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Final word on Jecman from Intel reunion...
Intel celebrates rise from humble origins
Intel celebrates rise from humble origins
Semiconductor pioneer now world's top chipmaker By Francine Brevetti, BUSINESS WRITER SANTA CLARA
By Francine Brevetti, BUSINESS WRITER
WHEN INTEL began manufacturing in 1968, it intended to produce cheaper memory chips. Then a Japanese company asked it to produce chips that control logic for its calculators, and Intel took what it thought was a temporary detour. But today it is the world's largest producer of microprocessors -- chips that perform the logic and mathematical operations that drive computers.
A year ago Intel shipped its billionth microprocessor. Its products are so pervasive, you can hardly touch a computerized device without encountering Intel technology.
This month the Santa Clara company celebrated its 35th anniversary by throwing a party for its local employees -- who, although they work at the Santa Clara headquarters of the worldwide company, hail from the Bay Area's farthest reaches.
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7/23/2003
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- Siebel cuts staff after profit plunges
- InVision's net income slips
- Ask Jeeves' bottom line rebounds
- Chamber chief pushes education
- Upgraded fighter plane passes test
- Budget crisis wounding California
- Market rallies on news from Iraq
- Amazon rises after loss news
- Sun struggles continue
- Feds funds pump airlines
- Court restricts Mirant securities
- UPS reports profit increase
More than 6,000 stood in the blistering sun in the parking lot outside Intel's Mission College Boulevard facility to eat barbecued chicken, tri-tips and Boca Burgers; to drink Jamba Juice; and wait to be addressed by Intel Employee No. 4, Andy Grove, today Intel's chairman.
But first they listened politely and occasionally cheered as employees who had worked 20 years or more for the company were introduced and commended. Intel employs 78,000 people worldwide.
When the diminutive Grove finally climbed the podium, arms enlaced with those of supporters, he remonstrated in his soft Hungarian accent that Intel was so misunderstood way back then.
"Nobody really takes it seriously when I say that most of us didn't even think what Intel would become the first year or two," he said. "We were thinking about surviving. It is not to be taken for granted when you start from nothing. We had not foreseen, not just what Intel would become, but what the whole industry would become."
He asked how many had been born after the company's founding in 1968 and a healthy portion of participants raised their hands. A deep murmur rose from the crowd.
So many were not even toddlers in the early days of Intel. They hadn't participated in the struggle or zeal of the early company. They couldn't recall Santa Clara Valley's orchards, later paved over to create Silicon Valley.
Perhaps anticipating this, in 1992 Intel installed in its Robert Noyce Building a museum tracing the company's progress from a struggling Mountain View startup to the world's dominant semiconductor company. Its collection illustrates the miniaturization of transistors even as the wafers on which chips are embedded have grown to 12 inches.
An amusing juxtaposition of memorabilia brings to the fore the many devices that Intel's products have powered alongside 35 years of coffee mugs, T-shirts and bottles of champagne emblazoned with the company's logo.
At the entrance of the museum is a large photograph of the company's first 106 employees. In the foreground are founders Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, and earliest employees Leslie Vadasz and Grove. In the background, stood dozens of employees, mostly women, clad in white lab coats.
Standing by the photograph of the first Intel crew were long-time employee John Carpenter and former staffer Robert Jecman. San Carlos resident Carpenter, a 24-year veteran of the company, is safety and micro-contamination and emergency response manager for the company's California technology manufacturing group.
Jecman, an Alamo resident, is now retired but actually made the trek for the celebration. When he retired in 2000 after 24 years of employment with the company, he was vice president of the architecture group, managing Intel's mobile platform group. This is the division that introduced the Centrino, Intel's chip that powers mobile communication.
Company spokesman Howard High, a 24-year Intel employee, spoke of the many Bay Area communities in which Intel employees live.
"People don't necessarily view the East Bay as part of Silicon Valley. But we've always had a strong contingent of employees at Intel that come from that area. And because of Intel's longevity, the company has had an affect (on) those communities," said High, a Fremont resident.
That's right Pam...Jecman was later appointed in Sept. 2000
Tuesday September 12, 2000 10:05 AM
Company Press Release
e.Digital Corp. Appoints Robert Jecmen to Board of
Directors; Managed Intel''s Mobile PC Business
SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 12, 2000--e.Digital Corporation (OTC:EDIG)
Tuesday announced the appointment of Robert Jecmen to its Board of Directors.
Jecmen retired from Intel Corp. in August after 24 years of service. Jecmen was managing
Intel's Mobile PC business as Vice President of the Intel Architecture Group when he
retired. During his tenure as general manager of Intel's Mobile PC Group, a series of
industry leading mobile PC building block products were introduced which tripled the
performance of mobile PC's while offering unique power management features. These
new capabilities helped stimulate unprecedented growth in the mobile PC industry over
the past two years.
"I look forward to helping e.Digital grow as a leader in the rapidly changing portable digital
audio industry," stated Jecmen. "Accessing and enjoying secure audio content off of the
Internet is on the verge of explosive growth. e.Digital is well positioned to capitalize on this
growth opportunity with its range of leadership digital audio technologies, products and
partnerships."
Jecmen, 51, is a graduate of UC Berkeley with a masters degree in Material Science
Engineering. He has 27 years of industry experience in semiconductor electronics. While
at Intel, he was also Vice President of the Technology and Manufacturing Group
responsible for developing and ramping into volume production several generations of
silicon process technology supporting microprocessors and flash memory product lines.
Jecmen was also the General Manager of the California development center where many
of Intel's Pentium(TM) processor and flash memory products were developed and
manufactured. Jecmen holds two patents on high-performance transistor and multilevel
metal technology.
"Bob Jecmen brings years of senior experience and extensive industry knowledge to our
Board," stated Allen Cocumelli, Chairman of e.Digital. "With our company positioned as a
leader in the portable Internet audio devices industry, Bob's expertise in managing rapid
growth and his experience and contacts within the portable products industry will be
valuable assets. His direct knowledge of semiconductors, flash memory and
manufacturing processes will be of great benefit as we establish e.Digital as a standard in
this industry."
Cass, why don't you post the full letter that you sent to Inflight Online so that we can see exactly what you asked of them?
It is the least you would ask from one of us...
Well Al, that's all he really has is hyperbole and FUD. The facts elude him but that only increases his zeal.
The fact that a small company plows more money than it makes into its platforms and people is a concept that owd and cassie can abide for every small, struggling company except edig.
Their unique focus on this company should give everyone pause...
Scams generally do not continue to produce products and work with folks the likes of which edig has....ever
so many suckers according to owd and cassie...we'll see
good to see the bashers with their own board...play amongst yourselves now....
fred, cassie, owd you all keep pulling the strings now...
good cop/bad cop keep your rolls straight..mh you chime in now and again for a daily affirmation for our negative nebobs here ok...
cya
Never received one of those emails so I couldn't really comment there zippity. My comments were based on resqujuc's public posting record here.
I didn't even bother to dig for the post where he said he had sold nearly all his holdings. Of course you'd have to agree this doesn't really jive with his recent post of holding 400,000 shares does it?
hence my point
So you short a stock that you call the clients of and complain about and try to defame?
Beware, the next knock on your door could be SEC enforcement....
which is it resqjuc...you have no credibility here
Posted by: resqjuc
In reply to: friendlyfred who wrote msg# 67318 Date:1/4/2005 9:01:11 PM
Post #of 69493
Me too, but i at least play the downward side ....This has been a very profitable penny Stock - just dont play it long term..
hh,believe I posted some time ago that company has 12 mos I think to publish a patent app. before it is considered a "submarine patent"--designed to invite infringers before subsequent litigation....
TI, Microsoft team on software for portable media processor
EE Times
(05/02/2005 11:47 AM EDT)
MANHASSET, N.Y. — Texas Instruments Inc. announced Monday (May 2) it is working with Microsoft on future versions of the Windows Mobile-based Portable Media Center Software Kit, enabling manufacturers to develop portable media centers with TI hardware.
This development is based on a TI system-on-a-chip (SOC), an integrated digital media processor for portable applications, capable of supporting QVGA resolution for Windows Media Video 9. The processor embeds a digital signal processor (DSP) and an ARM core. It features an integrated video encoder, hardware video accelerators and USB host capabilities, offering what the company claims is superior performance over single-core portable media center implementations, while minimizing power consumption.
With a programmable architecture, the digital media processor can support Windows Media Audio (WMA), MP3, JPEG and all other major digital media formats, as well as offer encoding capabilities for OEMs that want to differentiate their portable media center products.
Word Mark RAP-TAP new edig trademark
Goods and Services IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Devices for wireless radio transmission, namely, electronic device for transmitting user generated sounds via selectable FM channel
Standard Characters Claimed
Mark Drawing Code (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
Serial Number 78609232
Filing Date April 14, 2005
Current Filing Basis 1B
Original Filing Basis 1B
Owner (APPLICANT) e.Digital Corporation, Inc. CORPORATION DELAWARE 13114 Evening Creek Drive S. San Diego CALIFORNIA 92128
Attorney of Record Richard K. Hosey
Type of Mark TRADEMARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator LIVE
Please do.They appear joined at the hip.eom
Kopin hedges bets on mobile video
Nicolas Mokhoff
EE Times
(04/26/2005 1:17 PM EDT)
WESTBOROUGH, Mass. — Kopin Corp. is banking on growth in the burgeoning mobile video market for future success after an arduous 20-year history that saw the company in many fields, some successful, some not.
At its 20th anniversary celebration here, Kopin (Taunton, Mass.) exhibited a slew of microdisplays for end-user applications from military head-mounted displays to consumer personal DVD eyewear.
"We want to be 'Kopin Inside' for mobile video what 'Intel Inside' was for PCs," said John Fan, president and chief executive, at the company's Vision 2005 event held here.
At the event, Kopin touted its increasing penetration in mobile video. Mobile video services alone are expected to generate $5.4 billion in annual revenues in the U.S. by 2009, or approximately 15 percent of wireless data revenues, according to industry analyst firm In-Stat/MDR.
"We see high-resolution micro-displays play a key role in driving the industry, along with wireless broadband, increasing storage capacity and abundant content," said Fan.
Kopin's microdisplays are also proliferating in consumer applications such as near-to-eye personal displays (PDs), a market projected to reach $1 billion by 2008, according to a 2004 report by market research firms McLaughlin Consulting Group and Insight Media.
In one consumer application, visitors to the recently opened 2005 World Exposition in Aichi, Japan, use microdisplay PDs to take an interactive mixed-reality ride to five separate habitats within the Hitachi Group's pavilion. Visitors see the animals through an AdventureScope, a binocular viewer, appear as lifelike computer-generated images moving inside dioramas.
AdventureScope, manufactured by Icuiti (Rochester, NY), incorporates Icuiti's optical system, Kopin's custom color version of its 0.97-inch-diagonal 1280x1024-resolution CyberDisplay 1280M, and interactive software from Ray Corp.
"AdventureScope needed ultra high-resolution displays that could readily fit into the lightweight, compact binoculars," said Paul Travers, president of Icuiti. "Only Kopin has the technology to provide the size, resolution, clarity, quantity and reliability Hitachi required in these displays."
The CyberDisplays used in AdventureScope are among the 15 million micro-displays Kopin has shipped for use in a wide variety of applications, including camcorders, digital still cameras, mobile video eyewear and military products.
In addition to camcorders, microdisplays for the latest military application were displayed.
Among the most interesting military uses is the Auxiliary Targeting Viewer (ATV), an integrated head-mount display developed for the thermal imaging market. It is designed as a high-resolution, monocular sight for covert reconnaissance, target acquisition and weapons firing.
The ATV, which is tethered to the rifle, gives the soldier an "over the wall" view of battlefield conditions from just moving his rifle to "see" around the corner or over a wall without the soldier being detected from a protected position.
Although unprofitable in recent quarters, Fan is optimistic Kopin will be profitable the first quarter this year. The company has no debt and $110 million in cash, according to Fan.
Last year, Kopin reported $87.4 million in sales from two main product lines, CyberDisplay microdisplays and heterojunction bipolar transistors. Both product lines stem from the company's proprietary wafer-engineering technology that allows combining and engineering dissimilar semiconductor materials to create small format flat panel displays technology and gallium arsenide HBTs.
mh, did ya slip and forget your id?eom
The story is not over owd and in case you had forgotten this is probably THE most challenging time for airlines (what with fuel costs an all) post 9/11.
Tell me about how all the other IFE sellers are on a big tear right now.
Your ability to see only the half of the story is well documented by most here.
owd3 you purposefully miss the point but that's ok..I expect nothing less from you.
Ah owd3, I never predicted huge profit for edig but I did predict revenues of about 200.00 per unit which was mentioned by ff and seems to be born out by financials.
I took her to task because she can't help but extoll her prognostic powers which as her post shows is far from the truth.
Savaging a company and its partners with half-truths and innuendo does not make you a visionary just a one-trick pony.
Posted by: Cassandra
In reply to: DABOSS who wrote msg# 33825 Date:3/26/2003 7:21:47 PM
Post #of 69145
Updated due diligence on APS / IFE:
On 10/23/02, e.Digital released the following PR about a partnership with "APS" to develop and market in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems:
http://www.edig.com/news/releases/pr102302.html
In the FAQ section of the EDIG website, management states (regarding this IFE relationship):
"We view this as one of the major developments for e.Digital for this year and in years to come. Becoming part of the infrastructure that supports our IFE systems may generate multiple revenue streams for us."
i.e., management is promoting this partnership as one if the major developments for the future.
However, when one reviews the PR, it is clear that it has very little information about APS and what is said is very ambiguous. No web site or contact information for APS was given in the PR.
As I previously pointed out, e.Digital erred in referring to Aircraft Protective Systems, Inc. (APS) as "APS, Inc." in its description of the company. However, in looking further into the situation, I believe that e.Digital may have grossly exaggerated the potential revenue from this partnership and has been very misleading in describing APS as a business.
First of all what is APS and what does it do? The web site for APS is http://www.airprosys.com. The company shows 3 products it seems to offer for sale (although no pricing or order information is given). These products are a (cargo) belt loader nose, a cargo door protector and a kevlar flight deck barrier. There is no mention about any IFE products or services.
APS is privately owned by William (Bill) Boyer, Jr. who also works for Alaska Air as a "Ramp Service Agent." The following is the Alaska Air job description:
Ramp Service Agent
-----------------------------------------
Ramp Service Agents at Alaska Airlines load and offload luggage and cargo. Duties also include working in the cargo area of the aircraft, transporting luggage and cargo to various airport locations, maintaining ramp and warehouse areas, and pushing-back and de-icing our aircraft.
The minimum requirements for the Ramp Service Agent position are as follows:
*Valid driver`s license and excellent driving record
*Ability to routinely lift 100 lbs
*Flexibility for shifts, including holidays and weekends
*Able to accept a starting wage of $9.10 per hour
*Must be a non user of nicotine products for the last six months
*High School diploma or equivalent
http://www.alaskasworld.com/Jobs/ASjobs/JobAlaskaDescr.asp?n_group=142&txtGroup=Airport+Jobs
Here is the article from the Alaska Air employee web site which describes how Boyer ended up marketing his design for a cargo door protector and making a prototype of the belt loader nose (designed by a VP at Alaska Air):
http://www.alaskasworld.com/news/2002/11/12_BeltBumper.asp
"The idea took wing when Bill Boyer, an enterprising ramp service agent based in Seattle, approached Prewitt, Alaska’s vice president of safety, about an aircraft door protector he developed and hoped to market. Prewitt then described his bumper idea. After putting their heads together to refine the idea, Boyer went back to his shop and created a prototype.
So, the President of APS, e.Digital's partner in this major development, is employed as a cargo loader for Alaska Air. Now for more...
The EDIG PR quoted Boyer as saying:
Bill Boyer, Jr., President of APS, said, "As a certified airline service and equipment provider, we have established key relationships with major airlines. In our business dealings with these airlines we recognized the substantial cost they would have to incur to upgrade their fleets with embedded IFE systems. Beginning with a major U.S. airline, APS and e.Digital are providing the first portable IFE solution to the airline industry at a significantly reduced cost."
It has already been established that APS and EDIG are NOT providing "the first portable IFE solution to the airline industry" since a company called InMotion had been renting DVD Players and DVD movies to airline passengers at NO charge to the airlines long before this PR was released, so that statment is false.
Also, what is meant by the term "certified airline service and equipment provider?" EDIG also described APS with this phrase in its description of APS in the PR:
About APS, Inc.
APS, Inc. is a privately owned, Tacoma, Washington-based company. A certified airline equipment and service provider, APS provides solutions, industrial design, and manufacturing services for companies who have specialized product needs.
First of all, the description given is a gross exageration of what APS really does. It does not provide "industrial design and manufacturing services." But even more important, what certification does APS have? The web site makes no mention whatsoever about any specific certification. If it were ISO 9000 or AS 9100 Certified, both the PR and the web site would be expected to state that as these are required in the airline industy. So what "certification" does APS have?
In investigating further, I found out that APS does not have appear to have any official certification to sell equipment to airlines. In fact, it appears that Boyer does not even sell the products on his website. The designs for the belt loader nose and cargo door protector were sold to a company called Shaw Aero, which is the manufacturer and seller of the belt loader nose shown on the APS web site. Apparently Boyer has no contracts with airlines to sell either of those items. I was unable to find out information on the flight deck protector. Here is information on Shaw Aero (See the photos):
http://www.shawaero.com/documents/New%20Devel-Apr.pdf
Home page: http://www.shawaero.com/devicehomepage.htm
Now, as for "IFE" - how did Boyer get involved in that?
According to the following article on the Alaska Air employee website that describes how employees were making suggestions for IFE systems, including live TV. Alaska found that live TV was not suitable for them and that passengers won't switch airlines due to IFE options.
Instead of outfitting their flights with embedded IFE systems, Alaska Air signed an agreement with InMotion to offer IFE to Alaska Air passengers at a 25% discount without any financial risk to the airline. Furthermore, Alaska Air management was quoted as saying:
"We don’t want to get into the business of being our own supplier of equipment or videos for several reasons," Palmer says.
Among them are:
It’s complicated. Transporting equipment, determining how many players are needed and what movies are offered can quickly become a logistical nightmare. Plus, equipment would need to be cleaned, recharged and possibly repaired after each flight. This would require additional staffing.
It’s expensive. Players would first have to be purchased and contracts would need to be reached with various content providers—with slim hope of recovering direct costs.
http://www.alaskasworld.com/news/2002/09/30_entertainmentoptions.asp
Therefore, it does NOT appear that Alaska Air intends to buy any personal video devices directly from APS. In fact, an RB alias that popped up on the day of the PR who seemed to know a lot about Boyer and APS (was it Boyer himself?), seemed to indicate that the plan was for APS to offer the kind of service that InMotion does, talking the financial risk. See:
http://ragingbull.lycos.com/mboard/memalias.cgi?member=goldwingin
In summary, I believe that the APS partnership and e.Digital's potential revenue from the partnership has been exaggerated by management. It appears that APS/Boyer may plan to establish the same kind of business plan that InMotion has, wherein he would offer IFE devices for rental. I could find no evidence that Alaska Airlines or any other airline actually plans to buy the units, although he may have a contract to offer them for rent as does InMotion. I am not certain if Boyer plans to buy the devices from e.Digital or if e.Digital would simply be Boyer's partner in the rental business, splitting the proceeds.
As a side note, I find it very humorous that e.Digital says it's intends to target other segments of the travel industry with this device, including:
- cruise ships (yeah, you go on a cruise to sit in your room and watch movies on a tiny screen while skipping all of the entertaining things that are the reason most people go on a cruise - that makes sense!),
- car rental agencies (again, this really makes sense, doesn't it?),
- hotels (they already make a bundle on their pay-per-view movies - why watch a tiny screen when you can watch it on TV?).
This reminds me of how e.Digital said that Lanier Healthcare intended to expand its dictation systems to the legal and law enforcement fields. Lanier never had such plans. But it sure sounded good.
No,they don't. But posters who only post negative things about a company regardless of the circumstances are certainly at risk of having their motives questioned...
As time goes on, many are now seeing things with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. The accuracy of past posts can now be reviewed.--Cassie
Do you remember the accuracy of your posts describing APS and Bill Boyer as a fraud and showing the location of the business at a residential address and all the aspersions you cast on that business endeavor just a short while ago?
The constant harangues about the endeavor not being possible because e.digital and APS did not have the proper FAA certifications?
It is surely with a selective memory that you gloat about your accuracy and crystal clear vision.
As the company clearly addresses its most significant business opportunity to date you remind everyone here that there are assuredly 2 sides to every coin.
Spec paves legal path to sharing downloaded movies
ick Merritt
EE Times
(04/19/2005 6:41 AM EDT)
LAS VEGAS — A specification launched with little fanfare late last week might someday do for video what Apple's iPod did for music.
The 0.9 version of the Advanced Access Content Systems (AACS) specification, posted on the Internet last week (April 14), is intended to control digital rights while enabling users to download movies from the Web, burn them to DVDs, share them over a home network or download them to portable or car video players.
Industry sources said both competing camps of next-generation DVD developers — Blu-Ray and HD-DVD — are close to agreement on adoption of the technology. That could open the door to giving users rights to what insiders call "managed copying" of high-definition digital movies.
Eight companies announced the formation of AACS a year ago to develop copy protection for next-generation DVDs. But the specification the group has written has much broader potential.
AACS is "not only for prerecorded content. The specification can also be used for recording so we hope to be used in download business models as well," said Alan Bell, senior vice president of technology at Warner Brothers told the National Association of Broadcasters conference here.
"This is a very big effort, and we think it is very far along," said Richard Doherty of the Envisioneering Group (Seaford, N.Y.), a technology analysis company that reviewed the specification last week.
Doherty said the spec aims to cover a variety usage models that might be defined by a content owner. The new models might include moving digital movies purchased on the Web to a portable or car player, a home network, or even shared with a friend for a limited number of views. AACS was founded by IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Panasonic Sony, Toshiba, Warner Brothers and The Walt Disney Co. Three of the companies — Panasonic, Sony and Disney — are also founding members of the Blu-Ray next-generation DVD group. Toshiba is a key developer of the rival HD-DVD specification.
"We have had meetings as recently as last week with both [next-gen DVD] sides on how to mate [AACS] with their formats," said Bell.
"The HD-DVD side is very close to accepting this," said Martha Nalebuff, director for DRM strategy and policy at Microsoft Corp, also on the NAB panel discussion.
Some sources have suggested the Blu-Ray group is considering asking for modifications to the standard, but Brad Hunt, chief technology officer for the Motion Picture Association of America, said he believes the Blu-Ray group is also close to adopting AACS.
"If we confuse the consumer [with multiple digital rights technologies] they could reject all of them," Hunt said in the panel.
Rather than confuse consumers, the AACS members hope to delight them with a new level of navigation and interactivity as well as the ability to move files across their various systems, Bell said. "Content owners know it will take more than sharp, high-definition pictures" to attract users to a new movie format, he said.
The AASC version 0.9 specification could be implemented in whatever software language the device maker prefers — C, Java or C++, said Doherty. It was designed to be both lightweight and robust, he added.
House Eyes DRM Interoperability
By Mark Hachman
April 8, 2005
A House committee has re-examined the use of interoperability in digital-rights-management schemes.
This week, the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property asked four industry representatives to testify on the issue of proprietary DRM schemes, which can prevent a track downloaded from a competing music store from being played on a player like the iPod, unless the song is downloaded in an unregulated MP3 format.
William Pence, chief technology officer of Napster, joined Michael Bracy, policy director of the Future of Music Coalition, Ray Gifford, president of the Progress and Freedom Foundation and Mark Cooper, director of research at the Consumer Federation of America, to testify in front of the panel. However, the four speakers advocated a market-driven response, instead of government intervention.
While the committee did not indicate that it would seek to open up the rights-management schemes, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), who chaired the committee, said that the House planned to investigate the issue in light of the so-called "Section 116" license, which governs the making and distribution of physical records and digital music deliveries.
"Many of the licenses and rights in the music industry stem from compulsory licenses and exclusive contracts," Smith said. "Since one of these licenses, the compulsory Section 115 mechanical license, is now being updated for the digital era, the time is appropriate for the subcommittee to learn more about the impact of digital interoperability on consumers and artists."
The issue of copyright and managing that copyright has tended to go hand-in-hand, and Smith cited the ongoing Grokster Supreme Court case, which is testing the right and liability of peer-to-peer software makers to transmit works which may belong to a third party. Smith noted that it is in the interests of consumers and copyright holders alike to disseminate the works on a broad basis, so that enjoyment and profit can go hand in hand. On the other hand, Smith also drew parallels between the various rights-management schemes and digital formats.
"Legitimate questions have been raised regarding the impact of digital interoperability on consumers," Smith said. "In the physical world, consumers didn't expect that music audio cassettes were interoperable with CD players. Consumers switching from music cassettes to CDs bought the same music for $10 to $20 per CD that they already owned. Consumers accepted this since they felt they were getting something new with more value – a digital format that made every reproduction sound as good as the first playback.
"Music is quickly becoming an online business with no connection to the physical world except for the Internet connection," Smith added. "Even that connection is increasingly becoming wireless. Some of the same interoperability issues that occur in the physical world are now appearing here."
Several speakers cited the landmark fight between the VHS and Betamax videocassette standards, which were ultimately decided by the marketplace, and not regulators or the courts.
Pence, in particular, argued that the government should take a hands-off approach – to a point. Legitimate music services are competing against "pirate services," he said, which can offer a virtually unlimited catalog of music. Locking up certain tracks in one format or another inhibits authorized music resellers, he said.
"Historically the government has not been a participant in competition between early-stage consumer technologies, such as between the VHS and the Betamax, the cassette and the 8-track tape, USB and Firewire, or the current competition between DVD Audio and Super Audio CD," Pence said. "Similarly, it does not seem prudent for government to pick a winner in the continuing but still quite early-stage marketplace battle between Apple's Fairplay DRM and its competitors. Government intervention in the innovation business can lead to politicizing and inhibiting such innovation, rather than allowing the marketplace, based on actual demand, to select "winners" that must continue to provide viable solutions or lose their market, deservedly, to the next great offering that someone develops in his or her garage or corporate lab."
On the other hand, Pence said that the government has a role to play in enforcing the Copyright Act, especially sections 112 and 115, which deal with copyright royalties. "Napster and our legitimate online music competitors compete with pirate services, and it is critical to creators and all who support them that royalty-paying services win the day," he said.
Likewise, Gifford argued that mandating interoperability would rob the music industry of innovation. Although products like the Sony PSP and even coffee makers use proprietary formats, users will tend to gravitate toward interoperable formats in most cases, he said.
"Should public policy be concerned with this turn in the annals of coffee maker platform design or video game devices?" he said. "Probably not. If you start looking for standards to scrutinize, you will see them everywhere – from razors and blades, to PSPs and disk drives, to MP3 players and iPods. Because we cannot know in advance what consumers will prefer or what is truly superior, we should forbear from interfering."
Bracy, whose Future of Music Coalition was set up to represent the artists who create music, said that there are a number of alternative issues that Congress should be addressing instead of potentially legislating interoperable DRM: the alleged "payola" that takes place between recording studios and radio stations, the questions of Digital Audio Broadcasting and low-power non-commercial stations in urban markets, and the digital divide that even separates some emerging artists from their more successful brethren.
"The point is not that this industry is now perfect, or that we even can see the solution," Bracy said. "Rather, we all should acknowledge that the digital transition is complicated. It includes multiple competing markets, dependent on evolving technological innovation and regulatory policy decisions."
Danl...we hardly knew ya. It could all be a bag 'o wind but this company has produced too many products with too many partners of substance to be a simple fraud. If these guys are grifters, they definitely rate way up there in the pantheon.
I think eventually we will be involved in a product (and we may already have in the guise of the Digeplayer) that brings in more cash than we can spend.
If the Kino platform and Kiosks do eventually take off and I think they will someday "soon", the company will have arrived.
Now all you little miscreants have at it..LOL
take the messiah complex elsewhere please...
Oh yeah that's right..the truth squad..
From what I can tell, e.Digital does not stand to receive any revenue from Wencor's new installed digeplayer system. If that's true, then it is significant in that some shareholders claim to be buying more shares in anticipation of big news and big revenue from Wencor's system.
Well, from what I can tell, you seem to take just a smatter of information and stretch it out into one long repeating negative diatribe against this company as if your life depended on it...but that's just from what I can tell IMO.
In the same spirit in which Cassie now posts with "authority" on such subjects, recall this blast from the past...as always consider the source...
Posted by: Cassandra
In reply to: qualitycraft who wrote msg# 51542 Date:11/15/2003 8:56:47 PM
Post #of 68455
Boyer publicly announced the Disney content deal back in September (#msg-1513959), but to date, no Disney content for his digEplayer has been listed on his web site.
In fact, his characterization that his digEplayer has "9 first run movies" seems to be false when one looks at the 9 movies: http://www.digeplayer.com/now_showing.php
As a private corporation, he can say anything he wants to you without liability. I don't think I'd be holding my breath for major announcements in the "next couple of days" as he said.
He also claims that Aircraft Protective Services (APS) has some sort of generic certification to sell to airlines, which apparently does not exist. If you talk to him again, you might want to ask him what "certification" APS has to sell to airlines. My understanding is that they have none.
-------------------------------------------------------------
I don't recall seeing the apologies for these aggregious errors either..just for the record. I guess cassie is a private poster and she can say anything she wants to you without liability
amen jt. Owd actually wonders why shareholders would question why 2? folks would spend an inordinate amount of time denigrating their investment non-stop on a message board.
And as I recall didn't old cassie spend many posts trying to convince us that e.Digital was not the manufacturer of the portable units and how there was no reason for APS to utilize our services...only to be proven wrong once again.
Actel, ARM put soft CPU in FPGA
Posted: 09 Mar 2005
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Actel Corp. and ARM Ltd have announced a collaboration that has led to the first certified ARM CPU core available as soft IP for implementation in an FPGA.
Previously, Altera had released an FPGA with a diffused ARM processor on the die, but this is the first time such a core has been available as soft IP.
Three barriers had to be overcome to make the product possible, according to the partners: size and performance, license issues and the challenge of protecting ARM's intellectual property from theft.
Until recently, FPGAs lacked the density and performance to implement a full ARM-compliant processor core in the logic fabric. At current densities, this is no longer the case. "All but three or four of the smallest FPGAs in Actel's ProASIC-3 family can do useful SoC designs that include the ARM core," said Wayne Lyons, ARM's director of embedded solutions.
Even so, the two companies found it necessary to collaborate on a special implementation of the core optimized for use in the FPGA. "This is an ARM7 tdmi-s core, without a cache controller or MMU," Lyons explained. "We determined that many of today's embedded applications are running at no more than 40MHz, and don't use these features."
Dennis Kish, Actel vice president of marketing, added that even with the high underlying performance of the Pro-ASIC flash-based FPGA fabric, "The core will require a significant amount of circuit optimization. This is going on as we speak."
While these measures will put the ARM core in the size and performance range for many embedded applications, that leaves two more issues to be addressed: licensing and security.
The licensing problem will be handled by a novel exploitation of the fact that the Actel FPGAs include an encryption engine on-chip to handle encrypted programming bit streams. Actel will release a new version of the ProASIC-3 family that will be labeled as "ARM-Enabled."
These devices will have a modified bit stream decoder that will recognize and accept the specially-encrypted bit stream for the ARM core. The license fee for using the ARM architecture will be bundled in the price of the FPGA chips, making access to a soft ARM license available for the first time to customers whose needs are too small to justify a license directly with ARM.
"This is bringing ARM to the masses without making them buy a stand-alone CPU chip," Kish said.
The encryption approach also deals with the security issue. Because the ARM core is supplied in an encrypted form, and can only be successfully encoded into an ARM-enabled ProASIC-3, there is little chance of the IP being hijacked, according to the companies.
"This was a big issue for ARM," Lyons said. In fact, it could be a big issue for both companies in the hot Asian market, as it for the first time will make an ARM license available to small SoC developers there. These companies had previously relied on ARM-based microcontroller chips.
The devices, for which final pricing has not yet been set, will be handled by a standard ARM co-marketing approach: ARM will promote the devices in its target application areas, but the chips will be sold directly by Actel.
- Ron Wilson
EE Times
Microsoft, Nokia ink music deal
Phonemaker to use Microsoft products in digital music headsets; Microsoft agrees to open standards.
February 14, 2005: 9:14 AM EST
HELSINKI (Reuters) - The world's largest mobile phone maker Nokia and software company Microsoft struck a deal Monday to make it easier for consumers to buy digital music on-line and play it back on their handsets.
In a comprehensive agreement, which involves a separate deal with digital media company Loudeye, Nokia agreed to put Microsoft's music player software into its handsets.
In return, Microsoft (Research) will introduce open standards for digital music compression and piracy protection in its Media Players for personal computers.
"Users can synchronize their music collection with their mobile device," Nokia (Research) said in a statement.
"This agreement makes it easier for consumers to download music they want to listen to, without having to worry about whether or not the file format is supported," said Nokia Multimedia unit head Anssi Vanjoki in a statement Monday.
A Nokia spokesman told Reuters the firm would launch a phone in 2005 that would support Windows Audio.
The deal brings together two long-time rivals, with Nokia previously using either in-house or RealNetworks (Research) music and video software. It said it sold 10 million phones in 2004 with an integrated music player.
In its audio player, Microsoft will introduce the open AAC format that shrinks audio files, as well as anti-piracy software from the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). Nokia and Loudeye (Research) agreed they would start selling a music download service directly to mobile phones that will use the same AAC and OMA technologies.
Nokia will add Microsoft's Windows Media compression and playback technology to the digital music players in its handsets. At a later stage, Nokia will include Windows Media's anti-piracy technology, used in many online music stores.
Breakthrough for Microsoft
The deal is a boost to Microsoft, which until now has had little success penetrating the mobile handset market. It has tried to push a slimmed-down version of Windows for use in so-called smartphones, which offer limited PC-type functions such as e-mail, but its market share is below one percent.
On the back of Nokia's formidable market share of one-third of the 684 million-units-a-year handset market, the Redmond, Wash.-based software company has a much bigger opportunity to get its media player software into handsets around the world.
The software maker hopes it will encourage consumers to buy more songs in online Internet music stores that use its compression and anti-piracy software. Internet music stores, including market leader iTunes Music Store from Apple (Research), offer music in their own proprietary formats.
For Nokia, it means it can start riding the wave of digital music download services that have become popular recently.
Nokia said that the deal with Microsoft would not affect its relationship with RealNetworks. The two firms said earlier this month that they were expanding cooperation to bring video and music players to more Nokia phones.
"With Real, there has been more of a focus on the video side of things," a spokesman said.
The separate deal with Loudeye also offers a surprising change in industry politics, because until now Loudeye only sold Internet download systems that run on Microsoft software.
Loudeye's entry into mobile download services with Nokia means it has embraced the open standards.
Nokia said the mobile music platform from Loudeye will let users browse, search, listen, and download songs and ring tones either to their phones or to their computers. The fees will appear on users' monthly phone bills.
Mobile services operators around the world are pushing hard for open standards so that consumers are not confined to only one format for playing the songs they legally purchased.
The Loudeye/Nokia service is ready to use in over 30 countries, and the companies expect to strike deals with operators for its use in the next couple of months.
Alaska Airlines Announces New Service Between Anchorage/Seattle and Dallas/Fort Worth
Friday February 11, 8:11 pm ET
SEATTLE, Feb. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Alaska Airlines today announced twice-daily, nonstop service between Seattle and Dallas/Fort Worth starting July 19, with daily same-plane service to and from Anchorage, Alaska.
"This route opens up a new destination for our Alaska and Pacific Northwest passengers, as well as provides a new carrier choice for Dallas-area travelers," said Gregg Saretsky, Alaska's executive vice president of marketing and planning. "The addition of Dallas is a continuation of Alaska's strategy to selectively expand our network from Seattle and was facilitated by another carrier's recent suspension of service between Seattle and Dallas/Fort Worth."
To kick off its new service, Alaska will offer introductory fares of $148.50 each way to and from Seattle and $244 each way to and from Anchorage that must be purchased by Feb. 28, 2005, for travel through Nov. 17, 2005. Alaska will operate Boeing 737 aircraft on the routes.
The flights to and from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport are timed for convenient connections with Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air points throughout the Pacific Northwest, Canada and Alaska. Mileage Plan members will receive double miles on any Alaska Airlines-operated Dallas flight, through Aug. 31, 2005, when they register at www.alaskaair.com.
During the past three years Alaska Airlines has expanded east and south, connecting Seattle with its customers' favorite destinations. Dallas/Fort Worth is Alaska's 12th destination added since 2001. Other U.S. cities east of the Rockies served by Alaska Airlines are Boston, Chicago, Denver, Miami, New York/Newark, Orlando, Fla., and Washington, D.C.
All flights to and from Dallas/Fort Worth will be equipped with leather seats and Alaska's recently launched digEplayer inflight entertainment system. The state-of-the-art system gives Alaska's customers the choice of up to 20 full-length features including first-run movies and TV shows. Details of the new service:
Seattle to Dallas/Fort Worth Anchorage to Dallas/Fort Worth
(two nonstops daily) (one stop via Seattle)
AS 808 - 11:18 a.m.-5:08 p.m. AS 808 - 6:05 a.m.-5:08 p.m.
AS 810 - 11:30 p.m.-5:20 a.m.
Dallas/Fort Worth to Seattle Dallas/Fort Worth to Anchorage
(two nonstops daily) (one stop via Seattle)
AS 811 - 8:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m.
AS 809 - 6:10 p.m.-8:10 p.m. AS 809 - 6:10 p.m.-11:35 p.m.
Fares shown do not include airport passenger facility charges of up to $18 (amount depends on itinerary), federal segment tax of $3.20 per segment (takeoff and landing) on itinerary, and a Sept. 11 security fee of $2.50 per enplanement (up to $10). Fares listed are each way based on round-trip purchase. Tickets are nonrefundable but can be changed for a $50 change fee and any applicable changes in fare. Seats are limited and may not be available on all flights or all days. All fares are subject to change without notice. Other restrictions apply depending on individual fare rules. See www. alaskaair.com for details.
Alaska Airlines and its sister carrier Horizon Air together service more than 80 cities in Alaska, the Lower 48, Canada and Mexico. For reservations visit www.alaskaair.com. For more news and information, visit the Alaska Airlines Newsroom on the Internet at http://newsroom.alaskaair.com .
Airing your dirty laundry in public? Not really good for either side I should think...
Wow London, good post for a Cassie sympathizer LOL. I would agree with most of what you said but ultimately suspect that the limited post-mortems on failures are meant to keep from "poisoning the well" and retaining those companies involved as future potential customers/partners.
I wouldn't say you lack vision Cassie..it's just that what vision you do have is completely skewed to the negative.
Hope this helps...
Welcome aboard jordan23! Refreshing break from ff's we're going to test 12 cents for the umpteenth time.
One day he might even be right...but I doubt it.
cheers
Gee Cassie, in case Joe really left, ahhh I think its a little thing called an operating system...you know the thing that's on the splash screen when you power-up the digeplayer..MicroOS 3.0 I believe.
Oh that's right, MicroOS is only a flash memory file management system and could not possibly have progressed to this level of sophistication..uh huh.
And since we only work on consumer electronics there is no way we could be involved with an embedded system..uh huh.
Do you have any more spin we could decipher?
Apple debuts new, low-priced iPod
Published: January 11, 2005, 11:39 AM PST
By John Borland and Richard Shim
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
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update As widely expected, Apple Computer on Tuesday introduced new versions of its popular music player dubbed the "iPod shuffle," priced at just $99 or $149, and respectively holding about 120 and 240 songs.
Based on flash memory, rather than the more expensive computer-like hard drives that have been the centerpiece of all other iPods, the new player is aimed at a low-end segment of the market that has been untapped largely for Apple to date. The player has two versions, respectively holding 512MB and 1 gigabyte of memory.
Unlike most similar devices, the shuffle has no display screen to show songs or playlists, consisting only of a slender white rectangle with the trademark iPod navigation wheel on one side. The company is instead highlighting the random-play aspect of the device, although this is a common feature on virtually all MP3 players.
"iPod shuffle is smaller and lighter than a pack of gum and costs less than $100," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement. "With most flash-memory music players users must use tiny displays and complicated controls to find their music. With iPod shuffle you just relax and it serves up new combinations of your music every time you listen."
Although widely expected following a series of leaks, Apple's move into the flash market does mark a departure from the company's previous high-end strategy. Jobs has previously dismissed small-capacity, relatively inexpensive MP3 players as products given as gifts and rarely used.
The flash market overall has been larger in terms of units sold than the hard-drive market, and remains very strong overseas. The largest share of the U.S. retail market over the past year belongs to iRiver, followed by Rio and RCA. Other players include Nike/Phillips, Samsung and Creative Technologies.
Other companies have been making their own new approaches to the low end and middle of the music player market as well. At last week's Consumer Electronics Show, Rio introduced a new 2.5-gigabyte player called the ce2100, priced at $199.
The holiday season proved a successful one for some of these Apple rivals. Creative Technology said Tuesday that it had sold more than 2 million MP3 players in the quarter ending December, prompting the company to raise its yearly revenue guidance substantially.
However, Apple remains the dominant player in the hard drive-based MP3 player market, accounting for more than 80 percent of sales in the year between October 2003 and October 2004, according to the NPD Group. The company said Tuesday that it had sold more than 4.5 million iPods in the fiscal quarter ending Dec. 25.
The company's share prices have soared from $40 to nearly $70 in the last three months, largely on expectations of continued iPod sales growth and associated positive effects on the rest of the company's business. The Prudential Equity Group said it expects Apple to ship 15 million iPod units and 22.5 million units in fiscal 2005 and 2006.
Tuesday's introduction of the flash iPod may also give Apple's iTunes store a boost. Previously, none of the flash players on the market could directly play songs purchased from Apple's digital music store, although customers could burn the songs to a CD and then re-rip them to MP3 format.
By offering a lower-priced player, Apple could attract a new segment of the market to its music store that previously only had access to rival download services such as Napster, Virgin Digital or MSN Music.
MPEG LA unveils patent pool plan for digital rights scheme
By Junko Yoshida
EE Times
January 07, 2005 (7:44 AM EST)
LAS VEGAS — The MPEG LA licensing agency on Thursday (Jan. 6) unveiled a joint portfolio license covering essential patents for the Open Mobile Alliance's digital rights management (DRM) scheme.
While the Alliance's approach is designed for mobile handset applications covering a relatively limited segment of the broader digital rights landscape, industry observers viewed the latest announcement as the critical first step for sorting out disputes among competing DRM technologies.
Larry Horn, MPEG LA's vice president of licensing, said the patent pooling announcement "addresses the patent overhang issue."
MPEG LA identified ContentGuard Holdings Inc., Intertrust Technologies Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd., Philips Electronics and Sony Corp. as "an initial group" of key patent holders. They will commit their technologies to the joint patent portfolio license for use in the Alliance's DRM version 1.0.
Under the proposed patent pool, MPEG LA said royalty rates for patents essential to digital rights management functionality will be $1 per device. That amount would be paid by product manufacturers. Service providers would pay 1 percent of any transaction in which users pay for digital content employing OMA's version 1.0.
A growing number of technology companies have entered the DRM market "in hopes of getting their patents locked up," said Michael Paxton, In-Stat/MDR's senior analyst for converging markets and technologies. He said it remains unclear who owns which essential patents for different DRM schemes.
Paxton called the Alliance's DRM patent pool "a small success story" since the group has proven that an industry- specific DRM standard can be developed. However, Paxton questioned whether the Alliance's DRM technology — designed for the wireless environment and cellphone applications — can protect billions of dollars worth of video or data from cable or satellite operators.
MPEG LA's Horn nevertheless called the effort a "breakthrough" since the new patent pool brings together key DRM players who have agreed to a joint patent portfolio. "The industry can't afford" no access to essential patents for DRM, Horn added. "This will give the market a push," including much needed interoperable DRM implementations.
The OMA's DRM is the first tangible result emerging from MPEG LA's DRM reference model initiatives launched in 2003. Horn said seven unidentified companies are participating in the DRM reference model discussions.
Microsoft, which last April settled litigation with Intertrust by paying a $440 million settlement, is absent from the list of companies identified as essential IP holders for the Alliance's DRM. Microsoft, together with Time Warner and Thomson, is a strategic investor in ContentGuard.
Microsoft looks at Sony deal
Gates wants to squash Apple
By Nick Farrell: Friday 07 January 2005, 08:28
SOFTWARE giant Microsoft is trying to strike a deal with Sony in a bid to take on Apple in the battle of the music machines.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft supremo Bill Gates said that the two companies could benefit from a broad partnership in digital entertainment.
Both have "a lot of incentive to work together" in digital-music "infrastructure," including online-music services and protection against improper music copying, he said.
Gates said that Apple's iTunes online music store sells songs in a format that can be played only on iPods and not other portable music players based on Microsoft's software, so consumers need a choice.
But Gates did not confirm that a marriage was forthcoming, nor did he say that he had even broached the subject with Sony. Sony didn't deny it either, so perhaps they are both being a bit coy.
perfectly happy.eom
Cassie, see PressEsc's reply to you. He was actually much more succinct.