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Telematics 2001 Facilitating Adoption and Driving Demand
August 14-16, 2001
The Dearborn Inn: A Marriott Hotel
Dearborn, MI
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Event Highlights
This Event is structured to offer informative discussions on technological advances and industry trends in the field of automotive telematics.
Feature interactive workshops and in-depth presentations from industry leaders on topics such as Java applications, voice-recognition technology, and driver safety
Identify the major challenges facing the telematics industry and examine the methods of overcoming these obstacles
Discuss and review potential telematic revenue streams
Analyze technological advances and the implementation of hi-tech devices into the car
Provide an excellent networking opportunity with telematics experts and industry leaders in a historic setting
Join These Leading Experts:
OnStar
General Motors
Mitsubishi Motors
ComCare Alliance
ITS America
IDB Forum
SBC Technologies
IBM Speech Systems
ATX Technologies
MOST Cooperation
XM Radio
Hewlett Packard
Traffic.com
Society of Automotive Engineers
Strategis Group
OSGi Vehicle Expert Group
Geographic Data Technologies
Sun Microsystems
Privada
iRadio
CSI Wireless
Pre-Conference Workshop: Tuesday August 14, 2001
7:00-8:00 - Continental Breakfast and Registration for Morning Workshop
8:00-11:30
Integrating Voice Recognition into the Vehicle
Why the telematics industry needs voice recognition
What is voice-recognition? How does it work in cars? Where will it help take the industry?
Which telematic applications need voice technology?
Overcoming time delays to market and still maintain cutting edge technology for the consumer
Keeping the technology deceptively easy to understand
Thomas Houy - Client Systems Manager
IBM Speech Systems
(There will be a 20-minute refreshments and networking break in the workshop.)
11:30-12:30 - Afternoon Registration and Luncheon
12:30-4:00
Focusing on Driver Safety and Distraction
What is missing in consumer safety that needs to be addressed before telematics will be adopted by the consumer and standards groups
The potential for safety to be a killer app for auto manufacturers
Who's job is it to make sure that these devices do not distract too much and keep the hands on the wheel and the eyes on the road
Upgrading safety devices for the next generation of telematics
Stephen Seitz - Director of Telematics Outreach
ComCare Alliance
(There will be a 20-minute refreshments and networking break in the workshop.)
4:00 - Close of Pre-Conference Workshops
Day One - Wednesday August 15, 2001
7:00-8:00 - Registration and Continental Breakfast
8:00-8:15
Chairperson's Opening Remarks
8:15-8:45 - Keynote Address
Dave Acton - Executive Director of Global Telematics
General Motors
OnStar
8:45-9:45 - Panel Session
Finding Revenue Streams in the Telematics World
Who is doing what and what is working?
Using safety as the profitable application
Can infotainment devices help generate revenue?
A Real-Time Traffic update
GPS and Navigation systems adding value to the vehicle
The value of one-on-one customer relations to increase satisfaction and demand
Moderator:
Arlan Stehney - Executive Director
IDB Forum
Panelists:
Gary Wallace - VP of External Affairs
ATX Technologies Inc.
Peter Berggren - Director of Telematics
Hewlett Packard
John Collins - VP of ITS & Telematics
Traffic.com
Chris Carver - VP, Product Development
CSI Wireless
9:45-10:15 - Refreshments and Networking Break
10:15-11:00
How to Provide Privacy and Security Without Sacrificing Technology
Offering LBS services without intimidating the consumer
Opt-in versus opt-out: how to handle privacy issues and location based ads
The government's potential intervention with opt-in policies
Keeping your consumer happy while making a profit
Creating a set standard for privacy regardless of the carrier, make, location or year
Are there laws for privacy? What are they? Who do they apply to?
Glee Harrah Cady - Vice President of Global Public Policy
Privada
11:00-11:45
The Telematics and LBS Consumer
What bundle of wireless services will the consumer desire?
Will they find value in your services and technology?
What is driving them to buy telematic services
Their level of adoption
Consumer demands for location based services
Aldo Morri - Consultant
Strategis Group
11:45-1:15 - Lunch Break for Speakers and Delegates
1:15-2:00 - Co Presentation
Incorporating Infotainment into the Intelligent Vehicle
How will infotainment be integrated into the auto?
What is being done to facilitate the integration?
What are the major obstacles with infotainment and how do we overcome them?
Do consumers want infotainment devices in the car?
The potential of iRadio in infotainment media
Johan Vos - Chairman
OSGi Vehicle Expert Group
John Barr - President
OSGinitiative
Lee Callaway - Senior Manager of Telematics
Motorola iRadio
2:00-2:3045 - Refreshments and Networking Break
2:30-4:00
GPS and Global Mapping: Giving Direction to the Telematics Industry
The downfalls of GPS technology and accuracy problems that need to be addressed before complete adoption
The technology that will increase accuracy and navigation possibilities
Can GPS systems stand alone as revenue makers or will they need to be part of a package to sell?
City guides on hand-helds being adopted in the automobile
Jay Benson - VP of Development
Geographic Data Technologies
Carlo Cardilli - VP of Development and Sales
Kivera
4:30-5:15 Europe: Following in Their Footsteps
Safety and phone services in European cars
How the high adoption rate of wireless in Europe has facilitated telematics
To what extent will telematics catch on in the US?
Do European companies feel the sting of economic downturn and how are they dealing with it?
Hideki Hada
Mitsubishi Motors
4:00-4:15 - Day Two Wrap-Up and Conclusion of Sessions
Day Two - Thursday August 16, 2001
7:00-8:00 - Registration and Continental Breakfast
8:00-8:15 - Chairman's Recap of Day Two
8:15-8:45 - Keynote Address
8:45-9:45 - Panel Session
Generating Revenue and Demand with Safety Systems
Taking current safety features and bringing them to the next level
Technology that puts safety first: E911 and ACN
Current legislation that fosters automobile safety
A look at consumer uptake and market value of safety devices
Are safety devices recession proof?
Stephen Seitz - Director of Telematics Outreach
ComCare Alliance
9:45-10:15 - Refreshment and Networking Break
10:15-11:00
Facilitating Driver Focus
Cell phone legislation in the states: what to expect in the future
Will the FCC step in to pick up the slack?
How distracting will infotainment and Internet access be?
Hands-free and voice-recognition technology reducing distraction and enabling multi-tasking
Reducing distraction to increase support from the automotive community
Pete Costello - Director of Infrastructure
ITS America
11:00-11:45
Conquering the Time Constraints on Voice-Recognition Technology
A basic review of voice-recognition technology and its place in the industry
Increasing driver safety with no-hands communications
The downfall of voice-recognition potentially increasing driver safety
Trends in decreasing time to market for technology
Balancing service sophistication with speedy deployment
John Tadlock - Principle Member of Technical Staff
SBC Technology Resources
Speech & Language Technology
11:45-1:15 - Lunch Break for Speakers and Delegates
1:15-2:00
Java Application's Place in the Telematics Value Chain
Java and Jini facilitating the internet's addition in the car
Interoperability factors that are involved with the technology
Java leading the way for a true Intelligent Networked Vehicle
Creating the ability to offer easy access with a simple user interface
Will Java offer the truly open specification that will allow flexibility and functionality?
Ken Santoro - Automotive Business Development Manager
Sun Microsystems
2:00-2:45
Live Satellite Radio and Bandwidth Requirements for Telematics
The pros and cons of offering services over satellite radio bandwidths
Will satellite be the wave of the future by helping to avoid bandwidth regulations and carrier adoption?
Pushing consumer adoption of telematics with real-time traffic updates and customized and pre-programmed music
The irresistible draw of satellite radio
Stell Patsiokas - Senior VP of Technology
XM Radio
2:45-3:15 - Refreshment and Networking Break
3:15-4:15
The Overwhelming Need for a Universal Standard
Why there is a need to have interoperability between brands and standards across the board
Standards helping to keep it simple for the consumer and leading to more adoption
What standards are being developed for wireless and will they work for telematics
Will the pitfalls in the 802.11b standard have any affects on telematics?
Jack Pokrzywa - SAE Road Vehicle Division Manager
Society of Automotive Engineers
Arlan Stehney - Executive Director
IDB Forum
Herbert - President and CEO
Most Cooperation
4:15-4:30 - Day Three Wrap-Up and Announcements
Why you should attend
This event will feature three information packed days of case studies, multi-perspective panel discussions, and interactive workshops from leading wireless carriers, auto manufacturers, infotainment companies and market analysts. You will also benefit from numerous networking opportunities with peers and competitors, elevating your understanding of telematic technology and business models.
Who should attend
CEOs, CTOs, CIOs, Vice Presidents, Directors, and senior level executives of: Telematics, Automotive Services, Business Strategy and Planning, Business Development, Marketing, Technology, Mobile Technology, Intelligence Transport Systems, Industry Analysts, Venture Capitalists
Venue Information
The Venue:
The Dearborn Inn
A Marriott Hotel
20301 Oakwood Blvd
Dearborn, MI 48124-4099
Tel: (202) 965-2300
Fax: (313) 271.7464
Please contact the hotel directly for reservations and mention marcus evans for a discounted rate
Hmmm...looks promising early.eom
Artificial intelligence seeks natural interfaces
By R. Colin Johnson
EE Times
(08/09/01, 7:05 p.m. EST)
Cirrus continues hot acquisition streak
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Server OEMs put Intel's Itanium in hot seat
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Encryption cores ramp for pervasive security
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Chicago tops for tech employment, study finds
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SEATTLE — Artificial intelligence was the "unrecognized" driver in a variety of Microsoft Corp. research slated for future products, Bill Gates revealed this week.
Microsoft's founder and chief software architect demonstrated prototypes of the company's artificial intelligence (AI) products during his keynote speech at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), held this week in Seattle.
"Often what begins as artificial intelligence research is not recognized as AI after it has been integrated into a software product . . . text-to-speech is an example," said Gates.
The AI Gates demonstrated at IJCAI was of this "unrecognized" variety. That is, the AI was integrated into prototypes that solved real user problems, and thus will be judged by users for their problem-solving ability, rather than as AI.
For example, one demo showed a Web cam watching its own user so that it could, for instance, silence incoming e-mail "dings" when the user is in a face-to-face conversation. Even though AI is used to recognize a face-to-face conversation, the user will perceive it as a product that keeps the e-mail alert from interrupting conversations, and not as an AI product.
"AI is helping us create more natural user interfaces . . . we need future software to listen, see, reason and understand the user's context, intentions and goals," said Gates.
Consequently, the theme of personalization-through-automatic-preference selection was ubiquitous among Gates' demos of future user interfaces. Speech recognition and natural-language processing were prominent too, along with visual object recognition, machine learning and automatic reasoning algorithms. The applications ranged from smart Web searching and sorting e-mail, to data mining and "continuous computation."
One of the most interesting demos was of Mind — a multimodal speech recognition interface running on a handheld PC wirelessly connected to a central server. According to Gates, the reason speech recognition is of limited utility is because it only substitutes speech for typing. Solving the user's problem, however, involves many more mouse clicks and menu selections than typed characters.
Speech demo
For instance, if the user wants to send e-mail to Bill Gates, he must click around to open the e-mail program, then click around to get a new message document, then click around to get Bill's e-mail out of the address book, then click to put the cursor into the "body" field and finally type the text. A speech-to-text recognition engine only helps with the last step, and even if you also have a speech-to-command engine to speak commands such as "open e-mail program," today it's just faster to click the mouse.
However, Microsoft's multimodal speech interface demo showed how it could be easier to speak than to type by switching contexts to the correct program and menu items automatically.
For instance, speaking "send Bill e-mail" caused the user interface to automatically open the e-mail program, look up Bill's address and fill it in. It also automatically jumped the cursor to the correct field when speaking the "body" of the message, and it switched the context to other programs, like the spreadsheet, when asked something relevant.
The intention of the user, derived from key elements of what the user does, such as say "send e-mail to," also showed up in other demos shown by Gates and the team at Microsoft Research.
The company achieved continuous computing, as it is called by Microsoft Research member Eric Horvitz, by utilizing the unused microprocessor cycles when a user is pausing. Continuous computations power the AI that interprets the intention of the user, then automatically personalizes the computing experience by dynamically setting preferences.
For instance, instead of going to your e-mail box to dig for the important items, continuous computing dynamically reorders items in terms of importance to you, depending on both the content of the e-mail, your past choices about what to read first and the current situation.
Other members of Microsoft Research showed AI-inspired database search-and-display systems. They appealed to various degrees of natural adaptation, like the information trees that can be navigated by a "gnat's" eye view shown by manager of the Machine Learning and Applied Statistics Group David Heckerman. And Swish — or search with information structured hierarchically — was demonstrated by senior researcher Susan Dumais of the Adaptive Systems and Interaction Group. Results of searches done with Swish are sorted into naturally occuring hierarchical categories for more effective communication to the user.
iBiquity Completes NRSC Digital FM Tests
The Stage is Set for Commercial Rollout of Digital FM Radio in 2002
COLUMBIA, Md., and WARREN, N.J., Aug. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- iBiquity Digital,
the sole developer and licenser of digital AM and FM radio broadcast
technology in the U.S., announced today that it submitted its digital FM radio
system tests to the National Radio Systems Committee (NRSC). The results of
the tests, which were conducted in accordance with the procedures defined by
the NRSC, confirm that iBiquity Digital's digital FM radio system
significantly outperforms today's analog FM radio in terms of audio quality
and reception, while providing robust coverage throughout the markets served.
The test results also confirm that the company's digital FM system preserves
the integrity of the current analog FM broadcasting system. With this
submission, the NRSC has all the relevant information it requested in order to
evaluate and endorse iBiquity's FM IBOC digital broadcast system, and
recommend its implementation to broadcasters and the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC). The rapid commercial rollout of digital FM radio will
enable consumers across the U.S. to enjoy FM radio with CD-quality sound and
crystal clear reception.
iBiquity Digital conducted over 95,000 hours of field tests on its digital
FM radio system at eleven different radio station across the United States,
evaluating its system's operation in a variety of terrains, formats, signal
strengths and other conditions. As part of the NRSC test program, iBiquity
Digital conducted field tests at eight FM stations across the country. The
NRSC test program also included laboratory tests and subjective sound quality
evaluations by 480 listeners who evaluated thousands of audio samples recorded
during the field tests. All field tests and evaluations conducted as part of
the NRSC FM test program were monitored or performed by independent
laboratories in accordance with procedures developed by the NRSC.
"We believe the variety and extensiveness of the tests conducted on our FM
system make it one of the most comprehensively tested broadcast systems in
U.S. history," said Robert Struble, President and CEO, iBiquity Digital
Corporation. "We look forward to the NRSC's endorsement of our digital FM
system. Currently, our AM system is undergoing similarly comprehensive
testing and we expect to submit these test results to the NRSC in the fall.
Given the results, we will continue our commercialization efforts with all our
partners in the broadcast, semiconductor and receiver industries."
"The completion of our FM test program and our soon to be completed AM
test program, coupled with the participation in our rollout plans by the major
industry participants, puts us firmly on track to make digital AM and FM radio
a reality in 2002," said Struble. "We fully expect the FCC to authorize our
digital FM system in early 2002 before the launch of commercial digital
broadcast equipment at the National Association of Broadcasters 2002
conference in April."
"The completion of these NRSC FM tests is a significant achievement in the
implementation of digital radio in the United States," said Bert Goldman, Vice
President of Engineering, ABC, Inc. "Earlier this month, I had the
opportunity to review the preliminary results of iBiquity Digital's FM test
program. The test results clearly show that the digital audio created by the
iBiquity system is a vast improvement over traditional analog broadcasting and
that it will provide benefits that both our stations and listeners will enjoy.
At ABC, we are eager to keep to our scheduled rollout plan of implementing
digital broadcasting once commercial equipment is available in the spring of
2002."
About iBiquity Digital
iBiquity Digital is the sole developer and licenser of digital AM and FM
broadcast technology, which will transform traditional analog radio to
digital, enabling radically improved sound and new wireless data services.
The company's investors include 14 of the top radio broadcasters in the United
States, including ABC, Clear Channel Communications, Infinity Broadcasting, a
wholly owned subsidiary of Viacom, Inc., and Radio One, as well as leading
technology companies and financial institutions. iBiquity Digital is a
privately held company with operations in Columbia, MD, Detroit, MI and
Warren, NJ. For more information, visit http://www.ibiquity.com
1 million copy-protected CDs released
By Gwendolyn Mariano
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
August 8, 2001, 4:35 p.m. PT
Israeli security company Midbar said Wednesday that it released 1 million copy-protected CDs in the European market and plans are in discussion for entry in the U.S. market.
Midbar said the CDs are protected by its technology, dubbed Cactus Data Shield, which prevents potential copyright pirates from illegally reproducing the content.
The company said its CDs can play on all types of machines without any alterations to the quality of the recording or the abilities of the playback machinery itself.
The announcement is the latest sign that companies are pushing forward with copy-protection schemes even though attempts to date have proven to be difficult. Last year, Midbar worked with BMG Germany to test secure CDs. The effort failed, however, and the company abandoned the project after finding that the CDs could not play on many ordinary CD players.
BMG Entertainment has higher hopes. Last month the company said it will work with security technology provider SunnComm to create copy-protected CDs. BMG is also testing technologies from Midbar, Macrovision and a handful of other companies. In addition, for the last several months, Macrovision has been quietly testing copy-protected CDs on unwitting consumers to ensure unbiased feedback, according to the company.
"I'm very skeptical that (copy-protected CDs) will work," said Aram Sinnreich, an analyst with Jupiter Research. "In terms of implementation, it's very difficult to do in a way that will allow the CD to play on all devices...it's a very tetchy technology."
A huge installed base of CD players out there are not security-enabled, Sinnreich said, so it would be difficult to find engineering solutions that would fit all those machines.
Midbar, however, said it is continuing to upgrade and renew its technology.
"The industry has made a decision, opting to utilize technology to combat this problem," Ran Alcalay, chief executive of Midbar, said in a statement. "We are focused on achieving the highest level of both security and playability without compromising one at the expense of the other."
Sinnreich said that even if the copy-protected CDs do work, companies will need to offer something to consumers to compensate for not letting them copy songs. He said that as soon as there are a significant number of products on the market that don't allow consumers to rip or listen to CDs on any machine "there's going to be a critical mass of consumer pushback against this."
"Historically, when an industry is trying to move from one format to another, the successful way to do it is not to remove value from an old format, but rather to add value to a new format," Sinnreich said. "You've got to give something to get something."
OT Security firms tap into government support
By Reuters
August 8, 2001, 3:15 p.m. PT
WASHINGTON--Facing a growing public backlash, the security industry called on Congress Wednesday to regulate the use of surveillance systems that match faces of people on the street with a database of known criminals.
The developer of a prominent face-scanning system, along with the head of the industry trade group, said the federal government needed to step in to ensure that such systems could not be used by police or private corporations to track or compile profiles of innocent citizens.
"This discovery was intended to bring a benefit to society and the world, and my feeling about it is I need help from the federal government to make sure there is no room for misuse," said Dr. Joseph Atick, chief executive of Visionics.
Since police in Tampa, Fla., first used Visionics' FaceIt system to scan the crowd at last January's Super Bowl football game, facial-recognition systems have come under fire from civil-liberties groups and lawmakers who say they invade privacy and create the potential for a Big Brother-like state of constant surveillance.
Tampa has since linked FaceIt to 36 surveillance cameras in a popular nightlife district, but the City Council nearly discontinued its use in a 4-3 vote last week.
Atick, backed by the Security Industry Association, said police departments and others should be limited to only using the system for specific purposes such as to track convicted criminals or search for fugitives. Users should not be able to track ordinary citizens, he said, and should be penalized if they do so.
A spokesman for House Majority Leader Dick Armey, a leading critic, predicted a chilly reception when the House of Representatives holds hearings on the issue in the fall.
"We'll see how members of Congress feel. My educated guess is they're not going to be enamored of this," said Richard Diamond, spokesman for the Texas Republican.
Privacy advocates reacted with skepticism as well.
"I think the industry's getting very nervous," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "I rather suspect the stuff they're emphasizing, a lot of that is to protect business interests."
Valuable tools
At a Washington press conference, Atick and Security Industry Association director Richard Chace sought to emphasize the benefits of facial-recognition technology.
"It is time to stop focusing solely on how this technology could be potentially abused, and start talking about how this technology can be positively used in a responsible and effective way," Chace said.
FaceIt creates a unique "faceprint" by analyzing facial structure. While the system measures about 80 different points, it can make a positive identification based on as little as 14, Atick said. It does not take into account skin color, hairstyles or other physical attributes.
Newham, a neighborhood in London, has seen a 40 percent drop in crime since installing the system two years ago as police have been able to more effectively monitor trouble spots and track repeat offenders, Atick said.
FaceIt has also been used in Mexico to deter voter fraud and in China to enable illiterate peasants to set up bank accounts, and can be used by private companies to control access to facilities, he said.
"Facial recognition is significantly cheaper, is less intrusive than a massive police presence, and does not inconvenience or interfere with the lives of the honest majority," Atick said.
U.S. courts have established that citizens do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in public spaces like streets and parks, Chace said.
But Ari Schwartz, senior policy analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said courts have also placed limits on cameras that, for example, look up women's skirts.
"Most Americans don't expect to be spied on everywhere they go," Schwartz said.
I can dream can't I?...
Why did we "resurrect" this trademark?? Might we see something like this soon? Would be nice.
Word Mark SOUNDCLIP
Goods and Services IC 009. US 036. G & S: audio recording and playback devices. FIRST USE: 19940628. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19940628
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 74473912
Filing Date December 21, 1993
Filed ITU FILED AS ITU
Published for Opposition September 6, 1994
Registration Number 1914141
Registration Date August 22, 1995
Owner (REGISTRANT) COMP GENERAL CORPORATION CORPORATION CALIFORNIA 12725 Stowe Drive Poway CALIFORNIA 92064
(LAST LISTED OWNER) E.DIGITAL CORPORATION CORPORATION BY ASSIGNMENT DELAWARE 13114 EVENING CREEK DRIVE SOUTH SAN DIEGO CALIFORNIA 92128
Assignment Recorded ASSIGNMENT RECORDED
Attorney of Record MARNIE WRIGHT BARNHORST
Type of Mark TRADEMARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Affidavit Text SECT 15. SECT 8 (6-YR).
Live/Dead Indicator LIVE
PROSECUTION HISTORY
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2001-06-21 - Section 8 (6-year) accepted & Section 15 acknowledged
2001-04-16 - Section 8 (6-year) and Section 15 Filed
1995-08-22 - Registered - Principal Register
1995-06-01 - Allowed for Registration - Principal Register (SOU accepted)
1995-05-31 - Examiner's amendment mailed
1995-04-14 - Response to office action
1994-12-21 - Unresponsive paper received
1994-12-21 - Response to office action
1995-03-06 - Non-final action mailed
1995-02-09 - Statement of use processing complete
1995-01-05 - Amendment to Use filed
1994-11-29 - Notice of allowance - mailed
1994-09-06 - Published for opposition
1994-08-05 - Notice of publication
1994-04-14 - Approved for Pub - Principal Register (Initial exam)
1994-04-14 - Case file assigned to examining attorney
Leap Launches Innovative Cricket Service in Its Largest Market, Phoenix
~ Cricket Service Now Available in 25 Market Areas Across the Country ~
SAN DIEGO, Aug. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Leap Wireless International, Inc. (Nasdaq: LWIN - news), an innovator of wireless communications services, today announced the launch of its Cricket Comfortable Wireless service in Phoenix. With more than three million potential customers (1998 POPs), Phoenix is the country's largest market to offer Cricket's flat-rate, all-you-can-talk local wireless service. Leap, one of the country's fastest-growing wireless companies, now offers its popular Cricket service in 25 market areas in 12 states across the country.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20010306/LATU057LOGO )
``We pioneered Cricket service to make wireless comfortable for a broad audience, including people completely new to wireless,'' said Harvey P. White, Leap's chairman and CEO. ``Cricket service offers a value that meets the needs of people who live, work and play in markets like Phoenix. We expect our innovative business model to achieve rapid penetration and brand awareness in Phoenix, the sixth-largest U.S. city, just as it has in our other large and mid-sized markets. Phoenix is an important part of our planned growth ahead as we work toward reaching the approximately one million customers we expect to attract nationwide by the end of 2001.'' Leap reported more than 472,000 Cricket customers for the second quarter ended June 30, 2001.
``We were delighted to build this network to expand Leap's Cricket service to new markets,'' said Bob Bellion, vice president of sales for Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU - news), which is providing a state-of-the-art wireless infrastructure system and deployment services to Leap. ``Leap is a rapidly expanding company in the wireless business, and we believe its Cricket service will be valuable to many consumers. We're also pleased to deliver a full array of Lucent Worldwide Services in Phoenix and other markets where Leap is offering services in the United States.''
Leap also announced today that it is launching Slice of Phoenix service on its Telephone Entertainment Network, a new company initiative focused on turning wireless communications into an entertainment and information medium. Marketed as Your Personal Telephone Entertainment Channel, Slice service delivers the next evolution of print, radio, television and the Internet via ``voice clips'' sent directly to the customer's wireless phone. With Slice, service, customers, customers hear entertaining, short clips of local news and events, sports, weather, traffic and more before their calls connect. With a simple press of a button, customers can get more information by voice or text on selected voice clips.
As part of Leap's commitment to the Phoenix area, the company last month announced its sponsorship of Cricket Pavilion, a popular open-air entertainment venue in Phoenix. The Cricket Pavilion accommodates up to 20,000 fans in both reserved and lawn seating. In its 11-year history, the Pavilion -- previously called Desert Sky Pavilion -- has played host to over 500 events with some of the top names in entertainment.
About Leap
Leap, headquartered in San Diego, Calif., is a customer-focused company providing innovative communications services for the mass market. Leap pioneered the Cricket Comfortable Wireless service that lets customers make all their local calls from within their local calling area and receive calls from anywhere for one low, flat rate. Leap has begun offering data services designed to further transform wireless communications for consumers. For more information, please visit www.leapwireless.com.
Except for the historical information contained herein, this news release contains ``forward-looking statements,'' including statements reflecting management's current forecast of certain aspects of Leap's future. Forward- looking statements, which are based upon certain assumptions and describe future plans, strategies and expectations of the Company, are generally identifiable by the use of the words ``believe,'' ``expect,'' ``intend,'' ``plan,'' ``anticipate,'' ``estimate,'' ``project'' or similar expressions. These statements are based on current information, which we have assessed but which by its nature is dynamic and subject to rapid and even abrupt changes. The forward- looking statements in this news release speak only of management's views as of the date of this release and we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Our actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied by such forward-looking statements due to risks and uncertainties associated with our business. Factors that could cause actual results to differ include, but are not limited to: changes in the economic conditions of the various markets our subsidiaries serve which could adversely affect the market for wireless services; our ability to access capital markets; a failure to meet the operational, financial or other covenants of our credit facilities; our ability to rollout networks in accordance with our plans, including receiving equipment and backhaul and interconnection facilities on schedule from third parties; failure of network systems to perform according to expectations; the effect of competition; the acceptance of our product offering by our target customers; our ability to retain customers; our ability to maintain our cost, market penetration and pricing structure in the face of competition; technological challenges in developing wireless data services and customer acceptance of such services if developed; our ability to integrate the businesses and technologies we acquire; rulings by courts or the FCC adversely affecting our rights to own and/or operate certain wireless licenses; and other factors detailed in the section entitled ``Risk Factors'' included in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended March 31, 2001 and in our other SEC filings. The forward- looking statements should be considered in the context of these risk factors. Investors and prospective investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. Leap, the Leap logo design and the Telephone Entertainment Network are trademarks of Leap Wireless International, Inc. Slice is a service mark of Leap Wireless International, Inc. Cricket is a registered trademark and Comfortable Wireless and the Around-Town Phone are service marks of Cricket Communications, Inc.
SOURCE: Leap Wireless International, Inc.
MovieFlix to charge for online films
By Gwendolyn Mariano
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
August 8, 2001, 1:10 p.m. PT
Online film provider MovieFlix on Monday will launch a paid subscription service in an effort to capitalize on a market that has yet to fully mature.
The subscription service, dubbed MovieFlix Plus, will offer members who pay $4.95 per month access to exclusive features, including online movie screenings, personalized movie recommendations, celebrity and filmmaker interviews, and 500 exclusive titles, according to Hollywood, Calif.-based MovieFlix.
MovieFlix said it also will provide filmmakers a portion of its revenue derived from the subscription service. The company said the percentage will be based on the most widely viewed films.
The move comes as online film companies are beefing up their efforts to attract eyeballs to their sites; the market for online film distribution still remains in its infancy. On Tuesday, Lions Gate Entertainment spinoff CinemaNow revamped its Web site with a custom version of Microsoft's Windows Media Player.
As online film companies fight for consumer attention and funding, however, analysts say success stories won't come easily.
"The key in surviving in this space is providing compelling content," said Jarvis Mak, an analyst at Nielsen/NetRatings. "It's the key with all online content providers."
Mak said most of the online film companies, such as CinemaNow and MovieFlix, provide only second-tier film releases, not recent major film studio releases. He said the major film studios have yet to ink deals with any of the dot-coms because they need to protect their distribution channels.
MovieFlix, however, is betting that its paid subscription service will provide the company with an additional source of funding to complement its current stream of revenue, which is online syndication.
Founded in 1998, MovieFlix has forged alliances with companies including AOL Time Warner, Ifilm, NBC Internet, RealNetworks, Yahoo and TV Guide. The company boasts 2,200 titles in a variety of genres in its online film library.
While the company is gearing up to launch its subscription service, which has been available in beta for the past couple of weeks, it will also keep its free service.
Robert Moskovits, co-founder and director of business development, said MovieFlix decided to launch the service because the "timing was right," and for the company to continue offering content to its audience, it needed to make money to break even in the first quarter of next year.
"On the Internet there's almost a writ, like an amendment in the constitution, that stuff will be free," Moskovits said. But "we're hoping that (consumers) will understand that this is a business."
Moskovits admits that watching films on a computer screen has not hit critical mass, and Internet Protocol-based video-on-demand is not yet here because not enough people have high-speed Internet connections. However, he said, the quality is getting better, and the company is positioning itself so that once broadband does become widely used, MovieFlix will be there when it happens.
Video-on-demand "is not like turning on the TV; it's kind of an experience in and of itself," Moskovits said. "Certainly the content isn't really compelling enough yet, but it's coming along really nicely...It's where everyone is going. I just don't know how long it'll take to get there."
Disappearing ink: E-book self-destructs
By Lisa M. Bowman
Special to CNET News.com
August 8, 2001, 12:10 p.m. PT
And then there were none. Or at least there will be if readers don't pay RosettaBooks to renew its self-destructing e-book.
The e-publisher is releasing the Agatha Christie classic "And Then There Were None" under what it's billing as the first "time-based permit." That is, readers who pay $1 to download the book will get to enjoy it for 10 hours before the content disappears.
RosettaBooks Chief Executive Arthur Klebanoff said the company intended the release of the book to be a humorous play on its title. "Of our list of 100 books, no title was more obvious to dramatize our format," Klebanoff said.
The company is fresh off a legal victory against publishing giant Random House, which sued it in February, claiming its sales of electronic versions of Random House titles violated copyrights. However, a judge ruled in favor of RosettaBooks. Random House has appealed.
RosettaBooks is partnering with Adobe Systems and Reciprocal to deliver the Agatha Christie book. The company claims that 10 hours is "more than ample time" to read it. When the permit expires, readers can purchase a permanent electronic version of the book for $5, but they aren't allowed to print it.
The prospect of books that can self-destruct has worried some librarians, who fear it will inhibit their ability to archive. Indeed, Klebanoff called the introduction of the book "the beginning of a brave new world of literature and technology." Although most libraries carry a paper copy of Christie's work they can store in perpetuity, librarians worry that as more and more published content goes digital, they'll have to constantly pay for the work via a licensing model--or risk losing it.
But Klebanoff downplayed those fears. "We're not making this an exclusive way to receive content," he said. In the future, the company plans promotions that will include releasing material for free, doling out fragments of books, and partnering with companies to roll out both electronic and paper books--so a reader can get the e-version immediately upon ordering while waiting for a hard copy to arrive in their mailbox.
Napster CEO outlines subscription pricing
By John Borland and Estelle Dumout
Staff Writers, CNET News.com
August 8, 2001, 1:30 p.m. PT
New Napster Chief Executive Konrad Hilbers is floating a new price for the file-swapper's planned subscription service, saying that downloading will soon cost "about $5."
In an interview with German magazine Stern, published Wednesday, Hilbers defended Napster against charges that the service had become irrelevant after being shut down for a month.
"Napster is not dead," Hilbers said in the interview. "The name is very valuable, and we operate with a high level of pressure to make it a functioning company."
Hilbers did not give details on when the subscription service, long slated for release sometime this summer, would launch. But he said the monthly fees would be approximately $5.
The interview was conducted in German.
Former CEO Hank Barry said earlier this year that subscription prices would likely range between $4.95 and $9.95, depending on how much music subscribers wanted and on whether they wanted the ability to burn CDs or move the music to portable devices.
Those plans have changed somewhat as Napster was forced to change its original model, signing up with the MusicNet wholesale distribution service as a way to get major label music from EMI Recorded Entertainment, Warner Music and BMG Entertainment. Those major label songs will only be available by paying an extra fee on top of the ordinary Napster charge, the company has said.
The base Napster service will provide access to the music of more than 200 independent labels. Songs will be distributed in a new proprietary format dubbed .NAP, rather than MP3.
The file-swapping service has been shut down since July 1. An appeals court ruled that Napster is able to operate in the short term as long as it maintains strong filters, but the company has nevertheless kept its service offline.
A message that has remained unchanged for weeks tells Napster users that "file transfers have been temporarily suspended while Napster upgrades" databases supporting its new filtering technology.
Napster declined to comment on the interview.
AAPEX: Automotive Aftermarket Products Expo 2001
1,000 product categories in aftermarket show
AAPEX will be held from October 31 to November 2 at the Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. The show caters to the $250 billion automotive aftermarket and bills itself as the "home of all the power brands." It promises to offer the latest in everything aftermarket buyers are looking for in tools, equipment, and services.
About 1,900 exhibitors (400 international and more than 1,500 local companies) will participate in the show. These exhibitors will display nearly 1,000 aftermarket product categories, and will occupy more than 5,000 booths spread out over more than 11 hectares of space.
AAPEX represents the buying power of the aftermarket with 36,000 power buyers from all segments of the aftermarket distribution chain. It also attracts the key buying executives from industry's top 50 retailers. It is attended by about 50 official international buying delegations recruited through the International Buyers Program and escorted by commercial specialists from the automotive sector in U.S. embassies and consulates abroad.
The show is certified by the U.S. Department of Commerce International Buyer Program as part of AAIW. It has also been selected as a Tier 1 event by the U.S. Department of Commerce and by U.S. and foreign commercial service trade initiatives such as Showcase Europe, Showcase Asia, and for the first time last year, Showcase Latin America.
Also supported by the Office of Automotive Affairs under the U.S. Department of Commerce, AAPEX attracted more than 7,000 buyers last year, and the number of local and foreign attendees reportedly grows yearly.
Check our supplier and product catalog for more Trade show and exhibition organizers
Show Coverage:
Fast Facts
Useful links:
US country guide
US trade organizations
Trade consultants
Organizer:
W. T. Glasgow, Inc.
10729 West 163rd Place
Orland Park, IL 60467
Tel: (1-708) 226-1300
Fax: (1-708) 226-1310
E-mail: wtglasgow@aol.com
ot Bringing the support for 65 languages to Internet-enabled devices
08-Aug-2001Universal multilingual support for mobile data products from Clickmarks (Fremont, Calif.) lets users access content from the Internet, corporate Intranets, and enterprise applications in 65 languages, despite the language support offered by the users' device.
Clickmarks' Habitat features server-based software that automatically allows text to be displayed in the language of origin, giving users the ability to see a Chinese or Japanese data sheet, or a Russian or Arabic news story, for example, with any Internet-enabled device. This eliminates the need for enterprises to equip the workforce with special equipment, as well as enabling international carriers to offer wireless Internet services in markets that they originally didn't because of lack of support for the language.
Mobile Habitat is a portal infrastructure that is licensed to wireless carriers to enable users with access to any Web content and perform any m-commerce transaction from mobile devices. Content can be customized to provide or incorporate any data feed or Web content, including links, pictures, tables, and forms.
Enterprise Habitat gives businesses the ability to equip wired and wireless users with a customizable portal featuring each user's most frequently viewed information. Each personalized portal can include information from enterprise applications, production systems, databases, and data warehouses, as well as e-mail and other content from Web pages.
Clickmarks' multilingual feature works on any client device equipped with a browser and the graphics display abilities to support .gif, .jpeg, .wbmp, or .png image formats. It supports WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) and WML-compliant (Wireless Markup Language) cell phones, Palm handhelds, Pocket PCs, and EPOC devices.
Clickmarks is a provider of mobile software infrastructure and applications that allow enterprises to conduct business. The Clickmarks Software Platform allows mobilization of existing Web applications, as well as the creation of future mobile applications, such as branded wireless portals, m-commerce, and broadband or voice application. Visit Clickmarks' Web site at www.clickmarks.com.
OT Latest in artificial intelligence on display at conference
Posted at 9:49 p.m. PDT Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2001
SEATTLE (AP) -- Imagine a world where your computer not only plans your meetings and orders you lunch, but also faxes your hotel to warn them that your plane is late -- all without you -- or anyone else -- lifting a finger.
It is those types of gadgets -- and not a population of lifelike little boys as depicted in the recent Steven Spielberg movie ``A.I.'' -- that technology companies and academic institutions are creating under the broad banner of ``artificial intelligence.''
That, and a disproportionately large number of soccer-playing robots.
Both extremes and everything in between are on display at the annual International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Thousands of academics and researchers, as well as plenty of casual fans of the Star Trek-like technology, are attending the conference this week.
With themes ranging from technical discussions of writing code to a series of robot soccer tournaments, the conference began Tuesday in downtown Seattle with a speech by Microsoft Corp. chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates.
Gates said Microsoft views artificial intelligence as an important way to make technology easier to use. The company, he said, is looking at applications for smart machines capable of doing things like sorting e-mail by priority or recognizing handwriting.
Representatives from Microsoft Research, the software giant's research and development facilities, demonstrated applications, including a computer program that features a digital parrot which can answer questions by searching the Web.
But despite the cute graphics, which make the parrot's eyes roll and teeth shine, Gates warned that researchers are still far from the day when computers will be able to think like humans.
``In the foreseeable future, I believe the role of computers is to be a better tool,'' he said, and not a replacement for people.
At a lecture earlier in the day, professors at the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute showed off a program called ``e-Elves.'' The ``software secretaries'' -- capable of arranging meetings, booking conference rooms, selecting speakers and even ordering lunch -- are being tested at the facility.
Need to change a meeting time? No problem. The e-Elves can do it for you -- and then send a message to your phone telling you when the new meeting is going to be.
Eventually, the researchers hope to have the computers checking on plane schedules for arriving guests and even comparing research to decide which people at the institute would most want to meet that guest.
But researchers at Microsoft and the University of Southern California concede that there are plenty of technical and ethical issues to be worked out. Besides issues of privacy and control of information, there's also the more mundane issue of computer bugs.
At the Microsoft presentation, a smart search engine failed, making the audience chuckle. But the academics were much more amused when Derek Jacoby of Microsoft Research showed a demo of his voice recognition, which failed to translate ``maybe it's promotion time.''
Instead, the computer asked, ``Menace the motion time?''
Wearables revolution 'by 2004'
By Darren Rea
Electronics Times
(02/08/01 01:08 PM GMT)
By 2004, more than 30% of Europeans and North Americans
aged 15 to 50 will spend at least six hours a day using
integrated and wearable wireless computing and comms devices,
says Gartner Research. This figure will raise to 60% by 2007 and
75% by 2010.
The wearables revolution will be driven by the merging of
functions from PDAs and standalone mobile phones, as well as
more effective wireless Internet offerings.
Gartner identifies a number of technological requirements that
will get consumers interested in the concept. These include:
• batteries that last for a week of normal usage or are
rechargeable by the movement of the wearer;
• secure and effective e-cash payment and transfer systems that
will use real and virtual currencies; and
• cheap, reliable wireless access with speeds between 0.2 and
5Mbit/s or above.
New trademark discovered by OnYourMark...
Word Mark VOICENAV
Goods and Services IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S:
portable and automobile based listening and recording devices, namely MP3 type players, digital audio
players and digital audio recorders
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 76288067
Filing Date July 19, 2001
Filed ITU FILED AS ITU
Owner (APPLICANT) e.Digital Corporation CORPORATION DELAWARE 13114 Evening Creek Drive South San
Diego CALIFORNIA 92128
Attorney of Record Marnie Wright Barnhorst
Type of Mark TRADEMARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator
Intel Invests in Digital Audio Tech Company Octiv
Intel Capital said today it made an unspecified
investment in digital audio technology developer
Octiv. Berkeley, Calif.-based Octiv develops
technology that it claims reduces the amount of
bandwidth required to deliver streaming and
downloadable audio by reducing the size of the
audio file, at the same time enhancing the audio
quality. The company plans to use the funds to
further develop its applications. Earlier this year,
Octiv received $6 million in second-round funding
from FG II, Novus Ventures and 3i. Intel Capital
invests in dozens of companies in the computer,
Internet and communications industries.
Web music services face antitrust investigation
BY DAWN C. CHMIELEWSKI
Mercury News Posted at 10:00 p.m. PDT Friday, Aug. 3, 2001
The U.S. Justice Department has launched an antitrust investigation into two online music services, both scheduled to launch this fall, that are backed by the world's largest record companies.
According to two senior executives in the record industry, federal investigators notified the record labels that they intend to examine possible anti-competitive aspects of the digital music ventures created by the music industry's big five: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music, EMI Group and BMG. The Justice Department does not comment on ongoing investigations.
The two online services under investigation, MusicNet and pressplay, are the record industry's best effort to fill the void left by the once-popular renegade music-swapping service Napster, which has been shut down for more than a month.
One record company executive fumed, ``For the past five years, this industry has been endlessly investigated by the government. They find nothing. And it costs us a fortune.'' The executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, added, ``It's a handy whipping boy.''
Justice Department officials have contacted attorneys for the record labels to notify them of the probe, and federal investigators have begun questioning fledgling online music companies and trade groups, industry sources say. The investigation is still in its preliminary stages and no charges have been filed.
Both MusicNet and pressplay declined to comment.
The inquiry follows an investigation launched by European regulators in June, after independent music producers complained that MusicNet and pressplay could potentially lock them out of lucrative online distribution deals.
In the United States, the Justice Department reportedly received complaints from small online music services, which claim to have been refused licenses by MusicNet -- the partnership of streaming-media giant RealNetworks and AOL Time Warner, Bertelsmann AG and EMI Group, according to one source close to the venture.
Focus on big players
MusicNet sells to online subscription services, such as America Online, the technology and the licenses they need to distribute songs over the Internet. But it has reportedly focused on building powerful distribution partners -- including AOL and the once-giant music-swapping service Napster -- that can reach the broadest possible audience, to the exclusion of smaller sites, sources said.
``We did make one inquiry to someone who was a consultant to MusicNet as to what they were doing in terms of licensing,'' said Tuhin Roy, executive vice president of strategic development at Echo Networks, a San Francisco-based Internet radio company. ``What I learned from that contact -- who is still a consultant to MusicNet -- is they're not engaging smaller entities at this point. They're targeting four or five large companies to be distributors.''
Up-front payments
MusicNet allegedly requires companies to commit to advance payments of as much as $750,000 before entering into licensing talks, according to Roy and others.
``That's unusual,'' said Roy. ``In all my years in the business, I've never heard of anyone having to put up money to be in a negotiation.''
Pressplay, the joint venture that brings together music giants Universal and Sony, is also part of the Justice Department's probe, although details have yet to emerge about the focus of the investigation.
Unlike MusicNet -- which is designed as a distribution service -- pressplay is intended as a complete online subscription service, which sets prices for its own prices for digital music. Pressplay will also offer its service through Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN.
The investigation marks a dramatic change of fortunes for the record labels, which faced mounting pressure from Congress to embrace digital music distribution. This spring's unveiling of MusicNet and pressplay -- coming on the eve of Senate hearings about the state of online music -- were hailed as a long-overdue change of heart by a reluctant music industry.
Congress continues to prod the recording industry. As recently as Friday, a pair of legislators introduced bills that would rewrite music licensing and copyright laws to promote competition among online music-service distributors and make it easier to buy and sell digital songs.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact Dawn Chmielewski at (800) 643-1902 or dchmielewski@sjmercury.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Mercury News strives to avoid use of unnamed sources. When unnamed sources are used because information cannot otherwise be obtained, the newspaper generally requires more than one source to confirm the information.
Hot MP3, DVD Products Hit Shelves
By Amy Gilroy
TWICE
8/6/2001
Many innovative and high tech MP3 and DVD aftermarket products are hitting store shelves now, creating some excitement during the dog days of summer.
In MP3, Blaupunkt is launching the first CD receiver with MP3 to also play Windows Media Audio (WMA) files, a compression format similar to MP3 that uses half the file space. And Panasonic is offering its first MP3 head unit this September. In navigation, Kenwood and Pioneer recently began shipping their first DVD navigation units (shown in January at CES) while Alpine just upgraded its original NVE-N851A.
Both the Blaupunkt and Panasonic MP3 CD receivers are mid-year introductions designed to capitalize on the burgeoning demand for MP3 playback in the car.
Blaupunkt's new San Jose MP41 is a CD receiver that allows playback of up to 10 hours of MP3 music or almost 20 hours of WMA. The San Jose MP41 is compatible with CD-R and CD-RW. Features include flip-down detachable faceplate, titanium silver finish, second auxiliary input for DVD, MD or VCR, built-in 4 by 50 watt amplifier, ID3tag information for display readouts and remote control. Shipping in September, the San Jose will have a suggested retail price of $399.
Panasonic said it "decided to launch one of its 2002 units early," to take a more aggressive stance on MP3, according to national marketing manager Rob Lopez. The new AM/FM/CD is the company's first MP3 head unit and is CD-R and CD-RW compatible. Called the model CQ-DP171U, it has a silver finish, detachable faceplate, wireless remote control and CD changer option. The model CQ-DP171U is expected to ship in September at a suggested retail price of $299.
According to Lopez, "We see a strong demand for MP3 in portable, and future home DVD players will offer MP3; and ultimately, we feel the consumer will want to play MP3 in the car. So we think having a unified message supporting MP3 across all the categories gives us a strong position in the market."
JVC also recently began shipping its top-of-the-line Digifine 2.1 AM/FM/CD with both built-in MP3 decoder and an auxiliary input for a portable MP3 player. The model KDSH99 is compatible with CD-R and CD-RW and has a motorized aluminum faceplate, 4 by 50 watt amplifier, CD changer controls and DVD controls, plus five-band built-in equalizer. Suggested retail price is $429.95.
Among this summer's new DVD navigation units are one of the first to offer real-time traffic updates, similar to the Clarion AutoPC.
Pioneer's new AVIC-9DVD offers a real-time traffic option when used with a Cue receiver. Users can check traffic on their intended route when they enter the car, and receive automatic updates as they drive. The system will also suggest an alternate route around traffic. The AVIC-9DVD is also one of the few DVD navigation systems to double as a DVD Video system. It uses both voice and map prompts and has a special map view that shows the road from the perspective of the driver looking out his windshield, according to the company. It also comes with a 3D hybrid sensor that calculates for street elevation as well as acceleration and direction. This results in improved accuracy. The system carries a suggested retail price of $2,000. The Cue module is $340 and includes a one-year subscription to Cue's traffic service. Extended service is an additional $60 per year.
Kenwood's first DVD navigation unit is the KNA-DV2100, which uses both voice and visual map prompts. The system updates positioning every second, allows several different map views, and gives voice directions in eight languages. The DV2100 is a controller that can be mounted anywhere and is designed for use with the Excelon KVT-910 in-dash DVD receiver, the Excelon P907 in-dash retractable monitor/CD player or other Kenwood receivers and monitors. The DV2100 has 32MB of memory and has a built-in RS-422 and CompactFlash slot. It begins shipping this month at a suggested retail price of $2,500.
Also new from Alpine is an upgraded DVD navigation system called the NVE-N852A with expanded U.S. coverage and new points of interest (POI). It also comes with remote control and has a new ergonomic design, Alpine said. The system covers more than 300 cities and has a database of more than six million POI including map icons to indicate gas stations. Suggested retail price for the NVE-N852A is $2,000.
In DVD Audio, Alpine debuted its first DVD changer and Eclipse began shipping a standalone DVD player.
Alpine's DVD/CD changer, model DHA-S680 also plays CD-R discs and CD-RW discs. The six-disc unit can be used as an Ai-NET system component or as a standalone DVD/CD changer for rear seat video and audio. It has Dolby Digital decoding, is DTS compatible and has an optical digital output for connecting to digital processors; a video output and two-channel mix-down pre-outs. Suggested retail price of the DHA-S680 is $1,200.
Eclipse's DVD model DV3101 can play with any head unit. It has a remote eye for installation anywhere in the car and offers both RCA and digital outputs. Suggested retail price for the DV3101 is $799. Eclipse also recently began shipping the AV5101 in-dash DIN 5.8-inch motorized screen. The AV5101 is compatible with the Eclipse Navigation system and is voice-activated and -controlled. It is an 8-volt unit that can interface with up to four TVs in the car. Replacing the 7002, the AV5101 is shipping now at a suggested retail price of $1,299. Also new from Eclipse is a 10.4-inch universal overhead screen with IR, and outputs for additional monitors. It ships this month with two wireless RF headphones at a suggested retail price of $1,599.
Other new products shipping this summer or fall are from Jensen and Audiovox.
Jensen is introducing a new DIN and combination AM/FM/CD and cassette player for GM and Chrysler vehicles. Called the CM7015K, it has built-in 4 by 60 watt amplifier, triple pre-amp outputs for front, rear and subwoofer, auxiliary input for MP3, and wireless remote control. The CM7015K is expected to ship in August at a suggested retail price of $329.95.
Audiovox's new models, introduced in January but shipping this summer, include the Prestige P-965 CD receiver with motorized, detachable faceplate, CD controller and auxiliary input. It has 40 watt by 4 built-in power, four channel plus mono subwoofer output, rotary volume control and remote control. The suggested retail price is $300.
OT: Great article on Platinum CEO:Buyout Buccaneer
Buyout Buccaneer
Phyllis Berman, Forbes Magazine, 07.09.01
It's supposedly next to impossible to do leveraged buyouts of technology companies, but this nobody made a quick $1 billion doing just that.
Williams Communications Group surprised no one in announcing last January that it was unloading a moneylosing division that designs data and voice communication systems for corporations. "It was a monkey on their back," concluded Andrew Hamerling of Banc of America Securities.
There was one surprise about the deal, however, and that was the buyer. It was one Tom T. Gores, 36, of Los Angeles. Who is he?
Gores' Platinum Equity is all but unknown to the investment banking community back East. It will become well known, though. From a standing start in 1995 Platinum has done 30 buyouts, amassing a portfolio of companies with a combined 15,000 employees and $2.5 billion in likely revenues for 2001. To get there in that short time Tom Gores has broken all the rules. For one, he specializes in the tech sector, an area thought unsuitable for leveraged deals that depend on steady cash flows. For another, unlike Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and its ilk, he has never raised a penny of equity from pension funds or other institutions. Gores uses only his own money as equity and leverages against it.
Weirdest of all is how Gores gets properties like the Williams subsidiary to bid on: by cold-calling big companies, asking if they have some division they'd like to get rid of. He has six people working the phone all day long, as if Platinum were some vendor of penny stocks or vacation time-shares.
Let the establishment types look down their noses, but Tom Gores is cleaning up. As Gores' private fiefdom, Platinum publishes no financial figures, but just one of his operating companies is easily worth $1 billion. How rich he really is we can't say. He has sold six businesses for a total of $160 million, but he hasn't taken a single company public.
Pretty impressive results for someone who has been out of the field of vision of most Wall Streeters. The lack of visibility is not entirely bad for Gores, since it makes his niche far less crowded than the rest of the LBO business, where a flood of new players in the past decade has depressed returns.
If you have never heard of Tom Gores, you might nonetheless know something about his brother, Alec, 48, who runs a rival buyout firm called Gores Technology Group. Gores Technology popped into view when it acquired the remains of Learning Co., Mattel's disastrous foray into educational software (Forbes, Nov. 13, 2000). More recently Alec Gores has gotten some press for taking on Hewlett-Packard's VeriFone division.
The talented Gores family, of Greek heritage, immigrated to the U.S. from Israel when Tom was 5. Tom and Alec's father ran grocery stores outside Flint, Mich. Soon after Tom graduated from Michigan State, Alec backed him in a company called Ventech, which sold software to lumberyards. Tom marketed the software and his girlfriend, Holly Murdock, installed it. The business was a bust, but Tom learned something valuable from the experience: If you want to make money in computers, get buyers hooked on whatever system you are selling. Find some way to collect a perennial stream of revenues from those customers--as Microsoft does by selling upgrades, or IBM by servicing a legacy of mainframes, or Oracle by leasing its databases.
For a decade Alec and Tom were loosely associated in a variety of businesses, and Tom ended up for a time at Gores Technology. In 1995 he left to open Platinum, and he married Holly. (They have two kids.) Did Tom and Alec have a falling-out? Tom's only explanation: "Our styles differ."
They do indeed, though the brothers sometimes look at the same properties. Alec buys outfits with other equity partners, puts little money down and often flips them quickly. Tom has hung on to all but a handful of Platinum's acquisitions, integrating them into several operating companies. Platinum Equity, then, resembles not so much a KKR buyout fund as a miniature Berkshire Hathaway, the portfolio run by Warren Buffett.
Buffett is famously averse to technology because, he says, he doesn't understand it. LBO firms stay away for another reason: Tech companies are not usually generators of cash. They cannot support the debt usually used to finance a buyout. There's an exception, though: Tech companies that spend minimally on new products and yet have legacy customers that pay for something, like service.
In 1996 Platinum bought Foresight Software, which had a base of customers using its software to run call-and-repair centers. Having sunk a million dollars into a system, a Foresight customer would be loath to switch to a rival product. Charging that customer for upgrading the software to reduce the length of customer calls, for example, makes a tech company that generates cash from operations.
Gores applied the same logic to larger and more complex acquisitions. In 1998 he bought the networking operations of Racal Electronics, on which Racal had lost $300 million the previous year. Gores paid $12.5 million in cash for the business, giving Racal a ten-year note for the $35 million balance of the purchase price. Under Gores the Racal sub became Milgo Solutions, which de-emphasized the production of hardware--multiplexers, fiber-optic cabling and such--in which it was competing with Cisco and Nortel Networks. Instead Milgo built up its service business, advising clients before they built their data and voice networks, as well as servicing those systems when they were up and running. In six months the business turned profitable.
Buying things that could be made not just profitable but cash-positive gave Gores a lot of flexibility. He could dispense with the usual back door used by LBO dealsters, that a bid was contingent on financing. "I made a couple of deals up front that created a lot of liquidity," brags Gores. "I was amazed at how quickly we built up a war chest."
Gores bought the Williams Communications subsidiary for $400 million, and combined it with Milgo to create a company called Nextira. Nextira designs and services voice and data communication networks. It will take in $1.45 billion of revenue this year, predicts Gores. With only $150 million in debt, and with a staff pared to 5,500 from 6,500 in the predecessor businesses, it will make a profit before goodwill amortization, he says.
Nextira competes head-on with Equant, a publicly traded company being acquired by France Telecom. Equant has $1.6 billion in sales, $350 million in debt and $111 million in losses over the last 12 months. Equant's market cap: $5 billion. If Nextira is worth even a fourth as much, then Tom Gores is a billionaire just with that holding.
Gores has no institutional investors to impress and therefore scant use for recruiters at fancy business schools. He hires people he knows. Chief of acquisitions is Johnny O. Lopez, who had been in sales at Ventech. Gores persuaded another Ventech alumnus, John Diggins, to leave a comfortable job at Dow Jones to run first Foresight and then marketing for all of Platinum. Treasurer of Platinum is Robert Joubran; teenage Tom had worked at Joubran's father's grocery. This crew is fiercely loyal to Gores, and, as one investment banker says, "They all work like dogs."
They are sufficiently close-knit that they can be all over the map. Gores, Lopez and the cold callers are in Los Angeles. Diggins operates out of an office in New Jersey. The corporate data center, purchased for a song from a dying e-commerce operation, is in Atlanta. Chief Operating Officer Philip Norment is on the road most of the year, but his home base is Boston.
In one way Tom Gores' business is getting easier. He has done enough deals to be taken a lot more seriously by potential sellers now than he was at the outset. On the other hand, success breeds competition. Larger and better-known players are crowding into tech buyouts, including Francisco Partners, a fund run by Robertson, Stephens & Company founder Sanford Robertson.
Gores has advantages. Give him some time, and he could be a serious competitor to Henry Kravis.
Major labels don't plan to offer music to go
Pressplay, MusicNet won't allow users to make song copies
BY DAWN C. CHMIELEWSKI
Mercury News
The digital music services that the recording industry is promising as an alternative to Napster won't allow people to do what they love to do most -- burn music CDs and carry songs with them.
The two major-label backed ventures -- Pressplay and MusicNet -- offered a preview of the rival services at the Jupiter Media Metrix's Plug.In digital music conference July 23 in New York. While pricing and other key details have yet to emerge, two things were immediately clear: The future of online music won't include CD burning, or uploads to portable audio players. At least, not initially.
Pressplay is scheduled to launch in early September, and MusicNet is due ``in fall.''
The labels created MusicNet and pressplay in response to Napster, the underground music phenomenon that allowed users to swap digital music files for free. Napster has been shut down for the past month -- at first voluntarily, then by the federal courts -- as it attempts to prevent users from exchanging copyrighted songs. Meanwhile, millions of users have fled to other file-swapping services such as Audiogalaxy, LimeWire and Morpheus.
Edgar Bronfman Jr., executive vice chairman of media giant Vivendi Universal, said it's imperative that the record labels offer viable commercial alternatives in the wake of court victories over Napster. But getting out of the mindset of ``selling round things'' and developing an new business model around digital distribution takes time.
``It's easy to be innovative when you have nothing to protect,'' said Bronfman.
Consumers accustomed to doing whatever they choose with their digital music files -- be it swapping songs with friends, burning custom music discs, or sliding copies to their portable MP3 player -- may chafe under the restrictions of the new world order.
Indeed, a recent consumer survey, conducted by Jupiter Media Metrix, revealed the two most important features of a digital music subscription service were the ability to make copies of downloaded songs and to listen to them on a portable device. Other considerations, such as guaranteed sound quality, high-speed file transfers and virus-free music files, were secondary.
RealNetworks Chairman Rob Glaser said the MusicNet venture he forged with Warner Music Group, BMG, EMI Recorded Music and the largest independent label, Zomba Music, will eventually allow subscribers to transfer their tunes to portable devices. But that's at least a year away.
Glaser said he's focused initially on providing a good listening experience on the PC -- one that's reliable, easy to use and of good quality. Then, MusicNet will begin adding features, such as portability.
``That's not an overnight type of thing,'' said Glaser.
Glaser provided a brief demonstration of the MusicNet service at the New York conference, showing how the Napster-look-alike interface would allow consumers to find, organize and listen to downloaded music and songs played in continuous stream for a fixed monthly rate.
Glaser wouldn't discuss pricing. That's because MusicNet is a merely a distribution service that delivers music in a neat, rights-protected wrapper to online services. Other online services, including America Online and Napster, which plans to re-launch as a subscription service, will ultimately set pricing.
Pressplay, the other major-label-backed venture backed by Universal Music and Sony Music Entertainment, will launch in early September with 100,000 tracks, said Bronfman.
Unlike MusicNet, pressplay will set the price for its own music, which will be available through MSN and Yahoo. To do otherwise would allow online services to ``devalue'' the music, Bronfman said.
Pressplay's new chief executive, Andy Schuon, said subscribers would pay a flat fee for a set number streamed or downloaded songs. They'll be able to search for music by artist name or song title, create play-lists and share them with other subscribers -- or access them at work.
Pressplay eventually will allow consumers to take their music with them on portable players, Schuon said, but not at launch.
Neither pressplay nor MusicNet will support CD burning, because it undermines the record labels' business models by making copying less expensive than purchasing music at retail.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact Dawn Chmielewski at (714) 669-9913 or dchmielewski@sjmercury.com.
ARM unveils digital-audio product
By CNET News.com Staff
August 1, 2001, 10:35 a.m. PT
Chip designer ARM Holdings is getting into the music business with a line of audio products.
On Wednesday, England's ARM announced its first product in development: system-on-chip devices based on Secure Digital technology.
The SD card, which is the size of postage stamp, is a form of flash memory used to store data for portable devices. It is still an emerging form of flash memory but is already used in MP3 players, digital cameras, digital camcorders and newer Palm handheld computers.
SD cards and the competing Sony Memory Stick are particularly key to the growing market for digital audio because they are built with copy protection in mind.
"The kinds of uses we've talked about now include portable MP3 players, digital cameras and mobile phones, but the good thing about SD cards is it's an evolving technology," said John Slater, an ARM product manager. "As the memory size of these cards gets bigger and bigger, you can start to think about putting video on a card."
ARM has already established itself as the leading provider of 16- and 32-bit embedded processor technology for devices such as mobile phones and handheld computers. The company is rapidly expanding into other markets, including audio and video. Chip manufacturers rely on ARM designs because it is cheaper than designing the technology themselves and it allows them to bring products to market more quickly.
The company is taking the same approach with the new SD card technology. ARM's components are designed to be interoperable, allowing chipmakers to quickly assemble system-on-chip designs.
Staff writer Matthew Broersma reported from England.
Digital Performance Rights In Sound Recordings And Ephemeral Recordings
AGENCY: Copyright Office, Library of Congress.
ACTION: Initiation of arbitration and announcement of the schedule for the proceeding.
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SUMMARY: The Copyright Office of the Library of Congress is announcing the initiation of and schedule for the 180-day arbitration period to set the rates and terms for two compulsory licenses. One license allows certain eligible nonsubscription services to perform sound recordings publicly by means of digital audio transmissions and the other allows a transmitting organization to make an ephemeral recording of a sound recording for the purpose of making a permitted public performance.
EFFECTIVE DATE: July 23, 2001.
ADDRESSES: All hearings and meetings for the proceeding to set rates and terms for the sections 112 and 114 licenses shall take place in the James Madison Memorial Building, Room LM-414, First and Independence Avenue, S.E., Washington, D.C. 20540.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Background
This notice fulfills the requirement of 37 CFR 251.64 and 17 U.S.C. 803(a)(1). Section 251.64 of the CARP rules, 37 CFR provides that:
After the end of the 45-day precontroversy discovery period, and after the Librarian has ruled on all motions and objections filed under Sec. 251.45, the Librarian will determine the sufficiency of the petition, including, where appropriate, whether one or more of the petitioners' interests are "significant." If the Librarian determines that a petition is significant, he or she will cause to be published in the Federal Register a declaration of a controversy accompanied by a notice of initiation of an arbitration proceeding.
On November 27, 1998, the Library of Congress published a notice, pursuant to 17 U.S.C. 112(e)(4) and 114(f)(2)(A), initiating a voluntary negotiation period for the purpose of establishing rates and terms for the digital public performance of sound recordings license (as it pertains to webcasters) under section 114 and for the making of ephemeral copies in furtherance of a digital public performance under section 112 for the period beginning on October 28, 1998, and ending on December 31, 2000. 63 FR 65555 (November 27, 1998). No voluntary agreements were reached. On July 23, 1999, the Recording Industry of America, Inc. ("RIAA") filed a petition in accordance with 17 U.S.C. 112(e)(5) and 114(f)(2)(B) to convene a Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel ("CARP") for the purpose of setting rates and terms for these licenses.
After the filing of the petition, the Library requested the filing of notices of intent to participate in the proceeding and set the schedule for the 45-day precontroversy discovery period. 64 FR 52108 (September 27, 1999). After the filing of notices of intent to participate and upon a party's request to extend the filing date for direct cases, the Library vacated the schedule set forth in the September 27, 1999, notice. See Order, Docket No. 99-6 CARP DTRA (December 22, 1999).
During the pendency of the proceeding, the Library published a notice, in accordance with 17 U.S.C. 112(e)(6) and 114(f)(2)(C)(i)(II), initiating a voluntary negotiation period for the purpose of establishing rates and terms for the two licenses for the period 2001 and 2002. 65 FR 2194 (January 13, 2000). On August 8, 2000, the RIAA again filed a petition to convene a CARP to set these rates. RIAA asserted that it has a significant interest in such a proceeding because it has "established a collective that is comprised of more than 200 different recording labels and artists, including all of the major record companies in the United States * * * [and its] members own the copyrights in approximately 90% of the legitimate sound recordings sold in the United States." Petition at 2.
Prior to the establishment of a new precontroversy discovery schedule for the 1998-2000 proceeding and the establishment of a precontroversy discovery schedule for the 2001-2002 proceeding, the Library consolidated the two proceedings before a single CARP and assigned a single docket number applicable to both proceedings. Order, Docket Nos. 99-6 CARP DTRA and 2000-3 CARP DTRA2 (December 4, 2000).
The Library has conducted a precontroversy discovery period under Sec. 251.45 of the rules. See 65 FR 77394 (December 11, 2000); Orders, Docket No. 2000-9 CARP DTRA1&2 (January 18, 2001, and March 16, 2001). While the 45-day precontroversy discovery period is complete, a few motions are pending before the Library. However, the disposition of these motions will in no way affect the Librarian's determination regarding the sufficiency of the petitions filed in this proceeding; and the motions will be ruled upon in advance of July 30, 2001, the beginning of the 180-day arbitration period. Consequently, the Librarian is announcing the initiation of this proceeding at this time so that the schedule of the proceeding may be published in the Federal Register within seven calendar days of the first meeting as required by Sec. 251.11(b) of the rules.
Determination of Petitioner's Significant Interest in Proceeding
The Librarian has considered the petitions of the RIAA and determines that RIAA has a significant interest in the CARP proceedings to establish the rates and terms of the section 112 and 114 licenses for the periods 1998-2000 and 2001-2002. RIAA has set up a collective comprised of more than 200 different recording labels and artists, including all of the major record companies in the United States, and its members own the copyrights in approximately 90% of the legitimate sound recordings sold in the United States. Petition at 2 (August 8, 2000). Further, the former Copyright Royalty Tribunal recognized that RIAA had a significant interest in copyright compulsory license rate proceedings affecting the recording industry. See Recording Industry Association of America v. Copyright Royalty Tribunal, 662 F.2d 1 (D.C. 1981) (17 U.S.C. 115 license). Consequently, the Librarian determines that RIAA has a significant interest in this proceeding within the meaning of 17 U.S.C. 803(a)(1).
Selection of Arbitrators
In accordance with Sec. 251.6 of the CARP rules, the arbitrators have been selected for this proceeding. They are:
The Honorable Eric E. Van Loon (Chairperson)
The Honorable Jeffrey S. Gulin
The Honorable Curtis E. von Kann
Initiation of the Proceeding
Pursuant to Sec. 251.64 of the CARP rules, the Librarian is formally announcing the existence of a controversy as to the establishment of rates and terms for the digital public performance of sound recordings license (as it pertains to webcasters ) under 17 U.S.C. 114 and for the making of ephemeral copies in furtherance of a digital public performance under 17 U.S.C. 112 and is initiating an arbitration proceeding under chapter 8 of title 17 of the United States Code to set the rates and terms for these licenses. The arbitration proceeding commences on July 30, 2001, and runs for a period of 180 days. The arbitrators shall file their written report with the Librarian by January 28, 2002, the end of the 180-day period, in accordance with Sec. 251.53 of the rules.
Schedule for Proceeding
Section 251.11(b) of the regulations governing the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panels ("CARPs"), 37 CFR subchapter B, provides that:
At the beginning of each proceeding, the CARP shall develop the original schedule of the proceeding which shall be published in the Federal Register at least seven calendar days in advance of the first meeting. Such announcement shall state the times, dates, and place of the meetings, the testimony to be heard, whether any of the meetings, or any portion of a meeting, is to be closed, and if so, which ones, and the name and telephone number of the person to contact for further information.
This notice fulfills the requirements of Sec. 251.11(b) for the proceeding to set rates and terms for the digital public performance of sound recordings license (as it pertains to webcasters ) under 17 U.S.C. 114 and for the making of ephemeral copies in furtherance of a digital public performance under 17 U.S.C. 112.
On June 25, 2001, the parties to this proceeding met with the arbitrators for the purposes of discussing the mechanism for payment of the arbitrators and of setting a schedule for this proceeding. At that meeting, the parties and the arbitrators agreed to the following schedule:
Opening Statements: July 30, 2001.
Presentation of Direct Cases: July 31-September 13, 2001.
Witnesses for the Copyright Owners and Performers: \1\ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ "Copyright Owners and Performers" consist of the Recording Industry Association of America, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada, and the Association for Independent Music.
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July 31-August 2, 2001: Cary Sherman, Hilary Rosen, David Altschul, Linda McLaughlin, Paul Katz, Charles Ciongoli.
August 6-10, 2001: James Griffin, Ronald Wilcox, Paul Vidich, LaVerne Evans, Jay Samit, Lawrence Kenswil, Anthony Pipitone, Gregory Hessinger, Gary Himelfarb.
August 13-16, 2001: Jennifer Warnes, Kevin Dorsey, Harold Bradley, Steven Marks, Thomas Nagle, Robert Yerman, Steven Wildman.
Witnesses for Broadcasters/Webcasters;\2\ DMX Music, Inc.; AEI Music Network; and National Public Radio ("NPR"): ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ "Broadcasters/Webcasters" consist of Clear Channel Communications, Inc.; the National Religious Broadcasters Music License Committee; Salem Communications Corp.; Bet.com; Comedy Central; Infinity Broadcasting Corp.; Launch Media, Inc.; Listen.com; Live365.com; the MTVi Group LLC; MusicMatch, Inc.; Myplay, Inc.; Netradio Corp; RadioActive Media Partners, Inc.; Radiowave.com, Inc.; Spinner Networks, Inc.; Susquehanna Radio Corp.; Univision Online; Westwind; and XACT Radio Network, LLC.
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For Broadcasters: Dan Halyburton (Susquehanna Radio Corp.), Stephen F. Fisher (Entercom Communication Corp.), Dan Mason (Infinity Broadcasting Corp.), James Patrick Donahue (Clear Channel Radio Group), Joe Davis (Salem).
For Webcasters: Scott Mills (BET Interactive), Joe Lyons (Comedy Central), Michael Peterson (Coollink Broadcast Network), Tuhin Roy (Echo Networks, Inc.), Robert D. Roback (Launch Media, Inc.), David Goldberg (Launch Media, Inc.), Rob Reid (Listen.com, Inc.), John O. Jeffrey (Live365, Inc.), Brad Porteus (MTVi Radio of the MTVi Group, Inc.), Quincy McCoy (MTVi Group), Robert Ohlweiler (MusicMatch, Inc.), David Bean (MusicMatch, Inc.), David Pakman (Myplay, Inc.), Michael Wise (NetRadio Corp.), Charlie Moore (RadioActive Media Partners, Inc.), Nathan W. Pearson, Jr. (RadioWave.com, Inc.), Fred McIntyre (AOL Music/ Spinner), Diego Ruiz (Univision Online, Inc.), Clifton Gardiner (Westwind Media.com, Inc.), David Juris (XACT Radio LLC), David Fagin (singer, songwriter, recording and performing artist), Alanis Morissette (singer, songwriter, recording and performing artist).
For Background Music: \3\ Barry Knittel (AEI Music Network, Inc.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ "Background Music" consist of AEI Music Network, Inc. and DMX Music, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Experts: William W. Fisher III, Jonathan Zittrain, Adam B. Jaffe, Michael Fine, Paul William Kempton, Michael Mazis.
For NPR: Kenneth P. Stern (NPR), Dr. Jane Murdoch (Charles River Associates), Dr. John Woodbury (Charles River Associates).
Filing of Written Rebuttal Testimony: October 4, 2001.
Presentation of Rebuttal Cases: October 15-20, 22-25, 2001.
Filing of Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law: November 14, 2001.
Filing of Replies to Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law: December 3, 2001.
Oral Argument: December 7, 2001.
Close of 180-day period: January 28, 2002.
Opening statements will begin at 1 p.m. on July 30. Thereafter, all hearings will begin at 9:00 a.m. back / top
emit, like this: We are thrilled that Visteon, a leader in the telematics industry, has chosen to work with us to bring our combined technologies to telematics and other markets such as mobile devices and cable set-top boxes."
Could someone comment on the likelihood of particular technologies or IP being licensed by companies that reference other companies patents in their patents? (clear as mud right)
Just curious if these types of references in a patent are just describing prior art or do they usually mean their is utilization of the referenced technology etc. Thanks for any and all comments.
Hands-free audio memo system and method
United States Patent 6,185,537
Oh , et al.
February 6, 2001
Hands-free audio memo system and method
Abstract
This invention (10, 50) uses an interface (12, 52) to receive a voice input from a user, and a speech recognition unit (18, 54) coupled to the
interface (12, 52) to monitor the voice input and recognize a predetermined set of voice commands from the voice input. The speech
recognition unit (18, 54) generates a command signal that corresponds to the recognized voice command, which is received by a
controller unit (20, 58). The controller unit (20, 58) activates a speech acquisition unit (16, 56) coupled to the controller unit (20, 58) to
collect and stop collecting the voice input in response to a control signal generated by the controller unit (20, 58). a memory (24, 56) is
provided to store the collected voice input.
Inventors:
Oh; Stephen S. (Richardson, TX); Popik; Stephen Ira (Plano, TX)
Assignee:
Texas Instruments Incorporated (Dallas, TX)
Appl. No.:
984221
Filed:
December 3, 1997
Current U.S. Class:
704/275; 704/272
Intern'l Class:
G10L 015/22
Field of Search:
704/275,270,272,200,257,250,246,256
References Cited [Referenced By]
U.S. Patent Documents
4348550
Sep., 1982
Pirz et al.
379/357.
4426733
Jan., 1984
Brenig
455/79.
4520576
Jun., 1985
Molen
34/534.
4737976
Apr., 1988
Borth et al.
455/563.
4737979
Apr., 1988
Hashimoto
379/82.
5014317
May., 1991
Kita et al.
395/2.
5420912
May., 1995
Kopp et al.
455/563.
5477511
Dec., 1995
Engelhardt
369/25.
5481645
Jan., 1996
Bertino et al.
395/2.
5491774
Feb., 1996
Norris et al.
395/2.
5526407
Jun., 1996
Russell et al.
379/89.
5602963
Feb., 1997
Bissonnette et al.
395/2.
5657380
Aug., 1997
Mozer
379/88.
5684506
Nov., 1997
Taylor et al.
345/133.
5794205
Aug., 1998
Walters et al.
704/275.
5812977
Sep., 1998
Douglas
704/275.
5878395
Mar., 1999
Bennett
704/275.
5999908
Dec., 1999
Abelow
705/1.
Primary Examiner: Dorvil; Richemond
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Marshall, Jr.; Robert D., Brady, III; W. James, Telecky, Jr.; Frederick J.
Parent Case Text
This applications claims benefit to U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 60/032,507 filed Dec. 3, 1996.
Claims
What is claimed is:
1. A method for hands-free audio memo, comprising the steps of:
receiving a voice input from a user;
recognizing a memo start voice command in the voice input indicative of the user's desire to record an audio memo;
collecting subsequent voice input;
storing the subsequent voice input;
recognizing a memo management voice command in the voice input indicative of the user's desire to manage stored voice input; and
performing management functions in response to further voice input.
2. The method, as set forth in claim 1, wherein:
said memo management voice command includes a delete memo voice command; and
said method further comprises deleting a current memo in response to a delete memo voice command.
3. The method, as set forth in claim 1, wherein:
said memo management voice command includes a save memo voice command; and
said method further comprises saving a current memo in response to a save memo voice command.
4. The method, as set forth in claim 1, wherein:
said memo management voice command includes a protect memo voice command; and
said method further comprises protecting a current memo in response to a protect memo voice command.
5. A method for hands-free audio memo, comprising the steps of:
receiving a voice input from a user;
recognizing a memo start voice command in the voice input indicative of the user's desire to record an audio memo;
collecting subsequent voice input;
storing the subsequent voice input;
storing a speech model of digital voice signal inputs corresponding to each of a plurality of voice commands;
recognizing a voice command in the voice input indicative of a specific function by determining if said voice input matches any speech
model corresponding to one of said specific functions; and
following recognition of a voice command indicative of a specific function recognizing subsequent voice commands by attempting to match
subsequent voice input to a subset of speech models of digital voice signals corresponding to valid commands following said specific
function.
6. The method, as set forth in claim 5, wherein:
said step of recognizing a voice command in the voice input indicative of a specific function includes attempting to match voice input to a
first subset of said speech models.
7. The method as set forth in claim 6, wherein:
said first subset of said speech models includes a speech model for each of the voice commands "CALL X", "MEMO PLAYBACK", "MEMO
START", "GET MAIL" AND "MEMO MANAGEMENT";
said subset of speech models corresponding to "CALL X" includes the voice commands "HANG UP", "REDIAL", "YES" and "NO";
said subset of speech models corresponding to "MEMO PLAYBACK" includes the voice commands "PLAY MEMO", "SKIP MEMO", "YES"
and "NO";
said subset of speech models corresponding to "MEMO START" includes the voice commands "MEMO PAUSE", "MEMO TERMINATE",
"YES" and "NO";
said subset of speech models corresponding to "GET MAIL" includes the voice commands "EXIT MAIL", "NEXT MAIL", "YES" and "NO";
and
said subset of speech models corresponding to "MEMO MANAGEMENT" includes the voice commands "DELETE MEMO", "SAVE MEMO",
"YES" and "NO".
Description
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention is related in general to the field of personal electronic systems. More particularly, the invention is related to a hands-free
audio memo system and method for making the same.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
It is common knowledge that we are currently living in the Information Age. Data come to us in visual, audio, and written forms through a
myriad of channels: radio, telecommunications, television, internet, world wide web, and just plain seeing, hearing, and feeling things as
events occur around us. There are many instances when it is desirable to retain some of the information in a more reliable manner than
the ability or inability to recall data we are born with, for example, that telephone number announced on the radio, the location of that
specialty store, or that ingenious idea about a novel gadget to solve a stubborn problem.
The old standby to record data is the pen and paper. However, there are times when it is inconvenient to write, such as when one is
operating an automobile, or when pen and paper are not accessible.
Dictaphones, which use audio tape cassettes, and some newer digital recorders, have been used to fill this void. However, they all require
the use of at least one hand to hold the device, and to operate the many buttons on the device to turn on the device, record, retrieve, erase,
and turn off the device. Further, because it has been shown that the use of one hand to handle a wireless telephone while operating an
automobile can lead to unsafe driving and possibly higher incidents of traffic accidents, it is less than desirable to also require the driver to
devote the use of one hand to operate the recording device.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, there is a need for an audio memo system and method therefor which enable hands-free operations.
In accordance with the present invention, a hands-free audio memo system and method are provided which eliminate or substantially
reduce the disadvantages associated with prior devices.
In one aspect of the invention, an hands-free audio memo system and method uses an interface to receive a voice input from a user, and a
speech recognition unit coupled to the interface to monitor the voice input and recognize a predetermined set of voice commands from the
voice input. The speech recognition unit generates a command signal that corresponds to the recognized voice command, which is
received by a controller unit. The controller unit activates a speech acquisition unit coupled to the controller unit to collect and stop
collecting the voice input in response to a control signal generated by the controller unit. A memory is provided to store the collected voice
input.
In another aspect of the invention, an hands-free personal memo system includes an analog interface receiving a voice input from a user,
a speech recognition unit coupled to the interface adapted for receiving the voice input therefrom, recognize a predetermined set of voice
commands from the voice input, and generating a command signal in response thereto. A controller unit is coupled to the speech
recognition unit which generates a control signal in response to receiving the command signal from the speech recognition unit. A digital
telephone answering device is coupled to the controller unit and analog interface for collecting and storing the voice input.
In yet another aspect of the invention, a method for hands-free audio memo includes the steps of receiving a voice input from a user,
recognizing a voice commands in the voice input indicative of the user's desire to record an audio memo, collecting subsequent voice
input, and storing the subsequent voice input.
Hands-free audio memo system and method therefor of the present invention provide a way for users to record audio memos and perform
other functions without the use of a hand for its operation. This is especially advantageous for persons who are operating an automobile or
performing other tasks that require concentration and generally the use of both hands.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
For a better understanding of the present invention, reference may be made to the accompanying drawings, in which:
FIG. 1 is a simplified functional block diagram of an exemplary hands-free audio memo system constructed according to the teachings of
the present invention;
FIG. 2 is a simplified block diagram of an alternative embodiment of the hands-free audio memo system of the present invention;
FIG. 3 is an exemplary flowchart of a simplified hands-free audio memo algorithm according to the teachings of the present invention;
FIG. 4 is an exemplary flowchart of an hands-free audio memo algorithm according to the teachings of the present invention;
FIG. 5 is an exemplary flowchart of voice playback and memo management functions of the hands-free audio memo algorithm according to
the teachings of the present invention; and
FIG. 6 is an exemplary flowchart showing exemplary voice inputs to the system according to the teachings of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The preferred embodiment(s) of the present invention is (are) illustrated in FIGS. 1-6, like reference numerals being used to refer to like
and corresponding parts of the various drawings.
Referring to FIG. 1, a functional block diagram of an exemplary hands-free audio memo system 10 constructed according to the teachings
of the present invention is shown. System 10 includes an analog interface 12 which receives voice input of a user captured by a
microphone 14, and converts the analog voice input into a digital voice input signal. Analog interface 12 is further coupled to a speech
acquisition unit 16, which functions to collect the digital voice input signal. The collected digital voice input signal is then provided to a
speech recognition unit 18, which receives the digital voice input signal and searches for a set of predetermined voice commands and
responses stored in a speaker-independent speech model memory 19 and/or an optional speaker-dependent speech model memory 21.
For example, the voice command may be "MEMO START" or "TAKE MEMO" to initiate memo recording, "MEMO TERMINATE" to stop
memo recording, and other appropriate responses. Further, certain commands and responses may be only valid during certain times and
ignored at other times. For example, when memo recording is taking place, speech recognition unit 16 may only listen for a smaller set of
commands and/or responses from the user, such as "MEMO TERMINATE," and not "YES" or "NO."
Speech recognition unit 18 is further coupled to a controller unit or microcontroller unit (MCU) 20. When speech recognition unit 16
recognizes a valid command or response, it generates a signal to inform controller unit 20 to take appropriate actions. Controller unit 20 is
further coupled to a speech compression unit 22, which is also coupled to speech acquisition unit 16. Speech compression unit 22
compresses the digital voice input signals collected by speech acquisition unit 16 using known compression algorithms and stores the
compressed signals into a memory 24.
A speech decompression unit 26 and a speech synthesis unit 27 are further coupled between controller unit 20 and analog interface 12.
Controller unit 20 instructs speech compression unit 26 to decompress stored speech in memory 28 and provide to speech synthesis unit
27 to produce a speech prompt or response at appropriate times, which is then broadcast to the user by a speaker 30 coupled to analog
interface 12.
Optionally, a communications link 31 may be provided to download voice input signals stored in memory 24 to a personal computer (not
shown). In addition, a dialer 32 and link 34 may be further provided to a personal communications system (not shown) to perform functions
related to telecommunications, such as dialing a particular number or "CALL HOME."
FIG. 2 is a simplified block diagram of an embodiment of hands-free audio memo system 50 according to the teachings of the present
invention. System 50 includes an analog interface 52 coupled to a speech recognition unit 54 and a digital telephone answering device
(DTAD) 56. DTAD 56 typically includes speech acquisition and compression functions, and a memory. a microcontroller unit 58 is further
coupled to speech recognition unit 54 and DTAD 56.
System 50 may be implemented with commercially available components or devices. For example, interface 52 may be implemented with
TCM320AC36 or TCM320AC37 Voice-Band Audio Processors (VBAP).TM. manufactured by Texas Instruments Incorporated of Dallas,
Tex.; speech recognition unit 54 may be implemented with TMS320C5X Digital Signal Processor (DSP) also manufactured by Texas
Instruments Incorporated; DTAD 56 may be implemented with the MSP58C8X product line of Texas Instruments Incorporated; and
microcontroller unit 58 may be implemented with TMS370 family products of Texas Instruments Incorporated.
A single chip implementation is also contemplated by the present invention. For example, components in Texas Instrument's cDSP.TM.
product line may be incorporated and formed on a single silicon substrate to construct an integrated circuit. For example, a C54X core for
performing the speech recognition and DTAD functions, an Advanced RISC (reduced instruction set computing) Machines (ARM.TM.)
7TDMI core for performing the controller unit functions, and a Voice-Band Audio Processor core for performing analog interface functions
may be combined into a single integrated circuit. It may be seen that the above are merely examples and other suitable substitutes may be
used.
Referring to FIG. 3 as well as the block diagrams in FIGS. 1 and 2, an exemplary process flow 70 for hands-free audio memo systems 10
and 50 is provided. Speech acquisition 16 or DTAD 56 and recognition 16 or 54 is first activated in step 72. The activation may be done at
the time the automobile (not shown) is started, by the push of a button, or by leaving the key in the accessory position, for example. In steps
72 and 74, speech recognition unit 18 or 54 searches for a valid command appropriate for the occasion, such as "MEMO START" to start
the memo recording process. Once a valid command is recognized, as determined in step 76, controller unit 20 or 58 is notified, such as
by a signal generated by speech recognition unit 18 or 54, as shown in step 78. Controller unit 20 or 58 then activates the memo function,
as shown in step 80. Once the system is ready, an optional audio prompt or speech (e.g., "MEMO SYSTEM READY") may be generated in
step 82 to signal to the user that he/she may begin to speak. A timer or counter (not shown) set for a predetermined time period may be
started when speech acquisition 16 begins to capture voice input in step 84. The collected voice input is converted to digital signals,
compressed and stored in memory 24, as shown in step 86. When the timer expires, speech acquisition is stopped, as shown in step 88.
Controller unit 20 or 58 is then notified that memo recording terminated, as shown in step 90, and execution returns to step 74 to be ready
for the next memo.
A second version of the method for hands-free audio memo 100 is shown in FIG. 4. Speech acquisition 16 or DTAD 56 and speech
recognition 18 or 54 are activated either by starting the automobile, leaving the key in the accessory position, or the push of a button (not
shown), for example, as shown in step 102. Speech recognition 18 or 54 monitors the speech uttered by the user(s) in the vicinity and
searches for recognizable valid voice commands and/or responses, such as a command to start the memo process, as shown in step 104.
When it is determined that the captured voice input is a valid command, such as "MEMO START," controller unit 20 or 58 is notified, as
shown in steps 106 and 108. Controller unit 20 or 58 in turn activates the memo function, as shown in step 110. In step 112, an audio
prompt or speech (e.g., "MEMO SYSTEM READY") may be generated to signal to the user that he/she may begin to speak. The user's
speech is then captured and compared with recognizable commands appropriate for the circumstances, such as "MEMO TERMINATE" to
end the process, as shown in steps 114 and 116. Speech recognition 18 or 54 may be running in a low resource mode at this time to look
for only those commands that are valid during this time, such as only the command to terminate or pause the memo taking process. If the
captured utterance is not a recognizable and valid command, then it is collected, compressed, and stored, as shown in step 118. If in step
116, it is determined that the captured speech is a recognizable and valid command to end the memo process, for example, then controller
unit 20 or 58 is notified, as shown in block 120. Controller unit 20 or 58 then pauses speech acquisition, as shown in step 122, and
instructs speech decompression 26 and speech synthesis 27 to issue an audible prompt for confirmation, such as "READY TO
TERMINATE MEMO?" The subsequent voice input is then captured and monitored for a valid response to the prompt, such as "YES" or
"NO," as shown in steps 126 and 128. If the received voice input is not a recognizable valid response to the confirmation, then an
appropriate audio response may be generated to reconfirm, as shown in step 132. If the voice input is recognized as a response indicative
that the user is not ready to terminate the memo process, then execution returns to step 112, to continue to record memo. If on the other
hand the voice input is recognized as an affirmative response in step 130, then the memo function is stopped in step 134, and controller
unit 20 or 58 is notified in step 136. Execution then returns to step 104 to prepare for the next memo.
FIG. 5 is a flowchart of memo playback and memo management functions of system 10 and 50. At step 76 shown in FIG. 3 or step 106
shown in FIG. 4, if the voice input is not a valid start command, it is also checked for whether it is a valid playback command, as shown in
step 140. If it is, controller unit 58 is notified in step 142 and the user is prompted for additional input, which is captured, as shown in step
144. The captured speech input is then examined to determined whether it is a valid response to the prompt given in step 144, if not, some
appropriate action is taken in step 148, such as issue an appropriate audio statement. If it is a valid response, then the memo playback
function 150 is launched, where the user may play back one or more previously recorded memos, skip one or more memos, etc. At the end
of the memo playback function, the algorithm may return to step 74 in FIG. 3 or step 114 shown in FIG. 4.
If in step 140 it is determined that the speech input is not a valid playback command, then a determination is made as to whether it is a
valid memo management command in step 152. If not, then the process may return to step 74 in FIG. 3 or step 114 shown in FIG. 4 to
continue to capture the speech input. Otherwise, controller unit 58 is notified in step 154 and the user is prompted for additional input,
which is captured, as shown in step 156. The captured speech input is then examined to determined whether it is a valid response to the
prompt given in step 158, if not, some appropriate action is taken in step 148, such as issue an audio statement. If it is a valid response,
then the memo management function 160 is launched, where the user may perform operations such as delete, save, and protect on
previously recorded memos. At the end of the memo management function, the algorithm may return to step 74 in FIG. 3 or step 114 shown
in FIG. 4.
Referring to FIG. 6, a more detailed process flow is shown. As voice input is captured in step 170, it is determined whether it matched any
recognizable and valid command and response in step 172. For example, one or more recognized key phrases may be used to initiate
system 50 in a memo recording mode 180, memo playback mode 182, memo management mode 184, dialer mode 186, and voice mail
mode 188, where each mode is shown with exemplary valid phrases recognized when system 50 is in the respective modes. The key
phrases to launch each mode may include "MEMO START" to launch the memo recording functions; "MEMO PLAYBACK" to launch the
memo playback functions; "MEMO MANAGEMENT" to launch the memo management functions; "CALL X" to launch the dialer functions;
and "GET MAIL" to launch the voice mail functions. Thus, speech recognition unit 54 need only to focus on a subset of possible valid
utterances as to speed up search and processing time and to conserve resources.
Although the present invention and its advantages have been described in detail, it should be understood that various changes,
substitutions and alterations can be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended
claims.
OT As law enforcement uses more high-tech gadgets, further legal hurdles await
Posted at 4:10 p.m. PDT Saturday, July 28, 2001
WASHINGTON (AP) -- By bugging a keyboard or using special software, FBI agents can remotely capture a computer user's every keystroke.
With a black box, they can intercept e-mail from miles away.
In a van parked outside, they secretly can recreate the pictures on a computer screen from its electromagnetic energy.
The legal limits for these new investigative tools will get a test Monday when a federal court in New Jersey examines a mob case in which agents, without a wiretap order, recorded a suspect's computer keystrokes.
Privacy experts are watching the case of Nicodemo S. Scarfo Jr. with great interest because it could bring major changes to investigative tactics in the online age.
``It's the idea of secret government surveillance technology being installed with very little oversight or accountability,'' David Sobel of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center said. ``It gets about as close to the common perception of Big Brother as anything I could really imagine.''
Armed only with a search warrant, the FBI broke into Scarfo's business and put either a program on his computer or an electronic bug in his keyboard -- officials will not say which -- and recorded everything typed by the son of the jailed former boss of the Philadelphia mob.
The FBI says it needed a password in order to decrypt coded files that allegedly contained records of illegal gambling and loan-sharking operations.
Scarfo used the software PGP -- Pretty Good Privacy -- to encode his records. PGP is a strong, free encryption program that can be used for e-mail or individual files. The FBI tried to break the encryption without the password, but failed. So agents surreptitiously bugged the computer to capture it from Scarfo himself.
Scarfo's lawyer wants a Newark, N.J., federal court to suppress the evidence and make the FBI say how the bug worked. The lawyer says that because the FBI recorded everything Scarfo typed, they got private e-mails that were not part of the investigation.
U.S. Attorney Robert J. Cleary has told the court that the surveillance device is a ``highly sensitive law enforcement search and seizure technique'' and should not be made public.
Mark Rasch, former head of the Justice Department's computer crimes section, said that if the device transmitted the captured keystrokes back to the police via e-mail, or emitted them through radio signals, then it might be considered a wiretap.
``You really need to understand at what point it captured things, and how it got it back to the government, in order to figure out what the Fourth Amendment concerns are,'' Rasch said.
Authorities have to meet a much higher standard for a full wiretap, which includes filtering out nonrelevant communications and having stronger proof that a crime is taking place.
The government argues it only needed a search warrant for Scarfo's computer because the captured keystrokes were not immediately being transmitted on the phone line or on the Internet, and should not be considered the products of a wiretap.
There are many tools the FBI can use for secretly capturing computer information.
Earlier this year, the FBI used a keystroke bug to nab two Russians suspected of hacking into U.S. Internet companies. The Russians have not yet gone to trial.
In addition to the keystroke logger, technicians can sneak in a program that will take intermittent snapshots of the monitor, or install a hidden camera pointed at the computer.
There is even a system called TEMPEST that detects electromagnetic emanations from a computer monitor. Agents in a van parked outside can then reconstruct the desktop.
The FBI also has received widespread attention for a device -- formerly known as Carnivore and now called DCS 1000 -- that can follow suspects' Web browsing, e-mail and instant messages.
``If they can find a way to read your mail or peek in your bedroom and find a way for a judge to authorize them to do it, they will do it,'' Rasch said.
The Supreme Court recently reined in one high-tech tactic when it ruled police needed a warrant to use a special heat-sensing device to discover that a man was growing marijuana in his home.
However the Scarfo case ends, Sobel said, the high-tech crime landscape is bound to change.
``I think it has significant implications for future law enforcement investigations,'' he said. ``This type of investigation is the wave of the future.''
Infrared's PR improves as new apps emerge
[makes me wanna TWIRL!!]
Mobile connectivity requirements for PDAs and new applications, such as "point and pay," breathe new life into infrared data links.
Ron Schneiderman, Contributing Editor, Wireless Technologies
For the longest time, infrared (IR) data links in portable devices simply couldn't get any respect. They were a pain to use, too slow, and often incompatible. They were also limited mostly to notebook computers, accounting for well over half of all IR data links in portable products in 1997. Virtually every notebook computer shipped in 1998 had an IR port. The problem is that hardly anyone ever used them. (Toshiba estimated a few years ago that barely 5% of its notebook computer customers actually used the IR feature.) Then Bluetooth comes along. It has features that IR doesn't. For example, it doesn't require line-of-sight communication and can be linked to other devices in a piconet. This has prompted some analysts to observe that Bluetooth will pick up where IR has stumbled. No respect.
All this may be about to change, however, with the huge success of PDAs and digital cameras, as well as the development of a bunch of new and emerging wireless connectivity applications, where very short range is acceptable and high security is required.
Indeed, according to Mike Watson, director of software and a Fellow at Zilog and president of IrDA (the Infrared Data Association), things are already improving.
For one thing, IR usage is up. "Usage now is up to 40% on Palms. We call them loyal Palm beamers."
It's also a cultural thing, says Watson. IR is very popular in Japan and Europe, particularly for exchanging business cards and downloading short messages. Much less so in the U.S. In fact, Casio's IR-enabled QV2000 camera is available everywhere but the U.S.
Data rates have also improved, ranging up to 16 Mbits/s, although the IR link in PDAs operates at 1 Mbit/s (4 Mbits/s in notebooks).
IrDA's new face
IrDA is also changing. Ron Brown, who joined IrDA as executive director earlier this year from his most recent post as CEO of Personal Solutions, says, "The organization is going to change from a technology-driven standards body to a more service and applications-oriented trade association."
One indication of its new aggressiveness was IrDA's first formal appearance at the National Retail Federation Show in January and its memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the retail organization covering the development of point-of-sale (POS) applications for IR technologies.
IrDA has also convened a special interest group to deliver low-cost, high-speed wireless connectivity for travel and transportation applications. The new Travel Mobility Special Interest Group (TM-SIG) plans to expand the use of IR technologies in mobile travel markets by fast-tracking deployment of IR connectivity infrastructures on airplanes and autos, and in airports and hotels, as well as other public and private locations.
There are also several working groups within the TM-SIG, including one that covers air travel (for access to ATM services, maps and city guides, in-flight shopping, and more). Another working group is focusing on automotive applications (electronic toll collection, parking, access control, traffic information, and gas-station payment systems). A third group is dedicated to hospitality applications (high-speed Internet access in hotel and conference rooms, along with applications for making hotel reservations, obtaining travel maps, coupons, brochures, and taking orders at a restaurant). Clarinet Systems, a specialist in handheld IR connectivity, for example, is already working with MagiWeb, a Taiwan-based systems integrator, to install IR data links throughout the Crowne Plaza hotels in Taiwan.
Point and pay
Brown says that as the TM-SIG moves forward, it leverages an installed base of more than 250 million IR-enabled devices along with IrDA-developed standards, such as Infrared Financial Messaging (IrFM), a new "point and pay" global wireless POS payment standard for handheld devices.
IrFM is a major international standardization initiative of IrDA whose key participants are Palm, Nokia, Agilent, Ericsson, Motorola, Sharp, Infineon, Extended Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Zilog, Visa, Vishay Telefunken, Harex InfoTech, VeriFone, and CrossCheck, among others. The IrFM protocol defines payment usage models, profiles, architecture, and protocol layers to enable hardware, software, and systems designers to develop IrFM-compliant products, and ensure interoperability and compatibility globally. The IrFM protocol was developed with the Financial Services Technology Consortium, a non-profit group working to create standardized and interoperable technology platforms for financial institutions.
Electronic wallet applications have already been demonstrated using IR-enabled Palm and Handspring Visor PDAs to make consumer purchases at the point of sale. Users "beam" their financial information to make a payment and receive a digital receipt. Harex InfoTech expects to take this technology commercial this year. Broad commercial implementation of Version 1.0 of the IrFM standard is expected in the first half of 2002.
IR meets Bluetooth
Ironically, Bluetooth could be a blessing in disguise for IR. "There's a critical need for IrDA connectivity solutions that enable applications in environments where other technologies, such as radio frequency, may have restricted or limited access," notes Brown. "Solutions enabling travel mobility are yet another example of infrared and RF technologies complementing each other." (IrDA members were well represented among the more than 400 attendees at the first meeting of the newly formed Wireless Airport Association held in California in January.)
The IR community is also working to harmonize its applications with other standards organizations using IR technology, including Bluetooth and SyncML. Recent tests at Brigham Young University, for example, indicate that while it takes 10 to 12 seconds to open an application via Bluetooth, the same task requires only a few seconds using an IR link. Six field trials of similar applications have been scheduled over the summer.
New products, new vitality
Another indication that IR is experiencing a new vitality is the introduction of new transceiver designs with a heavy emphasis on miniaturization. Zilog has begun sampling its new ZHX1810 IR transceiver developed mainly for PDAs. At a height of 2.75 mm, it's expected to replace the company's 4-mm-high 1010 part. Zilog also plans to introduce the VHX1200, a 2.2-mm device, in the third quarter.
Agilent also recently announced a new, smaller serial IR transceiver for new-generation PDAs. The Agilent HSDL-3000 is 2.7 mm high by 9.1 mm wide by 3.65 mm deep. Another Agilent IR transceiver, the HSDL-3210, is only 2.5 mm high, and operates at 9.6 kbits/s to 1.152 Mbits/s (the medium IR standard), targeting cell phones, digital cameras, and PDAs.
Extended Systems has released a new IR software development kit for handheld devices, XTNDAccess IrDA SDK 3.0. Formerly known as JetBeam 2.1, the stack has been updated to include a multi-transport Object Exchange (OBEX) module that's compatible with both IrDA 1.0 and Bluetooth 1.1. The kit is designed for manufacturers to implement IR communications in embedded devices such as cell phones, PDAs, digital cameras, and portable office equipment.
Also, Clarinet Systems has unveiled a product for beaming as many as 100 pages of text to Palm OS-based handhelds. Called InfoPort, it consists of a user programmable hub, an IR transceiver, power supply, the software utility, and a Palm-based software tracking program. Developers can create Palm-readable .prc files that users can receive by pointing their Palm devices at kiosks and other public terminals.
Portable Design July, 2001
Digital rights company snags patent
By Gwendolyn Mariano
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
July 27, 2001, 2:00 p.m. PT
Digital rights management company ContentGuard said Friday it has received a patent for a "digital ticket," which lets copyright holders distribute and track people's access to digital goods such as music, video, e-books and images.
Bethesda, Md.-based ContentGuard, which is backed by Xerox and Microsoft, said the digital ticket is similar to the way a ticket in the physical world allows people to gain access to a concert or a baseball game. With a digital ticket, people can view an e-book or listen to music for a specific number of times without being locked down to a single device.
ContentGuard said the digital ticket is a set of tamper-resistant codes that are put in a computer or embedded onto cell phone chips or plastic cards similar to credit cards. The code validates whether a person has certain rights to access specific digital content.
The patent comes as companies scramble to lay claim to a technology that people believe is crucial to the distribution of digital services such as online music-subscription services. Digimarc, which specializes in the authentication of digital or analog documents, this week received its 25th patent, which covers techniques for embedding digital watermarks into video and audio content.
Meanwhile, InterTrust Technologies and Microsoft are embroiled in a legal dispute over anti-piracy technology. Last month, InterTrust received a new patent for a method of transferring digital content that the company will use in its lawsuit against Microsoft.
Aram Sinnreich, an analyst with Jupiter Research, said there are many nuances in protecting and transferring content on the Web. ContentGuard's digital ticket, he said, is simply one of them.
"There's nothing kind of mind-blowing or shockingly original about the ContentGuard strategy," Sinnreich said. "It's just that it differs enough from other players' strategies to warrant its own patent."
Launched last year as a spinoff of Xerox, ContentGuard has been aiming to take a foothold in the digital rights management arena. Microsoft has already licensed ContentGuard's technology and has used some of it in the software giant's e-book technology. ContentGuard's technology is also expected to enhance future releases of Microsoft's Windows Media Player.
Michael Miron, chief executive of ContentGuard, said the company plans to license its patent to other interested parties. He said one way the digital ticket differs from other DRM technologies is that it does not restrict people to a particular system, but rather provides interoperability between devices.
"It enhances flexibility by extending it to the offline world and allowing you to take the rights with you, which allows for greater interoperability," Miron said.
Sinnreich said the structure of the media supply chain down the road is "up in the air right now," and it remains to be seen what the final system for delivering information will be.
"There are dozens or hundreds of companies out there that have intellectual property that may or may not be necessary for enabling online music businesses in the long run," he said. "It's kind of like having a lottery ticket--there's a chance that if the courts support your patent claim and your way of doing things becomes the norm, then your company will wind up having a steady source of revenue from intellectual property."
OT IBM lab simulates home of the future
By The Associated Press
Special to CNET News.com
July 27, 2001, 11:05 a.m. PT
Refrigerators that offer spoiled-milk alerts. Porch lights that home owners can turn off when they're away on vacation. Bathroom counters that announce whether it's safe to mix two medications.
Such a future is now on display at an IBM lab in Austin, Texas, where researchers are testing new technology in a fully furnished living room, kitchen and garage.
In the kitchen, a screen on the refrigerator door tells what's inside. Digital stoves and microwaves cook automatically, following recipes downloaded from the Internet. In the living room, a miniature, mobile wireless touch-screen replaces remote controls.
Servers are built into the decor, allowing wireless devices, appliances, thermostats, security systems and computers to communicate with one another from anywhere.
Parents can monitor the babysitter via a secure Internet site. The thermostat can be linked to a weather Web site, firing up the furnace if the forecast calls for snow. And the digital peek into the fridge--that too, could be done away from home.
"Everything, absolutely everything is connected," Bill Bodin, an IBM researcher, said as he showed off the lab Thursday.
Other tech giants, such as Hewlett-Packard, have created similar labs.
For now, IBM's "smart house" is home to constantly evolving ideas. But as IBM's Michael Rhodin tells it, the technology being developed and tested at the Austin lab is the next big thing.
It may be only two years away.
"It's almost a threshold of where the computer is going to change completely," said Rhodin, vice president of the Pervasive Computing Division's development department. "People need to feel connected 24 hours a day."
That means the next era of home computing will be to integrate computing in the home, "making technology real for people," Rhodin said.
IBM, based in Armonk, N.Y., wants to create a stable infrastructure and to simplify wireless technology. "That's the kind of stuff that IBM is known for," Rhodin said.
The payoff could be huge. Like many other computer companies, IBM has seen its PC sales decline. Meanwhile, Rhodin said, wireless and network technology has endless consumer possibilities. Just this week, a Coke machine complete with both Internet access and a movie-ticket dispenser was shipped out of the lab.
But constant connection also raises questions, Rhodin acknowledged. "There are going to be a lot of interesting debates over the issue of privacy."
Privacy is something businesses, consumers and government should carefully discuss, said Philip Doty, an associate professor at the University of Texas who studies technology and privacy.
"This kind of scrutiny of an individual or a family might be extremely oppressive," he said.
For example, businesses could use data to customize advertising or offer discounts if consumers agree to allow personal information to be accessed by companies, Doty said. "That tends to commoditize privacy."
Ready for some new music? Each Monday, Epic Records will
broadcast—exclusively in QuickTime(what
codec does Quicktime use????)—a brand new, full-length track from one of the label’s hottest artists.
Epic kicks off New Music Mondays on July 30 with Jennifer Lopez, featuring her smoking hot new video, “I’m
Real.”
Following JLo on August 6 is Bliss 66, the hard-driving new rock sextet from Detroit, including an audio
selection from their debut album, “Trip To The 13th.”
So tune in and rock out each week to the latest from Epic Records, starting this Monday.
New Music Mondays begin July 30
ContentGuard Granted Patent for Digital Media Tracking
Digital rights management tech company
ContentGuard said today it was granted a U.S.
patent (6,236,971) covering technology to track
access to, and distribute, electronic content
including music, video and images. The patent
covers code ContentGuard developed that,
when embedded in a computer or a credit
card-like pass validates whether a user has
certain rights to access digital content.
ContentGuard was spun off from Xerox in April
2000; its backers include Microsoft. The
company's patent portfolio covers digital rights
management (DRM) applications based on
research originally developed by Xerox. Microsoft
and InterTrust Technologies develop DRM
technologies; InterTrust this week added a fourth
patent to its infringement lawsuit against
Microsoft.
Last is j11 post from RB lest there be any confusion.oems
j11, I am an equal opportunity information provider.
"From: Jessica-ATLMultimedia [atljess@ms31.hinet.net]
To: xxxxxxxxx
CC:
Subject: Re: Harddrive Music JBs in the U.S.
Hi Jim,
1. Usually, we do not send 100 pilot run units to end users, it is for our engineering final reviewing & key brand
customers approval.
2. In late Aug or early Sept, you can find it also in circuit city.
Regards,"
ORIGINAL MESSAGE
"Original Message -----
From: xxxxxxx,xxx
To: 'Jessica-ATLMultimedia'
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 9:44 PM
Subject: RE: Harddrive Music JBs in the U.S.
Jessica --
Thank you so much for the response! I have some follow-up questions if you do not mind:
1. When you state "100 sets", do you mean 100 individual units? I guess I am trying to determine if I can buy
one when it comes out, or will supply be short. I know of many people in my area (XX) that want to buy one.
2. When will distributions be sent to Fry's Electronics and BestBuy? Secondly, is CircuitCity still expected to get
some shipments as well?
Thanks again!"
OT: Now imagine this integrated into a handheld with a video camera. Forget aliases, you're gonna need plastic surgery.
Viisage Technology to Provide Face Recognition Booking System to Pinellas County; System Will Be Used by Sheriff's Office for Inmate Booking and to Aid Investigations
LITTLETON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 27, 2001--Viisage Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: VISG), the leader in face-recognition technology and identification systems and solutions that improve security and conveniently protect personal privacy, announced today that it has been awarded a $2.7 million contract to provide the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office with face-recognition technology to aid investigations as well as providing an inmate booking system integrated with face-recognition technology. Working with the Sheriff's Department, Viisage will also be responsible for providing equipment for the project, valued at an additional $400,000. The project will include the design, development and implementation of a state-of-the-art scalable face recognition image capture system to meet the operational needs of law enforcement agencies throughout Pinellas County as well as additional law enforcement agencies in the State of Florida. The system will provide additional tools to assist law enforcement in the positive identification of criminal suspects and assist the Sheriff's Office corrections staff with inmate identification at the time of booking and at the time of release.
Pinellas County Sheriff, Everett Rice, said, "The Pinellas Sheriff's Office has a reputation for effective law enforcement and for its leadership in deploying innovative and state-of-the-art technologies. After evaluating a number of alternatives, we concluded that Viisage has the unique technology and the capability that best meets our needs in the corrections setting and as a tool in criminal investigations."
Tom Colatosti, Viisage president and CEO, said, "We are privileged to have been selected by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office for their next generation technology needs. We are impressed with the Pinellas Sheriff's history of technological innovation to improve the quality of law enforcement services in Pinellas County. We are confident that together we will develop and implement a law enforcement system which will become the standard that agencies across the country will want to emulate."
Viisage Technology is the world leader in biometric face-recognition technology and identification systems and solutions that enhance consumer convenience, improve security and protect personal privacy. Originally developed at MIT, Viisage's patented, accurate, non-intrusive and cost-effective face-recognition technology is widely acknowledged for its unmatched performance including speed in real-time applications, scalability for managing large image databases, and systems integration for complete customer solutions.
Viisage provides a full family of face recognition products. FaceEXPLORER(TM) is a powerful and scalable image retrieval and analysis database product, used to combat identity fraud - it is implemented in the world's largest face recognition system with more than 8 million enrolled images. FaceFINDER(TM), acclaimed for its processing speed, is the industry's most widely implemented surveillance and identification system - it is installed in more than 80 casinos worldwide and has been deployed to improve security at premier sporting events. FaceNET(TM) provides secure authentication for PC, Internet and e-commerce connections. FacePIN(TM) offers consumers convenient and private verification for point-of-sale transactions such as ATMs. FacePASS(TM) is a practical security solution for keyless entry to secure facilities, such as offices, dormitories and government facilities. FaceTOOLS(TM) is a leadership Software Developers Kit that enables application providers the ability to develop and customize unique customer and market applications.
Additionally, Viisage's systems annually deliver, through 1,500 U.S. systems in 1,200 locations in 15 states, more than 25 million high-quality and high-security digital-identification documents for government agencies responsible for issuing drivers' licenses, social services cards and law enforcement credentials.
This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements in this document and those made from time to time by the Company through its senior management are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements concerning future plans or results are necessarily only estimates and actual results could differ materially from expectations. Certain factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, among other things, potential fluctuations in quarterly results, the size and timing of award and performance on contracts, dependence on large contracts and a limited number of customers, lengthy sales and implementation cycles, changes in management estimates incident to accounting for contracts, availability and cost of key components, market acceptance of new or enhanced products and services, proprietary technology and changing competitive conditions, system performance, management of growth, dependence on key personnel, ability to obtain project financing, general economic and political conditions and other factors affecting spending by customers and other risks, uncertainties and factors including those described from time to time in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including without limitation, the company's Form 10K for the year ending December 31, 2000 and its quarterly reports on Form 10Q.
--30--muj/ny*
CONTACT: Porter, LeVay & Rose, Inc.
Elisa Keys, Sr. VP-Media Relations
Linda Decker, VP-Investor Relations
L.B. Stauffer, Sr. VP-Editorial
212/564-4700
or
Viisage Technology
Tom Colatosti, President and CEO
978/952-2211
Sony in dismal Q1 profit slide
TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp, the world's largest audio-visual electronics maker, on Thursday reported a more than 90 percent slide in first quarter earnings, hit by disappointing performances in its electronics and telecommunications divisions.
Sony also cut its earnings forecasts for the year ahead, unnerving analysts who see the blue-chip giant as a benchmark for the industry and say the slowing global economy could be inflicting a harsher toll on the sector than many expected.
Group operating profit tumbled to 3.00 billion yen ($24.27 million) in the April to June quarter -- far below analysts expectations of between 26 billion and 37 billion yen and compared to 30.59 billion yen a year ago.
Sales rose 4.4 percent year-on-year to 1.64 trillion yen.
``The figures were beyond our imagination,'' said Yukihiko Shimada, analyst at Credit Lyonnais. ``This is a negative surprise.
Sony's share price skidded on the Instinet electronic broker system in London after the announcement, losing five percent to 6,730 yen from a 7,070 yen close earlier in the day.
``We didn't think the results would be as bad as this,'' said Masami Fujino, analyst at Nikko Salomon. ``The info-tech slump lingering on the Japanese high-tech sector looks much worse than we had imagined.''
Fujino said he expected Sony's stock to take a hit following its fourth straight year of falls in y recalls of cellular phone handsets, worsening electronics products sales, slow videogame machine sales,'' said Shimada at Credit Lyonnais.
But the videogame division, which saw an 18 billion yen loss a year earlier due to development and marketing costs flowing from the rollout of Sony's blockbuster PlayStation 2 console, saw its losses shrink to 3.13 billion yen.
``The cost to make PlayStation 2 hardware is coming down. We're on track with our April projections,'' Sony chief operating officer Tokunaka said.
PHONE RECALL IMPACT
Also undermining Sony's earnings were a string of recalls for its three cellphone models in the last three months.
The latest recall came in July when Japan's number two telecoms carrier, KDDI Corp, said it would recall 560,000 Sony handsets to fix faulty battery packs.
That came on the heels of recalls in May due to software glitches of two other Sony models, including 126,000 phones made for KDDI and 420,000 for NTT DoCoMo Inc
The dismal figures surprised analysts, who had expected the charges from phone recalls and cooling demand for its products to only moderately cut into first quarter operating profit.
Tokunaka said to boost profitability, the company would slash procurement costs and capital investments, aming for positive cash flow. ``Although we're in severe business conditions, we would like to ride out the difficulties by cutting inventories and capital investments,'' he said.
On Thursday, shares in Sony ended down 0.7 percent at 7,070 yen, while the benchmark Nikkei lost 0.28 percent, but analysts said the stock could be in for a further slide.
``I had thought Sony shares had fallen to a relatively good valuation level,'' said Fujino. ``But a further slide is likely following the release of such figures.''
Message boards get bad rap
By Thomas Kostigen, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 1:00 AM ET July 24, 2001
LOS ANGELES (CBS.MW) -- Traditional information outlets love to knock the content bantered about on Web site message boards, dismissing it as gossip, hearsay, rumor, and innuendo.
To be sure, there is truth to the matter, where facts can go unchecked; ramblers can ramble on and on and on....
But message boards often provide valuable insight and hold pearls of wisdom not found in a news story, or in an analyst's report.
Take Microsoft, for example. A message board posting recently revealed a glitch in the software company's Windows XP program. This led the company to take measures to fix the problem, and opened investors eyes to the fact that there are problems with the program Microsoft is most banking on to generate new sales.
On the flip side, the message board posting was pointing out the glitch, not in earnest, but in a charioting fashion so others could take advantage of a free download.
Such is the double-edged sword of message board postings: they can be helpful or harmful.
Astute investors should have no trouble accentuating the positive and delineating the negative.
Clay Womack, a money manager and founder of Direct Capital Markets, an online investment services firm for accredited investors, says, "Investors should use these message boards in conjunction with basic research about a company. Research can tell you what the numbers say might happen, and message boards can help you get a sense of what the market thinks will happen."
To eliminate the negative, Womack advises, "investors who frequent message boards should use them as a starting point for their due diligence, not a decision point for whether or not to do a trade or make an investment in or out of a subject company stock. There is no substitute for mathematical and factual analysis."
Womack isn't alone in his fondness for message boards. Numerous investment professionals utilize the services that message boards offer.
Investec Asset Management, which manages the Wireless World Fund, has even formalized the process. After launching a message board system for its shareholders, the firm got so many good ideas it encourages postings.
"The fund managers have found the dialogue helpful in broadening their universe of wireless companies," Investec says. "We want to encourage this discourse."
Make no mistake, some investors will choose to abuse message boards for their own rewards. Plenty of cases prove that. Even a 16-year-old kid recently was indicted on charges of writing positive commentary on stocks and then dumping his positions when shares of the companies he wrote about rose in price. He told 60 Minutes he made about a million bucks doing that.
Lesson: Don't buy according to 16-year-old kids' commentary. Of course it's not so easy to cipher who is who in cyber-land. But it's easy enough to verify investment information.
Buying strictly on information derived from a message board begs foolishness.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is currently reviewing hundreds of cases of investment abuse, citing, most frequently, the use of Internet chat rooms and message boards. The SEC claims "fraud" in these cases. In simple terms, the SEC says investors should assume any information received via the Internet is false unless it can be verified elsewhere.
That may be a step too far. Not all information gleaned from the Internet is false. Most of it is actually quite sophisticated.
Although one would hardly use the term "sophisticated" to describe the banter between Yahoo's band of maniacal posters.
While no other site even comes close with regards to traffic, the constant pumping, bashing and flaming is probably the primary reason these kinds of cyber-exchanges get a bad rap.
On some of the more civil boards across the virtual landscape, like The Motley Fool and Silicon Investor, ridiculous assertions and personal attacks aren't tolerated, making for a bounty of quality discussion.
Strict monitoring and hand's on attention from administrators foster this kind of environment, the effects of which can be seen right on this very site.
The message boards on CBS MarketWatch are home to a stable of worthwhile contributors - for instance, this post on Amazon's earnings and the future of JDS Uniphase.
"What 2002 P/E multiple is warranted for a slow growth, low margin retailer? Answer: maybe one times the company's 3-5 year growth rate, if I'm feeling generous. AMZN's growth rate is perhaps, at best, 20 percent. That's almost assuredly high, since Bezos is suddenly not providing guidance on future growth and AMZN only grew slightly greater than that in the Q1 of 2000.
"But give AMZN the benefit of the doubt. 20x it is. Therefore, to justify today's stock price, AMZN should earn nearly 80 cents per share next year AFTER interest expense. AMZN is not even close."
That's not bad insight from Westy73 ... whether it's accurate or not remains to be seen.
Such is the function of message boards - ideas and insights, not facts and figures. People can learn a lot by distinguishing between the two.
Interesting find Packers, thanks.eom
greatturtle, PAC which is essentially the same as ePAC lives on at ibiquity.com and is coming to a radio near you in Sept.
iBiquity Digital (www.ibiquity.com) is a leading technology innovator working to develop and commercialize digital radio and audio compression technology solutions. Its AM and FM digital broadcast technology, iDAB™, will transform the terrestrial radio industry from being providers of audio-only analog to being providers of high quality digital audio and wireless data services. PAC™ is a highly customizable audio compression technology currently being incorporated into wireless solutions, such as XM Satellite Radio's service. iBiquity Digital was formed from the merger of Lucent Digital Radio and USA Digital Radio. The company is privately held with operations in Columbia, MD, Warren, NJ, and Detroit MI.
It's all in the cards
By Keri Allan & Chris Edwards
Electronics Times
(23/07/01 11:09 AM GMT)
After several years of shortage that saw companies sign up
supply agreements to guarantee deliveries, the Nor flash
business has gone into decline. The Nikkei Market Access survey
has revealed that the market will have declined by 2% to 456
million units in Q2 this year compared with the previous quarter.
Nikkei reckons the decline is only temporary and has been
caused by the inventory that built up at cellphone manufacturers
at the start of this year. Nikkei has predicted that demand will
start to surge ahead for the rest of the year to more than 550
million devices in Q4.
But International Data Corporation (IDC) reckons the real growth
in the next few years will be in Nor's competitor, the Nand flash
device. Driven by demand for digital audio players and cameras,
IDC claims the flash memory card market will see a compound
annual growth rate of almost 50%, from $717m in 1999 to
$5.3bn in 2004. Most flash memory cards currently in use are
based on Nand rather than Nor flash.
Xavier Pucel, manager of IDC's semiconductor research programme, said: "Users needing a way to
store, archive, transport and easily transfer content from the Web will drive flash card volume, which
in turn will reduce costs."
Doug Kellam, vice-president of marketing for card and card reader supplier Lexar Media, said: "More
and more consumer, business and industrial devices are beginning to use flash memory for digital
cellphones, digital cameras, personal digital assistants, lan switches, PC cards, set-top boxes,
embedded controllers and other devices. Sales of these devices may slow over the coming months
but we anticipate a healthy, regulated rise in flash for the market."
Card formats
The issue is: which type of card? There are three main formats currently in use with more on the way
as the Internet audio market develops. Until a few years ago, the main battle was between
CompactFlash, developed by SanDisk, and Toshiba's SmartMedia. Sony then joined in, using its
position in the consumer electronics market to push the chewing gum-sized Memory Stick.
NPD Intelect Market Tracking grabbed the largest
market share in the digital still camera business and
now reckons that Memory Stick's share has climbed
from 5% in 1999 to just under 30% by the end of
2000. John Reimer, president and CEO of Lexar
Media, said: "The Memory Stick format has shown
impressive growth."
Sony has tried to promote Memory Stick as a
standard, signing up some 120 companies in the
electronics, telecoms and automotive industries.
Compared with CompactFlash, the stick's capacity is
limited. Currently it can take 64Mbyte of memory but
128Mbyte sticks are now appearing on the market,
putting it into the same bracket as SmartMedia.
CompactFlash cards are larger and currently range in
capacity up to 512Mbyte.
But CompactFlash has itself been splintered into
smaller variants such as the MultiMediaCard (MMC)
and the Secure Digital (SD) card. MMC appeared first
but the SD card has picked up backing from 225
vendors that intend to build support for it into digital
audio players, organisers and camcorders. Sandisk
has said that it intends to go into production with a
128Mbyte SD card by the end of September, having started production in conjunction with Toshiba
of a 512Mbit Nand flash device.
Connie Wong, director of special services at Semico Research, said: "The availability of higher
capacity cards makes them much more feasible for applications such as digital video camcorders,
which require considerable storage."
SD cards adds support for the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) rights protection system. It is not
the only way in which these cards are getting additional functions. Hitachi is working with Infineon
Technologies on a variant of MMC intended for mobile phones that will contain the subscriber
identity information normally contained on a separate smartcard chip.
The WIM-MMC sees the SIM chip combined
with secure flash memory storage so that it
can hold larger amounts of personal data. And
it is not the only way that Nand flash is moving
into the mobile phone. Helmut Schock, senior
manager for memories at Toshiba Electronics
Europe, says the move towards multichip
packages for the memory in mobiles is carving
a path for Nand that could supplant at least
some of the Nor capacity.
"The cost for Nand flash is about 50¢/Mbyte
and that is under hard pressure at the
moment," said Schock. That compares with
$2/Mbyte for Nor: "We see a trend for cost
reasons for moving towards Nand flash."
In the past, Nand's main problem in
supplanting Nor as non-volatile system
memory is that Nand memory has to be accessed in blocks. Nor supports random accesses so that
it can be used by a processor for code storage.
Toshiba has developed a three-chip stack that combines both Nor and Nand flash chips with an
SRAM die. Schock says one customer design, for a third-generation handset, is underway with the
device that has a total of 224Mbit of memory, more than half of it in the form of Nand flash:
"[Manufacturers] will use more and more Nand flash with smaller Nor for cost reasons."
The idea behind combining Nor with Nand is to put the critical OS code into the Nor flash and then
use Nand for applications code and data that can be paged into the SRAM. The company has
opted for pseudo-SRAM to boost the amount of storage needed to handle that approach up to
32Mbit.
Schock says the biggest issue with the multichip packages will be predicting which capacity
combinations will be used by phone manufacturers.
To get capacities up to 1Gbit, Nand flash manufacturers are using a technique originally used by
Intel in its Nor-based Strataflash product line. By varying the programming time, it is possible to store
different amounts of charge in the floating gate of a flash memory cell. Intel used this to store four
discrete states, allowing 2bit to be stored per cell.
Hitachi, which developed the And technology
as a competitor to Nand, is developing a 1Gbit
memory using a similar multi-level cell (MLC)
technology, again storing 2bit/cell. Toshiba
intends to use MLC in both its Nor and Nand
products with a 1Gbit device expected by the
end of the year.
Although it is possible to store more states,
there is a trade-off in the sense amplifier part of
the memory that tries to work out the stored
value. The more bits stored, the longer it takes
to get a reliable reading. Because of this, says
Schock, eight-level cells are possible but the
technology is unlikely to go much further.
So, for further improvements in density, the
memory manufacturers will continue to rely on
die shrinks. With 4Gbit on the way in 2004,
Net music in a post-Napster world
By Jim Hu
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
July 23, 2001, 3:20 p.m. PT
video NEW YORK--With Napster and other online threats to major record labels on the ropes, the task of challenging the status quo at a major Net music gathering here fell to one of the industry's biggest profit generators: singer Alanis Morissette.
In an incendiary keynote speech at the Jupiter Media Metrix annual Plug-In music conference Monday, the platinum-selling pop star highlighted the shattered promise of the online music revolution, blaming everyone from major record label executives to radio stations and music publishers for their role in stifling the Internet's ability to promote unknown musicians.
"The development of the Internet was an option for these artists," Morissette said. "We are now seeing the Internet turned into a bottleneck for creativity."
Morissette's remarks underscore how suddenly the tables have turned on start-ups out to challenge entrenched media interests with file sharing. A year ago, the question was not so much whether the labels would shut down Napster, but whether Napster might somehow shut down the labels.
Napster has since been neutered by a court order forcing it to filter most of the songs from its network. But its influence is still palpable as the labels turn to the hard task of developing commercial uses for technology that has so far been used primarily as a way for consumers to get music for free.
Even as the labels begin to move online with planned music subscription services, Net music companies say economics such as licensing terms remain a major sticking point in challenging underground file swapping with authorized commercial services.
"The real issue is around price," said Gerry Kearby, chief executive of Liquid Audio, which has launched its own music subscription service. "Can we make a system that gives you the same satisfaction of Napster at a price that will not be a barrier of entry to anyone? That's hard."
Protecting your digital music
David Goodman, CEO, LockStream
For now, the major record labels have divided into two online subscription camps. RealNetworks, BMG Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Recorded Music have formed MusicNet, which will allow sites to resell subscriptions. Sony and Vivendi Universal Group have created Pressplay and will use MP3.com to create its technology backbone. Vivendi Universal is acquiring MP3.com.
Both of these ventures are still in the works and are expected to launch by the end of the summer.
The labels are also seeking to license their songs to third parties, although price remains an issue. EMI's new media Vice President Ted Cohen said during a panel that the company has an economic model to charge people for downloading or streaming songs from its catalog. The presentation came after EMI last week licensed its catalog to online music reseller FullAudio. Licensing terms were not disclosed.
Has anything really changed?
While the pending launch of Pressplay and MusicNet are being closely watched as a major step forward by major labels on the online music front, there are still many issues that need to be worked out.
The biggest issue is the depth of song selection that Pressplay and MusicNet will offer. The services still need to figure out complex arrangements to share revenues with a variety of parties, including artists who own their works and music publishers.
The record label is also struggling to deal with the legacy of Napster. While the labels have won significant victories so far in court that have defanged their most potent online enemy to date, they have yet to escape Napster's sway.
Despite their legal actions, the recording industry has taken cues from Napster's success to try to replicate its service. Other online companies have jumped on the demand for creating music subscriptions. And most importantly, consumers have woken up to online music's potential.
"Consumers were educated via Napster about digital music and consuming digital products," said Dannielle Romano, an associate analyst at Jupiter.
Nevertheless, participants have pointed out that free music and file sharing remain mercurial and will not go away with the limiting of Napster. Disabling Napster has pushed people to use other free music download services such as Gnutella or Morpheus.
The threat from free services still remains. It will be up to the labels to offer people something better than getting free downloads.
"It's not just a matter of providing it legally and charging people for it and hoping people sign up," said David Goldberg, chief executive of Launch Media. "You've got to actually know that people have alternatives, and that alternative is free and pretty darn easy."