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Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DiViT who wrote (42425)	6/25/1999 4:47:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

US West testing new boxes............................. allnetdevices.com US West Tests Information Overload In Three Cities June 23, 1999 -- Information overload is coming to three cities. US WEST has started in-home technical trials in three cities of the first service that integrates Internet access, telephone service and existing television programming. Dubbed "WebVision, the service uses software and a set-top box from Liberate Technologies to let customers place and answer telephone calls, send and receive e-mail, and surf television channels and the Internet at the same time. The set-top box uses standard dial-up or high speed DSL connections. The box has picture-in-picture to allow users to watch television and surf the Web at the same time, then check for e-mail during commercials. It also displays Caller ID information on the television screen and has a built-in speakerphone. Formerly called @TV, the technical trials are being done by employees in Denver, Minneapolis and Phoenix. The company expects to begin a full-scale market-by-market roll-out in its 14-state region this fall.

To: DiViT who wrote (42425)	6/25/1999 4:52:00 PM
From: Peter V	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

I was freakin' ROBBED!!! They must have deleted a post (no doubt one of those damn DiViT grubs!) #reply-1872693 But it was a weird flashback seeing FredE being nice to lisa.

To: DiViT who wrote (42425)	6/25/1999 5:17:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

Shopping for a Divx machine............................ e-town.com MYSTERY SHOPPER: DIVX'S LIFE AFTER DEATH Circuit City keeps the clothes on the corpse by David Katzmaier June 25, 1999 -- Considering that Divx has been defunct for more than a week, somebody really should redecorate Circuit City. My visit to the local Manhattan branch, located on a very busy corner of Union Square, netted nary a visual indication that the fell format has fallen. If it weren't for the sale-price tags announcing "Clearance, As Advertised" mounted below the three Divx machines in stock, I could have hallucinated the whole thing. Those discounts are what brought me to Circuit in search of Divx. It wasn't long before I found it. Ascending to the main sales floor, the very first thing I saw was a large sign with the familiar Divx logo, a beeline from the top of the escalator. Arranged below it was a nice ProScan 32-inch TV showing a letterboxed version of "Stargate." Below that were arranged the discount goods: an RCA RC5230Z ($249), a ProScan PS8680Z ($309) and a Panasonic DVD-X410 ($329). To the right were two more displays, one with the dreamy Philips plasma set ($14,999) and the other bearing a range of Open DVD players. I camped out in front of the Divx stand and awaited the pitch. A softball Getting help wasn't as easy as it could've been. Contrary to what I expected, not one salesperson approached me, no matter how hard I stared at the fine print on the feature checklists (the first of which reads "Can play Divx and DVD movies"). After 10 minutes of silent contemplation, I finally had to go track down a salesman to get assistance. The guy's name isn't important; we'll just call him Randy. Here's an approximate transcript of the conversation, as close as I could get on paper afterward. Katz: (pointing to the RCA) I'm shopping around for a DVD and saw this one in the paper. Randy: Yeah, it's the lowest price we've ever had on a DVD player. That's a great machine, and they're selling fast. K: I see this one has Divx. What's up with that? R: Divx is no more. But these machines still work great for regular DVDs. Of course, they don't have the features found on some of the other DVD players. I've got a Sony over here ... K: That's OK, I'm here for the bargains. So what about all those movies back there? (indicates large Divx software display adjacent to players) R: No. Only people who've already signed up and bought Divx players can use those. But we have a nice selection of regular movies. Look at this beauty, too. (gestures toward the silver ProScan) It originally sold for around $600. That's almost half price. (opens the drawer) It's a great CD player too, ya know. K: Yeah. Thanks. I'm gonna shop around a bit more. R: Take your time. But you're not gonna find a better price anywhere, my friend. Like I said, these things are selling fast. Anatomy of a clearance Randy had a point. Perhaps he was one of the more informed salespeople on the force, but there's no denying that the well-reviewed ProScan almost had me reaching for my credit card. But there is a problem. Despite Randy's admission of the format's failure, everything else read "Buy Divx here!" Nobody would've stopped me had I walked to the cash register with a pack of Divx discs in hand. Had I not asked about Divx, it would never have come up. In fact, the very line on the features list, "Can play Divx and DVD movies," is a complete falsehood now. No newly bought machine can play Divx movies. The informed consumer knows all of this, but I didn't see too many informed consumers at that NYC Circuit. In fact, I overheard another salesman in the midst of explaining how Divx works to another ready-to-buy customer. I didn't hear whether he was telling the customer that Divx discs are viable, but that doesn't matter. He shouldn't even be mentioning Divx to customers looking to buy players, or he should dismiss it immediately as my man Randy did. Alright, so there didn't seem to be anybody buying Divx movies in the 45 minutes I spent at the store. The point is that nowhere did any sign indicate the uselessness of Divx discs. I realize CC has to move players, and the players themselves are a good deal. Call me naive, but the discs and Divx signs must be removed. When a new customer takes home a disc and finds that it can't be viewed, he or she will just return it, with rightful indignation. Or perhaps a return isn't worth it for a $1.99 disc. Maybe that's what Circuit is betting on. Had a run-in with inaccurate sales drones? Are you a CC employee who feels wrongfully represented by this article? Feel free to post your comments in It's All DVD, a folder on our Message Board.

To: DiViT who wrote (42425)	6/25/1999 5:30:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

PictureTel Streams the web............................. zdnet.com PictureTel to unveil eVideo Application Server By Christa Degnan, PC Week Online June 25, 1999 4:25 PM ET PictureTel Corp. (PCTL) plans to announce Monday a new Web-based application server for broadcasting video. The PictureTel eVideo Application Server is an enterprise version of technology developed by PictureTel subsidiary Starlight Networks Inc. The Windows NT-based system can be used to create, distribute and manage multimedia applications in RealNetwork Inc.'s G2, Microsoft Corp.'s NetShow and Starlight's MPEG-based streaming formats. The eVideo server synchronizes video, PowerPoint slides and interactive chat for live and on-demand broadcasts to users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape Communications Corp.'s Navigator browsers. It can also provide multiple concurrent streams of live video at different bandwidths for corporate network and remote workers. "One to many" events can be scheduled, delivered live, recorded, post-processed and played back later, said officials. Presentations can also be replicated among distributed storage servers so media can be shared worldwide at lower network costs. The eVideo server enables network managers to control network resources such as bandwidth utilization, event scheduling, delivery paths and multilevel security. The eVideo Application Server is a part of PictureTel's "Visual Collaboration for the Net" strategy of delivering Web-based visual collaboration offerings ranging from real-time videoconferences and streaming video events to archived video content for delayed playback. PictureTel executives said the new offering complements the Andover, Mass., company's original line of videoconferencing systems, which can be used as content generators for the eVideo server. eVideo will be offered as a standalone offering, as a service hosted by PictureTel and ASPs, or bundled with PictureTel consulting services. PictureTel intends to unveil a suite of associated services next week as well. Pricing for the products and services will be available later this summer. PictureTel is at www.pictel.com.