eWeb Applications

Storage technology is improving in performance one order of magnitude every five years (Schwerin’s Law, first theorem). Each main segment of technology is one generation apart in performance, i.e. for a given capacity of fixed magnetic, removable optical is one order of magnitude behind, and solid state one order behind that (Schwerin’s Law, second theorem). Storage technology is thus progressing along a similar trajectory as Moore’s Law. Transmission bandwidth and display resolution, which along with processors and storage form the four sectors of digital CE and PC devices, also proceed at a similar velocity of change over time.

Content delivery technology is both network and physical in nature, i.e. transmitted or stored locally. Data transmission from a remote host is best suited for infrequent access or rapidly changing content, whereas delivery to local storage suits archiving content which is frequently accessed but does not change rapidly.

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Norwich, VT USA. Entertainment economy and technology forecaster Infotech predicts a bullish market for home media storage in general and blue laser recorders in particular. Infotech research indicates a simultaneous decline in sales of two formats, CD and DVD over the next 5 years. The anticipated strong growth in consumer content collecting over the next five years is among the very favorable conditions cited by the veteran trend modelers. “Unlike previous generations,” observed Julie Schwerin, Infotech founder and CEO, “the majority will be recordable devices.”

The fifth generation holographic disc will enter the market by the end of the decade, but risks being eclipsed by nanotech storage technologies before realizing its full potential. (more…)

After the thrashing Sony received in the Financial Times last week for disappointing analysts on the Street, London and Tokyo by missing its third fiscal quarter earnings projections, something needed to be done to shore up the online music business. Chris Deering, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Chairman and Sony Europe President, and Ken Kutaragi, Sony Computer Entertainment Group CEO, charged to the rescue yesterday with a daring yet intriguing plan.
News yesterday that the rave Sony Playstation Portable would have a companion music service launched in Europe and in the US for spring was welcomed as a positive move. (more…)

ne of my 2005 predictions, hardly a stretch perhaps and yet beyond my typical zone of expertise, is that open source will flourish as a mainstream practice. So you can imagine how exciting it was that the details of the Intertrust Coral DRM scheme are to be made open source, allowing every vendor to customize it to their own product while maintaining total interoperability. Intertrust is a DRM development organization bought by Philips and Sony in 2002, and is therefore likely to form the basis of the BD DVD DRM. Are you still with me?

If you have been following the development of the next generation blue laser videodisc formats HD DVD and Blu-Ray of BD DVD you know about the HD DVD group favoring an extension of the existing DVD technology in the form of a disc that will hold three times the amount of data and that they have been working on a copy protection scheme called AACS. You know the BD DVD group has a proposal that requires new manufacturing equipment but offers five times the current capacity, and details of the DRM scheme it would propose to movie studios completely preoccupied with copy protection was sketchy until now. (more…)

Almost 90 years ago, the musician’s union was faced with it’s first catastrophic shift in industry structure that resulted in the unemployment of 20,000 musicians over a period of 3 years. These jobs were replaced by a handful of studio jobs as musician’s laid down soundtracks rather than playing live music to accompany motion pictures. Talkies were assailed by the American Federation of Musicians but to no avail. The change was unexpected, as even many studio heads did not think the public wanted to watch talking actors.

Tim Schoonmaker has some perspective about how technology changes content businesses. Whilst at Emap, as a new MBA, he was in the right place at the right time. He sold an electronic publishing venture to British Telecom just as the Internet boom was gathering steam in the US, and the City (London Stock Exchange) traded the stock aggressively, boosting the share price and funding a series of acquisitions as a result. He then acquired newspaper and radio properties with equal finesse, and developed the British version of MTV before going on his own to become an independent dealmaker.

In an interview with KPMG media advisory practice chief Calum Chace in today’s Financial Times, he opines on the tough spot media companies are in, where success breeds complacency. “When a company grows big and successful on a particular business model, it falls in love with the present.” (more…)

The China Daily reported late last week about the continuing dispute between Chinese DVD manufacturers and the 10 companies whose inventions form the majority of the patent pool. “Two Chinese-based DVD manufacturers have filed a lawsuit against the 3C Patent Group in the United States, alleging that it violated US laws, leading to unfair competition. Patent fees of around US$20 per unit are currently levied on manufacturers of Chinese DVD players, accounting for some 20 to 30 per cent of their production costs. However, US manufacturers’ patent fees are much lower, only 3 to 5 per cent of their production costs. ”

What US manufacturers? you may be thinking. Could they mean Thomson, the 1C? Last I heard, they were still headquartered in France. The Japanese won most of those jobs years ago and now they are losing them to Taiwan, South Korea, India, and China. Time Warner is the only other possibility, and they do not manufacture hardware. Never mind, that’s not the point. (more…)

July 13th marked the 100 million song download mark. On August 14th the catalog reached 1 million songs. On October 14th it hit 150 million downloads. By October 27th the EU store was launched. On December 17th, music fans had purchased and downloaded more than 200 million songs from the the site. Today at the NAMM convention, Steve Jobs announced that Apple had served a quarter billion songs.

According to the Financial Times this morning, the second highest ranking contender for the heavyweight music industry title sales championship is former scourge of copyrights, scoundrel of the Web, turned NASDAQ-listed good guy, Napster, now with Chris Gorog at the helm replacing bad boy Shawn Fanning. Gorog just sold off Roxio, another former object of RIAA litigation, to Sonic Solutions to bankroll the $90 million for a possible move into movie downloads. Speculation that Apple, too, has its sites on adding feature film downloads to the iTunes store by rumor mill monger Robert X. Cringely has been made public. (more…)