Douglas L Ross: Standards

Targeted Television Advertising

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 14:28:06 GMT

There is a significant battle going on for control of the intellectual property surrounding the delivery of targeted television and internet advertising.

Ad firm 24/7 pushing for patent power. 24/7 Real Media wins another patent for delivering digital ads, giving it new authority over the online-ad serving market as it pursues patent licenses to improve shareholder value. [CNET News.com]

Ultrawideband

Mon, 11 Aug 2003 21:11:27 GMT

It looks like Samsung is convinced that the standard for UWB proposed by the Multiband OFDM Alliance [http://www.multibandofdm.org/] is likely to win the standards race, so they are trying to get jump on the industry with commercial products. What markets they will go after first should be interesting, but they apparently aren't saying yet.

Samsung to team on ultrawideband. The consumer-electronics company pairs with chipmaker Staccato Communications to develop products using ultrawideband, a technology that's 100 times faster than Bluetooth. [CNET News.com]

Targeted Advertising

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 17:33:18 GMT

This article is about the expansion of the bid-for-ad-placement concept from strictly the search domain to the general "web-site" browsing context.

If You Liked the Web Page, You'll Love the Ad. Online publishers are beginning to sense the possibilities of having Google or Overture serve ads to their audiences. By Bob Tedeschi. [New York Times: Technology]

Microsoft Signs OpenCable Agreement

Tue, 10 Jun 2003 19:29:12 GMT

Microsoft announced that they've signed the OCAP agreement with Cable Labs. Here's what they say about it:

"Microsoft has agreed to contribute pertinent intellectual property rights to the OpenCable™ project, including the OpenCable Application Platform (OCAP™) software project. In addition, Microsoft and CableLabs have agreed to work together to explore the potential of adding .NET common language infrastructure (CLI) to a future version of OCAP "

Microsoft At NCTA

Tue, 10 Jun 2003 19:10:46 GMT

Yesterday at NCTA, Microsoft introduce Microsoft^® TV Foundation Edition what they descirbe as "a new digital TV software platform designed to help cable operators get more value from on-demand and other digital TV services"

They simultaneously announced support (http://www.microsoft.com/tv/mstvIndustrySupportPR.mspx) for the platform from cable industry vendors Motorola, Inc., SeaChange, Concurrent Computer Corp., MetaTV Inc., Two Way TV Ltd. and Advanced Digital Broadcast Ltd.

They also announced a customer win (http://www.microsoft.com/tv/cablevisionselectsmspr.mspx) for the software platform with Televisa's Cablevision (CVC) subsidiary, one of Mexico City's largest cable MSO with ~450k subscribers announcing that they will adopt it.

Internet Streaming Media Alliance

Thu, 03 Apr 2003 17:55:15 GMT

"The Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA), a global alliance of nearly 40 industry leaders in content management, distribution infrastructure, and streaming media, today announced that it is releasing for peer review a new content protection specification which will serve as the technical foundation for the secure delivery of streaming and download media content."

[See press release http://www.isma.tv/pub/resources/pr.shtml?PR1011.txt ]

Trusted Computing

Thu, 03 Apr 2003 17:48:21 GMT

Wave Systems announced their earnings for Q4 2002 today. According to their press release [see exerpt below] they are looking for strategic partners.

"Steven Sprague, Wave's president and CEO, said, "In order to raise the additional capital required to fund Wave's operations, we have engaged an investment banking firm and are exploring a number of financing alternatives which include debt or equity financing (or a combination of both) or one or more commercial or strategic transactions."

"The personal computing industry is now committed to a historic transition to trusted computing. The most influential players -companies including Microsoft, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, AMD, National Semiconductor, Infineon and others - have publicly committed to a trusted PC environment secured by a hardware chip. Without a doubt, today's inherently insecure PC is morphing to tomorrow's secure and trusted PC which will offer a range of productive services for users. Wave's long commitment to hardware and services-secured trusted computing has made us influential in the evolution of this huge and evolving market opportunity."

Supreme Court On Spam

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 13:50:26 GMT

Foes lock horns in Web filtering case. The Supreme Court hears arguments to decide whether a law aimed at installing Net filters on public library systems balances free speech with the need to restrict porn. [CNET News.com]

Some Things Are "Born Copy Protected"

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 13:01:43 GMT

How Important Is Copy Protection? By David Pogue. [New York Times: Technology]

Liberty Alliance vs Microsoft Passport

Wed, 05 Mar 2003 20:19:13 GMT

Sun's Liberty bid gets fed support. The General Services Administration and the Department of Defense announce that they will join the Liberty Alliance Project, which aims to standardize Web authentication. [CNET News.com]

Sony Wants To Buy Palm O/S or Symbian

Wed, 05 Mar 2003 14:35:34 GMT

Tony Perkins (of Red Herring fame) intervied Sony's Idei at Davos and reported on that in a website called "Always On" which The Register picked up on and is now reporting in this story:

Sony keen to buy PalmSource. Or Symbian if Palm won't sell [The Register]