Month: January 2004

Apple Launch iPod Mini

The rumours of the mini-iPod have been proven as true with Steve Jobs announcing a small version of the iPod, the iPod mini at Macworld yesterday.

The smaller-than-current-iPod device will have an anodised aluminium body available in five colours; silver, gold, pink, blue or green and be capable of holding 1,000 128-Kbps AAC encoding, CD-quality songs on its tiny hard drive. It will also only weigh 3.6 ounces (102 mg).

The iPod mini runs the same software as current iPods, so no functionality is lost, despite its slight smaller backlight LCD screen (1.67 inch vs 2-inch and 138-by-110-pixel resolution, 0.22-mm dot pitch vs 160-by-128-pixel resolution, 0.24-mm dot pitch). In a further refinement to the design, the four buttons have been integrated into the touch wheel – Apple labels it Click Wheel.

Recharging times will be the same as the current model, but the mini will be able to pull its power from either the FireWire or USB 2.0 cable.

It will be available in the US in February and worldwide in April with a suggested selling price of $249 in the US and a UK price of £199 (inc VAT).

Apple also announced they have sold two million iPods and by way of a celebration they also announced that they will be upgrading the smallest capacity from 10Gb to 15Gb without increasing the price.

Apple iPod & iPod mini specs

TiVo Claim Patent Infringment by EchoStar

PVR pioneer, TiVo, has filed a patent infringement suit against US satellite TV provider, EchoStar. They are claiming that EchoStar are using technology that violates their patent, “multimedia time warping system”, that enables viewers to “store selected television broadcast programs while the user is simultaneously watching or reviewing another program” that they filed for in 1998 and were granted in 2001.

The headline is clear, TiVo start to see the PVR world become accepted by the general public and want to start gaining income from their patents – they have 40 awarded and a further 100 applications pending. It is also in TiVo business plan to increase their income from patents and reduce their reliance on selling boxes.

We wonder if there is another, less immediately obvious, intention. One of TiVo’s largest customers is US satellite TV provider DirecTV, who were recently taken over by Rupert Murdoch and amongst the many companies that Mr Murdoch has as interest in is NDS. NDS market a PVT, the XTV PVR, which could be a major threat to TiVo and their continuing relationship as a supplier to DirecTV – unless DirecTV know legal action would following the changing of suppliers.

EchoStar PVR

NDS XTV PVR

Philips and Samsung Announce Universal CE API

Consumer electronics (CE) companies, Philips and Samsung have today announced the Universal Home Application Programming Interface (UH-API). Aimed at simplifying the development of software, be that applications or middleware that uses their semiconductor-based systems, thus reducing the time to market for home consumer devices. This is a reaction to, and acceptance of, the need for increasingly complex software to operate and combine digital consumer electronics. Drafts of UH-API are expected to be available in the first quarter of 2004.

The UH-API consists of a set of software interfaces for configuring and controlling the audio and video-related components of a semiconductor platform targeting the consumer market, and it is complementary with the leading operating systems across the industry. It is designed for target devices including analog and digital televisions, Set Top Boxes, DVD players and recorders, personal video recorders, home servers and other consumer audio-video devices.

Leon Husson, executive vice president of Consumer Businesses, Philips Semiconductors said, “This is a fundamental change from developing standalone consumer electronics products that fit proprietary schemes to a universal choice of hardware systems that can support the multiple features of the diverse consumer electronic brands.”

Both companies have said they will “realign their internal resources” to develop UH-API-compliant semiconductor chipsets and solutions. They will also invite other CE companies to participate in enhancing and deploying the UH-API specification.

Philips plans to make their Nexperia Home semiconductors range UH-API compliant. Samsung will start by making its HD TV chipset compliant and plan to expand its coverage from there.

Philips Nexperia IC’s

Philips Announces Digital Media Adaptors

Philips have announced two wireless digital media adaptors that enables the playing of computer-stored content, be that films, photos or music, to be played on TV or in a traditional HiFi system.

The SL300i and SL400i have both been labelled by Philips as a Wireless Multimedia Link can be used with a supplied remote control. Only the SL400i comes with an LCD display, so users can select music without having to have the TV on, and includes the 802.11b USB wireless adaptor.

We feel with year will be the year of the Digital Media Adaptor (DMA) with products expected from many of the major players as well as new entrants.

Philips SL300i

Philips SL400i

DVD-Jon Officially in the Clear

Norwegian computer programmer, Jon Lech Johansen will be relieved to hear that his countries state prosecutor that handles computer crime, ØKOKRIM, today that they will not appeal the court ruling clearing him of wrong doing on 22.Dec.03.

His alleged crime was that he circumvented the copy protection scheme on his film DVD. His plea was that he wanted to play his legally purchased DVD on his Linux computer, and as there was no software that enabled him to do this, we wrote deCSS that removed the protection enabling him to play it. This is not normally something the general public would hear about, but DVD-Jon, as he became known as, uploaded the software to the Internet enabling others to use it.

In January 2000, he was awarded the Karoline Prize, a prestigious national prize in Norway, given annually to a high school student for academic excellence and making a significant contribution to society outside of school for deCSS.

When he turned 18, ØKOKRIM Chief Prosecutor Inger Marie Sunde indicted Johansen for violating Norwegian Criminal Code section 145(2), which outlaws breaking into another person’s locked property to gain access to data that one is not entitled to access. The US MPAA gave considerable support to ØKOKRIM.

On 22 December 2003 the Norwegian courts came to the decision that DVD-Jon could not be held accountable or punished for others’ use of his program and that “DVD is so vulnerable to damage that the purchaser must be entitled to make a copy, for example of a movie he is particularly interested in preserving”. Today ØKOKRIM confirmed that they would not be appealing the decision to a higher court.

Hollywood will not be pleased with the outcome of this. It will be seen as a now legal “leak” for their DVD content in Europe.

Aftenposten report

ØKOKRIM