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Technology Stocks : Gemstar Intl (GMST)
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To: 100cfm who wrote (2390)3/18/2000 11:30:00 AM
From: Mike Buckley  Read Replies (4) of 6516
 
100,

How do you envision the ebooks recieving updates and ads from an tv's IPG.

Think of the e-book as a plug-in device. Just as the set-top box or television can recieve the updates, anything plugged into those devices can also receive them. The analogy is that just as your computer can receive anything from the Internet, once it's on your computer it can be transmitted to a separate device via the USB port. My guess is that the technology would be pretty simple to give the end user the choice of recieving the IPG in the television, the e-book or both.

Alternatively and most probable at the outset (Geez, beware that this is a carpetologist mouthing off about something he knows nothing about), is that the IPG would remain on the television or set-top box. But control of the IPG could easily be manipulated from the e-book. Simply put the innards of a television's remote control inside an e-book and you have one less device laying around on the coffee table.

To accomplish that, they'd have to get dirt cheap. You'd want several of them in the house so you don't lose control of your television when your teenager takes the device into the bedroom to use it as an e-book.

I tend to envision that ebook technology will be incorporated into tvs.

That too. The point is that Gemstar's combined use of e-books and IPGs is positioning themselves as the electronic distributor of content on the Internet and on Television to your handheld device. That's one heck of a distributor!

Another way to look at this stuff is to envision the e-book as an oversized Palm with a lot more capability than a Palm. It will do all the things a Palm VII does but will also include the e-book functions and remote control of the television. It won't need to be as small as a Palm because it will be used primarily when in a home, motel room or on a plane, meaning it won't need to fit in a shirt pocket nor a small purse. Having access to a medium size screen (larger than a Palm but smaller than a laptop) in a device that is small enough to take on an airplane or hold in your lap will be hugely appealing. And if they can put a DVD drive in it for watching movies without making it too clunky, so much the better.

--Mike Buckley
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