archives

o Court: Napster May Not Resume Free File-Sharing Service
o Intouch Loses Part of "Downloading Patent" Suit to AOL Time Warner
o Content Delivery Firm Radiance Raises $13.4 Million in Second Round
o Shareholders Approve Merger of Interactive Network, Two Way TV (US)
o Briefly Noted: Pulsent, NCube - Time Warner Cable, Sonicblue -
Amazon.com, Volkswagen - XM - Sirius, "EverQuest: The Planes of Power,"
Gigex, Fast Company - TechTV, Online gaming - video game consoles
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o Court: Napster May Not Resume Free File-Sharing Service

San Francisco -- In a largely moot ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals said Monday that Napster -- which has for months been focusing on
the launch of a paid subscription-based service -- may not resume its
original, free file-sharing service, the Associated Press reported. U.S.
District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel originally ordered Napster to shut
down the service in July 2001, saying the company must block 100 percent
of unauthorized copyrighted content if it were to operate. The 9th Circuit
blocked that order after Napster filed an appeal but on Monday endorsed
Patel's decision to order the shutdown. Redwood City-based Napster still
faces potential penalties for past infringements of copyrighted works
distributed on its service; Judge Patel recently ordered the record label
plaintiffs to turn over evidence that they indeed own the copyrights to
songs that they say were traded on Napster.
http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2002/03/25/napster/index.html
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o Intouch Loses Part of "Downloading Patent" Suit to AOL Time Warner

San Francisco -- A company claiming to hold a patent on the technological
basis for downloading digital media suffered a loss last week when a
federal judge invalidated part of its patent claims, CNET reported. San
Francisco-based Intouch Group claims to hold the patent, and filed
infringement claims against companies including Amazon.com, the
now-defunct AOL Time Warner site Entertaindom, Listen.com, Liquid Audio,
Loudeye Technologies and Muze. All parties settled the claim except for
Entertaindom, which was awarded summary judgment on two claims filed by
Intouch. "Entertaindom has provided clear and convincing proof of public
use of the inventions," wrote Judge D. Lowell Jensen. The judge's ruling
essentially says that part of the technology Intouch is claiming to have
patented is so widely used that it cannot be patented. Intouch said it
will go ahead with three remaining claims against Entertaindom in a case
set for trial in September.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-867135.html?tag=cd_mh
http://www.intouchgroup.com
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o Content Delivery Firm Radiance Raises $13.4 Million in Second Round

Los Altos, Calif. -- Radiance Technologies, a developer of content
delivery technology that enables large packages of content to be delivered
more efficiently, announced on Monday that it has raised $13.4 million in
its second round of venture capital financing. The round was jointly led by Vanguard Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures. Los Altos-based Radiance develops technology that enables packages containing one or more large files such as PowerPoint, digital video or software applications to be delivered more efficiently. "Our software will
do for digital file distribution what FedEx did for package delivery," said Radiance Technologies CEO Ashfaq Munshi. The company has a partnership with personal video recorder maker TiVo, which will integrate Radiance's TrueDelivery system into its TiVo Series2 DVR for use with video-on-demand services.
http://www.radiance.com/radiancelaunch.pdf
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o Shareholders Approve Merger of Interactive Network, Two Way TV (US)

Los Altos, Calif. -- Interactive TV technology developer Interactive
Network, Inc. announced on Monday that its shareholders have approved the
company's previously announced merger with interactive TV content producer
Two Way TV (US) -- formerly known as TWIN Entertainment. Los Gatos-based
Interactive Network primarily holds patents on interactive TV technology;
its assets will be merged with Los Angeles-based Two Way TV (US), which
creates and deploys interactive TV and enhanced TV content on cable TV,
satellite and broadcast networks. Two Way TV (US) holds an exclusive
license for technology created by U.K.-based Two Way TV, a developer of
games for interactive TV.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/020325/lam044_1.html
http://www.interactivenetwork.net
http://www.twowaytvus.com
http://www.twowaytv.com 
_____________________________________________

o Briefly Noted:

(Milpitas, Calif.) Pulsent, a developer of video compression technology,
on Monday came out of "stealth mode" and announced its product, which the
company claims provides a 400 percent improvement in bandwidth and storage
efficiency over existing codecs, such as MPEG. Milpitas-based Pulsent,
which to date has raised over $30 million in financing, said its
technology will deliver full-screen, broadcast-quality video into the home
over the Internet at 1.1 Mbps. By contrast, MPEG can deliver the same
quality using around 4 Mbps of bandwidth. The company plans to market its
technology to providers of video-on-demand services.
http://www.pulsent.com/press/pressrelease032502.html
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-867490.html

(Portland, Ore.) NCube, a developer of video-on-demand technology,
announced on Monday that it has expanded its agreement with Time Warner
Cable, a division of AOL Time Warner. Under the expanded agreement, Time
Warner Cable will deploy Portland-based NCube's video-on-demand system in
seven additional markets. The service has already been deployed with Time
Warner Cable in Los Angeles.
http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/f_headline.cgi?day0/220840153&ticker=
http://www.ncube.com

(Santa Clara, Calif.) Consumer electronics manufacturer Sonicblue said on
Monday that it has expanded its partnership with online retailer
Amazon.com. The site will now serve as the exclusive retailer of Santa
Clara-based Sonicblue's ReplayTV 4000 personal video recorder through the
end of May. Amazon.com is now taking pre-orders for the device, which
ranges in price from 40-hour capacity for $700 to 320-hour capacity for
$2000. The ReplayTV 4000 features added functionality that allows viewers
to send video over the Internet to friends and family who own ReplayTV
4000s and to stream video to other ReplayTVs in their homes.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/020325/250092_1.html
http://www.sonicblue.com
http://www.amazon.com/electronics

(New York) Volkswagen of America said on Monday will begin offering
satellite radio receivers from both XM Satellite Radio and Sirius
Satellite Radio in new Volkswagen and Audi models next year. Such deals
with auto manufacturers are geared towards letting consumers include the
monthly radio service fee with their car payments.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/020325/dcm027_1.html
http://www.xmradio.com
http://www.siriusradio.com

(San Diego) Sony Online Entertainment announced on Monday that it is
currently developing the next sequel to its popular massively multiplayer
online roleplaying game, "EverQuest." The company plans to launch
"EverQuest: The Planes of Power" as the fourth expansion pack for its
420,000 EverQuest players in the fall.
http://www.planesofpower.com

(San Francisco) Gigex, a video game marketing company, announced on Monday
a new service for game developers and publishers that combines both
Internet and on-demand CD distribution for beta tests, online game
software and game demos. San Francisco-based Gigex's service will offer CD
fulfillment and broadband download services for game developers through a
link from their own websites.
http://www.gigex.com/press/release.asp?rd= 20020322

(Boston) Business publication Fast Company said on Monday that technology
cable network TechTV will produce a number of television vignettes based
on Fast Company content. The two companies will jointly market the series,
in FastCompany print and Web ads as well as TechTV aired promotions.
http://www.techtv.com/fastcompany

(San Jose, Calif.) CNET recently reported on the hurdles facing game
developers that are creating online games for new consoles from Sony and
Microsoft that support online gaming. Creators are trying to expand the
popularity of subscription-based games such as "Ultima Online" and
"EverQuest," which charge users a monthly fee to play the immersive games,
into other games that have a more broad appeal. Development and
maintenance costs for such online games are much more than traditional
console games. "With single-player games, you're selling a product,"
Electronic Arts development director Eric Todd told a panel at the Game
Developers Conference last week. "A massively multiplayer game is really a
service that starts with the sale of a product."
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-867195.html?tag=cd_mh
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