News

Several companies spanning the personal computer, communications, and consumer electronics industries announced March 4th the formation of a working group that will develop a specification for wireless communications in the home. This specification will allow PCs, peripherals, cordless telephones, and consumer electronic devices to communicate and interoperate with one another.

In cooperation with the International Intellectual Property Alliance, the Recording">http://www.riaa.com">Recording Industry Association of America filed a reportmailto:lpelliccia@riaa.com">report; in February with the United States Trade Representative outlining the problems that US record companies face conducting business in foreign marketplaces. The report highlights inadequacies in copyright protection with respect to standards and enforcement, and identifies major impediments to market access.

Move over, CDNowhttp://www.cdnow.com">CDNow;, N2Khttp://www.n2k.com">N2K;, and Music">http://www.musicblvd.com">Music Boulevard---Amazon.comhttp://www.Amazon.com">Amazon.com; and Best">http://www.bestbuy.com">Best Buy want to play.

On February 23, Pacific Microsonics announced that Atlantic">http://www.atlantic-records.com/">Atlantic Records' forthcoming golden-anniversary release will feature classic popular recordings remastered using Pacific's high-resolution HDCDhttp://www.hdcd.com">HDCD; technology. The patented High Definition Compatible Disc process enhances the detail, richness, and dynamics of compact disc performance.

So far, 139 qualified bidders have signed on for the FCC's new auction. Almost all are hoping to jump into the Local Multipoint Distribution Service business.

While the DVD Consortium's Working Group 4 (WG-4) is still working on the 0.9 specification for DVD-Audio, Sony and Philips have been silently carrying on work on their Super Audio CD, the consumer implementation of Sony's DSD. The Sony/Philips disc will have two layers, one carrying normal 44.1kHz, 16-bit CD information (and thus guaranteeing backwards compatibility with existing CD players), the other carrying eight channels in DSD format (two for high-quality stereo, six for surround), plus text and/or graphics.

Last week, Intel">http://www.intel.com">Intel Corporation announced its membership in the DVD WG-4 Audio Working Group, and its support for the proposed DVD audio specification, as the next steps in bringing next-generation consumer-quality audio to the PC platform.