Category: USA

Michael Powell, FCC Chair to Go

Michael Powell FCCThe Wall Street Journal is reporting that US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman, Michael Powell, will be leaving his position today.

The rumours of his departure have been circulating for a long time, but what is unexpected is that he is resigning the day after George Bush’s inauguration.

Powell has had his detractors and his supporters. He’s acted as a liberaliser – opening up the VoIP market, and, in some peoples eyes, a restrictor – last year he authorised fines in excess of $7.7 million for indecent programming.

He will, for us, for ever be remembered for calling a TiVo “God’s machine“.

Overall we think he’s been an enthusiastic supporter of technology advances. We hope his replacement will show a similar enthusiasm.

WSJ – FCC Chairman Powell Plans to Step Down (reg. req.)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer – Officials: FCC Chairman Powell to resign

HD Radio – More Channels or Music Sales to Bring Income?

The US radio industry is looking to make additional income from music downloads, we’re told by Reuters – while listening to the radio, they’ll be able to select the playing track for paid download.

The piece announces the catch-all snappy name of HD Radio, that’s iBiquity Digital’s offering, which digitised the FM and AM bands. European readers will be well aware of equivalent FM services under the banner of DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) which has been available for a considerable period of time, and the currently lesser known drm (Digital Radio Mondial, not Digital Rights Management) which offers FM-quality listening on the AM frequencies.

The benefits brought by HD Radio/DAB/drm are digital compression of the audio, enabling more radio stations to be broadcast on the same amount of frequency. As the broadcast is digital, additional information can be distributed with it, such as the name of the artist and track playing.

As with all things compressed for digital distribution, there is a balacing act between number of stations and the audio quality of those stations. Digital doesn’t have to equal quality. The quality of the audio isn’t assured – the amount of the compression directly controls the quality.

US “terrestrial radio”, as it is being called by some to differentiate it from its satellite-delivered competitor, is under pressure from numerous sources; satellite radio (XM AND Sirius); Nokia’s Visual Radio; Internet-based radio stations; digital music player; podcasting, and don’t appear to have acted that quickly to respond.

The current cost of radios to receive HD radio are in the range of $500-$1,000 (~€382-€764, ~£270-£540), but as we’ve seen in the UK with DAB, it’s just a matter of time before these drop to the £49 (~€70, ~$91) levels, as more efficient chip sets become developed and a mass market is formed.

We found the comments by Jeff Littlejohn, executive vice president of distribution development at the dominant US radio station company, Clear Channel, the most illuminating, “We don’t think the business model associated with downloads is nearly as attractive as adding additional audio channels.”

In Clear Channels view there’s still more money to be made from advertising revenue than from music downloads, not least because they don’t have to share the revenue raised with the record companies – who are not known for their willingness to take small proportion of sales.

Radio Broadcasters Mull Digital Music Stores: Reuters

UPDATED – Mac Mini Announced by Jobs – $499/£339

apple mini mac box In what isn’t a surprise move Steve Jobs has announced the Apple “Mac Mini”, a low cost addition to the Macintosh computer range. Priced at $499 (~€380, ~£265) and $599 (~€457, ~£319), it can sit in the palm on your hand (measuring 6.5 inches (16.51 cm) square and just 2 inches (5.08 cm) tall and weights just 2.9 pounds (1.32 kg). True to form for Apple, it looks great.

Disappointingly Apple plan to sell the Mac Mini for £339 (~$634) and £399 (~$746) in the UK. Which, when converted back in to dollars at current exchange rates, don’t sound quite so sweet. Quite why UK uses will have the privilege of paying more is currently unclear.

The bargain-basement prices are because it comes with quite a few things not included – like keyboard, mouse, screen – or “BYODKM, bring your own display, keyboard, and mouse” as Jobs put it.

What do you get for your money? The different prices give you either a 1.25GHz PowerPC G4 or a 1.42GHz (you know when they’re talking about 0.02 of a GHz they’re talking about a budget machine) processor and a 40GB or 80GB hard drive. Two included optical drives are available; a combo, that reads CD & DVD and writes CDs; or a SuperDrive, that reads and writes CDs & DVDs.

Interestingly, the video output is via DVI (Digital Video Interface) and support up to a 1920 x 1200 resolution. DVI is used on many Plasma TV and large LCD screens as the standard interface. Additional adaptors will enable the DVI to be connected to a VGA, S-video and composite video output.

Cleverly they are including lots of software – iLife 05 ( iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and GarageBand); Quicken 2005 and AppleWorks 6, providing word processing and spreadsheets.

It’s connectors to the outside world are – One FireWire 400 port and two USB 2.0 ports. The keyboard and mouse (extra cost) can be connected using these. An optional internal Bluetooth module enabled the connection of a wireless keyboard and mouse. 10/100Mb Ethernet and a 56K modem.

Wireless networking is possible using the internally fitted AirPort Extreme Card – which comes at extra cost.

We see this as Apple’s chance to cash in on all of the non-Macintosh owning iPod users, whether they be computer-virgins or current PC owners who are looking to upgrade.

We were wondering what the final cost of the machines would be when spec’d up with wireless networking, etc. It appears that many other people around the planet were thinking the same thing, as the ordering section of the online Apple Store has fallen over from the demand.

This baby is going to sell – by the truck load. First truck load arriving 22 January 2005.

Apple Mac Mini
Watch Jobs keynote

Samsung 102-inch TV shown at CES

Samsung 102-inch PDP TVSamsung is showing a 102-inch Plasma Display Panel (PDP) TV at CES. Currently standing as the worlds largest TV, they’re upping the ante of their own 80-inch screen they announced back in January last year.

The gargantuan 102-inch screen is currently just for demonstration, but Samsung plan to start shipping their 80-inch PDP and 57-inch LCD screen in the US this year. The original costs spoken about for the 80-inch, the HPR8072 which planned for a May release, were a heart stopping $45,000 (~€34,000, ~£24,000). The 57-inch, LNR570D, will cost $17,999 (~€13,700, ~£9,600) and come out in June.

If you hadn’t guessed it from the dimensions, you can see from the photo that this 102-inch baby is large.

Samsung are putting serious effort into become recognised as a leader in TV screens of all technologies. They’re also showing a slim line Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) at CES and at the start of this week they announced a high resolution 21-inch single-panel, Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) display.

Samsung

Digital Lifestyle extolled by Bill Gates at CES

In what has now become a tradition, Bill Gates opened the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas extolling the virtues of Digital Lifestyles (thanks for the plug Bill).

In a “casual” interview style, US TV chat show presenter, Conan O’Brien, lead Bill through the wonderful world of digital media.

O’Brien started his shtick with a great joke, “When Bill Gates walks onto this stage in a few minutes, the average net worth of each person in this room will be(come) $128 million.”. He then went on to be reasonably rude about most people in the industry. Of particular note was the “CES – The Movie” spoof casting, where well known characters in the industry were matched up with their acting doubles. It’s worth watching, just fire it up and jump to 11m 30s.

Bill Gates then came on stage to give Microsoft’s view of Digital Lifestyles.

Not surprisingly Microsoft pitches the PC as the centre of it, “The PC has a central role to play, (in that) it’s where it all comes together.”

As has been the case since the public started recognising the iPod and iTunes, Bill and his promotional videos took every opportunity to feature ‘other’ music players, while subtly highlighting the virtues of the Microsoft approach.

This covered “Windows Plays For Sure”, the certification process that labels all devices that are able to understand and adhere to Microsoft’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) scheme. Read as, music in Apple’s format can’t play on other devices except Apples.

For the trend spotters among you, Bill referred to this as a “rights management system”, dropping the Digital prefix.

He also pitched monthly subscription services where you have access to all of the music you desire – another thing that Apple iTunes doesn’t offer. He failed to mention that with most subscriptions services, the ability to play the music you’ve paid for access to, stops when the monthly subscriptions fees do.

Media Centre featured large with Gates announcing that PC manufacturers have sold 1.4 million Media Centre models worldwide so far.

Media Extenders, which enables households with networked homes to pull content from their Media Centres to rooms around the house were also brought up again. Dedicated boxes from companies like LG were mentioned as well as a software upgrade for Microsoft’s xBox to provide the same function. The fact that 6.3 million people had bought Halo 2, was also dropped into the conversation.

The LG example was of note. A dedicated DVR with DVD burner, it featured a cut-down version of the Media Center software that retained the familiar user interface (UI), while offering access to music and photo’s stored on the Media Centre PC. Not only that but content recorded on this dedicated device could be transferred to the Media Centre PC and in turn to a smartphone or Portable Media Centre (PMC).

To easily operate the Media Centre, the “simple, single remote control” was also touted, more than once. Microsoft have formed partnerships with Philips, NiveusMedia and Logitech to produce universal remote controls that work with Media Centre, as well as many other devices. All these remotes will feature a “signature” Green Start button. Bill had previously mentioned that some remote controls will have small colour screens on them, allowing video content to be shown on them.

New content partners also got a nod. Discovery will be creating “unique content” that fits on Media Center, with Yahoo and Fox Sports also getting a mention.

One key item was the launch of the Media Centre as a platform. Not just a means of accessing and playing back content, but of broadcasters creating interactive content specifically for it, that combines broadcast and IP delivered content using Online Spotlight. We feel this is the most important item to come out and will be covered in more detail in another piece shortly.

It’s also worth watching the video, if nothing else then to see Bill looking less than comfortable with the interview technique.

Bill Gates CES – Opening Speech

SIRIUS to Satellite Children’s TV to Cars

SIRIUS SportsterSIRIUS Satellite Radio announced today that it will be providing 2-3 channels of premium video content, designed primarily for children, in the second half of 2006, to be beamed into moving vehicles. They will be working with Microsoft to develop the service.

Although initially pitched as a TV-on-the-move service, they clearly have ambitions beyond this, as hinted at by Amir Majidimehr, Corporate Vice President of the Windows Digital Media Division at Microsoft “We will further work together to enable consumers to experience SIRIUS video whether on the go, or at home — from the initial mobile service in vehicles to the PC and home entertainment devices.”

While it’s possible that content could be streamed down live to the cars, it may be more likely that content will be trickled down to hard disk devices in the car for on-demand playback. This would avoid cries of “Oh Dad” from the back of the car as TV pictures freeze due to drop out problems when driving through areas of low reception, like tunnels. More importantly for a satellite company, bandwidth requirements would be reduced from a full broadcast stream.

This is further backed up by careful reading of Chief Executive Officer, Mel Karmazin’s statement “We will take the DVD experience to the next level, offering the best content easily available to families and consumers.”

If they do go for live TV delivery the video channels will take significantly more bandwidth than their current audio offering. Whether SIRIUS will be closing some of their current radio stations or adding more satellite capacity is unclear.

If the content offering from SIRIUS is just on-demand, they could face some serious competition from in-car media centres that wirelessly “recharge” their content while parked in their garage overnight.

Reuters are reporting that they were originally told of the TV channels by the ex-CEO of Sirius, Joseph Clayton, as far back as February 2004.

Today’s news follows an announcement on Tuesday that Ford have committed to offering Sirius radio as a factory-installed option in up to 1 million vehicles over two years beginning this summer. XM, who also offer a US wide satellite radio service, currently have 3.1m users’ verses the 1.1m SIRIUS currently has.

SIRIUS Satellite Radio

MPAA Judge Finds ‘bulldozer’ approach ‘improper’

Last week, members of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) filed 11 lawsuits against hundreds of people they accused of using file-sharing networks to share infringing copies of movies. However, the Federal Judge ruled the ‘bulldozer’ approach improper, ordering that the case should be put on hold for all but one of the defendants.

The move by the MPAA to group defendants into arbitrarily-joined actions was probably thought of as a ‘neat’ and easy way to get the message across to other US citizens participating in file sharing. ‘Bulk’ suing could also save a heck of a lot of paper shuffling and administration work.

The MPAA sued groups of “Does” (John Doe) identified by numerical IP address and requested the discovery of names from the users’ Internet Service Providers (ISPs). However, Judge William Alsup ruled that because claims against the 12 defendants were unrelated, suing them together into one big case was improper. “Such joinder may be an attempt to circumvent the filing fees by grouping defendants into arbitrarily-joined actions but it could nonetheless appear improper under Rule 20,” the order states.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed friend-of-the-court briefs, objecting to similar misjoinder in many of the cases filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) against alleged infringers.

“This decision helps to give due process rights to the Internet users accused of infringement,” said EFF Staff Attorney Wendy Seltzer. “Lumping them together makes it more difficult for everyone to defend against these claims.” EFF is also concerned about the movie studios’ failure to produce evidence of infringement against even Doe #1 in this case.

In a separate case, Warner Brothers Entertainment has secured a $309,600 judgement against an actor for allegedly making promotional ‘screener’ copies of ‘The Last Samurai’ and ‘Mystic River’ available for bootleg DVD copying and unauthorised Internet trading.

Carmine Caridi, a former recurring actor on ‘NYPD Blue,’ is accused of copyright infringement and is facing a default judgement of $150,000 per film and $9,600 in attorney fees. Caridi and co-defendant Russell Sprague were caught because the screeners were individually watermarked for each recipient.

According to Warner Brothers, Carmine Caridi, as a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, signed an agreement before he received the 2003 awards season screeners promising not to circulate them. It is believed that he immediately sent the VHS screeners to another address where they were copied onto DVD and converted to digital files that were posted on the Internet.

JFK Reloaded Described as ‘Despicable’

JFK ReloadedOn the eve of the 41st anniversary of John F Kennedy’s murder, a dramatic new ‘docu-game’ brought the tragic assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald to life for a whole new generation. However, a spokesman for the president’s brother, Senator Edward Kennedy, called the game ‘despicable’, but has not commented on whether the family was taking any action to stop the game’s release.

JFKReloaded ($9.99, ~€7.70, ~£5.40), recreates the last few moments of the President’s life and challenges participants to help disprove any conspiracy theory by recreating the three shots that Lee Harvey Oswald made from the infamous sixth floor of the Dallas book depository.

The game promises to accurately recreate the surroundings and events of 22nd November 1963 in downtown Dallas, using information from the Warren Commission report, and has taken a ten-man team seven months to research and six months to program. The reconstruction enables players to examine the challenges that faced Oswald.

‘This new form of interactive entertainment brings history to life and will stimulate a younger generation of players to take an interest in this fascinating episode of American history,’ commented Kirk Ewing, managing director of Traffic and the creator of JFKReloaded. ‘We’ve created the game in the belief that Oswald was the only person that fired the shots on that day, although this recreation proves how immensely difficult his task was.’

Regardless of the continued passion in the US surrounding the death of one of America’s greatest heroes, Traffic is determined to promote the title respectfully whilst encouraging as many people to play the game as possible. The company has also offered an incentive of up to $100,000 (~€77,000 ~£54,000) for the first person to most accurately recreate the three shots made by Lee Harvey Oswald. A cash reward of this size is the first of its type for a game.

“We genuinely believe that if we get enough people playing the game we’ll be able to disprove once and for all any notion that someone else was involved in the assassination. The computer ballistics model says it’s possible, but players will discover just how hard it is to place those three bullets in exactly the same way that Oswald did.” The site goes live at midnight on the 22nd November 2004 and will run for 3 months.

It’s more than likely that this game will raise the issue in the press of video games containing violence, as was last seen with ‘Manhunt’. Last time the press got the wrong end of the stick and blamed a killer’s obsession with the violent computer game ‘Manhunt’ for the death of a schoolboy, although it actually turned out that the game was present in the victim’s home, not the killer’s. Some are wondering if the release of JFK game around the anniversary of the incident was a calculated move by the development company, Traffic, after watching the sales of Manhunt go through the roof during the last press frenzy.

MPAA to pursue film file-sharers

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) announced it would follow in the footsteps of the recording industry and legally pursue people who swap pirated copies of films over the Internet.

Dan Glickman, head of the MPAA, said legal action would be taken against “hundreds of people” seeking damages of up to $30,000 (~€23,000, ~£16,000) per shared film.

“This was not an easy decision, but it must be done now before illegal online file-sharing of movies spins out of control,” said Glickman. “Illegal movie trafficking represents the greatest threat to the economic basis of movie-making in its 110-year history.”

The crackdown will target individuals who deal in illegally copied cinema products on file-swapping networks, as well as the pirates themselves.

The MPAA claims the US film industry loses more than $3bn (~€2.3Bn, ~£1.6bn) every year in potential global revenue because of piracy. But Glickman said the figure did not take into account the losses from thousands of illegal online downloads that were swapped every day.

The MPAA draws particular attention to the popular file-sharing application, BitTorrent. Written by Bram Cohen, which is designed to offer the files as fragments for faster, easier transfer from peer-to-peer (P2P). One destination website for Bit Torrent fans, Suprnova.org, offers users free downloads of thousands of movies, TV shows, music, software and games files. The site is run on donations and some website advertising.

A parallel initiative sees the MPAA hoping that new software will encourage parents to identify their children as “file-sharing felons”. The software, designed to identify and removal of potentially infringing material and P2P applications on the PC, is part of the MPAA’s war on file sharing and will be released for free by the MPAA at a later date.

Online music file sharing is measured in billions of files downloaded, but the MPAA says that under 150,000 movie titles are traded each day in the US on file sharing services.

MPAA
www.suprnova.org

Motorola Moves into Mesh Networking

In a move aimed at boosting its broadband networking, mobile giant Motorola has announced it’s purchasing US-based equipment supplier MeshNetworks.

Acquiring the wireless mesh networking company “brings sales, support and brand recognition that a startup could never match in a million years,” says Rick Rotondo, vice president of marketing for the Maitland, Fla-based company. (We suspect he was exaggerating for effect – commonly called hyperbole).

The purchase by Motorola further legitimises the whole mesh networking concept. Only last month, North American rival Nortel announced its mesh networking product line, aimed at providing easier WiFi coverage without the need for multiple access points. In the UK, LocustWorld has been selling its Mesh AP boxes to hotels, hospitality venues and rural community broadband service providers with a great deal of success.vMesh networking provides an innovative method to build complex data networks very easily. Using the intelligence of each component, meshing helps them to join into a self-organising structure. This approach differs from the traditional “top-down” design of data networks, and provides many benefits, including flexibility, speed and ease of management, making it simply to deploy widespread networks with low overheads. It’s particularly suited to wireless networks, where the connections can’t be predicted in the same way as a wired network, catering for mobile nodes, instant growth and unpredictable variations in reception and coverage.

Mesh networking builds up a wide spread multi-hop network, making connections between neighbouring nodes on demand. Once connected the nodes can explore the network and establish their routes through it, finding the resources that they need automatically.

“The acquisition also represents another step in Motorola’s commitment to deliver seamless mobility to all of our customers,” said Greg Brown, president of Motorola’s CGISS. The purchase will benefit “all of our businesses ranging from mission critical and enterprise markets to automotive and home entertainment applications,” said Brown.
SP Comment: Mesh networks are far from a new idea. Groups such as London-based Informal.org have been enthusiastic about the possibilities of a wireless mesh for a long time. For over three years they have seen the possibilities of a wireless mesh supplimenting the wired networks offering free, ubiquitous access and when combined with VoIP, replacing traditional phone services. When viewed in these terms, it is incredible how long big business takes to catchup with grass roots ideas.

Motorola
MeshNetworks
Informal.org