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To: Ausdauer who wrote (14758)	9/13/2000 10:09:38 PM
From: puborectalis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

mercurycenter.com

To: Ausdauer who wrote (14758)	9/13/2000 11:55:08 PM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 60323

nikkeibp.asiabiztech.com Download MP3 Music to Mobile Phones Japanese companies Sanyo Electric Co Ltd, Hitachi Ltd and Fujitsu Ltd have jointly drawn up a technical specification defining a music distribution system for mobile phones, including Personal Handyphone System (PHS) phones. This in effect turns a phone into a MP3 portable music player. The group proposes a new, compact memory card as the recording media, to assure copyright protection. The newly-developed music distribution system, dubbed "keitai de music," (music by mobile phone) is different from the majority of music distribution systems already proposed for the Internet in two key ways. The first is that it permits copying of encrypted musical content, and only charges fees when the data is actually used. The companies are refering to this as a "superdistribution" concept. Second, it integrates the mobile phone with a play-only player. "We believe these two elements are essential in order to make music distribution popular among users of portable music players," explained a source at Sanyo. Direct Charge to Phone Users Superdistribution is implemented by distributing the encrypted musical content independently of distribution of the play license key. The proposed system requires that the play license key be distributed via the mobile telephone/PHS communication link, making it possible for the communication carrier to directly charge the phone user the license fee for playing the musical content. At the same time, however, the user will be able to obtain the encrypted musical content from a variety of sources, including downloading from music servers via telecommunications, by copying encrypted content from another user, or picking up new tracks from compact disk read-only memory (CD-ROM), or music vending machines at train stations or convenience stores. Sanyo has already developed mobile phone and PHS terminal prototypes capable of playing back musical content. Encrypted musical content and play license keys will be stored on a new type of compact memory card supporting copyright protection. The group plans to mount a special logic circuit in the terminal to handle content encryption/decryption and audio decoding, which will slash power consumption during play to about 20 or 30mW. Given existing mobile phone battery performance, this translates to 10 or 15 hours of play time (excluding phone conversation and standby consumption). In April, NTT Mobile Communications Network, Inc (NTT DoCoMo) plans to test musical content distribution over the PHS data network, although probably without providing its PHS terminals directly with play functions. Two Standards To provide copyright protection for distributed musical content, Hitachi developed a new compact memory card, based on the MultiMediaCard (MMC) with Sanyo and Infineon Technologies AG of Germany. The firms proposed the specifications for the new design, called the Secure MultiMedia Card (Secure MMC), to the MultiMediaCard Association (MMCA) in November 1999. The MMCA plans to formulate the final specifications for the Secure MMC in March. The Secure MMC has an extended instruction set, supporting various functions related to data encryption/decryption and copyright protection. In addition, it is provided with six extra leads, making possible parallel write in byte units, and a peak write speed of 20 Mbytes/s. The leads already used by MMC-compliant equipment, however, will remain untouched to assure compatibility, and shape and thickness are identical. As a result, no physical design changes are needed in equipment, which means that it will be much easier to win support for the new proposal from equipment manufacturers. The SD Memory Card, from a group led by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, Ltd, is another compact memory card proposal supporting copyright protection, and is also upwardly compatible with the MMC. The SD memory card group, which had been running into standardization problems at the MMCA, planed to form its own consortium in January. At the present, no plans have been announced to integrate the two standards, and industry observers expect the confusion to deepen.