In a move to try and balance the efforts that Nokia are putting in to the N-Gage portable gaming platform, Nintendo has been working closely with Motorola to create a wireless adaptor for the Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Advance SP. The reasonably sized add-on uses the already crowded 2.4GHz band to enable up to five gamers to play against each other.
Motorola say they have applied considerable effort to make the unit consumer as little power as possible, while using the TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) communication protocol to provide game users a fast receive-and-respond capability similar to a wired experience.
The wireless adapter with the new Game Boy Advance software “Pokemon FireRed” and “Pokemon LeafGreen” will be launched in Japan first half of 2004.
Marc Cuban and Todd Wagner Buy US Art-house Cinema Chain
It is with great interesting that we see that Marc Cuban and Todd Wagner have bought Landmark Theatres, America’s largest chain of 54 art-house cinemas which are scattered over fourteen states.
They both came into the public eye when they sold an innovative webcasting company, broadcast.com, that they had founded in 1995, to Yahoo! in 1999 for $5.7 billion. Following that avalanche of cash, Cuban went to buy the NBA team Dallas Mavericks, found High Definition TV specialist HDNet and co-found 2929 Entertainment with Wagner.
HDNet two 24/7 networks, HDNet and HDNet Movies, produces and televises more hours of original HDTV entertainment, news and sports programming than any other network.
2929 Entertainment is a vehicle for movie production and, following its November 2001 purchase of Rysher Entertainment, holds substantial film and television programming library, including various rights to shows including “Sex and the City”. It is also currently in post-production on two films including “Godsend” staring Robert DeNiro.
The Landmark Theatres chain has been for sale since 2001, languishing as part of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. The financial terms of the purchase, which is scheduled to close in October, have not been disclosed.
Why does this make an interesting deal?
Digital cinema has held promise for a long time, but has effectively stalled.
The cinema theatre owners are not willing to pay for the digital projectors, as they say the margin that the make on showing films is so slim (the reasons the cite for the necessity for popcorn sales) that they are not able to invest in the equipment. They also point out that it is the film distributors that will gain most benefit from the drastically reduced film distribution costs – physical copies of the film, at a cost of around $3000 each, do not have to be made, nor to they have to be transported to each of the cinemas.
The film distributes say it is not for them to pay for the equipment, as this is the responsibility of the theatre owners. It is also widely believed that they have very little will to digitally distribute their content, as content protection schemes haven’t been decided upon.
The excitement of d-cinema is not just about showing blockbuster films, but the ability to economically distribute small, independent film and other video content that would not normally be shown at as cinema, such as music or sporting events – enabling cinema to become something different.
Now they have the theatre chain, Wagner said they can now take movies from production to the screen with no outside interference – “We think this acquisition provides a unique opportunity to make a significant impact in the art and independent film, HDTV production and digital exhibition communities.”
Together this collection of companies not only have the content, technical savvy, strategic vision and the money to make this possible, but they are run by people who are keen to shake things up. This could be the kind of competition that the film companies need to make them sit up, stop the current stalemate and move up a gear or two in realising digital cinema. We wait with baited breath.
Xbox Japan employs well know Japanese games figure
The sales of Microsoft’s Xbox are considerably behind that of Sony’s PS2 in Japan, so it is interesting to see that Microsoft have appointed Yoshihiro Maruyama as the new general manager of the Xbox Division at Microsoft Japan, starting 1 October.
Until recently Yoshihiro Maruyama was Senior Vice President (SVP) and Chief Operating Officer COO of the highly respected software developer Squaresoft, who are best known for the Final Fantasy epic series of game.
Maruyama has dealt extensively with both the US and Japan when negotiating content licencing with companies in both countries including Disney.
It is imagined that Microsoft hope his appointment will bring them much needed credibility in Japan.
Gateway Becomes Top US Seller of Plasma TVs
Gateway Inc. has become America’s top seller of plasma screen TVs to consumers, surpassing Sony, Panasonic, Samsung and other traditional industry leaders.
Previously only known as a direct-sales PC seller, they started selling their first thin television,
a 42-inch Enhanced Definition (ED) Plasma TV, last November and by June this year they held a 28 percent market share of major consumer electronics retailers.
They plan to expand their current six thin screens offering, which range from 17 inches through to 50 inches, before the christmas season.
Micro MP3 Roundup
Although Apple’s iPod is definitely the portable music player to have at the moment, there are plenty of other options out there to fit your criteria: cheaper, better battery life, lighter.
The Register has a round up of the current crop of MP3 players, link below. Devices like Sony’s ATRAC-based Memory Stick Walkman aren’t covered as they’re not proper MP3 players.
Memory Stick Video Recorder
The snappily named (as all Sony products are) PEGA-VR100K uses a built-in tuner to record TV programmes using the Quick Time 6 codec to a Memory Stick. You can then pop the stick into your VAIO for editing or for watching on your Clié when it’s convenient. The VR100K can also be attached to a monitor for use as a TV tuner.
Included are utilities for scheduling recording, so you can record that episodes of Fame Academy to watch surreptitiously in meetings.
Sony report that a 1gb Memory Stick will hold more than 16 hours of video in Long Play mode – though we’ve yet to see what the quality is like. Resolutions are given as 320×240 and 160×120, at 15fps. Bear in mind a 1gb stick will set you back about £400.
Price of Standalone, Additional Hard Drive Storage Starts to Reduce
We’ve been speaking for a while about the logic of adding extra storage to home networks simply by attaching a stand alone networked drive – as music, photo or video collections grow. This type of device has had a number of names, such as Storage Area Network (SAN) or Network Direct Attached Storage (NDAS).
The prices of these devices have been a little limiting up to now, not significantly cheaper than the price of a slow/low-end PC with a big disk in it. XiMeta NetDisk is getting closer to the price point that they need to be, which is probably the reasons that the hallowed West coast retailer, Fry’s Electronics, have signed a deal to distribute them.
The NetDisk can be connected via an Ethernet adaptor or use USB2.0 and retail for $189 for 80 GB, $269 for 120 GB, and $289 for 160GB. It has a number of well thought our features, like the ability to carry out automatic backups, when a second NetDisk is added.
Expect plenty more of this type of device.
New UK Channel in Pipeline
Channel 4’s new channel, tentatively called More4, will focus on history, property series, documentaries and drama. More4 will also feature some original programming, spin-offs from Channel 4 shows and drama and entertainment bought in from the US.
"This shouldn’t be thought of as a factual channel. It’s more based on a demographic," a Channel 4 spokesman said. "If E4 targets the younger end of the Channel 4 audience demographic, More4 will be aimed at the older end of that demographic," he added. "At launch there will be less origination, more narrative repeats of Channel 4 shows – ‘another chance to see’ – and archive programming. There will be entertainment and drama, as well as factual programmes, and some acquisitions. You could also see More4 doing live streaming of some of our more upmarket Channel 4 factual stuff, like Regency House."
The Guardian speculates that More4 will have an annual budget of £10m-£20m, and the channel is not expected to launch for at least a year.
More4 is likely to broadcast for around 12 hours a day, probably from early evening to early morning, when it launches. The launch will be welcomed by the government, as it is another incentive for viewers to move away from analogue boradcasts.
Channel 4 is expected to broadcast More4 on Freeview but also seek carriage on Sky Digital and digital cable services NTL and Telewest.
Commercial and creative development of More4 will be led by the managing director of 4Channels, Dan Brook, and the head of digital programming, Murray Boland.
Sky also admitted publicly for the first time yesterday that it has plans to launch a mainstream channel to compete with BBC1, ITV, Channel 4 and Five.
Tony Ball to step down as Sky CEO – official
After much speculation over the last few days, Sky has confirmed that Tony Ball will step down as BSkyB’s Chief Executive or in the words of the Sky press release “he has decided not to renew his service contract with the Company”.
He’ll stay with Sky until a successor has been appointed – “likely to be well before his current contract ends on 31st May 2004”. The industries view is that there are some large commercial changes likely at Sky, as changing the CEO is often a signal to this is Murdock companies.
Speculation is rife as to the successor, but a fair amount of the smart money is on James Murdock, who is currently with Asia’s Star TV.
BSkyB is the dominant digital TV platform in the UK with nearly seven millions homes supplied through satellite.
Don’t forget – free wireless access on One Unwired Day, 25 Sept.
Just in case you were going to forget, the Intel-sponsored One Unwired Day is going to be on 25 September. We would be surprised if you have missed it as it has so been heavily promoted.
To summarise, most of the companies involved in WiFi are getting together to give free access to their wireless networks, at a huge numbers of locations worldwide.
One of the biggest networks in the USA is Boingo who are gold sponsor of the event and will be present at the Wi-Fi festivals held in New York City, Chicago and San Francisco. So keen is Boingo for the world to become wireless, that they are also offering anyone who signs up for the One Unwired Day an additional two months free access.
They are also providing a network sniffer application that shows the wireless networks that are within range of your computer. It is in a similar vain to the long available NetStumbler, but has the added advantage of having a database of addresses around the world that provide free and pay for WiFi access.
We don’t really see One Unwired Day changing the world, but imagine that the huge amount of money that being spent on marketing should slightly raise WiFi in the publics consciousness.