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Samsung Digitall sweepstakes...
http://www.samsungusa.com/cgi-bin/nabc/24hr/jump.jsp?promotag=dms_umbrella0901&final=home
ya can't win if you don't play
cheers
**Downloadable Music Gets Boost (DataPlay)
By Joseph Palenchar
TWICE
11/5/2001
NEW YORK—New marketing developments promise to expand the availability of authorized downloadable music.
DataPlay announced the adoption of InterTrust's digital-rights management technology for use in future DataPlay media and portable devices. In a second development, the Pressplay online music venture, owned by Sony and Universal, signed licensing agreements with six independent music labels to make their songs catalog available through the planned Pressplay online subscription service. And RioPort, the online music provider, announced the launch of a new online service that makes it easier for users of HP Pavilion Desktop and Notebook computers to purchase downloadable music.
DataPlay said it will use InterTrust's DRM solution on a nonexclusive basis. "We will be supporting multiple DRMs," said a DataPlay spokeswoman. "The decision of what DRM to use has really been one that has been driven by the labels. We have to support their specified DRM in order for them to release pre-recorded content on DataPlay media."[YESSSSS!!]
DataPlay digital media and DataPlay-enabled devices will be available beginning the first half of 2002, she said. To date, Universal, EMI and BMG plan to release prerecorded music on DataPlay media.
InterTrust's DRM is already used by select authorized download sites and in select Internet audio portables.
Separately, Pressplay announced that its licensing deal with six independent labels will add hundreds of artists to its planned music-streaming and -download service. The artists include Alison Krauss, Graham Parker, Mannheim Steamroller and Buckwheat Zydeco. The labels are Madacy, Navarre, OWIE, Razor&Tie, Roadrunner and Rounder.
Previously, EMI agreed to license its catalog to the service, which will also offer Universal and Sony titles.
In the third announcement, RioPort said it will provide tens of thousands of authorized music tracks, as well as e-commerce and hosting functions, to HP's new Digital Music Store.
OT GM Begins Production of XM-Installed Cadillacs
Automaker General Motors has begun production of Cadillacs equipped with XM Satellite Radio-enabled receivers. XM last month began a staggered rollout of its nationwide digital radio service targeting motorists; subscribers receive 100 channels of satellite-delivered programming for $10 per month. GM, an XM investor, is offering XM as an option on the 2002 Cadillac DeVille and Seville models, with plans to expand availability to about 20 additional models in 2003. Honda also holds a stake in XM; Ford, DaimlerChrysler and BMW plan to offer rival Sirius Satellite Radio's service in their cars. Sirius has pushed back its service launch to next year.
More Sales, Upgrade For Wi-Fi...(MicroOS 3.0 compatible)
By Joseph Palenchar
TWICE
11/5/2001
New York— Sell-through rates of wireless Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b) computer-network gear are accelerating, and so will wireless-network data rates with the current launch of 54Mbps Wi-Fi5 devices, according to the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA).
WECA is the nonprofit association that certifies interoperability of 11Mbps 2.4GHz-band 802.11b products and 5GHz-band 802.11a products. Certified products carry Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi5 logos, respectively.
In updating the standards' progress, WECA also said:
In the second quarter of 2002, an IEEE standards-setting group will likely complete an optional quality-of-service (QoS) standard for the 802.11a and b standards and for a planned 802.11g wireless standard. The QoS standard will likely appear in products soon after to support reliable audio and video streaming. Some suppliers currently use ShareWave's proprietary standard, which will form the basis of the new standard.
An optional authentication protocol recently approved by an IEEE group has begun appearing in Wi-Fi devices, and a new encryption standard is under development by a separate IEEE group.
(See story at right for details.)
In recounting Wi-Fi's progress, WECA marketing director Phil Belanger pointed out that sales have accelerated because products have proliferated and prices have dropped. More than 190 Wi-Fi products are available worldwide, most of them in the U.S., he said. Wi-Fi PC Cards start at $79 on promotion and range up to $129 compared to a year ago, when PC Card prices ranged from $99 to $179. PC access points start at around $100.
Also helping accelerate sell-though: the shipment of the first USB Wi-Fi adapters during the past three to six months and last year's launch of the first notebook PCs with integrated Wi-Fi Mini PCI cards.
Wi-Fi's prospects will only expand with the launch of Microsoft's XP operating system, which incorporates Wi-Fi as its only wireless-network standard.
"This year or next will be a wireless Christmas," Belanger said. Whenever the Wi-Fi holidays hit, this year "was the year of Wi-Fi for university students," he said. College libraries, lounges, dorms, and common areas have gone wireless, and in many cases, students are connecting Wi-Fi residential gateways to a dorm's wired Ethernet network to go wireless, he explained.
Besides the pricing and marketing advances, wireless is posting datarate advances.
Here's what's happening:
802.11a: The industry's first 802.11a products will appear at Comdex from as many as five suppliers, Belanger said. They will be PC-network products targeted at enterprises and home users. Some devices are already shipping in limited quantities, but production will ramp up in the next couple of months, he said.
Dual-mode (Wi-Fi/Wi-Fi5) access points will also likely appear at Comdex to support laptops, notebooks, and PDAs that take advantage of the current Wi-Fi standard, he noted.
Although the first products will be PC-oriented, the standard's 54Mbps data rate (with 32-38Mbps throughput) opens up potential for networking audio-video products to stream audio and video around the house, he noted.
The throughput, marketers have said previously, is enough for about three simultaneous MPEG-2 DVD streams, each requiring approximately 5Mbps to a peak 12Mbps for high-action programs. It's also enough for one to perhaps two simultaneous HDTV streams at 18-20Mbps each, suppliers have said.
In comparison, 802.11b's 11Mbps data rate delivers 6Mbps throughput that could support several simultaneous streams of uncompressed CD audio (at up to 1.5Mbps each), or several VHS-quality videostreams.
802.11g: The downside to the Wi-Fi 802.11a standard is that 802.11a products and 802.11b products operate in different bands. As a result, Wi-Fi products won't talk to existing Wi-Fi access points or Wi-Fi-equipped PCs.
Devices incorporating 54Mbps 802.11g technology, on the other hand, will be able to talk to existing Wi-Fi devices. That's because Wi-Fi and 802.11g products operate in the same band at 2.4GHz and because the proposed 802.11g standard "mandates that 802.11g devices fall back to 11Mbps CCK (complementary code keying modulation) from 54Mbps OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) modulation when they see an 802.11b device," Belanger explained.
Progress on finalizing an 802.11g standard slowed but is expected to be finished by mid to late 2002, followed by late-2002 product availability, Belanger said.
The standard was initially targeted to deliver data rates of around 22Mbps, but an FCC rules change allowing the use of OFDM modulation in the 2.4GHz band will enable 54Mbps datarates.
High speed, however, doesn't qualify any IEEE standard for audio/video streaming. That's where an optional IEEE quality-of-service (QoS) standard comes into play (see story, right).
IEEE Wireless-Network Standards
Standard Datarate Band Status Product Availability
802.11b (Wi-Fi) 11Mbps 2.4GHz Finalized Large Quantities
802.11a (Wi-Fi5) 54Mbps 5GHz Finalized Limited Quantities
802.11g 54Mbps 2.4GHz Targeted mid to late 2002 Targeted late 2002
A little missive to cNet music editor...
From: Eliot Van Buskirk <Eliot.VanBuskirk@cnet.com>
To: xxxxxxx
Subject: RE: new music player
Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2001 11:55:05 -0800
Yes, we're working on reviewing it right now.
-eliotvb
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xxxxxxx
mailto:xxxxxx
> Sent: Monday, November 05, 2001 11:35 AM
> To: MP3Insider@cnet.com
> Subject: new music player
> Importance: High
>
>
> Was wondering if you will be doing a review of the new DAP
> released by e.Digital today (see below). This music player
> is kind of a hybrid betwenn a flash-based player and a
> jukebox. Would love to see a review of this player ASAP.
> Keep up the good work and I look forward to your continued
> reporting on the exciting developments in this market.
>
>
> Sincerely,
MusicCity Hires Diamond Rio Lawyer, Prepares for 'Betamax 2'
by Mark Lewis
November 06, 2001
Andrew Bridges, the attorney who beat the recording industry in its attempt to
outlaw the Diamond Rio MP3 player, will defend U.S. peer-to-peer software
developer MusicCity in a digital copyright suit filed last month by major labels and
movie studios.
"This is Betamax 2, not Napster 2," said Bridges, who plans to base his defense on
a 1984 Supreme Court decision that legalized Sony's Betamax VCR. The
culmination of five years of movie industry litigation against Sony Corp., the high
court's opinion stated that manufacturers of products that can be used for copyright
infringement aren't liable if the products have other legal uses.
Major entertainment conglomerates, led by the Recording Industry Association of
America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), are suing
Nashville-based MusicCity and international software developers in U.S. court
because they claim the developers operate a computer network through which
people copy music and movies illegally [see 10.03.01 Labels, Studios File
Copyright Lawsuit Against FastTrack, Grokster, MusicCity].
According to the latest Webnoize research, consumers transferred 1.81 billion
digital media files during October using the network in question, a rise of 20% from
the previous month.
MusicCity maintains that its file-sharing software, based on code developed by
Dutch firm and co-defendant FastTrack, can be used to distribute all kinds of
information. MusicCity also claims it can't supervise the network, which relies on
dynamically configured search hubs, and has no obligation to program its software
to control what users share.
Entertainment companies are "using their power to prevent other people from
getting their message out, and that's scary," said Bridges, a partner with Wilson,
Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto, Calif. "One thing that peer-to-peer certainly
does is it allows a vast number of individuals to get their message out -- whether it's
artistic, political, what have you."
For Bridges and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a San Francisco-based
cyber-liberties group that has joined MusicCity's defense team, the case is crucial
because it will determine whether companies that create technology capable of
reproducing or distributing copyrighted information can do so freely, or must
conform to the entertainment industry's demand for intellectual property protection.
SONICblue, the firm that now makes the Rio MP3 player and is preparing to
relaunch a hard-drive video recorder capable of sharing files, is fighting a similar
issue against General Electric's NBC, Walt Disney's ABC and Viacom's CBS, which
sued SonicBlue last week [see 11.01.01 Networks' Suit Alleges New ReplayTV
Device Infringes Copyrights].
The EFF maintains that the content industry's lawsuits against other peer-to-peer
(P2P) technology firms have already choked off venture funds needed by
innovators who want to bring decentralized videophones, efficient information
searching and distributed computing to an Internet ready to move beyond today's
World Wide Web.
"Our position is that people should use technology lawfully, regardless of what
technology it is, whether it's guns, automobiles or computers," said Robin Gross,
intellectual property attorney with the EFF. "We don't support copyright infringement
at all, but it's important that we don't take such a narrow view that we kill off this
technology at an early stage."
While the RIAA has taken comfort in several legal successes of late -- obtaining a
preliminary injunction against Napster, putting file-sharing developer Scour out of
business, convincing a federal judge that MP3.com illegally created a database of
recordings for a streaming music service -- the 1999 Rio decision caused the
recording industry to realize that new technologies were outstripping controls it had
obtained under older laws [see 06.16.99 Diamond Prevails Over RIAA in Rio
Lawsuit].
Bridges persuaded the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that an MP3 player made
by Diamond Multimedia, a computer peripherals company that licensed the original
design from a Korean company, couldn't be banned under the 1992 Audio Home
Recording Act. Overturning a lower court, a three-judge panel unanimously ruled
the player didn't fit the precise definition of a digital audio recording device.
"The RIAA doesn't talk much about the Rio case for a good reason," said Bridges.
"The Rio case was also an effort to stop a technology in its tracks, and it reflects a
general fear that the content industries have of technology. It also represented an
effort by the content companies to use their control of content in order to control
technology. In those respects, this case is very much like the Rio case. The legal
theories are different, but the principles are the same."
MusicCity's in-depth legal theories will become clearer when it files its answer to
the content industry's charges on December 5. Bridges said he doesn't think the
content industry has factual support proving that MusicCity executives know that
users are infringing copyrighted works on the network. Nor does he think his case
bears much resemblance to Napster's, because the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
held Napster liable for its centralized servers that indexed files, not for distributing
its ground-breaking software.
But one unique issue could involve whether MusicCity, FastTrack and Grokster --
the third defendant in the case -- truly have no control over the file-sharing network.
Their file-sharing software contains an embedded list of search hub addresses that
index files and run search queries, and a court may confront the issue of whether
the software developers should exercise more control over the hubs and what
users may share.
Additionally, FastTrack was able to squash an open-source version of a file-sharing
client running on the same network as proprietary FastTrack clients. It blacklisted
the open-source clients by changing an encryption scheme and sending out
software updates that all the firms, including MusicCity, chose to distribute [see
10.03.01 Showing Signs of Network Control, FastTrack Thwarts Open-Source
Clones].
Fred von Lohmann, the EFF's senior intellectual property attorney, claimed that
FastTrack didn't selectively deny access to individual users running the
open-source client, but "turned off everybody who was using the older version from
talking to anybody using the newer version."
The open-source question is important because U.S. programmers developed a
client they said substantially improved the software, and the EFF has consistently
upheld the principle of innovation in other suits. Nevertheless, the EFF -- known for
its support of the open-source community -- made a different ideological choice.
"Twenty-nine of the world's largest entertainment companies sued MusicCity on the
theory that MusicCity is liable for all the actions that may have happened on the part
of its end users," von Lohmann said. "If that were the principle, we would have
never seen the photocopier, the VCR, the Internet or the browser."
MusicCity is handling its defense separately from FastTrack and Grokster, which is
based in the West Indies but is accused of running a server in the U.S. Bridges was
uncertain if the three defendants' cases will splinter once specific issues are
defined in the courtroom. Von Lohmann said he expects some level of cooperation
among defense teams.
Gross said the EFF chose to represent MusicCity only because "this is the cleanest
case. We don't have all the messy international jurisdictional questions."
Countering rumors that Amsterdam-based FastTrack hasn't been served the suit,
Matt Oppenheim, head of litigation for the RIAA, said that FastTrack's parent
company, Consumer Empowerment, has been served the U.S. suit in Holland.
"At the moment, we sued them in the U.S. It doesn't mean we won't sue them
elsewhere. We have enough problems here," he said.
Potentially interesting observation..Tuesday September 18, 9:00 am Eastern Time
Press Release
SOURCE: Texas Instruments Incorporated Semiconductor Group
e.Digital Selects TI's DSP for First Reference Design for DataPlay-Enabled Digital Audio Devices
e.Digital and DataPlay Demonstrate New Reference Design at PC Expo in Japan
TOKYO, Sept. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Continuing their efforts in driving audio innovations, e.Digital Corporation (OTC Bulletin Board: EDIG - news) selects the Texas Instruments Incorporated (NYSE: TXN - news; TI) digital signal processor (DSP) for the first publicly available digital audio reference design supporting DataPlay technology. DataPlay digital media is a universal solution, about the size of a quarter, that is designed to play and record all forms of digital content across all digital devices and platforms, including music, images, software, eBooks, games, video and more. e.Digital and DataPlay are demonstrating the reference design, which leverages TI's high-performance and power-efficient DSPs, at Japan's PC Expo this week (Hall 8, Booth 8030). (See www.ti.com/sc/internetaudio or www.edig.com .)
Based on TI's advanced TMS320C54x(TM) DSP, e.Digital's reference design decodes multiple formats, enabling the secure playback of Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), MP3, QDX and Windows Media Audio (WMA) formats. The reference design also supports a USB interface to the PC for playback and access of content via desktop applications and for recording of content on DataPlay digital media using multiple formats. The reference design, which provides the user interface with the DataPlay micro-optical engine, will also support InterTrust's digital rights management (DRM) technology and DataPlay's ContentKey(TM), a content distribution, marketing and e-commerce tool. In addition, TI's programmable DSPs offer the versatility to support future product features and audio compression formats by means of simple software downloads, rather than costly hardware upgrades.
``Capitalizing on the performance of TI's advanced DSP and e.Digital's MicroOS(TM) 2.0, we are the first company to successfully integrate and demonstrate DataPlay digital media in a music player reference design allowing OEMs to easily incorporate this important new technology,' said Steve Ferguson, Vice President of Sales & Marketing for e.Digital. ``This tradeshow debuts our completed reference design which we are currently licensing to OEM customers.'
``The development of the first publicly available digital audio reference design supporting DataPlay digital media will help further DataPlay's mission to become the de facto media standard for everything digital,' said Ray Uhlir, vice president of marketing for DataPlay. ``We believe our technology will dramatically affect the way companies build and sell consumer electronics and distribute digital content, and the e.Digital reference design, utilizing TI's advanced DSP, will vastly reduce the development time necessary to make those next-generation digital audio devices a reality.'
``By partnering with a pioneering developer like e.Digital, we continue to be at the forefront of technology innovation,' said Chris Schairbaum, worldwide marketing manager of Internet Audio at TI. ``As the only chip manufacturer that supports all of the most commonly used digital audio formats, DRM technologies and storage medium, TI provides the most comprehensive tools to OEMs to enable them to meet their business objectives, as well as consumer demand.'
For more information or to license the e.Digital reference design, please visit www.edig.com .
About TI
Texas Instruments Incorporated is the world leader in digital signal processing and analog technologies, the semiconductor engines of the Internet age. The company's businesses also include sensors and controls, and educational and productivity solutions. TI is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has manufacturing or sales operations in more than 25 countries.
Texas Instruments is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TXN. The company's web site is www.ti.com .
About e.Digital
e.Digital Corporation offers an engineering partnership for the world's leading electronics companies to link portable digital devices to PCs and the Internet. Based in San Diego, California, e.Digital develops and markets to consumer electronics manufacturers complete end-to-end solutions for delivery and management of open and secure digital media. Applications for e.Digital's technology include portable digital music players and voice recorders, desktop, laptop, and handheld computers, PC peripherals, cellular phone peripherals, e-books, video games, digital cameras, and digital video recorders. Engineering services range from the licensing of e.Digital's patented MicroOS(TM) and MicroCAM(TM) technologies to custom software and hardware development, industrial design and manufacturing services. For more information on the company, please visit www.edig.com .
About DataPlay, Inc.
DataPlay, Inc. was incorporated in November 1998 to develop a Web-enabled digital content recording and distribution media for portable Internet appliances and hand-held consumer electronic and entertainment devices. Headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, the Company employs more than 230 people in the United States, Singapore and Japan. Visit DataPlay on the Internet at www.dataplay.com .
Safe Harbor Statement: Statements contained in this press release regarding product performance, growth in the internet audio market, and other statements of management's beliefs, goals and expectations may be considered ``forward-looking statements' as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these statements. Please refer to TI's most recent Form 10-K for more information on the risks and uncertainties that could materially affect future results of operations. TI disclaims any intention or obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of developments occurring after the date of this press release.
Trademarks:
TMS320C54x is a trademark of Texas Instruments Incorporated.
ACELP is a registered trademark of the Universite de Sherbrooke.
e.Digital and MicroOS are trademarks of e.Digital Corporation.
All other company, product, and service names are the property of their
respective owners.
SOURCE: Texas Instruments Incorporated Semiconductor Group
THE ABOVE BOLDED IS SOMEWHAT CURIOUS SINCE IT IS THE ONLY REFERENCE NOT MENTIONED IN THE NEWS RELEASE.
The company involved in ACELP is http://www.voiceage.com/
or
http://www.voiceage.com/kyastem/en/
Founded in 1999, VoiceAge is a spin-off company of Sipro Lab Telecom Inc., better known for its voice compression technology brokerage capabilities, and l'Université de Sherbrooke. Tapping into this reservoir of expertise and experience, VoiceAge is well
ACELP®.net
ACELP®.net enables its users to experience specific applications based on the optimal available bandwidth. Its unsurpassed audio quality at low bit rate (5 kbp/s to 16 kbp/s) was confirmed by the industry who integrated it in countless PAD (Audible Ready) and by its virtue of being the only voice compression solution integrated in both RealPlayer and Windows Media Player who today combine for over 240 millions unique registered users.
ACELP®.live
ACELP®.live was designed with the original intent of delivering a single, high quality, audio and voice compression solution at low bit rate. This hybrid codec is at its best for storage and general audio broadcasts applications. Its technical edge comes from its patented design that can switch real time from 16, 24 and 32 kbp/s while preserving outstanding music and speech quality simultaneously
ACELP®.wide
ACELP®.wide was developed to redefine the communication experience. Wideband compression technology renders the optimal spectrum of the human voice (50Hz to 7000Hz) which, in turn, directly impacts the warmth and intelligibility of voice and its environment. This technology is available in multiple bit rates (9.6 kbp/s to 18.4 kbp/s). Its qualitative characteristics enables its users to stand above the crowd.
NOW THIS CODEC HAS RECENTLY BEEN EMPLOYED BY IOMEGA IN ITS HIPZIP LINE AS SHOWN BELOW:
VOICEAGE ACELP®.NET VOICE COMPRESSION SOLUTION USED IN IOMEGA DIGITAL AUDIO PLAYER
--HipZip™ integrates world's most common proprietary voice compression solution--
Montréal, Canada, June 19, 2001 - VoiceAge Corporation today announced the world's most widely used proprietary voice compression codec, ACELP®.net, has been integrated into Iomega's HipZipTM digital audio player. By selecting this unique multi-low-bitrate product, Iomega optimizes the HipZip for compatibility with spoken word files formatted as AudibleTM or Windows® Media Audio (WMA).
WMA files that incorporate ACELP.net technology are currently compatible with Iomega's HipZip digital audio player. Later this year, upgraded firmware and software will allow HipZip users to access thousands of Audible® digital audio titles for download and mobile playback, with ACELP.net technology providing optimal voice compression capacity at the lowest bitrate. The firmware upgrade is currently available to existing HipZip users through a download from Iomega.com.
"Our association with Iomega ensures us the added credential that will trigger accelerated market penetration for our unique voice compression solution" said Laurent Amar, vice president business development at VoiceAge. "To us, HipZip is yet one more example of the benefits of being associated with a pioneer of the of the portable audio player industry."
HipZip players use 40MB PocketZipTM disks that cost as little as $10 per disk and can store more than 10 hours of Audible audio, making them the economical alternative to expensive solid state media. For more information about Iomega's HipZip digital audio player, please visit http://www.iomega.com/hipzip.
About VoiceAge Corporation
VoiceAge, develops narrow and wideband, low bitrate voice compression solutions applied to wireless 2G, 2.5G, 3G and Voice over the Internet industry. Designed around the renowned ACELP® technology, VoiceAge's products ensure unsurpassed audio quality in both standard and proprietary based platforms experienced daily by tens of millions of users worldwide.
Copyright© 2001 VoiceAge. All rights reserved. Iomega, Zip, Jaz, PocketZip, HipZip, FotoShow, and LifeWorks are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Iomega Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. VoiceAge is a registered trademark of VoiceAge Corporation.; ACELPâ.net and www.voiceage.com are trademarks or registered trademarks of VoiceAge Corporation.
For further information, please contact:
Paul Goulet
VoiceAge Corporation
Tel: (514) 737-4940
Fax: (514) 908-2037
Paulg@VoiceAge.com
OF COURSE THIS ALL MAY MEAN NOTHING AT ALL OR IT COULD IN FACT BE ANOTHER PIECE OF CHUM FOR US 'CUDAS. Be interested to hear anyones take on this.
In evaluating stocks we look at several factors. Our analysis of a company includes these essential elements:
viable growth strategy
strong product position
sustainable profit margins
balance sheet strength
good return on capital
Analyzing these conventional objective measures is only part of our procedure. We also carefully evaluate the people behind the numbers. Our goal is to answer one crucial question:
In seeking the answer to this question, we have met face-to-face with hundreds of company managers and gained invaluable experience in judging the probability of a company's success.
William D. Witter contd...
Our decisions are based on fundamental analysis. We follow these simple but effective investment guidelines:
focus on the merits of each security
look for earnings growth, solid financials, strong management
exercise a valuation discipline in buy/sell decision
adhere to a bottom-up approach; do not rely on market timing or technical analysis
New Institutional Holder..WITTER WILLIAM D INC Report Date: 9/30/2001
153 EAST 53RD STREET Total Value (in $Millions): $888
NEW YORK, NY 10022 Turnover (in Millions): 6
(212) 753-7878
14,000 shares
It is a pleasure to introduce you to the firm I founded over 20 years ago as an investment advisor to a small group of clients, primarily family members and friends. Over the years I have been fortunate to have very capable, experienced investment professionals join me and together we have grown our client base to include a number of institutions and over 200 individuals. Despite our growth, we have maintained the high level of service and dedication to client needs that have been the hallmark of the firm since its beginning.
We are proud of the reputation we have earned and the organization we have built:
our portfolio managers are all seasoned professionals
all members of the support staff are experienced investment personnel
the organization is disciplined, yet entrepreneurial
our client retention rate is high and our investment record is superior
During my many years in the investment business I have focused on small company stocks since many of my personal investments have been in young, growing enterprises. I realized, however, that a concentrated investment portfolio of only small stocks may not be suitable for all investors, so the firm's original focus was expanded to encompass other investment styles. Today, several seasoned managers with different areas of portfolio expertise contribute to the firm's capabilities. In addition to an all small company equity portfolio, we offer clients other options, including a hedge fund, a balanced portfolio of equities and bonds, and a portfolio that is structured for current income.
This is as exciting a time as I have seen in the investment world. The "information age" is in its early stages and the opportunities for innovative new businesses are unlimited. All of us at William D. Witter, Inc. are very optimistic about the prospects for economic growth and look forward to continued success in finding rewarding investments for our clients.
President and Chief Executive
William D. Witter, Inc
CEA Outlines CES 2002 Plans
By Steve Smith
TWICE
11/5/2001
New York— The Consumer Electronics Association, organizer of the 2002 International CES, reported that the show will have about the same number of exhibitors as this year (2,000), 1.2 million feet in exhibit space and that online pre-registration is in line to reach 110,000.
All of that is somewhat surprising, since we now live in unusual times. And CEA said there will be post-September 11th effects on the annual event that will be evident to showgoers, from increased and higher profile security in Las Vegas to, surprisingly, more CES attendees, due to the cancellation of travel and other shows during the fall.
Those were just some of the observations of CEA president/CEO Gary Shapiro and CEA VP of events and conferences Karen Chupka made at the annual CES press event, which was held at the Rainbow Room, here, last Tuesday.
In his remarks about CES Shapiro, who by his own admission is "usually optimistic," said that CES in 2002 is "more important than ever" in providing a place where industry leaders can "meet face to face, talk about the recently completed holiday season and talk about industry issues."
He noted that since the terrorist attacks in September disrupted the usual amount of industry travel, "CES is positioned to make up for the absence of those meetings." He pointed out, "Asian manufacturers have worked under travel restrictions, and the usual Asian buying trips" by top U.S. retailers were cancelled.
Security will be a prime concern of the show, and Shapiro said a variety of new measures would be put in place. "Private security at CES venues will now be back in uniform, to give a more visible presence at the show. The Las Vegas Police Department will also have a higher presence at the show." CEA will be working with local police and the FBI, which is involved with security at other trade shows nationwide, to develop a complete security program for CES.
Shapiro outlined some obvious steps, such as business and personal ID will be needed to obtain a show badge, show badges must be worn at all times during the show and bags must be searched prior to being allowed on the show floor. "We will be watching other shows, such as Comdex (see story, p. 34) , to see what plans they put in place. There will be other security measures, that for obvious reasons, can't be discussed." As a good rule of thumb, Shapiro advised attendees, "Take less stuff with you on the show floor than you would normally."
Chupka outlined the changes at the show, not the least of which is that CES will be the first show to be held at the completed Las Vegas Convention Center. Construction is set to be completed by the middle of the month and the 2002 show will be the first in several years where some exhibitors will no longer have to exhibit in temporary structures.
One of the key highlights of the show that was unveiled at the press briefing is a "Retail Power Panel," to be held on Wednesday, January 9, which is scheduled to feature the following top retail executives: Best Buy's Brad Anderson, Circuit City's Alan McCollough, RadioShack's Len Roberts, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Greg Drew of 800.COM and Meg Whitman of eBay.
The show will also have the 2002 Knowledge Circuit conference that feature the following: Andrew Seybold's Wireless University 4Mobility, business solutions, car technologies, CEDIA Training Program, CONNECTIONS, Digital Hollywood, Emerging Technologies, Gartner Dataquest seminars, home entertainment, home networking, IEEE consumer electronics tutorials, mobile surround summit, wireless retail training, wireless technologies and workstyle.
And as reported previously, keynote speakers for CES include the following executives: Microsoft's Bill Gates, Dr. Daeje Chin of Samsung, Carly Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard, Philips' Gerard Kleisterlee, AOL Time Warner's Bob Pittman and Bill Esrey of Sprint.
For more details on these and other CES events visit at www.CESweb.org.
cksla, ole softie has been given the green light by Justice and ITRU is only one step behind Reciprocal. The endgame, MSFT buys out ITRU (which is what they originally wanted), litigation ends, and MSFT becomes the uber DRM supplier. All according to plan.
cheers
cksla, don't you think that part of the terms of the bridge loan that msft provided would involve taking over those established relationships that reciprocal had in place? I wonder.
Microsoft by default eh cksla. Seven degrees of Bill Gates.
SANDISK Corporation FILES PATENT INFRINGEMENT CLAIM AGAINST Memorex, Pretec Electronics, RITEK Corporation And PQI IN Federal DISTRICT COURT
Business News:
- Musicians' Union Reaches Agreement With Ad Industry
- FCC Chairman Michael Powell Announces Creation Of Media Ownership Working Group
- Zingy Signs Comprehensive Ringtone Licensing Agreement With BMI
SUNNYVALE, CA, Oct. 31, 2001 - SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) announced today that it has filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Memorex Products Inc., Santa Fe Springs, CA, Pretec Electronics Corporation, Fremont, CA, Ritek Corporation, Hsin-Chu, Taiwan, and Power Quotient International Co., Ltd, Fremont, CA, for infringement of SanDisk's United States Patent No. 5,602,987, a fundamental flash memory system patent.
The patent, "Flash EEPROM System" (U.S. Patent No. 5,602,987) was issued on February 11, 1997. The patent discloses and claims important aspects of the operation of removable flash memory cards, such as CompactFlash cards. SanDisk, a pioneering technology company in the flash memory market, holds more than 150 patents related to flash memory and flash memory systems.
Steven S. Baik, senior intellectual property counsel for SanDisk, said, "We believe that Memorex, Pretec, Ritek and PQI have been selling and offering for sale flash memory cards that infringe valid SanDisk patents. This action is a clear signal to these and other Taiwanese companies that SanDisk will vigorously assert its intellectual property rights against such companies."
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Savage Beast Technologies And Auditude Join Forces To Offer Complete Solution For Managing Digital Music
Los Angeles, CA: October 31, 2001 - As part of their strategic cross license agreement, Savage Beast Technologies and Auditude have combined two of the music industry's hottest technologies to create a new music management application. The application enables consumers to identify and organize all of their digital music files, automatically build playlists, and receive personalized recommendations. Producers of music jukebox software, CD recorder software, digital home stereo equipment, and portable devices will be able to license this software to help their end-users get the most enjoyment from their music collection. The first version will be available later this year.
Organization With One Click
Consumers will have a variety of options with the new product, called Celestial Home Jukebox (tm). The simplest is clicking a button labeled, "Organize Music." At the click of this button, Celestial Home Jukebox will immediately scan the user's music collection, identify the songs, correctly rename and retag the files with metadata, and place them into appropriate play lists based on information including genre, instrumentation, mood, rhythm, tempo, vocal style, performance, and many other song characteristics. Alternatively, users can build a playlist by selecting one or more "seed songs" and Celestial Home Jukebox will generate an intelligent list based on those selections. Just pick a playlist length and press "go!" More advanced controls are available for advanced users who wish to customize how their music is organized, based on their musical preferences.
A Boost for the Digital Music Industry
While consumers have ripped and downloaded billions of digital music files, until today, products for helping them manage these files have lagged behind the content. "It's one thing to transfer a legal collection of music onto a hard drive. It's a completely different thing to be able to convert that collection into easily accessible entertainment," explains Howie Klein, former President of Warner/Reprise Records. "The Savage Beast / Auditude solution is something I've needed for a long time with my own collection."
Auditude's technology has been lauded by industry leaders as an incredibly fast, flexible solution to a challenging problem. Auditude's system works by creating a digital "thumbprint" of an audio source. This allows the software to correctly identify over 3 million songs regardless of a missing file name, id3 tag, or other identifying information, and without inserting a watermark or altering the file in anyway. Savage Beast is the only product in its class to have been deployed at major brand retailers, including Barnes&Noble.com and TowerRecords.com, and is widely acknowledged as the leader in the music navigation and recommendation space. Savage Beast has spent two years building the Music Genome Project(tm) database, a rich, granular taxonomy of music that understands individual songs across more than 400 characteristics. This database forms the core of their advanced navigation and recommendation engine.
"The richness of the Savage Beast database and API combined with the speed and accuracy of Auditude's digital fingerprinting technology make for a compelling, easy-to-use music management tool," said Shawn Yeager, CEO of Auditude. "Our plan is to make this available with all of the leading electronic jukeboxes and devices over the next 12 months, and to give all digital music consumers an exciting new way to interact with and organize their music collections."
Approaching The Celestial Ideal
The ultimate objective of this partnership is to take the digital music market an important step closer to achieving the ideal of the celestial jukebox.
"Unlimited and ubiquitous access to music has long been a vision of the Internet community," said Jon Kraft, CEO of Savage Beast Technologies. "However, navigation and coherent file management have been the day-to-day challenge of consumers. You simply can't manually organize thousands of songs." He adds, "We've been working with Auditude on this product for over six months. It will transform the home audio experience."
"Our customers have been calling for this kind of solution," said Dick Barbari, CEO of Othnet, Inc., a legal digital music distribution service that boasts hundreds of thousands of customers. "Some of our most progressive customers have thousands of legal digital music files on their hard drives. When we licensed Savage Beast's music navigation technology to integrate into our P2P front end, we felt that this kind of offering was the logical next step."
Celestial Home Jukebox also provides the unique ability for consumers to intuitively navigate massive music catalogues and receive recommendations for music that may not be found on their own hard drive, but which is well suited to their musical taste. The product then provides links to retailers where consumers can acquire the music legally. This seamless conversion of the home entertainment environment into a place to find and buy new music is also a glimpse into the future, according to Savage Beast Chief Music Officer, Tim Westergren: "The next generation music retailer has no boundaries." And that is the ultimate goal of the Celestial Jukebox.
Winbond speech synthesis chip supports two languages
By Mike Clendenin
EE Times
(11/01/01, 11:36 a.m. EST)
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Winbond Electronics Corp. claims to have developed a low-power system-on-chip that translates text into audible speech that sounds more natural than the robotic voice common to most computer synthesized speech. The company is set to unveil the chip Thursday (Nov. 1).
Using English and Mandarin as its base languages, the chip is able to process text and generate voice samples by accessing a programmable database of acoustic elements drawn from human voice recordings. The chip could enable items such as a teddy bear that lulls a child to sleep by reading a bedtime story with the pre-programmed voice of Winnie the Pooh.
In the short term, however, Winbond is setting its sites on more sophisticated markets. Topping the list are power-sensitive mobile devices, such as PDAs, cell phone accessories and pagers. Also on the radar are automotive applications such as telematics systems and car stereos.
"We are looking at devices that don't necessarily have a really powerful processor on board," said Hezi Saar, product marketing manager at Winbond. "Usually most of the accessories for handheld devices don't have the power to run text-to-speech algorithms and they don't have the huge memory capacity to support this feature."
The company is hoping that growing markets in wireless mobile data delivery, where e-mail and short messaging applications are popular, will drive demand for accessories that translate speech to text. By integrating Mandarin recognition into the first version of the chip, Winbond is hoping to ride the coattails of a fast growing mobile market in China.
Last summer, China eclipsed the United States as the largest market for cell phone users, and although wireless data networks are still nascent their user base is rapidly growing. China is also making aggressive moves toward developing a third-generation wireless network. "It doesn't matter what kind of technology you have — either 3G, GPRS or whatever — you are going to get text, you are going to get e-mails or short messages and there will be a need to convert this text to speech" by users too busy to digest the rising flow of streaming information, Saar said.
Winbond's new WTS701 chip integrates a text processor, smoothing filter and a patented multilevel storage array, the company said. The chip skims the text, using either ASCII or Unicode standards, and converts words, common abbreviations and numbers into speech patterns that are analyzed for phonetic interpretation.
The end result is mapped into samples that are piped out of the chip's analog storage array. The signal is then smoothed over by routing it through a low pass filter and is available as an analog signal, or it can be passed through a encoder/decoder for digital audio output.
The multilevel storage memory system allows the chip to store up to 256 different voltage levels, or the equivalent of 8 bits, into one EEPROM cell, which is up to 8x the capacity of conventional memories, Saar said. "If you look at other TTS [text-to-speech] solutions you see enormous flash or memory accompanying the processor, but we can integrate it into one chip using MLS," he said. "That technology allows us to record a real human voice and then extract specific speech elements out of it."
While only two languages are currently supported, Winbond said others will be developed according to market demand.
To prime interest in the chip, Winbond is giving potential product developers a SMS reader that connects to cell phones. It is also stressing the chip's low power consumption of 35 milliamps in active mode and 5 microamps in standby. The chip is housed in a 56-pin TSOP.
Whatever happened to fair use?
In music sharing, it's the record labels vs. the consumers -- and the battle is just beginning
BY DAWN C. CHMIELEWSKI
Mercury News
Posted at 10:48 p.m. PST Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2001
Like any college student, Tony Tran knows his rights.
He has the right to sample music for free over the Internet. He has the right to download an entire CD to his computer's hard drive and listen to it for days to determine whether to buy it. And he has the right to make copies for his friends.
FAIR USE AT A GLANCE
"Fair Use'' is an element of copyright law that gives consumers the right to make personal copies of songs, TV shows and other copyrighted works.
History of Fair Use
• The Copyright Act of 1976: This update of the 1909 copyright law adds the judicially created concept of ""fair use'' to copyright law. The Supreme Court set a four-pronged test to determine whether an individual can make a copy of a song, book or other copyrighted work. Is it being used for teaching, research or literary criticism? How much of the work is being used? Does creating a copy erode the work's potential market value? And what's the nature of the work?
• (1984) Sony Betamax Case: Pivotal case in defining consumer's right to fair use. The film industry argued that the videocassette recorder should be taken off the market because consumers would use it to pirate films. Sony argued that its new device could be used for substantial uses that didn't infringe on copyrights: namely "time-shifting,'' or recording television shows to watch later. U.S. Supreme Court ruled that society couldn't be deprived of a new technology, just because some people might abuse it.
• Audio Home Recording Act of 1992: The law springs from the recording industry's attempt to keep Sony's Digital Audio Tape recorder off the market. It reaffirms an individual's rights to make personal copies, but requires manufacturers to add controls that prevent consumers from making second-generation copies. It also requires manufacturers to pay royalties to record companies, artists and songwriters for every piece of blank media and recorder sold.
• Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998: An attempt to update copyright law for the Internet age. One key feature makes it illegal to circumvent copy-protection measures built into copyrighted works … laying the groundwork for movie studios and record labels to introduce technologies that set limits on personal copies.
• October 1998: The Recording Industry Association of America sues San Jose-based Diamond Multimedia to halt release of the Rio MP3 player. RIAA argues that the device, when used to play unauthorized copies of MP3 song files, would ruin the market for online music distribution. An appeals court sides with Diamond.
• December 1999: The RIAA sues Napster, accusing it of contributing to widespread copyright infringement. Napster tries to use the Sony Betamax defense. Federal Judge Marilyn Hall Patel rejects the argument. The case continues, although the free Napster service has been shut down since July.
• January 2000: The Motion Picture Association of America sues 2600 Magazine, a hacker newsletter, for publishing a code that unlocks copy-protection on DVD movies. A Norwegian teenager created the code to watch movies on computers using the Linux operating system. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered 2600 to stop distributing the DeCSS code or linking to other Web sites that made it available.
• September 2001: Universal Music Group said it plans to incorporate measures to block copying on all of its audio CDs by early next year. Other major record labels … including Sony Music, Warner Music, EMI Group and BMG … are quietly experimenting with CDs that cannot be copied, or ""ripped,'' to a personal computer.
• September 2001: Sen. Ernest Hollings, chairman of the Senate Commerce committee, drafts a bill that would require consumer manufacturers to build copy-protection controls in all consumer devices, from televisions and TiVo-inspired personal video recorders to MP3 players, eBooks and PCs. The Security Systems Standards and Certification Act would make it a felony to defeat the copy-blocking technology. The bill has not yet been introduced.
-- Dawn Chmielewski
``If I like it, I buy it. If I don't, I delete it,'' said Tran, an 18-year-old computer engineering student at San Jose State. ``Obviously, the artists and record companies aren't worried about consumers like me. They're worried about the kids that download and don't buy.''
But record labels are indeed worried. Sharing music is a practice as old as cassette tapes and college dorms. But Internet song-swapping sites and technological advances in CD authoring turned what was once a limited campus pastime to pandemic. And the recording industry is determined to stop it.
All five major labels are exploring ways to squelch music piracy at the source: the compact disc. They're working with companies like Macrovision in Sunnyvale to copy-protect CDs -- essentially, padlocking tracks on discs so songs can't be ``ripped'' -- copied onto a computer -- and distributed endlessly over the Internet.
An alliance of equally powerful technology companies, which includes IBM and Intel, would extend copy protection to portable devices and removable memory.
Even the online subscription services to debut next month -- MusicNet and pressplay -- would introduce consumers to a new type of Internet music experience: songs you rent, but don't own; and can't take with you.
These technological initiatives, undertaken as part of anti-piracy efforts, put the labels on a potential collision course with consumers. Restricting what consumers can do with their music CDs challenges the notion of ``fair use.''
Simply put, ``fair use'' lets consumers make personal copies of copyrighted works: from custom CD compilations of favorite dance tracks, to videotapes of the hit NBC show ``Friends;'' to parodies of the epic novel ``Gone With the Wind.''
But fair use is a right that remains up for grabs in the Internet Age.
Napster's attorneys tried to carve out a ``fair use'' right for the millions of people who traded song files over the revolutionary peer-to-peer network. Attorney David Boies argued that consumers used Napster to space-shift, or convert songs they already owned on CD or vinyl into a convenient, computer-friendly format. Federal judge Marilyn Hall Patel didn't buy it.
Record label executives argued then -- as now -- that ``fair use'' is no right, it's a defense for copyright infringement. Consumers have no legal right to make personal copies of the videotape they rent from Blockbuster any more than they could brazenly bring a camcorder to the theater and record ``From ####'' to watch later. Similarly, they don't have a ``right'' to make multiple copies of the music CD they've purchased -- one for the car, another for work and perhaps a dub for a friend.
``It could well be a court would find fair use in making a convenience copy of sound recording, but that's never been tested,'' said one industry executive. ``It's not an affirmative right. It's a defense.''
In the absence of clearly defined fair-use rights for consumers, the recording and film industries are moving into the legislative void to assert their own rights over digitally distributed content, said Jessica Litman, a law professor at Wayne State University who specializes in intellectual property.
It's an effort to find a new way to charge for the content they already own -- delivered in a slightly different package. And the legislative maneuvering has already begun.
Sen. Ernest ``Fritz'' Hollings, chairman of the Senate Commerce committee, circulated a bill this fall that would require manufacturers to build in copy protection on consumer electronic devices and PCs. It would cover any device capable of ``storing, retrieving, processing, performing, transmitting, receiving or copying information in digital form'' -- a sweeping mandate that would cover television sets, VCRs, personal-video recorders and camcorders.
Collision course: Anti-piracy efforts pit labels vs. consumers
``As I read that, it covers my microwave,'' said Litman.
The Hollings bill attempts to address the motion picture industry's concerns about piracy -- and its desire to encrypt digital television broadcasts to prevent copying in the home.
But it also sets the stage for a new type of pay-per-view model, in which the consumer could no longer record premium cable broadcasts of, say, Showtime's Original Movie Series, or popular HBO programs like ``The Sopranos'' or ``Sex and the City.'' Missed the broadcast? You'll presumably have to pay to watch it later.
``There's an irresistible impulse to turn copyright control into cash,'' said Litman. ``If it's something consumers want and the copyright owners can keep control of it. The copyright owner can sell it separately.''
The recording industry is moving down the same path.
One of the label-backed online music services -- MusicNet -- will not permit subscribers to transfer songs to portable devices or burn custom CDs. The partnership between streaming media giant RealNetworks and labels EMI, Warner Music and BMG seeks to create a music rental business -- the online equivalent of a Blockbuster for songs. It represents a potential fresh source of revenue that won't erode the industry's income from CD sales.
Blockbuster for songs: Industry aims to create a music rental business
``The labels see an opportunity to move to a paradigm where people aren't getting the whole enchilada anymore, they're getting just the beans. And limited rights to the beans,'' said one industry source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
This desire to create new, lucrative markets for music explains the industry's efforts to lock songs to CDs. While only one label -- Universal Music Group -- has publicly disclosed plans to lock tracks on CDs next year, all five majors are experimenting with similar techniques to prevent copying.
When the industry discusses it at all, copy protection is described as a way to combat underground Internet file-swapping sites like Morpheus, KaZaA and Gorkster by starving them of fresh content; even as the industry sues the alleged pirate sites in court. It's a tool to snuff-out piracy at its source.
Now, for the rest of the story.
``The music business has a problem. They have one way to get revenue: selling CDs,'' said one industry insider. ``We're trying to limit what we're selling to you when we sell a CD, so that we can have other services.''
Locking music to the CD unlocks market potential. The labels see an emerging music rental business on the Internet for cost-conscious consumers. A reinvigorated business at retail -- one no longer threatened by the Napsters of the world. And perhaps even a ``deluxe'' version of the CD that permits the flexibility consumers now take for granted, such as the ability to rip tracks and create custom mixes or convenience copies.
Macrovision moves the record industry closer to that vision with a new, tiered marketplace for music with a version of its copy-protection technology to be announced in the coming weeks.
It places two versions of the music on a single disc. One version would play on a regular CD player. But when you insert the disc into a computer, the directory of songs hides, so CD-ripping programs can't find the tracks to extract. Instead, the computer sees compressed versions of the songs that are encoded with rights-management technology that sets limits on what the consumer does with the file.
``The consumer can put it on PC, listen to it, move it onto a portable player -- once it can be authenticated that he is the right owner for that piece of music,'' said Miao Chuang, Macrovision spokeswoman.
Backlash building: Curbing copying `is really missing the boat'
If copy-protection experiments fail, record label executives say privately they will simply abandon CDs for another, more friendly format. That's no idle threat: They've done it before. Anyone remember the strong-arm shift from vinyl to CD?
Chris Gorog, chief executive of Roxio, the leading maker of CD authoring software for PCs and Macs, predicts consumers will rebel against the recording industry's attempts to curb CD burning. It's a phenomenon bigger than recorded music itself -- with an estimated 5 billion blank discs to be shipped this year, compared to 3 billion music CDs sold.
``Clearly, what the consumer wants to do -- and has done now for many decades -- is buy recorded music and have the ability to make copies,'' said Gorog. ``It's been very clear that making compilation tapes, sharing tapes with friends, turning on your friends to new bits of music actually has propelled the growth of the industry. To view the simple act of recording as the enemy is really missing the boat.''
The backlash is already building.
Wayne Guerrini, a 49-year-old former radio engineer now living in East Mesa, Ariz., said he turned to underground Internet sites like Napster and Morpheus to find what he couldn't get in stores. He's found lost recordings by jazz greats like Stan Kenton or rare compilations, like ``Time Traveler'' by the Moody Blues. He said he would pay some small stipend -- say $5 -- to download such tracks from a site that compensates the artists and composers.
But extinguishing CD-burning just goes too far.
``If they're going to put safeguards or whatever they want to call it so I can't rip songs, I'll just quit buying CDs,'' said Guerrini. ``It's going to drive people into the underground.''
Copying music unstoppable
BY JON FORTT
Mercury NewsPosted at 6:49 p.m. PST Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2001
The recording industry's attempts to prevent people from copying music CDs will fail.
The only way to keep people from copying is to keep them from listening, and people tend not to buy CDs they can't hear. As long as there are good microphones in the world, people will be able to copy music.
The music copying controversy began with the rise of Napster, the free online service where college students and tech geeks began swapping compressed music files in the late 1990s. Once the record labels figured out what was going on, they sued to shut down Napster.
Now that Napster is essentially dead, the labels have decided to take their campaign a step further: They want to limit the number of times you can copy songs from the CDs you buy.
It is not that simple, though.
Ironically, the record labels seem to be forgetting about the world's microphones. Anything played through a speaker can be recorded with a microphone.
And you can do a pretty good job of copying music, even without a good microphone. Consider the Archos Jukebox HD-MP3 Recorder, a device released earlier this year that provides a way around almost every conceivable copy protection scheme, and that should scare the pants off the music bigwigs down in L.A.
The Archos Jukebox HD-MP3 Recorder is a high-capacity digital audio player that plays songs off a built-in hard drive, and it costs just over $300. The unit also has an ``analog in'' microphone port, that allows you to record audio as an MP3 file. This ``analog in'' port is the scary part I mentioned.
The recording industry is not yet scared of analog. It is far too focused on preventing consumers from making perfect digital copies of music. That is what a PC with a CD-RW drive allows you to do today -- copy the music data file from a CD and onto your hard drive, the same way you would copy a Word document or a photograph.
Most people who copy music, however, are not interested in making perfect digital copies. They are interested in making mediocre digital copies. When they copy or ``rip'' songs off a music CD, most people translate the original AIFF file into an MP3 file that sounds almost the same but takes up about one-tenth the space. The smaller MP3 music files are easier to store on portable music players, and to swap on the Internet.
The recording industry has the power to block people from making digital-to-digital copies, or ``ripping'' CDs. The recording industry has far less power to stop people from making digital-to-analog-to-digital copies. Let me explain.
Recording and re-recording analog is messier than digital. While digital formats store music information as data files in the form of orderly ones and zeros, analog formats record a wider range of audio information. As analog sound files get recorded and re-recorded, they lose quality. Remember dubbing cassettes in the '80s? That's a perfect example.
No one listens to digital music, however. The digital signals must be converted to analog before we can hear them, so speakers and headphones are analog devices by definition.
As soon as sound heads out of a music player's speaker or headphone jack, it enters the analog realm and all bets are off. Anyone within earshot can record it. In fact, people make analog-to-digital recordings all the time, when they make a bootleg CD from a concert or a bootleg video from a movie theater. (Many such bootleg songs and movies are floating around the Net even now.)
That is, in essence, how the Archos Jukebox HD-MP3 Recorder works. Take a cord, and plug it into the ``analog out'' headphone jack of a CD player, and plug it into the ``analog in'' microphone port of the jukebox recorder, and you can capture a pretty nice sound file -- and skirt any copy protections in the process. Better yet, the Archos player automatically converts the song back into a digital MP3 file, for burning onto CDs or swapping over the Internet.
This, of course, sends the record labels back to the drawing board.
There are a few complications to this digital-analog-digital scheme. When you convert a song to analog, you lose all the artist/song/track information that came with the digital format. You must take care to start and end the recording at the right moment, the way you do with audio tapes.
But these annoyances are small potatoes. Consider the fact that Norwegian programmers while away long winters hacking the recording industry's encryption schemes. Do you really think they'll let a little analog conversion stop them?
Bronfman Warns Antitrust Scrutiny Could Hurt Music Market; UMG Q3
Revenues Skid
by Jay Breitling
A top executive with Vivendi Universal today said ongoing antitrust investigations
of the oft-delayed Pressplay service backed by Universal Music Group and Sony
Music Entertainment could hurt a legitimate market for online music.
"Neither Pressplay nor [competitor] MusicNet has yet to achieve their first dollar of
revenue, while at the same time billions of unauthorized music files are traded,"
Vivendi Universal Executive Vice Chairman Edgar Bronfman said in an earnings
conference call today. "It's anticompetitive for regulators to regulate a nascent
business that has yet to form."
That message is similar to one sent by six U.S. lawmakers last month, who
warned that proposed online music legislation would stifle a market for digital
music [see 09.20.01 House Subcommittee Members Oppose Online Music
Legislation]. Bronfman declined to offer a specific date for Pressplay to launch,
saying only that it will be this quarter.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice issued subpoenas to music
companies, seeking information that they allegedly abused copyright rules and
licensing practices to inappropriately control online music distribution [see
10.15.01 DOJ Intensifies Investigation of Major Label Online Music Efforts].
Paris-based VU today said minimal exposure to the weak advertising market and
the company's reliance on subscription revenues helped boost its media and
communications revenues 24% in the third quarter.
Specifically, company Chairman and CEO Jean-Marie Messier said advertising
revenues constitute only 1% of VU's total revenues, while subscription services
make up 44%. For the period ended September 30 the company reported total
revenues of $6.6 billion, up from $6.1 billion in the same quarter a year ago. VU
said 60% of its revenues came from Europe, 30% from North America, and 10%
from the rest of the world.
The conglomerate expects to meet its previously stated goal of generating 10%
revenue growth and 35% earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and
amortization (EBITDA) for fiscal 2001.
Of the five business areas VU broke out, only music posted a decline in revenues,
dipping 4% to $1.32 billion from $1.38 billion in the year ago quarter. VU
attributed the dip to "the severe market decline in Latin America and weak market
conditions in several major markets, including Germany."
Even so, Universal Music Group (UMG) posted a 6% increase in EBITDA to
$226.1 million. The boost was the result of increased licensing income and music
publishing revenues and reduced corporate expenses. VU said it had expected
the third quarter to be challenging, and tried to cushion the blow by resisting the
urge to over-market music during the period. UMG boasts a 28.2% share of the
U.S. music market.
In today's call, VU highlighted strategic initiatives including licensing UMG's
catalog for two online services. However, the deals, for services Laugh.com and
Streamwave's Higherwaves.com, don't include any of UMG's mainstream music
titles.
VU said another strategic initiative, the release of copy-protected CDs, was set to
be enacted this quarter. That initiative was first referenced publicly in a
conference call last month. During that call Messier said the initiative would begin
this month; a Universal Music Group spokeswoman has not responded to
numerous queries in the last two weeks to say whether the effort has begun [see
09.25.01 Universal Music Group to Intro Copy-Protected CDs Next Month].
VU's TV and film revenues climbed 10% to $2.3 billion, up from $1.9 billion in the
year ago quarter. TV and film EBITDA increased 73% to $296.6 million during the
same period on the strength of blockbuster movies including "Jurassic Park III"
and "American Pie 2." The former has generated $380 million in revenues
worldwide to date, the latter more than $100 million.
TV unit Canal Plus Group reported revenues for the quarter increased 11% to
about $990 million. The group's pay-TV revenues increased 14%. Subscriptions
increased to 11.12 million; digital subscribership increased 25%.
VU Internet business revenues increased marginally to $30.8 million, but posted
an increased EBITDA loss of $60.7 million.
Bronfman said the company still expects a deal to sell its food and drink business
to close by the end of the year, despite the fact the U.S. Federal Trade
Commission recently blocked the deal.
Vivendi's shares closed trading today down less than 1% to $44.36.
Police divided on mini-computers
Some use hand-held gizmos to access office from field; others skeptical of
benefits
BY SEAN WEBBY
Mercury News
Picking through the spot-lit rubble of the World Trade Center, Menlo Park fire Capt. Harold
Schapelhouman pulled out a hand-held computer and beamed technical notes to his search crew,
scattered throughout the site.
Then, during a break, he used his Palm VII to e-mail his wife a quick ``I miss you.''
San Jose police officer Kenny Williams uses a hand-held computer to write and e-mail his reports
and beam the California criminal code and department manual to rookies.
Battalion chiefs in the San Mateo County fire department use the devices to message firefighters
and remotely open station doors.
But despite some unique and recent inroads, personal digital assistants, or PDAs, are still finding
stubborn pockets of resistance in the traditional notepad, gun and shoe-leather world of public
safety.
Redwood City police Sgt. Kathy Anderson openly scoffs when she sees an officer whip out a
hand-held computer at a crime scene. Her detectives would rather scribble notes on the palm of
their hands.
``I have one,'' Anderson said. ``It stays on my desk. I don't think it helps your police skills at all.
How is it any better than scribbling down a number and shoving it in your pocket?''
There is a stark division among law enforcement and fire officials on the benefits of hand-held
computers.
In New York City, a mayoral candidate proposed issuing hand-held computers to all patrol
officers. In South Pasadena, officers use them to compile mandated racial data on people they
detain and arrest. South Pasadena Sgt. Mike Neff said his car-theft squad uses them to quickly run
dozens of license plates at a junkyard, looking for stolen cars.
In Silicon Valley, within miles of companies that make the devices, such as Palm and Handspring,
the hand-held computer is catching on in the public safety world. Some departments, like the Palo
Alto police, reimburse officers who buy one.
Palm donated two dozen hand-held computers to the Menlo Park Fire Protection District's
search-and-rescue team to use last month when it joined the search for victims of the terrorist
attacks at the World Trade Center.
Williams, a former engineer, has had some type of hand-held computer since he bought a Radio
Spec 8080 15 years ago. He said the device can be used for more than just an electronic datebook
or phone book.
For example, officers can use hand-held computers to bypass busy dispatchers and check license
plates and criminal warrants -- as long as officers don't let the technology steal their attention from
the bad guy.
Officers can also use them to cut down on paperwork. Williams had his friend Dave Chulick help
him develop a program so he can fill out triplicate reports complete with his own digital
photographs and computer-generated sketches.
Soon, officers will be able to show suspect sketches and lineups to witnesses or victims without
going back to the station to get them.
Yet there is a deeply embedded cop culture that frowns on such ``gizmos,'' and often it exists side
by side with officers who have embraced all things tech.
In Atherton, Lt. Glenn Nielsen wrote a dissertation on the advantages of using personal digital
assistants in law enforcement. Atherton Police Chief Robert Brennan has never used one in his
job.
In the San Mateo County Sheriff's Department, Lt. Trisha Sanchez uses hers for all sorts of tasks,
including checking off a list of how to respond in certain emergencies. But her colleague Sgt. Dave
Hayes said he turned his Palm on once and never used it.
Even Foster City Capt. Craig Courtin, who co-wrote the Palm report with Nielsen, said the current
technology is probably not efficient enough to be used for anything much more than time
management or notes.
Some officers worry that the mini-computers could be stolen and the private, sensitive information
on them could be misused. But Williams and others say the hand-held computers can be ``locked''
with security codes and shut down remotely.
Aside from the debate, many small-department heads are still looking for basic technology
upgrades and said they could not afford even a limited number of the devices.
San Jose Police Deputy Chief Adonna Amoroso said that her department needed to be more
convinced of the advantages of hand-held computers. Officers, she said, need first and foremost to
focus on safety and brain work.
``There is always a danger of walking blindly into new technology without thinking about the
dangers,'' she said.
Partnership benefits music player development
A technology relationship between e.Digital (San Diego, Calif.) and Actel (Sunnyvale, Calif.), will integrate e.Digital's proprietary design into Actel's ASIC-like (application specific IC) eX field programmable gate array (FPGA) devices for portable voice recorders and players.
E.Digital's solution is designed to increase reliability and reduce board space for implementing advanced digital voice and music recorder/player functions in devices such as Internet music players and personal digital jukeboxes. Combining Actel's eX FPGAs with e.Digital's technology is expected to enhance functionality, security, and power consumption.
The e.Digital solution can also be used in applications such as automotive stereos, home stereo systems, laptop and handheld computers, cell phones, desktop PCs, and dictation machines. Actel's eX family is said to offer a low-cost complex programmable logic device (CPLD) solution. Designed for the e-appliance and communications markets, it enables designers to use a single-chip programmable logic for low-density ASIC requirements. This will eliminate lengthy lead times and non-recurring engineering (NRE) charges.
Actel is a supplier of PLDs, including FPGAs based on anitfuse and flash technologies, and embedded programmable gate arrays (EPGAs) based on SRAM (Synchronous RAM) technology. For more information, visit www.actel.com. E.Digital develops and markets end-to-end solutions for delivering and managing open and secure digital media. Visit the company on-line at www.edig.com for additional information.
No Sinkman but I saw that one too and agree it is great. Seems like the drumbeat is rising both pre-Xmas and pre-MusiNet/Pressplay. Things are looking good and they're only getting better.
cheers
Nice..Broadband future lies beyond PC, says Sony's Ando
NEW YORK/TOKYO (Reuters) - The broadband world of instant Internet access is close at hand
for consumers, despite the rapid demise of the dotcom era, a top Sony executive said on Thursday.
It's just that America's obsession with the personal computer has blinded it to the emergence of
many non-PC alternatives, Kunitake Ando, Sony Corp's president and chief operating officer, said
in an interview.
``We feel not just the PC, but the non-PCs like the digital (audio video), the PlayStations (and the
mobile products) may come centre-stage,'' the Sony executive said.
``Some people are allergic to the use of PCs.'' the blunt-speaking Ando told Reuters. The No. 2
man at the world's largest maker of audio-visual electronics sees Internet-connected handheld
audio and video devices, mobile phones and televisions as increasingly leading the move to the fast
Internet era.
He spoke via telephone early on Thursday from Tokyo.
Ando, who is widely seen as the successor to Sony CEO Nobuyuki Idei, will step into the
limelight next month when he delivers a keynote speech in Las Vegas at Comdex, the U.S
computer industry's largest annual trade show.
``We are going to introduce a series of Net-ready products,'' he said, outlining a push by Sony to
introduce an array of Net-connected electronics to the United States and other markets that are now
only available in Japan.
Sony's line-up of new gadgets includes ``NetMD,'' a music player that allows users to download
songs from the Internet and record play them on Sony's MiniDisc format. New high-resolution
flat-panel displays are coming to create home digital theatres. Network handycam digital
camcorders with short-distance Bluetooth wireless network links will finally reach U.S.
consumers.
Sony's business remains firmly rooted in hardware sales -- two-thirds of all revenues still come
from electronics -- but the company's long-term goal is to use broadband as a way to diversify into
new subscription-based services.
As evidence of its over reliance on hardware, Sony slipped into the red in the July-September
quarter with a consolidated net loss of 13.18 billion yen ($107 million), led by the electronics
division, interim earnings results showed on Thursday.
NETWORKED GADGETS TO OVERTAKE PCs
While the obituaries have been written for several years, the dominance of stand-alone,
desktop-tethered devices is now past, Ando said, opening the way for Sony to capitalise on the
shift to alternative ways of hooking up to the Internet.
Make way for special purpose, always on, network-connected devices like the i-mode mobile Net
phones in Japan, which boast more than 28 million users.
Sony is trying to cover all these bases, from mobile phones to Clie handheld entertainment devices
to its hot-selling Sony PlayStation 2 video game console.
And while Ando's enthusiasm for the PC-centred view of the world may be tempered, Sony
remains among the top three retailers of notebook computers in the world with its sleek Vaio line of
machines.
In Sonyspeak, the pre-1994 era is referred to as the AV, or Audio/Visual era. The 1995 to 1999
period is remembered for the convergence between audio visual and information technology
devices. The current era -- 2000 to 2004 -- will see the emergence of a wide array of networked
electronics.
Blast-off year is 2005 according to the Sony timeline. This will bring what Ando calls ``the
ubiquitous value network,'' where devices are always on, always connected, always delivering a
range of services to individuals wherever they are.
Sony is working on digital television and strategies for the day when widely available broadband
connections enable Sony's films, TV shows and games to be easily streamed directly into homes
when consumers want them.
Founded by a handful of radio engineers in the ruins of postwar Japan, Sony is legendary for
placing huge bets on unproven technologies and sticking with them for years even when quick
pay-offs failed to materialise. This was how the transistor radio and Trinitron color television were
born.
The dawning of this new strategy is evidenced in Sony's EverQuest, the most popular online,
multi-player gaming service, billed by subscription. More such services are coming, built around
the company's music, movie and other entertainment properties, and even its financial services
businesses in Japan, Ando said.
The Sony vision is perhaps most clearly seen in the Airboard -- a wireless, flat screen device 10
inches (25 cm) wide that is designed to be carried around the house in order to view television,
digital pictures or Web pages.
Ando cites these ``location-free'' devices as a prime example of what Sony has in mind for
residential broadband use. With its built-in network connections, the device, currently only
available in Japan, can act as a remote control to manage other devices around the house.
Apple's iPod is a great device launched into a tough market
BY JON FORTT
Mercury News
Soon after Apple Computer announced its $400 iPod MP3 player on Tuesday, one of my buddies
from high school instant messaged me from Chicago.
My friend Kasima Tharnpipitchai is a Mac fan. He's such a big Mac fan that in his spare time, he
wrote code that allows the Samsung Uproar MP3 phone to connect to Apple's new OS X operating
system. By many measures that makes him a bigger geek than I am.
Kasima: hey jon, how was it in person?
Jon: coolio . . . and they handed me one . . . listening to it now . . . very nice
Kasima: really? awesome.
Jon: how're things?
Kasima: good good. just wondering how the ipod is breakthrough . . . trying to convince myself
that it is . . . so that i can buy one.
Well, that's the question, isn't it -- is the iPod a must-have ``breakthrough digital device'' as Steve
Jobs and company promised? After spending a few hours with the iPod, I can give you a first
impression. Yes, it represents a technology breakthrough. It is quickly becoming my favorite
music player, and elicited oohs and aahs around the office. If you recently bought a Mac, you have
$400 to burn and you obsessively love music, the choice is easy. Get one.
If you don't fit all three of those criteria Apple might have a tough time convincing you of the
iPod's coolness. Many of the groundbreaking features are impressive only to people who
understand technical terms like FireWire, flash memory and synchronization. The concept of
digital audio players is so new that even code-writing Mac-lovers like Kasima aren't sure the iPod
is worth $400 until they test it out.
Plus, Apple does not ship the iPod with a belt clip. This could turn out to be a rookie mistake. It
might sound trivial, but category pioneer SonicBlue told me a few weeks ago that it has learned a
lesson on belt clips and carrying cases: Consumers who buy high-end portable music players now
expect them as part of the package. I'd say anything that costs more than $200 qualifies as a
high-end portable music player.
If you are still intrigued by the iPod, here are some basics you should know:
One, it works only with Macs that have high-speed FireWire data ports. Two, you will not find a
smaller, sleeker-looking way to carry up to 50 hours of high-quality MP3 files. Three, in my quick
tests it worked very well, aside from a glitch that Apple says it will fix before the product ships.
Four, you will be hard-pressed to find a more expensive portable audio player. There are plenty of
cheaper ones, such as the $180 RioVolt SP250 MP3 CD player, that cost less than half as much as
the iPod.
The iPod is an attractive piece of engineering. It feels great, like a heavy deck of cards. The front is
a soft white color, encased in clear plastic that is reminiscent of the iBook laptop and the Power
Mac G4 Cube desktop computer. The back of the device is shiny silver metal, like a Zippo lighter.
Both the plastic and the metal scratch easily.
One of the most impressive things about the iPod is its navigation. It is very easy to organize and
scroll through several hundred of music files, using a scroll wheel on the front. On the navigation
front, the iPod beats every digital music player I have seen, and I have seen just about all the major
ones. [Ya ain't seen VoiceNav yet Jon!]
The iPod works with iTunes2, the latest version of Apple's excellent software for managing audio
files. New iTunes features include support for several languages including Japanese, the ability to
burn MP3 files onto a CD, an equalizer, and cross fading. Cross fading makes the end of one song
blend into the beginning of another, the way they do on the radio.
There are a couple of things about the iPod's operation that I should clarify.
First, the glitch I found. I took the iPod home and connected it to my Mac (running OS 10.1), in
hopes of synching all of my music files onto the iPod. The problem is, I have a lot of music files. I
have copied nearly my entire CD collection into my Mac's hard drive, and there are now more than
1,000 songs. I rarely play CDs at home anymore; my main home stereo is the Mac, hooked into a
speaker system.
My hunch is that a good number of early iPod buyers will have more than 1,000 songs (about 80
CDs) on their hard drives. Only a true lover of music and computers ponders spending $400 on a
portable music vault.
When I tried to use the automatic sync function that pulls songs onto the iPod, iTunes 2 told me
there was not enough space on the iPod to accommodate my music. When I tried to drag songs
over manually, the iPod froze, with the FireWire symbol on the screen indicating that the iPod
remained connected to the Mac.
The screen on my Mac froze, too. I could use the mouse to move the cursor, but nothing else
would budge.
When I unplugged the iPod, the Mac unfroze immediately but the iPod itself remained paralyzed. I
looked for a reset button. Nothing. Then I flipped through the iPod instruction manuals trying to
find a reset trick. Still nothing. So after some thought, I invoked an unspoken rule of consumer
electronics: As a last resort, try holding down all the buttons at the same time. (Note: do not try that
trick with heavy machinery.)
It worked. The iPod reset itself, and has worked for several hours since, without incident. Phil
Schiller, Apple vice president for worldwide product marketing, told me later Tuesday that to reset
the iPod, you simultaneously hold down the ``menu'' and ``play'' buttons for about eight seconds.
He said Apple engineers have a few minor iPod bugs to fix, and FireWire fixes are among them.
Now for the second clarification.
There is some confusion about whether the iPod can be used to steal music. As the iPod is
configured at the moment, the answer is absolutely yes. You can load songs from one Mac onto an
iPod, and then dump those songs onto another Mac -- or onto several other Macs.
Apple discourages music piracy. The company said it spent more than $50,000 on CDs to make
that point at the iPod launch: Apple purchased and distributed 20 CDs to use with each iPod review
unit, and iPods out of the box have a sticker reading ``Do Not Steal Music.''
Unlike some other technology makers and the major music labels though, Apple's position is that
music piracy is a behavioral problem, and that it is futile to attempt to build encryption technology
that forces people to change their behavior. People who are intent on stealing will steal.
``Every security scheme that is based on secrets eventually fails,'' Jobs said.
So Apple has made it a bit tricky to use the iPod to swap songs between two Macs -- but only a bit.
I did it by turning off the automatic synching feature on my home machine and dragged songs onto
the iPod. I then connected the iPod to someone else's iBook. That iBook already had iTunes 2
installed, and had already been linked to another iPod.
The iBook noted that this was not the usual iPod, and asked if I wanted to wipe all the songs off
the iPod and start over. I said no. But the iBook recognized my iPod anyway, and let me drag
songs off of the iPod and into the iBook.
It is unfair to criticize Apple for allowing such swapping. Any FireWire-equipped hard drive can
do the same thing -- arguably in a more straightforward manner.
In summary, my first impression of the iPod is this: Apple's hardware and software engineers beat
long odds and did a great job on the device. Now the marketing team has to beat long odds and sell
the iPod to consumers in a slow economy.
Anyone see CompUSA commercial offering free 64 Mb memory card with the purchase of any memory upgradeable MP3 player?
High Quality Speech Recognition Development Tools Now
Available for Embedded Applications
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 24, 2001--SpeechTek--
Sensory's New Tools Enable ARM 7 and StrongARM Developers to Pack
Powerful Speech Recognition Functionality into Mobile Devices
Sensory, Inc., the leading provider of high-quality, low-cost embedded speech technology, announced
today at the SpeechTEK Conference two Software Development Kits (SDKs), the Fluent Speech SDK and
the Voice Activation SDK, that enable companies to quickly and easily integrate Sensory's award-winning
embedded software into their products.
"Sensory's approach is to offer a broad range of highly optimized voice recognition engines, each with the
smallest possible footprint," said Todd Mozer, Sensory's president and chief executive officer. "Robust, yet
very efficient recognition technology is a requirement in mobile devices, where computing horsepower,
memory, and power are always at a premium."
The Fluent Speech SDK enables companies to integrate high-quality, large-vocabulary Speaker
Independent recognition into StrongARM-based applications. The SDK includes modifiable sample
applications to jump-start application development. The highly configurable phonemic-based recognition
engine is capable of recognizing up to 50,000 words or phrases.
"For example, with this SDK, a developer could rapidly speech-enable an MP3 player on a Pocket PC
StrongARM device," said Mozer. "Since applications built with the SDK can rebuild vocabulary on the fly,
users can download hundreds of new songs, and then play their favorite one by simply saying the title." The
Fluent Speech SDK is capable of enabling continuous digit recognition, large vocabulary wordspotting,
grammar based diction, n-best results, and is designed to perform well in high noise environments.
The Voice Activation SDK for the ARM7 family allows rapid integration of speech recognition functions like
Speaker Dependent, Speaker Independent, Voice Synthesis, and Speaker Verification into portable
telephony, automotive, handheld, and biometric security applications.
"With its tiny footprint, the Voice Activation engine is the perfect solution for implementing speech
recognition in products with an existing microprocessor and/or DSP, like the ARM7 family," said Mozer. The
SDK enables developers to rapidly conceptualize their application on the PC, verify their design using an
evaluation board, and then smoothly integrate their application into the target platform. Consuming as little as
10MIPs and 25KB of memory, Sensory's Voice Activation software recognizes words with greater than 98
percent accuracy in an 80-decibel environment -- making voice recognition possible in noisy places such as
in cars, homes and on factory floors.
At the SpeechTek conference, Sensory was recognized by the editors of Speech Technology magazine
with several industry awards for tools and technologies, and was given further acclaim by being the only
embedded speech technology company invited to participate in the "Industry Leaders" panel.
The Voice Activation SDK is offered in two versions: a standard edition for $995 and a professional edition
for $1495. The Fluent Speech SDK is available for $1995.
About Sensory, Inc.
Based in Santa Clara, Calif., Sensory, Inc., is the leading provider of high-quality, low-cost
speech-recognition and speech-synthesis technology for embedded applications. Sensory's speech
technology is used in personal electronics, Internet appliances, interactive toys, wireless and automotive
applications. Sensory's Interactive Speech(TM) line of products includes the award winning RSC series
speech chips, small-footprint Voice Activation software, Fluent Speech(TM) large-vocabulary software engine
and Fluent Animated Speech(TM) technology. Sensory's customers include leading companies in the
consumer-electronics and embedded-product markets, such as JVC, Hasbro, Kenwood, Mattel, Radica,
Sega, Sharper Image, Fisher-Price, Sony, Tektronix, Toshiba, Uniden, and VOS. More information is
available from Sensory's web site at www.sensoryinc.com.
Note to Editors: Fluent Speech and Voice Activation are trademarks of Sensory, Inc. All other trademarks,
brands and names are the property of their respective owners.
--30--cla/se*
CONTACT: Sensory, Inc.
Erik Soule, 408/327-9000
marcom@sensoryinc.com
Liquid Audio considering buyout offer
Posted at 1:45 p.m. PDT Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2001
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Online music services firm Liquid Audio said Wednesday that it
would consider an unsolicited offer from a dissident investor to buy the company for almost $68
million in cash, setting the stage for a potential auction of the struggling firm.
The Redwood City, Calif.-based company said its board would consider an unsolicited offer from
Steel Partners II to buy the company for $3 per share after the equity fund complained that the
company's management was following a failing strategy in the face of larger competitors.
Based on Tuesday's closing price of $2.55, the cash offer represented a premium of almost 18
percent to the market value of the company. Liquid Audio shares closed up 3 cents at $2.58 in
afternoon trade on Nasdaq. Their 52-week high is $6.75 and their 52-week low is $1.65.
Musicmaker.com, a competing online music firm, which owns 6.3 percent of the company in
conjunction with several executives, said it could mount a competing offer for Liquid Audio and
renewed a call for the board to meet quickly.
Liquid Audia did not say when its board meeting would take place. A call to a spokeswoman for
comment was not immediately returned. A call to the managing partner of Steel Partners was also
not immediately returned.
Liquid Audio also said it had rejected a request by Musicmaker to hold a special board meeting in
November, saying the company's bylaws did not allow stockholders to call such meetings.
``We think that shareholders can call a special shareholder meeting under the bylaws,'' said James
Mitarotonda, president and chief executive of Musicmaker, which was delisted from the Nasdaq
this year.
Mitarotonda said he was also unhappy that Liquid Audio had chosen to consider Steel Partners'
offer at its next board meeting, rather than immediately.
``It seems to me this is a very important matter -- somebody makes an offer for the company, you
need to consider it quickly,'' he said.
Mitarotonda declined to comment specifically on Steel's offer, but said, ``it's possible we'll have a
competing offer as well.''
Steel's offer on Monday came in a critical, open letter that said Liquid Audio had ``diminishing
value'' and said the fund was ready to begin due diligence immediately.
On Sept. 10, Steel had issued a letter demanding the management of Liquid Audio put the company
up for sale.
Steel owns 8.2 percent of Liquid, which at its peak in November 1999 had a market capitalization
of over $1 billion.
murgirl, not it but fuel to fire...
By: AKAOOS $$$$
Reply To: None Tuesday, 20 Jun 2000 at 3:17 PM EDT
Post # of 809652
Today's Interview w/Fred Falk/Robert Putnam: Quick draft: (pardon spell/punct, errors; may correct later)
2 industries:
1) VTT/TTV
2) Music over the Internet
First to use flash memory for voice recording 5 years ago.
Speech recognition technology …Convert voice to text; download to computer
Bill Gates and voice recognition … EDIG believes most impact here.
IBM VoiceTIMES Alliance getting more active as these products come to market
Get rid of keyboards and talk to devices … more convenient.
VoiceTIMES Alliance gives other OEMs involved Dictaphone, Phillips, Intel, Lanier; technology will be offered thru marketplace thru OEMs, not EDIG directly. EDIG doesn’t develop technology for its own use and products … but for OEMs of the World to market, using their own (OEM’s) $ to market and sell the products.
They already have infrastructure set up. Building horizontal tech and integration of those to get to market quickly. Digital video, music, flash file management system gives advantage to market.
Unique position to work with these companies. Successful together.
As wireless industry explodes, EDIG will modify MicroOS so other EDIG technology works with it in wireless environment
Video voice images. Video will be main thing to go. IMACS; streaming video will soon be cached. Video needs memory storage. Mechanical tech for storage. Also in this area … new mechanical tech such as IBM MicroDrive. Large capacity is necessary to integrate devices to support video.
MTV 2-6 minutes of video captured and downloaded to device; Internet TV
OS for downloading to PC to portable; PC to handheld.
Designing from ground floor up with OEM input. OEMs have their own unique features to integrate into EDIG design.
1) Engineering fees
2) License design OEM builds <
3) Resulting royalties
4) Contract manufacturers in ASIA w/o $ up front --- royalties on this.
OEM product to Sanyo into edig dictation market. Companies to get into market quickly.
Size of market for EDIG services? Potential? All companies don’t have the tech expertise; Tech is for OEMs, not EDIG. Other Companies do it for their own use. EDIG doesn’t. EDIG provides engineering for the OEMs WITHOUT engineering expertise.
Digital music technology is lead into huge market
Product design and OS for entire industry. Predict EDIG in several millions of units in next 4-5 years. Content key for EDIG OEMs now.
VTT/TTV is big industry in 2-3 yrs < huge explosion of digital content.
EDIG trying to get foot into door now; working with several OEMs now as well as building for VTT/TTV
All OEMs NOW for infrastructure and intercompatability. Insure EDIG supports ALL major emerging tech … for all the Lucents and Microsofts of the world. Business models are just emerging.. Revolutionary growth coming now. Hardware devices dependent on bandwidth. SONY, RCA sharing same vision. Hardware will need to be purchased. Working with involved companies here.
Start up of businesses. Why EDIG? What is advantage?
Flexibility – works with all Digital Rights Managements all into single device. Broad menu; integrate their (OEM) tech into ours.
Which systems to support? Which platform? FLEXIBLE to OEM. Flexibility according to content chosen by OEM.
How many systems out there? DRMS? 3 major IBM EMMS; INTERTRUST; MS WMA; all three licensed all offered to OEM
Audio compression technology: Dolby, MS, SONY, EPAC (LU), offered to OEMs.
COMPAQ … why they haven’t entered into digital market yet? According to today’s article it’s because they don’t want to offer another MP3 player. They want secure devices to support secure content from labels.
Challenges … to EDIG… to offer broadest choice to get to market. Product w/Maycom ready to market this summer. They have been a wonderful marketing partner for Asia & Europe for EDIG. Maycom first one out there. Several OEMs thru Maycom will also have product out.
Once content is out, that’s it. Product release as soon as content … instantaneously.
7/1: EMI, Supertracks, Liquid Audio … 7/1 is the beginning.
Coming out. What we’ve been working for. Download devices w/Maycom and others are ready to be launched.
Infrastructure. .. estimates Qtr to Qtr. Contracts from OEMs soon to reveal but when facts are backed up. Lanier and Internet music companies source of revenue, low overheads (engineering only), e.Digiatal soon profitable. Significant generation of revenue this year… stay tuned… info out as soon as contracts come in.
Downturn in NASDAQ ? NASDAQ listing? Close … 4-6 months for most companies today, very close to completion. Yes SOON.
NASDAQ backlogged. Most applications from Jan, Feb this year … 4-6 months, some more, some less.
Real loyal group of investors. Statement for shareholders thru summer ... support and loyal; daily e-mails; keeping them up to speed; our kick-off is this summer; labels ready to release content; OEMs excited about offering products to support this content.
Shareholders meeting later this year … will share more info with shareholders at this time.
Thank shareholders for PATIENCE. Will be a good year for all. Question … is e.Digital huge following a great marketing tool? Sure. Impressed with shareholders. Interest in the success of the company. Once Maycom/EDIG unit is out, more opportunities will come out.
If/when NASDAQ comes, EDIG will keep same EDIG ticker symbol.
www.edig.com; info@edig.com 858-679-1405 Wendy Ravanel;
e.Digital activities updated on website;
Host: congrats on Microsoft announcement.
Pam, I remember the article and I think I posted it. Will do some digging and let you know.
cheers
Is That All There Is?
Some thought it would be a rack-mount home entertainment device.
Others, a PDA, or a web tablet. Instead, Apple today introduced a
run-of-the-mill MP3 jukebox.
Called the iPod, the device can hold up to 10 hours of MP3 music.
For the same price, $399, Creative Technology offers a jukebox
player that holds at least four times as much music. Even
hardcore Mac fans won't get much utility out of the iPod, because
the the vast majority of file-sharing services don't work with
Macs.
Apple isn't responsible for media speculation. But the company
should try to live up to its reputation for developing innovative
products that engage consumers (read: iMac). The iPod will sell,
but with so many other options out there, the device will get
lost in the shuffle.
SpeechTEK 2001 Conference Schedule...
[Friday would appear to be the likely day...]
Now in its seventh year, SpeechTEK continues to tailor its conference sessions to meet the needs of the
speech technology industry as well as the global marketplace -- and we just expanded the conference by
one day to accommodate interest in VoiceXML, the emerging language for voice-enabling the Internet!
Take me to the Conference Schedule!
SpeechTEK 2001's conference sessions offer the latest information
on how to increase revenues, decrease costs, improve service,
increase security, differentiate products and enhance productivity
using this emerging technology – all in three days packed with solid,
unbiased information and demonstrations from global speech
leaders. Only once a year. Only at SpeechTEK.
Corporate and governmental decision-makers will discover the wealth
of knowledge available in SpeechTEK's business track sessions.
Specifically, these sessions provide in-depth information on how
speech technology will improve the "bottom line" and provide a
greater return on investment than many other forms of technology.
Complementing the business focus,
SpeechTEK's technical track sessions are geared to those who "talk the talk" of the
information technology age. Global speech technology leaders share their vast
amounts of technical knowledge during these extremely sought-after sessions.
At the same time, speech technology companies enjoy the benefits of creating
partnerships, gaining media attention, targeting qualified clients and supporting the
growth of the speech industry as a whole.
With at least 37 conference sessions, including two specialization tracks – Speech in Call Centers and
Speech Goes Mobile SpeechTEK 2001 showcases highly trained professionals who present cutting-edge
technology information to a growing base of individuals, corporations, organizations and governmental
leaders interested in the benefits of speech technology.
Participants at SpeechTEK represent the entire speech technology industry, rather than a specific
product, category or company. The result? SpeechTEK offers multiple speech technology solutions
across all segments of the industry, assuring participants a balanced, unbiased atmosphere for finding
the right speech solution for today's fast-paced and competitive business environment.
In short, SpeechTEK serves as the true, industry-wide resource for all decision-makers
researching the integration of speech technology into their business models.
Because of overwhelming interest in VoiceXML sessions, we offer an entire day
dedicated to this growing technology. With two tracks, one for implementers and one
for managers, VoiceXML Day promises to be a huge hit with SpeechTEK conference
attendees. Register early for our VoiceXML pre conference, because seating is limited!
New to this year's conference are our Corporate Educational Seminars, hour-long information sessions
conducted by global leaders in speech, offering up-close looks at the specific technologies and talents of
individual companies all in a more intimate setting than possible on the trade show floor.
Keeping good company
Virtually any professional, company, organization or market that utilizes or wants to utilize speech
technology will find a tremendous return on investment at
SpeechTEK 2001. Past attendees have included professionals from among the
following:
Application Service Providers
Assistive Education
Automobile Manufactures
Broadcasting
Business Consulting Companies
Call Centers
Carriers
Education (K-12 and Universities)
Electronic Media Companies
Engineering Firms
Federal Government Agencies
Financial Analysts
Financial Services (Banking and Insurance)
Fortune 1000 Companies
Hospital Companies
Internet Service Providers
Local Exchange Carriers
Local Governmental Agencies
Manufacturers
Medical Professionals (Doctors- Dentists)
PC Manufacturers
Publishing Companies
Speech Technology Companies
State Governmental Agencies
Technology Analysts
Telecommunications Companies
VARs/Integrators
Venture Capital Firms
Webmasters
Wireless Providers
Conference times are set, but work continues on developing session topics that will give you opportunities
to learn, grow, explore and share opportunities about speech technology.
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Travel and Hotel Information
Conference Schedule
(session details listed below)
Wednesday, October 24, 2001
9 am - 6 pm
Registration
10 am - 11:30 am
P1. VoiceXML for Managers, Part One
P2. VoiceXML for Implementers, Part One
P3. SAPI Applications
11:30 am - 1 pm
Lunch Break
1 pm - 2:30 pm
P4. VoiceXML for Managers, Part Two
P5. VoiceXML for Implementers, Part Two
P6. Best Speech Deployments by Peak Performance Award Winners
2:30 pm - 3 pm
Refreshment Break & Networking
3 pm - 4:30 pm
P7. VoiceXML Experiences for Managers
P8. VoiceXML Experiences for Implementers
P9. Speech Technology Overview
5 pm - 8 pm
ETSI at SpeechTEK 2001
Thursday, October 25, 2001
7 am - 5 pm
Registration
7 am - 8 am
Continental Breakfast
8 am - 9 am
1a. Latest Advancements in Text-to-Speech (Technical Track)
1b. Speech Services for Carrier Grade Systems (Business Track)
1c. Improving Customer Service in the Call Center with Speech (Call Center Track)
9 am - 9:30 am
Refreshment Break & Networking
9:30 am - 10:30 am
Keynote Address:
Mr. Ron Croen, CEO of Nuance
Mr. Stuart Patterson, CEO of SpeechWorks International
10:30 am - 5 pm
SpeechTEK 2001 Exposition Floor Open
10:30 am - 11 am
Refreshment Break & Networking
11 am - Noon
2a. Speaker Verification Issues (Technical Track)
2b. Case Studies: Recent Speech Deployments (Business Track)
2c. Speech vs. Touch-Tone (Call Center Track)
Noon - 1 pm
B1. Bonus VoiceXML Session
Noon - 1 pm
Lunch Break
1 pm - 2 pm
Discover Funding Sources from NIST
3a. Next Generation Network Issues (Technical Track)
3b. Voice Portals (Business Track)
3c. Your Customers' First Impressions: Speech in the Call Center (Call Center Track)
2 pm - 2:30 pm
Refreshment Break & Networking
2:30 pm - 3:30 pm
4a. Input Interfaces (Technical Track)
4b. Navigating the Web with Speech (Business Track)
4c. Persona Building (Call Center Track)
3:30 pm - 4 pm
Refreshment Break & Networking
4 pm - 5 pm
Industry Leaders Panel Discussion
5:30 pm - 7 pm
Opening Network Reception and Awards Presentations
Friday, October 26, 2001
7 am - 9 am
Registration
7 am - 8 am
Continental Breakfast
8 am - 9 am
5a. Natural Language Understanding (Technical Track)
5b. speaker verification in the Marketplace (Business Track)
5c. Telematics (Mobile Speech Track)
9 am - 9:30 am
Refreshment Break & Networking
9:30 am - 10:30 am
Keynote Address:
Mr. W.S. "Ozzie" Osborne, general manager, IBM Speech Systems
10:30 am - 2:30 pm
SpeechTEK 2001 Exposition Floor Open
10:30 am - 11 am
Refreshment Break & Networking
11 am - Noon
6a. The Importance of Linguistics (Technical Track)
6b. Improving Customer Service with Speech (Business Track)
6c. Multi-Modal Challenges (Mobile Speech Track)
Noon - 1 pm
B2. Bonus International Session
Noon - 1 pm
Lunch Break
1 - 2 pm
7a. How to Build a Voice Portal (Technical Track)
7b. Speech and Knowledge Management (Business Track)
7c. Speech in PDAs (Mobile Speech Track)
2 - 2:30 pm
Refreshment Break and Networking
2:30 pm - 3:30 pm
8a. Technical Case Studies (Technical Track)
8b. Trends in Speech Technology (Business Track)
8c. Making Workers More Productive (Mobile Speech Track)
2:45 pm - 4 pm
9. VoiceXML Overview (VoiceXML Track)
Intel has an iPOD too...uh oh..
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/22429.html
WinTel to resurface on the hand
By Ephraim Schwartz , Dan Neel , and Paul Krill
October 19, 2001 3:21 pm PT
DON'T LOOK NOW, but that almost forgotten word, "WinTel," will rise again
next month at Comdex in Las Vegas on the back of new products on display
at the tech industry showcase.
It won't be WinTel on the desktop or notebook that captures the spotlight;
it'll be WinTel on the handheld.
Vendors will preview high-performance handhelds based on the traditional
Windows/Intel combination, but with the capability to run full-blown desktop
applications.
The list includes Intel's X-scale processor running at above 450Mhz and
Microsoft's upcoming Windows CE 4.0 operating system that will allow Pocket
PC devices from the likes of Casio, Compaq, and Hewlett-Packard (HP) to
offer built-in speech recognition, high-level security, and improved wireless
functionality along with low power consumption.
And additional twist is the perceived positioning of Windows CE's competitor,
Palm OS.
Most high-tech industry executives say that the Palm OS and its licensees
have 12 months to 18 months to incorporate serious enterprise-level
capabilities such as multi-threading, multi-tasking, and security beyond simple
SSL (Secure Socket Layer), or the game is over.
"Palm is the Macintosh of the handheld world," said Raphael Auphan, vice
president of strategy and market development for Viafone, a wireless
infrastructure provider.
Despite Palm OS' claimed shortcomings, some industry experts believe devices
like Handspring's Treo is a compelling reason to stick with Palm OS. "It doesn't
matter if it doesn't have much processing power. It is a killer device," said Sal
Visca, CTO at InfoWave, a wireless infrastructure provider. In addition, Palm
is in the midst of upgrading its OS to run on the same core Arm processor as
the Pocket PC devices.
There is also the ease-of-use factor. "We run into people intimidated by the
Pocket PC. It doesn't have ease of use," said Gary Briggs, a mobility strategist
for EDS in Plano, Texas.
Nevertheless, some of the largest companies have already made up their
mind. UPS selected Windows CE over the Palm platform for 200,000 devices.
Windows CE integrated more easily with its current networks and its 5,000
Windows-based development staff, according to David Salzman, program
manager at UPS Information Services in Mahwah, N.J.
It may be premature to make predictions, but it is significant to note that not
only large corporations appear to be favoring the Windows CE platform, but
high-tech companies that sell into that market as well.
For example, Siebel Systems will release applications that enable tracking of
consumer goods and pharmaceuticals inventories on handhelds, but the
offerings will only be supported on Microsoft's Pocket PC.
"Pocket PC has multithreading and large amounts of RAM and significant
processing power, and so for applications like consumer goods sales and
pharmaceutical sales management, we think it's the right platform," Stone
said.
Russ McMeekin, CEO at ViaPhone and a former divisional president at
Honeywell, believes most large companies will stick with WinTel. "Microsoft
and Intel have taken us this far for 10 years. So for scalability and longevity
it is these brands that prevail. If I was making a $50 million decision at
Honeywell, I would go with WinTel," he said.
Meanwhile, attendees at Comdex will get their first look at Version 4.0 of
Windows CE and the X-scale processor.
Many are saying the combination may become an unstoppable dynamic duo.
Add to the mix multi-gigabyte hard drives from both IBM and Toshiba in a
handheld-friendly Compact II flash form factor, and users could load the
entire Microsoft Office applications onto a handheld.
For wireless, Version 4.0 will support wireless wakeup of the handheld, when,
for instance, an e-mail arrives. This always-on functionality is now only
available on the Research in Motion (RIM) BlackBerry devices.
The combination of the new OS and the increased processing capability of the
StrongArm 2, now called X-scale, will also allow for a higher level of security
that can use longer ciphers, according to Sal Visca, CTO at InfoWave.
Set to arrive next year, X-Scale chips will mark the beginning of a new
ARM-based processor road map for Intel that could exceed clock speeds of
1GHz, according to Intel representative Mark Miller.
Intel will not reveal the debut speed of the first X-Scale chips, but recent
core demonstrations of the chip reveled it has the ability to run at 1GHz while
consuming less than one ten-thousandth of a watt of power.
"Obviously X-Scale won't scale to 1GHz coming out of the chute, but you can
see how the convergence of voice and data [in PDAs] and color screens are
requiring a whole lot more processing power," Miller said.
InfoWorld Editor at Large Ephraim Schwartz is based in San Francisco. Dan Neel is an
InfoWorld senior writer. Paul Krill is an InfoWorld editor at large.
IP platform developer Parthus says the worst is over
By By Anthony Clark
Electronics Times
(10/19/01, 11:21 a.m. EST)
LONDON — Parthus Technologies plc (Dublin, Ireland), a developer of intellectual-property (IP) platforms for mobile devices, expects to break even in mid-2002 with the help of increased licensing income, according to Brian Long, the company's chief executive officer. The bottom has been reached for IP companies, Long said. "The market is as bad as it's going to get, we're banking on it," he said.
Long's prediction followed the announcement of third-quarter results that saw the company's income from licensing come in ahead of market expectations.
"We have delivered a solid performance, particularly given the market conditions — our licensing revenue grew by 82 percent," he said. Parthus sales in the third quarter were $8.2 million. However, as a relatively recent convert to hardware IP licensing from a design-services business mode, Parthus is still loss-making.
Parthus recorded a third-quarter loss of $3.2 million, up from $1.5 million for the same quarter in 2000, but Long says this is principally due to recent acquisitions.
"The overall trend is improving," he said. "We have $127 million in the bank and a low cash burn."
Long also cited the licensing of the power-management technology for mobile devices to Motorola as indicative of a strong order book.
Anthony Clark is deputy editor of Electronics Times, EE Times' sister publication in the United Kingdom.
Audio Briefs...
Staff
TWICE
10/22/2001
MP3.com Offers mp3PRO
San Diego— The MP3.com Internet download site said it began on Oct. 1 to offer thousands of music files in the mp3PRO format. The site also offers an mp3PRO playback plug-in for the Winamp music player application.
Panasonic Portable Shrinks
Secaucus, N.J.— Panasonic's SV-SD80 Internet audio portable, unveiled at Japan's CEATEC show, will ship in the Unites States in late October at a suggested $329 and an expected everyday $299 with included 64MB SD memory card. Compared to two current models, the SD80 is smaller at 1.66 inches x 1.64 inches x 0.62 inches and extends battery life to 50 hours from six when a rechargeable NiMH battery is combined with a triple-A alkaline. The new device will also add Microsoft WMA decoding and the WMA DRM when a planned update to included RealJukeBox music-management software is available. The current models offer MP3 and AAC decoding. Panasonic didn't know if the SD80 would support the Metatrust DRM as the current models do.
iRock 500 Series Rolls
Chicago — First International Digital is highlighting value in two new 500 series MP3 portables, one offering 64MB of internal memory at an estimated everyday $99.
"The 520 is the only 64MB device we are aware of out there that is under $100," said Randy Cavaiani, sales and marketing VP. At $99, other models offer 32MB, a spokeswoman added. The second unit, the 510, comes with 32MB internal memory at an estimated everyday $79.
The next-generation 500 series, due in Q2, will be codec-upgradeable and will add the WMA and mp3PRO codecs, Cavaiani said.
Home Network Trials Set
Maynard, Mass. — Ucentric Systems has teamed up separately with Sears and the Comcast cable network to conduct trials of Ucentric's home-networking software platform.
Ucentric technology connects existing household products— such as TVs, PCs, stereos, and phones — to one another and to the Internet without the installation of new wires.
Sears will install home-network servers in 50 homes in the Dallas area for customer trials. Comcast will conduct a technical trial.
drven, thank you for your expert opinion. As always it is a pleasure to find yet another bright, inquisitive mind following the goings on at EDIG. Thanks again for sharing your insight and please don't be a stranger on these boards.
cheers
MS digital rights management scheme cracked-Sentinel
By Thomas C Greene in Washington
Posted: 19/10/2001 at 09:19 GMT
An anonymous coder named 'Beale Screamer' claims to have broken the
Version-2 Microsoft digital rights management (DRM) scheme, and has
produced the source code and a DOS utility to un-protect .WMA audio files.
The author's zipped file contains a well-written and lengthy description of
the MS DRM weaknesses, a philosophical tract explaining why he thinks it
necessary to crack, the source code, and the command-line utility.
The alias Beale Screamer, incidentally, derives from the lines of 'Howard
Beale' in the movie 'Network', we're told. "Just yell to the publishers 'I'm
mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!'"
The motive here is said to be an assertion of fair use and a check against
the abuse of copyright for purposes of consumer extortion.
A DRM scheme "used to give the consumer more possibilities than existed
before," Screamer tells us. "I think the idea of limited time, full-length
previews, or time-limited Internet-based rentals is excellent. If DRM was
only used for this, in order to give us more options than we previously
had, I would not have taken the effort to break the scheme. What is bad is
the use of DRM to restrict the traditional form of music sale. When I buy a
piece of music (not rent it, and not preview it), I expect (and demand!) my
traditional fair use rights to the material. I should be able to take that
content, copy it onto all my computers at home, my laptop, my portable
MP3 player....basically anything I use to listen to the music that I have
purchased."
Well said; a tremendous amount of thought and effort has obviously gone
into all this, and we have to wonder who this crusader is. A university
connection seems all but certain. We've got a few feelers out, and hope
very much that he'll submit to an interview soon.
There's clearly more to this story than meets the eye. For one thing, the
quality of writing in the text files exceeds that in the code files,
suggesting more than one actor. Readers are encouraged to share their
insights as they read through the texts and fiddle with the code, using the
byline link above. ®
drven, an economics major I might guess. Nice take on the article but I have a greater problem with the whole premise that the rest of the countries problems should take a back seat particularly when we are dealing with a terrorist threat as we are here. I would have to disagree with you though on the ,"there is nothing wrong with oligopolies as long as there is no price fixing which is a general provision.", as there always appears to be de facto price fixing a la Kellog and the other cereal manufacturers. Thanks for the input.
cheers
cksla, is Larry Powers on the payroll of the RIAA?? His whole argument is laughable at best and beneath contempt at worst. So the Federal Govt. should let,"oligopolies roam and control the basic product—performance and publishing rights...", and stifle competition and innovation willy nilly because now would not be a good time to be distracted by the robber barons?? Man, with thinking like this in the mainstream press we better all hang on to our wallets tight. The Petroleum Institute of America is gonna be looking to hire Powers out from under the nose the RIAA if they're not careful.
What a condescending piece of crap that was and I am not attacking the messenger. Is he on cnet or what?
cheers