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Sotto Voce - Part One
As is my usual practice, while everyone is focused on the arrival of the e.digital designed jukeboxes, and they will arrive have no fear, my thoughts have turned again to the elusive subject of e.digital's involvement in voice recognition.
danl- so happens that once again while waiting for the music to arrive, and it will, i have been ruminating sotto voce on the VTT stuff: thought you might find this interesting from the batman himself:
One of the more important products in IBM's broader voice-recognition strategy is Embedded ViaVoice, Multiplatform Edition. The software-development toolkit, which supports Java standards, is the backbone of a plan to get embedded voice-recognition technology into as many handhelds, cell phones and other wireless devices as possible.
Osborne predicts that this kind of product could be a boon for companies developing Web devices for cars, as in the partnership between IBM and Motorola.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
IBM overhauls voice-recognition strategy
By Joe Wilcox
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
June 21, 2000, 9:01 p.m. PT
IBM tomorrow will completely revamp its voice-recognition technology strategy, focusing more on delivering core technologies than on individual products.
The shift recognizes that computing is increasingly moving to smaller devices, such as handheld computers, cell phones and wearable PCs, that demand voice-recognition capabilities. IBM is also betting there will be big demand for voice-recognition server software essential for other devices, such as set-top boxes and in-vehicle Web appliances.
Although IBM has a head start on competitors and a good vision for enabling voice-recognition technology in new places, analysts warn the company still has a long way to go.
Big Blue's latest effort "points to future successes in this space," Technology Business Research analyst Bob Sutherland said. "I don't know how many clients will adopt it at this point, but it will be interesting to see."
Until 1997, IBM focused more on the shrink-wrap ViaVoice product as it tried to create more interest in speech recognition.
"The last few years we have been driving it toward the enterprise as a technology," said W.S. "Ozzie" Osborne, general manager of IBM Voice Systems. "What we're trying to do is build an end-to-end distributed platform and tools for people to create speech applications."
In the same way that Microsoft worked to get software developers to standardize its tools for writing new applications, IBM is positioning its "tools and technology as a framework for others to use, whether (through) telephony or any other way of doing it," Osborne said.
Sutherland praised the strategy, even if many solutions are a ways from reaching the market.
"A large task"
"IBM is more focused on incorporating voice recognition through the enterprise, whether it's going to be in (your) car or your desktop or your palmtop," he said. "IBM is taking on a large task. They have the capabilities to do it, and some of their competitors don't."
As part of the strategy shift, Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM is introducing seven new products, all positioned for other companies to enable speech recognition in their products.
While IBM is trying to make a big splash with the new products, many won't be ready until September or October--and some potentially later.
Planned for autumn release is WebSphere Voice Server with ViaVoice Technology, a suite of tools for helping call centers better use the Web. The product supports VoiceXML and other emerging technologies, such as Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). The Voice Server software, initially available for Windows NT, will start around $15,000.
Supporting its continued thrust into Linux, IBM later this month will begin selling ViaVoice Dictation for Linux, which will sell for about $60 retail.
One of the more important products in IBM's broader voice-recognition strategy is Embedded ViaVoice, Multiplatform Edition. The software-development toolkit, which supports Java standards, is the backbone of a plan to get embedded voice-recognition technology into as many handhelds, cell phones and other wireless devices as possible.
Osborne predicts that this kind of product could be a boon for companies developing Web devices for cars, as in the partnership between IBM and Motorola.
But he admits that for now, drivers will have to keep reaching for the dial to tune in to their favorite radio stations instead of using voice commands.
No guarantees
"Depending on the device, it could be 12 to 18 months before you see a product. Particularly in the automotive industry, the product cycles tend to be long," Osborne said.
"But the after-market sales for automotive are much shorter, so it depends on where you are and what you're looking for."
Another product more immediately available will be CallPath Enterprise Foundation 6.3, a call center application that, when integrated with some Siebel Systems applications, integrates incoming telephone calls and Web transactions.
The final three products to be unveiled tomorrow are versions of DirectTalk: Speech Recognition and Text-to-Speech for AIX, and Beans for Java.
Despite its impressive tool set, there is no guarantee IBM can make its speech-recognition technology and tools the standard that everyone uses, Sutherland said.
But in a market expected to reach $30 billion by 2006, that may not matter, Osborne said.
"If you think of voice where the Internet was in 1994, you can see the kind of infrastructure IBM can assemble to take advantage of this explosion," he said.
some info on 2 DataPlay oems--
Ritek and CMC taking different roads to capacity expansion
[Friday 6 July 2001]
As the global demand for CD-R discs begins to rise, Taiwan-based Ritek and CMC Magnetics, two leading CD-R disc manufacturers, have started to expand their production capacity to meet future needs. The overall market scale is expected to increase from 4.5 billion units estimated in early 2001 to the current 5.2 billion. Although these two major players both decided to increase capacity another 30-40 million CD-R discs this year, they have chosen different sites for their expansion, indicating their individual strategies in their development roadmaps.
Considering the company’s global development and wanting to avoid potential problems with the anti-dumping laws of the European Union (EU), Ritek chose its plants in the US, Australia, the UK and Germany as the bases for capacity expansion. It also plans to go to China, but due to related regulations, the project will have to wait for approval from both Taiwan and China’s governments before it can really be put into practice.
The other optical storage media maker, CMC, decided to establish more production lines in its Taiwanese factories, and it will consider increasing the number of production lines in its Mexico plant depending on market demand. When asked about whether the company plans to establish a production base in China, CMC said that moving its CD-R disc operation to China would not necessarily let the company enjoy a great cost advantage, since CD-R disc production is already highly automated. However, the company will consider the possibility as a move for early positioning in the China market.
gary- thanks for info, makes a lot of sense to me
Eastech pilot run--
By: redwing99 $$$$
Reply To: 716904 by holdon $$$$ Thursday, 5 Jul 2001 at 11:46 PM EDT
Post # of 716983
Holdon - pilot run in an email response I received tonight from Eastech....not sure what a pilot run is, but if there are players out there, somewhere, at end of July (3 weeks), then even if not at stores, we will see reviews and may finally see who EDIG is working with-(CRQ- you should know what a pilot run is: maybe it is what they(pilots) do when you are in the tower-sorry, couldn't resist- I know-insecure about investment)
-We will not show our product in MP3 submit, however, we will join WECShow every year. Per our schedule, we will pilot run in late July and you may got the unit in late Aug.
Should you have any questions, pls feel free to contact me.
Best regards
Sophia Liu
ATLE-IA(ATLMultimedia)
Website: www.mp3ok.com
World PC EXPO
Show dates and times:
September 19-22, 2001 10:00 - 18:00
Location:
Makuhari Messe (Halls 1-8, Event Hall)
Exhibition area:
57,451 square meters (3,000 booths)
Anticipated number of attendees:
350,000
Anticipated number of exhibitors:
800
Organized by:
Nikkei Business Publications, Inc.
Planning:
WORLD PC EXPO 2001 Planning Committee
ET--audioramp
6/11/01 AudioRamp Shifts Strategies
IRVINE, CALIF. — About a year after it had originally planned to sell a pair of Internet audio devices for the home, AudioRamp announced a strategy change in which it will offer its products only on an OEM basis to other manufacturers, at least for now. The products, available now for OEM, are the iRad-S shelf system and the iRad-C, an audio-component-style device that plugs into an A/V system. Both devices stream music via the Internet from more than 5,000 Web sites through a free AudioRamp service. They also play back music stored on an internal 6GB hard drive. Stored music can be downloaded directly from a Web site or ripped from a CD. The shelf system features a single-disc CD drive, AM/FM tuner and built-in amplification. The component lacks these attributes. They are expected to retail for about $600 and $549, respectively.
epac through TI's DSP- they claim to have oems and were to be out by end of last year. i sent off an email to see if i could get any info.
Digital5 targets HDD-enabled digital-audio jukebox players
By Darrell Dunn
EBN
(07/20/00, 12:18:45 PM EST)
Digital5 Inc. has developed a chip that will make it possible to create hard-disk-drive (HDD)-based digital-audio jukebox players capable of holding 10 to 20 times more music than traditional portable MP3 players that use flash memory.
Digital5, Ewing, N.J., is working with three undisclosed HDD manufacturers that are expected to introduce jukeboxes using the technology as soon as late this year, said president Ron Stevens.
“There are a number of [HDD] manufacturers that are trying to make a major play to get into the consumer-appliance business,” Stevens said. “It's certainly in their best interests that [HDDs] proliferate into other places besides PCs.”
Digital5 was formed a year ago from the former Sycom Technologies Inc., which had been developing a consumer-level digital-audio appliance.
“We've evolved now into developing technology for OEMs in the digital-audio space,” Stevens said. “We have a number of top-end OEM customers now, and we should have revenue this year around $3 million or $4 million.”
Digital5's Maestro platform incorporates the company's application-specific software and firmware with Texas Instruments Inc.'s TMS320C54x. The device will allow OEMs to get a digital jukebox product into the market in as little as five months, Stevens said.
The Maestro platform supports all widely used digital-audio formats, including MP3, Windows Media Audio, AAC, ATRAC3, EPAC, and ACLEP.NET. Maestro can be easily adapted for use with a 2.5-in. HDD, he said.
HDD-enabled audio-jukebox systems will become increasingly popular as MP3 systems grow in sales, according to Will Strauss, an analyst at Forward Concepts Co., Tempe, Ariz. Users of MP3 players will want to have portable systems to store large downloads of music, he said.
“Even if only 10% of the portable players want jukeboxes, that would be about 3 million jukeboxes by 2004,” Strauss said. “People are burning literally hundreds of MP3 selections onto their hard drives, but no one wants to drag a PC out to listen to music. There needs to be a way to link it into a traditional stereo type of format.”
The portable Internet-audio market will grow from 750,000 units in 1979 to about 30 million units in 2004, a compound annual rate of more than 100%, according to Forward Concepts.
Applications for the jukebox technology can be “as innovative as someone wants it to be,” Stevens said, and the end platform will take numerous forms. “It could be in the form of a home stereo system, a handheld device, or even in an automobile,” he said.
The platform also has the ability to store and view digital photographs, and one of the first end applications for Digital5's Maestro offering will be for the guided-tour industry, where the system will store 20 languages and provide 20 hours of content with accompanying music.
The Maestro platform will sell for about $20, and the first jukebox systems are expected to retail for around $400.
Compaq's planned makeover won't be easy, analysts say
The Associated Press
HOUSTON (July 5, 2001 9:29 a.m. EDT) - Hurt by falling prices for personal computers, Compaq Computer Corp. is reshaping its huge global-services division to mimic IBM, the world's largest technology-services company.
Since the beginning of the year, Compaq has downplayed its PC business to focus more attention on selling powerful servers used to run Web sites and on technical services.
Chairman and chief executive Michael Capellas outlined a broad reorganization plan in a June memo. Capellas wants to bring Compaq Global Services and its 38,000 employees to the forefront in the company's work.
Compaq has earmarked $500 million to acquire smaller services firms and plans to go after clients in new industries such as retail, biotech and entertainment.
The recent moves are all designed to reduce the Houston-based company's reliance on PC sales and increase its revenue earned on services from 16 percent last year to about 33 percent.
Compaq's emphasis on services makes sense, analysts say. It means the company can offer customers more than just a server here and a few PCs there, but rather a wide range of tailored packages of hardware, software and services.
But the services push is risky, putting Compaq in head-to-head competition against IBM and other companies that have provided technology services for years.
"It's probably a good strategy, because with computer box makers, there will only continue to be diminished opportunities," said George Ball, chairman of Houston investment banking firm Sanders Morris Harris.
"But is it high risk? Yes. If they succeed, it will be a great move, but it will be absolutely crippling if they fail to execute."
The technical-services business has grown more complex in recent years, with customers looking to buy expertise, not just hardware.
"They want you to understand their business, to relate to what they're going through and help them make technology solve those problems," Ralph Lipizzi, vice president and general manager for Compaq Global Services in the south-central states, told the Houston Chronicle.
Compaq Global Services has had success selling to telecommunications and financial-services companies, officials said. Now Compaq wants to expand into retail, government, health care, biotech, entertainment and manufacturing.
Much of that expansion is planned to come through acquisitions. While Compaq wants to reduce its reliance on selling PCs, the technical-services business isn't immune to slowdowns either.
This week, IBM announced plans to cut 1,500 services workers after hiring as many as 10,000 workers in the first five months of the year.
Investors are taking a wait-and-see attitude on Compaq's makeover. "It's still a 'show-me' company," said Jim Cramer, a columnist and analyst for TheStreet.com. "I need to see something really good happen."
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more from ET's chairman:
Going forward, we will develop more new and exciting Internet-related products to cater to the growing market in this area. As testament to our commitment in developing and expanding our expertise in this area,we have entered into strategic
alliances with leading Internet audio/video streaming companies, such as Zapmedia, Audioramp and Arrio.
These tie-ups enable us to tap on their expertise, so as to develop and produce innovative products such as Internet radios and Internet audio-video players, to keep us plugged into the entertainment media of the future.
The Group expects competition in the home audio electronics industry to remain keen for the coming year. However, we are confident that the audio systems division will yield better results this year, as more significant contributions to both top and bottomlines are expected from the new market segments. New and innovative products, such as public announcement
systems, commercial audio systems for offices and restaurants, and portable MP3 players, introduced by the division have been
well received by customers.
Our heavy investments in R&D for Internet appliances were rewarded when the very first MP3 player developed by the Group bagged awards in two separate shows in the beginning of the year. Since then, we have gone on to develop numerous other models of portable MP3 players, including the ET350E, which is believed to be the world's first encodable MP3 player, as well as the ET700 MP3 Jukebox.
ET chairman to its shareholders re 2000
Texas Instruments: New direction and focus
by Patrick Meadows
July 05, 2001
From the August 2001 issue of UPSIDE magazine
What comes to mind when you think of Texas Instruments (TXN)? High-school math class, right?
Every math student had to have a Texas Instruments (TI) electronic calculator. Today, electronic calculators make up less than 3 percent of TI's business; that might surprise the average person on the street.
Not that TI's business ever depended exclusively on calculators. But a radical transformation has occurred at TI over the last 10 years. A decade ago, the company was diversified, but, today, it is focused.
Focus on technology
Ten years ago, TI was manufacturing many kinds of equipment; nowadays, it makes relatively little equipment. Rather, the company concentrates on selling the technology embedded in its semiconductors to a diverse group of manufacturers.
From cellular phones to digital motion-picture projectors, from MP3 players to digital audio recorders, TI's digital signal processing (DSP) and high performance analog chips are the brains behind many cutting-edge devices.
It may look like the demand for these kinds of devices is going to continue, but who knows?
When TI Chairman, President, and CEO Tom Engibous says that, 10 years ago, "TI bet the farm on DSP and high-performance analog," he's not exaggerating. On the other hand, as he says, "nothing ventured, nothing gained."
TI's Forest Lane campus in north Dallas, where I met with Engibous and others, is at the southern fringe of the so-called "Telecom Corridor. " This proximity reveals TI's hopes that the future hinges on the burgeoning wireless telecommunications and Internet industries.
The corporate office building is enormous, and, inside, it's a labyrinth. Some corridors are over 150 yards long. Without a guide, I would have gotten lost. A TI employee practically never has to leave this building, because almost every necessity is provided for onsite, from restaurants to credit unions and from assorted shops to medical services.
Large oil paintings of Texas bluebonnets and west Texas landscapes adorn the walls, and brass sculptures of cowboys taming wild horses sit on polished wooden tables next to plush armchairs and sofas. The office feels as roomy as the wide-open spaces that this state is known for.
TI's history
TI has gone through more than one transformation. Headquartered in Dallas, TI was founded in 1930 as a seismic-exploration company operating in the oil fields of eastern Texas. Its founders, Cecil Green, Eugene McDermott, and Erik Jonsson, also founded the original research center at the University of Texas at Dallas.
These men had a great impact on the region, as well as on TI. They had a vision that moved the company from seismic exploration proper to the development and manufacturing of seismic-exploration equipment. The apparatus that was initially used in seismic exploration was the reflective seismograph, which involved the same technologies used in sonar and radar.
This early seismic-exploration work got TI into the defense-electronics business during World War II. The firm's continued interest in this type of technology led TI into the components, or chip, business in the early 1950s, with a license from Bell Labs to manufacture transistors.
In the early 1950s, TI achieved the world's first successful commercial manufacturing of transistors. Jack S. Kilby, who recently won the Nobel Prize in physics, took the revolutionary leap from the transistor to the integrated circuit (IC), which he invented at TI in 1958. Now in his mid-70s, Kilby maintains an office in the Kilby R&D Center, and continues to be an inspiration to the technical and engineering personnel at TI.
"He has a very humble way of acknowledging that his invention really changed the world," says Bill Aylesworth, senior vice president, treasurer, and CFO at TI. "Jack once told me, 'The whole thing about a chip on a necktie that plays music at Christmastime -- I could probably do without that!'"
When Jerry Junkins became CEO in 1985, another period of change occurred: Junkins moved the company's focus to external markets. Throughout practically its entire company history, TI was dedicated to the technology it was developing and to its wealth of intellectual property. "At times, however, we were not as concerned as we might have been with taking that technology to the marketplace," Aylesworth says. Junkins accomplished an important transformation for TI: a balance between technology and market awareness.
When Junkins died of a heart attack in 1996, Engibous, who had been running the company's semiconductor business, replaced him as CEO.
Engibous seems to have continued, and even intensified, the changes that Junkins and other TI leaders initiated. Specifically, he has implemented a more focused business strategy for TI.
"The world changes. There was a time when the balance we had in the '60s and '70s -- all the way from businesses, from services, and back to components -- made good sense," Aylesworth says.
"In today's world, we feel that a focus on a particular area makes much more sense." Therefore, in mid-1996, TI accelerated its change from a diversified technology company to a communications-chip company.
Lasting principles
It is worth noting that TI's strong underpinnings in semiconductor technology have been preserved. While TI's business strategy has changed, the same underlying principles still provide important guidance for TI employees today.
In the last four and a half years, additional changes have taken place at TI. The company divested several business units and is now focusing on areas that it believes are important for TI's future and, indeed, the world's future: programmable digital signal processors and the related analog chips.
According to Aylesworth, TI didn't divest for its own sake. The company sold valuable business units to companies that focused exclusively on these areas. TI sold its defense-electronics business to Raytheon (RTN), a leader in defense. Selectron, a leader in custom-contract manufacturing, bought TI's custom-manufacturing board shop in Austin, Texas. And Micron Technology (MU), a leader in memory chips, bought TI's memory-chip business.
The divestitures were part of TI's strategy to be able to concentrate more on DSP and analog chips, which are the chips that TI firmly feels will enable the next decade or more of the Internet age, digital communications, and digital electronics.
"We now -- even in these very difficult near-term market conditions -- think we have the most attractive strategic position in the semiconductor industry. Our aggressive, or immodest, objective is really to become the world's most valuable semiconductor company over the next decade or so, because of the capabilities and strategies that we have," Aylesworth says.
Although many companies offer DSP, Aylesworth says that three other companies are major players in this sector: Agere Systems (AGR.A) (a Lucent Technologies spin-off (LU)), Motorola (MOT) and Analog Devices (ADI). According to Aylesworth, the four companies together have about 95 percent of the world's DSP market. On the other hand, there are a relatively large number of companies -- including STMicroelectronics (STM) and Analog Devices -- working in the area of analog.
And then, because the markets change so fast, a number of competitors offer TI's customers non-DSP solutions for the same applications. Broadcom (BRCM) and Intel (INTC) are notable examples. "These are very big, very capable competitors," Aylesworth says. "We take them very seriously."
An interesting historical note regarding the company's fiercest competition ever is that, in the mid-1980s, TI's biggest competitors were not American, but Asian: "Japan Inc." and, right behind it, "Korea Inc." (generic terms used, at the time, to refer to foreign competitors).
At that time, the U.S. semiconductor industry wondered how it could compete with these foreign firms.
The world has changed so much since then that TIers believe that the fastest-growing, most attractive areas of semiconductors are those that are differentiated and communications-oriented, and that the major semiconductor companies in Japan and Korea lack the capability to compete in these areas, at least for now. "They've come under severe issues of capital rationing," Aylesworth says, "whereas, in the '80s, it didn't seem that they would ever be subject to those restrictions. Now, the rules of economics apply to them, too."
Despite the fact that TI's competition can be stiff, the various U.S. semiconductor companies are now on a level playing field. Fifteen years ago, this was not the case. (See related story, "Sematech: Semi makers' united front.")
TI today
The world of electronics is changing to a digital world. According to Aylesworth, TIers believe that DSP is the enabler of the next generation of electronics, "including what will one day replace [an audio-cassette] recorder with one a third of the size and having 10 times the battery life, and so on."
Chips that can process ones and zeros in real time obviously have many advantages over chips that must deal with the complexities of the analog world -- assigning circuits to deal with radio waves, power signals, and sine waves. TI believes that DSP is the key to what is called "real-time signal processing."
TI's business plan is based, in large part, on the perception that the semiconductor industry, and the whole high-tech industry, is moving from the PC era toward the Internet era.
"We recognized that we owned leadership positions in the two most important semiconductor technologies for the Internet age. So we made the decision to put all our energies into the most important semiconductor technologies, where we have a lead, and be much more focused," Engibous says.
"Clearly, the Internet age has come on much faster than most people believed [it would]. It wasn't long ago that the World Wide Web didn't exist -- there wasn't a Web browser until 1993. Of course, now we have cellular telephones, broadband to the home, and Internet telephony. So we think we're in a stronger position now than when we made this decision."
Communicate and personalize
While nobody at TI believes that the PC is going to go away, connecting and personalizing devices is going to be fundamental. The ability to transfer information, such as an address book, into a smaller and lighter cell phone is a good example of a personalization application.
A broadband router for the home is another example, because it provides interconnectivity of communication devices and allows for such forms of personalization as individual email accounts. The company says that programmable DSPs are a great way to implement the connectivity and personalization that it believes are driving the industry.
"The semiconductor companies we compete against -- you know, the chip guys -- this market for cell phones and connected personal devices is not a mystery to them anymore. We've got plenty of competition," says Doug Rasor, vice president of strategic marketing at TI.
"Even the Intels of the world are saying things like 'building blocks for the Internet economy' as their vision, and the PC is part of that vision. They're starting to say some of the same things, but that's fairly recent for them. Our traditional competitors -- Analog Devices, Lucent, and Motorola -- they're all focusing on some of the same spaces that we are."
And yet, Engibous explains, "We don't build cell phones; we don't build other things. We're the only [company] totally focused on being the programmable DSP and analog leader. We're the only ones who get up in the morning and say that -- live it, think it, and breathe it. I think that's a very important distinction -- even more important than the fact that our market share is more than two times our nearest competitor's."
TI has been actively involved in DSP technology for the last 20 years. "We created that market; we introduced the first product in 1982," Engibous explains. Granted, having a jump on the competition can only get you so far; nevertheless, TI believes that it has a better understanding of the essential aspects of DSP, such as real time, than its competitors do.
The competition will now have to go through what TI experienced: 20 years of learning and hard knocks. "And that isn't easy to do, which we hope will give us some sustainability," Rasor says.
In order to compete, TI has concentrated on investing in base technology, making its products faster, cheaper, and better.
Yet the company also thinks -- and this is Rasor's role in the organization -- that finding the next new thing that will deploy its technology is decisive. So what's the next new thing? As an example, Rasor mentions that the distribution of CD-quality music over the Web is changing the entire industry, adding, "I believe, right around the corner, it will be pictures as well."
This is a great opportunity for TI, because its DSP and high-performance analog chips will be an integral part of devices such as Internet audio players that are small, light, and impervious to motion. Today, over 70 audio players of this kind, manufactured by various partners, have TI's chips embedded in them. Not only did TI make the chips used in these devices, but it also wrote the accompanying systems-integration software.
TI's future
In general, industry analysts like Mario Morales, vice president of semiconductors at IDC, have a favorable opinion of TI's future prospects. Although semiconductor stocks are volatile these days, because of macroeconomic sluggishness, Morales attributes any trouble TI may be having to the fact that consumers are simply spending less on the products that depend on TI's technologies, like cell phones.
As Morales points out, "TI is among the six or seven largest semiconductor companies in the world. They are in the right markets today: the high-growth areas of wireless handsets, broadband, hard-disk drives, and consumer audio."
TI is not only the largest DSP company, but it is also the largest analog company. Recent acquisitions, like Burr-Brown, an analog company, allow TI to become a broader semiconductor company by extending its product portfolio.
Today, according to Morales, TI owns about 50 percent of the discrete, or stand-alone, DSP market, and about two-thirds of the wireless-handset market. "TI is the giant in the wireless space; they are much bigger than, say, Intel or Motorola. If Intel is the giant in the PC market, TI is the giant in DSP and wireless," he says.
Positioning
A good part of TI's revenue stream comes from other semiconductor companies: Most semiconductor firms pay TI royalties, because it owns a good deal of intellectual property relating to original inventions in semiconductors, including a patent resulting from Kilby's invention of the IC. The company also receives royalties based on its intellectual property in wireless, broadband, DSP, and analog technologies.
Some of TI's competitors -- like Intel, which is developing the Frio DSP chip with Analog Devices, and Agere, which is partnering with Motorola in the StarCore Technology Center's development program -- argue that TI's prospects are not as strong as they may seem.
According to Sean Lavey, another IDC industry analyst, these competitors believe that market trends will require that more and more logic "cores" be integrated onto a single chip, and that TI's almost single-minded focus on DSP and analog will prevent the company from competing in this area. However, Morales and Lavey disagree with this viewpoint, because TI has positioned itself to perform in markets where this criticism will ultimately prove irrelevant, given the type of end equipment for which TI's chips will suffice.
It is likely that many of these devices will be developed in the Dallas area, given the abundance of entrepreneurial talent there, the presence of important VC firms, and the existence of critical technological infrastructure, including spin-off opportunities for larger companies.
Therefore, TI's physical proximity to Telecom Corridor, where both telecommunications and Internet companies abound, is quite beneficial, says Alan Cox, director of research at Angelou Economics.
"There has been a misconception that geography doesn't matter during the Internet age, but TI disproves this idea, because it is definitely benefiting from its proximity to so many innovators in the telecom and Internet economy. TI is close to its end-product users, and it finds out easily and quickly what they need in terms of developing the appropriate chips for their customers," he says.
Investing in the future
TI is extending considerable effort to create startups that will design, develop, and manufacture end products using its chips. TI's corporate-venture arm provides incubator environments, funding, and invaluable industry connections and resources, and it has serial entrepreneurs on staff. Eleven such startups exist today.
Because TI bet its future on DSP and high-performance analog, a mainstay of its strategy is to find new products that can take advantage of these technologies before the competition does. Some of the startups are working on Internet audio, digital still cameras, voice-over-packet phones, and optical wireless applications.
Even though it has seen some financial payoffs, the TI venture division is not about making money; it's about providing resources to learn about new applications and markets more rapidly than the competition. "We have to move faster than our competition, and, ultimately, that is going to be our edge," Rasor says.
On the one hand, TI is a large company, with huge wafer fabs and R&D centers, extensive infrastructure, and many people. On the other hand, acting and moving like a small company is going to make or break TI, because raw technology alone is not going to take the company where it wants to go.
Making decisions, finding the right markets quickly, and redirecting strategies if they aren't working -- all those things that big companies tend to not do very well -- are going to be more critical than ever for TI.
At a glance
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments is a world leader in digital signal processing and analog technologies. The company's businesses also include sensors and controls, and educational and productivity solutions.
Founded: 1930
URL: www.ti.com
Number of employees: 40,000
Exchange/symbol: NYSE/TXN
Shares outstanding: 1.7 billion
Market capitalization: $57.4 billion (as of June 29, 2001)
qdesign hiring--QDesign Corporation...Be heard above the herd.
QDesign can give you the same things most larger companies offer –- and one thing they can’t: the opportunity to make a difference in the MP3 music space. (Like making Napster a win-win proposition for fans, artists and labels alike, for example.)
As the QuickTime audio standard for streaming music on the web, we have an installed base of 100 million units. And with QDesign products in use at most major radio & TV stations around the world, you've probably heard the results of our work already. Our customer & partner list reads like a Who’s Who of software, hardware and entertainment companies. Now we’re aiming to be the world’s foremost means of delivering music via the Internet, over any wired/wireless network and on any physical media.
If growth and stability matter as much to you as to us, we’ve been a leader in high-quality music technology since 1995. A dynamic team of the best and brightest in the industry, we offer attractive compensation and benefits packages, a stimulating work environment and unmatched career potential. Plus the solid foundations of a profitable, established company.
QDesign -- if a sound future is music to your ears.
Immediate Career Openings @ QDesign
The careers listed below outline our more immediate requirements but we're always interested in talking to people who have what it takes to be leaders. For further information email us in confidence at jobs@qdesign.com. Please use the specific email address listed under each job description to apply for that position. Scroll down to view the descriptions of the positions or simply click on these links:
DSP Engineer - Audio Technology
Technical Lead - Audio Coding Algorithms
DSP Engineer - Audio Coding Algorithms
Software Engineers - Cross-platform Development
Accounting Manager/Controller
IP Development Engineer - Future Technologies
Licensing Engineer - Consumer Products
DSP ENGINEER - Audio Technology
Position: Regular Full-time
Required: Immediately
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Description: In this junior to intermediate position, you will be part of the Technology Development Group developing the software components used in QDesign's audio coding and processing libraries. You will work with a small team of highly-skilled engineers in conjunction with our corporate partners to produce leading-edge audio applications.
Background: The ideal candidate is a graduate in engineering or computing science with a solid understanding of signal processing concepts and experience in C/C++ and assembly language programming. Desirable assets include: strong communication and technical writing skills, experience in digital audio compression and signal processing algorithms, experience with multiple computing environments: Windows, MacOS, and embedded systems. A strong interest in music or high quality audio is a definite asset.
To Apply:
Email your resume
TECHNICAL LEAD - Audio Coding Algorithms
Position: Regular Full-time
Required: Immediately
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Description: In this senior position, you will join QDesign's Technology Development Group to lead a team in the implementation of state-of-the-art in low bitrate audio coding and signal processing algorithms. Your team will provide the foundation for new methods of high quality wireless audio and online music distribution.
Background: The ideal candidate is a graduate in engineering or computing science with a solid understanding of signal processing concepts and 5 years industry experience in C/C++ and assembly language programming, with at least two years experience in managing technology development or project teams. Desirable assets include: strong communication and technical writing skills, experience in digital audio compression and signal processing algorithms, psychoacoustics, and two or more processing environments: Windows, MacOS, DSP architectures including TI, ARM, Lucent and Motorola. A strong interest in music or high quality audio is a definite asset.
To Apply:
Email your resume
DSP ENGINEER - Audio Coding Algorithms
Position: Regular Full-time
Required: Immediately
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Description: In this intermediate position, you will join QDesign's Technology Development Group to help advance the state-of-the-art in low bitrate audio coding and signal processing algorithms. Your work will provide the foundation for new methods of high quality wireless audio and online music distribution
Background: The ideal candidate is a graduate in engineering or computing science with a solid understanding of signal processing concepts and 3 years industry experience in C/C++ and assembly language programming. Desirable assets include: strong communication and technical writing skills, experience in digital audio compression and signal processing algorithms, psychoacoustics, and two or more processing environments: Windows, MacOS, DSP architectures including TI, ARM, Lucent and Motorola. A strong interest in music or high quality audio is a definite asset.
To Apply:
Email your resume
SOFTWARE ENGINEERS- Cross-platform Development
Position: Regular Full-time
Required: Immediately
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Description: In this intermediate position you will incorporate audio compression and other audio technology into both Win32 and Mac target platforms. As a key member of the product development team, you will develop, document, and deliver commercial audio applications and assist significant customers with software integration.
Background: The ideal candidate will have significant professional Win32 and Mac C++ programming experience (minimum of 2 years), experience with Microsoft Visual Studio and Code Warrior/PowerPlant development environments, and some internet development experience. You are able to work smoothly and professionally with others on an engineering team. Experience with any of the following would be a valuable asset for this position:
- Development experience with Mac OS X.
- Audio application development and audio engineering experience.
- Experience with embedded development and audio hardware.
- Knowledge of software security implementation and authentication.
- Experience with streaming multimedia development.
- Development experience with Windows CE.
- Experience writing code for Apple QuickTime technology, Windows Media Architecture, and/or Real Networks technologies.
- Experience with streaming multimedia development.
Candidates who have experience writing professional digital audio applications and who have a solid understanding of audio sampling, compression, and processing will be preferred. Graduates in engineering or computing science with a solid background in C++ and C are invited to apply.
To Apply:
Email your resume
ACCOUNTING MANAGER/CONTROLLER
Position: Regular Full-time
Required: Immediately
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Description: Working with a great degree of independence, you will perform all general accounting functions for all entities within the QDesign group. This includes maintenance of adequate controls to ensure the integrity of all records, implementing new Management Information Systems, providing the month-end close reports, prepare accruals and consolidation entries etc.
Background: The ideal candidate is a CPA with a BA or BS in Business Administration, Finance, Economics and/or Accounting. Experience should be no less than 5 years in total, of which preferably two years in a rapid growth high tech environment. Excellent communication skills and attention for details are an obvious must. Familiarity with US GAAP, experience in implementing new MIS and ability to work independently are a definite asset.
MPEG-4 Patent Holders Near
By allNetDevices Staff
A group of 19 companies that own patents related to MPEG-4, which is a streaming video technology aimed at wireless devices, said Thursday they have made significant progress in discussions aimed at offering licensees a single patent license.
The group, known as M4VisualPHG, had created a member group called MPEG LA, LLC to facilitate the discussions. Thursday that group reported what it called "substantial progress" toward creation of a single license for application and device vendors.
The group set as a deadline of offering the single license by January 2002. The group said in a statement that it hopes a single license will simplify and speed adoption of the technology.
"The essential patent holders want to partner with other industry participants to encourage widespread adoption of MPEG-4," said Larry Horn, MPEG LA vice president of licensing and business development.
OnStar Adopts Text-to-Speech
By allNetDevices Staff
July 05, 2001
With in-car use of wireless technology increasingly under fire, telematics vendor OnStar Thursday selected text-to-speech (TTS) technology to help deliver e-mail and other information to drivers.
OnStar said it will use TTS technology from SpeechWorks (Nasdaq: SPWX) to provide hands-free access to textual information without having to view a screen. Specifically, the company said it would apply the technology to its Virtual Advisor in-car application.
OnStar is a unit of General Motors. Its telematics services are offered on a wide variety of GM cars as well as on cars by vendors such as Acura, Lexus and Audi.
Samsung Adds CDs to Yepp MP3 Players
New devices offer more music storage in a small package, using CDs to store digital tunes.
Martyn Williams, IDG News Service
Thursday, July 05, 2001
Samsung Electronics doesn't want you to have to choose between size and song storage capacity in your MP3 player. On Tuesday, the company launched the latest member of its Yepp line of MP3 digital music players, aimed at offering a compromise between some of the most desired aspects in these devices.
While small size and light weight are desirable in MP3 players, they often limit memory capacity and new memory cards can cost as much, or even more, than the player itself.
The launch of MP3 CD players last year solved the latter problem, enabling hundreds of songs to be stored in MP3 format on a CD, but the resulting players became too large to fit into most pockets and were heavy to carry.
Advertisement
The new CD-Yepp player, which will sell in South Korea for $193, uses 8-centimeter MP3 CDs and so offers a compromise in terms of size, weight and memory capacity. An 8-centimeter CD can hold about 200MB of information or roughly one third of the data that can be stored on a conventional 12-centimeter disc. This translates into about 50 songs.
The player features an electronic skipping protection system that can store up to 100 seconds of data in memory to guard against music interruption when the CD skips. Battery life is six hours.
The MCD-MP8 CD-Yepp measures 4.4 by 1.2 by 3.9 inches in size and weighs just over five ounces. Samsung says it has no immediate plans to sell the device outside South Korea.
packers- i saw it. possibly manufactured by eiger who has done previously manufacturing for mpman and is a dataplay partner.
Imation To Ship DataPlay Media By Second Half
Jan. 22, 2001
By Doug Olenick
Las Vegas -- Blank media maker Imation will start shipping in the second half several varieties of blank DataPlay discs and a DataPlay disc-to-flash memory card hardware device.
The device, dubbed the DiscGo, accepts multiple flash memory-card formats allowing the music or digital images stored on the cards to be transferred to a DataPlay disc.
The DiscGo also can attach to a PC via a USB cable, enabling data to be uploaded and downloaded, said Imation's global product marketing manager Carla Pihowich. Pricing has not been set for the DiscGo.
Shipping at the same time as the DiscGo will be several types of DataPlay blank media. The company will have 250MB- and 500MB-capacity discs available for about $5 and $10, respectively. Although no official plans were announced, Imation is considering expanding its DataPlay hardware presence by adding a portable digital audio player at some point in the future.
Rusty Rosenberger, Imation's data storage and information technology manager, called the DataPlay technology a natural addition for Imation, which markets a long line of blank CD media and floppy diskette media. The company is contemplating entering the flash card market, he said, but no specific plans could be discussed at this time.
At CES, Imation displayed two new CD-RW drives, as well as blank media. Shipping in the second quarter are the CD Burn-R 16x write, 10x rewrite and 40x read, and Burn-R 12x, 10x, 32x drives. Pricing was not available.
In the CD burner category Imation is considering developing a combination CD-RW burner/player that would be capable of playing MP3 songs.
think about the fact that every dataplay article never fails to mention toshiba and samsung as the 2 key CE supporters of Dataplay.--
DataPlay Enabling new storage options
looking for new ways to store all those ones and zeroes you've got piling up? A company called DataPlay made quite a splash at CES back in January, and its DataPlay digital media won Best of Show in the Mobile Device category.
The company's universal media solution is about the size of a quarter and is designed to permanently store a large amount of digital content, including images, documents, software, games, and video, across all digital devices and platforms. One 500-MB digital media can hold over 11 hours of music downloads or five complete pre-recorded albums of CD-quality music, hundreds of high-resolution photographs, or dozens of games for less than $10.
Working with leading content providers and consumer electronics manufacturers, DataPlay anticipates discs containing pre-recorded content to be available beginning Christmas 2001, coinciding with the availability of DataPlay-enabled consumer electronic devices and blank media.
One look at DataPlay's Web site lets you know they've got some major momentum going. You can browse through a list of all the products that will soon be coming out that will utilize the storage solution, including MP3 players, PDAs, Internet appliances, and cameras. The site is full of pictures of people holding up the tiny storage media that is basically a tiny clear plastic case with the storage media resembling a tiny CD inside.
Also at CES, DataPlay announced several strategic partnerships with leading content providers and consumer electronics manufacturers, including Samsung, Toshiba, and Imation, to co-develop devices and content for use with the DataPlay digital media. (http://www.dataplay.com)
http://www.mobileinsights.com/mobileletter/mar1_2001.html#dataplay
No doubt that one effect of the new dataplay format will be to cause the price of flash memory to go down on a hurry.
April 2001• Vol.12 Issue 4
Page(s) 28-30 in print issue
Traveling Light
Highly Portable Data Storage Options For A Mobile World
Bulkiness is the kiss of death for a portable device. If you’ve ever shopped for a digital camera, PDA (personal digital assistant), or MP3 personal music player, chances are you ignored the bigger devices in favor of smaller, cooler ones.
It’s all well and good for manufacturers to make hip, miniature gadgets, but those gadgets need to store data somewhere. Of course, they’re too small to use most hard drives, CD-Rs (CD-recordable) and CD-RWs (CD-rewriteable) drives, or Zip disks.
Some portable devices have built-in storage that you can’t remove. You usually have to connect these to your computer with a cable in order to transfer data. Other gadgets can accept removable storage devices such as solid-state memory cards, which store rewriteable data in silicon chips. These are almost always nonvolatile, meaning they retain their data even when not connected to a power supply.
Removable memory cards are handy because it’s easy to carry several of them, and you can use them to copy photos or files from one device to another, such as a reader peripheral connected to your PC or a photo inkjet printer such as Kodak’s Personal Picture Maker 200 ($200).
Go, Flash, Go
Most solid-state memory cards utilize flash memory, which can quickly write data in blocks rather than byte by byte. In fact, the terms “flash” and “solid-state” are often used interchangeably regarding memory cards.
Solid-state memory cards are fast; some formats can write half a megabyte per second or more and read even more swiftly. Memory cards are also rugged because they have no moving parts. Unfortunately, flash memory is expensive, costing much more per megabyte than magnetic disks, tape, or optical media.
Most memory cards have a feature that keeps you from inserting them the wrong way into a socket, such as SmartMedia’s notched corner or CompactFlash’s differently sized side slots. However, there may be nothing keeping you from inserting a card with a different voltage rating than your portable device uses, such as 3-, 3.3-, or 5-volt. Many memory cards can handle a range of voltage, but be sure to buy cards that are compatible with your device.
SmartMedia. We’ll start our list of solid-state memory cards with SmartMedia, which is 0.03 inches thick x 1.46 inches wide x 1.77 inches long. According to IDC, it’s the most popular format.
“In 1999, what really fueled SmartMedia was the popularity of digital cameras...and portable MP3 players,” says director of IDC’s semiconductor research Xavier Pucel. He credits Olympus and FujiFilm cameras for this, as well as MP3 players such as the Diamond Rio, Creative Labs’ Nomad, and Samsung’s Yepp.
SmartMedia cards cost about $30 for 8MB, $60 for 16MB, $100 for 32MB, and $200 for 64MB (128MB cards may be available when you read this). That’s about $3.13 to $3.75 per megabyte, although memory card capacities aren’t exact.
CompactFlash. SanDisk’s CompactFlash isn’t far behind SmartMedia in popularity. It costs about $30 for 8MB up to $160 for 64MB ($2.50 to $3.75 per MB). The format’s main advantage is that it’s available in huge capacities, such as Simple Technology’s 512MB card priced at a mortgage-gutting $1,599.
Type I CompactFlash cards measure just 0.13 x 1.69 x 1.43 inches. Type II cards are thicker at 0.20 x 1.43 x 1.69 inches, but can store more data (Type II sockets can also accept Type I cards). Products with CompactFlash slots include Nikon’s CoolPix 990 digital camera ($900), Compaq’s iPAQ H3630 PDA ($499), and RCA’s Lyra RD2201 MP3 player ($149).
A memory card’s write speed is important if you have a digital camera with multimegapixel image quality, especially if you want to take one high-resolution photo after another without waiting for the card to save each image. Lexar Media offers faster CompactFlash cards with write speeds expressed in multiples of 150KBps (kilobytes per second) such as 12X (1.8MBps [megabytes per second]). Your digital camera must be compatible with Lexar’s fast cards to benefit from their high speeds, though.
Sony showed off three Memory Stick prototypes last November: a GPS (global positioning satellite) module, a digital camera, and a fingerprint recognition device.
Pucel says CompactFlash’s high capacities will eventually push it past SmartMedia. Stephen Baker, vice president of technology products research at PC Data, agrees. “Certainly from a marketing basis, almost all the flash storage products like digital cameras and MP3 [players] are trending toward CompactFlash versus SmartMedia,” he says.
Robert Skeels, an associate research scientist at Synchrotech, notes that third-party products that fit CompactFlash sockets add to its viability. “The new Type II format, which allows for things like the Microdrive, gives it a real capacity advantage over SmartMedia,” he says. Because the format has potential for other devices such as tiny modems, manufacturers sometimes refer to it as CompactFlash+ Type II.
Memory Stick. Pucel says that Sony’s Memory Stick is also stealing some of SmartMedia’s market share as Sony sells more and more digital cameras. This 0.11- x 0.85- x 1.97-inch memory card has until recently only been found in Sony products, but Sony realized it had to recruit other manufacturers to help the Memory Stick format compete (remember Betamax?). Lexar Media makes them now, too, and third-party products such as Epson’s 875DCS inkjet printer ($199) are appearing. In fact, more than 50 companies introduced Memory Stick-compatible products at COMDEX in Las Vegas last fall.
Memory Sticks come in several sizes, from 8MB units that cost about $30 up to a 64MB variety priced at $160 or more ($2.50 to $3.75 per MB). Variations include the copy-controllable MagicGate and the upcoming Duo, which should be about one third Memory Stick’s size. Faster and larger Memory Sticks up to 1GB are in the works.
MultiMediaCard. SanDisk and Infineon co-invented the dinky 0.06- x 0.94- x 1.26-inch MultiMediaCard for really small gadgets. Priced at about $40 for 8MB up to $160 for 64MB ($2.50 to $5 per MB), the MultiMediaCard appears in Panasonic’s PV-DC3000 digital camera ($899), Compaq’s iPAQ Personal Audio Player PA-1 ($249), and Rockford Fosgate’s RFXMP3.8 car stereo CD changer ($250).
Secure Digital. At 0.08 x 0.95 x 1.26 inches, SD (Secure Digital) cards are thicker than MultiMediaCards but are otherwise similar in size and technology. In fact, an SD slot will accept MultiMediaCards (but not vice-versa). The chief difference is that SD cards can be copy-controlled.
At about 2 cents per megabyte, think of DataPlay as a coin-sized CD-R.
Panasonic’s new CQ-SRX7000 car stereo ($1,400) uses SD cards, as does Toshiba’s MEA-110 Digital Audio Player ($250). Palm announced in June that it would incorporate SD slots in certain PDAs this spring, and Panasonic says its SV-SD75 SD music player ($400) should appear late this year. Despite these announcements, SD cards are hard to find so far.
PC Cards. Some memory modules come as credit card-sized PC Cards, also called PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association) cards. PC Cards measure 2.14 x 3.37 inches, with thicknesses of 0.13 (Type I), 0.22 (Type II), or 0.41 (Type III) inches. PC Card slots are most common in notebook computers. Thicker slots can accommodate thinner cards.
PC Card memory cards are tougher than PC Card hard drives, but they’re not all alike. Skeels says consumers can ignore linear flash and battery-powered static SRAM (static RAM) PC Cards in favor of ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) flash cards. Linear flash has largely been relegated to use with industrial equipment, and is disappearing; SRAMcards are very expensive, and require an onboard battery. Synchrotech offers ATA flash cards from 8MB ($39) up to 512MB ($906) at about $1.77 to $4.88 per MB. Meanwhile, SanDisk has a $3,760, 1.2GB Type II card.
USB (Universal Serial Bus). Our last solid-state device is also the cutest. The Q Drive from ei Corporation ($70 for 16MB to $200 for 64MB; $3.13 to $4.38 per MB) is flash memory you can keep on a key chain. It plugs into a device’s USB port and, with its driver installed, acts just like any other removable storage device. The Q Drive is color coded by capacity and even has a tiny write-protect switch. Very cool indeed.
Hard Drives
Not all removable storage cards have solid-state memory. Some use miniaturized hard drive technology. IBM’s Microdrive, resold by Microtech International, Iomega, and others, is a one-inch hard drive that fits into a CompactFlash+ Type II socket, but you’ll need to make sure your particular device can use a Microdrive before you buy one.
Microdrives are generally as fast as 8 to 64MB memory cards. They’re actually faster at reading and writing data, but they lose this advantage while “spinning up” their disks. At about $245 for 340MB, $400 for 512MB, and $490 for 1GB (49 to 78 cents per MB), the Microdrive is cheap storage. Meanwhile, PC Card hard drives such as Toshiba’s 2.0GB Type II drive ($599; 30 cents per MB) add even more inexpensive capacity.
If miniature hard drives are so economical, why doesn’t every portable device use one? The answer is durability. Hard drives are much more fragile than memory cards, and drain more battery power during use.
Cartridges
Like hard drives, removable cartridges require more battery power than memory cards. They’re also slower, but their cheap storage space is powerfully attractive.
Iomega’s 40MB Clik! disk was never terribly popular, but the company hopes the MP3 craze will change all that. Rechristened the PocketZip, and compatible with Iomega’s HipZip music player, its $10 to $15 price (25 to 38 cents per MB) makes it a bargain compared to memory cards.
Iomega’s hopes may be in vain if DataPlay has its way. Its $5 to $12, 250 or 500MB optical cartridge could spark a revolution in portable storage. That’s about 2 cents per MB for a cartridge the size of a quarter, and DataPlay’s ability to be copy-controlled may win it some support from record companies and other content providers.
Long-Term Memory
Despite its relatively high cost, solid-state memory is the most popular tiny storage option for now, and Pucel foresees prices gradually dropping. “The cost of manufacturing flash is going down about 30% a year,” he says, citing new levels of miniaturization and data density.
Whatever type of storage eventually dominates the market, gadget lovers will no doubt see smaller, denser, faster, and cheaper options in the future.
by Marty Sems
July 24, 2000 - RioPort, Inc., a leading Internet music application service provider (ASP), today announced a new licensing agreement to provide Sewon Telecom. Ltd., a Korean manufacturer of wireless handsets, terminals and MP3 players, with its Media Device Manager technology and RioPort Audio Manager jukebox software for incorporation in its portable digital audio player designs. RioPort also will provide Sewon Telecom with design support for firmware upgrade modules for SDMI-compliant portable digital audio players expected to hit the market in August 2000.
"We are excited about the opportunity to work with Sewon Telecom to develop its next generation SDMI-compliant audio players," said Anthony Schaller, senior vice president and chief technology officer of RioPort, Inc. "RioPort's advanced technology solutions will make finding, downloading and managing multiple digital audio formats a truly seamless experience for Sewon's customers."
Among the many products offered by Sewon Telecom, the company manufactures MP3 players that are marketed worldwide under several brand names, including the jaz Piper in North America. Starting August 2000, the company plans to offer four new models. The new players will be sold through overseas OEMs.
"We believe incorporating RioPort's audio technology into our new lineup of SDMI-compliant digital audio players will help us gain a firm foothold in this rapidly expanding market," said Sang-il Choi, executive and team manager of the Information & Communication Division at Sewon Telecom, Ltd. "Through our new alliance with RioPort, we are able to offer our customers an incredible list of features with our new player and finally make accessing digital audio an easy experience for the mainstream consumer."
RioPort's Media Device Manager
RioPort's MDM technologies are software and engineering services which allow music appliance manufacturers to better enable their products for the Internet and its' variety of file formats, security schemes and PC applications.
About Sewon Telecom Ltd.
Sewon Telecom Co., Ltd. (the "Company") is a manufacturer of mobile telecommunication terminals such as CDMA terminals, GSM terminals and TRS (Trunked Radio System) terminals as well as MP3 players. The Company has the manufacturing facilities in Korea and has 350 employees headed by a strong management team and highly experienced engineering staff. One of Sewon Telecom's main products is also MP3 player, a cyber-generation audio equipment called Digital Walkman. More than 60% of all domestic PC communications and Internet users, the number of which is expected to more than 10,000,000 persons after 2000, expressed intentions to purchase these products. Projections are that more than 10% of the overseas portable audio equipment market will be substituted by MP3. Since Sewon Telecom delivered 200,000 units of MP3 players under OEM system to Korean Company in 1999, it acquired buyers from Japan and Singapore for export of approximately 100,000 units/month. Negotiations are under way to supply MP3 players through Japan's international company and computer trading company in Japan. Sewon Telecom plans to market 3-4 models of its own brand MP3 players to the domestic and overseas market in July and September 2000. In addition to the production of MP3 players, Sewon Telecom also intends to expand business areas to MP3 Internet Contents in order to maximize synergy effects.
Ritek dataplay player
http://www.wince.ne.jp/Review/katsuo/CES2001/img3m/IMG_0517.jpg
GM's OnStar inks deal for speech software
By: Rachel Konrad
7/3/01 1:20 PM
Source: News.com
General Motors is taking another small technology company for a test drive.
OnStar, GM's mobile communications division, announced a deal Tuesday to purchase text-to-speech software from Boston-based start-up SpeechWorks.
The software will eventually help GM translate text-based e-mail, stock quotes, news and sports updates into speech so that drivers do not have to take their eyes off the road to consult a screen or touch pad. SpeechWorks' products, including its flagship Speechify text-to-speech engine, allow people hands-free operation without displays. People can pick from a male or female voice to deliver information in the car.
OnStar is actively researching text-to-speech software from small technology companies as the division aims to push location-based commercials from banks, gasoline stations, movie theaters and retailers to drivers. So-called push ads, beamed via a wireless network and overriding a driver's stereo system, are becoming part of OnStar's "Virtual Adviser"--an automated, cellular-based concierge service offered as an option on most GM vehicles since January.
The deal is one of scores that GM has struck up with small software companies looking to gain a foothold in cash-rich, Old Economy players. GM also announced it awarded a $61.6 million contract Tuesday to 2,400-employee Minacs Worldwide, a Markham, Ontario-based software company that provides customer relationship management and technical support.
SpeechWorks has more than 400 employees and 100 corporate clients, including AOL Time Warner, FedEx and Yahoo. Although the 7-year-old company will concentrate on wireless services for GM, the company provides spoken data for landlines or wireless devices.
The SpeechWorks deal comes as the automobile and technology industries struggle to come up with standards for the increasingly thorny debate about driver distractions. Although it is tough to find definitive evidence, safety advocates say that touch pads, screens and other devices cause drivers to crash.
Legislation being considered in 40 states to ban handheld cell phones and other devices while driving has caused automakers to brainstorm for alternatives.
GM enforces a rigid rule among product developers that if the dashboard has any screen visible to the driver, the screen must be disabled whenever the car is not in park or neutral. The world's largest automaker is betting that voice-activated technology, including voice-based e-mail and stock updates, will eventually replace visual data for use in the automobile.
Despite GM's rule, industry executives still debate whether onboard communications should be controlled primarily by voice, touch or modified sight--including heads-up displays that flash e-mail or weather updates on the windshield in a see-through manner. Ford plans to release data by the end of the year from driving simulations conducted at its new Virtual Test Track Experiment (Virttex) research lab in Dearborn, Mich.
Smokin' signals IEEE 1394 blazes pathways for digital data.
By Burke Henehan, 1394 Trade Association
Imagine a tribe whose members all speak essentially the same language, but still can't communicate. Some cover their ears when others talk. Others refuse to speak clearly, use idiosyncratic syntax, or continually interrupt. Some individuals can manage to converse, but only after completing elaborate rituals that define the rules of their communication. Even then, the interaction takes place too slowly to accomplish much of anything.
Today's population of electronic gadgets and information appliances mirrors this imaginary society. An increasing number speak in digital, but their makers have given them no way to reliably interact. If we expect the visions of our all-digital future to come to pass, we need a universal, local digital interface. A simple-to-use, peer-to-peer connection scheme that can carry a dense multimedia data stream. An agreed-upon medium that can get our legions of devices—computers, video cameras, high-fidelity audio components, imaging devices, and more—talking.
IEEE 1394 (a standard also known as Apple Computer's FireWire and Sony's iLink) offers the most promise as such an interface. The so-called multimedia bus is unique in its ability to carry video and audio with assured quality, based on both its high bandwidth and isochronous (engineer-speak for "time-sensitive") services.
Moreover, recent activity in the IEEE 1394 development committee has yielded even faster, yet backwards-compatible versions of this maturing technology. Whether your interest is home networking, cable TV, broadband to the home, consumer electronics, or the venerable PC, we've got an update for you.
IEEE 1394-1995 received ratification in 1995. Manufacturers currently ship chips, software, boards, and systems that comply with the original standard and a first update—IEEE P1394a. Among other enhancements, the update improved throughput by tweaking the arbitration process (the procedure by which nodes request time on the bus) and provided additional power-management mechanisms. Products based on P1394a can communicate in a peer-to-peer fashion at 100, 200, or 400 Mbits/sec. Even in a network encompassing a mixture of devices, any two machines can connect in a peer-to-peer fashion and operate at the highest speed the link between them can handle.
Who's driving
Unlike most interfaces, networks, and computer buses, which have been propelled to success by the PC industry, IEEE 1394 owes much of its current momentum to the consumer-electronics business. In particular, Sony realized the interface's potential early on and has long included IEEE 1394 support on digital camcorders and other digital cameras. At this point, the consumer-electronics industry has largely endorsed IEEE 1394 for all future generations of digital AV equipment (see sidebar, "The vision thing").
Many in the PC industry have also chosen IEEE 1394 as the multimedia bus of the future. While it may or may not move into roles such as a data-storage interface, it clearly will serve in applications such as video capture, storage, editing, and production. Leading PC and peripheral manufacturers have anointed 1394 as key to achieving the market-boosting convergence of PCs and digital home-entertainment products. To perceive the scope of IEEE 1394 and its potential in the market, consider the following endorsements:
The Digital Video (DV) camcorder industry in its Blue Book specification,
Cable Labs in its OpenCable Digital Set-Top Box specification,
The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) as one of its home networking standards,
The Electronic Industries Association (EIA) as the standard for digital interconnect of televisions (EIA-775),
The Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association (CEMA) as a standard for digital-TV interconnect (CEMA R4.8 committee),
Yamaha as the digital interconnect for its Music LAN (MLAN) proposal,
Apple as a universal peripheral interconnect.
Even the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) has gotten on the bandwagon, "encouraging" the television and cable industries to quickly adopt 1394 as the industry's standard interface for digital set-top boxes. (For more on 1394's acceptance, see sidebar, "Roadblocks receding.")
Add to these endorsements an array of ancillary standards and technologies that address issues ranging from power distribution to video and audio transport to software abstraction layers and command sets. For example, International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) specifications 61883-1 through -6 define transport of video and audio streams across IEEE 1394. The so called "5C" (Five Companies—Sony, Matsushita, Intel, Hitachi, and Toshiba), worked with content providers to create the 5C encryption specification, which aims to provide content protection for digital entertainment. And the 1394 Trade Association (www.1394ta.org) has been the focal point for the Audio/Video Command set, a specification for controlling numerous types of end equipment across IEEE 1394.
Such software abstraction standards will ultimately ensure that equipment from any manufacturer will interoperate flawlessly. More than 70 specifications have either been completed or are in progress. Together they delineate how to accomplish almost anything across IEEE 1394.
It's critical to understand that 1394 is an open industry-standard architecture, allowing innovation above and beyond the services supplied by the standard. This allows for a powerful cross-pollination effect, as innovations sprout up in all of the industries working on these specifications.
Unique sells
With the plethora of interfaces and networks available, it's fair to ask why IEEE 1394 has been proposed and endorsed in such divergent applications. In summary, 1394's success rests on several key attributes:
Video-capable high bandwidth
Isochronous support (guaranteed bandwidth and defined latency)
Packetized data delivery
Memory architecture supporting DMA (direct memory access)
Peer-to-peer architecture
Hot-pluggable plug-and-play operation
Flexible cable topology
Today, 1394 provides far greater bandwidth than any other available interface that also offers a flexible connection scheme or cable topology. To be precise, 1394's maximum data rate, referred to as S400, equals 393.216 Mbits/sec. Such high bandwidth originally allowed the consumer-electronics industry to transport video services, and in fact can carry uncompressed digital video in some applications. Currently available hardware also supports speeds of S200 and S100 (roughly 200 and 100 Mbits/sec, respectively), all using the same hardware.
IEEE 1394 provides two general types of data-packet delivery services—isochronous and asynchronous. The isochronous service is unique. A node on a 1394 network can request a certain amount of bandwidth. Once granted, the bus guarantees that bandwidth will be available for use in every isochronous frame. Thus the node is assured of a pipeline wide enough to accommodate the data it's sending. The spec also ensures that the maximum latency (the interval between packets) will be consistent. Together, these two features make 1394 an attractive transport mechanism for data that can't tolerate unexpected and/or varying latency, namely video and audio. (For the technically minded, the sidebar "IEEE 1394 bus-cycle details" delves more deeply into how the bus functions.)
Nonreal-time data, which doesn't have such rigorous delivery demands, uses 1394's asynchronous service, which operates after the isochronous packets with their reserved bandwidth have been sent. The asynchronous service operates using a "fair interval"—a time period during which each node that has asked to participate gets its chance to send a single packet.
1394 is an open industry-standard architecture, allowing innovation above and beyond the services supplied by the standard.
For the techno-novices among us, it may be easy to miss the importance of packet data delivery, but it's the foundation upon which higher-level protocols and applications can be built. Packetized data delivery allows each node on a single bus to observe all the traffic on that bus, but to only receive or respond to the packets directly addressed to that node. Packet payloads may be from 4 to 4096 bytes long, depending on the data rate being sent and the packet service being utilized.
Each node on an IEEE 1394 bus has a standard 64-bit address space, specified by the IEEE 1394-1995 standard. Embedded in asynchronous data packets, this address information allows nodes to operate in a memory-to-memory or DMA fashion. The nodes can independently determine where the data should be read or written. Combined with the isochronous service, this DMA-based operation allows, for example, a monitor to display video images from a connected camera in real time.
The camera-to-display example also illustrates the peer-to-peer nature of IEEE 1394. Each node can arbitrate for (request time on) the bus. Each node also must keep certain identifying information in a standard memory space called the CSR (configuration status register). Using this information, any node can communicate with any other node to discover that node's capabilities—without any intervention by an intermediary node such as a PC. The nodes may then communicate at their maximum efficiency using the asynchronous service, or they may set up a channel over which they can carry on an isochronous conversation.
The final two features—support for hot plugging and the flexible cable topology—are virtually mandatory for any consumer-oriented convergence interface. Whenever the bus powers up, a new node joins the bus, or an existing node gets disconnected, the 1394 interface follows an identification and configuration sequence. This means a new node can be plugged in without powering down any of the existing nodes, and without any prior warning of any kind. When a new node is detected, a bus reset takes place, and all nodes on the bus sense it. Each node then knows a change in the bus topology has occurred. Each node broadcasts basic information about itself in a small packet called a self-ID packet, and the bus re-initializes. Nodes then communicate, via the asynchronous service, to read the CSR space and discover the capabilities that have been added to or removed from the bus.
IEEE 1394's cable topology provides extreme flexibility. Users can daisy-chain nodes together, connect nodes in a branching configuration, or combine both topologies in any way they see fit, as long as they don't form a closed loop. Each cable is a unique electrical data link between nodes. When a node with multiple cable ports receives a packet, the node reads each arbitration state and data bit, resynchronizes to its own clock, and sends the data out to all other connected ports on a bit-by-bit basis. Thus each node "repeats" packets from its "receiving" port to all its "transmitting" ports. This reduces the accumulation of jitter (signal distortion caused by poor synchronization) as a packet travels through a long chain of nodes.
Delivering the goods
The IEEE 1394 community is ready to deliver on the promise of the multimedia bus. The community has voted on and approved the IEEE P1394a specification, which should be published this quarter. Of course, not everyone is satisfied with even the P1394a standard, so another effort known as P1394b is in final stages of development. It promises to drive speeds to 800, 1600, and eventually 3200 Mbits/sec, while extending maximum cable lengths. The faster data rates enable new applications in the areas of digital video and data storage. Moreover, when combined with the longer cable runs, these two key attributes of IEEE 1394b will also help launch home-automation and networking products for the consumer.
IEEE 1394's architectural elegance, cost-effective high performance, and market acceptance make it a compelling technology. The architecture includes both guaranteed bandwidth (isochronous) and guaranteed packet delivery (asynchronous) services, true hot plug-and-play, flexible cabling, and speeds up to 400 Mbits/sec (for now).
Roadblocks receding
The long-anticipated world of convergence has arrived, and with it a broad array of interactive multimedia devices. Between digital cameras, digital set-top boxes, and new emerging Internet appliances, more than 60 million non-PC-based multimedia devices shipped in 1999. And the real action is yet to come. The rapid growth of broadband access promises to accelerate the proliferation of devices and multimedia-rich content. Given this explosion, the need to easily interconnect and move data between devices is obvious. IEEE 1394 (also trademarked as Firewire and iLink) appears destined to fill this critical role as a peer-to-peer local interface.
The emergence of IEEE 1394, like many exciting new technologies, has followed a rocky path. However, in 1999 the interface jumped onto smooth pavement. Rather than being confined to a few narrow applications, the interface is now included in virtually every digital camcorder, PCs from several manufacturers (including Compaq, Apple, and Sony), and a variety of set-top boxes (digital cable, Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS), personal video recorders, and digital TVs). In addition, the interface will be standard on all of Sony's Playstation II game consoles.
Apple's wholesale adoption of the interface into their G3 Macintoshes and iMacDV models sparked a market for an array of 1394 hard drives, CD drives, printers, and scanners. The Wintel PC market has been slower to embrace IEEE 1394, largely due to uncertainty about its relation to USB 2.0. However, as IEEE 1394 peripheral types flourish and competitive pressure builds, expect several more 1394-equipped Wintel PCs to debut this year. In addition, 1394 adapter cards are becoming readily available at prices below $150, giving birth to an upgrade market.
In the consumer-electronics world, Sony has pioneered 1394, adopting the interface in set-top boxes, PCs, digital cameras, and camcorders. Today, nearly every consumer-electronics manufacturer has either introduced or plans to introduce 1394 into their advanced digital TVs and set-top boxes.
However, ongoing conflict over content protection continues to present a speed bump. Content creators want to ensure that their valuable content is not copied or distributed illegally. In addition, 1394's high bandwidth creates the potential for shifts in the distribution of intelligence and value among various interconnected devices. TV manufacturers, in particular, are worried their products might become nothing more than high-resolution monitors, and they appear to be using the content-protection issue to influence the market direction. Nevertheless, the FCC, as the key regulatory authority, has vowed that the content-protection issue will be resolved by April. The combination of IEEE 1394 and Data Transmission Content Protection (DTCP) appears to be the favored solution.
With momentum growing in both the consumer-electronics and PC markets, and lingering issues and conflicts nearly resolved, 2000 looks like it will be a banner year for multimedia devices incorporating IEEE 1394. In-Stat believes the market for devices with IEEE 1394 could reach 30 million units this year. Furthermore, as wide-area bandwidth becomes more readily available, the proliferation of multimedia broadband services will only serve to accelerate the need for 1394 connections.
—Mark Kirstein, Vice President of Research, Cahners In-Stat Group
Editor's note: A variety of related issues will be addressed at In-Stat's Forum 2000, Tap Into Broadband, taking place April 30 to May 2 in Scottsdale, AZ. Panel sessions include "The Future of Multimedia Broadband" and "The Digitally Connected Home." Find out more at www.instat.com/events.htm.
The vision thing
Here are three reasons IEEE 1394 is a must for home-entertainment buffs and those who dream of instant electronic linkages throughout the home:
ONE FOR ALL: Digital Harmony CEO Greg Bartlett shows how one 1394 cable replaces the clutch of wires formerly required to connect a DVD player to an AV receiver.
First, 1394 will eliminate the maze of wiring commonly associated with home-entertainment systems. Once connected, each device in a home theater will have all the information, all the time. Your stereo in one room will "see" and work with the CD changer in the other room. A jukebox player could send your kid's hard rock to speakers in the basement while you listen to soothing classical music in the bedroom. For example, click here to see a diagram of Digital Harmony's Reference System 2000. (NOTE: You'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the diagram. Click here to download this free program.)
Second, the communication is two-way, so every device talks to every other device. Your receiver, for example, will sense how many speakers are hooked to it, along with the size and sensitivity of each one.
Third, IEEE 1394 can carry a large amount of information—400 Mbits/sec. In comparison, current computer USB ports, another plug-and-play technology, top out at 12 Mbits/sec. Since new technologies, such as DTV and DVD movies require about 20 Mbits/sec each, you can see how a home system—which might also include lighting and temperature control—will need this kind of bandwidth.
—Greg Bartlett, CEO, Digital Harmony Technologies
IEEE 1394 bus-cycle details
To send data, a node must arbitrate for the bus, then send its data one packet at a time. In the case of the isochronous service this means one packet per isochronous channel per isochronous frame. In the case of the asynchronous service it means a node may send a single packet during each "fair interval," during which each node is allowed to send a single asynchronous packet (if it needs to) before any one node may send a second asynchronous packet. In order to participate in a fair interval a node must arbitrate for the bus. If the node has no asynchronous data to send, it does not arbitrate for the bus and does not participate (use any bus time) during the fair interval (see Fair Interval Figure).
An isochronous frame is defined to be 125 microseconds long (see Cycle Structure Figure). This period is "framed" by a special packet called a cycle start packet. This small packet occurs every 125 microseconds and writes the value of the cycle time register (32 bits incremented at 24.576 MHz) of the node that launched it (the cyclemaster node) into every isochronous-capable node on the bus, synchronizing all the cycle timers on the bus every 125 microseconds. This 125-microsecond frame period may be set by an externally provided clock to the cycle-timer node, allowing the IEEE 1394 bus cycle timers to be synchronized to a master 8-kHz external clock (see External Isochronous Timing Figure). If this is not desired, the cyclemaster node can generate its own 8-kHz clock from its internal cycle timer and output a square wave that marks the start of each isochronous period. This allows external circuitry to be synchronized with the internally generated isochronous frame timing. Immediately after the cycle-start packet, isochronous packets are sent (see Isochronous Subaction Figure). Each isochronous packet is CRC checked at the receiver to ensure data integrity. The isochronous service is also a multi-cast service. This means any node on an IEEE 1394 bus may receive any particular isochronous packet by listening for that particular packet's isochronous channel number (there are 64 available channel numbers).
Non real-time data takes advantage of the asynchronous services available on IEEE 1394. After the isochronous packets that have reserved bandwidth have been sent, the bus goes idle until an asynchronous gap occurs, then the asynchronous time period of the frame begins. This is a point-to-point service that uses CRC checking hardware on both sides of a send/receive transaction to verify that a packet was received correctly. Once the receiver of the packet has verified its CRC, it sends a very short "acknowledge" packet (ACK) from the receiver to the sender (see Asynchronous Subaction Figure). This "guarantees" that the sender of a data packet knows whether the packet was received correctly. If the packet was not received correctly the sender may try again until the transaction succeeds or an error is declared.
Author information
Burke Henehan works on 1394 silicon products at Texas Instruments, where he is a senior member of the technical staff. He has presented at the 1394 Developer's Conference and is actively involved in the 1394 Trade Association. Henehan holds a master's degree in systems engineering and a bachelor's in electrical engineering
April 2000 Multiplicity remember this article w/ edig mention
One world, one operating system? Forget it.
Paul G Schreier, Contributing Editor
New markets have a way of shaking things up. When desktop PCs arrived, venerable mini and mainframe computer suppliers such as Digital, Wang, and IBM watched their empires crumble at the feet of upstarts like Compaq and Microsoft. The emergence of convergence devices—also called Internet appliances, information appliances, digital consumer devices, and post-PC devices—is setting off a similar restructuring, this time in the world of operating systems.
Because Microsoft's OS dominates the desktop so completely, the terms "Windows" and "PC" are all but synonymous. And we've gotten used to thinking of the operating system as a defining characteristic of the product. But this dawning era of convergence brings a new set of technical requirements. So you can erase those old assumptions.
Forget about hegemony. The new landscape will involve a host of frenetic competitors vying to have designers choose their software. Established vendors of RTOSs (real-time operating systems) for embedded systems want to retain their leadership in the new post-PC market. Second-tier suppliers see a chance to step up. A new group of suppliers is arriving with unique offerings. Even vendors of desktop OSs—some of whom never found much success against Windows—see a chance for redemption.
Meanwhile, a growing faction contends that the OS doesn't really matter. Instead, designers' thoughts will be occupied by middleware—chunks of code that work closely with the OS to provide critical features. There's more than one way to build a better mousetrap, and designers will look at any method that can deliver the features after which consumers are lusting.
"The core [real-time OS] feature set is no longer the battleground."
Anup Murarka, Spyglass
Just what's at stake here, anyway? According to International Data Corp, in 1997 PCs accounted for roughly 96 percent of all Internet-access devices shipped in the US. By 2002, we'll see a dramatic reversal, with shipments of consumer information appliances outnumbering consumer PCs. The worldwide market for information appliances in 2004 will exceed 89 million units (accounting for $17.8 billion in sales), up from a market of 11 million units ($2.4 billion) last year.
Anup Murarka
The needs of convergence devices, which typically involve Internet connections and/or multimedia, present a new set of requirements for designers, who therefore use different criteria to compare candidate environments. "The microkernel itself is the least of our worries when selecting an RTOS," comments Anup Murarka, vice president of Interactive TV at Spyglass. Even though today's RTOSs use different kernels (the core OS code that controls fundamental processes), they all provide a baseline feature set. For example, they all support POSIX (portable operating system interface for Unix), a standard that developers follow to ensure that applications and OSs can work together smoothly. "The core feature set is no longer the battleground," Murarka says.
Instead, support modules and development-tool chains have become paramount. Remember not so long ago when the application you wanted to run was key in choosing a computer platform? If you needed serious engineering tools, you selected Unix. Desktop publishing? The Macintosh. Office tasks? DOS and later Windows.
Today an emerging class of software—middleware—is driving the selection of a convergence OS. In simple terms, middleware refers to software that sits between the OS and the user application. Middleware encompasses the enabling technologies that allow designers to build the applications with which users ultimately interact. Examples include a TCP/IP stack (code that's necessary for Internet communication), a graphics engine, or even a mini Web browser. Reinventing the wheel is out of the question when time to market is so critical. So developers are seeking OS vendors who have integrated these convergence capabilities into their product lines.
Why bother?
Before digging any deeper into this topic, let's be cynical for a moment. If convergence devices have only a few specialized tasks, do they require a full-blown, multitasking kernel at all? Can't you simply write program code that boots up from ROM (read-only memory) and executes the required tasks?
It's not such a radical notion. Consider, for instance, Thompson Consumer Electronics' Lyra MP3 player. This groundbreaking convergence device uses no RTOS. Rather, it works with a simple mini-kernel running on a Texas Instruments DSP, which joins forces with an NEC microcontroller. In addition to supervisory functions, the DSP uses its onboard memory to perform sample-rate conversion, provide digital volume control, implement a five-band equalizer, and handle audio fast-forwarding and rewinding. The NEC chip controls the user interface, keyboard, and display, and runs the file system that reads music tracks off of CompactFlash memory cards.
Indeed, the fact that the Lyra doesn't need to write to memory at all allowed its designers to get by without an RTOS. Users load music into the CompactFlash cards using a PC, so many of the functions that would otherwise require an RTOS can reside on the PC. When the Lyra reads the card, it simply examines the file-allocation table, recovers the directory listing, and starts streaming the music. Similarly, the Lyra contains no music decoder. Instead, the PC places an executable file, which contains the decoding algorithm, along with the music file on the memory card. This approach will make it easy for Thompson to upgrade the system to handle new formats as consumer tastes and industry standards change.
Designers speak
The Lyra's champion at Thompson, Tibor Csicsatka, admits that if a suitable RTOS had been available for the NEC chip during the design phase, he might have been tempted to go with it. This philosophy concurs with that of most design consultants. Consider some words from Steve Christian, marketing director at Doctor Design (a consulting firm that recently became part of Wind River Systems): "In this day and age it's foolish to try and get by without a foundation on which to base hardware and application layers. You want to get from a napkin sketch to a shipping product in the shortest time. We're always looking for shortcuts, and an RTOS provides a good one on the development path."
"You want to get from a napkin sketch to a shipping product in the shortest time. We're always looking for shortcuts, and an RTOS provides a good one."
Steve Christian, Doctor Design
Adds Paul Leroux, technology analyst at QNX Software Systems, "I can't imagine most net-appliance manufacturers wanting to do any of this work themselves. Writing a browser, for example, is a never-ending process, and precious few software houses are competent enough to do it properly. More to the point, most players in this space want to concentrate on the user experience, on what they can add, and not on the underlying technology."
Steve Christian
Christian expands on this point, noting that for convergence devices, the nuts and bolts of the OS play a relatively insignificant role in the decision matrix. "When first sitting down with prospective clients, we often start by talking about the middleware they want, such as a Web browser or a Java environment," Christian says. "Then we find the best OS and chips that can run that middleware while meeting other design criteria, such as size and cost." Middleware has come to dominate designs in terms of code size, royalties, and user-interaction models, he adds.
Another design consultancy brings interesting perspectives to net appliances thanks to its history. At one time, Spyglass was the exclusive licensor of the Mosaic browser technology, but several years ago the firm started to focus on embedded-systems design. Today its target markets are interactive TV and mobile data. When selecting an OS, reflects Spyglass' Murarka, designers must remember their basic objectives: time to market, product functions, and the overall software strategy. Your choices will differ according to whether you're designing a single product or planning a scalable design for a series of future products. He adds that price is becoming an important and sometimes messy issue. Will you pay a one-time charge for the OS? Pay royalties on each design? Cough up for each product shipped?
Need support
Support tools for the OS also warrant careful attention, Murarka says. "We've seen tool chains so poor that we've sometimes spent more money working around development-tool problems than we spent in up-front costs." This threat could be especially large if you're looking at a no-charge OS such as Linux (see sidebar, "Linux starts to converge").
The tool chain can be a crucial element, agrees Jeff Silver, sales manager with Annasoft Systems, a design consultancy that specializes in Windows CE. In his experience, customers choose WinCE because of its wide range of familiar development tools, its GUI, the availability of Microsoft Foundation Classes, and the availability of connectivity stacks such as TCP/IP. Further, he cites the army of Windows developers as an asset. As for the argument that designers should choose middleware first, Silver notes that WinCE offers considerable capabilities with no extra purchase.
Windows CE isn't dominating the convergence space by any means, and Silver admits the OS would be overkill in some classes of devices, such as MP3 players. For one thing, it runs only on 32-bit processors, and imposes a footprint as large as 5 or 6 Mbytes. Much of the criticism volleyed at Windows CE has focused on its poor real-time characteristics. Silver predicts that version 3.0, due out in a few months, will make CE attractive for new classes of devices, especially those where real-time operation is important. The current version's interrupt latency—a measure of how quickly it responds to requests—is roughly 250 microseconds, Silver says. But version 3.0 should drop that to below 50 microseconds, making a huge difference in some cases, according to Silver.
Tantalized by huge market projections, other established OS vendors are making efforts to convince engineering managers that they've got what it takes to speed development in the convergence space. Often it simply involves taking existing products and wrapping them up in new marketing clothes.
For example, QNX offers the Internet Appliance Toolkit. Besides the QNX OS, the toolkit adds an embeddable windowing system called the Photon microGUI, plus the Voyager Internet Suite, which includes an HTML browser, an email client, an Internet dialer, and a Web server. Supporting elements include a TCP/IP stack and development goodies like C/C++ compilers. Going a step further, QNX has joined forces with National Semiconductor to supply a reference design for the WebPAD, a touchscreen wireless device optimized for Web browsing and email. The firms claim that OEMs can go from concept to finished product in six weeks.
While Microware has a long history of providing middleware, it hasn't done a terribly good job at letting the world know about, says Curt Schwaderer, director of network technologies. He claims that his firm was the first to include a TCP/IP stack in 1987, the first to include a GUI with the 1989 introduction of Rave, and addressed digital TV technology as early as 1994 with an OS product called David (digital audio video interactive decoder). Microware was also the first to license a Java machine to use with an RTOS, and meanwhile has 350,000 Java-based devices deployed, claiming 99 percent of that market segment, according to Schwaderer.
Recognizing that development tools can be as important as middleware, some firms with strong backgrounds in tools are shifting to operating environments. Wind River Systems bought Integrated Systems and its well-known pSOS to deliver a stronger one-two punch in the embedded world, with an eye on the convergence marketplace. Other firms haven't purchased product lines outright but are instead forming tight alliances. For instance, Green Hills Software, traditionally a tool supplier, recently entered an arrangement to serve as the exclusive sales and support branch for Express Logic's royalty-free ThreadX RTOS. The two products aren't just bundled together for shopping convenience, says Express Logic President Bill Lamie; they're tightly integrated to quicken the development of optimal target code.
An emerging breed of operating environment combines the functionality of an OS with a subset of middleware tailored for a very specific application niche.
The situation has even reached the point where you can get an RTOS for free—literally. Expanding its desktop concept into the embedded arena, Linux-packager Red Hat recently acquired Cygnus Solutions, which for several years has made available at no charge its eCos (embedded configurable OS). The OS has mainly supported development work on Windows NT hosts, but the obvious move to Linux is underway.
The embedded market is attracting other desktop OS companies. Perhaps looking for another chance after nearly a decade of having little impact on the desktop, Be Inc recently announced a platform dubbed BeIA, which specifically targets information and entertainment appliances. Founded by Apple veteran Jean-Louis Gassee, Be hopes to leverage its multimedia experience. BelA includes an integrated Web browser and a Java virtual machine. The OS also supplies services tailored for streaming media, such as data conversion, buffering, and presentation. At the highest level lie application services such as email support, file viewing, or even a PIM (personal information manager) module. BelA runs on Pentium or PowerPC processors.
Another familiar name is looking to expand its customer base, even though it's already well known in the convergence space. Most products running the PalmOS today come from 3Com itself or OEMs such as IBM and Franklin. A few other firms—among them Handspring (with its Visor), Symbol (the SPT1500/1700), Qualcomm (the pdQ), and TRG (the TRGpro)—have licensed the OS. Other recent licensees include Sony, Nokia and Motorola, although they have yet to announce products.
Do one thing, do it well
That 3Com is pushing the PalmOS as an alternative platform for convergence devices merely hints at the specialization the market is starting to see. An emerging breed of operating environments combine the functionality of an OS with a subset of middleware tailored for extremely narrow application niches.
How many design teams need a package optimized for digital cameras? More than a handful, hopes FlashPoint Technology, which developed its Digita operating environment just for that niche. Among the vendors working with it are Kodak, Minolta, Hewlett-Packard, and Epson (in photo printers). Digita makes it simple for designers to deliver products that let users easily capture, edit, catalog, annotate, and share digital photos, according to Stephen Saylor, FlashPoint's executive vice president and general manager.
Digita runs on top of VxWorks, but Saylor says Wind River Systems' most important contribution is the tool chain. Just 20 percent of Digita's memory footprint is related to VxWorks, primarily real-time services and the file system. FlashPoint then supplies support for USB ports, PC Cards, and serial ports, as well as a toolbox layer including a small-footprint GUI, class libraries, and a multimedia-friendly database manager. Finally, developers use an API to write programs, create unique features, and add applets.
Following the "Intel Inside" model, Flashpoint plans to use a logo-based marketing engine that creates demand for products using Digita. Furthermore, all Digita licensees participate in patent agreements and patent pooling, as they would in a consortium, Saylor adds.
Another specialist, Symbian, targets its Epoc OS/application suite and its recently announced Quartz reference design at wireless information devices such as smart phones and portable communicators. Formerly the software division of Psion, the company in 1998 became an independent joint venture of Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola, and Psion, with Matsushita joining the fold roughly a year ago. Here again you get more than a kernel. Epoc supplies an application suite that includes modules for communications, a PIM, office programs, utilities, system tools, and desktop-synchronization tools.
Similarly, Phone.com (formerly Unwired Planet) develops software for the convergence of the Internet and telephony. Its UP family brings email and net-based information services to the screens of mass-market wireless phones. More than 20 phone manufacturers have licensed the UP.Browser microbrowser and UP.Smart application suite, which enable them to enhance their devices with Internet access. Third parties work with the freely available UP.SDK (software development kit) to create Web-based content and apps suited for the UP.Browser.
Recognizing the importance of flash memory in digital devices, e.Digital developed MicroOS, which specializes in managing flash devices—organizing files, controlling power use, and preventing trouble by ensuring even wear of the chip's memory cells. The firm has since evolved into a design house specializing in emerging markets where users pull multimedia content off the net. The company provides reference platforms such as a multi-codec music player built around a Texas Instruments DSP. It also developed Cquence, a portable digital voice recorder and docking station, for Lanier Worldwide. Based on the Lanier project, e.Digital expanded the MicroOS to incorporate the real-time functions needed for such designs.
Linux starts to converge
Linux has become the fastest growing desktop OS in years. Now software houses are trying to "port" that same market momentum to the embedded arena. It appears they might have some limited success, but in the convergence arena things are only beginning to brew. (To hear the latest news from the cheering section, check out www.linuxdevices.com, a site dedicated to news of Linux in the embedded world.)
Linux has some strong attractions for embedded developers. Finding programmers familiar with Linux is easier than hiring designers experienced with specific RTOSs. The number of middleware suppliers is growing, again easing the programming burden. Further, with Linux's open-source structure, developers aren't hostage to any firm or standard. They can modify the source code as desired and don't have to pay royalties. Don't forget, though, that open-source licensing conditions sometimes require the release of improvements to the developer community—including competitors.
The lack of good programming and debugging tools is a common bane among Linux programmers, but the situation gets even worse when you're dealing with cross-platform issues and real-time systems. Another shortcoming is that Linux lacks a built-in graphics library, which complicates the development of GUIs (grapihical user interfaces)—a critical element in consumer devices. The mainstay of GUIs on Linux has been X Windows, but it's generally too bulky for memory-constricted devices. "Today I wouldn't pick Linux," concludes Anup Murarka, vice president of Interactive TV at Spyglass. "The opportunity to create a community of developers is growing, but the tool chain is lacking."
Yet another stumbling block concerns quality control and support. Embedded developers must be absolutely certain their products are reliable because fickle consumers can reject a problematic device overnight. With the open source nature of Linux, who carries the technical and legal responsibility for kernel reliability?
"Even with enhancements for embedded use, Linux won't satisfy the needs of all embedded applications," comments Inder Singh, chairman of Lynx Real Time Systems. "Some hard real-time applications require very fast, deterministic response that Linux can't provide. In addition, because of memory limitations, deeply embedded applications require simpler kernels with smaller memory footprints."
Lynx plans to addresses these issues through the Lynx Linux Initiative, a program that aims to extend the Lynx RTOS into the embedded Linux market space. The program starts with BlueCat Linux, based on Red Hat version 6.1 but optimized for embedded tasks and offered to the open-source community. In upcoming months the firm expects to release LynxOS 4.0, which will feature binary compatibility with Linux. Finally, available now is a development environment for a Red Hat Linux host, so programmers can use LynxOS's current authoring and debugging tools while working on a Linux-based workstation to cross-compile to an embedded CPU.
Meanwhile, Red Hat isn't sitting idly by. The company's $599 Red Hat Tools for Embedded Developers package includes an unmodified version of the X86 2.2.12 Linux kernel, which currently ships with Red Hat Linux 6.1. The package also contains EL/IX API, which Red Hat is pushing as a standard to allow programmers to recompile and deploy applications across a wide range of post-PC devices. Also part of the kit is a graphical development environment based on the Code Fusion tool Red Hat got as part of its recent acquisition of Cygnus Solutions.
As for progress on the appliance front, things are starting to happen. For instance, Sigma Designs, a firm that specializes in digital-video encoding/decoding, has announced a Linux-based set-top box reference design built around its own silicon plus Intel chips. In addition, Lineo, which supplies Linux for Internet and embedded applications, has joined with Everybook to provide its Embedix OS and browser for use in the EB Dedicated Reader, a device that works with downloaded books and magazines.
Author information
Paul G Schreier (aa1mi@ARRL.net) is a marketing consultant and writer from Rye, NH, who would prefer to be on his sailboat in Casco Bay, operating his home-brew ham radios, or hacking at a keyboard (the one on his digital stage
January 2000 Listen Up- digital- audio where we were:
Better than sex? That's the rap MP3 is getting on the Internet. We decode the digital audio universe.
Brian Dipert, Contributing Editor
According to web site Searchterms.com, "MP3" now surpasses "sex" as the most popular Internet search term. Good golly, Miss Molly (warning: you're going to see quite a few music references in this article), what's this world coming to?
I mean, we're talking about sex here. The primal urge. The industry whose revenue stream dominated the early days of the Internet, much as it single-handedly powered the fledgling videocassette and video CD businesses. The commodity that first drove a number of innovations now considered (for better or worse) mainstream; streaming video, Netcams, chat, secure credit card transactions, spam email, cookies and banner ads.
When something topples the almighty sex from its top search-engine spot, it's time for the digerati to sit up and take notice. So listen up, gentle readers, as I unravel the mysteries of digital audio creation, distribution, and playback. In addition to explaining what digital audio is, it's important to explain why the phenomenon has happened now, versus in the past, and by extrapolation make some predictions as to where the technology may be headed. So I shall.
Stop, hey, what's that sound?
Let's begin with a little math. High-fidelity compact disc audio uses a 44.1-kHz sampling rate, with each sample 16 bits in size, and dual (right and left) audio channels. Punch the numbers into your calculator and you'll find that these specifications translate to just over 1.4 Mbits/sec, or 175,000 Kbytes/sec, of required storage capacity and transmission bandwidth. That's a big WAV file; more than 10.5 Mbytes per minute of music. And don't assume that lossless compression techniques like those found in PKZip will by themselves put that bitstream on much of a diet. The data's just too random. Next-generation DVD Audio supports up to eight audio channels, at sampling rates up to 96 kHz (multi-channel) and 192 kHz (dual-channel), and with per-channel sample sizes up to 24 bits. Even after Meridian Lossless Packing squeezes everything down, that's a whole lot of bits, folks.
OK, now consider everyone's favorite lossy compression standard of the moment, MP3. Shorthand for the layer 3 audio compression format built into the MPEG-1 standard, and therefore also into MPEG-2 along with multi-channel Dolby Digital AC-3 and AAC (Advanced Audio Coding), MP3 is one of several perceptual audio encoding schemes currently vying for consumer, and therefore content-developer, mindshare. Perceptual audio compression, simply stated, tosses out information that, even if it existed, our auditory system wouldn't be able to process.
For example, a sound of a given frequency will tend to mask out information in nearby frequencies of even slightly less intensity. Psycho-acoustic transfer functions also take advantage of human beings' absolute hearing thresholds. Lossy compression techniques incorporate plenty of lossless compression tricks, too, such as run-length encoding, differencing, statistical coding and substitutional compression. And they focus much of their efforts on the higher-frequency bands, because the information content here naturally has greater sample-to-sample variation than, say, in the deep bass range.
128-kbit/sec-encoded MP3, the most common bitstream rate, takes up less than a tenth the storage space of 44.1-kHz-sampled stereo CD audio. That's a big deal when you're talking about flash memory cards at $4 or so per megabyte, or if you're using an old PC with a tiny hard drive. Especially if you're a budget-constrained high-school or college student (who, coincidentally, doesn't care to understand the nuances of the Home Recording Act of 1992). It's also a big deal when you're trying to use a narrow straw (your 56-kbit/sec analog modem) to suck down a five-minute song, a 50-minute album or a five-hour concert. All other factors being equal or nearly so, even we ADSL and cable-modem users appreciate a 12-times-faster download rate.
MP3 has garnered the majority of consumer attention to date simply because the encoding and decoding software are free, easily obtainable, and easy to use. Little Johnny can "rip" his CD collection with a few mouse clicks.
And audiophiles be damned, most consumers are perfectly happy with "poor quality" 128-kbit/sec MP3. They've been listening to magnetic cassette tapes for years, after all, and they don't have multi-thousand-dollar sound systems (Merlot and caviar not included). They've bought inexpensive headphones, low-end jamboxes and dinky PC speakers. Yes, they also drink Budweiser and eat hamburgers. Regardless of the format, a digital music player doesn't skip when you hit a bump, and, unlike tape, it sounds as good the 1,000th time you listen to it as it did the first. Game over. In fact, if I'm taking my Rio player jogging, or listening to it through my car stereo (which, handily enough, has an auxilliary input jack on the front), where ambient noise muffles dynamic range and attenuates frequency range extremes, 64-kbit/sec encoded MP3 sounds just fine too.
MP3 has garnered the majority of consumer attention to date simply because the encoding and decoding software are free, easily obtainable, and easy to use (see sidebar, "Resources"). Little Johnny can "rip" (extract to digital audio files) his CD collection with a few mouse clicks and without shelling out a dime beyond the PC his parents already gave him. And yes, he can share these files with his friends, and listen to their stuff, too, but we'll talk more about digital audio security in a future article and also in the sidebar, "The record industry versus the human brain." Some folks think that the latest generation computer CD-ROM drives with digital audio extraction (DAE) capability are partly to blame (or thank, depending on your perspective) for the exploding popularity of digital audio. I agree with them, but not for the most commonly touted reasons.
The pristine quality of digital-to-digital transfer that's got record execs so freaked out is a secondary benefit to DAE, for the same reason that 128-kbit/sec MP3 audio is good enough for most folks. A first-generation digital-to-analog conversion coming from the CD-ROM drive to the sound card, followed by an analog-to-digital reconversion in the encoder, still produces darn-good-sounding digital audio, unless you're using a PC with really cheap D/A and A/D converters, or one that generates an obscene amount of EMI (electromagnetic interference). But here's the catch: with a DAE-enabled system, you can rip a bitstream as fast as your CD-ROM drive can spin, instead of being held back by the 1X audio CD transfer rate.
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS: Creative's Nomad player and some of the many freely downloadable software tools for manipulating digital audio.
Speaking of streaming, I shouldn't forget to mention the exploding growth of the Internet as a factor in digital audio's popularity. Specifically, the major digital audio formats all comprehend not only the ability to download and play a file locally, but to stream-play audio stored elsewhere, a key piece of the try-before-buy equation. Streaming has also turned a generation of computer users into do-it-yourself broadcasters, courtesy of sites like Live365 and Streamcast.
Now for the formats (see sidebar, "Resources"). MP3 we've already mentioned. Two other contenders, Liquid Audio and Lucent Technology's Perceptual Audio Coder (ePAC), have been around roughly as long as MP3 but haven't achieved a comparable level of popularity. The proprietary angle to the Liquid Audio Player isn't the codec, it's the company's watermarking scheme. Liquid Audio uses both MPEG-2's industry-standardized AC-3 and AAC. AAC's claim to fame, like that of ePAC, is CD-quality audio at lower bit rates (roughly 96 kbits/sec) than MP3. Ironically, though, AT&T spinoff a2b music currently uses a watermarked version of AAC, not ePAC. Lucent plans, however, to introduce a line of portable digital audio players based on ePAC in the near future.
RealNetworks' RealAudio format also includes a 96-kbit/sec claimed CD-quality option, but today RealAudio is mostly used for low-quality streaming music previews. And no discussion of digital audio formats is complete without mention of the 10-ton gorilla of the computer industry, Microsoft. The company's Windows Media (WMA) format is a relative latecomer to the scene, but it's made impressive gains.
Some of this success is certainly due to Microsoft's deep pockets, which have resulted in a number of well-known artists distributing their music in its format (support that MP3 and Liquid Audio, and to a far greater extent ePAC, lack). Some of this success is also due to the fact that Microsoft freely distributes its encoder, decoder and rights-management software, leading to their integration into almost all of today's top digital audio creation toolsets. The key point to WMA's popularity, though, is its very high quality at low bit rates. Reviewers consistently miss this nuance when they compare various audio formats at equivalent bit rate settings. Microsoft claims that 64-kbit/sec WMA sounds as good as 128-kbit/sec MP3, if not better. From personal experience, I have to say I agree with them.
Format grab-bag
Several other contenders bear at least brief mention. IBM is said to be developing its own proprietary compression formats as part of its broader-vision Electronic Media Management System, code-named the Madison Project. Sony's first stabs at portable digital audio players, the Memory Stick Walkman and Music Clip introduced at November 1999's Comdex, will use the MiniDisc-derived ATRAC (Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coupling) format. Apple has built support in QuickTime for QDesign's audio codec, which is particularly adept at handling sub-56-kbit/sec analog modem bit rates.
An NTT-developed and Yamaha-marketed format variously called TwinVQ (Transform-Domain Weighted Interleave Vector Quantization) or VQF claims to deliver equivalent quality to MP3 with file sizes at least 30% smaller. VQF's encoding and decoding algorithms are, however, more processing-intensive than those of MP3 (which, like other pieces of MPEG, is an asymmetrical approach with comparatively complex encoding and simple decoding). And the MPEG committee is rolling out the MPEG-4 audio compression standard, based on VQF for low-bit rate applications and AAC for high-bit rate environments.
Live music afficianados claim, with some justification, that aggressive lossy compression does a particularly bad job of handling concert-recorded material. The reasons here are two-fold: live music dynamic range and sample-to-sample amplitude variations tend to exceed those of most studio material, and the less-than-ideal acoustic environment injects a lot of high-frequency noise into the recording. Variable-bit-rate MP3 would help minimize these shortcomings, but not all encoders and transcoders support this MP3 option, nor do all players. Softsound's lossless Shorten format, which on average will compress a WAV file by 50% or so and decompresses it to its original quality, is a popular alternative to MP3. Other compression options claiming lossless performance include MUSICompress and WAVPACK. Softsound also offers the ATELP lossy coder, which targets high-quality audio at 73 kbits/sec.
Bye, bye, brick-and-mortar
Now that you know what digital audio is, where can you get it? Specifically, how can you find music you don't already own? At a growing number of popular sites (see sidebar, "Resources"). Their business models vary widely; in some cases they extract a portion of the revenue from each sale (though, typically, a smaller cut than a record company would grab), and some take the next step of charging artists to encode and upload the track(s) to their servers. Others, such as MP3.com, don't charge the artists for posting or downloads. Instead, they make most of their money from banner advertising and, to a lesser extent, by burning tracks onto CD-Rs and selling them to interested listeners. Ironically, MP3.com's name is less than accurate; the company has MP3 roots but at this point is format-agnostic.
A widespread underground network, consisting primarily of college students using their university-allocated server space and bandwidth, as well as hobbyists who have converted an old PC and a cable modem or DSL connection into their very own FTP server, also exists to distribute digital audio recordings. Use a search engine such as Lycos' MP3 Search to find the music you're looking for, but don't be surprised if you get a lot of "file not found" messages, especially if you're looking for things you shouldn't (ie, copyright-protected songs). FTP sites and Internet newsgroups are, however, ideal places to find recordings from acts such as the Dave Matthews Band, the Grateful Dead and spinoffs, and Phish, all of whom allow recording and free redistribution of their live concerts.
The record companies aren't letting themselves be written out of the picture, though you're more likely to find short-duration, low-quality previews of songs than full-length high fidelity clips on their sites. Record store chains such as Tower Records are getting into the act, too. And, to one degree or another, many artists are themselves embracing digital media (usually out of frustration with the record labels). The Artist (Formerly Known as Prince) originally envisioned bypassing record companies and selling his music directly to the public through his site, though he's recently backed off somewhat from this stance. More commonly, you'll find either time-limited songs or unlimited-play alternate versions of tracks found on the CD, plus video clips. Hard-rock band Metallica recently took the avant-garde step of making available, in streaming Windows Media format, all the tracks from its S&M album, starting four days before the disc showed up in stores.
Play that funky music, new toy
The first few generations of stand-alone digital audio players have been mostly single-format MP3 devices. Diamond Multimedia's Rio PMP300 led the charge, partially because it was first-to-market and partially because other manufacturers sat on the sidelines waiting to see if Diamond would survive the record-industry lawsuits that followed Rio's launch. I previewed several MP3 players from other companies behind closed doors at January 1999's Consumer Electronics Show, players that only recently appeared in stores.
Future-generation players may have to support multiple audio formats and will probably also comprehend secure transactions, all of which implies a more flexible, more powerful processor.
Diamond's follow-up, the PMP500, doubles the amount of built-in memory in the standard PMP300 (and matches that in the special-edition model), includes bass and treble controls instead of generic equalizer options, and incorporates a USB interface, which provides much faster PC-to-player downloads than the original parallel-port connection. Other manufacturers differentiate their players through size and weight reductions, by adding radio tuners, or by offering live recording capability through built-in microphones or microphone jacks.
Today's MP3-only devices need only incorporate a hard-coded MP3 processing engine, such as one of Micronas' chips. Future-generation players, on the other hand, may have to support multiple audio formats (though alternatively this task could be handled by a media-management program running on the host computer) and will probably also comprehend secure transactions, all of which implies a more flexible, more powerful processor. Predictably, the major DSP manufacturers (Analog Devices, Lucent, Motorola, Philips, and Texas Instruments) are all rushing cost- and power-optimized architectures to market, and Cirrus Logic is also aggressively promoting a family of multiformat ARM7-based digital audio DSPs.
What if you'd like to play digital audio files on your computer? The leading media players, Apple's QuickTime, Microsoft's Media Player, and Real Networks' RealPlayer, all support MP3, and RealPlayer adds support for a2b music and Liquid Audio formats (both of these companies also offer free stand-alone players) and ePAC. Other well-known freeware players include Nullsoft's WinAmp and the Sonique Player. Both Sonique and Winamp let you export audio as a WAV file for subsequent burning onto a CD, and WinAmp also inputs and outputs Windows Media format.
And if you'd like to transfer music from your CDs to MP3, for playback in your shiny new portable MP3 player Christmas present? For this task you'll need several pieces of software; one to access the CD-ROM drive and "rip" the data to a WAV file, another to handle the WAV-to-MP3 transcoding, and a third to manage the flash memory inside the player and transfer new files to it. Fortunately, these pieces are merging in the latest versions of audio media-management software—such as MusicMatch's Jukebox, Real Networks' RealJukebox, and RioPort's Audio Manager.
I'm not able to reliably operate the first two programs on one of my desktop PCs, but they run like a charm on my newer machine, and RioPort Audio Manager hums along without problems on both computers. MusicMatch Jukebox works fine on the first PC until I attempt to "rip" CAB-encoded information off an audio CD; with already-existing WAV files it transcodes without crashing. I've gotten around the problem by installing an upgraded (although unsupported) version of Windows 9x file CDFS.VXD. Now, when I view the contents of the audio CD, I see not only the CAB files but also WAV files corresponding to the audio CD's songs, in mono and stereo, 8 and 16 bit, and at 11.025-, 22.05-, and 44.1-kHz sampling-rate versions. CDFS.VXD also eliminates the time- and HDD space-consuming interim step of converting the streaming CD audio data to a WAV file before transcoding it to MP3. Andre Wiethoff's Exact Audio Copy is another highly regarded, very accurate (and free) audio "ripper," and Tord Jansson's BladeEnc is a well-known freeware WAV-to-MP3 encoder.
The free versions of MusicMatch Jukebox and RealNetworks' RealJukebox only encode MP3 files to less-than-CD 96-kbit/sec quality. RioPort Audio Manager's free version limits the number of files you can MP3-convert. A diverse set of perfectly capable freeware alternatives exist, though, and I have a funny feeling there's likely to be a Microsoft-developed alternative coming along eventually, too. I suspect, therefore, that at some point all the "jukebox" manufacturers will switch to a Netscape-like business model that doesn't depend on software sales but generates percentage revenue with every audio track purchased through their software portals. CD-to-MP3 extraction alternatives include Xing Technology's Audio Catalyst, Jackie Franck's Audiograbber, Markus Barth's CD Copy, Christoph Schmelnik's Digital Audio Copy and Jukka Poikolainen's Easy CDDA Extractor. And there's plenty more: Check out the software section on MP3.com.
Finally, what if you're a live-concert attendee like me, and you'd like to capture a digital audio memory of a show? First, make sure that the band you're going to see allows taping; most don't, and in this case, your microphones and tape deck probably will be confiscated and you will be asked to leave. Most PCs' sound cards or motherboard-resident sound chips provide line inputs that you can attach to the line output of any tape deck. If you've recorded the music with a portable digital audio tape (DAT) deck, and you want to do a direct digital transfer to your hard drive, you're restricted to a shorter list of soundcards—ones that include SPDIF digital inputs. Creative Labs' Sound Blaster Live series or Turtle Beach's Montego II are examples. Keep in mind, though, that some of these cards will hardware-upsample all inputs to 48 kHz, so you'll have to subsequently convert the sampling rate to a more CD-friendly 44.1-kHz before burning a disc.
Alternatively, you can run the DAT deck's digital outputs through a SPDIF-to-USB conversion box such as Ego Systems' U24, Opcode Systems' DATPort or SonicPort, or Roland's UA-30 AudioCanvas. Higher-powered descendents of Microsoft's Sound Recorder such as GoldWave, Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge and Syntrillium's Cool Edit take it from there, pulling data off the analog line or digital USB inputs, offering you a variety of editing and processing functions, and saving your music in a variety of digital audio formats. To burn your digital audio files onto a CD-R or CD-RW disc, turn to software such as Adaptec's Easy CD Creator, Ahead Software's Nero, or Sonic Foundry's Siren Jukebox. CV
The record industry versus the human brain
The topics of digital audio encryption, watermarking, and other copyright protection schemes are enough to fill at least one article all by themselves, and maybe more if I include history lessons on what went wrong with SCMS and Divx. Stay tuned for coverage of these subjects. Until then, whet your appetite with the following resources:
deCarmo, Linden, "Pirates On the Airwaves; New Technologies for Audio Copy Protection," EMedia, September, 1999, p. 50.
deCarmo, Linden, "Safety in numbers; a look at the Secure Digital Music Initiative," EMedia, November, 1999, p. 48.
Bell, Alan E, "The Dynamic Digital Disk," IEEE Spectrum, October, 1999, p. 28.
ARIS Technologies
Intel Software Integrity System
Liquid Audio
Reciprocal Inc
Recording Industry Association of America
Secure Digital Music Initiative
Windows Media Rights Manager
Cynical folks like me, though, look at all this work and wonder how long it'll stymie any but the most casual hacker. Clever programmers quickly surmounted the encryption schemes in early versions of Liquid Audio and Microsoft's Windows Media Player. The DVD-Video encryption scheme is in shambles thanks to the software package DeCSS (with a little help from Xing Technology, which inadvertently forgot to encrypt the decryption key embedded in their XingDVD player software). I won't tell you where to find DeCSS . . . but I've tried it, and it works like a charm. And take a look at High Criteria's Total Recorder. What's the point of all this security, if a small virtual device driver can intercept the music on the way to the computer's sound chip?
Resources
Table 1—Digital audio formats
Table 2—Sites for downloading and locating digital music
Table 3—A sampling of standalone portable players
Table 4—Computer-based players
Table 5—Digital audio rippers, encoders and other software
Note: The tables are in PDF format. You'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view them.
Companies active in digital audio:
a2b music, 1-212-583-6800, www.a2bmusic.com
Adaptec, Inc, 1-408-945-8600, www.a2bmusic.com
Ahead Software gmbh, www.ahead.de
amp3.com, 1-281-348-9136, www.amp3.com
Analog Devices, Inc, www.analog.com
Apple Computer, Inc, 1-408-996-1010, www.apple.com
Astrojams, Inc, www.astrojams.com
AT&T Corporation, www.att.com
Best Data Products, Inc, 1-818) 773-9600, www.bestdata.com
Cirrus Logic, Inc, www.cirrus.com
Conifer Software, 1-212-583-6800, david@bryant.org
Creative Labs, Inc, 1-408-428 6600, www.creative.com
Diamond Multimedia, an S3 Corporation, 1-408-325-7000, www.diamondmm.com
Dolby Laboratories, 1-415-558-0200, www.dolby.com
Ego Systems Inc, www.egosys.net
Eiger Labs, Inc, 1-510-739-0900, www.eigerlabs.com
EMusic.com, 1-650-216-0200, www.emusic.com
Epitonic.com, 1-415-538-7090, www.epitonic.com
High Criteria Inc, 1-416-650-0328, www.highcriteria.com
Liquid Audio, 1-650-549-2000, www.liquidaudio.com
Listen.com, 1-415-934-2000, www.listen.com
Live365.com, 1-650-345-7400, www.live365.com
Lucent Technologies, 1-908-582-8500 , www.lucent.com
Lycos, Inc, 1-781/370-2700, www.lycos.com
Mediscience, 1-415-276-3940, www.sonique.com
Micronas Intermetall, www.micronas.com
Microsoft Corporation, 1-425-882-8080, www.microsoft.com
Motorola, Inc, www.mot.com
MP3.com, 1-858-623-7000, www.mp3.com
MusicMatch Corporation, 1-858-385-8360, www.musicmatch.com
Nullsoft, 1-520-282-4530, www.nullsoft.com
Opcode Systems, 1-650-429-2400, www.opcode.com
Pine Technology USA, 1-510-405-6700, www.pineusa.com
Pontis Electronic GmbH, www.mplayer3.com
QDesign Corporation, 1-604-688-1525, www.qdesign.com
RCA/Thomson Consumer Electronics Inc, 1-317-587-3000, www.rca.com
RealNetworks, Inc, 1-206-674-2700, www.real.com
Roland Corporation, 1-323-890-3700, www.rolandcorp.com
Royal Philips Electronics N.V., www.philips.com
Saehan Information Systems, +82-2-3279-7949, www.mpman.com
Samsung Electronics, www.samsung.com
Scour.Net, 1-310-281-0733, www.scour.net
Sensory Science Corporation, 1-480-998-3400, www.ravemp.com
Softsound Limited, +44-1727-847949, www.softsound.com
Sony Corporation of America, 1-212-833-6800, www.sony.com
Sonic Foundry, Inc, 1-608-256-3133, www.sonicfoundry.com
Soundspace Audio, 1-408-221-1191, members.aol.com/sndspace
Spinner.com, 1-415-934-2700, www.spinner.com
Syntrillium Software Corporation, 1-480-941-4327, www.syntrillium.com
Texas Instruments Inc, www.ti.com
Tunes.com, 1-212-229-0150, www.tunes.com
Voyetra Turtle Beach, Inc, 1-2914-966-0600, www.voyetra-turtle-beach.com
Xing Technology Corporation, www.xingtech.com
Yahoo!, 1-408-731-3300, www.yahoo.com
Yamaha Corporation, +81-53-460-1111, www.yamaha.com
Author information
Contributing Editor and Phish fan Brian Dipert is a technical editor for EDN (www.ednmag.com). He assures us that his hard disk harbors no files that might be construed as violating copyright laws.
September song??? [anyone know of UDF format?]
Philips Expands MP3-CD Line with New eXpanium Players
Leader in MP3 technology announces more options for consumers
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 2, 2001-- Building on their first generation's success, Philips Consumer Electronics' popular eXpanium(TM) portable MP3-CD players have gotten a facelift with enhanced features in the company's new 2001 audio lineup.
The leader in MP3-CD playback technology, Philips continues to create innovative products merging CD and compressed digital audio technologies. The explosive growth in this category combined with Philips' leadership in MP3-CD playback devices will make Philips new eXpanium models the perfect audio devices for summer trips and activities.
``The consumer response to the eXpanium has been tremendous, and our five new models have even more features to keep them ahead of the curve in MP3 playback technology,'' said Andy Mintz, senior vice president and general manager, audio, Philips Consumer Electronics, North America. ``The new design is durable and has an enhanced display that music lovers will appreciate. eXpanium is one of the most compact, practical and reliable MP3-CD players on the market.''
EXP503: An Advanced Option
The Philips EXP503's LCD display has been enlarged by 200 percent, offering a clear readout of album, artist, and track information. In addition, the high-end playlist support feature allows users to display and use playlists that are ordered according to their preference rather than just in the order of the recording. This player is capable of playing CDs with more than 10 hours of music in the MP3-CD format as well as AAC and UDF files. In addition, the EXP503 will play CDs, CD-Rs and CD-RWs. The EXP503 includes a car radio kit, headphones, AC/DC adapter and a belt-clip for carrying music on the go. For skip protection, both players use Magic ESP(TM) technology for smooth playback. Available in September, the Philips EXP503 will have an MSRP of $179.
EXP301 and EXP303:
The Philips eXpanium EXP301 and 303 play digital audio from MP3 and AAC files, as well as prerecorded CDs, CD-Rs and CD-RWs. The eXpanium supports digital audio files ranging from 32 to 320 Kbps, providing enthusiasts and audiophiles with a wide range of sound quality levels. While the EXP303 includes a car radio kit for music on the road, both players come with headphones, AC/DC adapter and a belt-clip for carrying music on the go. The EXP301 and EXP303 will be available in September, with MSRPs of $129 and $139, respectively.
EXP201 and EXP203: Solid Sound, Versatile Playback
Rounding out the eXpanium line-up are the Philips EXP201 and EXP203 personal MP3-CD players. With an increased battery playing time, these players will play up to 15 hours. The EXP201 will be available in July with an MSRP of $99, and the EXP203, which comes with a car-kit and AC/DC adapter, will be available in July with an MSRP of $119.
Ultimate Skip Protection with MAGIC ESP(TM)
To produce smooth, shockproof, playback Philips included the revolutionary MAGIC ESP(TM) into all its new eXpanium players, which automatically stores more than 100 seconds of music at 128Kbps, (over 200 seconds at 64 Kbps) and features shock recovery that is more than five times faster than standard electronic skip protection systems.
Listening Flexibility
For MP3 enthusiasts on the road, the Philips eXpanium offers flexibility. Business travelers can create personalized MP3 mixes for airline flights or daily commutes. Students can create similar mixes for college road trips or after-class workouts. With its compact size and its storage capacity of MP3-CD files, the uses for the eXpanium are almost endless.
About Philips
Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands is one of the world's biggest electronics companies and Europe's largest, with sales of $34.9 billion (EUR 37.9 billion) in 2000. It is a global leader in color television sets, lighting, electric shavers, color picture tubes for televisions and monitors, and one-chip TV products. Its 219,400 employees in more than 60 countries are active in the areas of lighting, consumer electronics, domestic appliances, components, semiconductors, and medical systems. Philips is quoted on the NYSE (symbol: PHG), London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and other stock exchanges. News from Philips is located at www.news.philips.com.
Car of the Future
A new wireless infrastructure, vehicle networking standards and lower cost memory and storage will open the door to a host of products and services over the next few years. The third-generation wireless network, 3G, will unleash true wireless Web functionality promising bandwidth of up to 2 Mbps.
In the very near future, you will push a button to get business information in the car using a combination of visual display and voice technologies. You will select your preferences and prioritize the delivery of this information to the display of your choice.
Business headlines will be delivered wirelessly and delivered using text-to-speech technology. You'll use memory devices to capture more in-depth information, music and video, which you'll be able to upload to a PDA or laptop using Bluetooth or IrDA technology.
On the entertainment side, you'll download compressed videos with multi-channel sound. In three to five years when the 3G wireless infrastructure is in place, you'll not only download music and stream Internet radio stations to the vehicle but watch movies simultaneously, creating a more personalized entertainment environment.
Voice, data and music files will be first. As bandwidth increases, audio/video content will follow. True real-time traffic information and cost-effective emergency response systems will become a reality.
MSN Carpoint.com Fast Facts Survey Reveals 47 Percent of Consumers Support Banning Handheld Cell Phone Use While Driving
June 2001 Results Also Indicate Consumers Are Willing to Try Safer Ways Of Using Cellular Phones in Cars
REDMOND, Wash. -- July 3, 2001 - The MSN® Carpoint™ service, the most visited car-buying and car-ownership site on the Web, today announced the key findings of its June 2001 survey, revealing that 47 percent of respondents feel that operating a cellular phone while driving without a hands-free accessory should be illegal.
The MSN Carpoint.com Fast Facts survey found that while 62 percent of those surveyed have not used a hands-free accessory, 54 percent would be willing to use one. In addition, 25 percent of respondents classified their level of cellular phone use while driving as moderate to high, and 25 percent said that using a cellular phone while driving has caused them to lose their concentration on the road. Twenty-eight percent of consumers indicated that they felt they have been put at risk of being in a crash as the result of another person using a cellular phone while driving. Ironically, 99 percent of the respondents said they have never been in or caused a crash while using a cellular phone.
"In a matter of seconds, a distracted driver can put himself or herself and others at risk," said Ann Job, consumer editor of Carpoint.com. "It's encouraging that so many consumers recognize this danger and are interested in hands-free accessories. But ultimately, the best way to lower the risk of distractions is for the driver to concentrate fully on the road."
When asked to classify the most distracting activities they have performed while driving, 64 percent picked changing their clothes, followed by applying make-up or shaving and reading or writing.
New York recently became the first state to outlaw the use of hand-held cellular phone use while driving, and 41 other states are considering similar legislation aimed at reducing the number of accidents.
MSN Carpoint.com Fast Facts is a monthly online survey conducted via Carpoint.com that provides consumers with feedback on car-related topics. The June 2001 survey was derived from a sample of more than 850 Carpoint.com users.