Patent 6,973,669 was approved for Microsoft to pause TV programming in response to clicking on a hypertext link, said the Patent & Trademark Office (PTO). “It’s a software patent on an idea so obvious that most people wouldn’t even bother thinking about it. If you're going to include an interactive functionality within a video where someone would click on something, of course you'd want to pause the video playback when someone clicked,” said Rick Nydegger, chmn. of the PTO’s Patent Public Advisory Committee.
Firewire, a.k.a. IEEE-1394, is being resurrected as the sinew of HD home networks hoped to be easy for consumers to connect but hard to crack for content piracy. The proposal comes from a multi-industry group that introduced itself Wed. and will reveal other members and plans at the upcoming CES, with the goal having compliant products at the Las Vegas show in 2007.
FireWire, a.k.a. IEEE-1394, is being resurrected as the sinew of HD home networks hoped to be easy for consumers to connect but hard to crack for content piracy. The proposal comes from a multi-industry group that introduced itself Wed. and will reveal other members and plans at the upcoming CES, with the goal having compliant products at the Las Vegas show in 2007.
LOS ANGELES -- Recent fallout over Sony BMG’s use of XCP content protection on music CDs is “irrelevant” to Blu-ray’s roll-out, and, as such, Blu-ray runs no risk of a like fiasco, Andy Setos, Fox Home Entertainment pres. of engineering, told a Blu-ray news briefing Tues. on the Fox Studios lot here.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) unveiled its final guidelines for broadband video commercials on Tues. The recommendations were established after an extensive review of industry feedback over several months, the group said. The IAB has also developed a compliance program to assist advertisers in flagging publishers and technology providers who are compliant with the guidelines. The group’s guidelines aim to “further enhance the user experience without constraining creative opportunities for marketers” and will improve efficiency of planning, buying and creating Web media. IAB defines broadband video commercials as ads that appear before, during and after content including, but not limited to, streaming video, animation, gaming and music videos. Guideline highlights include: (1) In-stream commercials may be up to 30 sec. long for pre- and midroll commercials. Publishers may offer custom lengths for post roll. (2) A recommended minimum of 200 kbps for encoded bit rates. (3) The minimum player controls should be start/stop and volume on/off and softer/louder. Other recommended buttons include fast forward/rewind, pause and zoom.
Congress “explicitly excluded” the Internet from the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act’s (CALEA’s)scope, Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Leahy (D-Vt.) said Wed. Leahy, CALEA’s main sponsor in 1994, had harsh words for an FCC order bringing broadband and VoIP under the law’s purview. Congress wants “to re- visit the appropriateness of such an expansion as the Internet developed,” he said: Building wiretaps into the public switched telephone network was approved only “after careful analysis over several years by the Congress of the costs, burdens, alternatives and security risks posed by a new regulatory scheme.” Echoing a petition filed Tues. by several groups to overturn the FCC order (WID Oct 26 p3), Leahy said law enforcement hasn’t said what problems, if any, it’s having with interception on the Internet. “Congressional hearings are a good place to start” discussing solutions for existing problems, he said. “The FBI’s own mishaps” with technology should give the FCC pause about giving it and other agencies authority to set technology mandates, Leahy said. A Senate Judiciary spokeswoman told us Leahy and other panel Democrats hadn’t decided whether to ask in their own petition that the U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., overturn the FCC order.
Congress “explicitly excluded” the Internet from the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act’s (CALEA’s)scope, Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Leahy (D-Vt.) said Wed. Leahy, CALEA’s main sponsor in 1994, had harsh words for an FCC order bringing broadband and VoIP under the law’s purview. Congress wants “to re- visit the appropriateness of such an expansion as the Internet developed,” he said: Building wiretaps into the public switched telephone network was approved only “after careful analysis over several years by the Congress of the costs, burdens, alternatives and security risks posed by a new regulatory scheme.” Echoing a petition filed Tues. by several groups to overturn the FCC order (CD Oct 26 p3), Leahy said law enforcement hasn’t said what problems, if any, it’s having with interception on the Internet. “Congressional hearings are a good place to start” discussing solutions for existing problems, he said. “The FBI’s own mishaps” with technology should give the FCC pause about giving it and other agencies authority to set technology mandates, Leahy said. A Senate Judiciary spokeswoman told us Leahy and other panel Democrats hadn’t decided whether to ask in their own petition that the U.S. Appeals Court, D.C., overturn the FCC order.
A DTV tuner/decoder card for PCs is shipping from ADS Tech at $129, the aftermarket accessories company said Tues. It described its Instant HDTV as an add-in PCI card that turns a standard Windows XP PC into a terrestrial DTV receiver, with recording possible on hard drives or DVD/CD burners. Besides providing over-air DTV reception, the card acts as an analog cable TV tuner. The card comes bundled with SnapStream’s Beyond TV, which can produce overlays that provide information about the show as it’s being viewed, ADS Tech said. The application also lets users search for future broadcasts by title or keyword, and program them for time-shift recording. It also provides PVR-like functions such as letting users pause, fast forward and rewind live TV as well as recorded programs. The Instant HDTV card also comes with NeroVision Express, a DVD authoring program that automates the process of compressing the HD content stored on the hard drive for SD archiving on DVDs. The card is designed for PCs running Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.
Largely ignoring copyright infringement, BitTorrent (BT) creator Bram Cohen told ISPs how to manage heavy file-swapping traffic and said his P2P application can help push on-demand downloads over live streaming. Cohen, whose creation is said to facilitate at least 35% of Internet traffic, also addressed content industries’ plight at the Next Generation Networks (NGN) conference Tues.
INDIANAPOLIS Sony will make a million SXRD microdisplay panels at its Kumamoto, Japan, plant this year, SXRD Development Dept. Gen. Mgr. Shunichi Hasimoto told us. Most panels will be the 0.61” size used in 50W ($3,999) and 60W ($4,999) rear-projection TVs and the new VPL-VW100 ($10,000) front projector unveiled at the CEDIA show here, Hashimoto told us. With a 3-chip design employed, projected output translates to some 330,000 finished products, officials said. Sony has said it expects by year’s end the plant will be able to make 3 million units annually (CED Aug 17 p1).