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

To: BillyG who wrote (26214)	12/5/1997 3:47:00 PM
From: Stoctrash	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

EU set for Bertelsmann /Kirch showdown biz.yahoo.com BRUSSELS, Dec 5 (Reuters) - The European Commission and German media firms Bertelsmann AG (BTGGg.F) and Leo Kirch on Friday appeared set for a showdown over the marketing by pay-television company Premiere of Kirch's decoder box. Despite a warning by the EU executive earlier this week that they risked fines if the practice was not stopped by Friday, Bertelsmann and Bavarian media mogul Kirch had not budged by midday, a Commission source said. There was no fresh information afterwards. Bertelsmann, the world's third largest entertainment concern after Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX - news) and Walt Disney, and Kirch brought down the Commission's wrath upon them after they begun cooperation on digital television without first securing European Union regulatory approval. The Commission took aim at the use and marketing by their jointly-controlled Premiere of Kirch's technology to sell its own digital platform. Decoders are used to unscramble encrypted programmes carried by pay-TV channels. The move followed a decision by the two firms to end years of rivalry and pool forces together to get digital TV off the ground. Kirch launched a digital TV channel, DF1, last year, but the project was largely unsuccessful, and Premiere Digital was likely to see the same fate unless the two partners agreed to use the same set-top decoder box. Although the Commission seems to recognise the need for big alliances to share the heavy cost of launching digital television, it insists on scrutinising such deals to ensure they do not close off the emerging market to future newcomers. ''We have nothing against alliances, but there is a potential problem with the decoders. Is it open-ended or is there a gate-keeper function?'' the Commission source said, referring to Kirch's d-box. The Commission said in a rare statement on Monday that it could fine the companies if they did not stop their marketing campaign, adding that it had received several complaints by rival firms. Speculation that the companies would continue with the campaign during the crucial Christmas sales period because the fines would be only symbolic was quashed by the Commission source. Under the European Union's merger control law, the Commission can fine companies up to 10 percent of turnover for implementing a deal without prior regulatory approval. It can also resort to daily penalties of up to 100,000 European currency units, the source said. The merger between Bertelsmann and Kirch was filed to the EU only on Monday, despite being announced last summer. Under the merger rules, the Commission has now a month to decide whether to clear or start a detailed probe, which could take another four months.

To: BillyG who wrote (26214)	12/5/1997 5:52:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

From the Company that brought you ZiVA in Dell, Home Networks(or networks for the home)....................... Billy already posted this, shucks. techweb.com Altec Lansing And RF-Link Jump Into Home Networks (12/05/97; 3:00 p.m. EST) By Rick Boyd-Merritt, EE Times In the quest for a low-cost home network, two companies are leveraging their wired and wireless technologies to turn home PCs into home servers. Speaker maker Altec Lansing Technologies is working with system and semiconductor partners to bring its Hybrid Home Entertainment System to market next year, and RF-Link Technology has launched its own system, which it plans to respin within the next few weeks. Both systems would allow TVs scattered throughout a home to display data from a PC running in a separate room. However, both networks are highly asymmetric with huge quantities of video and audio streaming from a PC to a TV, but with a relatively narrow control channel leading from those consumer devices back to a PC. The two companies join other players looking to deliver home networks based on using existing telephone wiring. Altec Lansing, in Millford, Pa., is working with PC makers to bring its Hybrid Home Entertainment System to market by the third quarter of next year. The system uses installed cable TV coaxial wires within a home to distribute information from a PC -- including anything from DVD movie playback to a Web browser or other PC application -- to a TV. Control signals back to the PC come from a 900-MHz RF remote-control device. "Our thinking is, why create a war between the PC and the TV? The two should coexist," said Tommy Freadman, Altec Lansing's executive vice president of engineering. RF-Link has a similar product concept. "The end user has already made a commitment to the PC -- why not extend its systems capabilities to other consumer devices?" said Bill Vitez, director of marketing and sales for RF-Link, in Torrance, Calif. Altec Lansing is developing two ASICs with semiconductor partners. The company said it hopes partnership will bring the cost of its system -- which would take the form of an external PC add-on box or a PC adapter card -- to an estimated retail price of about $249, Freadman said. The company is still courting OEM partners and hopes to show demo units by the middle of next year. The company has received a U.S. patent on its method of using coaxial cable to transmit data around the home while using a notch filter to block data from going out of the home. The network scheme has been in the works for more than two years, Freadman said. The rise of faster processors, true multitasking in Windows 95, and upcoming options to support multiple simultaneous displays in Win 98 is helping finally to push the project toward the market, he said. The nature of installed coaxial cable in the home -- with the unpredictable use of signal splitters -- prevents the product from migrating toward a true two-way multimedia network. But the company said it hopes the RF back channel could be a kind of in-home teletex for e-mail messages to TV or PC screens. Altec also sells a home intercom system that could be linked to the network. For its part, RF-Link started shipping late last month its Wireless PC@TV system which sends PC data over a proprietary 2.4-GHz spread-spectrum wireless network to a converter box that translates the VGA display data into an NTSC or PAL format. The RF transceivers on which the product is based had previously been sold as a consumer electronics add-on product named Wavecom Sr., which was positioned as a way to share a single direct-broadcast satellite or VCR signal with multiple TVs in a home. "This is our first foray into the PC marketplace," said Vitez of RF-Link. "At Comdex this year, we demonstrated the product and started to speak with PC OEMs for the first time." RF-Link's product includes a pair of wireless transceivers and an infrared wireless keyboard and a VGA-to-NTSC converter box, which runs software to enhance Web pages on a TV screen. The 2.4-GHz transceivers' unique circular-polarization directional antenna provides a coverage area, the company said, of up to 300 feet over unobstructed distances. At a retail price of $499, WirelessPC@TV will bump up against lower-priced Internet TV set-tops; that's one reason the company plans a quick respin of the product. RF-Link's plans for the Winter Consumer Electronics Show include a version of the product using a 900-MHz RF wireless keyboard. It eliminates the need for some of the IR-to-RF conversion circuitry the current system requires to support the control back channel. That system could also include an upgraded VGA-to-NTSC converter. RF-Link is selling its product through retail outlets, but is looking for OEM partners to sell or customize its technology for next-generation products.