e.Digital Corporation (fka EDIG)

[cksla]

REPOST: PART ONE-A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.

Introduction
Last October, I tried to put into some perspective on what I believed to be e.digital's place in the ongoing evolution of portable computing and speech recognition. As you might recall, I focused on the concept of pervasive computing and e.digital's place therein as an inaugural member of IBM's VoiceTimes alliance. Within that context, I speculated as to what types of projects that edig/intel have been working on, such as a speech recognition module for the PALM pilot and a similar product application for the telematics market.

Based upon additional news since that time and my further DD, whether you like it or not, I have decided to substantially edit my prior posts on this subject. I have purposefully stayed away from the music applications of e.digital's business except where appropriate cross-references are necessary. Lastly, I may borrow (steal) from other posters, press releases, news articles, and edig itself. I wish to thank many of you from whose own DD I have tried to build upon. If I have misstated anything set forth herein, please feel free to let me know. As I have readily admitted in the past, my technical understanding is quite limited.

Background on e.Digital's Technology

The convergence of Internet, wireless and digital content technologies is causing an explosion in demand for consumer electronic devices that are portable, powerful and connected. Voice, music, video, photography and text applications combined with Internet services are creating entirely new categories of products. As consumers embrace the digital lifestyle, demand for innovative, portable devices is soaring and manufacturers have an urgent need to accelerate product development cycles in order to stay ahead of the competition in the fast-changing digital marketplace.

e.Digital provides original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) with comprehensive product development services for the next generation of digital devices. Its core competencies in embedded operating systems, digital signal processing, removable recording media and wireless communication protocols such as Bluetooth, along with hardware, firmware and software customization, help OEMs develop innovative digital products.

e.Digital's primary core technology is the MicroOS. e.Digital's proprietary MicroOS is an extremely compact, full-featured and highly customizable embedded operating system designed specifically for portable digital devices. MicroOS simplifies the design of products that use flash memory to store voice, image, text, or full-motion video files in portable devices. It also enables the portable devices we develop to easily exchange information with desktop computers, and through desktops, with intranets and the Internet. MicroOS manages data files as well as codecs, integrates security systems for content protection and handles uploading and downloading files to PCs. Important features include:

Power and memory conservation - eliminates the need for a high-powered CPU by paring down all code to run efficiently on a low-cost microcontroller preserving valuable memory for other applications.

Extends Flash memory capabilities - Memory management transparently deals with bad blocks, erase blocks, wear leveling and is independent of data and erase block sizes.

Advanced editing features - insert and delete allows editing of files by inserting material at any point without erasing what follows, and deleting of selected portions of a file without spaces, blanks, or silences being left behind.


When flash memory became available for data storage several years ago, it was primarily used as backup memory. Data or code written to flash was WORM (write once, read many), difficult to edit, erase, or write data. In 1995, e.Digital was the first company to create and market a voice recorder using removable flash memory, a product that was later branded and sold by Sanyo. Out of those efforts, e.digital developed a proprietary flash file management system named MicroOS that continues to be the basis of its designs to this day. MicroOS is protected by four patents containing dozens of claims. All of these patents and their rights are the exclusive property of e.Digital.

e.Digital Patents (Tinroad):

MicroOS(tm)is a small footprint (8KB) operating system for flash memory and other non-volatile memory that can be utilized in hand-held peripheral devices interfacing with the internet, whether by hard-wired or wireless means, and in digital voice/audio/video recording and playback devices. The key to understanding Edig’s potential is in their multiple patents on MicroOS and its applications.

http://www.delphion.com/details?&pn10=US05491774
Handheld record and playback device with flash memory

http://www.delphion.com/details?&pn=US05742737__
Method for recording voice messages on flash memory in a hand held recorder

http://www.delphion.com/details?&pn=US05787445__
Operating system including improved file management for use in devices utilizing flash memory as main memory

http://www.delphion.com/details?&pn=US05839108__
Flash memory file system in a handheld record and playback device

http://www.delphion.com/details?&pn=US05842170__
Method for editing in hand held

MicroOS in layman's terms (Tinroad):

Electronic machines understand only one thing and that's electric pulse 'on' and electric pulse 'off'. That's called 'machine language' and is digitally represented by 0s and 1s. When one presses an alphanumeric key, it sends a set of 0s and 1s to a next level operating system (like DOS) which gives a command to the machine to do an action (such as print a letter to the monitor).

The next layer of operating system runs on top of DOS and makes things more user friendly, such as Windows, CE or Mac OS, which are graphical user interfaces (icon representation). These are what the general public thinks of as operating systems. These systems have become quite bulky, and in their complexity create many conflicts with the vast number of applications available today.

Enter a new operating system: Edig's Micro OS which is directly compatible with MS-DOS. Micro OS is written in a programming language called 'C' that is highly flexible and already widely used for text, image and voice applications. Its compact size (about 6Kbytes) makes it ideal for handheld devices, which may include music players, still/video cameras, telephony, etc. Its duty, if you will, is to act as a flexible general file management system. It is particulary well-suited for the smaller footprint storage products such as flash memory and microdisks, but is fully capable for standard IDE hard drives as well, and also is not limited in the number or files it can manage (a drawback inherent in DOS).

The emerging products, for this example, will use a flash memory chip (about the size of a postage stamp) for storage. One flash chip can be used for multiple purposes... just like a floppy disk can be used for a computer and a Sony Mavica camera. This chip, which is re-writeable, will need an operating system that can function with voice, image, text and so on in a universal, flexible way and that can also support other TASK SPECIFIC operating systems.

This is where systems like Jini or Epoc (etc.) operating systems come in. These systems can be layered with the base file management operating system (such as our multi-patented Micro OS). They are not competitors.

Digital signal processors (DSPs) are like railroad switching stations that relay varied signals, for example directing voice to one channel, streaming images to another and so on. The DSPs are especially worth looking at when speed enhancements are announced. A noteworthy new DSP from Texas Instruments is reprogrammable via software, to allow it to adapt to evolving systems for file compression and encryption.

In summary, there are hundreds, thousands of integral layers which make up the complex products for the electronic markets of today. Most are based on old and slow, bulky systems. What is emerging are lean & mean wireless machines, capable of multi-tasking at far greater rates which require a flexible file management operating system.

MicroOS Applications:

MicroOS is applicable to any product that utilizes flash memory or rotating media as its primary storage medium including: Voice Recorders, One and two way voice pagers,
Digital cameras, Cellular phones, Portable Internet music players, Handheld PCs, and Set-top boxes. In e.digital's recently published brochure, e.digital identified some of the digital product categories it is currently developing solutions for:
 Digital music players and jukeboxes featuring high-quality audio, multi-codec capabilities
and removable storage including: CompactFlash, Secure Digital Card, MMCard, Microdrive, PocketZip and DataPlay digital media.
 E-book and multimedia tablet platforms combining music, video, text and voice storage, and play-back
functionality with larger displays.
 Digital voice recorders with advanced digital features and infrared, cable or docking station PC connections.
 Digital imaging including still and video integrated with audio in handheld products.
 Cell phone audio components for recording and playback of voice and/or music files.
 Set top boxes for real time streaming or downloading of digital music in Internet formats.
 In-dash car audio systems for recording and playback of Internet music formats.
 In-store kiosks for recording personal mix of digital music onto removable media.

Summary:

Arguably, e.digital has positioned itself to catch the next big wave; what many call pervasive computing- computing beyond the desktop. Pervasive computing concepts will induce big shifts in the structures of computing, telecoms and content industries. Pervasive computing will encompass several technology enhancements and market shifts that will enable the weaving of public networks and computing devices. A simple definition of pervasive computing is the ability to deliver any information, to any device, over any network.

For me, what most dramatically sums up this significant shift in the creation, use and exchange of information is Microsoft's change to its Mission statement. Microsoft's Mission statement for the last 20 years was ''to have a PC in every home and on every desktop.'' In April 1999, it was changed to ''empowering people through great software anytime, anywhere, and on any device.''