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DRM for VoD...Phillips no less
The increasing threat to content posed by advances in consumer technology is a compelling reason for applying end-to-end security. CryptoWorks DRM for VoD gives full, end-to-end, content-level protection for on-demand streamed content, offering service providers maximum flexibility to cater for new revenue-generating possibilities, as they emerge.
CryptoWorks DRM for Video-on-Demand is a pre-encryption solution in which the content is already encrypted before it is distributed to and stored on the video servers, and is thus protected by the DRM/CA system from the outset. This is highly desirable, especially in a distributed server configuration where unprotected high-value content "floating" between several geographic locations would pose a risk to system integrity and security. Pre-encryption effectively reduces the need for further security measures to protect video servers against theft of content.
The content-level protection afforded by CryptoWorks DRM for VoD provides service providers with the flexibility to realize a host of new revenue generating possibilities to meet their market needs, any time. As well as providing a secure link for live transmissions of sporting events, movies and other programming, the CryptoWorks platform also provides full protection for on-demand content, uniquely enabling operators to combine content from various different sources. Audiences benefit from a much broader range of on-demand content from a single service provider.
In addition to offering maximum security, scalability and flexibility for VoD, CryptoWorks DRM for VoD supports full trick-play functionality (VCR functions, such as rewind, fast-forward, pause, stop and play).
Download brochure:
Suspicious device found on plane in Phoenix was MP3 player
More than 100 people were evacuated from an America West Airlines flight in Phoenix Wednesday morning after a passenger spotted a suspicious device, an airport spokeswoman said.
The item turned out to be a music player wrapped around a soda can, said Sky Harbor International Airport spokeswoman Deborah Ostreicher.
It was found in a seat-back by a passenger as Flight 44 to Washington, D.C., was taxiing out to the runway for takeoff.
Officials investigating the incident concluded the item was not dangerous. But before it was determined what had been found, the pilot taxied to the airport's cargo area, where the 117 passengers and five crew members got off and were bused to a terminal.
A police bomb squad was then called in to check the plane.
All the luggage also was taken off the plane and was rechecked.
At no point during the investigation did airport officials stop or alter any other flights, Ostreicher said.
"It just looked suspicious, which is why we always take the precautions we do," she said.
(Copyright 2004 by The
Margins of around 200.00 I recall mentioned by falk et al. earlier.
Music buyers gravitate toward legal downloads: survey
36 minutes ago Add Technology - AFP to My Yahoo!
NEW YORK (AFP) - US music consumers are sharply increasing their interest in legal downloads and diminishing their use of free song-swapping over the Internet, a survey showed.
The survey by the NPD Group found about five percent of those who have purchased music CDs also used a legal Internet service to purchase music in the first quarter of 2004, or triple the percentage in the same period a year ago.
Among music buyers who purchased both CDs and a song download from a legal service, the likelihood that they also downloaded a song illegally fell dramatically, from 64 percent last year to 42 percent in 2004, the survey found.
The surge in use of legitimate online music services comes as a growing number of companies have set up sites with song downloads for roughly one dollar. At the same time, the music industry has been cracking down on file-swapping with lawsuits alleging copyright infringement.
"Paid services like (Apple's) iTunes and (RealNetworks') Rhapsody appear to be attracting core music buyers, which can create a firm foundation for legal digital music purchases," said Russ Crupnick, president of NPD Music.
"To date, NPD data shows that there has been a small reduction in sales of CDs; however, that decline might be offset by the overall value of the digital customer and the downturn in illegal file sharing."
Consumers who downloaded from a legal service or became paid members of subscription services showed only a small reduction in the number of CDs that they purchased at retail. The average consumer who paid for digital music as well as CDs purchased less than one fewer CD in 2003 compared to 2002, the survey found.
"Our research shows that it's the people who are really into music that are beginning to adopt paid digital services as an additional way of acquiring and enjoying music, and so far these services are living side by side with traditional CDs," Crupnick said.
"As the industry matures and digital music becomes even more main stream, it remains to be seen just how much paid digital music will affect the market for CDs."
How to play purchased music on other systems…
Posted May 18, 2004, 6:46 PM ET by Phillip Torrone
Related entries: Portable Audio
So you've got an iPod, you go and buy music but then your machines dies, or have many many computers and devices you listen to music on, or maybe sometimes you use an operating system not supported by iTunes, how can you listen to your purchased music? Well, usually you can't- why? Because the songs you purchased are DRM protected, that means you can only listen to them on specific computers and devices. For most folks the limits of a few computers or devices are fine, but for the gadget geek- nope, we have too many computers and devices. It would be like buying a DVD but only being able to watch it in some rooms, or only some TVs.
Now to be clear, this isn't a way to take music you bought and give it to someone else, this is so you can listen to your own purchased music on other systems or devices. In fact, your personal info is still in the file. The application we're going to talk about is called hymn, and here is the description from the site:
The purpose of hymn is to allow you to exercise your fair-use rights under copyright law. It allows you to free your iTunes Music Store purchases from their DRM restrictions with no sound quality loss. These songs can then be played outside of the iTunes environment, even on operating systems not supported by iTunes. It works on Mac OS X, many unix(-ish) variants and on Windows.
A little history
hymm started out as "Playfair" which was on Sourceforge, where you could grab the source / program. Then, Apple had requested for it to be removed, so PlayFair outsourced itself to India, where it was later removed, again. Now the application is called "hymn", or "hear your music anywhere".
According to the site "Anand Babu has taken official ownership of the project. FSF India (Free Software Foundation of India- http://fsf.org.in/) is providing legal support".
How it works
hymm decodes the songs you have purchased using the key from your iPod and/or your operating system and make a new file which is not protected, it keeps the cover art and song data as part of the file. Since this is using your key, you can only do this for your songs, which I personally think is fair- they're the songs you bought, you should be able to put them on your other computers or devices.
The application works on a Mac or PC and the source code is also available from the hymm site.
Here's how to use the application.
Download the appropriate application (Mac or PC) from hymn, here:
http://hymn-project.org/download.php
Install the application as per the instructions. The Mac version allows you to drag and drop the files, for the PC side you need to use the command line version.
Mac: It's pretty simple, all you need to do is grab the .m4p files from your music folder and drag them in to the main window. They are usually in: (home)/music/iTunes/iTunes Music/(artist name)/(album name)/ The songs will appear in the list and you can then covert them.
Click convert! You'll be asked where you want these files to go and once converted it will become a m4a file, which means you can play it on other systems/devices. Keep in mind that your username/data is still in the file.
PC: For the PC you'll need to use a Command Line Interface, which means you'll need to type in what to convert. To make this simple, create a hymn folder on your C: drive. Place the application in there, also move your m4p files in to that folder as well.
The music you purchased is usually here:
C:\Documents and Settings\(user name)\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music
Click the Start Menu, then click Run…Type cmd, this is the command program.
Type: cd c:\hymn this will get you to the folder you created in command line mode.
Type dir to see a listing of the files in the folder. You should see your m4p files as well as a file called "hymn.exe".
Type hymn. You'll see a list of options.
To keep this simple, convert one file by typing the following (for this example, our file is called test.m4p).
hymn test.m4p
You'll notice a small pause, and then when you see the command line again, it's done! Double click "My Computer" then double click the hymn folder, you'll notice there is a new file test.m4a, and this is an unprotected file with all the data as well as your personal data inside of it. When you click once on each file (the m4p as well as the m4a) you'll notice one says "protected and one does not in the side panel.
There are many other options in the application as you could gather, from specifying more files, or having the output extension AAC.
There ya go, that's it, here are some links.
Hymn:
http://hymn-project.org/
Hymn manual:
http://hymn-project.org/docs/hymn-manual.html
Don't confuse him with the facts.eom
Gateway ends service pact with Affiliated Computer
Monday May 17, 3:16 PM EDT
(Recasts, adds ACS comment, updates stock prices)
NEW YORK, May 17 (Reuters) - Computer maker Gateway Inc. (GTW) has ended a services contract with Affiliated Computer Services Inc. (ACS) and will handle its own information technology, human resources and accounting, ACS said on Monday
Gateway shares fell 12 percent amid fears the company may have to pay a sizable fee to ACS for ending the contract, which was signed just last September and was supposed to run for seven years and be worth $400 million.
"If Gateway gets to change their business strategy, it needs to pay Affiliated to unwind the investment Affiliated has put into the contract," said Joseph Vafi, an analyst with Jefferies & Co.
Gateway has closed its 188 retail outlets, eliminating about 2,500 positions, and plans to cut an additional 1,500 jobs, which ACS said reduced the need for its services.
A Gateway spokesman confirmed that a break-up fee was involved but declined to give a specific figure.
ACS spokeswoman Lesley Pool said the company would receive a termination fee and would be compensated for assets to be transferred back to Gateway and services performed in the transition period.
Gateway spokesman Bob Sherbin said the break-up fee was included in restructuring estimates the Poway, California-based company provided when it reported first-quarter results late last month.
"These (estimates) anticipate full-year restructuring costs of $400 to $450 million, the great bulk of which covers asset write-downs and severance payments," Sherbin said.
Gateway has said it still expects to be profitable for 2005.
Dallas-based ACS said the contract termination would have a positive effect on its revenue and earnings for the rest of the year, but its shares fell slightly. Its fiscal year ends in June.
It said the contract produced revenue of $14 million during the quarter ended March 31 and was valued at $55 million a year.
Gateway shares were down 54 cents to $3.96 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange, while ACS shares were down 31 cents to $46.71. (Additional reporting by Duncan Martell in San Francisco)
Hitachi Pumps Up Microdrive Production
Mon May 17,10:00 AM ET Add Technology - PC World to My Yahoo!
Martyn Williams, IDG News Service
Hitachi is planning to double production of hard-disk drives at its plant in Prachinburi, Thailand, the company has announced. The company's Hitachi Global Storage Technologies unit will invest $200 million over several years to achieve the increase in capacity.
• Microdrive Storage Hits 4GB
Production of the company's 4GB capacity 1-inch Microdrive disk drives, which are found in digital music players such as Apple Computer's iPod Mini, will see the largest increase in percentage terms, said John Osterhout, director of marketing for Microdrive at HGST.
"We are seeing very strong demand for 1-inch drives," he said. "They take up a small percentage of the factory today but we will be expanding capacity from 200,000 units per month in the first quarter (of this year) to several million in the fourth quarter of this year so it's a very rapid expansion in capacity. Fuelling the very strong growth is demand from customers who are building these drives into small MP3 players."
Inside iPod Mini
The company wouldn't be any more specific on which companies or products, if any, are primarily driving demand, although some signs point to Apple and its iPod Mini.
Apple launched the iPod Mini in the United States in February with 100,000 preorders placed for the $249 music player. The company was due to follow with a worldwide launch in April, however in March was forced to delay that to July because of problems meeting demand, it said.
"The supply for the iPod Mini is limited because we're using new technology," Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of hardware product marketing told IDG's MacCentral at the time. "We're using just about all of the (4GB) 1-inch hard drives that are being made."
Apple hasn't provided detailed shipment figures for the iPod Mini but has said total shipments of iPod and iPod Mini players in the three months from January to March totaled 807,000 units.
More Music Players?
In addition to Apple, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies also provides its 1-inch Microdrive hard disks to companies including Singapore's Creative Technology and the Rio Audio division of Santa Clara-based Digital Networks North America, and Osterhout says he expects more companies to join that list as soon as new music players are launched.
"There are many companies that could be making hard-disk-drive-based MP3 players," said Osterhout. "I probably have talked to 20 companies that are already in the MP3 business. It's a long list of companies. This is open season in a growth category."
Apple iPod Mini Reflects Personality
Sun May 16, 8:42 AM ET Add Technology - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Duncan Martell
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Some pooh-poohed the assorted colors of Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod mini as frivolous, but the digital music players are a smash hit and have become fashion accessories in and of themselves.
Beyond being just a nifty way to listen to music while riding on a bus or working out at the gym, the iPod mini's eye-pleasing design in five metallic colors has made it a reflection of the user's personality, analysts said.
"They are a point of differentiation for the individual and they're almost a status symbol, said Tim Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategies. "Because of the colors and its small size, it really is an expression of personality."
Phil Leigh, an analyst at Inside Digital Media, says: "Even though those white ear buds aren't really that great, people want to wear them with an iPod so others know that they're carrying an iPod"
And while the larger, white iPods that are about the size of a deck of playing cards have been a huge success, it's the smaller business-card-sized iPod mini that has resonated with the digerati and could spawn design innovation in other compact digital music players, analysts said.
"We can only hope," Bajarin said. "I would hope that Apple's innovation in industrial design spills out to the rest of the industry."
Of course, any cultural revolution has its downside, with scattered reports of the mini's headphone jack producing ear-splitting static and some skepticism about its steep price. Some complain it is too complicated to set up.
The January announcement of the iPod mini, which weighs 3.6 ounces and holds about 1,000 songs was Cupertino, California-based Apple's (Nasdaq:AAPL - news) answer to cheaper, flash-memory based players. Since going on sale in February, the mini has been much in demand -- and in short supply.
As with all popular items, rivals abound. Players from Creative, Dell Inc., iRiver and others are just as portable as the Mini, analysts say. Moreover, Dell's player, while not quite as small, costs roughly $50 less and holds 15 gigabytes worth of songs, nearly four times as many as iPod mini.
Also, plenty of consumers haven't yet been "inducted into the iPod culture," Leigh said, adding that many people still listen to music with portable CD players and don't see the need to spend $250 on a portable music player such as iPod.
"Apple believes that their products need to stand out in order to be successful and, as a result, put a significant amount of time and investment in creating products that are unique and innovative," Bajarin said.
He said other compact digital music players are considerably cheaper, hold fewer songs and are perfectly serviceable, but none has yet matched what he called Apple's elegant user interface.
"They're just not the sleekest, Bajarin said. "You look at the products coming from Creative or Gateway and they're clever in the way they're put together, but in the end, the ease of use with the buttons and everything else aren't in the same class as Apple
Apple's Web site showed this week that a silver iPod would take six weeks to be shipped, from the time the order was placed. And on eBay Inc., iPod minis -- sealed and in the box -- were listed for auction with multiple bids topping $300.
Leigh pointed to three factors for the iPod mini's success, which has seemed to generate even more buzz than the older, larger iPod. Some have gone so far as to argue that the original iPod was just a prototype for the iPod mini.
First, the 1,000-song capacity is at the sweet spot of the market -- not too many songs, but not too few, either. Second, the colors --silver, gold, green, pink or blue -- which Apple has said have been especially popular with women. And, third, the ease of use in using the mini while exercising.
"It's great for the StairMaster, or a trail you can ride your bike on," Leigh said, noting that the smaller, compact and typical Flash-memory-based rivals need some help.
"A lot of work is going to have to be done on these very compact players in terms of their user interface," Leigh said, who owns an original iPod as well as an iPod mini.
In the end, even analysts who make their living covering technology trends seem to have a need for individual iPod expression.
Bajarin noted that one analyst in his office expressed a preference for pink. Another voted for blue.
As for himself, Bajarin said: "I'm pretty conservative in the way I carry stuff around -- my briefcase is black -- so I have silver."
Airlines Taking Niche Approach to Many Flights
Published May 15. 2004 7:30AM
New York Times
Passengers who sit in the business-class section on American Airlines' daily flight from Boston to Manchester, England, beginning today may notice that something is missing: business-class service.
American's all-coach-class experiment on the route, a major departure from industry practice for scheduled trans-Atlantic flights, is the latest in an industry trend toward niche marketing.
American, the largest airline, assumes that nearly all its Manchester-bound passengers at this time of year are leisure travelers paying coach fares, and that filling the plane with them is a better bet than laying on premium service for a business-class section that might go mostly unsold.
Other airlines are also increasingly tailoring service to specific market niches, sometimes to an extraordinary degree. Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines have made some flights all business class. Air France has even created a specialized airline, called Dedicate, to cater to a narrow group of business travelers: engineers and executives in the construction and oil and gas industries, who must often get to out-of-the-way places where tourists rarely tread.
These efforts are in addition to the subsidiaries that some of the major traditional airlines have started to compete with low-fare rivals. Delta Air Lines has Song, for example, and United Airlines, a unit of UAL Corporation, has Ted, both meant to attract price-conscious domestic leisure travelers, the niche exploited very profitably by JetBlue and its peers.
"For the first time, airlines are sitting down and looking at their assets, and trying to figure out the best way to deploy them," said Darin Lee, senior managing economist with LECG, a law and economics consulting group in Cambridge, Mass.
In the past, Mr. Lee said, airlines fell into two clear categories, full service and low fare, and passengers knew exactly what to expect from each. Now those lines are blurring. The old full-service airlines are becoming less so, the no-frills carriers are adding some frills, and both are varying their offerings more from route to route and flight to flight.
For example, American's service to Manchester will now resemble a low-fare airline's in many ways. American is using a narrow-body Boeing 757 jet on a trans-Atlantic route for the first time in a decade; the last effort was quickly abandoned because first- and business-class passengers wanted more room for their full fares. But that is not an issue this time.
American is not removing the big, wide business-class seats from the front of the cabin, at least not yet. They will be given to frequent fliers and to those paying full coach fares. But the meals, movies and other amenities will be the same throughout the plane.
"We'll have to see how it goes," said Daniel P. Garton, executive vice president for marketing at the AMR Corporation, American's parent. An American spokesman said bookings were in line with the airline's expectations, but declined to be more specific.
Whether adding frills or removing them, airlines are basing many of their moves on the experiences of more successful rivals. American executives said they were fascinated by the cost-cutting tactics of Ryanair, the discount Irish airline owned by Ryanair Holdings. "They've really gone to scorched earth," Mr. Garton said.
Ryanair is stripping every bit of weight and complexity that it can from the fleet of Boeing 737's it plans to use on its shortest flights, hoping to save hundreds of thousands of dollars in operating costs for each plane. Out come the window blinds, the reclining seats and even the seatback pockets that hold emergency instruction cards, airsickness bags and airline magazines.
Other discount airlines are looking upmarket. ATA Airlines, a unit of ATA Holdings, plans to add a business class to its planes by the end of the year, following AirTran, a unit of AirTran Holdings. Ted, United's discount start-up, also offers a premium service, called economy plus.
Along with optimizing costs and revenue, these airlines and others are trying to stake out a distinct brand identity, and to avoid being seen as equivalent to and interchangeable with rivals. "Everybody in the industry is trying to differentiate themselves," said Joanne Smith, vice president for marketing at Song, the low-fare carrier started last year by Delta Air Lines.
In American's case, the strategy will vary from route to route. Even as it strips down its Manchester flights, it plans to add features for high-fare passengers on others, and is studying ways to customize its services using its Web site. One idea is to let fliers rent DVD players and select films in advance, with the player and disks awaiting them as they board. The airline may also try allowing passengers to order meals before boarding from a wider menu than the usual chicken or beef, said Henry C. Joyner, American's vice president for strategy.
Song's approach has been to try to attract women, who make up the majority of adult leisure travelers and who generally book vacations for their families, Ms. Smith said. "Once you win the hearts of women, you know they'll talk about it," she said. "They'll become evangelists for the brand."
To that end, Song dresses its flight attendants, male and female, in uniforms designed by Kate Spade in its signature lime green and charcoal gray, colors chosen to stand out in an industry that tends to stick conservatively to red, white and navy blue. Song has also sought to set itself apart with the variety of merchandise it sells on board, including martinis freshly shaken at seat side, fine candy and meals made with organic ingredients. The newest offerings include a low-carbohydrate roast beef wrap sandwich and a low-carb cocktail of Bacardi rum and Diet Coke.
As fast as airlines innovate, however, competitors can copy. After JetBlue won customers' praise for its seatback entertainment system, Frontier, Ted, Song and other airlines quickly installed similar systems. Even the famously frugal Southwest Airlines acknowledged pressure to match the idea, though it has not decided to do so.
Mr. Lee, the economist, said that passengers can expect the airlines to keep experimenting with services tailored to all kinds of market niches, whether sumptuous, Spartan or between.
"These segments are a moving target," he said.
Ahh..technology..Noise from computer chips could reveal the computer code!
London / May 12, 2004 5:21:23 PM IST
According to a new study, the noise emitted by computer chips could make it possible for code breakers to decipher encrypted messages.
The researchers, Adi Shamir and Eran Tromer of the Weizmann Institute in Israel, sampled the high-frequency audio produced by computer central processing units (CPU) in a recording studio. They found that they could distinguish between different cryptographic keys being processed by the chip, according to the frequency of the sound emitted.
According to New. Scientist, it was also found that the length of a string of characters could be determined by measuring the duration of certain sounds because these correspond to the amount of time taken to process the key.
These details could, in theory, make it substantially simpler for an assailant to break the code used to protect valuable data on a computer
"Our preliminary analysis of acoustic emanations from personal computers shows them to be a surprisingly rich source of information on CPU activity," the researchers wrote in their study.
"This looks like a very exciting finding," said Dr Markus Kuhn, at Cambridge University in the UK. "It's another indication that there are many types of compromising emanations still waiting to be discovered."
Computer scientists have already demonstrated a variety of different ways of using inadvertent emanations to eavesdrop on computers. It is well known that the electromagnetic emanations from a monitor can be used to reconstruct information displayed on the screen. It is for this reason that some banks install computers within "Faraday cages", which block out electromagnetic signals.
Sony Plans Video Version of Vaio Pocket Device
2 hours, 20 minutes ago Add Technology - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Lucas van Grinsven, European Technology Correspondent
LOUVAIN-LA-NEUVE, Belgium (Reuters) - Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news) (news - web sites)'s new portable audio player competing with Apple's iPod will be accompanied this year by another device which can play video and beam it to a TV, the Japanese company said on Friday.
The chief of Sony's Vaio computer and mobile products, Keiji Kimura, told Reuters he also expected to bring the audio version to Europe this year.
The world's biggest consumer electronics maker unveiled the new audio pocket player in Japan this week as part of an extended line-up of its Vaio computer products aimed at blurring the distinction between home entertainment and computing.
"Vaio pocket will be launched in Europe within this year," he said in an interview on the fringes of a global launch tour for the redesigned Vaio range. "As for the video version, we want to productize it as soon as possible. It's very near future. It will be earlier than (2005)."
Sony's new portable devices are key elements in the firm's drive to grab a chunk of the digital entertainment market that has so far been defined by Apple with its iTunes Music Store on the Internet and iPod portable jukebox that can store thousands of songs on a hard disk.
The iTunes Music Store is the most popular Internet music shop. It sold 70 million songs in its first year, accounting for the majority of music legally distributed over the Web.
Last week Sony opened its own Internet music store, Connect, in the United States, and will open European versions next month in Germany, France and the UK.
But the store has fielded early criticism from consumers because the music can only be played back on devices that use Sony's standards for encryption and digital rights management.
Apple uses a more standard technology to compress songs for faster downloads and more efficient storage, but, like Sony, it protects songs against piracy with its own technology.
"(Sony's Connect) is too late and incompatible to compete effectively," Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff said after the launch.
INCOMPATIBLE, BUT NOT FOR LONG
Kimura, who said it was still very early days for digital entertainment and the race against Apple was by no means run, was hopeful that Sony and its rivals would open each other's technologies up to each other.
In a first step, within four to eight weeks some 100 electronics and software makers brought together in the Digital Home Working Group will come up with the first specification of connection standards for easier communication between devices, he said.
As a result, Sony will use the standard 802.11G Wi-Fi technology -- already popular among computer users to hook up wirelessly to the Internet -- to send video from the Vaio Pocket to a TV. Other home network equipment makers, like Cisco-owned Linksys, also use 802.11G.
"That's the first, fairly low level of communication standards. I'm now totally pushing the second phase in which we'll (set standards for) other key issues such as the digital rights management and rules to use content," he said.
Hollywood and the music industry will now be invited to the table to help eradicate the already abundant fragmentation of the emerging digital entertainment market, he said.
"Without agreement it's going to be very tough to create the e-home. We have a concern (about interoperability) at the hardware side. The content guys have the same concern," he said.
Standards are crucial if the electronics industry is to convince consumers to replace home entertainment systems with new networked products that will work together, Kimura said.
Electronics makers have high hopes for the networked home where consumers can watch, edit, store and swap entertainment such as video, audio, games and pictures between products such as mobile devices, computers, TVs and DVD recorders.
Sony's first home network products, for example, enable consumers to record a TV show on their home computer even when they are behind their desk in the office, and send these TV programs wirelessly to any TV set in the home.
But Kimura estimated it would take three more years before the average consumer will be able to use these services.
"For the general consumer, home entertainment networking is still very difficult to understand. And as a rule, we know that if a product is not exciting to a consumer, they are never going to accept it," he said.
Wallon virus wrecks Windows Media Player
Munir Kotadia
ZDNet UK
May 12, 2004, 16:50 BST
Tell us your opinion
The latest mass mailing virus called Wallon is spreading via HTML email and can destroy the Windows Media Player
A new mass-mailing virus called Wallon, which destroys Windows media player and is activated when a user tries to play MP3 or video files from an infected PC, was discovered in Europe on Tuesday.
Traditionally, mass-mailing viruses such as Netsky and Bagle are spread as attachments. When an unsuspecting user opens the infected attachment, it executes a piece of code that usually attempts to steal the user's address book and often opens a back door to give hackers easy access to the system's resources.
Maikel Albrecht, product manager at Finnish security company F-Secure, said that because of recent virus outbreaks, users are less willing to open email attachments, which is why Wallon's author is counting on users clicking on an email link instead.
"The link in the email points to the actual virus, so if you click the link you download the virus," said Albrecht.
However, once the PC is infected, Wallon remains dormant until the user tries to run a media file such as an MP3 or a video. If by default the system uses Windows Media Player, the virus is activated and attempts to send HTML emails, each with a link to the virus file, to any email addresses in the computer's address book.
"If you try and play media content, the worm will activate and start spreading but the user will not see the media player," said Albrecht.
Wallon requires intervention by the user before it can replicate, so Albrecht expects it will not spread very quickly. But unlike common viruses, Wallon is destructive because it replaces the wmplayer.exe file, which means that users infected by the worm will need to reinstall Media Player.
Stuart Okin, chief security officer at Microsoft UK, said anyone worried about Wallon should install Microsoft's MS04-13 patch, which was released in mid-April and solves the problem.
Okin said that if a user has been infected and can no longer use their Media Player he or she should first ensure the system is no longer infected by the virus and then reinstall Media player either from his or her original Windows CD or from the Microsoft Web site.
Additionally, Okin said users should remain cautious about opening email attachments and they should avoid clicking on links in email messages whenever they can.
"When you receive a link to a Web site that you normally visit, don't click on the link, use your Favourites or type in the address in manually," he said.
I agree with what you are saying, but they seem to want to integrate email and internet with their Yes product. I think unless they break it out it may give them cost disadvantages that will continue to make us the lower cost alternative. As lickily continues to point out, content will be the key and we already have an entre with Fox and maybe Disney.
I think a full tablet PC may also be more than the average traveler may want to carry in his/her lap or tray table. Size in this case is not necessarily an advantage.
If you want to have email and internet surfing an onboard server won't cut it and I'm not aware of any other sanctioned internet connection.
Seems that Yes will only work optimally with jets that have Connexion installed. Internet and email will not work without this service it would seem to me. At a million dollars a plane, uptake may not be that fast. The VOD is a direct threat for sure however. Seems to me that we have much lower up front costs though ("ruggedized tablet PC vs. our digeplayer). GD is definitely the 600 lb. gorilla though...
Not in our backyard
A year on from its launch and we still can't get Apple's music store in Europe. Meanwhile, the competition is moving in, says Charles Arthur. What's going on?
05 May 2004
Apple's iTunes Music Store turned one year old last week - but only in the US. Its European counterpart is still nowhere to be seen, even though the incentive for Apple to launch it could hardly be greater. With thousands of Britons who snapped up iPod digital music players last year as potential users of the service, Apple is in effect losing business with every day that passes.
In the meantime, rival download services - which sell songs that cannot be played on the iPod, because they are encoded with "rights management" software that only works on Microsoft Windows - are gaining ground. OD2 and Wippit are selling hundreds, perhaps thousands of songs every week; Wippit in particular has signed up both EMI and BMG as well as scores of independent labels, and is already distributing their catalogue through its legal peer-to-peer service. The now-legal Napster also plans a service for the end of the summer, says Chris Gorog, its chief executive.
But Apple has not set a European launch date. Though its chief executive Steve Jobs said last week it would arrive "later this year". The absence of Apple from Europe seems remarkable, given its dominance of the US download market, where independent estimates suggest it has 70 per cent of the legal download market, as it is now selling around 2.4 million songs every week, and 70 million in the past year. It achieved that by signing up all five record labels; its US catalogue numbers more than 700,000 songs. And in Europe, none.
That has created a new game inside Europe's computer and record industries: explain the delay. Is it rows with rights organisations? Its lawsuit with the Beatles' management company, Apple Corps? Well-placed industry sources outside Apple say not. The real reason, they reveal, is that the record companies are now scared that the European iTunes Music Store will dominate rivals here too - and dictate the future direction of online music.
"There's a fear that [record companies] can't let Apple do the same here [in Europe] because then they would dominate," said one source familiar with negotiations, who insisted on anonymity. "You'll see Apple get delayed and delayed as companies like Wippit and OD2 and Napster are encouraged [by record labels] to grab market share. [Labels] aren't meant to collude on things like this, but the big fear is that just as MTV got music videos for free and then dominated the music industry, because it could make or break stars by airing their songs, so Apple could do that online. The older music executives, who remember the lesson of MTV, don't want to be over a barrel again with a big provider."
The upshot of that, though, could be that Apple will be forced to adapt the iPod to play files from rival stores - or eventually be squeezed out of the digital player market.
No other reasons put forward for the delay would have held back Apple, which has had more than a year to negotiate deals. The lawsuit with Apple Corps, over Apple Computer's move into music, could be settled either way; but if Apple Computer loses it could surely afford to pay any fine from its $4bn cash pile.
Suggestions that the delay is caused by disagreements with the MCPS [Mechanical Copyright Protection Society], which collects royalties when a physical or digital copy of a song is sold are also untrue, said Adrian Crookes, the spokesman for the MCPS. "We charge 8 per cent of revenues," he explained. "It's a flat rate across Europe. So for a track costing £1, eight pence would be payable to the MCPS." The MCPS rate applies Europe-wide, because there are reciprocal arrangements with other countries; that means Apple could sign an MCPS deal, set up a UK online store and sell tracks for €0.99 across Europe without a murmur. And given those reciprocal deals, songs from other European countries could be sold in the UK too.
But to do that, Apple needs the music - and for the labels to sign up and let it sell them. In retrospect, the music companies never expected Apple's US success. Only a few million machines had the capability to run the OSX software needed to access the store when it was launched. And the record companies had previously tried and failed to sell music downloads through on the tens of millions of machines running Windows. Why should Apple succeed where they had failed?
But instead of selling in proportion with Apple's single-digit market share, the iTunes Music Store saw explosive growth: ten million in four months, and 25 million by the end of the year, and 70 million now. "iTunes has exceeded our wildest expectations during its first year, charting a new direction for the music industry," said Jobs last week. But possibly the labels are not happy about that direction. Others in the business query whether the online business can succeed, even while acknowledging that digital music players - of which the iPod is just the best-known - are encouraging people to listen to more music, in more places, than before.
"The way that people consume music is changing," agrees Steve Gallant, product manager for HMV Records. "But in other respects, it isn't. Five years ago people would have said that we should be shutting shops, that everyone would be buying music online by now. But only about 4 per cent of music is even purchased online; most people buy in stores. A lot of people check out online to see whether to come to the store."
Galant is dismissive about the size of the download market, and its influence. "In the UK it's very, very small. The top bundle of songs sells 100 copies a week. Compare that with 250,000 nationwide for the top-selling album in a store. In fact, we will be opening 25 new stores this year, because the demand is there.
"It's not all going to switch to being online in the foreseeable future. People might download songs, but if you're going to buy a collection then you're probably going to want the sleeve and notes, rather than a bundle of tracks that you just download."
He also thinks that physical stores do more to encourage artists than online ones: "They just see music as content to be sold." And some in the industry think that the rivalry will kill off online stores, leaving the physical ones in place with solid profits. "I can't see how anyone can make money selling downloads for 29p," said Dirk De Clippeleir, the director of new formats at Universal Music. "The online business model is evaporating before it's even taken off."
But Paul Myers, the founder and chief executive of Wippit (which offers the 29p tracks, including OutKast's huge hit "Hey Ya!") insists that he is making money at that price: "After you take off VAT, we split the remaining 21p equally with the rights holders. They've agreed to sell at that price; we're not doing some mad loss-leader."
For Myers, every track sold through Wippit is another not sold by Apple - and another piece of ground gained by the Windows Media Audio (WMA) format protected by digital rights software, which the iPod can't play. "I've got an iPod myself, but I'm thinking about getting something else because I can't play songs from my own service, only my own CDs," said Myers. "Apple has this problem - it's always been stubborn about opening up. I'm not sure how long the iPod can be dominant without two things - playing locked WMA files, and Apple letting other companies use its 'Fairplay' digital rights software."
But Jobs rebuffed exactly that suggestion by Rob Glaser, the chief executive of Real, a fortnight ago. And to play Microsoft formats on the iPod might seem to him like an admission of defeat. "Apple has always preferred to have 6 per cent of the top, rather than a royalty from everything like IBM does," said Myers. "But to keep on top now, they'll have to widen their scope. There's no other choice."
Recording Companies Agree to Pay $50M
Recording Companies Agree to Pay $50 Million in Royalties to Sean Combs, Dolly Parton, Others
The Associated Press
NEW YORK May 4 -- Major recording companies have agreed to return nearly $50 million in unclaimed royalties to Sean Combs, Gloria Estefan, Dolly Parton and thousands of lesser known musicians under a settlement announced Tuesday.
A two-year investigation by New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office found that many artists were not being paid royalties because record companies lost contact with the performers and had stopped making required payments.
As a result of the agreement, Spitzer said, new procedures will be adopted to ensure that artists and their descendants receive the compensation they are entitled to get.
"Once the recording companies have received royalties, those royalties have to be disbursed to the artists who are owed those funds," Spitzer said at a news conference.
"There are many artists who struggle. ... They depend on the stream of royalties," he added.
The attorney general said about $25 million in royalties has already been paid, with the other $25 million still outstanding.
The Washington-based Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the companies, planned to comment later Tuesday, said spokesman Jonathan Lamy.
Representatives for Combs and Parton did not immediately return calls for comment. A spokesman for Estefan, reached prior to the announcement, was unaware of the settlement and had no immediate comment.
Spitzer had no explanation when asked how companies could lose contact with such big-name artists.
The participating companies include: SONY Music Entertainment; Sony ATV Music Publishing; Warner Music Group; UMG Recordings; Universal Music; EMI Music Publishing; BMG Songs; Careers-BMG Music Publishing; BMG Music and the Harry Fox Agency.
Under the settlement, the music companies agreed to make good-faith efforts to track down artists to whom royalties are due. If the artists still cannot be located, the money will revert to the state.
The settlement could expand to include other recording companies, Spitzer said.
I liked this part also..
-- Chip makers BridgeCo AG, Equator Technologies Inc., Imagination Technologies, Micronas, Motorola Inc., Sigma Designs Inc. and SigmaTel Inc.
New Device Allows Recording at Concerts
By LUKAS I. ALPERT
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- Oh, how far we've come from the 78, the 45, even the CD. Now, minutes after your favorite band sounds its last note on stage, you can load a live recording of the concert onto a cigarette-lighter-sized hard drive hanging off your keychain.
Take it home, toss the digital files onto your computer and then e-mail it to all your friends with the message, "Dude! These guys are awesome!"
On May 21, new digital kiosks offering the tiny drives will be installed at Maxwell's, a small indie-rock club in Hoboken, N.J. At $10 a pop for the recording, and $20 for the reusable, keychain drive, let the downloading begin.
"This is a tool that allows fans to take home and share some of the best independent music from small live venues around the country," said Daniel Stein, CEO of Dimensional Associates, a private equity firm that owns eMusic Live, which created the machines, as well as eMusic, a music file-sharing Web site, and The Orchard, a marketing firm for independent labels.
For Scott Ambrose Reilly, president of eMusic Live, the idea is to let fans have a legal copy of a live show, which gives smaller artists and their labels creative control over the quality of the recording and a commercial stake in its distribution.
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The understanding is also that it is not a one-time recording. Fans can share the files with their friends, providing free word-of-mouth publicity for smaller bands.
For eMusic Live, the devices are just the next step for a service that it and other competitors already provide: burning CDs of live performances right after a show ends.
"What we were seeing is that a large number of people were taking their CDs home and ripping them to MP3s, so we thought it would benefit music fans to eliminate that middle step," Reilly said.
The technology is quite simple: The music fan goes up to the touch-screen kiosk after the show and buys the keychain drive with a credit card from a dispenser alongside the screen. Once that's done, the miniature drive is inserted into a slot in the kiosk, and the recording - stored as MP3 files - is loaded onto the device's 128-megabyte hard drive. That is enough space for 110 minutes of music.
A receipt for the transaction is sent to the concertgoer's e-mail address.
"I can remember when I started the debate was whether the 45 or 33 would be more successful," said Richard Gottehrer, author of hits like "My Boyfriend's Back," and "I Want Candy," and chairman of The Orchard. "Now the Napsters of the world are yesterday's news and this is the newer, legal, next step."
Whether the technology will take off remains to be seen. But its creators are optimistic and hope to roll the machines into venues around the country soon.
"Admittedly this won't be for everyone," Reilly said. "But since the direction of music is increasingly going digital, I don't see why this wouldn't find its niche."
At a demo for the device at a sound studio in Manhattan on Tuesday, a New York-based band, Elysian Fields, performed three songs, which were quickly loaded onto the "pen drives" afterward.
Later, at home, the device was inserted into the USB port of a laptop computer and voila! singer Jennifer Charles' smoky, lilting lyrics and Oren Bloedow's reverbed-out, brooding guitar lines filled the living room.
Charles called the new technology "a beautiful thing."
"I'm very excited to be a part of this incredible and sexy technology," she said between songs. "It makes us feel very James Bond. You can have your little pens - wow, beam me up Scotty."
---
On the net:
eMusic Live: http://www.emusiclive.com
eMusic: http://www.emusic.com
The Orchard: http://www.theorchard.com
Elysian Fields: http://www.elysianmusic.com
Maxwell's: http://www.maxwellsnj.com
Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights
Online Music Delivered To Yale Students On LANs
April 28, 2004 (1:25 p.m. EST)
TechWeb News
A music downloading service offering 700,000 songs stored on Yale University LANs debuted this week in a pilot program expected to spread to 20 universities in the fall.
With MusicNet supplying the songs and Cflix supplying the delivery over local area networks, the two firms said the music service -- called Ctrax -- is inexpensive and legal.
"MusicNet will provide Ctrax with a subscription service and download store featuring more than 700,000 tracks, original programming, playlists, and other features," MusicNet and Cflix said in a statement. "Additionally, the Ctrax service will incorporate community features specifically for Yale University to provide an outlet for locally produced music and video."
MusicNet has long provided customizable digital music for large Internet brands including AOL and Virgin. Cflix has provided video and online educational content for college students over the past two years. The content includes film, television, music and educational material, the company said.
Colleges utilizing Cflix content in the past two years include Yale, Duke, Wake Forest, and the University of Colorado. In the Yale trial, students will be charged $2 a month with song packs of 10 for $8 and 20 for $15.
Apple Releases Major iTunes Update
Posted by pudge on Wednesday April 28, @10:39AM
from the more-sharing-less-burning-plus-some-wacky-stuff dept.
shunnicutt writes "Apple has released iTunes 4.5 (and iPod software 2.2 and QuickTime 6.5.1) and relaxed some iTunes Music Store restrictions: now tracks you purchased can be authorized to play on up to five other computers, instead of three. However, they reduced the number of times you can burn a playlist to an audio CD from ten to seven. Another new feature is iMix, which allows you to publish playlists on iTMS, including comments on each track. The iTMS also offers a weekly free single for download." crazney adds "This release also changes their network sharing protocol in a way that breaks the open source iTunes sharing applications that have been released (based on my work on iTunes 4.2's DRM)." kefoo writes "Among the new features is Apple Lossless Encoding, which claims to compress losslessly to half the size of uncompressed CD quality audio." Hm, and I was about to re-rip all my CDs at 320 kbps MP3 ... Update: 04/28 14:56 GMT by P: I just tested, and I can listen to previously de-DRM'd AAC files from playfair, but I cannot use either playfair or FairTunes any longer. The former "Couldn't get DRM key for user," and the latter produces a blank file.
The Next Chapter In Electronic Books
Arik Hesseldahl, 04.26.04, 10:00 AM ET
NEW YORK - The electronic book is one of those technological concepts from the 1990s that seems somewhat of a leftover. It's never really taken off the way it potentially could: It makes so much sense.
Books--especially the great beefy ones worth reading--are bulky. Their size makes them inconvenient. And with all this electronic equipment we lug around--laptops, personal digital assistants and the like--there's no reason they couldn't be used to carry the text of books.
The Librie goes on sale in Japan this month.
Last month, Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people ) and Royal Philips Electronics (nyse: PHG - news - people ) teamed with privately held E Ink to announce the Librié, which is set to go on sale in Japan this month. It looks a bit like a PDA but its display uses E Ink's electronic ink technology that it says offers a "paper-like" reading experience comparable to newsprint.
Getting the display's appearance just right has been a key problem in the evolution of the e-book concept. Paper is ideal for most eyes, electronic displays simply aren't. Paper requires no technical knowledge; electronic devices invariably include instruction manuals--printed on paper.
E Ink's electronic paper display is reflective and can be read in the sunlight and in conditions of dim light. It presents a resolution of 170 pixels per inch, similar to newspaper. The gadget uses four AAA batteries but only uses power when a page is turned and the image presented on the display changes. The companies say a user can turn 10,000 pages before those batteries have to be replaced.
The device itself is about the size of a paperback book and can store the contents of about 500 books at a time. And therein is the basic strength of the e-book. While information is increasingly available in digitized form, we're still using a lot of paper, still buying books and still carrying them around. Cramming all our reading into a light electronic device that is easy on the eyes makes sense for the reader as long as it's easy to use. If nothing else, it would reduce the size of carry-on luggage on long flights.
Last year, BarnesandNoble.com (nasdaq: BNBN - news - people ) stopped selling e-books for download from its Web site amid underwhelming sales. Also last year, Gemstar (nasdaq: GMST - news - people ) stopped selling its Softbook e-book devices and discontinued sales of e-book content.
If the e-book is going to be a hit, a few things have to happen. First there has to be a good selection of material to read, and, for publishers, that means taking the risk that their best titles may wind up being distributed for free on the Internet.
PDA users are already downloading books. Palmsource (nasdaq: PSRC - news - people ) sells e-books for use on handheld devices running the Palm operating system. Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack is available for download for $14.99. Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) also sells e-books for its Microsoft Reader software on PDAs running Windows Mobile. But last year the security on Microsoft's software was cracked.
The recording industry has struggled with this problem in ways both overt and subtle: It has sued batches of pirate downloaders but also circulated its own falsely labeled music files intended to frustrate and dissuade would-be pirates.
The right device--like an iPod from Apple Computer (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people )--coupled with a good music-download service--like Apple's iTunes Music Store--are proving to be a success. And while Apple has lately been chasing the creators of a software program called Playfair--which has defeated Apple's digital rights management scheme, dubbed Fairplay, and limits how music purchased from iTunes can be used--publishers learn a lot from the iTunes experience.
If Sony's new reading device turns out to be the iPod of electronic readers, then publishers will have to develop the reader's equivalent of iTunes.
Shifting From P2P To Stream Ripping
Posted by timothy on Wednesday April 21, @07:08PM
from the too-bad-it's-such-a-pain dept.
An anonymous reader submits "As users continue to try fending off the ever more litigious music industry, some seem to have dropped P2P entirely, moving to ripping instead. While they lose some control over what they are downloading, it's a untraceable way to download music (no way for the RIAA to track users or sue). With some of the more powerful software that's been coming out recently, stream ripping has become more main-stream. Some of the more well known software packages, like StationRipper, allow users to download several thousand songs on a daily basis. And, depending on how you read the law, it's 100% legal. How will the RIAA respond? As more users move to this type of technology to avoid the P2P lawsuits, how will the music industry respond?"
The status of automotive telematics in North America...
http://www.telematicsresearch.com/PDFs/TMpress042104.pdf
Sony in Talks to Buy MGM for $5 Billion
1 hour, 47 minutes ago Add Business - AP to My Yahoo!
By GARY GENTILE, AP Business Writer
LOS ANGELES - Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news) (news - web sites). is in talks to acquire film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. in a cash deal valued at around $5 billion, a source familiar with the talks said Wednesday.
News of the discussions sent MGM shares surging nearly 12 percent, or $2.10, to close at $19.75 Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites). The stock gained another 5 cents in after hours trading.
Shares of Sony fell 28 cents to close at $41.95 on news of the deal, which was first reported Wednesday afternoon by The Wall Street Journal.
Sony would join with private equity firms Texas Pacific Group and Providence Equity Partners to buy the legendary studio, the source said.
Sony would likely fold MGM into its Sony Pictures Entertainment division. It is not known what would become of the MGM and United Artists labels.
Sony is likely interested in acquiring MGM's library of more than 4,200 titles, including the "Pink Panther" series.
Representatives from Sony Pictures, MGM and Texas Pacific Group declined to comment. A representative from Providence Equity Partners did not return a call seeking comment.
For nearly two years, MGM has been seeking to become larger either through an acquisition or merger.
The company, which is 74 percent owned by billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, made an unsuccessful bid for Universal Studios last year. Unable to strike a deal, MGM said recently it would pay a one-time special dividend of $8 per share, which would net a $1.4 billion windfall for Kerkorian.
Late Wednesday, MGM reaffirmed its plans to have its board vote as early as next week on management's recommendation to pay the dividend. Earlier reports had speculated MGM would defer the dividend in view of the Sony offer.
If the deal goes through, it will reunite MGM with the backlot it once owned and where historic films such as "Gone With the Wind" were shot. MGM sold its backlot to Sony years ago. The company is the only major studio without its own soundstages or permanent sets.
MGM has struggled with its feature film slate in recent years, producing occasional hits such as "Legally Blonde" and "Barbershop." It also produces the popular "James Bond" series of films.
It also produces television shows, including "Stargate SG1" and "She Spies," and operates cable channels around the world.
Protected Audio Content: Consumers, Vendors Line Up Behind Either Apple or Microsoft
Lead Analyst: Joe Wilcox
JupiterResearch believes the permanent protected audio market will consolidate around two formats--Fairplay-AAC and WMA DRM--over the next 24 months. However, the next 12 months are crucial for the Apple and Microsoft camps. Decisions made during this period could create an opportunity for a single format to become dominant.
Key Questions
>> Why is the market for permanent protected content consolidating around two formats?
>> Why is there room for competition if Apple commands a strong format lead?
>> How can Apple, Microsoft, and other vendors maximize sales opportunities?
Key Findings
Landscape: Apple-Microsoft Format War Defines Permanent Protected Audio Content Market
The market for permanent protected audio content is rapidly consolidating around two camps. Apple, which forms a distribution axis with AOL and Hewlett-Packard, is the earlier consumption leader of protected content. By contrast, Microsoft has laid broader distribution infrastructure.
Outlook: Market for Protected Content Is Nascent, Open to Competition
The sudden success of the iTunes Music Store and proliferation of imitators wrongly suggests the market for permanent content is booming. Overall, 71 percent of consumers say they aren't interested in buying digital downloads or paying for monthly subscription services. JupiterResearch believes that, at best, the market for protected audio content is in its early stages of development. While adoption of Apple's Fairplay-AAC format appears to have an early lead on Microsoft's WMA DRM, the market remains fairly wide open to competition.
Mandate: Avoid Conflict, Find Targets
Compatible co-existence is crucial to the success of either format. JupiterResearch believes a drawn-out format war will slow digital download adoption, cause consumer confusion, increase fragmentation, and rob vendors of sales. Vendors should focus on loyal listeners and big spenders. Apple must continue partnerships, while Microsoft must overcome fragmentation and WMA DRM usage problems.
For more information, click here or call 800-481-1212.
OT Windows XP in a tiny package
18 minutes ago
By Dean Takahashi, Mercury News
For Jory Bell, creating a handheld computer that uses the full Windows XP (news - web sites) operating system isn't a matter of if, but when.
As chief executive of San Francisco-based OQO, Bell has been trying for four years to create such a handheld. Now he says the product will be launched in the fall.
The company's 30 employees have produced several prototypes of its "ultra personal computer" that takes Windows into its final frontier in a handheld, where full PC compatibility could give it an advantage over rival Palm and PocketPC handhelds.
"People tell us they want mobility, and they want Windows compatibility," Bell says.
But Windows XP wasn't meant to be used in anything smaller than a laptop computer. And that means OQO had to do a lot of custom engineering to create its device.
Several other companies, including Tiqit, have struggled trying to achieve the same goal. OQO's crew included engineers who designed Apple Computer's well-received Titanium laptops. It also had investors that included former executives from Microsoft and Transmeta and venture capital backers such as Azure Capital, Wasserstein Ventures and AsiaTech. OQO has raised more than $17 million to date.
OQO came up with its first handheld PC in 2002. Now it has a better design with better screen resolution. Bell says the designers built in a flexible microcontroller that allowed them to eliminate a lot of chips used in laptops.
The OQO machine is fairly powerful for a handheld. It has a 1-gigahertz Transmeta Crusoe processor, a 20-gigabyte Toshiba hard drive that is 1.8 inches wide, a Silicon Motion graphics chip with 8 megabytes of video memory, 256 megabytes of main memory and WiFi wireless networking. The machine has a keyboard that can be pressed with thumbs.
The device is expected to sell for under $2,000. Bell says OQO plans to sell direct to consumers via the Web and through a small direct sales force.
Contact Dean Takahashi at dtakahashi@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5739.
maybe they will be infringing on our "prior art"...
0003] Some prior art methods for enabling a user to access music in a database include voice recognition technology, but the results are limited to only specific sound tracks, or files containing sound tracks manually ordered by the user, see, e.g. "How to use and enjoy your MXP 100," e.Digital Corporation, 2001.
[0004] Therefore, new means for organizing and accessing recordings stored in a large music library need to be provided.
Of interest..United States Patent Application 20040064306
Kind Code A1
Wolf, Peter P. ; et al. April 1, 2004
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Voice activated music playback system
Abstract
A method selects recordings stored in a database. A spoken query is represented as a phonetic lattice and paths through the phonetic lattice are converted to a set of text queries. The database is searched to generate a playlist of recordings matching the set of text queries and samples of the recordings on the playlist are then played. A particular sample is selected as an acoustic query for searching the database to update the playlist with recording matching the acoustic query. Samples of the recordings on the updated playlist are played and a particular sample of the updated play list is selected. A particular record associated with the sample is then played.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inventors: Wolf, Peter P.; (Winchester, MA) ; Casey, Michael A.; (Cambridge, MA)
Correspondence Name and Address: Patent Department
Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Inc.
201 Broadway
Cambridge
MA
02139
US
Serial No.: 260477
Series Code: 10
Filed: September 30, 2002
U.S. Current Class: 704/201
U.S. Class at Publication: 704/201
Intern'l Class: G10L 019/00
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Claims
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We claim:
1. A method for selecting recordings from a database stored in a memory, comprising: representing a spoken query as a phonetic lattice; converting paths through the phonetic lattice to a set of text queries; searching the database to generate a playlist of recordings matching the set of text queries; playing samples of the recordings on the playlist; and selecting a particular sample as an acoustic query; searching the database to update the playlist with recordings matching the acoustic query; playing samples of the recording on the updated playlist; and selecting a particular sample of the updated play list to play a particular associated recording.
2. The method of claim 1 further comprising: maintaining records in the database, each record including a recording, a sample of the recording and associated text descriptors.
3. The method of claim 2 wherein the step of searching the database to generate the playlist further comprises: comparing the set of text queries with the associated text descriptors in each record; and identifying records having associated text descriptors that match the set of text queries.
4. The method of claim 2, further comprising: ordering the playlist according to the text descriptors.
5. The method of claim 2, further comprising: ordering the playlist according to a certainty of the text query.
6. The method of claim 2, further comprising: ordering the playlist according to a random order.
7. The method of claim 1 wherein the steps of selecting are initiated in response to a command.
8. The method of claim 7 wherein the command is a spoken command.
9. The method of claim 7 wherein the command is input mechanically.
10. An apparatus for selecting recordings from a database stored in a memory, comprising: a speech recognizer for representing a spoken query as a phonetic lattice; means for converting paths through the phonetic lattice to a set of text queries; means for searching the database to generate a playlist of recordings matching the set of text queries; a scanner for playing samples of the recordings on the playlist, the scanner including a speaker; means for updating the playlist with recordings in the database matching an acoustic query; and means for selecting a particular sample from the playlist, having two modes, in a first mode, said means is capable of selecting a particular sample as the acoustic query, and in a second mode said means is capable of selecting a particular sample associated with a recording in the database matching the acoustic query.
11. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein a connection with the memory is wireless.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Description
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0001] The present invention relates generally to searching and retrieving audio content, and more particularly to retrieving recorded music in a database using spoken queries.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] With the advent of advanced digital compression techniques and high capacity memories, it is now possible to store very large music libraries in very small devices. Media playback devices can store thousands of music tracks. Traditional interfaces, where the user must manually select the desired recording media, as well as specific "tracks" do not work for such devices, particularly if the user is engaged in other activities while listening. In addition, the modern music library can be collected in an ad hoc manner which may even make it impossible for a user to know exactly what is stored in the library.
[0003] Some prior art methods for enabling a user to access music in a database include voice recognition technology, but the results are limited to only specific sound tracks, or files containing sound tracks manually ordered by the user, see, e.g. "How to use and enjoy your MXP 100," e.Digital Corporation, 2001.
[0004] Therefore, new means for organizing and accessing recordings stored in a large music library need to be provided.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0005] The invention provides a method and system for selecting recordings stored in a database. A spoken query is represented as a phonetic lattice and paths through the phonetic lattice are converted into a set of text queries. The database is searched to generate a playlist of recordings matching the set of text queries and samples of the recordings on the playlist are then played. A particular sample is selected as an acoustic query for searching the database to update the playlist with recording matching the acoustic query. Samples of the recordings on the updated playlist are played and a particular sample of the updated play list is selected. A particular record associated with the sample then played.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0006] FIG. 1 is a voice activated music playback system according to the invention; and
[0007] FIG. 2 is a flow diagram for searching and retrieving sound recordings according to the invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
[0008] System Structure
[0009] FIG. 1 shows the music playback system 100 according to the invention. The system includes a processor 110, a memory 120, a microphone 130, a switch 140 and one or more speakers 150 connected to each other.
[0010] The processor 110 is substantially conventional, executing software programs stored in the memory 120. The processor includes an audio "card" that can convert digital data to audio signals. The memory 120 can be in various forms including RAM, ROM, disk, and flash memories. The switch can be configured in various ways, e.g., push, toggle, slide, etc., to conform to the operations detailed below. The system 100 can be hand-held, or mounted in a vehicle. The connections can be wireless.
[0011] FIG. 2 shows additional details of the system 100, including a speech recognizer 210, a text query generator 220, a text search engine 230, a scanner 240 and an acoustic search engine 250. These are implemented by software modules stored in the memory 120 and executed by the processor 110.
[0012] The memory 120 also stores a database 260 of records 270. Each record 270 includes associated text descriptors 271, an audio recording 272, and a sample 273 of the recording 272. The switch 140 and the microphone 130 provide input to the recognizer 210 and the scanner 240. The speaker 150 plays samples and recordings as selected by the user. The speaker can also be used to provide system status information.
[0013] System Operation
[0014] As shown in a method 200 in FIG. 2, the recognizer 210 receives a spoken user query via the microphone 130. The switch 140 can be used to actuate the microphone. The recognizer 210 represents the spoken query as a phonetic lattice 211. Nodes in the lattice represent phonetic primitives, such as words, syllables, or phonemes, and edges indicate possible sequences of the primitives.
[0015] The text query generator 220 converts the lattice 211 into a set of text queries 221 representing the paths through the lattice as likely textual representations of the spoken query, see, Wolf, et al., U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/132,753, "Retrieving Documents with Spoken Queries," filed on Apr. 25, 2002 and incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
[0016] The text search engine 230 searches the records 270 in the database 260 to generate a play list 231 by comparing the text queries 221 to the text descriptors 271 of each record 270. The play list indicates records having text descriptors matching the text query 221. The play list can be ordered according text descriptors, a certainty of the text query, or a random order.
[0017] The scanner 240 plays the sample 273 of each record 270 in the order of the play list 231 using the speaker 150. The user can select a sample from the play list by inputting a command 242 using the microphone 130 or the switch 140. The command either plays the corresponding recording 272 or updates the play list.
[0018] To update the play list, the selected sample forms an acoustic query 241. The acoustic search engine 250 searches the records 270 and updates the play list with records 270 matching the acoustic query 241, see, Casey, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/861,808, "Method and System for Recognizing, Indexing, and Searching Acoustic Signals," filed on May 21, 2001 and incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Again, the play list 231 can be ordered or random.
[0019] The scanner 240 can then play the samples of the recordings in the updated play list 231. Alternatively, the user can issue a command to the scanner, using the microphone or the switch, to play any or each recording indicated by the updated play list in any order.
[0020] Although the invention has been described by way of examples of preferred embodiments, it is to be understood that various other adaptations and modifications may be made within the spirit and scope of the invention. Therefore, it is the object of the appended claims to cover all such variations and modifications as come within the true spirit and scope of the invention.
Great repost moxa1! Here's a thought..what if ittiam chooses to go public by merging with us? Have we simply outsourced our webhosting and design or is there something more going on here?? Hmmmmm...
Apple Rebuffs RealNetworks' Approach
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Apple Computer Inc. apparently doesn't want to sing the same tune as its Internet music rival RealNetworks Inc.
Seattle-based RealNetworks said Thursday that Apple chairman Steve Jobs had rebuffed an offer by RealNetworks' chief executive Rob Glaser to meet and discuss forming an online music alliance involving Apple's best-selling iPod portable players.
"He's in the neighborhood, but whatever meeting Rob wanted with Steve isn't happening," RealNetworks spokesman Greg Chiemingo said Thursday. "Steve just doesn't want to open the iPod, and we don't understand that."
Executives at Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple declined to comment Thursday.
In an interview earlier this week with The Wall Street Journal, Jobs said Apple has little incentive to open its popular digital music player to others.
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Apple Rebuffs RealNetworks' Approach
"The iPod already works with the No. 1 music service in the world, and the iTunes Music Store works with the No. 1 digital-music player in the world," he said. "The No. 2s are so far behind already. Why would we want to work with No. 2?"
As first reported in The New York Times, Glaser made the invitation in an e-mail to Jobs last week that suggested that the two companies join forces against their common enemy, Microsoft Corp. He proposed a meeting to discuss the matter this week while he was in the Silicon Valley.
As competition in the online music market has increased, RealNetworks has sought to work with Apple so RealNetworks' customers can choose to play their music collections on Apple's best-selling iPod portable players.
RealNetworks, Apple and Microsoft all are jockeying for position in digital media - in which encoding formats and copy-protection technologies dictate how and on which devices consumers play their music.
Like Apple's leading iTunes song-download store, RealNetworks' online music store supports the Advanced Audio Coding format, which competes against Microsoft's Windows Media Audio format predominantly used by other legal music sites.
But because of Apple's proprietary copy-protection standard Fairplay, songs attained from RealNetworks' Rhapsody music service and RealPlayer music store cannot be played on Apple's iPod players.
"We want support for all media formats," Chiemingo said, "and it makes sense for us to make the most consistent experience for consumers so they can move their content to whatever device they want."
RealNetworks also may later consider endeavors to support Microsoft's WMA format - despite RealNetworks and Microsoft's pending antitrust legal spat, he said.
Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
lickily, also the matter of custom content that is airport/city specific, games, and other features that a static dvd can never touch...
Nokia Picks HP as Partner for 'Visual Radio'
16 minutes ago Add Technology - Reuters to My Yahoo!
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Nokia (news - web sites) (NOK1V.HE) (NYSE:NOK - news), the world's largest maker of mobile phones, has chosen Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ - news) to help roll out its FM-radio service on cell phones, the companies said.
Finland's Nokia first announced what it calls its Visual Radio service in late October, and already is selling phones that let users listen to FM radio through the handset.
But to expand the service, Nokia needs powerful computer servers with storage capacity needed for maintaining artist lists, titles, and promotional information. That is where No. 1 computer and printer maker Hewlett-Packard comes in.
Executives of both companies told Reuters they see a large market and new business models for the radio service, which synchronizes FM radio with visual signals the phone uses for voice and data traffic.
"As you drive to this 'digital lifestyle' where it's fundamentally mobile and digital and virtual, and content becomes much more meaningful, (the question is) how do you have business models in that world?" said Felice Swapp, director of strategic initiatives for Palo Alto, California-based HP.
Visual Radio, which Nokia will continue to develop and ultimately make available to other handset manufacturers, is one such business, she said.
Under the agreement, Nokia will develop and refine the visual radio service, while HP will sell the product to mobile handset service providers and FM radio stations. HP will also provide installation, consulting and support, and it will also host and manage the Visual Radio service on its servers.
HP CONSUMER PUSH
Reidar Wasenius, who leads the project for Nokia, said that about 75 percent of consumers who have an FM radio receiver on their handset typically use it about once a week.
But with the Nokia radio, users can punch up the title and artist of a song playing, view upcoming concert dates, participate in promotions and easily purchase ring tones or other content from their favorite artists, the companies said.
Users would likely be charged for the visual radio service according to how much they used it -- as measured by the amount of data sent to their handset -- or by other pricing plans that would be set by service providers, the companies said.
For HP, the agreement is another push further into consumer and entertainment markets. Chief Executive Carly Fiorina is the keynote speaker at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas next week.
Last month, Starbucks Corp. (NasdaqNM:SBUX - news) and HP announced a service that lets Starbucks customers buy custom music CDs. Starbucks hopes to expand the service to 2,500 stores in two years. HP is supplying a range of computing, storage and networking gear as part of that agreement, in addition to support.
Nokia said that by the end of the year it will be selling both high- and low-end phones with FM radio receivers that can display Visual Radio. The companies said the service will be widely available in the second half of the year.
from sinacull on agora..Subject: In the future
From sinacull
PostID 327512 On Monday, April 12, 2004 (EST) at 9:56:46 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a few years' time, when you walk out of a movie, you might be
able to buy the DVD right then and there. Forget the 6-month
wait. That's one of the projections by INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
MACHINES CORP. technology researchers who see the entertainment
industry changing the way it sells products in order to cut
advertising costs, combat piracy and take advantage of new
digital technologies. The latter strategy could make it
possible for a studio to simply sell a customer the right to
view a movie in the format of his or her choice -- at home, in
a theater or on a portable device -- rather than just selling a
ticket to a performance. For studios who now pay more than $100
million, on average, to make and market a movie, then dig into
their pockets again to advertise the DVD, the forecast offers
potential big cost savings. But it also raises the possibility
of cannibalization if audiences choose the DVD but ignore the
theater.
Microsoft To Settle DRM Suit with InterTrust
By Clint Boulton
Microsoft (Quote, Chart) has ended a three-year legal battle over digital rights management with DRM software maker InterTrust Technologies by agreeing to pay $440 million in order to license InterTrust's patent portfolio.
Microsoft, often raked over the coals for vulnerabilities in its software products, said it would benefit from the agreement because it relies on DRM technology to secure its digital media software, such as Windows Media Player for personal computers.
With the deal, neither customers who use Microsoft media products nor developers who build products on top of Microsoft technology need an InterTrust license. However, developers, including systems integrators, may need a license from InterTrust for other uses of Microsoft technology including cases in which Microsoft technology is combined with third-party technology.
InterTrust, which holds 30 DRM-related U.S. patents, will receive rights under Microsoft patents to design and publish InterTrust reference technology specifications related to DRM and security. In a public statement, Microsoft and InterTrust said they believe this agreement will accelerate the adoption and development of DRM technologies.
Microsoft's Marshall Phelps, deputy general counsel and corporate vice president of intellectual property at Microsoft, said in a statement that the deal is an agreement to give customers and partners "peace of mind."
"DRM solutions are essential to secure valuable personal, business and commercial content in a massively connected world," said Will Poole, senior vice president of the Windows client business at Microsoft. "With our existing technology and IP portfolio combined with our new agreement with InterTrust, Microsoft is committed to working with the broader industry to accelerate the promotion of DRM standards and solutions.
In April 2001, InterTrust, now owned by Sony and Royal Philips, sued Microsoft in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that Microsoft's .NET framework implementation infringed various InterTrust patents.
InterTrust followed the initial complaint in October 2001 by claiming that Microsoft's .NET and Windows XP infringed on three more of its DRM patents.
Santa Clara, Calif.-based InterTrust alleged that certain "product activation" features of Windows XP, Office XP and other products infringed on its technology patents. Specifically, the company said Microsoft had borrowed too much from its own building blocks, or "assemblies," which can be shared across the Web as a form of peer-to-peer (P2P) networking.
Microsoft denied any wrongdoing at the time.
Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler told internetnews.com also said at the time that InterTrust was on another "fishing expedition."
"This is a completely random complaint based upon what we've seen in our initial review," Desler said. "It appears that it is not connected at all to .NET infrastructure and based on what is in their filing, it appears they don't have the slightest of what .NET is all about. We're an IP company. We respect the rights of other IP companies and we prefer innovation over litigation."
The move marks the latest pay-off by the Redmond, Wash. software giant, which a week and a half ago agreed to pay Sun Microsystems about $1.95 billion to settle patent and antitrust suits against it. In that blockbuster deal, Microsoft and Sun agreed to make competing products interoperate.
But other legal woes have since popped up for Microsoft. The software giant continued Monday that South Korean Internet portal Daum Communications filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, alleging the concern violated trade regulations by tying instant messenger software to its Windows operating system, according to the Associated Press. Daum is seeking $8.7 million in compensation.
Microsoft and Time Warner also recently increased their equity stake in another DRM company, Content Guard. Content Guard is principally involved with the creation of DRM (define) technology that it patents for licensed use. Its portfolio of DRM technology includes 16 currently issued patents as well as an undisclosed number of additional technologies that are in the patent pipeline.
Thomson Preparing For Mainstream MP3 Market
By Joseph Palenchar -- TWICE, 4/7/2004 7:25:00 AM
New York — It will take more than lower prices, higher storage capacities, and an expanded selection of easy-to-use authorized download services to move compressed-music portables into the consumer mainstream, said Rich Phipps, Thomson’s advanced audio/video business development director.
The "next battleground" for marketers is ease of use, he claimed. "Household penetration rates are still in the single digits." Even among college students, "it’s not mass market yet," he said.
As the market matures, the potential customer base will be "less tolerant" of product complexity than early adopters, who were willing to "tolerate a lot," he warned.
With a broader market segment in mind, Thomson has developed new features to simplify the use of new and existing HDD-equipped Lyra music and A/V jukeboxes. The most significant feature, Phipps said, is automatic playlist generation, a feature in a new PC-based software program called Lyra DJ. Consumers use it to automatically generate playlists without manually selecting songs from among the hundreds or thousands that might reside on their PC’s HDD.
Each playlist consists of similar types of songs determined by the software program to be similar in tempo, rhythm, orchestration, and other characteristics. The playlist is automatically identified by the name of the artist whose songs appear most often in it. Each playlist, consisting of about 20 songs, is transferable from the PC to Thomson’s RCA-brand Lyra HDD portables.
Lyra DJ software will ship with the new 20GB $349-suggested RD2850 in May and the 40GB $449-suggested RD2854 in the summer. The application is also available as a free download for use with the company’s current and previous generations of HDD portables, including the RCA Audio/Video Jukebox, available since late 2003.
The $449-suggested A/V Jukebox, which stores 20GB of audio and video, is also the recipient of new ease-of-use features, including a video bookmarking feature that lets users access favorite movie or home-video scenes at the touch of a button. Another addition is video indexing, enabling users to skip forward and backward in 30-second or 15-minute intervals. Other additions: an onscreen keyboard, which lets users name files without using their PC, and a tile mode to display thumbnails of digital images.
In other developments:
Thomson reiterated plans to support the Windows Media Audio DRM (digital rights management) technology. The DRM will be available in the two new HDD portables and two new flash-memory portables and as a downloadable upgrade for three current-generation flash-memory portables. The upgrade enables the portables to play authorized WMA downloads from sites such as Walmart.com and Napster.
Thomson has no current plans to support Microsoft’s Portable Media Center (PMC) platform for HDD-equipped A/V portables. The Microsoft platform, Phipps said, is compatible only with Windows XP PCs, while RCA’s A/V Jukebox is compatible with any USB-equipped Windows PC, he said. On top of that, PMC portables don’t incorporate built-in video encoder, requiring users to transfer encoded video from a PC. The A/V Jukebox, on the other hand, can record programs directly from a TV, or home movies directly from a VCR or DVD player.
U.S. Music Sales Turnaround Continued 1Q
U.S. Music Sales Turnaround Continued in First Quarter of 2004; Best Domestic Sales in Years
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES April 9 -- Online file-sharing and other digital piracy persist, but a gradual turnaround in U.S. music sales that began last fall picked up in the first quarter of this year, resulting in the industry's best domestic sales in years.
Overall U.S. music sales CDs, legal downloads, DVDs, etc. rose 9.1 percent in the first three months of the year over the same period in 2003, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Album sales were up 9.2 percent. Sales of CDs, which represent 96 percent of album sales, rose 10.6 percent. For the first time since 2000, two recording artists Norah Jones and Usher managed to sell more than 1 million copies of their albums in a single week.
"We've had a big run so far," said Geoff Mayfield, director of charts and senior analyst for Billboard Magazine. "Because we've had three years of erosion, at least for the first eight months of the year, it will be relatively easy for the industry to post increases."
The sales data are a bolt of encouragement to an industry hit by a three-year sales slump it blames largely on file-sharing. The downturn prompted a wave of restructuring by record companies and thousands of layoffs.
Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, called the first-quarter figures "good news," but cautioned that the results were measured against a dismal period.
"The numbers of 2003 were down about 10 percent to 12 percent from the year before," Sherman said. "If we didn't have that kind of increase it would be really terrible."
U.S. album sales declined annually in the three years following 2000, the biggest year since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking U.S. music sales.
In 2001, sales were down 3 percent. The next year, sales dropped 11 percent. Last year, until September, sales were down 8.5 percent, but the pickup in sales at the end of the year narrowed the total decline for 2003 to less than 4 percent.
The burgeoning online music market accounted for the sale of more than 25 million tracks between January and March, eclipsing the 19.2 million tracks purchased in the last six months of 2003, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Stores also saw gains. Chain stores' music sales were up 7 percent, while independent music retailers saw a 3 percent increase. Discount chains such as Wal-Mart, Target and Kmart posted a 13 percent jump in sales compared to the same period last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
"There were a couple of major releases that certainly pushed this quarter," said Jesse Klempner, owner of Aron's Records in Hollywood. "It's been down the last two years, this is an upswing."
Industry observers said no single factor has driven the turnaround.
Mayfield sees similarities with the industry's slump 20 years ago.
Sales of disco music dried up after the dance scene fell out of vogue in the early 1980s. In the late 1990s, the Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync and Britney Spears drew millions of teenage fans who had been out of the music marketplace, but sales didn't keep up as the audience got older.
"That music was hot and nothing moved in to replace it," Mayfield said.
He also draws comparisons between the loss of eight-track sales in the early 1980s and the more recent phasing out of cassettes, a format that provided customers with a cheaper alternative to CDs.
The early 1980s and the early part of this decade were also marked by economic downturns. Conversely, the music industry was better able to weather the recession in the early 1990s because of CD sales driven by consumers replacing their vinyl record and cassette tape collections.
Still, the recording industry has focused on Internet piracy, and its trade group cites surveys that indicate the number of people engaging in file-sharing has declined since the group began suing computer users.
But other research shows millions continue to download music, movies and software over peer-to-peer networks.
A recent study by two professors at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill may suggest how the industry's sales could be improving amid file-sharing.
The study, conducted over 17 weeks in the fall of 2002, was based on data compiled in the user logs of two OpenNap servers that host traffic by U.S. users of file-sharing programs including WinMX.
The researchers plucked 680 songs on albums by artists like Eminem and compared how often their songs were downloaded on the network to their weekly sales figures. The authors concluded that file-sharing has a statistically insignificant impact on record sales.
The findings are disputed by other researchers whose studies, mostly based on consumer surveys and willing monitoring of computer users, have shown that music fans who download songs for free pay for music less often.
For his part, Klempner laughs at the assertion that file-sharers don't hurt music sales.
"I've seen no evidence in our store to support that," he said. "I've had people walking in here saying 'I used to spend $300 a year on music and now I don't need to.'"
Cool movie intro of DigEplayer hadn't seen before...
http://homepage.mac.com/sherwoodrodney/iMovieTheater22.html
India unveils hand-held computer for the masses
1 hour, 22 minutes ago Add Technology - AFP to My Yahoo!
BANGALORE, India, (AFP) - Hand-held computers have got cheaper as a new indigenously designed device aimed at helping more of India's one billion population join the Internet revolution is hitting the market.
AFP/File Photo
A team of Indian professors at PicoPeta Simputers have come up with the Amida Simputer -- a simple hand-held device designed to provide on-the-go technology to buyers.
It is the first Indian-designed hand-held computer and one of its most appealing features is its price. The Simputer's three versions cost between 9,950 rupees (216 dollars) and 19,950 rupees. Competitors' models cost upwards of 300 dollars.
"The aim is to bridge the digital divide and the divide between the rich and poor," said Swami Manohar, chief executive officer of Bangalore-based PicoPeta.
The team first dreamed up the idea for the Simputer three years ago to help low-income Indians join the Internet age. But development was hampered by lack of investment and by a dearth of interest from computer manufacturers.
Then state-owned Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), a firm that specialises in making military electronic equipment, stepped into the breach.
"The current plan is to produce 10,000 units a month," said BEL chairman and managing director Y. Gopala Rao. "Next year, if the sales go up to 50,000 (a month), we'll increase the capacity of the plant."
Manohar, a professor at the Indian Institute of Science, said the firm had spent "considerable time" determining the device's price, adding designers were afraid to make it too cheap for fear people would think it was of poor quality.
"The poor think when it's priced cheaply it's of inferior quality and the people who are better off do not want to buy what is meant for the poor," Manohar said.
The makers came up with the name "Simputer" as an amalgamation of "simple computer", while "Amida" is derived from the Sanskrit root "amita" meaning unbound.
It comes with software to allow users to type notes and letters in English as well as in two other Indian languages, Hindi and Kannada, with more languages to be added soon.
Hindi is India's official language while Kannada is spoken in Karnataka state of which technology hub Bangalore is the capital.
Manohar said his Simputer was meant for individual applications and "anything one can scribble (on the hand-held device) and then e-mail".
"It works with a range of devices such as printers and digital cameras," Manohar said. "If you think words can't capture your emotions then you can record your voice and e-mail it."
To cut costs, the device, which goes on sale this month, works on the open source software Linux (news - web sites).
The basic model has a monochrome screen, a 206MHz processor and 64MB of memory. It also features an internal microphone, speakers and a battery that runs for six hours. It can be connected to a landline or a wireless phone for Internet browsing.
Manohar said future versions would have faster access and more memory.
India's President Abdul Kalam, who made his name as a rocket scientist and is a staunch supporter of open-source software, formally launched the product via teleconference from New Delhi last month, saying it could play a role in providing government services to citizens.
He told the design team he was "very happy that there has been a design of a simple computer which is ready for the commercial market".