause the music.
Rio has always had one of the most intuitive and clean user interfaces. The Nitrus is no exception — once you figure out the gadget's button scheme.
Songs can be played randomly or by album, artist, genre, year or track. A five-band equalizer, with several presets, can be easily adjusted even while the music is playing. A liquid crystal display, the size of a postage stamp, shows details on each song.
With a Universal Serial Bus 2.0 connection to a PC, songs load about 40 times faster than older players that rely on USB 1.1, which also is supported. The Nitrus' transfer rate is faster than the iPod's FireWire.
The Nitrus, which ships Wednesday for Windows users, includes a copy of the Rio Music Manager software that falls short of being a one-stop shop for burning, ripping and organizing music.
On my primary computer — a home-built Windows system based on Intel's latest processor and chipset — the software immediately crashes. On another computer, which also runs Windows but has an AMD processor and different chipset, it ran fine.
The software found my music and loaded it into a library with no problem. It also automatically generated playlists based on the various criteria I set, such as genre, year and artist. It moved the music to the player.
Unlike Apple's iTunes for Macintosh computers or even MusicMatch's Jukebox, which Windows iPod users run, Rio Music Manager cannot convert CD tunes to the MP3 format.
Instead, users can choose Microsoft's Windows Media Audio format or buy an upgrade. The upgrade link, however, gets you Rio's home page and provides no information on upgrading to MP3 ripping (Rio says it will be fixed).
Oddly, although Rio Music Manager supports the Ogg Vorbis format, which is increasingly popular especially among fans of open-source software, the Nitrus can't play such files. (The upcoming Rio Karma player will, and Rio officials say support might be added later to the Nitrus.)
Rio ships Real Networks' RealOne software that does encode MP3s but has a tendency to take over computers with pop-up ads and upgrade reminders. Songs also can be transferred via Windows Media Player.
Once the music was loaded, the Nitrus ran continuously on its rechargeable battery for 13 hours — three hours shorter than advertised but about five hours longer than the latest iPods. Thanks to a 16 megabyte memory buffer, it never missed a beat, even at the gym.
Five years ago, Diamond Multimedia Systems Inc. invented the portable digital music player with its Rio 300. The recording industry failed to bring it down with a lawsuit. It survives today despite the mismanagement and neglect of its former parent companies.
Now, its new owner seems serious about reinvigorating the brand, and a half dozen more Rio models are slated to be launched in the coming weeks. The Nitrus is a good start and would be a competitor if its software were more fully developed and its price cut in half.
Perhaps one of the upcoming Rios will be the next iPod. Then again, maybe it's time to aim higher and do something that hasn't been done before. Like Rio did in 1998.
___
On the Net:
Rio: http://www.rioaudio.com
Toshiba intros 20GB digital music player
TOKYO, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- Toshiba has introduced in Japan a 20GB hard drive-based digital music player that's smaller and lighter than the competing IPod player from Apple Computer.
The Gigabeat MEG200J hard drive is four times the capacity of that in Toshiba's previous mode, the MEG50JS.
Toshiba says the drive has enough space to store up to 332 hours of music, encoded at 128 kbps -- about 5,000 songs. The device supports Windows Media Audio, MP3, or WAV formats.
The IDG News Service said in addition to its smaller size, the player is also lighter. The G20 weighs 4.9 ounces, compared with 8.3 ounces for the previous model and 5.9 ounces and 6.2 ounces for Apple's two players.
Battery life is estimated at around 11 hours on a full charge, and the player connects to a PC through a USB 2.0 interface.
Toshiba said it plans to put the G20 on sale in early October for about $424. The company said it will consider international sales should the device sell well in Japan.
Drives Provide New Electronics Avenue
A Colorado company brings new circuitry to MP3 players near you.
From: Inc. Magazine, September 2003 / Page 24 By: Bobbie Gossage
Consumer electronics may get smaller and cheaper, thanks to a three-year-old company based in Longmont, Colo. Using inexpensive materials and cutting costs in the assembly process, Cornice Inc. has designed circuitry that can fit 1.5 gigabytes of storage onto a one-inch square that sells for about $70. Its drives hold 15,000 MP3 songs -- more storage than IBM's Microdrive at about 40% of the cost. Analysts say they are ideal for hybrid devices -- think a cell phone-MP3 player-camera all in one. They also buzz about their potential for a TiVo-inspired car MP3 radio. Currently, dashboards are too crowded for additional circuitry; they could accommodate Cornice's wee drives, however, enabling car owners to store music files and download radio broadcasts. So far, the company, which partners with Texas Instruments, has deals to put drives in 10 MP3 players (including the RCA LYRA Micro Jukebox and the Rio Eigen Executive) and a Samsung video camera. GPS devices will follow. "You could fit an entire continent on one inch," says Cornice CEO Kevin Magenis. For the drives to truly succeed, however, they must challenge the dominance of flash memory, a digital storage technology that takes up the same amount of space. But by being considerably cheaper and suitable for brave new gadgets, Cornice drives should find an opening.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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15,000 mp3 songs will fit in 1.5... - Mr. Skeptic
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Nice find murgirl. Seems like they are describing just what EDIG has proposed. The only thing that creeps me out is the description of the DRM-type working group. Makes me have flashbacks LOL. At least in this case Julian Levin is at the helm.
OT Here...Here...Parasoft CEO Blames SoBig On Arrogant Software Industry Leadership
August 22, 2003 (3:29 p.m. EST)
By Keith Ferrell , TechWeb News
Sharply criticizing complacency, arrogance and immaturity in software industry leadership, and blaming those qualities for the SoBig virus's successful march through the world's computers, Parasoft CEO Adam Kolawa delivered a rant Friday that included an offer to show the industry how to cure its errors.
The head of the privately held software development solutions company said that the industry's policy of tackling program bugs at the latter stages of development cycles is self-defeating. By that point in the development process, Kolawa said, the bugs have been replicated too many times and become too widespread, making it too difficult to detect all flaws, and leading developers to ship vulnerable products.
Those vulnerabilities, in turn, attract hackers' worms and viruses, costing business and consumers tens of billions of dollars in lost production time each year.
What most needs to be fixed, he said, is the industry's approach to testing and error correction during the development cycle. Kolawa said the software sector should apply industrial and production-line methodologies to writing code.
“I have the solution -- which will even help Microsoft,” Kolawa said unabashedly.
That solution includes incorporation of Automatic Error Prevention (AEP) methodology for improving software quality and reducing time-to-market, the Monrovia, Calif.-based company said.
According to Kolawa, AEP methodology, drawn from the insights of industrial analyst W. Edwards Demming in the mid-1900s is just as applicable to software code as to any assembly line product.
“At the end of a television set production line,” he said by way of example, “the TV is tested. If there's a problem, it's the flaw in the production line that's repaired, not each individual TV set.”
From Kolawa's perspective, the software industry pursues exactly the opposite course, sending out hundreds of thousands or millions of flawed copies, then finding and fixing one bug at a time before dispatching repairs to be applied individually.
The problem as he sees it stems from the software industry's mis-perception of itself as different from traditional industries, and in some ways better -- a mistake even traditional industries have made, to their detriment.
Kolawa believes that the software industry needs to take a page -- or more -- from mature industries such as automotive and appliance manufacturing or risk losing its preeminence to offshore developers.
“The software industry suffers the same sort of arrogance at the top level that nearly killed the U.S. car industry in the Seventies,” he said. “The 'nobody can do this better than we can' mentality that led to the surge in Japanese car sales.”
The situation is not likely to change, he said, until software makers begin instituting rigorous and ongoing testing throughout the code-writing cycle, and at the same time impose stricter management controls over the developer community, forcing them to implement and adhere to constant testing procedures throughout the process.
“But the software industry's so damned arrogant, they won't do it,” he said. “But if they don't we're going to lose more and more development jobs to companies in India and China, whose developers don't have that arrogance and whose code may be of higher quality. If we're not careful, this will be worse than the rust belt.”
How High Is The Risk Of Home Copying To Hollywood?
Url: http://www.webitpr.com/
Study Estimates Revenue Loss to Home Video approaching $1 Billion Per Year in the US
SANTA CLARA, CA (August 20, 2003) – Movie studios, independent producers, music video record companies plus creators, distributors and retailers of video content collectively could be losing estimated retail revenue approaching $1 billion a year in the United States, due to lack of comprehensive application of copy protection, according to a new study sponsored by Macrovision Corporation. This level of displaced revenue would amount to nearly 5% of the $20.6 billion home video industry.
Macrovision estimates that approximately 75% of movies, music videos and other video material released on DVD and videocassettes utilize its copy protection technology. In addition to thwarting DVD-to-VHS copying, the technology also prevents DVD-to-DVD-R, DVR and home media center/PC hard drive recording, as a means to inhibit Internet file sharing via these devices. Some video content providers choose not to copy protect certain designated video titles, and these titles are most at risk for unauthorized copying activity.
In each of three Macrovision-sponsored surveys this year, more than 25% of respondents admitted to attempting to make copies of pre-recorded video content in the previous 12 months. Survey results indicate that respondents who admitted to copying activity, primarily by exploiting non-copy protected titles, would otherwise have rented (50%) or purchased (30%) specific titles, amounting to approximately $1 billion in unrealized retail revenues.
“With new, less-expensive products equipped for DVD-to-DVD video copying arriving in home entertainment stores soon, the popularity of combination DVD/VCR units, and other advances in high-quality video and computing technology, leading video content companies are continuing investments in copy protection to counter the rising threat of casual piracy among consumers,” said Carol Flaherty, senior vice president for Macrovision’s Entertainment Technologies Group. “Surveys show that over 50% of respondents have copied music CDs, and over 40% would copy DVDs if they could.”
“The video rights owners are determined to prevent the financial damage that digital piracy has inflicted on the music industry,” she said. “Additional digital rights management technologies, available now or in advancing stages of development, support that objective. The technologies provide options for consumers to make limited numbers of copies when permitted by content rights owners; they support the concept of using an authentic DVD to access other desirable content and features over the Internet, and they further help control illicit peer-to-peer file sharing.”
Most Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) studios and leading independent rights owners have consistently utilized Macrovision’s copy protection technologies since videocassette recorders were introduced in the mid-1980s. Digital versatile discs (DVDs) now account for more than 60% of home video sales and rentals. Video retailers, represented by the Video Software Dealers Association, believe copy protection is key to sustaining consumer demand.
Macrovision’s survey data was collected in individual interviews by the independent research firms of Taylor Nelson Sofres Intersearch and Understanding & Solutions Limited, for a total of 3,066 completed interviews in the U.S(1). Applying the admitted copying results with the ratio of rental/purchase trends (of failed copying attempts), and introducing retail rental and sell-through pricing data(2), Macrovision calculated U.S. retail revenue losses in the previous 12 months in the estimated range of $607 million to $960 million.
Revenue losses relating to home copying in Western Europe mirror those in the U.S., at an annualized rate between $779 million to $1.25 billion. Western Europe’s VCR household base is approximately 20% larger than the U.S. With 20-25% lower DVD penetration than the U.S., the European survey results were very similar to the American ones, but suggest moderately higher home copying trends among European consumers(3).
Macrovision will demonstrate its latest copy protection features at the DVD Entertainment Conference at the Universal City Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, Aug. 20-21. A special session for journalists is scheduled today, Wednesday, Aug. 20, from 3.00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Carol Flaherty will host the session. She will also be available for individual interviews at other times during the conference. To schedule an interview, please contact Christine Cannon, of IPR, Inc., by phone at 631-776-0247, or (mobile) 917-733-9796, or e-mail at ccannon@iprmedia.com
About Macrovision
Macrovision (NASDAQ:MVSN) develops and markets digital rights management (“DRM”), copy protection, and electronic license management (“ELM”) technologies for the video, music and software industries. Revenues in 2002 were $102.3 million. More than 2.1 billion digital versatile discs (DVDs), 3.9 billion videocassettes, 105 million digital set-top boxes, and over 100 million DVD players/game consoles and 110 million PC/DVD drives have utilized Macrovision’s video copy protection technologies. Macrovision holds a total of 162 issued or pending United States patent and 864 issued or pending international patents, and continues to increase its patent portfolio with new and innovative technologies in related fields. The company has its corporate headquarters in Santa Clara, California, with international offices in London, Frankfurt, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Taipei and Seoul.
Note to Editors: Additional information on Macrovision Corporation can be obtained from our Web site at www.macrovision.com.
1. Surveys were conducted in March, May and July 2003 in the U.S.
2. National average retail rental and sell-thru pricing for DVD/VHS from Kagan World Media and DVD Release Reports.
3. The European surveys were conducted by Taylor Nelson Sofres Intersearch in UK, Germany and France during April 2003, including an average of 1007 completed interviews in each respective countries.
This press release may contain “forward-looking” statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. A number of factors could cause Macrovision’s actual results to differ from anticipated results expressed in such forward-looking statements. Such factors are addressed in Macrovision’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (available at www.sec.gov). Macrovision assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.
© 2003 Macrovision is a registered trademark of Macrovision Corporation. All rights reserved. All other products and names mentioned herein are the properties of their respective owners.
OT Sony Packs Video, WiFi Into New Handheld
Provided By Pinnacor, 08.21.03, 11:56 AM ET
HOBOKEN, NJ - The new Sony Clie looks like a laptop built for Lilliputians.
Unfortunately, the handheld computer's price tag is not so diminutive; it's set to retail for about $700 when it hits the shelves in mid-September.
But Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people ) packs a lot of applications into the 6.2-ounce Clie PEG-UX50 Personal Entertainment Device, and still manages to make it fit comfortably into just about any pocket. If you're the type of person willing to spend that type of dough on the latest gadgets, you won't be disappointed.
It has all the standard capabilities that users of Palm (nasdaq: PALM - news - people ) handhelds have grown to love. You can "hotsynch" all your addresses, datebook entries, and the latest version of The Onion as usual. And you can enter text by scratching out the standard Palm graffiti, though I found it easier to thumb-type on the Clie's built-in keyboard.
This model has the added features that helped make the older Clies stand out -- a built-in camera and the power to play and record audio and video.
The biggest bragging rights for the PEG-UX50 -- one that makes it cost 100 bucks more than the UX40 that comes out at the same time -- is a built-in Wi-Fi receiver.
Wi-Fi -- in case you've been asleep for the last year or so -- is a wireless broadband connection that lets you surf the Web while you mow the lawn, or ride a unicycle, or whatever.
The Clie immediately "sniffed" out the Wi-Fi network at my local coffeehouse, while I sniffed the java and the resident fortune teller shuffled her tarot cards and sniffed around for customers.
The connection speed wasn't quite as fast as a good broadband connection on a desktop -- it was more like a dial-up -- but it's hard to say if that was due to the local network or the Clie itself.
Its screen and Web browser, called NetFront 3.0, performed nobly, rendering Web pages in clear, bright color.
The only problem is, of course, that extensive Web surfing on a screen smaller than a business card is not an entirely enjoyable experience. I didn't need the fortune teller to know that I would have a headache by the time I was done.
Having to scroll horizontally, not just vertically, to read most Web pages is another nuisance of the small screen.
These, of course, are trivial complaints compared to the awesome power of having access to the entire Internet in the palm of your hand. It's great for casual Web surfing and e-mailing, especially as Wi-Fi clouds continue to spread across our land.
The other most impressive feature on the Clie is its built-in camera. About the size of a half-eaten gumdrop, it delivers pretty impressive photos and video for its size.
It's not likely to put the high-end, higher-resolution digital video and still cameras out of business, but it's a nice, convenient alternative to carry in your pocket.
The camera sits near the hinge that opens and closes the handheld, and is smartly designed so that you can spin it with your thumb to focus it away from you, above you or directly at you. This lets you view the image onscreen as you snap pictures of you and a pal, eliminating the problem of cutting yourself off at the eyebrows.
One minor complaint is that the sound quality from the video recorder is a bit lacking.
If you listen to it from the Clie's tiny built-in speaker, the sound is very quiet. It's much louder through a good set of headphones, but in both cases there tends to be a lot of background noise -- especially if the person you are trying to record is more than a few feet from the Clie.
Again, these are minor complaints given the fact that the whole gadget, when folded closed, is 4.1 inches by 3.5 inches, and about three-quarters of an inch thick.
Photos and video can be e-mailed or transferred between your home computer and the Clie, but don't expect the easy one-touch transfer of a simple data hot-synch. Instead, you have to run import and export programs on your Clie and computer simultaneously. The process is not a huge hassle, but takes a bit of practice to get used to.
For Web addicts who can't resist surfing the Net on the Clie for hours at a time, the Advil is sold separately.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Recording, movie industries appeal file-trading ruling
Claim P2P services make huge profit from copyright infringement
Story by Grant Gross, IDG News Service
AUGUST 20, 2003 ( IDG NEWS SERVICE ) - WASHINGTON -- Three entertainment groups have appealed an April 25 U.S. District Court ruling saying that operators of two file-sharing services aren't liable for any copyright infringement that may be happening on their networks.
Late on Aug. 18, the Recording Industry Association of America Inc. (RIAA), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the National Music Publishers' Association Inc. filed an appeal to a Los Angeles district court judge's decision that said the operators of the Grokster and Morpheus peer-to-peer (P2P) services couldn't know when users were trading copyrighted works (see story)
As expected, the three groups have asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to overturn the decision by U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Wilson and hold Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc., the operator of Morpheus, responsible for copyright violations that happen on those P2P networks.
Wilson's decision recognized that P2P services have many legitimate uses, Michael Weiss, CEO of Franklin, Tenn.-based StreamCast Networks, said in a statement. "In our case ... the federal court recognized that you can't ban new technology just because it threatens an old distribution model," he added. "We expect to prevail, and if we do not, we will take this to the Supreme Court if we must. We also believe that the 63 million file-sharing, voting Americans will take the issues to Congress, so that the laws are passed to reflect social and economic realities."
New laws should allow for compulsory licensing similar to radio royalties, Weiss said, and he also suggested a small tax on recordable media.
The RIAA and MPAA argued in their appeal brief that the P2P services make a huge profit from copyright infringement. "Defendants reap millions of dollars in revenue from their online trading bazaars by selling advertising they display to their users while they engage in infringement," the brief said.
The judge's decision "rewrote years of well-established copyright law," Cary Sherman, president of the Washington-based RIAA, said in a statement. "It was wrong. These are businesses that were built for the exclusive reason of illegally exchanging copyrighted works, and they make money hand over fist from it."
Music Group Won't Sue Small Downloaders
Mon Aug 18, 6:31 PM ET Add Technology - AP to My Yahoo!
By FREDERIC J. FROMMER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) says it will not go after small violators when it sues people who illegally share songs on the Internet.
The assurance came in a written response to questions by Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs' Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Coleman plans to hold hearings on the RIAA's campaign, which he has labeled "excessive."
"RIAA is in no way targeting 'de minimis' users," wrote Cary Sherman, the group's president, in a letter the subcommittee released Monday. "RIAA is gathering evidence and preparing lawsuits only against individual computer users who are illegally distributing a substantial amount of copyrighted music."
Sherman added that his group "does not condone any illegal copying and does not want anyone to think that even a little illegal activity is acceptable."
Sherman did not specify how much illegal distribution constituted "a substantial amount," and an RIAA spokesman declined to quantify the phrase.
Coleman, a Minnesota Republican and former '60s rock roadie, says he fears that legal penalties for downloading songs don't fit the crime. Copyright laws allow for damages of $750 to $150,000 for each song. The RIAA announced plans in June to file several hundred lawsuits against people suspected of illegally sharing songs on the Internet.
The RIAA said that while it has not yet filed lawsuits in its current campaign, "we assure you that we will approach these suits in a fair and equitable manner."
Sherman said that in cases it brought last year against college students who were illegally distributing tens of thousands of songs, the RIAA settled cases for $12,500 to $17,000 each.
In a telephone interview Monday, Coleman said the RIAA has been cooperative but that he remains concerned the industry is "overreaching."
Coleman is a former prosecutor who has used the Web site Napster (news - web sites) to download music.
Online Music: Downloading
You Get What You Need
NEWSWEEK
Aug. 25 issue — Though legal online music operations have made impressive strides in the last year, Net music fans still gripe about holes in their digital lineups. The two most glaring omissions: the Beatles and the Stones. Now one of the big two is going digital. Starting this week, in conjunction with a promotion with Best Buy electronics stores, the Rhapsody music service is offering all the songs of Jagger, Richards and band. Subscribers to the service—recently acquired by RealNetworks—can now listen to more than 500 Stones songs on their computers. “You can go for 40 hours,” says RealNetwork’s Sean Ryan.
BUT IT’S COMPLICATED. The pre-1971 Stones catalog—with all those great ’60s singles—is controlled by legendary mogul Allen Klein’s ABKCO company. The later songs—including the peaks and valleys of the ’70s and the creative trough thereafter—are owned by EMI/Virgin. EMI, with the Stones’ blessing, is happy to both “stream” the songs (letting customers listen to them jukebox style) and to sell the songs online. Klein has been wary of the Internet, and ABKCO is authorizing only streaming of its Stones songs. It’s an odd stance: by denying customers a way to legally download “Satisfaction,” you drive them to a beggar’s banquet—pirate services like Morpheus or Kazaa, where moochers can get the song free of charge.
The deal emphasizes the value of a subscription service like Rhapsody, which uses streaming technology to allow customers to listen to all they want, as much as they want—as long as they keep subscribing. It’s also a dis of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who personally wooed Jagger to get first crack at the Stones on his iTunes service. But since Rhapsody has only a two-week exclusive, EMI will soon license its catalog to Apple and others. As for the early tunes, you can’t always get want you want—unless you steal it.
—Steven Levy
Recording industry issues warnings
By JACK KAPICA
Globe and Mail Update
Related Links
* Canadian Recording Industry Association
The Canadian music industry will be sending warnings to users who are offering copyright music files on peer-to-peer programs.
In what it calls "the second phase of our education program with Canadian users of file-sharing services," Canadian Recording Industry Association president Brian Robertson said CRIA will use the Instant Messaging function of the peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa to communicate its message to individuals who appear to be distributing copyrighted music without authorization from the rights owners.
Unlike the Recording Industry Association of America, its U.S. counterpart, its U.S. counterpart, CRIA has not launched lawsuits against users of such networks as Kazaa, which share digitized versions of music CDs.
The carefully worded statement warns users that they are offering files to be uploaded by other users of the network.
Under Canadian copyright law, it is legal to download music files for one's personal use. The law, however, states that it is not legal to distribute those files.
The RIAA has launched more than 1,200 suits against individual users in the United States under its much tougher Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which forbids both uploading and downloading.
The U.S. action, however, has been the subject of a number of countersuits, many from Internet service providers challenging the recording industry's demand to reveal the names of those people who are sharing files.
The service providers are arguing that they are not responsible for what users pass along their networks, in the same way that telephone companies are not responsible for what people say on the their lines or the way that cable companies are not responsible for the TV signals they carry.
One U.S. lawyer, who has received a summons, is planning a defence based on forcing the recording industry to prove that he was distributing files; he is claiming that other users were just taking them from his shared files.
The Canadian instant-message program is "designed to inform Canadian users of file-sharing systems of the damage they are inflicting upon the thousands of people involved in the creation of music, as well as to warn them of the legal implications they might face," Mr. Robertson said in a statement.
CRIA, a trade organization founded in 1964 to represent the interests of Canadian companies that create, manufacture and market sound recordings, represents 95 per cent of the sound recordings that are manufactured and sold in Canada.
"The unauthorized file-sharing of copyrighted music hurts artists, songwriters and everyone involved in the creation and production of music," Mr. Robertson added. "It is estimated that Internet file-sharing has doubled in volume in the last year to over one billion files at any one time. The resulting retail sales losses have exceeded $250-million in Canada alone in the last three years."
The Canadian recording industry, however, has persuaded the Canadian government to institute a levy on all recordable media commonly used to record downloaded music files. Over the past few years, the industry has collected in excess of $70-miullion (Cdn.).
Canadian file-sharing enthusiasts have been arguing that by paying the levy, they have already reimbursed the industry and the artists for the files they share.
Instant messaging is built into the software required to join the networks and trade music files. There is, however, an option to turn that feature off.
The test of the message reads:
"Warning
"It appears that you are offering copyrighted music to others from your computer. While we appreciate your love of music, please be aware that sharing copyrighted music on the Internet without permission from the copyright owner is illegal. When you do so, you hurt the artists, songwriters and musicians who create the music and the other talented individuals who are involved in bringing you the music.
"More than 40,000 Canadians work hard producing and supporting the music you appear to enjoy, including producers, engineers, retailers, music publishers, distributors, manufacturers, record companies, concert promoters and broadcasters.
"When you break the law, you risk legal penalties. There is a simple way to avoid that risk: Don?t distribute music to others on a file-sharing system like this. For further information, please go to www.cria.ca.
"Remember that you need music and music needs you."
'Is HP the New Apple?'
By David Kirkpatrick
FORTUNE.COM
Wednesday, August 13, 2003 Posted: 1:31 PM EDT (1731 GMT)
(FORTUNE.COM) -- It's a comparison HP is happy for consumers to make. With its massive new product rollout, the company is challenging competitors to keep up. In an interview with Fortune.com, HP CEO Carly Fiorina says the company's aim is not the next killer app -- but making tech work better for its customers.
"Is HP the new Apple?" Omar Wasow leaned over and asked me during the company's massive product launch in New York Monday. He is NBC's tech impresario who advises Oprah and directs BlackPlanet.com. I told him I had only minutes before written in my notebook, "HP moving to become the Apple of the PC world."
It's a comparison HP willingly invited as it introduced 158 new products all at once -- from printers to PCs to cameras to inexpensive photo paper. Apple of course has led the way toward a vision of integrated digital consumer devices and software for imaging, music, and video. But HP, said CEO Carly Fiorina onstage, didn't merely want to "think different," in an allusion to Apple's marketing slogan, but to "rethink everything."
That was overstatement, but many of HP's new products really were innovative -- like the PC that had a built-in camera holder. Slip your HP digital camera into it, press one button, and pictures are on your PC. Press another button and they're printed (if your printer is hooked up right). CEO Carly Fiorina bragged onstage that this represented the fulfillment of HP's promise in January 2002 to reduce the steps required for taking and printing digital images from 58 to 3. I'm sure they were generous in their initial count, but regardless, they have made things easier. Another cool technology is what they call "adaptive lighting." It compensates on the camera for underlit or overlit portions of a photo so that the resulting picture is properly exposed throughout. HP also launched a scanner that is basically two pieces of glass surrounded by plastic. Hold it up to anything and it will scan it into your PC—almost like a camera.
Technology for the masses
"Simple integrated technology not for the geeks -- for the masses." That's how Fiorina described the mission of Hewlett-Packard in my interview with her shortly after the company's presentation. She argued that this giant consumer launch, to be supported by a $300 million marketing campaign this fall, fits in clearly with an overall company strategy. "In September 2001 when we announced our merger with Compaq, I said customers aren't interested in stand-alone boxes or killer apps anymore," she said. "They want it all to work better." She said yesterday's announcement was about making it all work better in the home, just as HP's "adaptive enterprise" strategy for business customers aims to make tech work together better there. "The theme of simplifying and integrating is common in every market we serve."
Monday was certainly a stake in the ground for a fundamentally new approach. And HP clearly has advantages, aside from its dazzlingly impressive CEO, who seems more confident every day. Its overwhelming dominance in printers is beginning to seem a more significant competitive advantage over rivals than most of us had previously realized. Of course that business garners and protects precious shelf space, but as more and more printing moves into the home (will magazines be next?) owning the printer franchise becomes strategic, partly because more and more devices have to work with the printer. And who of HP's competitors deploys a comparable range of products? Fiorina challenged me to name one, and I couldn't. Apple and Sony, the two companies that have the most similar strategic vision for how consumers will use technology, don't sell printers or many of the other products in HP's printer-and-PC-centric lineup.
Apple is just plain tiny compared to HP, and of course marches to its own technological drummer. In general I like that beat -- I'm writing this on a 17-inch iMac. However, I've had big problems with Apple's iPhoto software. When I upgraded to the most recent version it hid all my photo albums and I still haven't been able to retrieve them properly. It just shows how hard integration can be. And listen to Fiorina on Sony: "It's a great company, but they lack imaging expertise, software expertise, networking expertise, and computing expertise. And those are big things that count."
HP doesn't get the credit it deserves for being the largest "consumer digital product company" in the world, as Fiorina calls it. Nobody touches HP in overall consumer computing-related revenues -- not Sony, not Dell.
Fine line
Vyomesh Joshi, or VJ as he's known, runs HP's imaging and printing group, and is the brains behind much of yesterday's fireworks. He bragged that after last year's "Big Bang," when he first made his impressive managerial presence felt with a complete makeover of consumer printers, HP boosted its revenues 22% even as the overall market declined 20%.
In some ways HP is Bill Gates' dreams come true -- a company devoting huge energy and money to integrating consumer experiences based on industry-standard Windows computers. But my friend Aaron Goldberg, a longtime PC industry expert and consultant at Ziff-Davis, says HP is walking a fine line as it seeks to integrate more and more different kinds of consumer devices around the Windows standard. "You don't want to be called incompatible," he said. "But on the other hand if you rely on the industry standards alone it won't be very compelling from an ease-of-use perspective, because the standards don't support enough integration to take away the customer's pain." He thinks HP will have to eventually move to systems that don't work well -- or at all -- with computers from Dell or Gateway. That could look more and more like the Apple model writ large.
I wrote an unflattering column in May entitled, "What is HP Today?" A big part of my point was that Dell and IBM both have clearer corporate identities. I think I overstated the case. In a subsequent conversation, Jeff Clarke, who runs HP operations, argued that Dell has only succeeded in a big way with products that require unique customer configurations, like PCs. Dell has targeted printers, in partnership with Lexmark, but Clarke says printers don't require configuration and thus aren't likely to be a big success for Dell. (And he says Dell's printer business has had no discernible impact on HP's market.) Carly elaborated further in my conversation with her yesterday: "Dell's a distribution company—a great distribution company, but that's what they are. The only way they can get the growth they need is to move as many things through that distribution chain as they can. But because they're not a technology company and they can't innovate, all they can do is follow."
The battle for PC leadership continues to seesaw between Dell and HP, but HP's global presence, its increasingly-wide range of consumer products, and its growing ability to innovate and integrate, suggest that that battle could be long, interesting, and hard-fought.
OT Gateway puts handheld on hold
By John G. Spooner
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
August 12, 2003, 11:22 AM PT
Gateway has indefinitely delayed the launch of its handheld device.
The Poway, Calif.-based company, which had intended to release a handheld based on Microsoft's Windows Mobile for Pocket PC 2003 software and sell it under the Gateway brand this month, now plans to hold back the device.
"We've missed our launch window," a company spokesperson said.
Gateway had already delayed the release of the device, which was originally slated for a mid-July debut, until mid-August for further testing. Because further delays would push it past the mid-August launch date and hamper its prospects for the 2003 holiday season, Gateway decided to put the device on indefinite hold, the spokesperson said.
Gateway, which sells handhelds from Palm, Sony, Toshiba and ViewSonic, will continue to offer several models manufactured by those companies, the representative said.
The handheld had been part of a broader revitalization effort by Gateway. The continuing effort is designed to reposition Gateway from a PC builder to a consumer electronics maker. Gateway wants to continue to make PCs but also offer a wider array of products such as digital televisions and home theater gear. The new products also promise higher profits than PCs, Gateway executives have said, aiding the company's goal of returning to profitability.
Gateway has said it will deliver 50 new products in 15 categories this year. While the company missed the mark on the handheld, it said it is still on track to meet that goal. It has already launched a host of new products, including a Gateway-branded portable music player. It has also introduced a new line of Gateway digital televisions, a connected DVD player, home theater equipment and a new line of low-price desktop PCs over the past several weeks.
Gateway expects to continue to deliver several more new products between now and November, hoping for a big splash in the 2003 holiday season. The company has also begun remodeling its 192 retail stores.
Despite the indefinite delay, the handheld device may still appear down the road. Gateway may launch it sometime during 2004, the representative said, at a point when it feels the timing is more favorable.
Judge rejects subpoenas in music-use case
By BIPASHA RAY, Associated Press Writer, 8/8/2003
BOSTON -- A federal judge rejected an attempt by the recording industry to uncover the names of Boston College and MIT students suspected of online music piracy.
U.S. District Judge Joseph L. Tauro said Friday that under federal rules, the subpoenas, which were issued in Washington, cannot be served in Massachusetts.
The two schools filed motions last month asking the judge to quash the subpoenas, which request names and other information for one Massachusetts Institute of Technology student and three BC students who allegedly obtained music using various screen names.
The Washington-based Recording Industry Association of America issued a statement calling the ruling a "minor procedural issue."
The ruling "does not change an undeniable fact -- when individuals distribute music illegally online, they are not anonymous and service providers must reveal who they are," the RIAA said.
Industry spokesman Jonathan Lamy declined to say whether the RIAA was planning to refile in Boston.
Phone messages seeking comment from BC, MIT and the schools' attorney, Jeffrey Swope, were not immediately returned Friday evening.
The subpoenas are part of the RIAA's nationwide effort to crack down on copyright violators using music sharing software online to distribute songs.
This spring, a federal judge affirmed the constitutionality of a law allowing music companies to force Internet providers to release the names of suspected music pirates upon subpoena from any federal court clerk's office. The ruling has been appealed.
OT Patriot Scientific contends patents key to MPU design
By Crista Souza
EBN
August 8, 2003 (6:49 p.m. ET)
SAN MATEO, Calif. — A little-known microprocessor developer has been quietly amassing a patent portfolio that it now is bringing to bear with the hope of extracting licenses from systems companies.
Patriot Scientific Corp. (PTSC) announced it has been awarded an additional patent for a fundamental microprocessor technology widely applied in RISC and CISC processors: the use of clock multiplication to accelerate performance.
It's the third time in as many weeks that a small company has sought to boost its earnings potential by claiming ownership of a basic technology—the other two being Palmchip Corp. and ePlus Inc. But rather than go after its natural competitors--MPU core developers and chipmakers--PTSC is pursuing would-be customers.
The company last summer quietly launched a "patent compliance" campaign, seeking IP licenses from hundreds of systems companies in the commercial, industrial, and military sectors that use microprocessors with internal capabilities greater than 120MHz, a market it sized in excess of $200 billion.
U.S. patent 6,598,148 B1, which was awarded last week, "substantially strengthens the validity and scope of our patent enforcement efforts," said Jeff Wallin, president and chief executive of PTSC, San Diego.
The aim, Wallin said, is to get companies to license its technology, not to do battle in court.
"We're trying to go about this in an upfront and noninvasive way," he said.
Wallin declined to identify any companies PTSC has targeted, but said efforts so far have not resulted in any licenses.
PTSC began life in 1987 as a defense contractor, but has more recently focused its developments on embedded microprocessors for commercial applications like smartcards and handheld and mobile wireless devices.
PTSC's flagship product, which was introduced in 1994, embodies the 6,598,148 B1 patent. Known as Ignite1, the chip is a low-cost, medium-performance, 32-bit RISC processor that is able to run both C and Java code without a co-processor.
Wallin described the architecture as a "uniquely modified stack," as opposed to the register-based structure common to most processors. It features single-cycle memory access, and uses fewer gates to achieve its performance level than competing devices, he said.
PTSC uses the technology contained in the patent to boost the processor's operating frequency while using a low-speed crystal. The result is a lower-cost, lower-power-consuming device that also creates less radio interference.
"It's very clever," said Jim Turley of Jim Turley Associates in Monterey, Calif., and a member of PTSC's scientific advisory board. "It seems to do stuff a lot of microprocessors either have or wish they had."
In 2001, PTSC began marketing a processor core based on the same technology, and IP licensing has since become its main business thrust. The company is working with a number of undisclosed ASIC and SoC companies in Asia, Europe, and the United States.
For the first nine months of fiscal 2003, the company registered revenue of $86,439 and a net loss of $2.86 million.
PTSC is one of more than a hundred 32-bit embedded-processor developers, according to Turley.
As a small company, there's a question of how much legal muscle PTSC could bring to enforcing its IP. However, even the most powerful chip companies have grown weary of drawn-out legal battles that can cost more to litigate than it would be worth in royalties or a settlement fee, according to Turley.
"You don't necessarily have to outspend your foes on something like this," he said. "The cynical view is, you can always find someone that will just agree to pay up and be done with it," he said. "Then again, there are others that will fight vociferously."
(This story first appeared on EBN, a sister publication of EE Times).
The secret of success, experts say, is discrete choice modelling
Michael McCullough
Vancouver Sun
Thursday, August 07, 2003
(Iridium Satellite Phone.)
(Sony Minidisc (MD).)
(Pepsi Blue.)
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If only they knew.
Some of the biggest flops of the past decade -- the Iridium satellite phone, the Apple Newton, the Sony MiniDisc, Pepsi Blue -- would not have happened had the companies involved understood a practice known as discrete choice modelling, a Montreal management consultant says.
"The science of customer choice modelling has evolved into perhaps the most important tool that marketers have," said Lippincott Mercer partner Eric Almquist, the author along with Martin Kon and Wolfgang Bock of a research paper titled Economics' Gift to Marketing, published by Mercer Management Consulting Ltd.
The organization has developed a method called Strategic Choice Analysis that it claims can estimate demand for products that do not yet exist, thereby spotting unsuccessful product launches before they happen.
The modelling method evolved out of psychology and transportation economics and permits companies to estimate demand and know exactly how and why customers will make decisions, according to the paper.
Working on behalf of clients including credit-card, funeral services and interactive television companies, Mercer asks respondents to participate in interactive simulations of future product or service offerings that "depict the future market, the alternatives and competitors available, and how the product may fit into the lives of consumers," the firm stated.
"Over time, economies seem to evolve to more consumer choices in terms of more products, more services and more providers hoping for some market share," Almquist said in a release. "To keep growing organically, companies must not only introduce new products and services at an increasing rate, but the success rate must improve as well."
To view the paper, visit www.mercermc.com and click on "Perspectives."
IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA:
Marketers are rightly concerned with whether new products will meet with success in the marketplace. Some notable flops:
PEPSI BLUE: Clear Pepsi failed to find a market a decade before but the company didn't learn the lesson: Pepsi Blue attempted to imitate the lurid hues of Gatorade but nobody over the age of 10 was interested.
SONY MINIDISC (MD): Japanese consumers loved this portable music medium, but North Americans shunned it.
In the end, MP3 players came to dominate the niche.
IRIDIUM SATELLITE PHONE: A brilliant concept -- a satellite network delivering wireless phone service everywhere on the face of the earth. But it was too costly and a disaster for investors.
Source: Vancouver Sun
Phish to Offer Fans Free Music Downloads
By KEVIN WACK
LIMESTONE, Maine - Phish, the jam band whose open taping policy made it one of the nation's biggest live acts, is again sidestepping the record industry to cash in on the online music revolution.Livephish.com offers a rare service: soundboard-quality downloads of performances within two days of the concert. Fans pay $9.95 for MP3s or $12.95 for a computer file format where no sound quality is lost during compression. In the first four months after the site's launch on New Year's Eve 2002, the service generated $1 million, said Brad Serling, whose company runs the site as a joint venture with the band. "It's beyond our expectations," Serling said. "It's been profitable from day one." Like the Grateful Dead, Phish has always encouraged fans to record their performances. Likewise, their performances vary widely from night to night, and the band has spawned a subculture of hard-core fans who began trading recordings long before Napster. Since Livephish's launch, many of the band's young, digitally adept fans have proven willing to pay for an improved version of what's already available at no cost. Sound quality is better, and fans appreciate the convenience of being able to access the equivalent of three CDs of music just 48 hours after the show. During an end-of-tour festival last weekend that drew an estimated 70,000 fans to the remote town of Limestone, a long line of concertgoers snaked outside a white tent called the House of Live Phish. Fans used Apple iMacs to make their own free CDs from a menu of three or four songs performed at each of the band's concert stops this year. Some burned their CDs, then jumped right back in line. And fans offered rave reviews of the Livephish service. "To release it two days later in soundboard quality is the ultimate treat for a fan," said Brian O'Neal, 28, of Nashua, N.H. "I think that could be the greatest thing a jam band ever did." Eighty percent of each concert's sales at Livephish.com come within a week of the show, according to Serling. "This is totally new," gushed Bret Berman of Boulder, Colo. "And I think a lot of bands are going to start doing it." Some other bands are tapping into the market for their live performances. Pearl Jam has begun releasing CDs of each of its concerts, and New York-based Rockslide sells CDs of live shows by a number of lesser-known bands. The biggest hurdle is likely to be record label resistance, said Josh Bernoff, an analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass. Phish has an unusual contract with Elektra Records that gives the band the right to let fans record its live shows. Elektra, owned by AOL Time Warner Inc., gets a share of profits from Livephish.com, according to Serling. Most bands don't have the same bargaining power as Phish, Bernoff said. That means that even bands with devoted followings could have problems duplicating Phish's model. "In most cases the label has basically exclusive rights to sales of recordings by the bands," Bernoff said. "The problem is the label." But he added, "The record business is not doing great. It's doing really, really poorly. ... I think in that environment you're likely to see a fair amount of experimentation." The record industry has begun selling studio tracks on a monthly subscription basis or a la carte at sites like pressplay, MusicNet and iTunes. But they haven't exploited the market for live performances. Maureen Coakley, vice president of publicity for Elektra, said the record label is not looking to launch similar Web sites for other bands. "I think it works in a Phish world," she said. "Phish is so unique." If major labels do enter the market, they probably won't sell concerts in the easily copied MP3 format, as Phish does, Bernoff said. "Phish has the kind of fans who would download these files and pay for them," he said. "It shows an enormous amount of trust in the fan base to put these recordings out there in MP3 format." Phil Leigh, an analyst at Raymond James & Associates in St. Petersburg, Fla., said other bands have the kind of dedicated fans who would pay for concert recordings. But acts with an older fan base, like the Rolling Stones, might have a hard time selling their concerts online, Leigh said. "The Stones probably have a number of fans," he said, "who no more understand how to download a track than a cow comprehends algebra."
90 new Creative products to hit shelves
By Bryan Lee
IN A bid to get a head start on a budding recovery in the global economy, Creative Technology is flooding the stores with a staggering 90 new products between now and the end of the year.
Most will be personal digital entertainment (PDE) devices, such as MP3 players and cameras.
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The aggressive product launch as the critical Christmas holiday season approaches is the computer sound card giant's latest attempt to boost flagging revenues. The company usually sees a surge in sales during this period.
Chairman and chief executive Sim Wong Hoo said yesterday: 'We are moving away from a heavy dependence on the sound card and personal computer markets.'
He explained that 70 per cent of the company's revenue now comes from computer peripherals and personal devices like MP3 players.
Creative has been aiming to broaden its revenue base to arrest a slide in sales over the last two years, since the bursting of the technology bubble.
The company's core sound card product has seen sales decline as computer makers increasingly use cheaper alternatives that provide basic computer audio functions.
Unveiling the company's new strategy yesterday at a briefing on its financial results, Mr Sim said it has successfully made inroads into the PDE market with its Nomad line of MP3 players.
Holding up one of its latest models - the Nomad Jukebox Zen - he proudly declared the slim, silver aluminium pocket-sized device was 'better looking' than rival Apple Computer's pert but pricier iPod.
For the three months ended June 30, Creative derived US$28.4 million (S$50.4 million) or 19 per cent of its revenue from PDE products, up from US$20 million the year before.
Kim Eng Ong Asia analyst Dharmo Soejanto said: 'Without PDEs, Creative would have seen a bigger drop in revenue.'
He added that the company would benefit from its strong standing among computer gamers as it faced off against consumer giants such as Sony and Samsung.
Apart from moving into the PDE market, Creative is also backing down from its once rigid insistence on putting its brand name on every product it produced.
In a move that has raised some eyebrows, the company is now willing to make and design products for other electronics companies under their brand names, despite lower profit margins.
Mr Sim said: 'In the past, we were more purist... we wanted to build the brand name.'
While coy about specific targets, Mr Sim said he expects a 'significant contribution' from products manufactured for other companies in the current financial year.
Creative yesterday announced a profit of US$23.4 million for the year ended June 30, reversing a loss of US$19.7 million the year before.
The company went into the red last year largely because of a one-off US$26 million charge related to the acquisition of computer graphics company 3Dlabs, as well as investment losses of US$45.4 million.
Revenue was US$701.8 million, down 12.9 per cent from US$805.9 million.
This was partly because of a 50 per cent drop in Asian sales from April to June this year, when the Sars outbreak was at its peak. The company said regional sales were US$20 million less than in the same period last year.
Creative yesterday also said that one of its associate companies - SigmaTel - is seeking a listing on Nasdaq soon, a move which analysts say may boost earnings if the company divests itself of its 29 per cent stake in the US-based semiconductor company.
Samsung To Manufacture, Brand Sony Memory Sticks
August 6, 2003 (1:57 p.m. EST)
TechWeb News
Sony Corporation will grant South Korea's Samsung Electronics rights to manufacture and sell Memory Stick flash-memory media, the companies announced Wednesday.
The agreement calls for manufacture to begin immediately, and permits Samsung to market Memory Stick media under its own brand.
The two companies had reached previous agreement on Memory Stick compatibility in Samsung consumer products. The Samsung agreement follows by less than two months Sony's broadening of Memory Stick licensing agreements with manufacturer SanDisk Corporation.
OT SEC Review Delays Wave Systems Shareholder Vote
Wednesday August 6, 12:03 pm ET
By Ellen Sheng
Dow Jones Newswires
NEW YORK -- The Securities and Exchange Commission has held up Wave Systems Corp.'s plan to have shareholders approve an increase to the company's total float to 120 million shares from 75 million shares.
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David Collins, a spokesman for the security software maker, said the SEC is currently reviewing the company's proxy statement after having finished a review of its 10-K filing. The vote, which was originally set for Monday, cannot be rescheduled until the SEC finishes its review, he said.
Mr. Collins said he didn't know what the SEC is reviewing.
The shareholder vote is part Wave Systems' effort to keep itself afloat. In a June 30 SEC filing, the Lee, Mass., maker of products that monitor and manage the use of electronic information disclosed it has only enough cash to fund operations through approximately Oct. 15. Moreover, its auditor, KPMG, expressed "substantial doubt" of the company's ability to continue as a going concern beyond the second quarter of this year.
"In order to fund our business beyond the fourth quarter of 2003, it will be necessary for us to raise additional capital. Wave is uncertain as to the availability of financing from other sources to fund any cash deficiencies," the filing states. In order to continue as a going concern for the next 12 months, the company said it needs to raise $9.3 million.
The company said it wants to use the additional authorized Class A shares for a number of purposes, including selling for cash and issuing additional options, all without further shareholder approval.
Wave Systems said it plans to issue Class A shares for its stock option plans, upon conversion of its outstanding convertible securities and upon issuing dividends accrued on its Series H stock, according to the filing.
In the first quarter, the company recorded a net loss of $6.5 million, or 12 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $11.3 million, or 22 cents a share. The company generated revenue of $16,000, compared with $246,000 a year earlier.
Near midday Wednesday, Nasdaq-listed shares of Wave Systems traded at $3.45, down $1.08, or 24%.
The stock had seen a huge spike in the last several days amid very heavy volume after the company released statements announcing relationships with Intel Corp. (NasdaqNM:INTC - News) and International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM - News) .
-By Ellen Sheng, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5863;
gandalf, was that trip on your way to Disney?? What did you ever learn on that trip?
Lexar Readies 4GB Compact Flash Card
Tue Aug 5,11:00 AM ET
Martyn Williams, IDG News Service
Lexar Media has begun shipping a 4GB capacity Compact Flash card, the largest-capacity flash memory card of any format currently available, but consumers should be aware that with the arrival of higher-capacity cards come some potential compatibility problems.
One of the problems lies in the physical size of the Lexar card. It is a type 2 Compact Flash card and as such is slightly thicker than the standard type 1 card. That means that it is too large to fit into a type 1 card slot and potential buyers should check the specifications of their device to ensure compatibility.
Another potential problem lies in the software inside the device being used with the card. Many current and previous products only support the FAT16 file system. This uses 16-bit addresses to access data on the disc and that means there are enough addresses for up to 2GB of data. To access over 2GB of storage space, devices need to support the FAT32 file system, which doubles the address length and can be used with much larger amounts of storage.
Potential Problems
So, at present the new Lexar card can only be used with a handful of cameras. Lexar has set up a Web page to list compatible products and it current carries the names of 11 cameras: six from Canon, four from Eastman Kodak, and one from Olympus Optical.
But the problems don't end there. Lexar notes that some cameras that support FAT32, such as Canon's EOS-1D, will still use the FAT16 file system to format an unformatted card irrespective of its capacity. In this case the company is supplying an application to enable users to format their cards with FAT32 to get the maximum storage space. Users are also likely to notice slightly slower response with the new cards because writing with FAT32 takes longer, said Lexar.
SanDisk, one of Lexar's competitors, is promising a solution for the physical compatibility problem later this year. The company is planning to ship its own 4GB card in a type 1 package sometime in the fourth quarter of this year, said Bob Goligoski, a spokesperson for SanDisk. While this card will be physically compatible with all products, they will still need to support the FAT32 file system to access the full storage space.
Paying the Price
The Lexar card is available now and costs around $1,500. SanDisk says its card will cost around $1,000 when it becomes available.
At its introductory price, the new Lexar card is not as good a deal as some of the company's lower-capacity cards or those from competitors, when the cost per megabyte is compared. The new Lexar card costs around $0.37 per megabyte while a Lexar 1GB card costs $229, according to Product Finder, or $0.22 per megabyte. A 1GB card from SanDisk is even cheaper at $198, or $0.19 per megabyte.
But the larger cards do offer convenience, assuming a compatible camera is used. The 4GB storage space is probably enough so that even the most snap-happy photographer won't need to change cards during a day's shooting. A single card can accommodate thousands of images compressed in the JPEG format or up to 600 images in the RAW file format, often found on high-end cameras and an uncompressed dump of data from the image sensor when the picture was taken, said Lexar.
What do you suppose would happen if you came in 5 minutes into a 4 minute song?? --owd3
Well...with a 5 minute buffer, I'd say I would have the whole song if the player were tuned to that station. I'm talking about you decide to "weigh in" and capture that song at a particular moment in your listening experience. The Archos gives you 30 seconds to make this decision. I have often noticed that I listen for much more than 30 seconds before dediding whether or not I like a particular piece of music.
Think about it for a minute.
sure sounds like a "write-back" type feature to me. Maybe when 2 or 3 more come out with it, then it will be a better time to get that patent going.-owd3
sure "sounds" like write-back ... well it does kind of except this is a portable device and not a telematics/infotainment device. Oh and only 30 seconds of capture...well I hope you didn't come in on the second minute of the song. I wonder why they could only capture 30 seconds when write-back is purported to capture 5 minutes...
Just how are they protecting their tech without a patent, considering the competition has players with this feature on the market right now?-owd3
Could it be....locks on the front doors, NDAs with employees, Actel anti-fuse FPGAs....hmmm I wonder
Does seem a tad strange and just a little too convenient doesn't it ucan.
RIAA's scare tactics bound to backfire
By Declan McCullagh
CNET News.com
August 4, 2003, 12:22 PM PT
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COMMENTARY--The Recording Industry Association of America's efforts to scare peer-to-peer users who violate copyright laws began with a promising start exactly one year ago.
Last August, the RIAA asked a federal court in Washington, D.C., to force Verizon Communications to divulge the identity of a Kazaa user, kicking off a legal tussle that ended with the RIAA winning a stunning victory. At about the same time, key members of Congress wrote a letter that asked the U.S. Department of Justice to begin criminal prosecutions of P2P users who "allow mass copying," while an RIAA ally on Capitol Hill simultaneously introduced a bill to allow copyright holders to attack computers on P2P networks used for piratical purposes.
A year later, however, there are some signs that the RIAA's antipiracy campaign is faltering.
Last week, Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., criticized the RIAA's pursuit of music swappers, saying he was "concerned about the potential for abuse in the current system." The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston College are fighting the RIAA, and a new survey found that 67 percent of file swappers in the United States are indifferent to copyright concerns, an unexpected jump from 61 percent just three years ago.
But the most daunting obstacle to the recording industry's dogged efforts to rid the Internet of music piracy is a lawsuit that Pacific Bell Internet Services (also known as SBC Communications) filed against the RIAA last week.
It is carefully crafted to portray the RIAA and its contractors who scour P2P networks for infringers as out-of-control juggernauts who care precious little about due process, the rules of the federal court system, Americans' privacy rights and the U.S. Constitution.
You know what? SBC stands a decent chance of winning. If that happens, the case would deal a sore setback to the RIAA and make the dread subpoena process that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) created far less menacing.
Under section 512(h) of the DMCA, any copyright holder can "request the clerk of any United States district court to issue a subpoena to a service provider for identification of an alleged infringer." The RIAA has repeatedly invoked that section of the law in the last few months, firing off bulk subpoenas in an effort to spread a mix of fear, uncertainty and doubt among file-swappers who, the argument goes, will start panicking over being sued.
If you read between the lines of 19-page complaint, you're left with little choice but to conclude that the RIAA is more interested in maximizing the quantity of subpoenas--and their possible deterrent value--than in carefully abiding by the letter of the law.
We already saw this happen earlier this year, when the RIAA was forced to apologize to a Pennsylvania State University professor for sending him and dozens of other people legal warning saying that they were violating federal copyright law. The RIAA's automated program apparently confused two separate pieces of information--a legal MP3 file and a directory named "usher"--and concluded there was an illegal copy of a song by the musician Usher.
Some of the arguments SBC is making--such as saying the DMCA does not apply to P2P networks--are nearly identical to those that Verizon unsuccessfully made in its court case in Washington. Verizon lost dismally when a district judge ordered it to comply with the RIAA subpoenas and an appeals court has declined so far to intervene. Although a lower court decision on the other side of the continent does not set precedent for California, it's still likely to be influential.
Two things have changed since the Verizon decision, though: First, the threat of the RIAA employing bulk-subpoena tactics is no longer merely a theoretical concern. Second, SBC is making additional arguments that Verizon did not.
SBC says it's received hundreds of DMCA subpoenas already, which makes the potential threat to its subscribers' privacy very real. It expects to receive thousands more, saying the RIAA contractors have "inundated" it with thousands of similar, illegitimate complaints of copyright infringement in the past. At the very least, the company says, the subpoenas must come from a California court instead of one in Washington.
SBC also says it needs a different subpoena for each individual (claiming that "multiple demands for individual subscriber information cannot be grouped in one subpoena"), that it needs additional time to respond to each subpoena so that its subscribers can be notified and possibly hire lawyers to oppose their subpoenas and that the DMCA does not authorize the subscriber's e-mail address to be disclosed.
Probably the most important argument is one that could hit the RIAA where it hurts the most: in the pocketbook. SBC argues that it and other Internet service providers "must be compensated for the substantial costs incurred in complying with these subpoenas" and cites rule 45 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. It says the recipient of a subponea must be "reasonably compensated" for the work required to prepare a response.
What all this means is that SBC is trying to raise the costs for the RIAA to learn the identity of P2P users. This is a good thing for privacy and for Internet users: The DMCA subpoena process is hardly privacy-protective, and it allows copyright holders to learn the identity of an Internet user without filing a lawsuit or obtaining a judge's approval. (Remember that even if SBC wins, the RIAA can still sue P2P copyright infringers. They might just have to file individual lawsuits first, a more expensive proposition.)
Matt Oppenheim, the RIAA's senior vice president of business and legal affairs, told me on Friday that the DMCA "contains absolutely no provision whatsoever for reimbursement...If Congress had wanted reimbursement, Congress would have included it. But they didn't." (Oppenheim may be right. Section 512 of the DMCA suggests--but does not say explicitly--that the federal rules that require reimbursement apply.)
The RIAA added in a statement: "It's unfortunate that they have chosen to litigate this, unlike every other ISP which has complied with their obligations under the law. We had previously reached out to SBC to discuss this matter, but had been rebuked."
Poor things.
Sure, it's temping to beat up on the recording industry, but keep in mind that they're not the ones who enacted the DMCA back in 1998. Congress did. Elected representatives chose the interests of well-connected copyright holders over individual rights to privacy. The Senate approved the DMCA unanimously in October 1998, and the U.S. House of Representatives followed suit by a similar margin a few days later.
If the major record labels win their legal skirmish with SBC, and the DMCA remains intact, the fight will return to Capitol Hill. Let's hope the outcome will be different this time.
biography
Declan McCullagh is the Washington correspondent for CNET News.com, chronicling the ever-busier intersection between technology and politics. Before that, he worked for several years as Washington bureau chief for Wired News. He has also worked as a reporter for The Netly News, Time magazine and HotWired.
Fair enough.eom
MIR, what will not be amusing is if any of the allegations made by LL are true. It does strike one as strange that only in the last month have you and now JBocca posted the kind of misgivings that you now think everyone should take for granted. I don't see a whole lot that has changed with the company except for 3 million in pending revenue and actual products over the last 3 years. I can certainly understand losing patience with this investment but I can't see the inflection point that led you and now JBocca to become so decidedly pessimistic with an economic upturn on the immediate horizon and heading into traditionally the best quarter for the company. Please advise.
cheers
Streamwaves Announces Addition of Sony Music Entertainment Catalog to its On-Demand Music Subscription Service
Monday August 4, 9:03 am ET
NEW YORK and DALLAS, Aug. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Streamwaves, a Dallas-based digital streaming media company, and Sony Music Entertainment (SME) announced today that SME's content will now be available on a non-exclusive basis to Streamwaves subscribers.
ADVERTISEMENT"With the addition of Sony Music Entertainment's vast catalog of songs, Streamwaves will be the first browser-based service to offer all five major labels," said Streamwaves Vice President Technology Sean Catlett. "This not only expands the content at streamwaves.com, but combined with our all-digital content delivery system, the service is able to offer a wider range of music to its customers faster than ever before."
"Sony Music Entertainment is proving its commitment to online music by making our digital catalog available through a wide variety of legal services," said Phil Wiser, CTO, Sony Music Entertainment. "Consumers need choices in the legal marketplace, and we are pleased to add Streamwaves to the dozens of services that offer our artists' music."
Streamwaves was the first Internet company to build a streaming subscription engine and to launch a subscription service with major label content. Its current service offers CD quality sound and the ability to select music on-demand to anyone with a Web browser.
About Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment Inc. (SMEI) is a leading global recording company. The three divisions of SMEI are: Sony Music (the U.S. recording company comprised of Automatic Productions, Columbia Records Group, Epic Records Group, Sony Music Nashville, Legacy Recordings, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Sony Disc Manufacturing, Sony Music Distribution, Sony Music Custom Marketing Group, Sony Music Studios, and Sony Wonder); Sony MusicInternational (active in over 60 countries through its network of wholly owned subsidiaries, joint ventures and licensees); and Sony Classical, which includes the Sony Classical Film & Video division.
About Streamwaves
Streamwaves is the leader in the digital music subscription business, innovating the way musical entertainment is delivered and enjoyed. Streamwaves was the first Internet company to build a streaming subscription engine, the first to license major label masters for a subscription service, and the first company to launch a subscription service with major label content. Streamwaves holds licensing agreements with BMG, EMI Recorded Music, EMI CMG Publishing, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, The Harry Fox Agency, BMI and others. A preview of the service can be found at www.streamwaves.com.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Sony Music Entertainment Inc.
OT Wave Systems signs IBM deal and shares rise 20 pct
Monday August 4, 10:12 am ET
NEW YORK, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Wave Systems Corp. (NasdaqNM:WAVX - News) on Monday said it had agreed to a deal with IBM to embed its software inside selected IBM notebook and desktop computers, marking the latest in a string of deals for the tiny company.
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Wave Systems of Lee, Massachusetts said its embedded software would be available on selected International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM - News) ThinkPad notebooks and ThinkCentre desktops that include IBM's digital security subsystem.
The stock of Wave Systems jumped 20 percent, or 72 cents, in heavy volume to trade at $4.37 and is up five-fold since Thursday, with volumes changing hands at 100 times their norm.
Shares of the previously thinly traded stock have rocketed in the past three days after Wave announced a deal with Intel Corp. (NasdaqNM:INTC - News), the world's biggest chipmaker, to embed its software inside some internal computer chassis built by Intel.
Terms of the latest deal were not disclosed. But Wave spokesman John Callahan said IBM computers with built-in Wave security would be available in the fourth-quarter of this year.
Valley economy may be turning
EARNINGS POINT TO SLOW GROWTH
By David A. Sylvester
Mercury News
Posted on Sat, Aug. 02, 2003
Somewhere out there, a tech recovery is in the works.
A slew of economic data this week, including financial results from two-thirds of the public companies in Silicon Valley, show it is real, but gradual.
``Difficult'' is how many analysts describe the upturn, as if describing a difficult child or a difficult experience.
Key financial reports from the second quarter show losses have turned into profits, mainly because of cost cutting, while sales are showing slight improvement. The biggest companies are faring best, with Intel turning the largest profit of any company by far. However, the majority of smaller companies continue to lose money and sales.
``Are we having a recovery?'' asks Keitaro Matsuda, senior economist at Union Bank of California. ``I'd say we are. Will it be an extremely strong one? I'd say, probably not.''
Nationally, spending on tech equipment is up sharply from the very low levels of a year ago. In the second quarter, sales for information-processing equipment rose 23 percent to $617.1 billion, according to the inflation-adjusted figures in the gross-domestic-product data released last week. The biggest surge came in computer and peripheral equipment, which rose 36 percent to $355.5 billion, while software sales rose a modest 2 percent.
`Back to normal'
Some see this as nothing more than a reprieve from the depression-like drop in tech spending since the peak three years ago. ``We're getting back to normal levels in spending,'' says Edward Leamer, director of the UCLA Anderson School's economic forecast.
Intel Chief Executive Craig Barrett said much the same thing last week, when he warned that information-technology spending won't rise much this year.
``I'm not sure IT spending is going to be down in '03, but it's certainly not going to be up a whole lot especially in the established economies,'' Barrett told a Morgan Stanley analyst.
Two-thirds -- or 233 -- of 340 local public companies reported their recent quarterly earnings over the past two weeks. Collectively, sales rose 2.4 percent from $34.5 billion to $35.3 billion. The group's net loss improved from $7.6 billion last year to a loss of $2.7 billion in this current quarter.
However, these figures are distorted by Solectron's $3.1 billion loss that included a $1.9 billion write-down. If figures for Solectron -- a contract manufacturer of electronic equipment -- are taken out, the group turned a profit of $1 billion, a major turnaround from the loss of $6.8 billion a year ago.
Then again, most of this profit came from chip maker Intel. Excluding Intel's $896 million profit and Solectron's loss, the remaining 232 companies in the group turned a paper-thin profit of $107 million on $24.6 billion in sales. That's a profit margin of less than a half a percentage point.
Some of the hallmarks of the bubble remain because Silicon Valley still is loaded with small, money-losing companies. Even during this recovery, a full 81 percent of the smaller half of the companies, those with sales under $21.4 million in the quarter, lost money.
Worse than that, while revenues for the largest 117 companies in the group grew nearly 3 percent, they fell 8 percent for the 116 smaller companies. These small companies lost $577.6 million, on $1 billion in sales for the quarter.
In other words, while the large companies, not counting Intel and Solectron, earned 43 cents on every $100 of products they sold, smaller companies lost $57.59 for every $100 they sold.
Chip demand rising
This may soon be history because there are signs of a turnaround in the important semiconductor sector. G. Dan Hutcheson, president of VLSI Research, says prices for the key dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip are actually rising, showing greater demand. Chip factories with the most advanced technology are running very close to their maximum capacity, he says; it's the factories with ordinary technology that are stuck with a quarter of their capacity unused.
``I think there's an upturn going on and no one is talking about it,'' he says. ``Part of the reason no one is talking about it is they're struggling to make money. They've still got the brakes on because they're still bleeding.''
Among the chip-equipment companies he follows, half beat analysts' estimates for their earnings and half came in close to the estimates.
The same held true in other sectors. Of 10 companies reporting earnings over the last two weeks, eight matched analysts' estimates within 2 cents a share.
Tech stocks aren't reflecting any impending upturn because they rallied so strongly since March. ``What the economic reports are now showing, the market has been anticipating,'' says Dan Niles, technology analyst at Lehman Brothers. ``You need more good data to support where stock prices are now.''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Business Data Manager Jack Davis contributed to this report.
Contact David A. Sylvester at dsylvester@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5019.
iTunes Sales Continue to Fall
July 30, 2003
Ciarán Tannam
iTunes have been one of the few pay for download services that have been very willing to release figures about sales since day 1. Any time anyone has asked for download figures they have been more than forthcoming with regard to weekly sales.
It is easy to accumulate these figures and come up with a sales pattern for iTunes.
In the first day April 28th iTunes sales were at 200,000 per day. By May 5th CNet were reporting that sales had topped 1,000,000 meaning 140,000 songs were been sold per day. By May 14th this figure had fallen to 125,000. While figures published in the The NY Times on May 28th translate the figure into 100,000 per day.
The decline continued from there. 5 million tracks had been sold by June 23rd meaning the average daily sales had now hit 89,000. The figure hit 6.5 million on July 22nd translating into 52,000 sales per day.
The sales figure may reflect seasonal variance and other launch hype related factors. However there is a clear decline in place and with iTunes still failing to sign up some big bands the perceived success of iTunes is not quite what all are making it out to be.
Figures complied with special thanks to John Willsey
You can discuss this article here - 74 replies
Feel factor
By Simon Tsang
August 2 2003
Icon
Bicycles hang high above the workers' desks via a series of ropes and pulleys anchored to the exposed wooden beams of a converted warehouse. The environment is airy. In another area, an amputated wing of a DC3 airplane protrudes iconoclastically from a wall.
This is one of the offices of IDEO, a design and development firm that has won international acclaim for its innovative approach to product design, particularly in the technology field. In all, there are 18 separate IDEO design studios situated in eight cities, each with its own distinct cultural flavour.
Even if you haven't heard of IDEO (Greek for idea), you probably would have seen some of its work. Iconic pieces of technology, such as the stylishly sleek Palm V handheld, Logitech's ultra-thin Pocket Digital camera and Handspring's Treo Communicator device were all devised in IDEO studios. Groundbreaking design elements are the rule rather than the exception. The Palm V for example, halved the thickness of the original Palm Pilot and introduced an anodised aluminium casing that took the manufacturers an entire year to figure out how to produce.
Some of its more unconventional concepts include an office "pod" for the furniture manufacturer, Steelcase. Called the Q Concept, it's an adjustable work environment that looks like some kind of futuristic personal transporter. In fact, it almost is. The user can actually drive the Q complete with desktop computer around the office via a joystick controller built into the armrest to be closer to workmates.
Another one is a wall-mounted CD player called Muju conceived as part of a collection under the theme "Without Thought". It left the spinning CD exposed without a cover and a simple pull cord to activate - like a lamp.
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The bike pulleys and DC3 wing belong to IDEO's Palo Alto branch in northern California and aptly reflects the spirit of experimentation and autonomy that permeates the company's ethos. "It was just one of those weekends where a few of the people had nothing to do," says IDEO's design lead, Paul Bradley, "and they said, 'Let's drive to the desert in southern California and go to one of the plane junkyards and find something cool for the office'." That "something cool for the office" ended up costing $US4000 ($6146) of the company's money, but co-founder and CEO of IDEO, David Kelley, thought it was a reasonable price to pay to add to the creative atmosphere.
In his book IDEO: Masters of Innovation, Jeremy Myerson observed that Kelley's principle for his crew was "to try stuff and then ask for forgiveness, rather than ask for permission first".
Meet the people
How teams and individuals approach the design process differs greatly depending on the company. IDEO maintains a policy of open communication both internally and with the client company to the extent that it welcomes outsiders to "live in" with its studios to learn its process. Samsung sent members of its design team to share a studio with IDEO between 1995 and 2000 in order to absorb the methods that made the Silicon Valley start-up world renowned.
How then, does a design project get going? "Our process starts with team building," says Bradley, "we're definitely a multi-disciplinary company where we put together the appropriate set of talents and skills to match the description of the project we're getting from the client". Once this team is assembled, it's time to venture out and "see people", as Bradley puts it, which is about finding out the needs of the consumers.
"[It's] usually in their own environment so [the design team] understand how they use products, how they relate to them. Sometimes we videotape it, we photograph it and we interview them. Then we fold the information we get from users together with the company's brand that we're working for, knowledge about the market and the context the products will be used in and we create what we call 'point of view', and that becomes the driving vision for the designers, or the concept that we're developing that the whole team sort of shares."
IDEO may not be typical of how most companies - indeed most design studios - operate, but its process of innovation provides much insight into how designers work. Projects follow a five-step process: understand, observe, visualise, evaluate and implement. The initial phase involves the brainstorming of fundamental challenges and problems a product will face. This includes business factors such as marketing, competitors and profit margin. Next, user scenarios are played out to ensure that all human factors are considered. Storyboards and role-playing typical user profiles help the team to experience how a particular product will be used in the real world. The concepts, models and prototypes are then refined through continual reference to user groups until a final design is locked in. The final implementation phase refers back to the business case for the product and how it's going to be manufactured.
If IDEO is the yang of the design industry, then Sony is the yin as the two companies ideologies are diametrically opposed. Arguably the most recognised consumer electronics brand in the world, Sony also runs one of the most secretive design centres in the technology industry. In fact, meeting end users to determine their needs isn't found anywhere in its design methodology. "Basically, we do not research the market since our goal is to create a new market," says Masaharu Kashii, general manager of Sony's Creative Centre in Tokyo.
A startling admission given the flood of devices Sony has poured on the market over the years.
The principle of "Always doing what has never been done before" was penned by the company founder, Masaru Ibuka, in 1946 and has been the driving force of the Sony Design Centre since its formation in 1961. Now having expanded to 12 studios around the world, the goal remains pretty much the same: to create new markets rather than satisfy existing ones.
This philosophy is perhaps best summed up in the words of the company's co-founder and honorary chairman, Akio Morita: "If you survey the public for what they think they need, you'll always be behind in this world. You'll never catch up unless you think one to 10 years in advance and create a market for the items you think the public will accept at that time."
"A recent example of this might be typified by the PDP," says Kashii, referring to the new MR series plasma and LCD televisions that employ a radical floating design concept - essentially a glass stand that makes the panel appear to float in mid air. The high quality glass used is "almost bulletproof", according to MR Series chief designer Takuya Niitsu. "By using this glass, we didn't need to put on a bulky plastic front panel and so it looks slimmer and more elegant."
Sony appears alone, however, in its alienation of end users from the design process. Ashcraft Design is a Los Angeles product design firm and responsible for creating cool hardware for brands such as Harman Kardon, JBL, Iomega and Xerox. President and creative director, Daniel Ashcraft sees the importance in consulting target consumers. "We collect data on how customers experience entertainment, how they integrate technology into their homes, trends in technology, architecture, interior design, colours and materials. This intelligence provides the spark of inspiration that ignites the creative process."
Join the team
All companies agree though, that close collaboration between the various departments - marketing, engineering and design - is needed for a successful creation of an end product. Frank Nuovo, chief designer for Nokia, one of the most fashion-conscious technology companies in the world, stresses the importance of teamwork. "We have a lot of creative people at Nokia as a team," he says. "Communication between, for example, marketing people and designers feeds the creative process."
It's also essential that they understand each other's language. "Designers work seamlessly with engineering and must be intimately familiar with their vocabulary, manufacturing processes and materials ... it is similar to how architects and civil engineers work," says Ashcraft. "Design is much more than simply putting a pretty wrapper around technology. It must be licensed to completely reconfigure technology, if necessary, to serve the needs of the customer and capture their imagination."
In modern product design, no single discipline outweighs the other. Engineering, for example, no longer determines the overall look and feel of a product. A product's appearance and what materials will be used are as much a part of the concept from day one as its features and how it will work.
"We try as much as possible within the teams to blur the lines," says IDEO's Bradley, "so if you had a team of say an industrial designer, human factor scientist and mechanical engineer, they might all go on observations and share the same experiences from meeting the users. In early parts of the process, it doesn't matter a whole lot what discipline you're from."
Once concepts for the design "problem" have been discussed, the sketches, prototyping and modelling begins. "Lots of modelling", according to Bradley. "We believe that you can fail early and fail often. You don't wait till you have solved the problem. You have an idea, you quickly model it, test it, evolve it to a point where you can understand whether it's a worthwhile idea or not."
Apple is well known for its stylish designs. Its vice-president of industrial design, Jonathan Ive, has attained cult status for his work on the iMac and iPod, which also won him the illustrious 2002 Designer of the Year award from London's Design Museum. The original translucent iMac broke the mould for desktop computers by using materials, shapes and colours never seen before in a market dominated by beige boxes. It took only 10 months to go from the drawing board to the showrooms. Its follow up, however, the new flat-panel iMac, took two years.
"The easy part was knowing that we were going to use a flat-panel display," reflects Ive, "the hard part was figuring out how. When you look at the design now, it seems so simple, so obvious, but as usual the simplest, most efficient solution has been the most elusive." But the result has been devastatingly effective in capturing the imagination of computer users around the world.
Similarly, the iPod MP3 player, with its minimalist good looks and simple and elegant interface, centred on a large rotating dial, set the standard for all digital audio players to come.
Companies are beginning to take industrial design more seriously as how a product looks and feels becomes a key competitive advantage.
Daniel Ashcraft is clear about the future of design: "Consumer electronic products will be determined by how relevant they are to consumer's lives and to the way they experience entertainment," he says. "Industrial designers are trained to discover and conceptualise new product opportunities that consumers may not be able to articulate."
Divine inspiration
Timeline
1979 Sony Walkman TPS-L2 Sony introduces the world's first truly portable audio cassette player.
1998 Apple iMac Single-handedly changed the face of desktop computers and spawned a new era of copycat designs.
1999 Palm V Released under the 3Com brand, the Palm V presented a new level of sleekness and style to hand-held computing.
2001 Apple iPod The first iPod carried a five gigabyte hard disk and made the public see portable digital audio players in a whole new light.
Infofile
Think you have what it takes to become a product designer? Do you dream about creating the next iMac? Nokia's Frank Nuovo has this advice: "It is very important to be flexible. Many young designers go into industrial design thinking they'll get their own line of something. It is good to be ambitious, but you should always remember that most often a designer is more a part of an orchestra than a conductor. Young designers should focus on visualisation skills. Communication is everything."
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OT Research In Motion Soars on Takeover Talk
By K.C. Swanson
Staff Reporter
08/01/2003 04:58 PM EDT
Click here for more stories by K.C. Swanson
Shares of Research In Motion (RIMM:Nasdaq - commentary - research), the maker of BlackBerry handheld devices, soared to a 52-week high Friday on rumors of a takeover by H-P (HPQ:NYSE - commentary - research). The stock closed up $3.20, or 13.3%, to $27.28.
The takeover rumor was reported in Reuters on Friday afternoon. The notion struck some as reasonable, though not everyone had heard the chatter.
"Once a quarter or so, there are some sort of rumors about some company buying or taking over RIM," says Kevin Burden, a mobile device analyst for IDC. "RIM has a lot of IP, a lot of patents. With that much technological know-how, I expect they'd be a prime candidate for a buyout or hostile takeover."
"The volume of the stock is quite significant; the rumor might have some legs," he adds. On Friday more than 14.6 million shares of RIM traded hands, far above average daily volume over the past three months of 1.5 million shares.
However, at Banc of America, Ian Winer, co-head of U.S. equity trading, said he hadn't heard any talk today of a possible takeover of RIM by H-P, and his firm makes a market in both names. "On a quiet Friday, people always seem to find something to talk about," he noted.
Contacted for a response, RIM and H-P both declined, saying company policy was to refuse comment on stock price-related inquiries.
Pushed by Dell Deal
In the past, RIM management has been perceived as unlikely to sell.
But the rumor mill got a boost in April when RIM competitor Good Technology, a private company, inked a deal to allow Dell (DELL:Nasdaq - commentary - research) to use its software. Like RIM, Good offers handhelds that feature "always-on" email -- a huge selling point for potential corporate customers.
There's little love lost between the two companies: Since June 2002, RIM has filed four lawsuits against Good, charging that Good's products infringe on RIM's patents and that it engages in unfair competition and false advertising.
On top of that, the deal with Dell puts Good in a position to make serious inroads into RIM's core market.
"Now Good Technology has an enterprise partner with substantial know-how to get solutions within the enterprise. If you're an enterprise customer who's gone to Dell for everything you own, now you can get wireless email very much like RIM," explains Burden. "So the attention has turned to RIM, with people asking, what is next for it? How do you combat a partnership like that? The ideal thing for RIM may be to sell or have a similar partnership with someone like an H-P."
H-P's own iPaq handheld devices don't offer the always-on email feature. "If H-P is interested in RIM, it would have a lot to do with the fact that RIM has a foothold in enterprise, that it has brand recognition and the technology for one of the key wireless applications for the enterprise, which is always-on email," says Burden. "The thought is that if a company like H-P or IBM (IBM:NYSE - commentary - research) or Sybase (SY:NYSE - commentary - research) were to take over the company, they could bring RIM's technology to the next level; they could it bring it to the masses."
Burnishing its appeal, RIM's business has shown a turnaround lately. Trader and analyst Gabriel Erdi of the Marketocracy Technology Plus fund says the fund exited its short position in the stock at the beginning of the year. "Our primary concern at the time was just competition from Palm (PALM:Nasdaq - commentary - research), Handspring (HAND:Nasdaq - commentary - research) and Sybase and how they were going to survive," he says. "But they've since signed licensing agreements with Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq - commentary - research) and Nokia (NOK:NYSE - commentary - research), that should help them going forward. It looks like they're on the right path."
Since the November quarter, RIM has managed to pump up quarterly revenue from $74 million to $87 million to $104 million, while narrowing its loss from $92 million to $31 million to $8 million, points out Erdi.
But at the same time its business has been on an upswing, RIM's stock has raced upwards, making any potential acquisition much more expensive, he adds.
The stock has more than doubled in the past year on the basis of its closing price of $27.28, compared with its Aug. 1, 2002 close of $11.04.
RIAA Rocks Around the Clock
Fri Aug 1,10:42 AM ET
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By Cynthia L. Webb, washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
The Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites)'s dragnet for people who illegally swap copyrighted music online is the story that just keeps on giving. And like any good epic about money, theft and greed, this one is gaining all sorts of new angles as it rolls along, from college students to senators to pornographers.
Let's start with the college students. The RIAA still is serving hundreds of subpoenas on students and colleges and universities, where high-speed Internet connections make it easy to trade music and other digital files. Earlier this year, several students settled lawsuits with the RIAA for allegedly setting up Napster (news - web sites)-like trading systems.
But the trade group, which represents the major music labels, is aware that it could be scaring off potential customers, considering that college-age students are a sweet spot demographic for music sales. With that in mind, the RIAA is working on a backup plan to appease college students, The Los Angeles Times reported today. "Record-industry executives and online music companies are quietly working with colleges and universities to offer legitimate sources of free or deeply discounted music to students if the schools agree to take steps to deter piracy on campus networks. The goal is to give students a carrot to go along with the stick being waved by the Recording Industry Assn. of America, which has been attacking piracy with lawsuits. An online music service picked by a university would let students play an array of songs at little or no cost, potentially curtailing the use of hotbeds of unauthorized file-sharing such as Kazaa. The fledgling online music services involved in the talks are eager to boost their profile among college students and see discounts as a way to attract new customers who eventually will pay full fare," the newspaper said.
• The Los Angeles Times: New Tactic Planned In AntiPiracy Campaign (Registration required)
Wired last week reported on similar efforts to get colleges and the recording industry to work together. "University officials are working with the music and movie industry to find a peaceful solution to the piracy problem, even as they're fighting a firestorm of subpoenas seeking information on their file-swapping students. The universities are exploring technologies that would control illegal peer-to-peer file sharing. In addition, they are working with digital music and movie companies to offer downloading services tailored to universities," Wired music said last week. "The administrators and music executives are trying to solve the piracy problem because both suffer from it. Universities have to deal with the administrative headaches of subpoenas and clogged computer networks, while the record industry is losing sales to its most important group of customers."
• Wired: RIAA, Colleges Seeks Piracy Fix
But "working together" might not be good enough to ease criticism of the RIAA's bullish tactics to end illegal file swapping, especially considering the amount of ink devoted to describing how many of the people named in subpoenas are grandparents and adolescents. There's also no correspondence between the likelihood of a subpoena and the number of songs traded.
All this has attracted the attention of freshman Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), chairman of the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations, has launched a probe into the RIAA's lawsuit campaign. He sent a letter to the RIAA yesterday, demanding information on the subpoenas and how the RIAA collects evidence against file swappers, according to various media reports.
Coleman questioned whether the RIAA's tactics have gone too far. In an interview with washingtonpost.com last night, he said he is hopeful that the file-sharing community and recording industry can reach an amicable settlement on the issue. "It would be worthwhile to bring them together so we're not making criminals out of 11-year-olds," Coleman told washingtonpost.com's Robert MacMillan.
The RIAA, responding to Coleman's query, said it would happily comply. "The RIAA defended its enforcement campaign as 'an appropriate and measured response to the very serious problem of blatant copyright infringement confronting the entire music community,'" The Associated Press said. "In the conference call, Coleman acknowledged that he used to download music from Napster, the file-sharing service that a federal judge shut down for violating music copyrights. 'I must confess, I downloaded Napster, and then Napster was found to be the wrong thing,' he said. 'I stopped.'"
While Coleman does not condone illegal file sharing, he said in a statement cited by CNET's News.com, that the "industry seems to have adopted a 'shotgun' approach that could potentially cause injury and harm to innocent people who may have simply been victims of circumstance, or possessing a lack of knowledge of the rules related to digital sharing of files."
Coleman is not the only one critical of the subpoena party. Several universities, along with telecommunications giant SBC Communications, are contesting the subpoenas, largely on procedural grounds," CNET’s News.com said.
• The Associated Press via Kansas City.com: Senator Launches Investigation Into RIAA Piracy Crackdown
• CNET's News.com: Lawmaker Seeks Info On RIAA Dragnet
Pacific Bell Internet Service, a unit of SBC, sued the recording industry and others tied to the subpoena woes in federal court on Wednesday. The Boston Globe explained more about Pacific Bell's stance: "The 1998 law the industry is using to obtain the subpoenas, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (news - web sites), was written before file-sharing software programs like Kazaa and the now-defunct Napster were created, Pacific Bell argued. Asking the court to quash the subpoenas, the SBC subsidiary said the industry group's use of the act threatens constitutional rights of anonymous expression and due process of law because the industry obtained the subpoenas without the approval of a judge."
The company "said a cascade of subpoenas and 16,700 take-down notices from an electronic 'bounty hunter' are turning it from an Internet service provider into the Internet police," The San Jose Mercury News said. "Pac Bell said it has been hit with more than 300 subpoenas in the past month from the Recording Industry Association of America and IO Group, an operator of sexually explicit Web sites. Each demanded the names, addresses and, in some instances, the e-mail addresses of subscribers who downloaded copyrighted songs or images. This follows 16,700 take-down notices from MediaForce, a New York-based detection company that works for Columbia Pictures and Paramount Pictures to ferret out Internet file-swappers."
Gigi Sohn, president of consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, told the newspaper: "This is just the beginning of a revolt by ISPs other than Verizon." Recall that Verizon unsuccessfully tried to keep the RIAA from getting the names of several of its high-speed DSL subscribers accused of downloading thousands of copyrighted songs using the Kazaa file-sharing software.
According to Reuters, the RIAA dismissed SBC's objections to subpoenas as "procedural gamesmanship," and said the telecom was recycling old issues.
Copywhatever
Despite all this back and forth between the RIAA, Internet service providers and consumers, there seems to be a laissez-faire attitude among the populace toward illegal file-sharing. A Pew Internet and American Life Project survey released yesterday found that two-thirds of Internet music downloaders are not concerned about whether the music files they download are copyrighted or not. The Associated Press reported that the study showed that "35 million American adults use file-sharing software, about 29 percent of Internet users." And no surprise here, younger Americans -- ages 18 to 29 -- were the least to worry about copyrights. Seventy-two percent said they weren't concerned, according to the survey. "Our data shows significant numbers didn't care about copyrights," Lee Rainie, the director of Washington-based Pew, told the wire service. "The (threatened) lawsuits maybe have gotten their attention."
• The Associated Press via The Washington Post: Downloaders Don't Think of Copyright Laws
• BBC News Online: Music Swappers 'Dismiss Legal Fears'
OT Police: Teen abduction foiled by cell phone cam
Friday, August 1, 2003 Posted: 2:52 PM EDT (1852 GMT)
It's surprising the kid had the presence of mind to use the technology under duress.
-- Detective Capt. Robert Rowan
CLIFTON, New Jersey (AP) -- A 15-year-old boy foiled an apparent abduction attempt when he pulled out his cell phone camera and snapped photos of a man trying to lure him into a car, police said.
The teen also photographed the vehicle's license plate and gave the evidence to police, who arrested a suspect the next day.
"It's surprising the kid had the presence of mind to use the technology under duress," Detective Capt. Robert Rowan told The Record of Bergen County in Friday's editions.
Police describe struggle
The teen, whose name was not released by police, was walking home at about 7 p.m. Tuesday when a man, later identified by police as William MacDonald, pulled up beside him, Rowan said.
He offered to drive the boy to another town to look for girls, and then began "engaging in a sexually explicit conversation," Rowan said. The teen told him he wasn't interested, but MacDonald, 59, continued to follow him.
At that point, the boy took the pictures, and MacDonald got out of his car and grabbed him by the arm, Rowan said. A struggle followed, but the boy was able to break free and run away.
Facing charges
MacDonald was charged with attempting to lure a juvenile into a car, criminal restraint and simple assault. If convicted, he could face up to five years in state prison. He is being held on $25,000 bail.
A spokeswoman for Sprint, whose phone the boy used, said she had never heard of someone using the new technology to catch a criminal.