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You can use callto://tzechienchu/ to call me by skype. Nice design. Skype. 5:10:51 PM 
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Apple, Jobs up for four Billboard Digital Awards. Music industry trade journal Billboard on Thursday announced the finalists for the first annual Billboard Digital Entertainment Awards, to be held Nov. 5 in Los Angeles. The publication noted that the 26 categories involve games, music, film, television and video, with recognition of "the cutting-edge developments and forward thinkers shaping the future of entertainment." Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs is up for Visionary of the Year -- pitting him against HDNet chairman and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, Real Networks chairman and CEO Rob Glaser and Sim City and The Sims designer Will Wright -- while his company will vie for Innovator of the Year, Brand of the Year and Best Downloadable or Subscription Music Service. [MacCentral News] 2:50:02 PM
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LaCie offers 800GB Ethernet Disk, external SATA drive [The Macintosh News Network] 9:56:19 AM
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Apple, Jobs nominated for Billboard Digital awards [The Macintosh News Network] 9:48:29 AM
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Humans Aren't So Complicated. New research reveals that humans have only about 25,000 genes instead of the 100,000 originally guessed. Researchers scratch their heads. By Kristen Philipkoski. [Wired News] 9:47:34 AM
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Making smarter CD-Roms proves a smart move
Stephen Ballantyne
Media Technology -- the company formerly known as Software Images -- is
still in the same line it has been since the early 1990s: turning out CD-Roms
and, in increasing numbers, DVD-Roms on demand for a diversified portfolio of
clients. Which is a slight change from what the Auckland-based company did when it was originally established in the late 1980s, mainly providing a file conversion service. Back then knowing how to transfer a file from one computer platform to another was enough to build a business on. That knowledge led to making multiple copies of disks, followed by CD-Roms, followed by the business as it is now. Taking a simple idea and exhaustively exploring the possibilities have been how the business has always grown. The lesson here is that adding extra value can really promote growth. Media Technology is not unlike a chain of bakeries -- the basic product may be bread dough but a little titivation can transform that into a range of tasty novelties. Media Technology's basic product is packaged data, most often in the form of CD-Roms. Finding attractive ways to work the changes on the packaging has proved a remarkably successful recipe for the company. "We've long understood that we're not just selling a piece of plastic," Media Technology chief executive and co-founder Allan Morton says. An example of the company's attention to detailed service is the mailer it designed for posting out single CD-Roms. It's the same size as a standard business envelope and moves easily through automated mail handling machinery. That means it has to have just enough flexibility to negotiate the curved channels and conveyor belts that carry envelopes, even with a relatively inflexible disc inside. Issues such as the surface texture of the mailer and the ink used to print it were taken into account to ensure that transport rollers would grip it with just the right firmness to speed it on its way. The design, die cutting and folding were worked out to maximise both ease of assembly and security. But the effort put into the project hasn't always paid off. "We narrowly missed out on a government order in Australia," Mr Morton says. "We were beaten on price by a competitor that pretty much copied our design. But when it went ahead with the mailing, the discs fell out." At present Mr Morton's thoughts are focused on the development of "smart media," particularly as a marketing tool. Media Technology's in-house design department has proven adept at producing interactive CD-Roms, with the expertise of group IT and technical manager Cristian Giurgiu helping implement the smart media concept. The 600+ MB capacity of CD-Roms can be the basis of powerful communication, even in these days of ubiquitous broadband connections. Despite the greater speed now available, many users are subject to data caps and would prefer not to have to download unnecessary masses of information, even if they can. Just because it is possible to stream full motion video to an audience doesn't necessarily mean that's the most desirable way to transmit such information. For example, Mr Morton's business card is a small oblong CD-Rom that plays without complaint in an ordinary PC CD-Rom drive. Although small enough to tuck into a wallet it contains several video clips and point and click links to Media Technology's online ordering service. "We use Macromedia Director to assemble smart media content and we run our own servers on behalf of our clients," Mr Giurgiu says. Support information is typical of the type of content Media Technology can put on a disc. A manual complete with illustrations and video demonstrations can be distributed inexpensively on CD-Rom; links can be incorporated into documents so information likely to change frequently can be downloaded from a server. Requests for help can be placed with a call centre directly from software on the CD-Rom. The effect is to produce a synergistic collaboration between the user's computer, the CD-Rom and Media Technology's servers. "It's also a great way to market your products," Mr Morton says. "How much attention do people really give to printed flyers? How long is it before they go into the bin? How many people can be bothered to type in the URL of a company's web site? "With CD-Roms there's a much greater perceived value people don't want to throw them away like paper because they know there's so much information on them. I've observed people hanging on to CD-Roms for years, simply because there might be some relatively small piece of information, image or video clip they like on it. And once they've put that CD-Rom in their computer, your website is only a click away."
22-Oct-2004 9:40:39 AM
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PalmSource Settles Patent Suit with Digeo
Digeo, the Paul Allen-backed maker of software and services for digital cable TV, successfully settled last Friday a patent infringement suit with PalmSource, makers of the PalmOS operating system for handheld devices. The patent at issue was U.S. Patent No. 5,734,823, "Systems and apparatus for electronic communication and storage of information," granted in 1998. Financial terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but as is typical in patent settlements, PalmSource now has a license to that and related patents.
Digeo's patent covers a method of distributing digital content through a point-of-sale device called a "Book Bank," which is a point-of-sale repository for digital content that can be used to sell content to consumers, encrypt it, and download it to their devices. The patent was originally assigned to Microtome, a now-defunct developer of e-book technology. There are various aspects of the patent that relate to DRM, including dynamic packaging (including encryption) of content items on downloading, usage restrictions such as expiration times, and e-commerce. Although the term "Book Bank" is used, the patent is nonspecific about the form of the content.
Although we suspect that the magnitude of this settlement does not equal that of the US $440 Million that Microsoft paid to InterTrust in April 2004 to settle infringement claims related to DRM and other patents, this is certainly not going to be the last we hear of DRM-related patent litigation. In fact, we believe it's just getting started. The essential problem is that most of the seminal IP related to DRM was applied for in the mid-'90s (Digeo's patent was filed in '96) and granted in the late '90s, while DRM did not become significant as a market until perhaps 2002 -- which, incidentally, is when Digeo acquired the '823 patent.
One important effect of the time lag is that the terminologies used in the patents, the architectures on which they are based, and the applications to which the patents were intended to apply may not resemble the terminologies, architectures, and applications of DRM today. (For example, merely going to the US Patent & Trademark Office website and searching on "digital rights management" would not be very fruitful.) IP related to today's DRM implementations, therefore, tends to come from a variety of sources, some of them unexpected.
Digeo's '823 patent is a good example of this: it describes a system for distributing what we today would call e-books, and elements of DRM happen to be part of it: for example, the box marked "data conversion" in a functional architecture diagram in the patent has aspects that resemble a DRM packaging function.
MPEG LA's recent call for patents is a noble attempt to create some order out of what is undoubtedly an increasing mess, but its success is not assured. It is focusing its activity on implementations of the Open Mobile Alliance standards (OMA DRM 1 and 2), and its success depends critically on all of the core IP holders in the DRM space agreeing to participate and on all parties concurring with the outcome. Meanwhile, other standards bodies are appearing (e.g,. the Coral and Secure Video Processor consortia), and IP licensing authorities may come into existence around those as well, and furthermore, we hear about previously unknown individual sources of DRM-related IP -- both new and old -- on a regular basis.
Patent holders deserve to be compensated by implementers of their inventions, but the current situation in the DRM market is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better. For all the talk about legislation (such as the Induce Act) threatening to put dampers on innovation, there ought to be just as much talk about how the proliferation of patent claims could present similar problems, as implementers of content delivery systems scratch their heads over what IP they need to license, how much it's going to cost, and whether unforeseen litigation lurks around the corner. The more rationality that is brought to the process, the better for implementers and IP holders alike -- and the more efficiently the industry can develop. 9:30:14 AM
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Macromedia breathed new life into a largely overlooked Web technology on Monday when the company announced its acquisition of FutureWave Software for an undisclosed sum. Despite a high-profile foray with the Simpsons Web site for the Microsoft Network, FutureSplash Animator has not exactly become a household name among Web surfers. Enter Macromedia. "It was time to team with a company that had the marketing prowess," acknowledged Charles Jackson, founder of San Diego, California-based FutureWave. 9:24:20 AM
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