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Intel Advances Power and Performance for Wireless Devices
Intel XScale Technology-based Processors Bring Advanced Capabilities for Cell Phones, PDAs and In-Vehicle Systems
SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 12, 2002--Intel Corporation today introduced a new family of microprocessors specifically designed to bring high performance and long battery life to wireless communications devices. The new processors are based on the Intel® XScale(TM) technology and will power multimedia cell phones, handheld computers, in-vehicle (telematics) systems and other wireless Internet products.
Source: Intel Corporation
· View multimedia news release
The added performance and power savings from the new Intel processors come at a time when significant amounts of data are beginning to be processed on wireless devices. According to Cahners In-Stat/MDR, of the 400 million handsets sold worldwide in 2001, only about two to three percent are capable of processing large amounts of information. By 2005, the analyst firm believes that more than 50 percent of the 900 million cellular phones sold will be data enabled.
``Consumers today want to access the Internet, share information and stay connected wherever they go, and that puts significant processing demands on their cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs),'' said Peter Green, general manager of Intel's Handheld Computing Division. ``These demands will only increase over time. The new Intel XScale microarchitecture-based processors deliver longer battery life and increased computing power for accessing the Internet with handheld communications and telematics devices today, and well into the future.''
The Intel® PXA250 and Intel® PXA210 applications processors will enable the ability to deliver richer music, movies and games as well as many of the latest applications being developed for the workplace. The new processors complement the Intel® StrongARM(a) SA-1110 applications processors, the leading platform for Pocket PC(a) devices today, and set the stage for a new class of high-performance, low-power wireless communications devices.
Many of today's wireless and handheld devices sacrifice processing horsepower in order to maximize battery life. This trade-off does not impact the ability to manage simple personal information such as calendars and phone numbers. However, processors used in many current handheld products are unable to power popular compute-intensive consumer applications such as mobile digital music, Internet access, color video and gaming.
The new Intel PXA250 and Intel PXA210 applications processors allow makers of wireless communications devices to take the next step in high-performance and low-power wireless handheld computing technology. Products using the new processors are expected to be available to consumers by mid-2002.
The Intel PXA 250 applications processor, running at clock speeds up to 400 MHz, delivers advanced integration, leadership multimedia performance and improved power savings required for many full-featured handheld communicators, telematics systems and PDAs. Running at speeds up to 200 MHz, the Intel PXA210 applications processor delivers a highly integrated, low-power solution for cell phones and entry-level handheld and wireless devices.
Increased Capabilities for Applications Processors
Building on Intel StrongARM technology, the Intel XScale microarchitecture core was engineered to improve the performance of a wide variety of wireless Internet devices as well as powering networking infrastructure equipment. Both technologies are fully ARM architecture compliant, enabling software compatibility for products based on Intel StrongARM and Intel XScale microarchitectures. Today's announcement marks the first general-purpose processor based on the Intel XScale microarchitecture for the wireless device market segment.
These new processors feature architectural enhancements including support for the new Turbo mode technology. Turbo mode enables the processor to scale the performance as high or as low as necessary in a single clock cycle, which helps conserve battery life while still providing the necessary boosts in performance. In addition, the new micro-power management features for these devices allow the new processors to potentially use less than half the power at the same performance levels of today's Intel StrongARM SA-1110 applications processor.
To increase multimedia efficiency and performance, Intel also added Intel® Media Processing Technology. It is designed to work specifically with the device's audio, video and gaming applications to increase the number of frames per second in videos, improve sound quality and give advanced graphical effects.
Industry Support for New Processors
Manufacturers endorsing the new processors include: Acer Inc., Casio Computer Co., Ltd., Compaq Computer Corporation, DaimlerChrysler, Inc., Fujitsu Limited, Fujitsu-Siemens Computer, Hewlett-Packard Company, Hitachi, Ltd., Intermec Technologies, InFocus, Johnson Controls, Inc., NEC Computers, Inc., Symbol Technologies and Toshiba Corporation. Operating systems supporting the new processors include Microsoft Windows CE.Net(a), Windows Pocket PC 2002(a), PalmOS(a), SymbianOS(a), and embedded Linux(a) from multiple vendors.
In addition, more than 200 independent software vendors are introducing versions of their popular multimedia software applications in support of the new Intel processors. Adobe, Macromedia, PacketVideo, RealNetworks, Inc., and other companies have optimized their software to provide Intel-powered devices with rich audio, video and gaming capabilities.
The new processors are key components of the Intel Personal Internet Client Architecture (Intel PCA), Intel's development blueprint for designing wireless handheld communication devices that combine voice communications and Internet access capabilities. A growing community of developers, called the Intel PCA Developer Network, offers wireless companies development, technical and marketing support for designing cell phones, PDAs and other mobile Internet devices and applications supporting Intel PCA. To date, more than 800 companies have joined the network and have access to its more than 400 hardware and software design tools. The Intel Communications Fund, a $500 million strategic equity investment fund within Intel Capital, has made 15 investments worldwide related to wireless and handheld computing and continues to specifically target PCA-related investments.
Pricing and Availability
Both the Intel PXA250 and Intel PXA210 applications processors are available today in sample quantities. The Intel PXA250 processor at 400 MHz has a suggested list price of $39.20 (USD) and the Intel PXA210 processor at 200 MHz has a suggested list price of $19 (USD) in 10,000 unit quantities.
Additionally, Intel is making the Intel DBPXA250 development system, DCPXA250 daughter card and Intel XScale microarchitecture XDB Simulator 2.0 with support for Intel PXA250 available today. These products allow rapid development and prototyping of hardware and software built around the Intel PXA250 and Intel PXA210 applications processors. For more information please see http://developer.intel.com/design/pca/applicationsprocessors.
About Intel
Intel, the world's largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom.
Note to Editors: Intel, Intel PXA250, Intel PXA210 and Intel XScale are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
(a) Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
Industry support for the new Intel® PXA250
and Intel® PXA210 Applications Processors
With Intel® XScale(TM) Technology
ORIGINAL EQUIPMENT MANUFACTURERS
Acer(a) Inc.
``Acer is pleased to be among Intel's PXA250 applications processor customers. We are honored to be a part of Intel's vision that brings next generation mobile and wireless devices to consumers and enterprises.''
Jim Wong
PRESIDENT OF IT PRODUCTS GROUP
ACER INC.
Casio(a) Computer Co., Ltd.
``Casio welcomes the introduction of the Intel PXA250 applications processor. Casio first incorporated the Intel® StrongARM(a) SA-1110 into CASSIOPEIA® E-2000, its latest-model Pocket PC, and has been extremely satisfied by the high performance of this processor. By using Intel's newest processor, which delivers advanced integration, leadership multimedia performance and superior power savings for PDAs, Casio is now able to provide the strongest mobile platforms and offer attractive solutions to users ranging from companies to individuals.''
Yozo Suzuki
MANAGING DIRECTOR
CASIO COMPUTER CO., LTD.
Compaq(a) Computer Corporation
``As the undisputed industry leader in Pocket PCs, Compaq is pleased to see Intel's strong support for this dynamic category of access devices. Compaq continues to define the next generation of voice and data access solutions that fit in your hand, and Intel's PXA250 and PXA210 applications processors will enable us to provide power-hungry customers more of what they want -- seamless access to information, applications, the Internet and robust multimedia content.''
Sean Burke
VICE PRESIDENT OF THE IPAQ PRODUCTS AND CONNECTED DEVICES DIVISION
COMPAQ COMPUTER CORPORATION
Daimler(a)Chrysler Corporation
``Finding suppliers that had the technical capability to deliver quality products and services for our U-Connect hands-free communications system was critical. So, we went to the experts instead of inventing it ourselves. That's why we selected Intel for their new Intel PXA250 applications processor. Our goal is to work on a collaborative basis with technology leaders in their respective fields like Intel.''
Jack Withrow
DIRECTOR OF TELEMATICS
DAIMLERCHRYSLER CORPORATION
Fujitsu(a) Limited
``Fujitsu welcomes the release of Intel PXA 250/210 applications processor featuring Intel® XScale(TM) technology. We believe the new processors based on the Intel XScale microarchitecture, with its leading-edge performance and low-power technology, offers great advantages for advanced mobile computing products. We are now in the process of developing our newest PDA, which runs on the Intel PXA250 applications processor with Microsoft Pocket PC 2002 Software. We are confident that it will enable us to deliver mobile solutions that meet the needs of both individual and business customers.''
Yamamoto Masami
VICE PRESIDENT & GENERAL MANAGER
DESKTOP PRODUCTS DIVISION & MOBILE COMPUTING DIVISION
PERSONAL SYSTEMS BUSINESS GROUP
FUJITSU LIMITED
Fujitsu(a) Seimens Computers
``At CeBIT 2002 we will be launching our new Fujitsu Siemens Computers handheld which will be powered by Intel's PXA250 application processor featuring Intel XScale microarchitecture. The Fujitsu Siemens Computers handheld combines the speed and low power consumption of the Intel PXA250 with connectivity and modularity to provide a powerful enabler for the mobility of users.''
Peter Esser
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, VOLUME PRODUCTS AND SUPPLY OPERATIONS
FUJITSU SIEMENS COMPUTERS
Hewlett Packard(a)
``HP is constantly evaluating new ways to enhance its Jornada handheld and PDA products. Our customers are looking for appliances that quickly and efficiently deliver information and media-rich content to them wherever they may go. Intel's new Intel XScale technology-based processors offer the right features -- small size, scalable architecture, fast performance and excellent power management -- making them the best choice available for HP's next-generation handhelds.''
John Spofford
GENERAL MANAGER
HP SMART HANDHELD APPLIANCES
Hitachi(a), Ltd.
``As the expansion of the wireless communication infrastructure, the requirement for the mobile information access will significantly grow. The performance to realize the secure wireless communication and handle comfortably the rich contents becomes significantly important for the mobile communication devices. We are excited to see the specification of the Intel PXA250 application processor, especially its advanced multimedia performance and superior power savings. This is why we chose this processor for our mobile multimedia communication device.''
Shigeru Matsuoka
PRESIDENT AND CEO, NET-PDA VENTURE COMPANY
HITACHI, LTD.
InFocus(a) Corporation
``As the worldwide leader in digital projection, InFocus, will require cutting edge ARM(a)-based processors to drive our future wireless products. The Intel PXA250 represents the leading edge of performance and power savings that we believe our industry needs to take wireless projection to the next level.''
David Woolf
DIRECTOR, PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
INFOCUS CORP.
Intermec(a) Technologies
``Intermec's position as the lead provider of Productivity Improvement Systems depends on matching the best available microprocessor technology to the evolving challenges of the mobile computing environment. The new Intel PXA210 and Intel PXA250 platforms have the right features -- small size, scalable architecture, fast performance and excellent power management -- that make it the best available choice for our next generation handheld and wireless mobile computers.''
Dick Mahany
VICE PRESIDENT, PRODUCT MARKETING AND DEVELOPMENT
INTERMEC TECHNOLOGIES
Johnson(a) Controls
``The new Intel PXA210/250 applications processors helped Johnson Controls launch our new in-vehicle telematics system, allowing us to bring world class technologies to the automotive industry as they are developed. Working together with Intel enables us to address the ever-increasing consumer demand for faster access and content delivery and, supports our telematics design strategy for an easy vehicle upgrade capability.''
Jim Geschke
VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER
ELECTRONICS INTEGRATION
JOHNSON CONTROLS
NEC(a) Computers Inc.
``NEC's goal is to is to provide users with devices that offers high-performance and robust functionality for our enterprise users. The new Intel PXA210 and Intel PXA250 applications processors bring graphic and performance capabilities that our consumers demand in the mobile and notebook products while meeting the small-size and low-power restrictions of portable, battery-operated products being developed today.''
Joe Harris
DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT MARKETING
NEC COMPUTERS INC.
Symbol(a) Technologies Inc.
``As an Intel PXA210 and Intel PXA250 applications processors customer, Symbol Technologies Inc. worked with Intel from the early stages of development, building in features specifically designed to meet the various needs demanded by the growing mobile enterprise population. The new Intel PXA250 applications processor delivers breakthrough performance, and our enterprise and vertical market customers will derive productivity advantages from our handheld products and ongoing efforts with Intel.''
Tomo Razmilovic
PRESIDENT AND CEO
SYMBOL TECHNOLOGIES INC.
``The features delivered by the Intel PXA250 applications processor based on the Intel XScale microarchitecture will enable us to deliver a new level of power, performance and mobility in our handheld devices. Historically restricted by the small-size and purpose-built application requirements of our handheld devices, we are now able to achieve extended levels of performance, data management functionality and communication capabilities, while maintaining our stringent standards of low-power consumption and reliability.''
Michael Lanzaro
VICE PRESIDENT, MOBILE SYSTEMS ENGINEERING
SYMBOL TECHNOLOGIES INC.
Toshiba(a) Corporation
``Combined with the power saving capabilities of the Intel PXA250 application processor, Toshiba's feature-rich PDA delivers a powerful productivity tool to the mobile community. Toshiba is pleased to join Intel in providing our customers the most effective technology to keep them moving forward.''
Atsutoshi Nishida
CORPORATE SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT & PRESIDENT/CEO
DIGITAL MEDIA NETWORK COMPANY
TOSHIBA CORPORATION
INDEPENDENT SOFTWARE VENDORS
Adobe(a)
``Adobe's vision -- network publishing -- is built on the premise of offering users the power to deliver visually rich content anytime, anywhere, on any device. Recent progress against that vision includes the delivery of an Adobe Acrobat Reader product for Pocket PC PDAs using Intel technology. As we move forward, our goal of delivering electronic documents in the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) to mobile devices of all kinds depends on technological advances like Intel XScale architecture-based products, including the Intel PXA210 and Intel PXA250 applications processors.''
Rick Bess
DIRECTOR OF ACROBAT READER PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
ADOBE SYSTEMS INCORPORATED
Beatnik(a)
``The Intel PXA210 and PXA250 applications processors will provide mobile handset manufacturers with a powerful tool, based on enhanced performance and broad support for the next generation of wireless devices. The Beatnik Audio Engine(TM) (BAE(TM)), fully-optimized for the Intel PXA210 and Intel PXA250 applications processors, will provide users with advanced audio capabilities, including high-quality music, polyphonic ring tones and multimedia sounds, designed specifically for next-generation mobile phones and wireless devices.''
Lorraine Hariton
PRESIDENT AND CEO
BEATNIK, INC.
Emblaze(a) Systems, Inc.
``As a company committed to the continuous development of leading edge multimedia technology for mobile devices, Emblaze is very pleased to be part of the Intel PXA210 and Intel PXA250 applications processors launch. By further enhancing power efficiency and performance, the new Intel processors are the breakthrough that will lead to the availability of next-generation wireless devices.''
Eli Reifman
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
EMBLAZE SYSTEMS, INC.
FatHammer(a)
``FatHammer is pleased to support The Intel PXA250 and Intel PXA210 applications processors. The X-Forge 3D Game Engine for mobile devices sees significant improvements in visual quality and performance through optimizations for these technologies. We're looking forward to a new level of performance in mobile games for devices enabled by these processors.''
Brian Bruning
CEO
FATHAMMER
Fonix(a)
``Fonix and Intel have enjoyed a longstanding, supportive relationship. We are pleased with the enhancements that the Intel PXA210/250 applications processors based on the Intel XScale microarchitecture provide for our speech applications. We are confident that speech technology users, specifically automotive manufacturers, tier one suppliers, and mobile device users, will now be able to choose from a wider variety of speech applications and better overall performance and quality.''
Kurt W. Flygare
VICE PRESIDENT OF SALES
FONIX
Inetcam(a) Inc.
``The Intel PXA210 and Intel PXA250 applications processors are clearly the future of handheld and wireless devices. The high-performance and low-power capabilities of these processors and their ability to support live video and audio makes them and ideal solution for our customers''
Leo Volfson
PRESIDENT
INETCAM INC.
Insignia(a) Solutions
``As supplier of the reference Java virtual machine (JVM(TM)) environment for the new Intel XScale microarchitecture-based applications processors, Insignia Solutions has worked closely with Intel to extend the power of Java(TM) technology to the new Intel PXA210 and Intel PXA250 application processors. Together, our collective technologies deliver the high performance, low power consumption and small memory footprint required by smart mobile devices.''
Mark McMillan
PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
INSIGNIA SOLUTIONS
Macromedia(a)
``Macromedia Flash provides the best way to deliver rich Internet content and applications to IP enabled devices. We continue to work closely with Intel to optimize Macromedia Flash for the Intel® Personal Internet Client Architecture as well as jointly taking a leadership role in promoting the standards necessary to make it easy for device manufacturers, software providers and operators to deliver a consistent user experience on their devices.''
Peter Meechan
VICE PRESIDENT
MACROMEDIA
PacketVideo(a)
``As one of the first companies to work with Intel XScale technology-based products, PacketVideo is pleased to work in concert with Intel to provide consumers with one of the highest quality mobilemedia experiences available. By optimizing PacketVideo's mobilemedia products for devices running on the Intel PXA250 applications processor, we are able to offer mobile users greater functionality and versatility.''
Kathleen Peters
VICE PRESIDENT OF WORLDWIDE EMBEDDED SOLUTIONS
PACKETVIDEO
Picsel(a)
``Our technology represents the way forward in delivering an enhanced user experience to the wireless market space. ePAGE is scalable and can be used in mobile devices and server side solutions. Together with Intel PXA250 and Intel PXA210 applications processors based on the Intel XScale microarchitecture, our technology relationship with Intel will result in a leading edge solution for the next generation of corporate and consumer information appliances.''
Imran Khand
CEO
PICSEL
PlayMedia(a) Systems
``The Intel PXA210 and Intel PXA250 applications processors provide PlayMedia with a powerful embedded systems environment within which our highly optimized AMP® and NewArk(TM) technologies can efficiently manifest their unique features within the next generation pervasive computing devices. We have been working closely with Intel's engineers to enable current and next-generation multimedia applications, such as AMP® and NewArk(TM) MP3 audio decoding, MPEG-4 codec and secure distribution algorithms to be optimized for and to make maximum use of the benefits of Intel PXA210 and Intel PXA250 applications processors.''
Dr. Mario Kovac
CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER
PLAYMEDIA SYSTEMS
RealNetworks(a), Inc.
``RealNetworks has pioneered the fundamental technologies and services for how people produce, consume and deliver digital media over the Internet and has adapted those technologies for use in the emerging mobile market. With the Intel PXA210 and Intel PXA250 applications processors' consumers will be able to view high-quality RealAudio, RealVideo and standards-based content on their mobile devices using the mobile RealOne Player in combination with Intel's high performing and low-power consumption processors.''
Ian Freed
GENERAL MANAGER, MEDIA SYSTEMS
REALNETWORKS, INC.
OPERATING SYSTEM VENDORS
Microsoft(a) Corporation
``Windows is about giving consumers great experiences across the spectrum, whether they're delivered on a PC or on smart, wireless, connected devices. To make consumer experiences like personalization and instant messaging as compelling as possible, device developers want higher performance, lower power usage, better multimedia support, and so on. Both Windows CE.NET and Intel XScale technology-based application processors are big steps forward for device developers and their customers. Microsoft's own development teams, working on the PocketPC and Smart Phone projects, are looking forward to implementing these technologies in the future.''
Brian Valentine
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF THE WINDOWS DIVISION
MICROSOFT CORP.
MontaVista(a) Software, Inc.
``Embedded Linux will power the next generation of wireless and handheld devices and portable internet appliances. Together, MontaVista(TM) Linux® and the Intel PXA210 and Intel PXA250 applications processors will provide developers with the benefits of reduced memory footprint, efficient power consumption, lower development costs, and faster time-to-market.''
Jim Ready
PRESIDENT AND CEO
MONTAVISTA SOFTWARE, INC.
Palm(a), Inc.
``Intel's high-performing, low-power processors coupled with the Palm OS, make for a compelling and powerful platform. Palm OS licensees and the broad base of Palm developers will be able to take advantage of the full benefits of the Intel XScale technology.''
Gina Clark
VICE PRESIDENT OF MARKETING
PALMSOURCE, INC.
PALM OS SUBSIDIARY OF PALM, INC.
Symbian(a)
``The Intel PXA250 and Intel PXA210 applications processor will further enable Symbian OS licensees to deliver mobile phones that can easily handle rich multimedia services and applications, providing a great mobile user experience.''
Mark Edwards
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF SALES & MARKETING
SYMBIAN
Note: A Photo is available at URL: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/photo.cgi?pw.021202/bb2
Intel unveils XScale-based processors for wireless devices
Feb. 12, 2002
Santa Clara, CA -- (press release excerpt) -- Intel Corporation today introduced a new family of microprocessors specifically designed to bring high performance and long battery life to wireless communications devices. The new processors are based on the Intel XScale technology and will power multimedia cell phones, handheld computers, in-vehicle (telematics) systems and other wireless Internet products. Today's announcement marks the first general-purpose processor based on the Intel XScale microarchitecture for the wireless device market segment.
The Intel PXA250 and Intel PXA210 applications processors will enable the ability to deliver richer music, movies and games as well as many of the latest applications being developed for the workplace. The new processors complement the Intel StrongARM SA-1110 applications processors, the leading platform for Pocket PC devices today, and set the stage for a new class of high-performance, low-power wireless communications devices.
Many of today's wireless and handheld devices sacrifice processing horsepower in order to maximize battery life. This trade-off does not impact the ability to manage simple personal information such as calendars and phone numbers. However, processors used in many current handheld products are unable to power popular compute-intensive consumer applications such as mobile digital music, Internet access, color video and gaming.
The new Intel PXA250 and Intel PXA210 applications processors allow makers of wireless communications devices to take the next step in high-performance and low-power wireless handheld computing technology. Products using the new processors are expected to be available to consumers by mid-2002.
The Intel PXA 250 applications processor runs at clock speeds up to 400 MHz and delivers the advanced integration, leadership multimedia performance, and improved power savings required for many full-featured handheld communicators, telematics systems and PDAs. Running at speeds up to 200 MHz, the Intel PXA210 applications processor delivers a highly integrated, low-power solution for cell phones and entry-level handheld and wireless devices.
Building on Intel StrongARM technology, the Intel XScale microarchitecture core was engineered to improve the performance of a wide variety of wireless Internet devices as well as powering networking infrastructure equipment. Both technologies are fully ARM architecture compliant, enabling software compatibility for products based on Intel StrongARM and Intel XScale microarchitectures.
These new processors feature architectural enhancements including support for the new Turbo mode technology. Turbo mode enables the processor to scale the performance as high or as low as necessary in a single clock cycle, which helps conserve battery life while still providing the necessary boosts in performance. In addition, the new micro-power management features for these devices allow the new processors to potentially use less than half the power at the same performance levels of today's Intel StrongARM SA-1110 applications processor.
To increase multimedia efficiency and performance, Intel also added Intel Media Processing Technology. It is designed to work specifically with the device's audio, video and gaming applications to increase the number of frames per second in videos, improve sound quality and give advanced graphical effects.
Both the Intel PXA250 and Intel PXA210 applications processors are available today in sample quantities. The Intel PXA250 processor at 400 MHz has a suggested list price of $39.20 (USD) and the Intel PXA210 processor at 200 MHz has a suggested list price of $19 (USD) in 10,000 unit quantities. Additionally, Intel is making the Intel DBPXA250 development system, DCPXA250 daughter card and Intel XScale microarchitecture XDB Simulator 2.0 with support for Intel PXA250 available today. These products allow rapid development and prototyping of hardware and software built around the Intel PXA250 and Intel PXA210 applications processors.
February 12, 2002 Intel Airs New Mobile Gadget Chips
By Clint Boulton
Chipmaking powerhouse Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) Tuesday unveiled new microprocessors geared to power wireless gadgets such as cell phones, handhelds and telematics systems in motor vehicles.
The chips are based on the Santa Clara, Calif. firm's XScale technology and are the latest maneuvers by Intel to forge processors for small devices whose functions involve supporting large chunks of data, such as what exists in multimedia applications.
So, new on Intel's chip menu are the PXA250 and PXA210 processors, which the firm believes will facilitate the delivery of music, movies and games, as well as enterprise applications, on multimedia-capable handsets and personal digital assistants (PDAs). Meant for high-powered PDAs and telematics systems, the PXA 250 runs at speeds up to 400 MHz, while it's lower-end counterpart, the PXA210, clocks in at speeds up to 200 MHz and is designed to power cell phones and entry-level handhelds.
More generally, the release marks Intel's first XScale microarchitecture for the wireless device market. These new processors feature support for the new Turbo mode technology, which lets the processor scale the performance as high or as low as necessary in a single clock cycle, which helps conserve battery life while still providing the necessary boosts in performance. And that is the goal of chipmakers such as Intel and archrival AMD, who wish to serve the wireless devices market -- conserving a device's battery life without sacrificing the horsepower necessary to enable multimedia.
Right now, there is a shortage of small devices with powerful, corresponding chips, according to research firm Cahners In-Stat/MDR, which found that of the 400 million handsets sold worldwide in 2001, only about two to three percent are capable of processing large amounts of information. By 2005, the analyst firm believes that more than 50 percent of the 900 million cellular phones sold will be data enabled.
Major device manufacturers are lining up to take advantage of Intel's new chip lines, including Casio Computer Co., Ltd., Compaq Computer Corp. (NYSE:CPQ) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HWP). Moreover, the mainstay operating system vendors are supporting it as well, including Palm Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM), Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows CE.Net, Windows Pocket PC 2002, Symbian and embedded Linux from multiple vendors.
What's perhaps most notable here, is Palm's embrace of the new XScale microarchitecture, because in the past it's OS has not been as juiced as Microsoft's Pocket PC OS. Software vendors Adobe (NASDAQ:ADBE), Macromedia (NASDAQ:MACR), PacketVideo, RealNetworks Inc. (NASDAQ:RNWK), and other firms have also readied their software to provide Intel-powered devices with audio, video and gaming capabilities.
Both the Intel PXA250 and Intel PXA210 applications processors are available today in sample quantities. The PXA250 processor at 400 MHz has a list price of $39.20; the Intel PXA210 processor at 200 MHz has a list price of $19 in 10,000 unit quantities. Products using the new processors are expected to be available to consumers by mid-2002.
It's no secret the push for speedy, low-power-consuming chips is underway. Just last week, AMD bought Alchemy Semiconductors, which makes low-power, MIPS-based microprocessors for portable gadgets for an undisclosed sum
Automotive market gets new attention from industry
By Charles J. Murray
EE Times
January 11, 2002 (12:55 p.m. EST)
LAS VEGAS - In a concerted effort to loosen the economic logjam that has stifled industry growth during the past year, electronics makers and software vendors at the 2002 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week set their sights on a new target: the largely untapped vehicle telematics and multimedia markets.
Makers of satellite radio systems, digital video disk players (DVDs), rear-seat videos, navigation systems and wireless transceivers stepped up their efforts in the automotive arena, in hopes of staking out their territory inside cars and trucks. They were joined by such longtime automotive vendors as Visteon Corp. (Dearborn, Mich.) and Delphi Automotive Systems (Troy, Mich.), which showcased more of their best technologies at CES, rather than at annual auto shows in Detroit and Los Angeles, also held this week.
The emphasis on automotive electronics could signal the beginning of a new era for both the electronics and automotive industries. Industry analysts said that electronics manufacturers and chip makers see automotive as an untapped frontier. Unlike users in the home and business markets, they said, most automotive customers have yet to incorporate electronic gadgetry.
"Companies such as Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Sun and Microsoft are betting on the market potential of the vehicle," noted Thilo Koslowski, lead automotive analyst and market director for Gartner Dataquest (San Jose, Calif.). "They see it as the one big market that has not yet been bombarded by PDAs, cell phones and video."
Automakers, too, see the telematics trend as a potential gold mine. Some believe it will blossom into a $10 billion to $20 billion market in the next four years, with virtually every car being equipped with a cell phone and many using in-car information and navigation services.
"The growth will be tremendous," said Geoffrey Smith, a product specialist for Mercedes-Benz's Telematics Client Assistance Center (Montvale, N.J.).
Mercedes-Benz backed that belief with a huge presence at CES, even cordoning off a parking lot near the Las Vegas Convention Center to allow show attendees to test-drive the company's newest luxury vehicles.
Industry analysts and vendors at this year's CES agreed that the growing automotive presence is providing a shot in the arm for a struggling electronics sector. "It used to be that the automotive world was known as a boom-or-bust market," noted Robert Schumacher, general director of mobile multimedia for Delphi Automotive Systems. "Now, we're the ones bringing the stability here."
Such efforts contrast sharply with those of a few years ago. At past Consumer Electronics Shows, automotive displays consisted largely of booming audio systems, many of which were designed exclusively for teenagers. With the advent of in-car multimedia and telematics, however, the 300 or so exhibitors in the show's automotive pavilion geared their products to a broader audience.
Companies such as Pioneer Electronics USA Inc., whose automotive bread and butter was once almost exclusively car audio, displayed an automotive DVD-navigation system. The company also unveiled an AM/FM/CD system with a built-in 10-Gbyte hard drive.
Similarly, Robert Bosch Corp.'s Blaupunkt car audio group rolled out systems for multimedia, navigation and in-car video.
Even the entertainment systems have taken on a decidedly non-teen flavor. The two satellite radio giants, Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio, vied for attention with mammoth show booths that included live entertainment and radio broadcasts.
The Consumer Electronics Association, which runs CES, said that the move toward navigation and video systems is currently the strongest new area in automotive electronics. Association representatives noted that five years ago in-car video and navigation was a market that was too small to track. Now it's hitting $900 million per year.
"In-car electronics is not just for teenagers anymore," said Lisa Fasold, director of communications for the Consumer Electronics Association. "Now it's marketed at moms and dads, grandmas and business customers."
Indeed, many in the industry hope that business customers will become mainstay, basing their hopes on the recent growth of the telematics market, which is expected to jump from $1.3 billion in 2001 to $2 billion in 2002, an increase of more than 50 percent.
Some automakers believe the market could reach $20 billion annually. A study by Forrester Research (Cambridge, Mass.), however, puts the figure closer to $6 billion. Either way, many electronics and software makers believe that the automotive telematics field holds more potential for growth than any other electronics sector.
"People have huge, huge hopes for telematics," said Dan Garretson, a senior analyst for Forrester Research. "A lot of companies are trying very hard to ride this wave."
Many believe that telematics is so strong that it ultimately could become the tail that wags the automotive dog, with customers trading in their old vehicles in order to buy a new, telematics-equipped model.
That's why such companies as Delphi Automotive Systems and Visteon saved their greatest thunder for CES, even while the worldwide auto market descended on Detroit for the International Auto Show. At CES, they could preach to electronics-savvy attendees, in addition to dealing with customers such as Ford, GM, Honda and Toyota, as well as such chip suppliers as Intel and Texas Instruments.
"Three years ago, Visteon and Delphi were selling directly to Detroit," said Fasold of the Consumer Electronics Association. "Now they're showcasing their technology here."
Indeed, Delphi rolled out 12 new automotive products and nine new technologies in 11 vehicles on the show floor. Those included a first-ever demonstration of a system that would enable home users to upload and download movies and audio files from home to car using 802.11a wireless technology. Shown on a General Motors Montana minivan, the system uploaded video files at speeds approaching 54 Mbits/second.
For the design of the system, Delphi teamed with Intel Corp., which provided the 802.11 wireless hardware, including an Intel PRO/Wireless 5000 LAN Card Bus Adapter in the vehicle, and PRO/Wireless 5000 LAN access points outside the vehicle. The Intel products operate in the 5-GHz frequency band and are based on the 802.11a standard. Delphi engineers said that, using the system, an MPEG-4-compressed file could typically be downloaded to the vehicle in four to five minutes.
Automakers and vendors hope that such technology will set the stage for gas stations and convenience stores to install kiosks where customers could download music and movie files for play on their rear-seat audio and video systems. The speed of the 802.11a systems makes the idea feasible, they say, because they are approximately 1,000 times faster than cell phone data rates.
For business users, Delphi engineers also teamed with counterparts from MobileAria (Mountain View, Calif.) to demonstrate hands-free Internet capabilities inside a new Saturn VUE sport utility vehicle. Using a MobileAria True Hands Free server, a Delphi Communiport Mobile Productivity Center, a GPS receiver and a Bluetooth-enabled laptop computer, engineers showed how the system could retrieve e-mail and Internet content while the driver watches the road, then read it back to the driver using a text-to-speech engine. As a result, the system enables drivers not only to download Web-based news, but also to some day retrieve up-to-the-second, accurate, Internet-based traffic reports.
Similarly, Visteon displayed a receiver that broadcast content from Sirius Satellite Radio.
Automakers see the implementation of such technology as a critical step in building customer affinity. At the show, Mercedes-Benz allowed attendees to test-drive electronics-equipped vehicles ranging from the company's $26,000 C-class sports coupe to the $130,000 CL-600 sedan. They used data capture units to capture names of attendees and built a bond with those who see electronic technology as a critical part of the driving experience.
"These people see their cars as extensions of their homes," noted Michael Smith, national manager for Presence Marketing for Mercedes-Benz. "And they want to put a lot of the conveniences of their homes into their vehicles."
Mercedes-Benz, which has taken the lead in marketing to attendees of shows such as Comdex and CES, believes it has found a critical new marketing approach. During the past two and a half years, the company has boosted sales of its Tele Aid telematics units from zero to 300,000, and has moved from U.S. sales of 60,000 vehicles per year to 206,000 last year.
Analysts believe that the current telematics fever is a double-edged sword of sorts, breathing new life into the electronics industry while simultaneously taking down scores of startup companies in the process.
"This is good for the consumer electronics industry," said Koslowski of Gartner Dataquest. "The consumer home market is approaching some level of saturation, and the business market is still suffering from a poor economy. The vehicle is the only outpost left that's not approaching saturation."
Still, Koslowski said, it may be too much, too soon. "The auto industry will have to come up with some very innovative applications to reach the potential they're describing," he said. "Right now, the price points are too high and many consumers aren't willing to pay for the kinds of conveniences they're talking about."
Xilinx, Wind River team on programmable platform
By Charles J. Murray
EE Times
January 28, 2002 (11:44 a.m. EST)
PARK RIDGE, Ill. — In a move that could presage a trend for the embedded design community, Xilinx Inc. announced Monday (Jan. 28) that it is teaming with Wind River Systems Inc. in an effort to create a programmable platform that would include a an FPGA, an embedded tool chain and a microcontroller.
The move, which is expected to be closely followed by other makers of field-programmable gate arrays, teams two industry giants. Wind River Systems dominates the embedded operating system market, while Xilinx, fulfills more than half of the world's demand for the devices. Xilinx is also expected to announce in the next two months that it will incorporate a 32-bit PowerPC-based microcontroller as the third leg of its programmable platform.
By building a programmable platform, the two companies hope to create an environment that would simplify the partitioning decisions facing embedded designers and systems architects.
"This is a new era in design," said Babak Hedayati, senior director of product solutions marketing and partnerships for Xilinx. "Now, designers have the logic and the processor available, and both are programmable, so they can do some pretty powerful things."
Industry analysts said last week that the trend toward integration of processors, FPGAs and real-time operating system (RTOS) tools could also have a profound effect on the microcontroller market. "You're going to see a lot of FPGA makers attacking the microcontroller market over the next six weeks," said Gary Smith, chief analyst for Gartner Dataquest (San Jose). "The feeling is that the microcontroller will be replaced by a chip that includes a microprocessor, flash memory and some logic."
Design aid
The joint announcement is also part of a major strategic move for Xilinx, which has been trying to recast itself, shedding its old mold as an FPGA vendor in favor of a new role as a systems solution provider. "It has taken us several years to get to this level," Hedayati said. "And in order to get there, we knew we would have to embed a PowerPC processor into the FPGA fabric."
By doing so, and by providing designers with design tools, Xilinx executives hope to enable embedded designers to deal with design issues at the outset of a project. Specifically, they expect their integrated platform to help system architects deal with the dilemma of deciding which portions of a design belong in logic, and which portions should go to the processor side.
"In large, complex designs, such as telecommunications switches and networking applications, we've seen that the designer's first partition is not always the most optimal," said Jay Gould, product marketing manager for Xilinx. "And it gets harder to do the partitioning when you've gone further down the design path and you've got several design teams. That's why we want to move the entire programmable platform onto one chip."
By teaming with Wind River, Xilinx will be able to distribute versions of Wind River's Diab C/C++ compiler suite, Single Step with Vision software debugger and visionProbe II on-chip hardware-assisted debugger. Wind River and Xilinx will also continue a two-year collaboration on the creation of a complete run-time solution for embedded FPGA developers.
Wind River said that the new platform should also help designers find a way to accelerate communication speeds in the design of such systems as network stacks. "A lot of the bottlenecks in those systems lie within the bus transfers between discrete CPUs and FPGAs, or DSPs and FPGAs," said Stuart Newton, market development manager for Wind River Systems. "With this technology, there's more flexibility in how you design your system. It opens up a lot of new doors for designers."
Sea change
Industry analysts said that the programmable platform phenomenon is likely to spread throughout the industry, with more RTOS vendors ultimately playing a role. "For Xilinx, the key is that they have software tools," said Daya Nadamuni, a senior analyst for Gartner Dataquest. "But Wind River is not the only one they can partner with. It could be Wind River today and a Linux vendor tomorrow."
Still, analysts see the role of the RTOS and tools as the key to the programmable platform's success in the embedded industry. "The competitive advantage in the embedded world, which is where most of the microcontrollers go, is in the software," said Smith of Gartner Dataquest. "That's why Xilinx made the deal with Wind River."
Industry engineers and analysts disagreed over the programmable platform's effect on the microcontroller market, however. "There's an incredible number of microcontrollers in the world," Smith said. "It's a huge, huge market. That's why the FPGA makers are going there. They need to move there in order to keep growing, and right now they seem to be getting a jump on that market."
Other FPGA makers, including Atmel Corp. and Altera Corp. are already headed in that direction, albeit with some significant technology distinctions. Atmel, for example, has focused on 8-bit microcontrollers and consumer electronics applications, while Xilinx is concentrating on 32-bit systems for applications such as switches and networks.
Companies such as Atmel, however, don't see the programmable platform makers as head-to-head competitors with microcontroller manufacturers. "This opens up a whole new market for us," said Joel Rosenberg, Atmel's product line manager for programmable system-level integration. "But it's not going to take anything away from the microcontroller makers."
Daytona/Daytona67 Dual `C6x PCI w/ PMC
Hardware: Development Boards/Starter Kits
Status: Production
> Description
> Features
> Specifications
> Support / Training
Supplier Spectrum Signal Processing
Request Info Request Form
Description
Daytona/Daytona67 is a PCI carrier card with two 'C6201 or two 'C6701 DSPs, a PMC site, a PEM site, and extensive supporting software. It offers extensive I/O, maximum flexibility, and fast inter-processor communications. Its high-performance, distributed memory architecture exploits Spectrum's exclusive Hurricane-based ASIC 'C6x architecture which enables all DSPs and PCI resources to efficiently transfer data and increase I/O dataflow to and from the PCI interface. With Daytona's board architecture: (1) data can be transferred directly in and out of each 'C6x SBSRAM bank from PMC and host via Hurricane; and (2) each DSP can read the SBSRAM of all other DSPs via Hurricane. The result is substantially higher hardware densities than would result from traditional DSP system architectures. Furthermore, it provides platform independence, common software architectures, and universality of drivers. Download the datasheet available at http://www.spectrumsignal.com/Product_Info rmation/Daytona.pdf
Release/Version: 1.0
Platform: TMS320C6000
Generation: TMS320C62x, TMS320C67x
Device: TMS320C6201, TMS320C6701
Target Market(s): Telecommunications, Wireless
PCI development platform for wireless telecommunications
Features
Single or dual ?C6201/?C6701 DSP
Spectrum developed Hurricane ASIC to increase I/O dataflow
1MB of SBSRAM; 32MB of SDRAM
8K x 32 dual port memory
SBRAM distributed shard memory
1 Processor Expansion Module (PEM) site providing 400 MBytes/s per DSP throughput directly into the ?C6x external me
1 PMC site providing 120 MBytes/s throughput (sustained)
Specifications
Host Platforms Supported: Windows NT
Number of Processors: 2
Clock Speeds Available (MHz): 200, 167
Board Size: Full Card
External Memory: SRAM and DRAM
Expansion Options: Analog I-O Modules, PEM Modules, PMC Modules
Software Included: Host Interface Library and Drivers, Board Support DSP Library, Code Composer IDE debugger, Diamond multi-DSP RTOS
Spectrum Signal Processing
One Spectrum Court
#200 - 2700 Production Way
Burnaby, BC, V5A 4X1, Canada
Telephone: (604) 421-5422, (800) 663-8986
Fax: (604) 421-1764
E-mail: sales@spectrumsignal.com
http://www.spectrumsignal.com
Order Desk: customerservice@spectrumsignal.com
Sales/Marketing: sales@spectrumsignal.com
Applications/Technical: support@spectrumsignal.com
Spectrum Signal Processing is the worldwide leader in the design of high-density signal processing systems for communications and electronic sensors markets. Spectrum specializes in Voice over Packet processing systems and wireless infrastructure sub-systems. Spectrum integrates TI and ADI DSPs and Motorola PowerPCs with proprietary and licensed signal processing software, hardware and ASICs.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Digital Signal Processor Boards
Processor Type Description Software
Support Mezzanine
Interface Form
Factor
TMS320C6701
and
TMS320C6201
Single or dual 1600 MIPS, 200MHz TMS320C6201 DSPs. Single or dual 1 GFLOPS, 167 MHz TMS320C6701 DSPs. Fastrack board architecture eliminates double handling of data, 1MB of SBSRAM and 32MB of SDRAM, 8K x 32 dual port memory for low latency and deterministic inter-processor comm., Hurricane chip: a single chip PCI bridge optimized for DSP systems. Flexible I/O interfaces. Model: Daytona 62 and Daytona 67 Code
Composer
3L Diamond . Full Size
PCI
http://www.pcisource.com/pciprod/companypci/spectrumpciinfo.html.
folks--re Daytona- it's a Spectrum Signal Processing dsp based on TI's TMS320C6000 DSP platform:
Daytona
Hardware: Development Systems
Status: Production
> Description
> Features
> Specifications
Supplier Spectrum Signal Processing
Description
Daytona Single or Dual TMS320C6201 PCI-Based Product - Single or Dual 1600 MIPS, 200 MHz TMS320C6201 DSPs - Spectrum's innovative board architecture eliminates double handling of data - Comprehensive software tools including: Host Interface Library and Drivers, Daytona board support DSP Library, Code Composer IDE multi-processor debugger via PCI bus Diamond, a Real-Time DSP OS - 1 MB of SBSRAM and 32MB of SDRAM (max) - 2K x 32 dual port memory for low latency and deterministic inter-processor communication - Distributed shared memory provided by SBSRAM - Hurricane, a single-chip PCI bridge optimized for DSP systems - Flexible I/O interfaces include: Processor Expansion Module providing 400 MBytes/s per DSP. Industry Standard PMC providing a maximum sustained data rate of 132 MB/s directly into the 'C6x's SBSRAM DSP~LINK3 providing 40 MBytes/s for interfacing to mezzanine site and other open I/O solutions - IndustryPack« (IP) support for over 150 different industry standard I/O modules. Daytona is a single or dual 'C6x processor PCI-based product. Its high I/O bandwidth and full suite of software tools allow Daytona to fully utilize its 3200 MIPS.
Platform: TMS320C6000
Generation: TMS320C62x, TMS320C67x
Device: All TMS320C62x Items
Features
Free Lifetime Technical Support
1 MB of SBSRAM and 32MB of SDRAM (max)
2K x 32 dual port memory
Distributed shared memory
""Hurricane, a single chip PCI bridge
Flexible I/O interfaces include IndustryPackTM (IP) support
Specifications
Platforms Supported: PCI PC
Host Platforms Supported: Windows NT
Number of Processors: 2
Clock Speeds Available (MHz): 200
Board Size: Board: Full Card, Length: , Width: , Height:
External Memory: SRAM
Expansion Options: , , ,
Software Included: , ,
http://www-d.connect.ti.com/dsp/tpcat/tpcodec.nsf/HardwareForExternal/285DB06EA3D3782B8625670E007898....
January 5, 2002 Talk Is Cheap and Coming to Gadgets Near You
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In this story:
No phone companies, PC's or software?
Palm Pilots will talk
'Cyberstreams'
Who cares which network you use?
Why hasn't this happened yet?
Networks forced to open
Asian Connection
s
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By CNN Business Correspondent Marianne Bray
Houses talk to computers. Magazines talk to wireless phones. Cars talk to the Internet.
We're entering an era in which objects don't just think, they share what they know with each other, according to Motorola.
And people? While they're making inroads into the wireless future -- Singapore Airlines for one is adding in-flight Internet access -- the much-touted telecom nirvana has not arrived for them yet.
For most people, owning a mobile phone, accessing voicemail and Internet and buying a couple of books from Amazon.com is about as far as it gets.
And what about the hassles?
Connecting to the Internet and downloading Websites takes ages. Mobile phones constantly cut out. A MP3 player doesn't work because your PC doesn't have the right software.
And each new device or service just adds one more phone number, e-mail address, software package, password or PIN number to be remembered.
Chief strategist for U.S. computer giant Citrix, Traver Gruen-Kennedy, for one, is frustrated with his three phone numbers and ten email addresses.
Despite the hassles, the gloomy surveys and bleak outlook, Gruen-Kennedy is among the visionaries who say the future will change so much that phone companies, PCs and prepackaged software will be a thing of the past. With Asia leading the way.
No phone companies, PC's or software?
Talk will be cheap. And getting what you want won't be expensive, either.
Experts predict you'll buy specific services such as access to music databases, remote health monitoring and mobile stock-broking, anywhere, anytime and from any device.
Say goodbye to clumsy packages of general services linked to phone companies' own networks, with access limited to a mobile phone or PC.
Palm pilots, cameras, Walkmans, televisions and cars, will soon be able to talk to each other over high-speed broadband networks -- replacing PCs as the gateway to the Internet.
Meanwhile software will be stored in customer database centers rather than in devices, making them smaller and more flexible. You'll be able to download the most up-to-date software each time you use any of your devices.
Palm Pilots will talk
The groundwork is already being laid. In early April, Sony said every device it makes will have an Internet address so its products can talk to each other.
In Japan, the Sony walkman is already networked and able to download music from the Internet.
The market for Net-enabled products, which include wearable computers, is expected to grow so fast that by 2010, Ernst and Young estimates every person on earth will have 10,000 telemetric devices each.
Meanwhile, British Telecom predicts that 95 percent of all traffic over networks will be machines talking to each other, with only 5 percent involving those organic and slightly old-fashioned devices called people.
The Internet ? It won't be used in the simple way it is now.
Sure, you'll access the always-on Internet from your many devices. But it won't be computer screens attached to refrigerators and stovetops.
Rather, the Internet will be the connecting medium that allows machines to talk to each other and to talk to customer databases run by companies that sell you services.
Your stereo will download music files directly from a variety of on-line customer databases, using an interface designed to access music.
And the music can be provided by anyone. If you bought a BOSE stereo, BOSE may provide a five-year online music service as part of the package.
You'll be able to transfer music straight from your stereo to your walkman. If you don't own a stereo, you can download music straight onto your walkman.
All the devices will be able to talk to each other and to the customer databases.
QUOTE
"Napster's 50 million users show how consumers want the choice, convenience and flexibility they have never had before," - commentators say.
In Japan, vending machines already use a version of this technology to send a message to a central database as soon as they run low on stock. Vending machine owners know when and where to send their supply vans, rather than wasting money on weekly checks.
In the same way, you may call your home network to turn on the air conditioner. And when you're settled, download the latest movie from a video-on-demand (VOD) service.
If you want to go to bed halfway through, you can request the VOD database transfer the movie to the TV in the bedroom.
'Cyberstreams'
Eventually, experts say, it will not just be your home that is smart and networked. Equipped with your smart devices, you'll become your own personal area network roaming in and out of networks all day, every day.
Devices will become an "electronic chronicle of your daily life" or "cyberstreams," accumulating records you can tune into anywhere with any device, David Gelernter, a professor at Yale told Time magazine.
Information generated by these devices will be stored on customer databases which will identify your patterns, track your bills and feed you information you are interested in, wherever you are.
These databases will also act as a gateway to all your devices, so one number corresponding to your database location will link your phones, palm pilots, TVS, computers and appliances.
Anytime you make a call, it will be directed via your database. Anytime you are sent information, it will be received by your database and routed to whatever device you are using or one that is most convenient.
So while you're driving to work, the screen in your car might receive an e-mail. Or if you're shopping, your cell-phone might receive the same e-mail.
When you get home, it could be your TV or PC. Any of your devices can alert you to it. And if you delete the e-mail from your cell-phone, it will automatically be deleted from all your other hot-linked devices.
Because software won't be stored in your computer but on your database, you'll access the same program, the same document or service, from any device linked to your database.
Who cares which network you use?
Over time, the service you use will become the dominant business model rather than the network you subscribe too, analysts say.
Imagine for example, a heart attack alert service. You wear a wristband that monitors your heart rate and alerts a hospital service when you're having a heart attack.
You might not ever know which mobile network the service works on, because you'll buy it from a hospital that makes its own deal with one or more networks that will be invisible to you.
In the past, phone companies have operated customer databases, billing you for the service.
Soon "owners of the devices may form an alliance with the database owner and networks in the middle are a commodity," says Peter Waters, telecom specialist at Gilbert & Tobin in Hong Kong.
Customers, once forced to connect to different networks or adopt the best mix of services from one network, will be able to turn to application providers like Microsoft and content providers like AOL to manage their bills and provide them with a range of services.
"The permutations of relationships between network, content, service and application providers are almost infinite," says Stephen Ezekiel, who works for British Telecom's business development team in Hong Kong.
Why hasn't this happened yet?
So why aren't we already roaming wirelessly via our customer databases? The technology already exists, but companies are not willing to give up their power, say experts.
Microsoft with Windows, AOL with instant messenging, phone companies with massive networks are all fighting to retain their hold over products and services.
They "lock" customers in and don't allow users from other networks to use their service. This is why you can't send an instant message if you're not an AOL subscriber or send a text message to a user from another network.
Networks forced to open
But experts predict companies won't be able to hold their monopoly for long.
All the computer-enabled "smart" devices and new technologies such as Bluetooth, that allow devices to talk wirelessly to each other at far greater speed, are already moving intelligence out of the networks, says telecom specialist Peter Waters.
To make the most of their devices, consumers will want to roam across all networks and have real-time access to their customer information. This will force networks and network-like companies to interconnect with each other.
And a plethora of companies, using satellite and cable, are competing with traditional telecom companies to provide network access.
Governments too are legislating that networks or companies that offer network-like services open up.
Most recently, Japan has said NTT DoCoMo's I-mode service, which provides Net-enabled mobile services to 20 million users, must open up its network to other Internet service providers.
All these factors are working together to punch a hole in the "walled garden of network operators," Waters says.
Asian Connection
In many ways Asia is leading the way, helped by the fact it does not have a strong telecom legacy and wireless users far outnumber wired users.
Experts say Asia will find it easier to make profits from 3G.
DoCoMo is expected to debut the world's first 3G services this year, giving users high-speed mobile access to multimedia content.
Japan and South Korea lead the market for services like games and news brought to the screens of mobile phones. E-commerce across Asia is expected to grow 80 percent each year, says investment firm Goldman Sachs.
And the market is immense. China will be the largest mobile market in the world soon, says Michael Garstka, telecom specialist at Bain consultancy in Tokyo.
AOL Time Warner is the parent company of CNN.
January 5, 2002 / You are Home » Stories » Technology »
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Talk Is Cheap and Coming to Gadgets Near You
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In this story:
No phone companies, PC's or software?
Palm Pilots will talk
'Cyberstreams'
Who cares which network you use?
Why hasn't this happened yet?
Networks forced to open
Asian Connection
s
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By CNN Business Correspondent Marianne Bray
Houses talk to computers. Magazines talk to wireless phones. Cars talk to the Internet.
We're entering an era in which objects don't just think, they share what they know with each other, according to Motorola.
And people? While they're making inroads into the wireless future -- Singapore Airlines for one is adding in-flight Internet access -- the much-touted telecom nirvana has not arrived for them yet.
For most people, owning a mobile phone, accessing voicemail and Internet and buying a couple of books from Amazon.com is about as far as it gets.
And what about the hassles?
Connecting to the Internet and downloading Websites takes ages. Mobile phones constantly cut out. A MP3 player doesn't work because your PC doesn't have the right software.
And each new device or service just adds one more phone number, e-mail address, software package, password or PIN number to be remembered.
Chief strategist for U.S. computer giant Citrix, Traver Gruen-Kennedy, for one, is frustrated with his three phone numbers and ten email addresses.
Despite the hassles, the gloomy surveys and bleak outlook, Gruen-Kennedy is among the visionaries who say the future will change so much that phone companies, PCs and prepackaged software will be a thing of the past. With Asia leading the way.
No phone companies, PC's or software?
Talk will be cheap. And getting what you want won't be expensive, either.
Experts predict you'll buy specific services such as access to music databases, remote health monitoring and mobile stock-broking, anywhere, anytime and from any device.
Say goodbye to clumsy packages of general services linked to phone companies' own networks, with access limited to a mobile phone or PC.
Palm pilots, cameras, Walkmans, televisions and cars, will soon be able to talk to each other over high-speed broadband networks -- replacing PCs as the gateway to the Internet.
Meanwhile software will be stored in customer database centers rather than in devices, making them smaller and more flexible. You'll be able to download the most up-to-date software each time you use any of your devices.
Palm Pilots will talk
The groundwork is already being laid. In early April, Sony said every device it makes will have an Internet address so its products can talk to each other.
In Japan, the Sony walkman is already networked and able to download music from the Internet.
The market for Net-enabled products, which include wearable computers, is expected to grow so fast that by 2010, Ernst and Young estimates every person on earth will have 10,000 telemetric devices each.
Meanwhile, British Telecom predicts that 95 percent of all traffic over networks will be machines talking to each other, with only 5 percent involving those organic and slightly old-fashioned devices called people.
The Internet ? It won't be used in the simple way it is now.
Sure, you'll access the always-on Internet from your many devices. But it won't be computer screens attached to refrigerators and stovetops.
Rather, the Internet will be the connecting medium that allows machines to talk to each other and to talk to customer databases run by companies that sell you services.
Your stereo will download music files directly from a variety of on-line customer databases, using an interface designed to access music.
And the music can be provided by anyone. If you bought a BOSE stereo, BOSE may provide a five-year online music service as part of the package.
You'll be able to transfer music straight from your stereo to your walkman. If you don't own a stereo, you can download music straight onto your walkman.
All the devices will be able to talk to each other and to the customer databases.
QUOTE
"Napster's 50 million users show how consumers want the choice, convenience and flexibility they have never had before," - commentators say.
In Japan, vending machines already use a version of this technology to send a message to a central database as soon as they run low on stock. Vending machine owners know when and where to send their supply vans, rather than wasting money on weekly checks.
In the same way, you may call your home network to turn on the air conditioner. And when you're settled, download the latest movie from a video-on-demand (VOD) service.
If you want to go to bed halfway through, you can request the VOD database transfer the movie to the TV in the bedroom.
'Cyberstreams'
Eventually, experts say, it will not just be your home that is smart and networked. Equipped with your smart devices, you'll become your own personal area network roaming in and out of networks all day, every day.
Devices will become an "electronic chronicle of your daily life" or "cyberstreams," accumulating records you can tune into anywhere with any device, David Gelernter, a professor at Yale told Time magazine.
Information generated by these devices will be stored on customer databases which will identify your patterns, track your bills and feed you information you are interested in, wherever you are.
These databases will also act as a gateway to all your devices, so one number corresponding to your database location will link your phones, palm pilots, TVS, computers and appliances.
Anytime you make a call, it will be directed via your database. Anytime you are sent information, it will be received by your database and routed to whatever device you are using or one that is most convenient.
So while you're driving to work, the screen in your car might receive an e-mail. Or if you're shopping, your cell-phone might receive the same e-mail.
When you get home, it could be your TV or PC. Any of your devices can alert you to it. And if you delete the e-mail from your cell-phone, it will automatically be deleted from all your other hot-linked devices.
Because software won't be stored in your computer but on your database, you'll access the same program, the same document or service, from any device linked to your database.
Who cares which network you use?
Over time, the service you use will become the dominant business model rather than the network you subscribe too, analysts say.
Imagine for example, a heart attack alert service. You wear a wristband that monitors your heart rate and alerts a hospital service when you're having a heart attack.
You might not ever know which mobile network the service works on, because you'll buy it from a hospital that makes its own deal with one or more networks that will be invisible to you.
In the past, phone companies have operated customer databases, billing you for the service.
Soon "owners of the devices may form an alliance with the database owner and networks in the middle are a commodity," says Peter Waters, telecom specialist at Gilbert & Tobin in Hong Kong.
Customers, once forced to connect to different networks or adopt the best mix of services from one network, will be able to turn to application providers like Microsoft and content providers like AOL to manage their bills and provide them with a range of services.
"The permutations of relationships between network, content, service and application providers are almost infinite," says Stephen Ezekiel, who works for British Telecom's business development team in Hong Kong.
Why hasn't this happened yet?
So why aren't we already roaming wirelessly via our customer databases? The technology already exists, but companies are not willing to give up their power, say experts.
Microsoft with Windows, AOL with instant messenging, phone companies with massive networks are all fighting to retain their hold over products and services.
They "lock" customers in and don't allow users from other networks to use their service. This is why you can't send an instant message if you're not an AOL subscriber or send a text message to a user from another network.
Networks forced to open
But experts predict companies won't be able to hold their monopoly for long.
All the computer-enabled "smart" devices and new technologies such as Bluetooth, that allow devices to talk wirelessly to each other at far greater speed, are already moving intelligence out of the networks, says telecom specialist Peter Waters.
To make the most of their devices, consumers will want to roam across all networks and have real-time access to their customer information. This will force networks and network-like companies to interconnect with each other.
And a plethora of companies, using satellite and cable, are competing with traditional telecom companies to provide network access.
Governments too are legislating that networks or companies that offer network-like services open up.
Most recently, Japan has said NTT DoCoMo's I-mode service, which provides Net-enabled mobile services to 20 million users, must open up its network to other Internet service providers.
All these factors are working together to punch a hole in the "walled garden of network operators," Waters says.
Asian Connection
In many ways Asia is leading the way, helped by the fact it does not have a strong telecom legacy and wireless users far outnumber wired users.
Experts say Asia will find it easier to make profits from 3G.
DoCoMo is expected to debut the world's first 3G services this year, giving users high-speed mobile access to multimedia content.
Japan and South Korea lead the market for services like games and news brought to the screens of mobile phones. E-commerce across Asia is expected to grow 80 percent each year, says investment firm Goldman Sachs.
And the market is immense. China will be the largest mobile market in the world soon, says Michael Garstka, telecom specialist at Bain consultancy in Tokyo.
AOL Time Warner is the parent company of CNN.
SEE URL FOR LINKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.time.com/time/interactive/stories/technology/talk_gadgets.html.
South Korea's Hanaro Telecom, TV firm to offer video on demand
South Korea's Hanaro Telecom will offer a high-quality video-on-demand service in partnership with interactive TV service company It's TV Co. Using ADSL technology, Hanaro will bring personalized multimedia services to home TV sets. Using a set-top box to connect its fiber-optic cable to ordinary analog TV sets, Hanaro and It's TV will offer movies, drama and educational programs to subscribers bundled with telephone, high-speed Internet access and Interactive TV services.
A trial VoD service will be introduced by the end of the year with a full service scheduled to launch early next year.
OCTOBER 31, 2001
samsung/MSN/VOD
Arena Set For AOL/MSN Video-on-Demand Brawl
By Jim Wagner
The latest, but surely not last, round in the continuing war between rival Internet service providers (ISPs) AOL Time Warner (NYSE:AOL) and the Microsoft Network (NASDAQ:MSFT) is focusing on the increasing popularity of video-on-demand (VoD) and delivering it over a high-speed platform.
It's all part of both ISPs strategy to marry content with broadband AOL on its nationwide cable network and MSN with its growing digital subscriber line (DSL) presence.
For the past several years AOL and MSN, the largest and second-largest ISPs, respectively, have fought over everything from instant messaging (IM) to browsers, open access to desktop icons. It's been months since the two have sparred over anything, but the increased efforts by both in the past week to increase their VoD product lines are sure to lead to a future confrontation.
To date, video-on-demand has been seen as a viable option only for the cable TV companies, though they have been unable to attract the attention they've wanted. DSL, while theoretically possible in today's environment, has been written off as an unstable environment, due mainly to the provisioning problems and technical support issues plaguing the DSL industry.
Slowly but surely, however, DSL is making a comeback as a viable option for VoD, MSN is set to capitalize on that fact. A report by Cahner's Instat, an online analysis firm bears that out.
A recent report shows DSL alone will accrue more than $7 billion in revenues and have more than 11 million DSL users in 2005. The only uncertainty is which application will be most popular.
"Each segment of the market is attempting to find the best combination of hardware and software to provide added value to consumers and drive demand," says Cindy Wolf, an In-Stat analyst. "Growth barriers include the need for consumer education, the need to modify the business models for services, and the current downturn in the economy."
Microsoft has quietly been building up its high-speed and entertainment fare over the summer, brokering deals with incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ), SBC Communications (NYSE:SBC) and Qwest Communications (NYSE:Q) for digital subscriber line (DSL) service.
The software giant's ISP arm then announced Wednesday the rollout of its VoD offering through Intertainer, a privately-held company backed by Microsoft and others which promises better-than-VHS movie quality. It's a common ploy with the company, which likes to keep its hands on the control of every asset it touches. Microsoft had a similar arrangement with its interactive TV box, Ulitmate TV.
Will Poole, Microsoft Windows digital media division vice president, said Interntainer's deals with studios like Universal, Warner Bros., Dreamworks SKG and New Line Cinema.
"Intertainer has put all the pieces together to make video-on-demand work at last for home viewers,'' Poole said. "Intertainer's outstanding library offers the kind of top-tier entertainment people have been waiting for, and the technology is here today to deliver a great viewing experience.''
Meanwhile, Time Warner Cable (a subsidiary of AOL/TW), Thursday ordered 475,000 set top boxes from Scientific-Atlanta as part of its continuing efforts to market VoD.
Mike Hayashi, TWC senior vice president, said the deal is the opening salvo in its upcoming deployment.
"We have an aggressive plan in place to deploy VOD and SVOD services across the vast majority of our Scientific-Atlanta systems, including all of our major metro areas, by the end of next year,'' Hayashi said. "We expect significant demand for these new services as well as for new services such as personal video recording and high definition TV." The only difference between the two VoD services each ISP plans to deploy is the platform movies will be delivered, cable and DSL.
Bill Gates, who signed a similar agreement with Samsung Electronics in South Korea Wednesday, said the day is coming fast when most houses in the U.S. will have integrated entertainment systems.
"We are entering a Digital Decade where smart, connected devices and advanced home-entertainment solutions will enable people to utilize technology in new ways and maximize its full potential," Gates said.
Both companies stand a good deal ahead of the Hollywood studios, which have been penning deals themselves this summer to capitalize on VoD and stay ahead of the ISPs. Disney, Sony and Universal Studios have all announced their own service at their Web sites.
But it's a given that the studios, or any other Web site for that matter, will not have the marketing power that AOL or MSN will be able to throw into the mix. AOL, with its vast media holdings through its ownership of Time Warner, and MSN, with its marketing deals with Vivendi and such, will create the largest focus for broadband entertainment.
The two companies seem to be reading the same reports, if the recent attention to video-on-demand and set-top boxes is any indication.
Jupiter Media Metrix earlier this week publicized a report that lends credence to the VoD buildup, despite America's bad experience with DSL to date. In its report, author Joe Laszlo predicts that a whopping 40 percent of Internet users will use a broadband connection by 2006. That's a sharp increase from this year's nine percent.
"Despite the recent failures of several broadband pioneers, and slower growth of the overall online population, broadband will find the masses in the US shortly," Laszlo said. "While consumers' awareness of broadband has grown considerably, improved and increased marketing by cable and DSL providers will finally help overcome lingering resistance to the cost of broadband subscriptions. It is absolutely critical for companies with relevant content, products and services to time their business initiatives to reach the anticipated broadband audience."
11.28.01 AOL Time Warner Seeks Interactive Pot of Gold
How well is the AOL Time Warner merger unfolding? In other words, are the two cultures blending together in relative harmony?
As the recently announced new president of the Interactive Personal Video Group at AOL Time Warner, Jim Chiddix has a lot on his plate. After spending years as the chief technology guru at Time Warner Cable, the rush is on for Chiddix to address a wide variety of issues.
"I am still assembling a team to work on this in a hurry. We are building an engineering office in Denver, while at the same time, we are pulling together our business staff in New York," says Chiddix. "We cannot afford to miss when it comes to the timing of this opportunity."
Chiddix outlines a three-pronged effort creating a new on-demand, interactive video service; a comprehensive framework for all content -related activity including access; and a new advertising and marketing engine to operate in tandem with this new platform and all the interactive content running over it.
"We know that there will soon be a lot more content available, and we also know that we can be very successful in providing high-value programming to very small audiences. Narrowcast services in aggregate can make up a very valuable offering," says Chiddix.
SYNERGY AND VOD
Analysts and industry observers sense that there is a lot at stake here, too. The difficulties and complexities of the merger cannot be underestimated. And when Chiddix says he is in hurry, the message is pretty obvious.
"Achieving total synergy in the quickest possible way is the purpose of this group. Its primary mission appears to be to maximize the returns from the content and distribution assets owned by the combined company," says Yankee Group analyst Adi Kishore. "This group is not just about putting together properties, but about using the cable network to maximize or pull value from all the other properties simultaneously."
Greg Mesniaeff, a research analyst specializing in cable and telecom infrastructure at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, says that the selection of Chiddix for this task comes as no surprise.
"Jim Chiddix has a reputation for being somewhat of a technology maverick. And video on demand (VOD) is a hot button right now that he will push aggressively," says Mesniaeff. "I view this group’s mission as being synonymous with rolling out video-on-demand, albeit with a few enhancements."
According to Kishore, the momentum on VOD and other iTV deployments at AOL Time Warner lost considerable steam immediately after the merger, but the formation of this group has helped them address this situation effectively.
"Time Warner Cable made a real commitment to VOD early on, and yet after completing the initial deployments in Tampa, Austin and Hawaii, things had slowed down," says Kishore. "Now, the pace appears to be picking up again. There have been announcements of new VOD deployments, and the company has purchased new VOD servers."
"Lots of information is available as far as the central server model is concerned, and the leverage here is not just VOD. The volume of VOD servers to date is very small, but still very far off the cost curve," says Chiddix. "We may elect to move up to many more streams using generic servers from companies like Sun, HP and EMC, while tapping into transport technology like Gigabit Ethernet at the same time."
Riding the right cost curve is a central theme here. Transport intensity is another key variable: How close to the home does content need to be and what is the best way to move it between headends, hubs and nodes? Chiddix is not concerned with what may or may not happen with DSL TV or telco TV, but he is watching the DBS crowd closely.
"The market is ours to lose," he says.
As the digital video recording platform becomes more mainstream, the number of possible outcomes seems to multiply.
"Cable has a local storage path, and yet we are not constrained by local storage. You can cache more and more stuff as the local storage devices get bigger and bigger. We can do it better, less expensively and in a simpler and more comprehensive fashion with centralized servers."
One of the team’s first tasks will be to reach a conclusion about architecture. Chiddix emphasizes that the goal is not necessarily to come up with some radical new architecture, but simply to find the right solution in a constantly evolving marketplace.
"It is still quite early in the process. There are a number of topologies out there. At a higher level, we need to come up with an approach to balance the complexity and the cost," says Chiddix. "What you need is an MPEG-2 set-top with a graphical user interface and real-time return path; and by the way, that is exactly what we have available today. I am not clear what you gain by deploying a thick-client solution.
"The simplest models involve lots of transport. Whatever you choose to do in terms of storage hierarchy, you still have the challenge of propagation management," he says. "Delivery and storage strategies are just part of the puzzle. In the end, we need to please our viewers, our advertisers and our content providers."
The Republic of Korea's success with ADSL
Since the introduction of Internet services in 1994, the Republic of Korea has experienced an explosion in the size of the Internet service market that had grown to 19 million users (38 per cent of the population) by December 2000. This has been followed by a boom in broadband Internet access.
With fierce competition in the broadband Internet access market, the number of subscribers reached more than 4.6 million in February 2001 (one in every four households). Although broadband access via cable television networks came first, with the launch of a cable modem service by Thrunet in July 1998, it is asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) services that have taken off faster. By February 2001, the majority of broadband subscribers (almost 3 million) were using ADSL, with Korea Telecom supplying more than 70 per cent of the market. Next in popularity is broadband Internet via cable television networks (1.5 million subscribers).
samsung/equator/adsl
Equator and Samsung Announce a Formal Partnership to Revolutionize Broadcast Industry with New Set-Top Box, Making Residential Gateways an Economic Reality for Consumers
— Samsung’s Host-based SMT F300 set-top box offers Video-on-Demand and Personal Video Recorder capabilities to ADSL and cable modem customers –
LAS VEGAS, Nev. (NAB, Las Vegas Convention Center, Booth # L559) – Apr. 23 2001 – Equator Technologies, Inc., the leading provider of comprehensive broadband digital communications and media processing infrastructure for the consumer electronics market, and Samsung Electronics announced today a new enhanced streaming media set-top box from Samsung running Equator’s programmable BSPä MAP-CA™ digital signal processor. The host-based SMT F300 set-top box, which is designed and manufactured in a formal partnership, will offer Video-on-Demand (VOD), Interactive TV and time shift Personal Video Recorder (PVR) services, at a better price point than can be offered by competing multifunction devices. Bringing a broad range of data and video services directly to the home, the box, which is targeted at ADSL consumers, will also be able to function as a residential gateway. The F300 will be in volume production in Q4 2001.
In a December 2000 study, the high-tech market research firm, Cahners In-Stat Group, predicts the residential gateway market will rise sharply from $100 million in 2000 to $5 billion in 2005. By integrating Equator’s customizable, powerful BSP MAP-CA digital signal processor into Samsung’s multimedia home gateway and interactive set-top box, the companies will offer the broadcast market a very cost-effective, multifunction and flexible set-top box solution. Because the MAP-CA digital signal processor enables streaming high-quality video at low bit rates, service providers will be able to stream a greater number of enhanced services through one box, while maintaining the superior video quality their customers expect. Demand for broadband services will continue to increase as end users have access to more scalable advanced services and functionalities, such as analog PVR time shifting, at a substantially lower system cost.
"The flexibility of Equator’s programmable BSP MAP-CA digital signal processor is a perfect complement to our own powerful and easily upgradeable appliance," said Dr. H.W. Park, senior manager, digital set-top box group at Samsung Network Division. "Integrating Equator’s BSP digital signal processor into our SMT F300 set-top box will usher in a new age of more complex integrated services, enabling remote management and value-added services such as home security control and video-on-demand."
"We are very pleased that Samsung has selected our BSP MAP-CA digital signal processor for its next generation streaming video set-top box and multimedia residential gateway," said Dr. Avi Katz, president and CEO of Equator Technologies. "Working with a leading industry innovator like Samsung will help us in our goal to realize the full potential of broadband communications. Our formal partnership guarantees the delivery of the most cost-effective, flexible and upgradeable set top box and residential gateway to the marketplace -- benefiting our customers."
About Equator's MAP-CA Digital Signal Processor
The BSP MAP-CA digital signal processor delivers 30 GOPs (Billion Operations per Second) of processing power, offering more than ten times the performance of other available solutions. The highly integrated, system-on-a chip solution delivers core functions through software rather than dedicated hardware and is designed for high-performance, video-intense broadband applications. By using software downloads to update the functionality of products, even after they are launched and in the field, the life cycle of the equipment can be greatly extended, enabling companies to decrease their time-to-market and their time-to-revenue with new broadband services and devices. The programmable chip allows service providers to offer more services and more functionality, such as time shifting, video conferencing, broadcast media security, video security, VOD, DVD playback, and per viewer advertising.
About the Companies
Samsung
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., with 2000 sales revenue of US$27 billion is a world leader in the electronics industry. The Korea-based concern has operations in about 50 countries with 54,000 employees worldwide. The company consists of three main business units: Digital Media, Semiconductors and Information & Communications Businesses. For more information, please visit our website, http://samsungelectronics.com
Equator Technologies, Inc.
Equator Technologies is the leading provider of comprehensive broadband digital communications and media processing infrastructure for the consumer technology market. The company’s family of MAP-CA Broadband Signal Processor digital signal processors, which is built on a smart silicon platform, couples a uniquely fully functional system-on-a-chip solution with software tools. Equator’s unmatched compiler technology delivers 100% C programming – enabling the rapid introduction and field upgradeability of high-performance, video-intense systems. With over 100 customers, Equator has gained traction in the consumer technology industry, having secured major market share in video conferencing and the digital head-end sector by offering rapid time-to-market and time-to-revenue solutions. Headquartered in Campbell, Calif., with additional international offices, Equator is a privately held company. For more information, visit www.equator.com.
Picosoft's selection of Equator's Dolphin platform and superior MAP-CA engine, together with On2's VP4 codec demonstrates the increased traction of our combined technical solution. Together, we are supplying the broadband market with high quality video on demand at very low bit-rates,'' said Dr. Avi Katz, president and CEO, Equator Technologies.
picosoft-korea
Picosoft is one of the leading application software developers in the Korean market. Since its foundation in 1993, Picosoft has concentrated on developing user-oriented software and developed product lines specifically for small and medium companies. Picosoft prides itself in recognizing areas of potential growth, and has used this foresight to establish itself in a variety of areas, including accounting, fax, intranet, instant messenger, and MIS (Management Information System). Picosoft has pioneered various internet services in Korea, from remote on-line education to Business Solution for Enterprise.
on2/picosoft/equator/korea/adsl
On2 Lands ADSL Set-Top Box Deal in Asia
By @NY Staff
Video compression specialists On2 Technologies (AMEX:ONT) announced a deal with Korea-based Picosoft Co. to design a low bit-rate ADSL video-on-demand set-top box.
The New York-based On2 said the device will use On2's VP4 compression codec, client and server software, and Equator Technologies' Dolphin reference design platform based on its MAP-CA chip; Web browser and e-mail clients would be included as well. The new set-top box will be capable of streaming DVD-quality video at connection speeds under 1 megabit per second
Picosoft would build the box for ADSL users in Korea and distribution into additional Asian markets. Manufacturing and integration work of the box is set to begin in the second quarter of 2002.
"This is a seven figure deal that will start generating revenues for us this month," said Douglas McIntyre, On2's CEO and president.
In addition to the licensing fees the company will collect for each set-top box sold, On2 is taking in consulting fees for retrofitting the On2 compression applications with the other software applications in the boxes.
On2 will work with Picosoft and chipmaker Equator to configure the set-top boxes with video and audio operating systems and digital rights management functions; McIntyre reckons that between four and five million homes in Korea have broadband connections through ascynchronous DSL connections.
The only disadvantage to that kind of usage is that the subscribers farthest away from the ADSL central office have more signal degradation. That makes for plenty of market opportunities for On2's compression technology that helps the broadband provider squeeze more into the subscriber's bandwidth potential.
On2 makes money from licensing its video codecs for use in set-top boxes, electronic gaming devices and wireless applications. The company also offers video encoding, hosting, streaming and consulting services for streaming media plays.
December 12, 2001
ADSL for Broadband Access
By Martin Jackson
ADSL is a modem technology that converts an ordinary phone line into a high-speed digital pipe for ultra-fast access to the Internet and corporate networks while also enabling real-time multimedia services. With downstream speeds as high as 8 Mbps, ADSL is nearly 300 times faster than 28.8K dial-up modems and 70 times faster than paired 128-Kbps ISDN.
Telecommunication carriers (telcos) throughout the world have delivered voice services for more than a century. During this period, they have refined their services to meet customer's evolving needs and to take advantage of new technologies. Today our planet is laced with nearly 700 million telephone lines, a number which is expected to increase to nearly 1 billion by the year 2000.
Our communications needs have become more sophisticated as computers have become more powerful and widespread. Today's networks need to deliver information and services far beyond urban centres and corporate campuses to scattered users in branch offices, telecommuters, customers and various business partners. All are asking for faster access to mission-critical information on corporate networks as well as the Internet.
What's more, the Digital Revolution has spawned a host of multimedia and web-based applications that have led people to expect more than just text when they log on to the Internet or corporate networks. While these new multimedia applications provide increasingly more effective ways of communicating, they are clogging low-speed data pipelines.
The roadblock on the Information Superhighway is the current bandwidth limitations of the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Although most of the developed world is criss-crossed with powerful long-distance fiber-optic links, a bottleneck remains in the so-called "last mile." This local loop, feeding from the telephone company's central offices to the customer premises, consists of copper twisted-pair phone lines: analog veterans in the new digital age.
ADSL to the Rescue
Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) neatly overcomes a number of limitations within the existing telephone network. ADSL is a modem technology that converts an ordinary phone line into a high-speed digital pipe for ultra-fast access to the Internet and corporate networks while also enabling real-time multimedia services.
With downstream speeds as high as 8 Mbps, ADSL is nearly 300 times faster than 28.8K dial-up modems and 70 times faster than paired 128-Kbps ISDN. ADSL is ushering in a new era of multimegabit access, satisfying today's desire for speed while paving the way for tomorrow's future interactive multimedia applications. ADSL has a number of benefits:
Copper bandwidth: ADSL exploits the unused spectrum capacity in ordinary phone lines, employing advanced modulation techniques to provide bigger, faster digital pipes for high-speed remote access. Hence ADSL can transmit at rates of up to 1.5 Mbps for distances of 18,000 feet and up to 8 Mbps for distances up to 12,000 feet.
Copper reuse: The installation, maintenance and operation of copper pairs has been the primary business of telcos for a long time and hence is well understood. By reusing the copper pair, ADSL enables telcos to capitalise on their existing investments and experience. This enables service providers to deploy ADSL technology more quickly. What's more, ADSL services can be rolled out on demand, subscriber by subscriber, as demand dictates
PSTN alleviation: ADSL will relieve congestion on voice telephony system increasingly bogged down by the growth of the Internet and long data transmissions. ADSL will enable carriers to offload data traffic onto a separate packet or cell-switched overlay network.
POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service): Because ADSL works in harmony with existing POTS services, the same copper pair can be used for both telephone and ADSL service. Thus, a single ADSL line offers simultaneous channels for PCs, TVs and telephones.
Other Access Technologies
ADSL is one of several access technologies which have emerged to support the requirement for high-speed local access. Direct broadcast satellite (DBS), cable modems and ISDN have all been offered as solutions, and each has its distinct advantages and disadvantages. These technologies are not necessarily mutually exclusive and very well may coexist, depending on user requirements.
DBS: DBS will typically provide a shared simplex bandwidth of about 30 Mbps downstream. Therefore although it may be suitable for some push-only services, it isn't a full service solution. There are a number of DBS-based Internet solutions which use DBS to deliver the data to the premises, but then uses the PSTN for the upstream direction. This once again means more data transmissions over the PSTN and insufficient upstream bandwidth for many services. ADSL can provide up to 8 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream on an exclusive, non-shared, basis.
Cable modems: Cable modems are similar in many ways to DBS providing a shared 30 Mbps downstream bandwidth. In the upstream direction they typically share out a 1 Mbps bandwidth between 1000 homes which gives each home an effective upstream bandwidth of 1 Kbps, far lower than conventional modems. Another significant problem is that cable modem plant is not normally full duplex which means that in order to deploy cable modems the operators have to upgrade their existing infrastructure, an expensive proposition and a new facet of operations with which cable modem operators must deal. ADSL plays to copper's strengths by reusing the plant and not interfering with existing services ‚ a double dip.
ISDN: ISDN provides a relatively small increase in bandwidth to 128 Kbps, best case, for a significant increase in complexity. In the United States, ISDN deployment continues to be painfully slow. One reason for this is that early on its life relevant standards were not in place. The result is a very complicated installation. The ADSL Forum is providing a fast track to standardisation for ADSL; Service providers, computer equipment companies and all major ADSL vendors are members working together to ensure that standards are in place for interoperable products.
ATM over ADSL for Multiple Service Delivery
ADSL and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) together provide an ideal solution for multiple service delivery. The ADSL Forum earlier this year approved a technical recommendation for running ATM traffic over ADSL modem links. Technical Report TR-002 helps pave the way for service providers who are eager to employ ADSL technology to offer high-speed access to the Internet and corporate networks‚while adding the virtual circuits and quality-of-service guarantees of ATM.
Most carriers would like data traffic to leave the customer site as ATM running over ADSL modem links, get aggregated via mutliplexers at the central offices and then dropped onto the high-speed ATM switching fabric. However, some providers favor other popular packet network protocols, such as Frame Relay, Ethernet, IP and IPX. To speed this process, the ADSL Forum's Technical Committee is organized into several working groups that will develop specifications for protocols for IP access and premises networks, outline network architectures and migration strategies and address issues of network management and ADSL testing.
ADSL, as its name implies, provides different rates in the upstream (from the premises) and downstream (to the premises) directions. This is, of course, ideally suited for the Internet as users will typically read far more than they deliver. However, ADSL is suited to far more than just casual Web browsing; businesses can use ADSL /ATM for all of their communications needs.
For the purposes of this paper, we will focus on running ATM traffic over ADSL modems. Businesses have a variety of communications needs: voice services, data services between sites, Internet access and video services. By using ADSL/ATM, carriers can provide all of these services with the necessary guarantees of quality. ATM simplifies telco infrastructure by enabling them to provision and manage a single network. This in turn reduces the amount of equipment and infrastructure that they have to maintain with consequent advantages for the consumers of the services.
ADSL-based networks are well suited for carrying ATM traffic, thus future-proofing ADSL technology for decades to come.
The services that businesses require have very different requirements and ATM serves these well:
Voice services: ATM can provision a constant bit rate (CBR) service with a guaranteed delay; the user hears good quality voice, without satellite type delays, and the telco does not have to add extra equipment, such as echo suppressors, to their network.
Data between sites: ATM provides a switched connection technology with flow control. Switched connections mean that users can separate private and public traffic on the same physical connection with the certainty that the two won't be mixed up. With flow control the user's data is delivered reliably from end to end without retransmissions. The result is higher throughput and lower costs: site to site communication will use services tariffed on a usage basis.
Internet access: ATM is already used by many companies for Internet access.
Video services: A growing number of companies are using video conferencing and video distribution in their business. Video quality is crucial. To provide constant video quality without annoying delays and resulting jerkiness, the network needs to support a guaranteed but variable bit rate. ATM has a variable bit rate (VBR) service which is designed to support this.
There are a number of competitive technologies to ATM for any one of these services but only ATM has been designed, from its inception, to support them all.
ADSL Deployment
The United States and Canada have had the widest press coverage for their ADSL trials and deployment. Many of the Baby Bells have had successful trials and are deploying now for ADSL service rollouts in early 1998.
The Asia Pacific region also have been leaders in this area. After a number of successful trials, ADSL deployment has already started for service rollout in the last quarter of this year. Korea and Singapore, for example, are well advanced in their deployment of ADSL. Korea Telecom has begun a pilot for their ADSL service in Pusan, the second largest city in Korea. The ADSL speed for the pilot is currently 4 Mbps downstream and 128 Kbps upstream, but this will be upgraded for the commercial roll-out. The first use of the service is high-speed Internet access but a major player in this project is a broadcasting company, and a video-on-demand service will be rolled out in future phases.
The first phase provides ADSL services to several hundred homes and offices. By the end of 1997, there will be about 3,000 end-points; 300,000 lines are expected to be deployed by the end of 1998. Recently, the Korean Minister of Communications announced that by the year 2002 there will be 3.5 million xDSL subscribers in Korea, with this number increasing to 5 million by 2005.
Singapore Telecom probably has the most aggressive ADSL rollout in the region. At Asia Telecom in June this year, Singapore's Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong launched the Singapore ONE network, which uses ADSL to provide high speed access to a public ATM backbone. The service, called Magix, is now available to Singaporeans.
Through Magix, the user can access the latest movies and news in addition to normal Internet access. There is also on-line shopping, games, music as well as a video enabled chat-line. About 500 homes and offices were using the service initially, and SingTel expects to have about 10,000 subscribers by the end of 1997 and about 80,000 by the end of 1998.
The core backbone of the Singapore ONE network, called 1-Net, is ATM based which enables multiple services to be supported over this single network (see Figure 1). In the access loop, ATM is carried over ADSL to support multiple service delivery to the homes, schools and businesses subscribing to the Magix service. The ADSL speed at roll-out is 5.5 Mbps downstream and 168 Kbps upstream, and the plan is to upgrade this to 8 Mbps and 1 Mbps respectively in the near future.
Other trials and pilots in the Asia Pacific region are shown in Table 1. ADSL is promising to be the access technology of choice for broadband services in this region as it allows the local telcos to begin deploying high value services with minimal capital investment.
Conclusion
As Ray Smith, CEO of Bell Atlantic, said "ADSL is an interim technology ‚ for the next forty years." From the telco's point of view, the broadband service allows equipment reuse, doesn't affect their existing offerings and enables them to genuinely offer a full range of communications based services. It's ideally suited for both residential and business customers with their widely different needs. By leveraging the world's nearly 700 million phone lines, ADSL offers the most viable option for providing virtually ubiquitous high-speed remote access and interactive multimedia transmission.
Martin Jackson is Technical Director for ATM Ltd and was recently elected to the Board of Directors for the ADSL Forum which is comprised of nearly 300 companies representing all sectors of the world's computer and communications industries.
10/97
Broadband Wars: Is ADSL Softbank's Waterloo?
Broadband competitors have taken hatchets to their standard charges since Softbank's Yahoo! BB slashed prices in a bid for market share in June. The price war has thrilled consumers and shaken investors -- and broadband providers aren't done yet. When the smoke clears, who will be left standing? Only one thing is clear: Faster, cheaper access to the Internet is a reality now in Japan.
By David McNeil
Date: December 2001 issue
URL: http://www.japaninc.net/mag/sub/2001/12/broadband.html
DESPITE THE SPUTTERING ECONOMY, the IT slowdown, and the sound of shutters rattling down on a thousand startups, at least one small corner of the business world is still firing on all engines -- Japanese broadband. Indeed, there has hardly been a dull moment since J@pan Inc looked at the subject in its June issue ("Mission Impossible? Do Japan's Broadband Upstarts Stand a Chance Against NTT?" page 48, June 2001).
Consider this: The number of broadband users in Japan -- defined loosely as anyone with high-speed, high-volume access to the Internet -- was expected to jump from about 700,000 in June to 2.6 million by the end of this year, and to grow to 3.5 million by the end of 2002, according to IDC Japan. The original starting lineup of cable companies and digital subscriber line (xDSL) providers has swollen with the addition of utility companies, television networks, and satellite content providers.
Back in June, we predicted a hard slog for the rash of broadband upstarts that have sprouted up since the end of 1999. The ink was barely dry before trailblazer Tokyo Metallic Commu-nications, with JPY4 billion in current liabilities, was swallowed up by Softbank.
Since then, NTT has forked out another JPY100 billion on its nationwide fiber-optic network, which it calls "the future of broadband."
But by far the biggest development since June has been Softbank's typically flamboyant entry into the market, when group company Yahoo! BB elbowed its way to the front with an ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line -- the domestic-use end of the xDSL spectrum) service for JPY2,280 per month, what Douglas Ramsey of Internet Business & Japan Affairs calls "the start of something special in Japan's Internet market."
At less than half the price of anything else in sight, the move sparked a price war and made what NTT technocrats dismiss as an "intermediate technology" the star of the broadband show. ADSL, says the Nikkei, has "graduated from venture to corporate business," and against all the odds, high-priced Japan now has the cheapest broadband services in the world.
Japan's long-suffering telecom users are of course delighted at this rare outbreak of cutthroat competition and have beaten a path to Yahoo! BB's door. The question is, can Yahoo -- or anyone -- make money from this technology? Like gawkers at a car wreck, nervous investors are trying to avert their eyes from the carnage in the US, where the major carriers are saddled with total debt of over $300 billion. "The top three startup ADSL companies in the US are all in bankruptcy court," says Thomas Rodes, a director at Nikko Salomon Smith Barney.
And what about Softbank itself? Is this expensive foray into broadband a smart, bold entrepreneurial ploy to corner a potentially lucrative market, or a desperate ploy by a group struggling to pull its rear out of the fire? Some observers believe it's the latter. "This is a very costly mistake that could pull down the whole group," claims Mark A. Berman, senior Japanese telecommunications analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston. Does Softbank know something we don't, or is it digging a hole for itself?
xDSL Takes Off
The cliche that the Japanese business world is slow to make decisions but catches up with lighting speed once it sets clear targets probably has some life left in it yet. Just two years ago the country was lagging at the back of the broadband pack, with limited and slow dialup ISDN services, a sluggish market, and some of the highest charges in the industrialized world.
Today, Japan still ranks well behind leaders like South Korea and Canada in the ratio of broadband connections to inhabitants (Nine in every 100 South Korean households have high-speed Internet access; Canada has just over four in 100; and Japan has less than one per 100). But there are a smorgasbord of sophisticated and inexpensive services being offered.
The choices are divided into a range of technologies: from ISDN, NTT's early expensive and -- at 64 Kbps -- decidedly pokey experiment, to cable radio company usen's 100-Mbps fiber-optic service, which the company rolled out in seven major cities in October following trials in Tokyo. In between, you can find up to two dozen xDSL providers offering speeds of between 1.5 and 52 Mbps (although the most common ADSL services operate at 1.5 Mbps).
Meanwhile, companies like usen, utilities such as Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), and cable outfits led by Microsoft subsidiary Jupiter Telecommunications and Tokyu Cable are using their own networks of fiber-optic backbone and fat coaxial cables to bypass the chokehold NTT still has on the nationwide infrastructure. Add to this fixed-line universe wireless alternatives like wireless LAN by SpeedNet (78 percentDowned by Tepco) and NTT DoCoMo 3G cellular, which wobbled off its launch pad in September, and the phrase "spoiled for choice" comes to mind.
We gave the cable companies, with their own infrastructure and bundled multimedia services, the edge in this flush market against NTT in our June piece, although we thought usen, which raised JPY43.2 billion (about half its annual income) in an April IPO, had a shot, too. Because firms using xDSL -- a generic term for a range of technologies that soup up standard copper telephone wires to provide high-speed digital communications -- must fight and then pay NTT for access to their network, they are at the mercy of the telecom behemoth, which still controls 95 percent of the country's lines. Moreover, while 1.5 Mbps might be considered reasonably fast now, alternatives like fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) may make this look obsolete very quickly, reinforcing a common industry view that this is merely a bridging technology.
All this, however, was before Softbank's bombshell. The firm announced its fixed-charge, always-on ADSL service of 8 Mbps through subsidiary Yahoo! BB in late June, at almost the same time it took over Tokyo Metallic's ADSL infrastructure and its 22,000 subscribers. (Softbank also previously bought Korea Thrunet, a South Korean broadband provider). At JPY2,280 a month, the charge was cheaper even than NTT's creaking ISDN service (JPY3,300), and the effect was immediate.
While the total number of ADSL subscribers in Japan had already shot up from 34,000 in February to 300,000 in late June, Softbank's move sent the numbers rocketing to 650,800 by the end of September. Once rosy predictions of 1 million subscribers by the end of the year no longer looked so far-fetched, and ADSL, once the poor cousin of broadband, suddenly became the flavor of the month.
Broadband competitors, already struggling with massive investment costs, were forced to take an ax to their standard charges. First to chop was Sony Communication Network Corp's So-net service, followed by NTT East and NTT West, cutting rates from JPY4,050 to JPY3,800 on July 16. Next came Nifty, NEC, and Tokai Broadband Communications (T-com) in August, followed by another cut by NTT's regional units to JPY3,100, effective October 1. The 240-odd cable companies that provide Net access also had to respond, and market leader Jupiter lowered its connection fees on September 1 to JPY5,800 from JPY6,500. Japan Cablenet subsequently slashed its fees by about 40 percent.
Most competitors took all this on the chin, but there were some testy comments. "Jupiter has no intention of plunging into endless price warfare," grumbled chairman and CEO Tsunetoshi Ishibashi. NTT East vice president Tetsuo Koga said, "It was definitely the lowest fee we can offer."
As prices have tumbled, speeds seem to have increased. So-net, Asahi Net, and access service provider eAccess claim to have upgraded their ADSL services to 8 Mbps to compete with Yahoo! BB, although there is much skepticism about their ability to deliver. "There are a lot of wild claims being made about access speeds," says Lincoln Owens, manager of the digital product department of cableco Jupiter.
"Most of the time these companies are talking about the physical speed that modems can handle rather than what customers actually get. There's no way the DSL people are getting 8 Mbps. The best they can get is 4, and that's only for a couple of thousand customers."
Despite admitting that Yahoo's initiative had pushed cable subscriptions down and forced an unexpected price cut, Owens thinks the long-term fallout from Yahoo's move is good for the broadband industry. "The customer benefits, and it forces providers to focus on attractive content. In the long run, if the big telcos take this as a spur to start providing cheaper, better broadband services, that means a great boost for people on the edges of the industry, even if some of us have to take a short-term hit in revenue." Of course, the cable industry, still the country's leading provider of broadband services with its own networks and an estimated subscriber base of 970,000 users, has its own reasons for sitting back and watching the DSL companies slug it out. But many DSL providers are also putting on a brave face. So-net's Tatsuya Inada says it has had a tremendous impact on the public and "put ADSL on the map." Eric Gan, chief operating officer of eAccess, agrees. "A year ago the trade magazines were full of articles about cable and FTTH. Now every one has ADSL on the cover," he says. "People now take it seriously, and subscriptions are growing fast. So it has created a lot of excitement. It's the sort of creative destruction that's good for the industry as a whole."
Maybe so. But is creative destruction good for individual ADSL providers? Given the US broadband slump and the likely shakeout to follow in Japan, Gan seems oddly relaxed, saying what differentiates his company from competitors is the financial discipline of being a "real venture capital company." Some have suggested, however, that eAccess may already be in trouble. In September, Japan Telecom took a 15 percent stake in the company for JPY4 billion, making it eAccess' largest shareholder. Berman of CSFB calls it a "ridiculous investment that saved eAccess but threw good money after bad." He is deeply pessimistic about the chances of any DSL broadband startup. "No one is going to end up making money except NTT when they mop up the mess in one to two years' time. The only companies who will do well are the people who have networks, because everyone else has to pay NTT for the backbone network, and that's very expensive."
Nor is Berman alone in his assessment that ADSL rests on rickety foundations in an industry prone to seismic shifts, and that Yahoo Japan is diving into a "losing" business. "ADSL technology is probably already obsolete," says Andy Suzuki, executive vice-president of Internet products at Tomen Cyber-business Solutions. "In the long run, FTTH will win out, and I think Cable TV and wireless will be niche winners."
There have already been casualties. Apart from Tokyo Metallic, Mitsui & Co. abandoned plans to enter the ADSL business in June, a year after setting up a joint venture called Garnet Connec-tions Planning with Rhythms NetConnections, Sumitomo, Cable and Wireless IDC, and others. "Unless you are a telecommunications operator, it's nearly impossible to make the huge investments required to compete," said Garnet's director at the time, Yoshiyuki Izawa. Given the widespread doubt about the ability of ADSL to weather the coming storms, many are wondering what exactly Softbank is up to.
The Devil is in the Detail
The strategy sounds simple. Yahoo Japan must sign up 2-3 million households, and will start to turn a profit with 1 million paying customers early next year, according to Masayoshi Son, president of Yahoo's parent company Softbank.
There is certainly demand, and, as Japan's largest Web portal operator with some 23 million visitors, there is little doubt Yahoo can snag customers. Son claims that about 200,000 households applied on opening day, and a Softbank spokesperson said in early October there were then about 810,000 signed contracts. Indeed, Son blamed the decision to delay Yahoo! BB's launch by one month until September 1 partly on having to handle the deluge of applications.
The move to broadband seems to make sense. "The com-pany can leverage its brand name and provide richer and more expensive content services with broadband," says Ben Wedmore, software and Internet analyst at HSBC Securities, and the whole venture might help the firm sell more hardware. Moreover, with slumping revenues in the firm's core advertising business, the firm has little choice but to diversify income.
The devil, as always, is in the detail. Yahoo's strategy depends on quickly renting or selling modems to customers and rolling out a complicated service with many working parts, all the time paying NTT East and West for the use of their backbone network while keeping investors on board as the money dribbles in. Costs are racking up -- JPY4 billion for Tokyo Metallic, some JPY8 billion for the Yahoo! BB launch, and about JPY10 billion on hardware. Subscriptions are coming in quickly, but "turning 800,000 subscribers into paying customers is not going to be easy," says Kirk Boodry, senior telecom analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.
The more Boodry and other analysts rummage around in the detail of Yahoo's costs and planning, the less they like what they see. Take the technology. The paper insulation on Japan's copper telephone wires means ADSL transmission requires special modems. Analysts say Yahoo balked at the cost and went for standard modems instead -- cheaper, yes, but storing up potential problems for later. The modems are either rented at JPY500 a month or bought for JPY22,800, and installation is free for the first 1 million subscribers. The danger is that customers will return the equipment after trying it out for free, leaving Yahoo stuck with a huge pile of outdated inventory. In addition, problems with reception might eat up revenue on servicing and maintenance. And all this is before giants like NTT and NEC start to really compete in the supply of possibly better, more reliable equipment and computers with built-in modems.
Berman of CSFB says the company's approach is not new. "Yahoo is trying to build up market share by using the old Internet model of building up its subscription base without considering cost. They are basically giving away equipment at about $130 to $150 each, and that doesn't include labor and servicing. Their revenue per month is only $19, and that includes the ISP charge."
Yahoo's internal accounting has also raised eyebrows. Softbank is buying the modems from Taiwanese manufacturer Ambit and selling them to Yahoo Japan, which then sells them on to Yahoo! BB. It's a costly bit of creative accounting that creates sales but leads to suspicions that Softbank is trying to sustain the image of Yahoo Japan as a high-growth company by giving Yahoo profits while pushing the costs elsewhere, according to HSBC's Wedmore. "Yahoo's profits are very open to question," he adds.
It is antics like this and what many see as the heavy hand of the parent behind Yahoo's recent activities that have made analysts suspicious. Nikko Salomon Smith Barney's Rodes says he only recently turned bearish on Yahoo stock. "Yahoo's problem now with the advertising slump is how to keep growth going, complicated by Softbank's ownership. Softbank has invested about $2.5 billion in 800 unlisted Internet companies, a large proportion in Japan. A lot of these businesses are tied up with online businesses, and many may not see the light of day if broadband does not go up. So I think Yahoo was called in by Masayoshi Son and told to get into this. Softbank is looked at as an investment firm. If Yahoo collapses, then Softbank collapses. Yahoo and Yahoo Japan are the jewels in the crown because they keep investors interested in the company while they wait for another hit somewhere."
CSFB's Berman agrees. "Not only are they not making any money in any other core business, but they are getting into this business which is losing. They are doomed to failure." Put all this together and it is clear how much is riding on the ADSL venture. If Yahoo can keep revenues flowing (it claimed 43 percent quarter-on-quarter growth in July-September) on the back of the Yahoo! BB income, while reducing its dependency on ads (down from about 95 percent in the first half of last year to 56.6 percent in the same period this year), the pack of cards might hold together. Certainly many are surprised by the interest shown so far in ADSL. But snags in technology, erosion of subscribers, or a trailing off in consumer interest could cause pain. And of course, once you start a price war, there's no telling where it will end. NTT Communications was set to introduce a JPY1,970 "debut price" on November 1, just edging out JPY1,980 offerings from KDDI and from telecommunications venture Wireless Internet Service. Without its own network, Yahoo has little room to maneuver and is forced to compete with ADSL rivals the only way it can -- on price.
Shareholders have not been encouraged. The price of Yahoo Japan stock dropped to its lowest level this year in September, 93 percent below the high of JPY167.9 million touched in February last year. Investors of course are only one side of the equation. Consumers are getting the deal of their lives, although it may be short-lived. After a couple of years of fierce price-cutting in the US, broadband costs have started to rise again. All it took was a shakeout and a slew of bankruptcies. @
Broadband Korea, Closer to the Future
By Shin Yun-Sik
President of Hanaro Telecom
In the 21st century in which knowledge and information are the sources of competitiveness, information technology will play a vital role in providing that competitiveness. In this light, I believe that the increasing usage of broadband Internet service, as shown in recent years, takes on major significance.
The world is now undergoing a digital revolution, which is the third social change in human history. The Internet in combination with the advances in digital technology has accelerated the pace of transformation of the resource-based economy, which centers around labor, land and capital, into the knowledge-based economy, which places emphasis on knowledge, information and culture.
The government came up with a national vision of an ``e-Korea,'' to become one of the ten leading nations in knowledge and information. Therefore, the government is endeavoring to speed up the use of the knowledge and information infrastructure and thus to strengthen competitiveness in the field of telecommunications services.
Thanks to the efforts of the government to build up an ``e-Korea'', the country has made world-class achievements in terms of wider use of the Internet, and especially broadband Internet.
The number of Internet users has increased steadily since 1994 when the service was first made available to the public. And this number has drastically increased for the last two years with the spread of broadband Internet and personal computers.
Korea has shown superior results over other countries in Internet usage, not only in quantity but also in quality.
In terms of monthly average page views and monthly usage time, the figure for Korea is double or three times as much as those from other countries.
Moreover, thanks to the spread of broadband Internet, Korea's usage ratio tops the world list when it comes to the use of bandwidth-intensive audio/video and gaming protocol.
In terms of the number of dot com domains registered, excluding the United States, Seoul ranks first among world cities, and by nation Korea ranks third place after Great Britain and Canada.
Furthermore, of the top 100 most viewed websites worldwide, quite a few Korean sites are included. In particular, a survey performed last September revealed that three Korean sites were included among the top 10 sites in the world.
The extensive use of the Internet in Korea has triggered drastic changes in a wide spectrum of human activities in the political, economic and social arenas. From an economic standpoint, the e-commerce sector has been quite active.
From the consumers' standpoint, the Internet brought easier access to information on consumer goods, while bringing down consumer purchase prices from a larger number of suppliers. This has given consumers a stronger voice and more buying choices.
In other areas, such as social, cultural, political and government administration, the Internet has made it possible for providing various services transcending traditional concept of time and space.
One of the characteristics of Korea's broadband Internet market is that it has grown rapidly with the ADSL technology.
In Korea, broadband access services are offered by a number of access providers using a variety of last mile technologies that include ADSL, CATV and B-WLL. As of May 2001, 55 percent of the total broadband Internet users have chosen ADSL and this percentage is projected to go up as time goes by.
How could the broadband Internet service turn out to be so successful in Korea in a short period of less than 3 years?
First of all, let us look at the supply side. The tariff rate is one of the lowest in the world. In Korea, ADSL service is offered at the price rate of $30 dollars per month.
Second, we have a large number of Internet cafes. Internet cafes started sprouting up all over South Korea in 1999 and now we have over 20 thousands of them across the country.
Young people were able to get their first taste of the fascinating speed of the broadband Internet through a wide range of multimedia games.
Third, there has been a noticeable change in the pattern of economic activities. The drastic increase in the number of people using online systems for stock trading and banking transaction are but a few examples.
Looking at the demand side, first, you may be interested to know that the country's unique housing environment has been the first element that has contributed to the growth of the broadband Internet service.
As over 70 percent of the total population of the country live in the seven largest cities including Seoul, Internet access providers were able to focus on the high demand areas in their initial network deployment.
Moreover, the high ratio of large apartment complexes in the major cities has facilitated the deployment of fiber optic network and ADSL service.
Second, The demand for the wide spectrum of multimedia contents ranging from VOD to video chatting increased drastically among young people.
We have particularly noted that certain multimedia/network games such as Starcraft accelerated the pace of diffusion of the broadband Internet.
The government's strong policy drive for promotion of the Internet service and its positive measures to guarantee fair competition has contributed significantly to the spread of the broadband Internet.
In an effort to construct a nationwide broadband Internet infrastructure, the government completed in the year 2000 the deployment of the broadband backbone network that linked the whole country. It also linked up all the public agencies and schools with fiber optic cables.
In addition, the government has cleared up all the legal and other regulatory obstacles to information-oriented society, thereby paving the way for spreading the Internet.
The government has also endeavored to promote the IT industry and to put computers and the Internet to a wider use. Most important of all is the introduction of competition in the broadband Internet market.
It was on the strength of the government's consistent policy toward liberalization that Hanaro Telecom came into being in 1997 as the second local exchange carrier of the country.
During the initial preparatory period of one and a half years, we came to realize that the voice market had reached a saturation point and, therefore, Hanaro Telecom should set its goal on the data market instead, which was then an untapped market.
This is how Hanaro Telecom concentrated its efforts on the ADSL-based broadband Internet market and, succeeded in commercializing for the first time in the world the ADSL service, thereby building the inertia for creating a boom in the broadband Internet.
In tandem with the expansion of the broadband Internet, we are facing a number of counter effects of informatization, and it is expected that they will get worse as society becomes more digitally sophisticated.
Cases of privacy invasion and circulation of unhealthy information are on the rise, and cyber terrors such as dissemination of viruses and hacking are increasing.
On the other hand, however, we are faced with the problem of digital divide and it is incumbent upon us to solve it.
The Digital divide deteriorates the rich-get-richer and the poor-get- poorer phenomenon existing between social strata, regions, and generations.
It has been revealed that people in the low income brackets, those whose age is 50 or above, farmers and fishermen, housewives, and the handicapped are comparatively less fortunate in gaining access to information and in developing their ability to make use of computers.
The government should play an important role here to minimize the impacts of these problems. The government should readjust various laws and regulations in such a way as to avoid excessive competition and the resultant overlapping of investments, as well as prevent any counter effects that may be brought about as a consequence of the wider use of the Internet.
2001/10/28 16:54
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Samsung’s Boundaries in the Asia Pacific
Aug 24, 2001
Samsung will jump to the dominant position in the Asia-Pacific Broadband Market
Taipei, Taiwan, 24 Aug. 2001 – Samsung Electronics unfolds its aggressive plan to expand and establish itself as the premier provider of Broadband Network Equipment in the Asia Pacific Region. As a leading telecommunications equipment supplier in the world’s largest and leading Broadband market, Korea, Samsung would like to contribute to the growth of Broadband Network in Asia by exporting its advanced technology, along with implementation and operational expertise in the Broadband arena, to the rest of Asia.
Samsung strongly foresees that the Asia Pacific Region can be the next prosperous market for broadband services. Recent press releases about huge DSL investment from Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia and China prove the bright future of Asia’s broadband market. So, Samsung is very confident for broadband network deployment in the Asian market.
Samsung hopes to use leverage on their strong customer base in Korea to aggressively expand their market share in the rest of Asia. Earlier this year, Samsung again won the tender for Korea Telecom for 609,000 ADSL (DSLAM & CPE), which valued at US$80 million as the single largest ADSL contract in Korea. As a result, Samsung expects to supply approximately 2,000,000 ADSL CPE & DSLAM shipments by the end of 2001.
By leveraging its leading position in the Korean market, Samsung’s plan is to penetrate the high-traffic centres in Asia Pacific, starting from Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. From these high traffic centres, Samsung will expand throughout the rest of the region to India as well as Australia.
As its first strategic step in the Asia Pacific Region, Shanghai Telecom, China, has selected Samsung as their DSL system vendor in February 2001, with a deal supplying 100,000 lines of ADSL systems in this year alone. In the year 2002, Samsung is expected to supply another 400,000 lines to China. Samsung is also currently providing ADSL systems in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui provinces, and is expanding to major cities including Beijing, Tianjin, Henan and Guangdong.
Samsung’s market-proven products’ suites including its brand new Multi-DSLAM, AceLink™ are being introduced at Booth #1134 during the Taipei Telecom 2001, Taiwan.
AceMapTM is Samsung’s solution to the goal of a single network for voice, data, and broadband traffic. The AceMap™ operates as a DSLAM, 3G DLC, or VoP Gateway on a single multi-service access platform. This integrated solution gives service providers a competitive advantage by simplifying installation and OAM activities.
As a part of the Samsung’s AceMapTM family, the AceLinkTM Multi-DSLAM delivers high-speed data and voice simultaneously over existing copper wires. Samsung’s AceLink TM, as the optimum vehicle for high-speed data and voice service, will be gaining the most prominence from global Telco’s with its technical excellence. The AceLinkTM Multi-Service DSLAM provides xDSL services such as ADSL (G.dmt/G.lite), SHDSL, VDSL, VoDSL, CVoDSL, and embedded VoDSL/CVoDSL Gateway function with Remote Management and One-Click Provisioning features
Samsung’s B-AceNet™ broadband access network solution allows network operators to provide an Integrated Access Platform (IAP) through cost-effective, xDSL services on the single platform. B-AceNet™ offers flexibility and fast implementation time for the market for new network operators and Internet service providers who wish to provide a range of high speed, integrated services for their customers. The B-AceNetTM supports xDSL access service including full rate ADSL, G.Lite and SHDSL as well as VDSL. Additionally legacy POTS, ISDN basic and primary rate access and any V5.x or GR303 interfaces are offered as well.
Is Samsung going to redraw its boundaries?
Definitely, its answer is Yes, but it is just beginning. With Samsung’s commitment to R&D and its outgrowths as stated above, Samsung has grown tremendously in the past year. Samsung is very confident that the company will continue to increase its premier position in the Asia Pacific DSL market and will become a world top player in the broadband access arena. So, what are Samsung’s boundaries?
About Samsung Electronics Co.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., with a sales revenue of US$ 27.2 billion in the year 2000, is a world leader in the electronics industry. Samsung has operations in 50 countries with more than 54,000 employees worldwide. The company consists of three main business units: Semiconductors, Digital Media and Information & Telecommunications.
Samsung's network systems in its Information & Telecommunications Business Unit can provide the total solution to operators with various products; CDMA mobile network systems, various wired and wireless access network applications (DSL, Integrated Access Platform), ATM and even fiber optic cable and devices. For more information, please visit our web site, http://www.samsungnetwork.com.
korea vod\\TCC=SK\\ncube + TW/RNWK
nCUBE Chosen by The Contents Company to Provide VOD Solutions
SAN FRANCISCO and SEOUL, Sept 11, 2001 - nCUBE Corporation and The Contents Company (TCC), a Korea-based interactive television (iTV) service provider, today announced that the two companies entered into an agreement involving plans for TCC's purchase and licensing of video-on-demand (VOD) equipment, software and services from nCUBE. TCC will deploy an IP-based iTV service to residential subscribers in Korea using a state-of-the-art fiber-to-the-curb (FTTC) architecture. The initial commercial deployment for up to 20,000 subscribers will take place in early 2002. Currently, there are 6.5 million homes in Korea with access to broadband services.
"Korea's fiber network infrastructure is one of the most sophisticated in the world and boasts the largest number of IP broadband users" said Dr. Jae Soo Cho, president and chief executive officer, The Contents Company. "As an innovative company at the forefront of new technologies, we look forward to working with nCUBE to offer true video-on-demand as part of our IP interactive television service."
"We look forward to continuing our work with TCC and applaud their efforts to provide an extensive interactive TV offering in Korea," said Michael Pohl, president, nCUBE. "This agreement demonstrates Korea's continuing push forward with VOD rollouts and we are proud that TCC recognizes nCUBE's strength in delivering VOD over IP networks."
TCC plans to offer residents in next-generation cyber-apartment complexes an interactive package consisting of live broadcast channels, near video-on-demand (NVOD), video-on-demand (VOD), television time-shifting, an electronic programming guide (EPG), e-mail, Internet access to partner sites and television commerce (t-commerce) applications.
nCUBE will provide TCC its n4 streaming media appliance, which will allow subscribers to view a wide range of on-demand television and movie options with full VCR functionality, including pause, rewind and fast-forward capability. The n4 leads the market in both of the areas that matter most to broadband service providers - throughput and scalability. nCUBE's unique hypercube interconnect architecture provides unmatched scalability, reliability and flexibility for applications such as broadband VOD, NVOD, television time-shifting, network personal video recording (nPVR). The hypercube offers the only approach that allows systems to scale from a single server to hundreds of servers without requiring content replication.
About nCUBE
nCUBE (www.ncube.com) provides scalable streaming media solutions to all broadband networks. Broadband operators worldwide count on nCUBE to provide solutions for broadband video-on-demand, IP streaming media and advertising insertion.
The company's core product line, the n4 streaming media appliance, can scale from 100 megabits per second to 128 gigabits per second of streaming media from a single system. nCUBE systems are used by today's leading interactive television companies. nCUBE's distinguished customer and partner list includes: Alcatel, AT&T, Bertelsmann, Enron Broadband Services, Cisco Systems, Charter Communications, Gemstar-TV Guide, Liberate, Motorola, Scientific-Atlanta, RealNetworks, Telewest Communications and Time Warner. nCUBE is a contributing member of numerous industry forums and standards bodies including the ISO/IEC MPEG committee, Digital Video Broadcasting, Society of Cable Television Engineers and Internet Engineering Task Force. The company is based in Foster City, Calif., with sales and customer support offices in Colorado, Oregon, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and China.
About The Contents Company
The Contents Company is a subsidiary of the SK Group, one of the largest and most widely respected conglomerates in Korea. The company was incorporated on July 25, 2001 with a mission to aggressively develop innovative, next-generation services for IP broadband networks. Through the development of an IP service platform, The Contents Company is looking to provide compelling, entertaining multimedia content to SK's vast customer base.
SK Group is comprised of several member organizations, all leaders in their respective industries. SK's corporate arm, SK Corporation, operates and owns Korea's largest chemical and gas distribution network. In telecommunications, SK Telecom is the leader in mobile communications, having the largest number of mobile phone subscribers in Korea. For more information on SK, please visit www.sk.co.kr.
Palm to Release New System Software This Summer
Tue Feb 5, 5:43 PM ET
SAN JOSE (Reuters) - Palm Inc., the leading maker of handheld computers and software, on Tuesday said its software unit plans to deliver later this summer a faster, more secure version of its operating system, which will enable device makers to build enhanced screens and audio qualities.
Audio/Video
Bear downgrades PALM to Neutral, lowers target to $3 - (ON24)
PalmSource, Palm's software division, said it has released to developers preliminary copies of Palm OS 5, which will be used with ARM-compliant chips, made by semiconductor makers such as Intel Corp., Motorola Inc. and Texas Instruments Inc.
Palm's OS 5 marries the Palm platform with ARM core-based processing architecture, a powerful handheld computing standard of Britain's ARM Ltd. The architecture is used in so-called "smart" phones, Web browsers, and other devices.
The move follows Palm's previously stated plan to allow hardware manufacturers to create more innovative devices to run on the Palm OS operating system, as well as spurring companies to build more advanced applications for the devices.
Analysts says the new software should help Palm better compete with Microsoft Inc., maker of PocketPC software. While the vast majority of handhelds run on Palm's software, many corporate users desire PocketPC-based models, which generally boast greater computing power and audio and visual tools.
That is significant because corporate users tend to pay more for their devices, at a higher profit margin, and often order additional software and services.
"Palm's migration to ARM is critical to meeting the Microsoft PocketPC threat and we expect Palm to roll out ARM-based PDAs while maintaining comparatively lower ASPs (Average Selling Prices) than PocketPC vendors," said UBS Warburg analyst Don Young, in a note to clients.
Palm said the new operating system brings to mobile handheld devices 128-bit systemwide data-encryption security services, the ability to record sound and play CD-quality digital audio, support for higher screen resolution, and advanced wireless options including 802.11b for connections to wireless Local Area Networks.
Music Exec: Forget Piracy, Think Quality Online Service
By Michael Bartlett, Newsbytes
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A.
05 Feb 2002, 2:07 PM CST
Record labels would be well advised to stop focusing on theft and develop a compelling online music delivery service that consumers will pay for, one music executive said today.
Steven Sheiner, chief revenue officer for Vivendi Universal Net USA, gave a keynote speech addressing digital music issue on the second day of the Digital Media Summit conference in Los Angeles.
"My title developed because we are trying to find revenue online," he told the audience at the Wyndham Bel Age Hotel. "The Internet is still between a medium and a technology. There has never been one clear direction."
The key question, he said, is making Internet content distribution a relevant part of the music business.
"There are no great successes yet in digital music," said Sheiner. "The Internet is a marvelous technology for gathering large audiences or for changing other businesses. The problem is, we want the Internet to be TV, but it won't be TV until we have broadband."
When people use electricity, they simply flip the switch, he said. When the lights come on, no one wonders if the power was generated by coal, nuclear or some other source.
"Eventually, the Internet will be the same way. People will get it on their PDA, or their cell phone at the beach, or whatever, without thinking about where it came from.
"The Internet by itself is only one part of a complete puzzle," he continued. "Eventually, different devices will be used to get on to the Internet - but it's all about content."
Another large piece of the puzzle is advertising, Sheiner said. Ads are needed to pay for content, so the key is figuring out how to get advertisers to pay to support it. Since consumers have the ability to avoid advertising; how do you get them to view or listen to ads?
"We really are going to have to figure out how to match advertising with consumers. It is the same thing that has been going on for the last 100 years," he said.
Sheiner suggested that a fast-food restaurant like McDonald's could have an online content tie-in. When consumers pay an extra 75 cents to "super-size" their meals, they will get a code to punch in at the McDonald's Web site to download a song or some other content.
"You cannot turn everything into a subscription, because consumers won't pay an unlimited amount," he said. "The average household only spends about $80 per year on music."
Sheiner predicted more people will pay money to receive ad-free content. He said many of his friends make their rent every month selling items on Ebay. "You will see more cottage industries like this in the future," he said.
According to Sheiner, who formerly worked at MP3.com, that company's founder Michael Robertson did not set out to be a "new music" site geared toward unsigned bands. However, the major record labels refused to give MP3.com access to major-label artists' works.
"They didn't want to get involved in digital distribution. So Michael got content from independent artists who didn't have recording contracts," he said. "In the future, you might see more artists selling direct to consumers."
Online music distribution faces many challenges as it tries to create sound business models, but Sheiner said too much time is spent worrying about one problem - security. He said there is no way to make music files completely theft-proof. Instead, Sheiner recommended a different tack.
"Don't focus on security; instead think about creating products consumers want and the other issues will go away," he said. "You need to do something to make consumers pay for it. Make it so good it is not in their best interest to take it for free.
"If you ask most people who use peer-to-peer networks, they say they are a lousy experience," Sheiner continued. "If it weren't free, people wouldn't use it. In a clothing store there are anti-theft tags on clothes, but only 1 to 2 percent of people steal. If the tags were not there, most of us would stop at the register to pay.
"Don't focus on the small overall percentage of people who will steal and lose focus on what is important. If consumers get something of value; if they get a compelling service, then they will pay."
Sheiner recalled the early days of cable television, when the primary purpose was getting reception of TV stations in areas that could not get over-the-air stations clearly. After a while, he said, more channels – ultimately many more channels – were added.
"With music, you have to get the songs to all of the different devices. Eventually, a service that delivers music will have value," he said.
Digital Media Summit, which will examine the state of digital media and how technology is or is not enabling the medium, is produced by Michael and Zahava Stroud. The Strouds also produce the iHollywood Forum, which sponsors monthly discussions about the impact of the Internet, wireless devices and other emerging technologies on the entertainment business. The summit ends today.
More information on Digital Media Summit is available on the Web at http://www.digitalmediasummit.com .
The iHollywood Forum is online at http://www.ihollywoodforum.com .
Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com .
rememberFF/RP talking uo LHSP:PRONOUNCED TECHNOLOGIES LICENSES LERNOUT & HAUSPIE'S AUTOMATIC SPEECH RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY FOR AUDIONAV™MOBILE NAVIGATION UNIT
VAN NUYS, California, March 10, 1999 — Pronounced Technologies, the developer of the world's first portable voice-interactive vehicle navigation system, has entered into a licensing agreement with Lernout & Hauspie (L&H™) to incorporate L&H's Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology into the AudioNav™ portable navigation unit.
Pronounced Technologies will integrate L&H's ASR technology into the AudioNav's smart chip, enabling full speaker-independent voice control and operation of the navigation unit. The design of a smart chip with ASR will enable the AudioNav to translate spoken input to text strings.
"L&H's technology is the perfect engine for our AudioNav," said Zaya Younan, president and CEO of Pronounced Technologies. "We have customized their state-of-the-art speaker-independent technology and applied it to a compact and user-friendly navigation system. Our AudioNav marks a major breakthrough in the mobile navigation industry by meeting the consumer's demand for a navigation unit that's portable and affordable."
"We see the automotive industry as a key market for L&H's broad array of speech technology. Speech provides a convenient and safe interface enabling drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road," said Patrick De Schrijver, president of L&H's speech and language technologies and solutions division. "The agreement with Pronounced Technologies and the integration of L&H's speech technology into quality products such as AudioNav strengthens our position in this growing automotive market."
The AudioNav is a navigation unit and portable music disc player that relies on voice commands for navigation operation and music disc player functioning. The portable unit will be the most compact and affordable of its kind. The portable AudioNav and an in-dash navigation system with Global Positioning System (GPS) and a wireless connection will both be available this spring.
Pronounced Technologies is a leading developer and manufacturer of speaker-independent voice-interactive systems, designing the world's first easy-to-use and low-cost voice-interactive mobile navigation system, enhancing the safety and convenience of consumers. The company's management and engineering team focuses on the development of consumer applications for their patented voice-interactive technology.
murgirl--Pronounced licensed LHSP's technology
Patent Holders Hire Lovely Rita Meter Maid
By Mark Long -- e-inSITE, 2/4/2002
Video codec manufacturers and streaming service providers have been put on notice by MPEG LA, which has announced the licensing terms governing the use of the MPEG-4 visual patent portfolio.
A single-license agreement was announced last week that identifies a total of eighteen companies that stand to derive incalculable financial benefits from the worldwide rollout of video streaming technologies and services based on the MPEG-4 compression standard: Canon, France Telecom, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Hyundai Curitel, KDDI, Matsushita Electric, Microsoft, Mitsubishi Electric, Oki Electric, Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sanyo Electric, Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha, Sony, Telenor, Toshiba and Victor Company of Japan.
"The MPEG-4 (Visual) Patent Portfolio License manifests their desire to partner with other industry participants to encourage widespread adoption of MPEG-4," said MPEG LA Chief Executive Officer Baryn S. Futa in a prepared statement. "The patent owners understand the risks inherent in a startup technology in which companies large and small are asked to make a pioneering investment and are sensitive to the role that their licensing model will play in that process. Therefore, the License has been specially designed so that reasonable royalties are shared fairly by a variety of industry participants in order to stimulate early, rapid and widespread MPEG-4 product investment, development, deployment and use."
According to MPEG LA, the objective of the License is to include as much essential MPEG-4 Visual (Simple and Core) intellectual property as possible in one license for the convenience of all users. In addition, new patent holders and their essential patents will continue to be added following a determination of essentiality. The only question is, just how will MPEG LA go about slapping a meter on the tremendous flow of streaming video that is already thuderously roaring around the globe via the Internet? MPEG LA's lovely Rita Meter Maid no doubt already has the hearts of patent holders palpitating. Considering the potentially vast amount of money involved, however, someone is sure to come up with a metering system with the right stuff.
Under the new License terms, MPEG-4 licensees will have to pay the following royalty rates for implementing either simple or core MPEG-4 Products in either hardware or software:
US $0.25 per decoder for a license to make and sell and for personal use in receiving "private" video (i.e., not video for which a service provider or content owner receives remuneration as a result of offering/providing the video for viewing or having the video viewed), subject to a cap of $1,000,000 per year/per legal entity.
US $0.25 per encoder for a license for personal use only to create private video data (i.e., not video for which a service provider or content owner receives remuneration as a result of offering/providing the video for viewing or having the video viewed), subject to a cap of $1,000,000 per year/per legal entity.
US $0.00033/minute or portion (equivalent to US $0.02/hour) based on playback or otherwise normal running time for every stream, download or other use of MPEG-4 video data in connection with which a service provider or content owner receives remuneration as a result of offering or providing the video for viewing or having the video viewed. To be paid by entities that disseminate the MPEG-4 video data, this royalty is not subject to a cap.
US $0.00033/minute or part (equivalent to US $0.02/hour) based on playback or otherwise normal running time of MPEG-4 video data encoded (for other than personal use) on each copy of packaged medium. This royalty, to be paid by the packaged medium replicator, is also not subject to a cap.
For one year from the start date of the license program, parties that sign the license will be forgiven their payment of royalties for all MPEG-4 Visual Simple and Core products during as well as prior to the inception of the one-year period. The initial term of the License, which MPEG LA says has not yet been finalized, will be subject to renewal on reasonable terms and conditions over the useful life of any of the patents in the Portfolio.
SanDisk takes SD to 256 MB
By: Jørgen Sundgot, 06.02.02 14:32
The Secure Digital (SD) expansion format has grown very popular both in Palm OS and Pocket PC devices, and users will soon be able to store 256 MB of data on a single card.
SanDisk has introduced its new 256 MB SD Card, capable of storing approximately up to eight hours of digital music, more than 80 minutes of MPEG-4 video or more than 250 high-resolution digital images. The new card doubles the capacity of SanDisk's highest capacity SD Cards currently shipping at 128 MB.
SanDisk's new 256 MB SD Card offers plenty of storage in a small package
Bo Ericsson, vice president of OEM product marketing at SanDisk, said, "The growing popularity of consumer electronics devices that require considerable storage capacity such as digital video camcorders, digital cameras, handheld computers, audio players and cells phones is expected to fuel the demand for high capacity SD Cards. Indeed, the SD Card is already emerging as a universal mechanism to store and transfer images, video, audio and data between these various platforms."
The SD Card is a flash memory storage device with built-in security functions designed to facilitate the secure exchange of content between devices and the card. It is 32 millimeters (mm) long, 24mm wide and 2.1mm thick, and according to numbers from the SD Association, more than 100 products with slots for the card have been introduced.
The 256MB SanDisk SD Card uses a 1-gigabit (1Gbit, or 1024Megabit) NAND flash memory chip, the next generation of flash memory that effectively doubles the amount of storage capacity in these flash memory cards. It is based on the patented multi-level cell (MLC) technology pioneered by SanDisk that allows two bits of data to be stored in one memory cell, doubling memory capacity.
The commercialization of NAND MLC flash is considered a critical step to expand existing markets and enable new markets for flash memory data storage by not only SanDisk but other manufacturers as well.
SanDisk is currently shipping 8, 16, 32, 64 and 128MB SD cards. The 256MB SanDisk SD Card will be available in the first quarter of 2002 and is expected to sell for approximately $199 USD
Personal Voice Assistants
Personal digital assistants will soon take dictation, says Tom Houy, manager of client systems marketing for IBM Voice Systems. IBM has the technology to voice-enable PDAs, and Houy himself uses a prototype that lets him talk through its functions. He expects manufacturers to bring the personal voice assistant to market this year and estimates that a PVA attachment will probably cost $150 to $250, while a built-in mechanism will increase the cost of a PDA by about $100.
Palm has struck a deal with Delphi and the Mayfield Fund to offer MobileAria, a hookup that will connect PDAs and cell phones to car audio equipment. Available later this year, this system will allow the user to voice-activate all of the Palm's functions—and then some. "As you're driving along, you can say, 'Tell me my schedule for the rest of the day,' and it will retrieve that information from the Palm and read it aloud over the stereo system," Vonder Heide says. "You could then say, 'Call John Smith,' and it will look up the number and place the call over your cell phone."
http://www.worth.com/content_print/winter_talking_to_machines.html.
Dashboard of the future
On-line services in your car
March 30, 2001 -- Motorola calls it iRadio telematics system "the dashboard of the future." It provides:
Server-based navigation for real-time route-planning and instruction
"Genre" music-on-demand
User-specific news, stock portfolio updates, and infotainment options
Address-book updates and inquiries
Hands-free telephony services and voice mail/e-mail access
Secure e-commerce transactions
The iRadio system interface uses advanced voice recognition and text-to-speech technologies to allow drivers to activate the features while keeping their eyes on the road. In addition, the iRadio system can use Bluetooth technology to synchronize with a multitude of personal electronic devices, including cellular phones, PDAs, and pagers.
===========================================
Bluetooth and Speech Recognition A Natural Marriage?
Tom Houy, Manager of Client Voice Systems IBM
The convergence of computing and communications is upon us.
Both voice recognition and Bluetooth are expected to be key enablers of this convergence by solving a major ease of use obstacle for mobile end-users. IBM Voice Systems offer "distributed voice" and is currently the only company that can distribute voice processing throughout an end-to-end mobile solution. Mobile devices range from a simple cellular telephone, to a handheld digital computing device, to full-fledged server computers. The software runs the gamut from real-time operating systems, speech browsers and Java, to server operating systems such as Linux. All of this enables applications to be scaleable across many device types and software platforms. Bluetooth technology makes voice-enabled mobile applications easier to use and will accelerate the use of voice recognition in mobile devices.
upcoming conference--August 16-17, 2001
3:45 Bluetooth Wireless Technology & Speech Recognition - A Natural Marriage?
Voice and Bluetooth wireless technology enable the broad deployment of mobile e-business solutions
The concepts of Distributing Voice Recognition in applications and how Bluetooth wireless technology benefits
Building an end-to-end mobile solution using Voice and Bluetooth wireless technology
Tom Houy
Manager, Client Marketing
http://www.worldrg.com/it109/.
Voice recognition is a must-have item on next-generation portables
Richard Nass, Editor-in-Chief
There are different ways to implement voice recognition, either in hardware, in software, or with a combination. Choosing the right method depends on the application.
Voice recognition offers the ideal input solution for a small form-factor device—if it works properly. Unfortunately, that's not always the case. For lots of reasons, voice recognition hasn't panned out to be an end-all for input. In some cases, it adds to the cost of the system. In other cases, it changes the form factor to be something that's not as user-friendly as it could be. And in other cases, it just flat out doesn't work.
There are different types of voice-recognition solutions available. Some are software only (running on the host CPU), while others contain their own specialized hardware. For the software-only versions, some recent developments make those more attractive, for two reasons. One is that the CPUs in general have more horsepower to handle the application software, and second, some of the microprocessors are putting in special hooks to handle the recognition.
One example of the processor that had voice recognition in mind during the design process comes from Analog Devices. The company's Frio DSP was co-developed with Intel.
"Historically, we've seen 16-bit CPUs used in speech-recognition systems," says Ken Weurin, a DSP product manager at Analog Devices. "Our offering is better for a number of reasons, including a significant increase in performance, and the hardware hooks for OS support."
The Frio DSP core could be used in either speaker-dependent or -independent voice-recognition systems, with continuous- or isolated-word engines. This provides the maximum flexibility for designers (Fig. 1).
"On the performance side, there's twice the amount of computational resources on the Frio core as was included in our previous architecture," continues Weurin. "So we have the ability to more efficiently compute fast FIR FFT convolutional calculations, which are at the heart of speech-recognition algorithms."
Having a high-end CPU allows designers to move to more phonetic or phoneme syllable-based recognition models. This should provide a boost to the accuracy of the recognition.
Equally important on the hardware side is the ability to remove the microcontroller that resides alongside the DSP in most systems. Often, an 8-bit microcontroller is used to handle some of the general housekeeping and I/O functions for which the DSP isn't well suited. Higher end DSPs, like the Frio or the 55X family from Texas Instruments, have enough computational power to eliminate that component. Some features that make this possible include memory protection, MMUs, and support for user and supervisor modes.
The benefit of using a single processor (and just one programming model) is that the development doesn't require two sets of development tools. It also doesn't require the designer to have the knowledge of two different instruction sets.
IBM, one of the leaders in voice-recognition technology, developed a product that runs on a host processor. The software-only solution, called ViaVoice, requires just 5 MIPS from the processor, although if more computer performance is available, it can take advantage of that as well.
"One of our big markets is the telematics (automobile) area," says Ken Houy, a marketing manager for client systems at IBM. "From a voice perspective, it's a hot market because of government regulations and for ease of use. Voice will be a key interface for getting to any of the devices that are running in your car, whether it's a phone; the automobile monitoring and calling back to a service vendor; or being able to interface with your PDA sitting in your briefcase, maybe through a Bluetooth connection."
The folks at IBM claim that their software can be ported to any available mainstream microprocessor or operating system. This lets them "voice-enable" just about any type of portable system, which includes a long list of future Internet-enabled products, such as smart phones and cell phones with browsing capabilities.
One of the features of the ViaVoice solution is that it offers distributed technology, meaning that the processing requirements can be split between the client (portable) device and the server end. For example, some of the recognition can occur directly in the phone, like address or number look-up, or simple dial functions. At the server end, more sophisticated features can be implemented, like dictation or database features.
Another key feature of distributed technology is that if a phone connection is lost, the recognition can continue to occur within the client. When the connection is reestablished, the process can continue almost seamlessly. If it were a server-only solution, the user would have to start the process over from the beginning.
In the telematics area, Motorola is expected to release its iRadio Internet radio solution by the end of the year. The company claims that this is a complete system, including such features as phone, Internet access, directory dialer, and address book (Fig. 2). It handles the voice recognition using IBM's ViaVoice product, which adds the ability to send and receive e-mail by having it read to the user. Sony and JVC will follow shortly with similar products.
Accuracy counts
Accuracy has always been the sticking point for voice recognition, at least from the user's perspective. If the device can't accurately understand the message the user is trying to convey, the application becomes useless. In most cases, the portable system won't be used for dictation, simply because the processing power isn't available. The voice-recognition features offered on a portable device are more likely to be along the lines of command recognition, where a finite list of commands are used. Recognizing on the order of 20 words isn't difficult for the system to handle.
Used in systems where performance is limited is a tree model, where trigger words access other vocabularies. For example, a phone can offer 10 finite commands, things like dial, look-up, hang up, etc. If the look-up command is entered, this would trigger a secondary vocabulary that contains all the numbers stored in the directory to be accessed. Or if the command was "manual dial," the ten digits on the keypad become the active words. This process allows the use of relatively large vocabularies, but with a minimal use of processor power.
There are some vendors that offer hardware solutions as well, such as Sensory. The company can embed a low-power processor into a portable device that removes the recognition burden from the host (Fig. 3). If the processing power is available, Sensory can bundle a software-only platform.
"Our software-only solution subscribes to the theory that as MIPS and memory get cheaper, software-only makes more sense in embedded systems," says Todd Mozer, president and CEO of Sensory.
This is particularly true when you can maintain a small footprint for the software.
Hardware vs. software
When deciding how to partition between what's handled in hardware and what's done in software, know that it's very application dependent. For example, today's cell phones contain relatively powerful DSPs, as well as a microcontroller, a codec, and a relatively large amount of memory. This application is one that makes sense for a software-only solution, for two reasons—adding extra silicon increases both cost and size.
Using dedicated hardware could probably reduce the overall power consumption in the system, because it eliminates having to crank up the powerful DSP every time a word needs to be recognized. But the current crop of DSPs does a fairly good job of employing only the cycles that are needed. And the added cost versus the incremental savings in battery life probably wouldn't merit going with the hardware solution.
"We're excited about some of the new processors that are coming out, from Analog Devices, Intel, and TI, with their OMAP (Open Multimedia Applications Platform) architecture. All the major players are getting to lower power levels and giving us plenty of MIPS to work with," says Mozer.
The current generation of database products works in a speaker-dependent environment. This means that the user would repeat a word, such as a name to be entered into an address book, once or twice. This scenario works well in a small database, say with up to 30 entries.
With large systems, into the hundreds or thousands of listings, you wouldn't want to have to repeat each entry. In those situations, a phonemic-based recognizer is used, where individual sounds are recognized, then put together to form words. That's obviously a much more compute-intensive application, usually reserved for a desktop- or server-based architecture. Eventually, such an architecture will find its way into the portable domain.
Low-power controller
On the hardware side, Sensory offers a 2-MIPS processor that today resides in a voice-activated television remote control. For such a simple application, the designers were able to eliminate the microcontroller that had been present on previous-generation products, instead choosing to employ the Sensory part to handle the RF programming and other functionality in the remote.
"In general, our strategy is that we don't want to sell DSPs because we think there's a lot of good DSPs already on the market," offers Mozer. "So we partner with those vendors. When we do provide hardware, it contains some special-purpose features. For example, our current generation has a small digital filter that does the feature extraction for our neural-network algorithms."
The company's next-generation part will add special-purpose hardware to perform single-cycle multiply-accumulates.
As for which CPU is the most appropriate to run the voice-recognition algorithms, that depends on the intended application. In some cases, a DSP makes the most sense, where some signal processing may need to be performed at the front end of the speech-recognition algorithm. While in others, such as where some searching routines need to be performed, a RISC-based processor, such as an ARM device, makes more sense.
"One of the keys to reducing power on the portable system is to limit the bus activity," says Jordan Chen, the chief technical officer at Voice Signal Technologies. "DSPs tend to be very power efficient when crunching, particularly if the data fits into the DSP's on-chip memory. But the larger algorithms require you to bring the data in and out of the chip, using more power."
In a platform that contains both a DSP and a RISC processor, it's important to ensure that the signal processing can run independently on the DSP, so there's not a lot of bus activity consuming power.
Note that the most power-hungry application on a cell phone is the radio. So any speech recognition that can occur independently of the radio will substantially reduce power. That's why the partitioning discussed earlier becomes very important.
It's important that system developers receive the tools needed to build an intelligent user interface (UI) from the speech-recognition vendor. In most cases, it's the system vendor that provides that UI.
But if the speech technology is packaged in such a way that it provides little or no flexibility, it reduces the amount of creativity that can go into the UI. Hence, the speech-recognition engine must provide and make accessible to the application developer all the available information.
Another vendor of software-only solutions is Advanced Recognition Technologies (ART), who recently unveiled its smARTspeak NG product, voice-recognition software that combines dialing and control functions for speaker-independent or -dependent systems in cellular handsets. The software can run on an ARM 7 CPU. Features include name dialing, continuous digit dialing, menu navigation, and device control
May 14, 2001 Column By Raj Desai
Automotive Industry Launching New Form of e-Business with Telematics
(By Raj Desai Director, IBM Worldwide Telematics Solutions)
The automotive industry is at the center of a rapidly emerging new field of e-business known as telematics. The telematics concept aims delivering a wide range of information to automobile drivers and passengers through wireless network computing.
Recent advances in wireless communications bandwidth and the tiny computers embedded in automobiles are making it possible. Consumers will begin seeing the systems in high-end 2002 models, and they are expected to be widely available by 2005.
From emergency and roadside assistance to information, entertainment, navigation aids, voice-activated e-mail and remote diagnostics of mechanical problems, the world’s major automotive manufacturers are hard at work on innovations that will fundamentally change both the driving experience and their companies’ relationship with customers.
Ford, GM and DaimlerChrysler have all created new e-business divisions to manage their telematics programs, and every major automotive manufacturer has announced plans to introduce an e-business service to their vehicles in the next few years. The new services will create important new sources of revenue for automakers while giving them their best opportunity yet to build an ongoing, long-term relationship with their customers.
Based on announced plans by automakers, as many as 25 million automobiles will be enabled with telematics by 2006. Strategy Analytics estimates the retail market for telematics at nearly $23 billion by 2006, and Goldman Sachs estimates the total market for both systems and services at more than $100 billion.
The automakers won’t get all of that business, to be sure. Portable device manufacturers such as Motorola and Delphi will claim part of it, along with network delivery infrastructure providers like AT&T and Vodafone, content aggregators like America Online and Vivendi, and service providers like ATX Technologies and Mannesmann/Passo. As GM has demonstrated with its OnStar system, however, the automakers have a major role to play.
IBM anticipates the development of an entire network of industries around telematics. Government agencies will develop options for electronic toll collection, dynamic traffic control and emergency vehicle response. Oil companies will get into the act, enabling their gas pumps for short-range communications and allowing drivers to download their e-mail and a movie for the kids at the same time they fill the tank. Insurance companies will offer drivers lower premiums in return for the chance to track their driving habits. Commercial trucking fleets will use the services to make life on the road easier for their drivers, helping to retain top talent.
In short, telematics has the potential to profoundly change the way people live, work and balance the two by giving them the freedom to use mobility in unprecedented ways. Eventually, these systems will even be able to sense driver workload and decide whether to deliver a message now or later, when the occupants are better able to accommodate it. Access also will become universal – the same system that can deliver content to your car will be able to deliver it to your spouse’s car, your PDA, your home computer or your cellular telephone. Depending on where you are, it will be able to decide whether to deliver the message in text, audio or graphic form.
IBM is involved in almost every aspect of telematics, working directly with several major automobile manufacturers and with automotive suppliers including Motorola and ATX. IBM’s products and services include embedded computers, embedded Java, speech and voice recognition products like Via Voice, middleware and infrastructure products including WebSphere Everyplace Suite and WebSphere Everyplace Portal, tools and development environments for content and application providers, and hosted portals and services.
Among the many telematics activities currently being pursued by automakers and others, IBM is participating in:
· DaimlerChrysler Services/Mobility Management, which provides topical tips for travelers about movies, shows, the arts and dining in the areas they visit, along with navigation aids and parking data.
· ATX’s interactive voice recognition/speech response technology, which uses IBM’s Direct Talk voice processing platform and ViaVoice speech recognition technology.
· PSA Peugeot Citroen’s prototype networked car based on Xsara Picasso, Citroen’s intelligent automotive application.
· Projects with DaimlerChrysler, Motorola, Intel and PSA Peugeot Citroen, all of which are using IBM’s VisualAge Micro Edition embedded Java 2 technology.
· Myautogarage.com from ADP, a Web-based service linking dealers with motorists for easier and faster maintenance and management of their vehicles, which is powered by IBM.
· Motorola’s iRadio offering, which uses a variety of IBM products and services to deliver e-mail and custom entertainment options to automobiles through Motorola cell phone technology.
In short, telematics is popping up everywhere, and sooner than you may think. It may even be coming to a car or truck near you.
R.S. “Raj” Desai is director of IBM’s Worldwide Telematics Solutions group. Mr. Desai leads a global team that is conceiving the future of mobile computing and creating the technology to make it a reality. He has been with IBM more than 20 years, helping to pioneer a wide range of technology include ATM machines for banking and scanner technology for retail.
"You name the automaker, we're working with them," said Raj Desai of IBM, which designed voice recognition for Mercedes' Tele Aid satellite tracking service. Desai said automobiles are central to IBM's e-business plans. "Cars are one of the places we spend time and don't do much today. If we can figure a way to do things safely, it will be a platform of the future."
Voice commands are a key feature of Motorola's iRadio, displayed at January's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The iRadio uses a cellular frequency to fetch Web content, then reads it to the driver using text-to-voice software. Motorola expects the device to hit stores within two years and sell for $650 to $850, with extra fees for personalized services. Think of audio tours from National Geographic, suggested Tim McCarthy, of Motorola's telematics division.
Designing systems that won't "detract from the driving experience" is the challenge, McCarthy said. That's the idea behind docking ports that plug Motorola phones into stereos of Mercedes, BMW and Jaguar cars. When calls interrupt the music, he said, these TimePort and CPT 8000 systems automatically adjust call volume to comfortable levels. McCarthy expects every car will be equipped for mobile communication in five years.
!!One of the ways interactive automotive companies say new content will get into the car will be via a removable device that syncs up with the driver's home PC.!! [DOES ANYTHING COME TO MIND?]
October 15, 2000 Internet-Enabled Autos
Web Business Driver
Automotive Clients Are Stuck in Traffic Today, But There Are Huge Opportunities Just Around the Bend
By Karen J. Bannan
There are more than 200 million cars registered in the united States today, and another 15 to 15.5 million new cars roll off dealers' lots each year. Even if you just count the drivers, that's a lot of eyeballs, which is one of the main reasons why wired cars will be coming soon to a dealer near you.
But while analysts and car manufacturers say consumers are eager to get behind the wheel of these technologically enhanced vehicles, like other emerging industries the lack of standards and the use of proprietary technology could thwart the entry of smaller application developers, says Bryan Ma, an analyst with International Data Corp. "The standards aren't there, and the infrastructure isn't there either. We're not looking at a technology that even uses a screen - it's all voice-driven, and the work isn't really there yet either," says Ma.
There is, however, standards work going on. The Society of Automotive Engineers, the Electronic Industries Alliance, and the IDB Forum (an industry group that promotes the use of automotive and consumer electronics standards) are working on a common data bus - the Intelligent Transportation Society (ITS) Data Bus (IDB) - that will be used to connect telematic and Internet-enabled devices to a vehicle's internal systems.
The ITS standards work was started back in 1995, before car manufacturers knew the Internet would be a factor. In addition to the IDB, the ITS group is working on standards for message formats, message header codes, node IDs, application services and service codes, data definitions, and diagnostic services. Unfortunately, many key points are still being worked out. For example, the ITS is still hammering out whether or not the IDB will support data rates of 1.6 Mbps and 10 Mbps, the data rates required for digital audio and video. Without this standard, automotive companies will be forced to use a proprietary technology, which will most likely add cost and complexity to the installation.
And that's not the only ongoing standards work. Recently, IBM was called upon to help the Automotive Multimedia Interface Collaboration, a consortium of 13 automobile manufacturers, select which standards the group needed to define. "We had to walk them through what they should be thinking about, and what technologies they should be looking at," says Raj Desai, the director of IBM's automotive development group. Most notably, auto-makers need to develop an open network standard that lets all of a Net-ready car's more than 60 microprocessors and disparate networks communicate with each other. And because most of the content will reside offline and outside of the car, standards have to begin at the application level, says IBM's Desai.
In addition to these standards, in the end we may see widespread adoption of Java, too. This September, UBS Warburg LLC, a global financial services organization, released a study that endorsed Belgian telematics developer SmartMove's Open Telematics Framework system, which is Java-based. That's an interesting move, considering most of the current telematics systems are based on Windows CE. Some application developers are already taking the Java plunge. Motorola's iRadio, for example, is being developed using current Internet technologies, including Java that runs on Linux.
But don't count Microsoft out too soon. Microsoft recently inked a deal with five major Japanese components makers to develop applications for cars based on Windows CE for Automotive. Clarion, one of the main players, was part of the agreement. The next iteration of Clarion's AutoPC will feature an Intel Pentium 166 processor and Windows CE. Content for the interactive services is being coded in HTML or WAP-compliant HDML and XML.
Until standards confusion is ironed out, content providers can forge their own alliances, says Tom Ross, vice president of corporate development for InfoMove, a software applications and content developer. "It's going to take partnerships between hardware and software manufacturers, service providers, and car manufacturers to get this to where it needs to be," says Ross. "We're in a good position right now, because traditional automobile manufacturers are very open to working with companies, including startups. It's like we're back to the days when the Internet was being developed."
Five years out, application developers can expect to be supporting location-based services that combine ads with onboard GPS services. These services will make it possible for a supermarket to push local specials to drivers in the vicinity or to let restaurants send menu choices to the car, and may eventually make in-car connectivity free to end users. Streaming audio and video have also been promised. For example, Visteon is expected to launch a $9.99 per month satellite radio service that will feature more than 100 channels of music. And there will be portals.
One of the ways interactive automotive companies say new content will get into the car will be via a removable device that syncs up with the driver's home PC. Consumers will have their own personalized portal, where they can select the types of content they want to bring into the car and set them up for download. "We're not talking about real-time browsing in the car or even heavy computing," says Brian Gratch, Motorola's marketing director for its Telematic Communication Group.
In the meantime, application and content developers looking to get into the businesses need to get their feet wet, since PC and Internet industry titans such as IBM, Motorola, Sun Microsystems, and Microsoft are already making inroads into the category. So what's a developer to do? Focus on supporting the applications that have already been announced, while keeping an eye on future functionality, says Jack DeBiasio, director of engineering and technology for Clarion. "Developing applications that rely on cellular service is going to be disappointing, because right now there are big holes in the coverage. The best bet is to focus on applications that you can use for entertainment and information within the car space," he says. And Clarion, along with other developers, is doing just that.
We'll see services in a few years that include engine monitoring and maintenance capabilities and downloadable engine tune-ups. "We'll be able to notify owners about service visits and inform them about non-safety or maintenance issues," says Mark Horvath, a multimedia brand manager with Visteon, an offshoot of Ford Motor Co.
Despite the Batmobile-like promises, in the beginning applications will be less snazzy than people might expect and far less Internet-centric. Most will fall under the telematics category - navigation, driver warning, and communications systems. Rudimentary read-only e-mail will also make it into cars this year, as will simple news, weather, and traffic information services.
A reply from IBM regarding Voice Times Alliance:
The products we announced can and will use VoiceTIMES
specification verified devices. VoiceTIMES is the initiative to create
open specifications for mobile devices. The specifications that VoiceTIMES
is currently working on and will be working on in the future will be used
to access the mobile Internet through our software.
Perfect examples are our voice-enabled automotive solution and the PVA.
Both solutions use the VoiceTIMES specification for their internet access
devices.
Tom Houy
Manager, Client Systems Marketing
IBM Speech Systems
1555 Palm Beach Lakes Blvd.
West Palm Beach, FL 33401
http://www.ragingbull.altavista.com/mboard/boards.cgi?read=364361&board=EDIG
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ note the person who responded for IBM, Tom Houy:
NOW READ THIS:
Something to Talk About IBM PVA v. NAK
Users of next-generation personal digital assistants may find themselves hearing voices
By JEFF CHU
Look who's talking. It may soon be the Palm in your hand. Some personal digital assistants (PDAs) require users to write hieroglyphic-like shorthand onscreen with a stylus. Others reduce users to two-fingered typists hunting and pecking at elfin keyboards.
Cyrus Deboo for TIME
Neither interface makes much sense to Gary Saxer, company evangelist for speech-technology company Lernout & Hauspie. Speech, he says, is "magic. It's the natural choice."
Natural it may be, but, until recently, practical it was not. Pocket-sized computers simply haven't had enough processing power or memory to handle voice recognition software and data. But researchers at L&H and IBM, two leaders in the field, recently unveiled prototypes of speech-enabled PDAs.
The new devices allow users to perform tasks without lifting a finger. Say you need to look up Uncle Fritz's postal code. Instead of searching manually, you can say, "Open address book, find Uncle Fritz, find postal code." The PDA will read you the relevant details. While these handhelds aren't designed for full-scale web surfing, they are designed for network connectivity, and a range of online functions — from dictating e-mails to ordering pizzas — will also be possible.
L&H's talking PDA is called NAK, short for "nakulu," the Hawaiian word for echo. NAK, which looks like a hybrid of a PDA and a mobile phone, works its verbal magic using scaled-down versions of existing software — Voice Express for speech-to-text functions and Real Speak for text-to-speech — coupled with an Intel StrongArm II processor designed for handheld devices. Like other speech-to-text programs, Voice Express requires some "training" — about six minutes' worth — to understand new voices and accents. Most users need a couple of days of training themselves before they master the pausing that alerts NAK to forthcoming commands. As for Real Speak, it has an unlimited vocabulary and a velvety almost-human digitized voice.
IBM's PDA add-on, dubbed the PVA (Personal Voice Assistant), is a jacket that can be popped onto the back of an existing Palm-style device. The jacket houses a microphone, speakers, and the Embedded ViaVoice technology, which enables users to perform the PDA's basic functions with voice commands. A database storing 500-word sets of commonly-used words and commands also make the PVA speaker-independent. It can understand basic instructions from almost anyone, without training, whether the voice is young or old, high-pitched or low.
Of the two devices, NAK has greater versatility. Take message dictation, for example. L&H's technology transcribes a user's speech into text right on NAK, but the PVA doesn't have the horsepower to handle continuous conversion.[cksla: where the new intel xscale chip/Frio] The PVA user stores the dictation as an audio file, which is transcribed either by offloading it to a full-size computer equipped with ViaVoice or by sending it to IBM's WebSphere voice server.
Both prototypes exhibit the growing pains of gadgets in adolescence. If, for example, NAK doesn't understand what you're saying, you'll just have to repeat yourself until it does. The PVA doesn't always understand the user either, but if it can't figure out a command, it's trained to say, "I didn't understand that."
Refinements are on the way. IBM wants to add the capacity to dictate and send the kind of short messages sent to cell phones and pagers that have become so trendy in the European market. L&H would like to integrate ambient intelligence enabling NAK to make jumps in logic. If, for example, a London resident asks NAK, "How's the traffic?", NAK with ambient intelligence could look up the user's profile, note the hometown, and deliver traffic info for London.
Such gee-whiz features are too much for some in the industry. Jeff Hawkins, who helped create the original PalmPilot and now heads the team at Handspring, Palm's new competitor, has said that he doubts that users will choose speech as a preferred medium for data input. But William Meisel, president of speech industry consultancy TMA Associates, insists that speech is a "quick, natural method." He thinks consumers would buy voice-enabled PDAs, but only if learning to operate them "doesn't require a huge effort."
Voice-enabled PDAs will also face competition from the enhanced mobile phones on the way, but the companies are convinced they have a winning device. Tom Houy of IBM Voice Systems says, "When I hand these devices to people to play with, the biggest question is, 'When can I get one of these?'" Good question. Neither IBM nor L&H plans to make speech-enabled PDAs in-house. Both are seeking partnerships with manufacturers to integrate the technology into handhelds and market the enhanced devices. Consumers may see voice-enabled PDAs on store shelves as soon as early 2001.
But talk won't come cheap. IBM estimates the upgrade of an existing PDA will cost a couple of hundred dollars, a brand-new voice-enabled PDA at least double that. The price doesn't include recurring costs like airtime fees for accessing real-time information through wireless networks. Perhaps that seems a hefty price to pay to talk with an inanimate object. But think of it this way: at least these motormouths always come with "off" buttons.
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Motorola and IBM Corp. recently announced plans jointly to develop Internet services for cars and trucks, including wireless voice and Internet access, navigation with real-time traffic routing, security and anti-theft protection, personalized information, e-mail and entertainment options. The venture will market its products to car manufacturers.
Motorola also is helping design a universal hands-free system that will integrate a new digital signal processor-based chipset from Lucent's Microelectronics Group and connection from CellPort Systems Inc. of Boulder, Colo. The universal system, which allows car owners to plug their own handsets into a vehicle's on-board electronics, will appear as an after-market product this quarter and is expected to be embedded in OnStar vehicles in 2001. The coming iteration of OnStar will allow users to dial any phone number, not just the OnStar network operations center.
http://www.ragingbull.altavista.com/mboard/boards.cgi?read=8375&board=GMGC
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1/25/00 Intel, IBM Bring Computing Into The Car
Intel and IBM announced today they are collaborating on in-car computing products that will enable automakers to provide wireless and Web-based services such as navigation, communication, and information. IBM will provide its Pervasive Computing software, which is a suite of advanced software for managing the in-vehicle information systems. The software suite includes IBM's VisualAge MicroEdition, which incorporates embedded Java, as well as voice-recognition and text-to-speech functions. This software is used, along with interfaces to the vehicle, to communicate information to the driver and the outside world via the Internet. The companies said Motorola Inc. will also support the venture.
IBM and Intel officials said the partnership won't compete with carmakers or auto suppliers developing technology to create Web-enabled vehicles. In fact, they're potential customers. "Automakers and their suppliers are our partners," said Walt Davison, IBM's marketing executive for the automotive industry. "We're not competing with them; were doing what we do best to help them do what they do best." IBM expects automakers to start offering vehicles with in-car computing systems next year. "The earliest consumers will see vehicles with in-car computing systems on the road will be in 18 months," Desai said.
18 months-- kind of sounds similar to mot's iRadio timeframe
Thinking out of the Box
September 4, 2001
By Carol Levin
Nestled in the rolling green hills of Yorktown Heights, New York, a tiny bedroom community about fifty miles north of the city, the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center is home to what may be the next big thing. Dozens of new technologies—the assorted brainchildren of the nation's most inventive researchers—are bubbling away inside laboratories off the campus's snaking corridors. They range from super-high-capacity storage disks to displays that roll up to personal computers that look nothing like what's on your desk today.
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The Future Really is in Plastics
Walk into Chris Dimitrakopoulos' organic electronics lab and you're bombarded with a concert of clicking and whooshing from a dozen machines spouting tubes, hoses, and pressure dials. One of the machines coughs up a puff of steam every few minutes, and another, a giant glass glove box with an ultrahigh vacuum chamber slung underneath, deposits a thin layer of molecules onto a sliver of plastic. Standing canisters of argon and nitrogen line the back wall.
Perhaps the most fascinating lab in the building, this is where Dimitrakopoulos and his colleagues are experimenting with flexible transistors, a potentially revolutionary technology that promises to shape a new generation of consumer electronics gadgets, like roll-up desktop displays and paperback e-books.
"We've proven you can do it," Dimitrakopoulos says, above the din. He's talking about the technology to build a flexible active-matrix display. Unlike existing display transistors made on stiff pieces of silicon, transistors made on thin sheets of flexible plastic can be rolled up or folded.
That's no easy task, but Dimitrakopoulos and his crew are closing in on the combination of materials that could make these products a reality. Here's the problem: The process of manufacturing transistors on silicon occurs at a blistering 360 degrees Celsius. Use plastic as the base (known as the substrate) for the transistors, and you end up with a blob of goo because when plastic is heated, it melts.
"You can't use silicon," says Dimitrakopoulos. So he set out to find another materials to produce transistors at room temperature. Much of the time, it's been an obscure pursuit, with Dimitrakopoulos one of the few researchers anywhere pondering this puzzle. "This was a pretty lonely field five years ago," he says.
Now remarkable progress is being made, not only at IBM but also at MIT and other labs around the country and in Europe. Turns out that a concoction of an organic material known as pentacene—which works at room temperature—and an inorganic substance known as a Perovskite—which is fast—can substitute for silicon. (Perovskites are a large family of crystalline ceramics related to perovskite, one of the most abundant minerals on earth, discovered in 1839 in the Ural Mountains.)
Dimitrakopoulos holds up a sliver of clear, thin plastic that has a tiny pattern of gold-colored lines, each one a thousand times thinner than a strand of hair. They form the structures of a transistor—sources, gates, and drains. He explains that these hybrid transistors offer the same performance as amorphous silicon used in computer displays.
Enlisting the lab's vacuum chamber, he has churned out thousands of transistors, organized in blocks of 16 on square pieces of plastic 2 centimeters square. That's a far cry from the millions of transistors needed for a display that you can fold up and carry in your back pocket, but it's a start. Expect products in three to five years.
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The Half-pound PC
Down on the ground floor, Kenneth Ocheltree spends his time imagining the shape of a future PC. What he and his colleagues in the Next Generation Mobile group have been thinking about is literally out of the box. They've come up with a half-pound PC, smaller than a Palm, that combines a low-power 800-MHz microprocessor, 128MB of memory, a 5GB hard disk, a graphics controller, and a network port. This diminutive computing core as he describes it, transforms into a PDA, a notebook, or a desktop depending on what's around it.
"Everything becomes an accessory," says Ocheltree. A notebook shell would include a display, a keyboard, a battery, PC Card slots, and connectors for mouse and printer. This MetaPad core would plug into a slot in the notebook below the keyboard. A desktop docking station would connect to office peripherals, and a wireless accessory with a rechargeable battery would let people access the Internet wirelessly. Or, snap the core into a high-resolution, pen-enabled display, and you have a PDA. A wearable harness is also on the drawing board.
"It's a full PC in a size that fits in your pocket," says Ocheltree. The concept is a departure from the increasing complexity of computers, but "it's not a radical design," says Ocheltree. The MetaPad is really a PC stripped to its core. Estimated time of arrival: three to five years.
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Magnetic Memory
Over in the magnetic memory lab, Bill Gallagher is working on a very practical problem that you likely encounter every morning when you turn on your computer and proceed to pull out your hair—or nod off, if you haven't had a cup of coffee—as the system boots. You don't need to wait for a blender or a telephone to start up, so why boot a PC? Simply put, random access memory—where all the initialization programs reside—needs a constant supply of power to store information. Once you shut the computer off, the information disappears.
Gallagher and colleague Stuart Parkin have been experimenting with magnetic RAM, a technology that stores information—in this case, the machine's loading information, in much the same way that a hard drive stashes data even when your computer is off. The bottom line: flip a switch and your computer is ready to roll. The technology could show up in five years, but don't look for products to be mainstream for another seven to ten years.
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The 500-GB Hard Disk
When the bits on your hard drive start to flip uncontrollably and erase data, you'll know that the superparamagnetic effect has set in. The phenomenon is likely to occur when the density of particles on disks in a hard drive gets too, well, dense. Luckily, researchers are well on the way to circumventing this problem.
Working on nanoparticle-based recording technology, Shouheng Sun has found a winning combination of materials—iron and platinum-that doesn't succumb to the superparamagnetic effect the way the existing cobalt and platinum particle formulation does. He's been able to produce particles that are just 4 nanometers wide, perfect for hard drives measured in terabytes. The average grain size (particle diameter) of current hard drives is about 8.5 nanometers.
Sun has discovered that with the right mixture of chemicals, the molecules are self-assembling, aligning themselves neatly in the service of data storage. Combined with a super-precise read/write head that can access 13 terabits per square inch, the technology could result in hard drives with capacities of from 100GB to 500GB within five years and platters holding 10 terabits per square inch within a decade. In theory, density could reach 60 terabits per square inch. "This may never materialize, but it's worth the effort," says Sun.
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A Playroom for Grown-ups
About a 20-minute drive from Watson, at IBM's product marketing headquarters in Somers, New York, Lee Green has, perhaps, the best job of all. As chief of corporate identity and design, he runs the playroom. Filled with prototypes of new products born in the Design Lab—some soon to be in homes and offices and others that may never even see the light of day, at least in their current form—the otherwise bland-looking conference room is lined with sleek slate-colored flat-panel displays. A mannequin outfitted in a jumpsuit and wearable computer stands at attention. A dozen very thin, unidentifiable handheld gadgets congregate on a long table in the back of the room.
"The PC as we know it goes away," says Green as he picks up the offspring of Ocheltree's Next Generation Mobile group, the MetaPad—essentially a mobile-wearable-desktop-notebook-PDA-in-one.
Farther down the table is a high-resolution panel that wirelessly downloads reading material from the Internet. "Devices are getting more specific," says Green, as he demonstrates another panel designed to create a daily personal newspaper. Encased in colorful plastic housings, the panels—snapped into a docking station on the breakfast table—are continuously updated via the Internet. Remember, by the time these products are for sale the Web, at high-speed, will be piped into your home like water. Mom, Dad, and the kids each get their own personalized panels.
Green demonstrates a variety of other useful gadgets.
A voice-enabled PDA instantly translates whatever you say into Italian. You say: "Good morning." It says: "Buon giorno." You ask: "May I have the bill?" It asks: "Potrei avere il conto?"
A "mobile connector", a handset that looks like a stubby wand, contains a microphone and speaker, and has a microdisplay that pops out from one end so you can read your e-mail or view Web sites (images appear full screen). With your phone or PDA in your pocket, you'll use voice recognition to catch up on e-mail or work. "Turn on PC." "Read e-mail." Within three years, Green says, we'll have a combination cellular phone and PC that you can keep in your shirt pocket and connect via Bluetooth to an optical display built into a pair of glasses.
A harness PC designed for industrial uses enables, say, an inspector for a shipping company, to wear a computer on his rounds. (Hence, the mannequin.) Miniature optics on a headset display a full-screen image of the database he needs to access. The power pack is in a backpack. An alternative design, says Green, stashes all the equipment inside a hardhat.
An MP3 player equipped with an IBM Microdrive offers a gigabyte of storage.
That's a lot of technology crammed into a lot of visits with some of the most intriguing researchers. But the one product that stands out for its uniqueness and even its sheer practicality is being developed across the country in Silicon Valley, at the IBM Almaden Research Center. There, Dan Russell and Ismail Haritaoglu have developed a prototype of what at first glance appears to be standard-issue sunglasses. Look closer, and you see that they're a remarkable feat of engineering that can translate signs from Japanese to English and whisper the translation into your ear.
"We just stitched the technology together," Russell says of the hardware and software that drive the shades. The User Science and Experience Research group has stashed a tiny camera, microphone, and speaker in the frame.
Say you're standing in front of a restaurant in Tokyo, and you're clueless. No problem. "What's that," you ask yourself aloud. Your secret camera snaps a photo and feeds the image into a tiny computer in your backpack where software identifies the text in the scene, performs the translation, and converts the result into speech. Vegetarian is just fine with you. Eventually, all the electronics may be in a cell phone or PDA connected wirelessly to the sunglasses.
Take along some friends when you do this; it's guaranteed to impress.
Agree? Disagree? Share your thoughts in our forum.
consider these two ideas together:
1]Intel's PVA
Clearly the "hands-free/eyes-free" killer application is best designed for the telematics market. Magically, a few months later Intel announces its own PVA- Personal Veicle Assistant.
from Intel's website:
The PVA Arrives
September 22, 2000
An emerging category of wireless Internet client devices is designed to make the in-vehicle wireless Internet experience feature-rich and easy to use. It is called the Personal Vehicle Assistant, or PVA. Similar to its hand-held PDA counterpart, the PVA is a Web-enabled wireless Internet consumer electronic device with the power to make a wide range of Internet services available anywhere, at any time.
For PVA users, these services can include two-way voice communications, e-mail, personalized news, navigation, traffic data and roadside assistance services, in addition to a wide spectrum of personal productivity and entertainment applications. For ergonomics, the PVA will enable hands-free operation with a basic user interface as simple as a car radio. Entertainment opportunities will enhance the drive-time experience, with MP3 digital audio for drivers and DVD movies for rear seat passengers.
http://www.intel.com/design/wireless/telematics/pva.htm
==========================
2]Xybernaut patents transferable core for mobiles
by Rebecca Sykes, IDG News Service\Boston Bureau
March 01, 2000, 09:24
Wearable computer maker Xybernaut today said it has been issued a U.S. patent for a transferable core for use in a wide range of future mobile devices.
The transferable core would be roughly the size of a pack and half of cigarettes, or a little smaller than a Palm's handheld device, and would contain the processor, memory, storage and I/O circuitry -- everything but the power supply and display, according to Michael Jenkins, chief technology officer at Xybernaut. The power supply and display would be supplied by the hosting devices, such as a desktop, laptop, cell phone or car dashboard, he said.
Currently, people with multiple computing devices, such a PC, a laptop and a handheld computer, can spend much time synching up data and versions of software on these devices, according to Jenkins.
"This core concept eliminates this problem, since I'm carrying the computing environment with me wherever I go," Jenkins said.
The patent covers the concept of a transferable core as well as the idea of the hosting devices, which Xybernaut calls enclosures, Jenkins said. Users could purchase the enclosures they wanted and use them as needed by inserting the core, he said.
"Imagine if Dell [Computer Inc.] could sell you a laptop and a desktop, plus the core," Jenkins said.
Xybernaut is speaking with manufacturers about building some of the enclosures, though the talks are still at a high level as opposed to hammering out nitty gritty technical details, Jenkins said. So far, Xybernaut is talking to a chip maker and a docking station company, but the company hopes to share the architecture with as many manufacturers as are interested, he said.
"The only way we're going to accomplish this (concept) is by opening up the architecture," and quite frankly the architecture isn't any great secret: it's Microsoft and Intel, Jenkins said. "We want to make this as open as possible."
Prototypes will probably be ready late in the fourth quarter, and transferable cores and enclosures may be for sale in 2001, Jenkins said. The pricing model has yet to be determined, but Jenkins said he envisions competitively priced products, rather than specialty products pitched at the high end.
Xybernaut has filed corresponding patents in 26 other countries, Jenkins said.
Xybernaut, in Fairfax, Virginia, can be reached on the World Wide Web at http://www.xybernaut.com.
Xybernaut Transferable Core patent
Take your PC's 'brains' to go
Fairfax, Virginia-based Xybernaut is one of the recognized leaders in wearable computing, with years of research poured into the area and its flagship product, the Mobile Assistant IV, a full-function PC that can be worn on the body (see review in December 2, 1999, issue).
You've probably seen pictures of this unit, with the wearer looking like a pseudo-cyborg outfitted for computer combat, and Xybernaut always draws the biggest crowds to try it on at tradeshows, even though wearable has still generally been regarded as being a few years away from reaching the masses. But recently IBM has started showing interest in wearable computing products (i.e., the barrage of commercials in which young, hip stock traders are doing business while sitting on park benches), and with Big Blue in the wearable game, all bets are off. Wearable computing could be catapulted to mainstream awareness before anyone expected.
The latest news from Xybernaut is that it has secured a U.S. patent for a "transferable core," which the company says will "radically change mobile computing." The transferable core will be a unit smaller than a PDA and will contain the "brains" of a PC, including processor, memory, and I/O circuitry, but not power supply or display. When plugged into what Xybernaut calls an "enclosure"--desktop, laptop, cell phone, car dashboard, etc.--the core unit becomes a personal computer.
The idea is that this model will allow users to easily insert and remove the brains of their computing device from one device to another, and, therefore, Xybernaut says, users won't need separate devices such as PDAs, desktop PCs, laptops, cell phones, etc. They will access the information they need independent of these devices anywhere they go. The transferable core idea would also allow manufacturers to mass produce standard cores at a low cost, with the enclosures tailored to the environment or application needs, says Xybernaut.
While it sounds like a great idea, it's only a patent grant, and a long way from being a proven commodity. It would take quite an incredible device to completely wipe away the entire mobile device model that most mobile workers now follow. However, Xybernaut is known for innovation, and the low price component of the equation will sound good to buyers. Apparently some people believe in the transferable core idea because Xybernaut stock shot up from $16 to $29 the day the news was released. We applaud the efforts of companies such as Xybernaut that are pushing the envelope to create new possibilities for mobile device convergence. (http://www.xybernaut.com)
Posted by: cksla
In reply to: None Date: 4/9/2001 11:01:53 AM
Post # of 9648
Duke University
Information Technology Advisory Council
Minutes
March 9, 2000
Attending: Pakis Bessias, John Board, Kevin Cheung, Ken Hirsh, David Ferriero,Diane Reynolds, Patrick Halpin, Alfred Trozzo, Donna Hewitt, David Jamieson-Drake, Ken Knoerr, Roger Loyd, Melissa Mills, Caroline Nisbet, John Oates, Lynne O'Brien,Mike Pickett, Rafael Rodriguez, Robert Wolpert; Guests: Bob Currier (OIT), Rob Carter (OIT), Debbie DeYulia (OIT), Kathy Pfeiffer (SISS Project), Donna Giles (Graduate School and SISS Project), Chris Meyer (OIT and SISS Project), David Kirby
Review of Minutes and Announcements:
Roger Loyd requested that the spelling of his name be corrected in the minutes.
WEARABLE COMPUTING DEMO
John Board led this very interesting demo/discussion. IBM may market a wearable computer in a year, but can purchase today from other vendors. John's model is a Win98 pc, 640/480 screen resolution with screen about 3 inches in front of eyes, wireless 11mb network connection, Duke web site is up along with stock ticker. Designed for field maintenance, but company has thought through some consumer related issues. Looks too industrialtoday, but everything is here: keyboard on wrist, uses IBM ViaVoice to issues commands to a win pc,e.g., 'Open, Program, Windows Explorer' works reliably. Wireless range is about 100 ft, costs about $1k per transmitter so already fairly cost effective to cover a wide range. John was sure the Mac version would be prettier and more coloful. Ken Knoerr referenced a wearable TV; David Kirby has one of these too. David went on to say that wearbable computers can speed care and lower error rates in patient care environment so MC is exploring that. Patients expect medical staff to wear weird stuff.
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A version of the IBM wearable is also being tested by doctors on their rounds at Duke University Hospital in Durham, N.C. The big difference between the unit being tested by GE and this unit is that the Duke unit has a wireless modem PC card plugged into a standard expansion slot. The doctors can read e-mail, access patients' charts, and receive diagnostic reports wirelessly and more conveniently than they could if they had to tote around a notebook PC. Primary input is by voice, with the microphone supported by the headband.
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Xybernaut's industry partners IBM and Texas Instruments, and customers alike said that the MA4-TC represents the next major phase in computing, leaps ahead of today's PDAs (personal digital assistants). Weighing in at just under 900 grams and the size of a clock radio, the MA4-TC, is powered by a 400MHz Intel Pentium III processor and memory configuration that can be removed from the system by way of a TC (transferable core) that can be inserted into another mobile device or even a PC or network docking station.
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Some of the current drawbacks to wearable PCs' comfort and compactness will most probably be resolved by technologies already in the pipeline. Bluetooth and other wireless protocols should eliminate the inconvenient, and even hazardous, dangling cables between the CPU and the microphone, keyboard, head-mounted display, and other peripherals. They should also provide low-power, high-bandwidth access to the Internet. Already voice-activated, Xybernaut will add a wireless, Bluetooth-linked headset, speech-recognition technology from Dallas-based Texas Instruments, and a foreign-language translator to the device over the next two years.
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The IBM Wearable PC
The IBM® Wearable PC is a direct response to the following challenge: How small and how mobile can you make a PC without giving up any functionality? Quite small is the answer from IBM. In fact, the central processing unit (CPU) of this fully functional PC, which clips onto your belt, is about the size of a paperback book and weighs less than a pound. Its monitor, about the size of a pen cap, rests about an inch from the eye and is held in place with a headband. This configuration gives the user the illusion of reading a 14-inch screen at normal viewing distances. Only in this case, the monitor appears to be floating in front its users, following them even when they turn their heads.
Primary interaction with the Wearable PC is through voice or specialised pointing devices. The Wearable PC talks back via a speaker that's also built into the monitor, and comes with an eraser-sized mouse that works like a joystick. Because the Wearable PC is a fully functional PC, those longing for convention can plug it into a standard a desktop monitor, keyboard and printer.
As part of its Edge of Network (EoN) effort, IBM has begun unveiling products, technology, and alliances to push broadband, communications, processing, network software, and pervasive computing to the next level. IBM's Wearable PC is a proof point for that effort, delivering solutions to end users that greatly enhance connectivity. Providing untethered, easy-to-access information that is always on and always available, the IBM Wearable PC is a personal computing device that complements the active lifestyle of its end users.
Advantages
Extremely lightweight and portable
Users can perform desktop-quality computing tasks - including word processing, spreadsheet calculations and Web browsing - anytime and anywhere they choose.
The Wearable PC's voice-interactive design makes it especially practical for professionals who need mobile access to large amounts of data, while keeping their hands free for non-computing tasks.
These include surgeons, construction site supervisors, architects, utility plant technicians, aircraft maintenance workers and the physically challenged.
Technical Details
The Wearable PC is currently about as powerful as an IBM ThinkPad® 560X notebook computer, packing a Pentium-class chip that runs at 233 MHz. To save space, some of the components have been reduced in size and some of the connectors have been eliminated. The device has 64 MB of system disk space. Additional IBM MicroDrive disks or other compact flash devices can be attached via the CF2+ slot. PCMCIA adapters like wireless radios can be installed in an additional plug-in module. It can accommodate a satellite-driven Global Positioning System (GPS), which allows the computer to locate its position on Earth and display maps for directional guidance.
Availability
The Wearable PC is still in a prototype stage. Nearly 100 Wearable PCs have been produced, many of them going to IBM customers in a variety of fields for extensive field-testing. Feedback from these trials will have a major impact on future designs.
Why IBM?
The Wearable PC illustrates how IBM is focused on driving the changes in computing and producing long-term and short-term results in areas that impact IBM's core businesses/customers. Rather than simply testing its ideas in a lab, IBM incorporates real-world customer experience with its innovations (a "live lab" scenario). IBM creates "design concepts" like these to illustrate what is possible, test the marketplace, expand the thinking of product planners, influence the allocation of research funds, and demonstrate commitment to innovative, human-oriented products.
http://www.pc.ibm.com/europe/pcnews/ibm_wearable_pc.html
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The new IBM/TI MA V version under the xybernaut brand is expected to be out around this June.