The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has issued an interim rule, effective April 29, 2004, that amends the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to implement (1) President Bush's April 23, 2004, decision to revise U.S. sanctions against Libya; and (2) the transfer to BIS from the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the licensing jurisdiction for exports to Libya of items subject to the EAR.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has announced that the following vessel operating common carriers (VOCCs) have become Sea Automated Manifest System (AMS) operational:
Latest developer to be acquired by publisher Electronic Arts (EA) is Liverpool-based Studio 33, best known for console racing titles including Destruction Derby Arenas, Formula One, Newman- Haas Racing. But EA said those particular games, developed for other publishers, were “not part of the transaction” for which financial terms weren’t disclosed.
Second-term Rep. Issa (R-Cal.), former chmn. of CEA, said Wed. he personally would spearhead effort to recall Cal. Gov. Gray Davis (D). Issa long has been rumored as potential candidate to run for governor if recall effort against Davis is successful. But he told The Sacramento Bee he realized recall effort wasn’t very well organized, “and that if I waited, hoping that someday, someone was going to do it, it wasn’t going to get done.” Issa ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 1998, spending nearly $10 million, and some thought he might challenge Sen. Boxer (D) again next year; she’s on Republicans’ short list of targeted senators. Issa acknowledged most people were focusing on him in Senate race “but I think for the people of California this is more important,” he said of recall effort. The Bee said recall group had collected 61,287 signatures for recall of Davis, far short of 900,000 needed by Sept. to hold election. There appeared to be fertile ground for recall, recent Field poll showing Davis at 24% approval rating, lowest for Cal. governor since 1960s, and nearly half of those polled said they would support recall if it made ballot. Issa said he hoped to raise $200,000 in next 2 weeks for effort, and wouldn’t rule out using some of his fortune from his car-alarm company. Another potential Republican candidate for governor or senator is actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Hong Kong and Denmark are top performers in mobile and Internet technologies and are best poised to take advantage of new developments in convergence, ITU said. ITU’s mobile/Internet index is part of research report on “Internet for a Mobile Generation.” Report looks at performance of more than 200 economies, ITU said. Determining which ones will prove most fertile to development of mobile Internet isn’t easy, ITU said. Countries with high usage of mobile services may not have good Internet penetration, and vice versa, it said, or countries with most potential in terms of infrastructure development might be most closed to foreign investment. Several market trends will enable growth of mobile Internet, ITU said: (1) Timely deployment of high- speed 3G networks. (2) Available, affordable Internet- enabled handsets. (3) Development of unrestricted and nonproprietary mobile Internet content. “Individually, mobile communications and the Internet have been the 2 major drivers of consumer demand for telecommunications services in the last decade of the twentieth century,” said Tim Kelly, head of ITU’s strategy & policy unit. Together, they should be “one of the major demand drivers” of new century, he said. However, he said, while it takes “no great leap of imagination to believe that the convergence of mobile communications and the Internet will produce something big, it may take longer than we think.”
Countering frequent hand-wringing by broadcast executives over potential negative impact of PVR technology -- and whose apprehensions have prompted lawsuit against PVR-maker Sonicblue - - panelists at conference in W. Hollywood Tues. said Digital Age was opportunity.
W. HOLLYWOOD -- Countering frequent hand-wringing by broadcast executives over potential negative impact of personal video recorder (PVR) technology, panelists said at conference here Tues. that Digital Age was opportunity. Speaking at Advertising in the Digital Age Carmel Group conference, Marty Yudkovitz, pres. of NBC Digital Media, said: “No matter what new technology develops, there is always an opportunity to benefit. It’s our job to find what those opportunities are. For the last half century, we've had the same business model because television can aggregate audiences and as a result is the most successful brand- building medium in history. But it’s gone 59 years without adding any extra value to advertisers. In addition to brand awareness, digital will allow broadcasters to add a feedback loop to advertisers in a meaningful way through interactivity. The value is not only good for the consumer but it provides advertisers information about which ads targeted to what audience segment at what time and in what geographical region works best.”
Mythic Entertainment said design work had started on its next-generation massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), code-named Imperator. Company said it was designing game, followup to its MMORPG Dark Age of Camelot, to “to be a radical departure from the current generation of online games… While many features of the game will be familiar to today’s gamers, Imperator will intertwine them with new elements in a decidedly different manner than the current generation of online games.” Spokesman for game maker based in Fairfax, Va., told us it wasn’t “putting a release date on the new product as yet [because] they want to make sure that they are 100% happy with the game they develop rather than trying to get it out on or before a deadline date.” Mythic said Dark Age of Camelot attracted more than 200,000 active subscribers after 9 months of availability. That game now is scheduled to be released “in the fertile Japanese and Korean markets,” company said, adding that “it won’t be long before Dark Age of Camelot is competing for the [rank of] number one MMORPG worldwide.”
Already videogame industry’s most aggressive player on wireless front, THQ expanded its wireless gaming initiatives this week in deal with Sony Ericsson (SE). As part of new gaming partnership, THQ Wireless subsidiary will develop premium licensed and nonlicensed gaming and entertainment for upcoming SE phones.
With advertisers staying away in droves, time on Internet “is going begging,” offering great opportunity for public interest groups to place their public service announcement (PSAs) in unsold time, according to Claudia Caplan, ex-pres. of Earthlink. In Thurs. seminar in Washington sponsored by Kaiser Family Foundation (CD Feb 22 p3), she said of Internet advertising: “No one can figure out a way to make it work.”