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Technology Stocks : Gemstar Intl (GMST) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: straight life who wrote (2308)	3/14/2000 5:52:00 PM
From: RocketMan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6516

Thomson and Gemstar today announced a wide-ranging agreement that is expected to result in popularly-priced electronic books later this year. The key words there are popularly-priced. Today the new King story came out in e-format at a good price, there is more press beginning to be heard about e-publishing, and I think the tornado for this application is getting near. The chicken-egg problem will soon be solved. Gemstar appears to already be doing a lot behind the scenes to market the e-book, and this alliance with Thomson should greatly facilitate that. Just the other evening I was having dinner with a friend who is an editor for a national publication, and we were discussing some books. Without any prompting from me, and not knowing anything about Gemstar, he mentioned that he had demo-ed a version of both Rocket e-book and Softbook as part of his job and was very impressed. This is an individual in the publishing business who is not a techy, but loves to read. So for someone like that to like an electronic version of a book tells me that this thing really will have popular appeal. Of course, I told him all about Gemstar and their other initiatives, in case he might want to invest :-) On a day when the Naz is off 200 points, it's nice to be in a company whose true value has yet to be recognized, and whose tremendous growth is yet to come.

To: straight life who wrote (2308)	3/14/2000 6:01:00 PM
From: Climber	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6516

Gemstar and CDMA? Nortel Networks 1xRTT Solutions: Business Perspectives: Yiuman Leung Ph.D. Sr. Manager, Next Generations CDMA Products Nortel Networks February 7, 2000 Interesting presentation that shows the Rocket eBook as a data appliance suited to next generation CDMA. cdg.org PDF at: cdg.org Sorry if already posted. Cheers, Climber

To: straight life who wrote (2308)	3/15/2000 4:52:00 AM
From: LBstocks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6516

WSJ(3/15): Gemstar To Boost E-Book Tech With French Firm Dow Jones News Service ~ March 15, 2000 ~ 12:34 am EST By Matthew Rose Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal Gemstar International Group Ltd. signed a deal with France's Thomson Multimedia to cooperate in the manufacture of devices for reading electronic books, the latest in a series of efforts to boost the fledgling technology. Under the agreement, designed to bring down the price of e-books, the companies also have agreed to develop simpler ways of downloading content to the devices and said they will publish some of their own material for the e-books, such as full-color catalogs, reference books and technical publications. The companies already have a joint venture to develop electronic TV-program guides. Specific terms of the deal weren't disclosed. E-books are hand-held mini computers that are about the same size as books and can be used to read material downloaded from the Internet. Gemstar, the technology company that in 1999 agreed to buy TV Guide Inc., gave a surprising vote of confidence to e-books in January when it announced the parallel acquisitions of NuvoMedia Inc., Mountain View, Calif., and SoftBook Press Inc., Menlo Park, Calif., two of the leading developers of e-book devices. So far, the high price of the electronic-book devices has been a stumbling block to winning consumer acceptance. NuvoMedia's Rocket eBook retails at $199, while SoftBook's more sophisticated model, built to resemble a leather-bound folder, retails for $599, or $299 with a two-year contract to buy content for $ 19.99 a month. Gemstar, Pasadena, Calif., hopes to cut prices to less than $100 for the eBook and less than $200 for the SoftBook, people familiar with its thinking said. Although some are moving more slowly, many book publishers have been scrambling to ready themselves for the coming of electronic publishing. Gemstar executives recently completed a tour of New York publishers to discuss ways in which the two sides might cooperate to sell books electronically. Random House Inc., a publishing unit of Germany's Bertelsmann AG, has embarked on an ambitious project to digitize its backlist of titles. In addition, a Stephen King short story published electronically by Viacom Inc.'s Simon & Schuster Inc., went on sale and met heavy demand. (END) DOW JONES NEWS 03-15-00 12:34 AM