Category: Technology

The Balance Shifts In Copyright Battle
With last week’s introduction of U.S. legislation protecting “consumers’ rights in the digital age,” the stage is set for a heated debate next year about what home users would be allowed to do with copyrighted music and video, and how far the entertainment industry could go to protect its content.
No action is expected this session of Congress on any of the piracy-vs.-privacy bills introduced by either side before the session ends in mid-October. But lawmakers will have to hash out the details next year as file sharing continues to grow and Hollywood tries to roll out its own digital services.
“Right now, it is the entertainment industry vs. the technology industry, and the consumers are watching from the sidelines,” says Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who introduced the Digital Choice and Freedom Act on Wednesday. “Consumers have rights … that cannot be ignored.”
Lofgren’s bill, and the Digital Media Consumers’ Rights Act introduced Thursday by Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., and Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., seek to amend copyright law to reaffirm and clarify the principle of “fair use” so consumers can keep time-shifting broadcasts and transfer other content to new media such as MP3 players.
Provisions of the bills would let:
* Consumers play digital works on devices of their choice, such as a personal video recorder, to save a digital TV broadcast to watch later.
* Consumers sell or give away the original copies of digital works they have bought.
* Manufacturers market devices that make non-infringing digital copies. (Uploading to the Net may not be included.)
The proposals conflict with measures introduced earlier this year that expand protections for copyrights held by record labels and movie studios. Those bills would require built-in copy protection for all digital devices and let copyright holders search for illegal files on the PCs of individuals using peer-to-peer file sharing systems.
“It’s going to be a huge battle,” says Gary Shapiro of the Consumer Electronics Association. “Both sides are gearing up.”

Video craze creates new job: DVD producer
By Mike Snider, USA TODAY
Success brings new pressures ó and that has never been more true than in the phenomenal success of movies on DVD.
As sales of the video discs have skyrocketed, buyers have come to expect the kinds of goodies ó mini-documentaries, directors’ commentaries and behind-the-scenes footage ó that had once been reserved for a select few top releases. (Related story: A-list occupation: DVD producer)
And those who can create just the right extras to supplement a DVD movie are gaining clout in Hollywood. Today there are a dozen or more DVD producers at the top of their craft, and many more are honing their skills. With about 6,000 new releases this year, there’s a lot of producing to do.
“A few of them have become so prominent … that they are highly sought by studios and/or film producers and directors,” says Scott Hettrick, editor of Video Premieres and Video Business magazines.
Fueling the demand:
* 31 million homes ó more than 25% of U.S. households ó have at least one DVD player.
* DVD owners buy an average 16 discs a year, three times the VHS rate at its peak, the DVD Entertainment Group says. The billionth disc was shipped to stores this summer.
* Home video sales are increasingly crucial to Hollywood’s bottom line. Last year, such sales and rentals totaled $10.9 billion, compared with $8.1 billion at the box office.
Talent agencies are courting DVD producers, too. “We’re trying to form relationships so (a DVD producer) can become branded like a cinematographer or director (with) a certain style or approach,” says Tad Lumpkin, an agent at International Creative Management, which represents five DVD producers.
In the past, DVD extras were created after the fact, but recently the process has begun at the same time as the movie shoot. For A.I. and Minority Report, due Dec. 17, Steven Spielberg asked special-features producer Laurent Bouzereau and DreamWorks DVD producer Mark Rowen “to please come on the set,” Bouzereau says. “We were reading scripts before they started shooting.”
Top-notch DVD producers may have budgets as high as $500,000, but that can include the outlays for menus, film crews, editors and processing of the movie itself. In the end, a producer’s cut might be 10%. Some payments on lesser titles are below $10,000.
So the title of DVD producer is hot but not necessarily lucrative ó yet. “That’s why we look for projects we are passionate about,” says Van Ling, who is producing Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones.

Sony Takes Axe to Betamax
What VHS couldn’t do, digital did. Sony Corp’s Betamax video tape recorder, which famously lost the 1980s video format war but held on for decades as a niche product, will finally be laid to rest after digital formats delivered a death blow to its prospects.
Sony said on Tuesday it would only make 2,000 more Betamax machines before discontinuing the product altogether, ending its 27-year history — spent mostly in the shadow of the Matsushita group’s rival VHS format.
“With digital machines and other new recording formats taking hold in the market, demand has continued to decline and it has become difficult to secure parts,” Sony said in a statement.
Betamax — held up as an example of how the first to market is not guaranteed commercial success — had already been pulled from overseas markets in the 1990s, a Sony spokesman said.
Production of the machine in the last business year to March totaled 2,800 units, a tiny fraction of the 2.3 million made in the peak year of 1984 and the 18 million made over its lifetime.
Sony said it would continue to offer repairs and manufacture tapes for the format, adding the move would not affect its Betacam products for the broadcasting industry.
Rapid sales growth in digital versatile disc (DVD) players and recorders has posed a threat in recent years not just to the remnants of Betamax but to the mainstream VHS videotape recorders pioneered by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, maker of Panasonic goods, and Victor Co of Japan, a subsidiary.
In the DVD arena as well, the industry is groping for ways to set standards without risking a destructive format war.
A fragmentation of standards for DVD recorders has been blamed for delaying the take-off of that market, and a potential format war is also brewing over next-generation DVD products.
Sony, Matsushita and seven other industry giants joined hands early this year on a common format for DVD players using blue laser light, which are due out as early as next year and will vastly increase disc storage capacity.
But Toshiba Corp, a pioneer in DVD technology, said this week it aimed to offer an alternative blue-laser format it believes will be cheaper and more compatible with existing red-laser technology.

Today’s Tecnological Oddity:
The word “iBook” is not automatically in my iBook’s spell checker.
Hmmm….

TV’S NEXT STEP
Is your DVD player obsolete already? Well, not exactly. But just as the price of video disc players are coming into range for nearly every home, now comes word that 3-D TV is here.
It’s not Buck Rodgers sci-fi stuff anymore.
The technology exists – and is starting to show up at electronic trade shows – for turning any existing film or video into 3-D.
The technology is light years beyond those cheesy paper-and-cellophane glasses that tricked moviegoers of the ’50s and ’60s. The first place you’re likely to find 3-D TVs will be in stores – as point-of-purchase displays, as attractions at amusement parks or for corporate presentations.
The reason is simple: the cheapest system right now starts at around $6,000 and ranges up to about $24,000 for bigger units.
Then again, there’s nothing yet to watch on 3-D TV.
A Santa Monica, Calf.-based company called Dynamic Digital Depth Inc. has figured out a way to digitally convert any existing video or film – say, an episode of “Friends.”
DDD’s software creates a digital form of the film and then uses a computer to add an extra track containing data about the depth of objects on the screen.
“It’s a kind of enhanced television,” says DDD’s executive vice-president of business development Bruce Ettinger.
DDD hopes to introduce a system in the next year or so that would play specially-encoded 3D DVD movies for consumers.
The extra 3D feature on the discs will be available to consumers who have a special 3D system, much the same way someone with a surround-sound home theater can access better sound on the same DVDs that consumer without surround-sound uses.
Other researchers have different high-tech solutions for turning living rooms into 3D home theaters. And some of those ideas seem to be right out of “Star Trek.”
Ideas range from holographic projections ala “The Minority Report” and “Star Wars” to a chemical solution that’ll use solid crystals that behave similarly to liquid crystal displays used in digital watches and computer screens – but tweaked to project in three-dimensions.
“My group is trying to develop is a material that is a solid that you can cut or polish and the molecules within it would have the ability to act like the molecules within a liquid crystal,” says Miguel Garcia-Garibay, a chemical researcher at UCLA, who thinks his 3D TV solution might be ready within five to 10 years.
The big problem with 3-D TVs, say industry analysts, will be its costs.
“Five years ago when DVD players cost $500, penetration of DVD players in the consumer market was really low,” said Lydia Loizides, a senior analyst at Jupiter Research. “Now that they’re $150, everybody’s got ’em.
“If it’s a really big leap, and a very expensive leap,” said Loizides, “it’s going to take much longer.”

Apple Unveils iPod Music Players for Windows PCs
Apple Computer Inc. Chairman Steve Jobs said on Wednesday that Apple will expand the audience for its popular iPod music player with new versions of the device designed to work with Windows-based personal computers.
Speaking to an audience of Apple loyalists at the bi-annual Macworld trade show, Jobs also said it was cutting $100 off the prices of the two existing iPod models that run on Apple computers.
Apple said it would offer its 1,000-song, five-gigabyte iPod for $299 and a 2,000-song, 10-gigabyte iPod for $399. It also said it would introduce a new $499 model capable of storing 4,000 songs, or roughly 20 billion bytes of data.
All three models will be available to run on both Apple and PCs running Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system. The Windows versions will be available starting in late August.
“Isn’t that cool?” Jobs asked the audience of Apple faithful repeatedly as he demonstrated new software features to be offered on the Internet-based music-playing device.

Except For This Website, Of Course!
Does the Internet make you stupid?

How Fast Is Your Computer?
The handy Internet Connection Speedometer lets you check your connection speed.

Toymax Launches New-Old Atari System
Toymax International has announced that they have partnered with Atari to produce the Atari 10-In-1 TV Games. The console, selling for $20, is an 8-bit system that comes with games like Centipede, Asteroids, Missile Command, Battlezone, Adventure, Combat, and more. It also features a small controller that can travel anywhere, as well as ATV jacks that will accommodate almost any tv made within the last decade. The system should arrive in stores sometime this quarter.

Tiny Web Site
If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s your chance to view the world’s smallest Web site.