... While the average TV set lasts about 11 years, families typically buy a new set every three or four years, industry officials say. Over all, Americans are expected to buy 30 million televisions this year, at a rough average of $400 each.
"Let's face it, the big-screen TV is the fireplace, the hearth of family in our society," said Andrew Shulklapper, senior buyer for televisions at Circuit City, one of the biggest electronics retailers.
For all of the technical mumbo jumbo, the two most important changes in the television market are quite simple. In image quality, big-screen televisions (those with screens larger than 36 inches, measured diagonally) are no longer markedly inferior to smaller ones. Perhaps more important, a big-screen television no longer has to be a behemoth in the corner.
That change in overall size extends far beyond the expensive flat-panel sets, which are mere inches thick and use either a liquid-crystal display (L.C.D.) or plasma technology. While an analog rear-projection set with a 50-inch screen might weigh more than 200 pounds and be almost three feet deep, digital projection sets might pack the same screen size into a unit weighing less than 80 pounds and measuring barely 18 inches deep. Moreover, the digital projection set will probably cost thousands of dollars less than a flat-panel display.
Many electronics experts agree that the thinning of the television has wrought a striking change in the way families shop for TV's. Suddenly, they say, women who might have objected to their husband's or boyfriend's big-screen fantasies are softening their objections.
"Now, the consumer purchase process has evolved simply from a male-centric decision process to one that is being driven equally if not more by the female, given that you can now integrate the TV into the room as art, rather than the big black box," said Tim E. Baxter, senior vice president for marketing at Sony Electronics' consumer division. "Now I am giving back an entire corner of the room that was dedicated to the TV."
Independent:
The heads of McDonald's, Cadbury Schweppes and Pepsi said yesterday that their products were not to blame for Britain's obesity epidemic.
The chief executives of the three companies claimed that heavy marketing of junk food, "super size" portions and offers of promotional toys had little effect on what most people ate.
Andrew Cosslett, the managing director of Cadbury Schweppes, said: "There is no correlation between confectionery consumption and obesity. All the evidence suggests that people eat our products extremely sensibly.
"The problem is that people are buying things that they think are low-fat, products that are masquerading as healthy with misleading labels." Mr Cosslett claimed that products such as low-fat yoghurts were more to blame for the rising rate of obesity than sweets. "There is nothing dangerous about a Curly Wurly," he said.
He and the heads of Britain's other leading food companies were giving evidence to the House of Commons Health Select Committee investigation into obesity.
The committee is considering whether to recommend a ban on television advertising of high-fat and sugary foods during children's viewing times, and the introduction of cigarette-style health warnings on junk food. One in five people in Britain is classed as overweight or obese and rates have tripled among children.
Campaigners say the aggressive marketing of sweets, crisps and soft drinks, using sporting heroes such as Gary Lineker for Walkers crisps and cartoon characters for McDonald's Happy Meals, encourages people to eat poor diets. Increased portion sizes, such as "go large" burger meals and extra large chocolate bars, have also been blamed.
AllAfrica.com:
Some 24 million Africans are currently known to have tested positive to the deadly HIV virus which is responsible for the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
Chairman, University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan and Professor Emeritus of Medicine, Professor Oladipupo Olu Akinkugbe, revealed this yesterday at a commemorative lecture to mark the 10th anniversary of the transition of eminent expert in development Economics, late Professor Ojetunji Aboyade.
Akinkugbe told the distinguished gathering of scholars, experts and businessmen at the Development Policy Centre (DPC),Ibadan ,Oyo State founded by the late economist that the African HIV infection data is the highest of all the continents.
According to Akinkugbe, who delivered the anniversary lecture titled "Undeserved Yet Undeserved," pointed out that the figure is quite alarming when viewed against the fact that the global HIV infection figure to date stands at 35 million people.
SeattleTimes:
The telecommunications industry, eager to find a route around a 100-year-old regulatory regime, has turned to a new path: the Internet.
In the month since a federal court in Minnesota ruled calls delivered over the Internet are not subject to state regulation, Qwest Communications International, Verizon Communications and SBC Communications have announced intentions to beef up their ability to deliver phone calls over their data networks.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) traditionally has had a hands-off policy when it comes to regulating the Internet. But it will hold its first hearing tomorrow in an effort to decide whether it needs to step into an issue that has the potential to transform the industry.
In Washington state, regulators next year are expected to rule for the first time whether the technology falls under their authority. A federal judge found that the Washington State Utilities and Transportation Commission was better-suited to make such a decision.
The stakes in the debate are huge. Federal and state governments could lose billions of dollars in revenue from regulatory fees if calls moved onto the Internet no longer are subject to the charges. And if the FCC chooses not to regulate Internet calls, it could raise questions about the future of the Universal Service Fund, a $6 billion federal program funded by telephone fees that subsidizes phone service in rural areas and Internet service for schools.
...Local and long-distance companies are migrating quickly to the new technology to avoid the cost of maintaining separate voice and data networks. Nortel Networks, the Canadian telecommunications equipment maker, estimates local telephone companies could cut costs of running a network by 30 percent by shifting to an Internet-based network. "The market is absolutely moving in the direction of the convergence of these networks," Nortel executive Martha Bejar said.
Long-distance companies also hope to reap huge savings by using the Internet to bypass local telephone networks. Long-distance companies pay local companies $25 billion a year in "access charges." The fees cover the cost of connecting long-distance customers to the local network. The long-distance companies say they should not have to pay access charges for Internet calls.
FCC Chairman Michael Powell had been reluctant to jump into the debate. As recently as October, he said the agency would launch a notice of inquiry, an agency proceeding designed to invite public comment on an issue without reaching a decision. But Powell this month suggested in a letter to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that the agency could issue a final rule within 12 months.
TelegraphIndia:
In a desperate appeal to China’s fashionable youth, the Chinese Communist Party has approved the repackaging of Mao Zedong as a rap artist.
Mao’s favourite exhortation — the Two Musts — is to be set to music and released alongside pop versions of all the Great Helmsman’s old slogans, such as The East is Red and Serve the People.
The rap album to honour the 110th anniversary of Mao’s birth next month follows another record, A Red Sun, released to mark his centenary.
The Beijing Times said yesterday: “Ten years ago, the album A Red Sun brought a crimson tide of songs rushing through our music industry. This year, the China Record Company has finished the production of the powerfully red Mao Tse-Tung and Us.”
The Two Musts were: “To preserve modesty and prudence and to preserve the style of plain living and hard struggle”.
They formed a key part of Mao’s professed, though unpractised, passion for peasant life.
As Mao’s anniversary on December 26, 1893 approaches, the party is keen to use the opportunity to revive interest in his ideology, increasingly .
SFGate:
Cable television giant Comcast is jumping into the Internet music market with a deal to promote RealNetworks Inc.'s Rhapsody music subscription service with TV commercials and free songs.
The two-month marketing deal between Rhapsody music service of San Francisco and Comcast, which has 21.4 million cable TV subscribers and 4.86 million high-speed Internet service customers, will be announced today.
The joint promotion marks the latest in a series of high-profile marketing campaigns to catapult into the spotlight licensed music services like Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes Music Store and Roxio Inc.'s Napster 2.0.
"This kind of attention is all good,'' said analyst Mike McGuire, research director at Gartner G2. "The idea they are now going to have TV advertising to promote this is enormous, not just for Rhapsody. Raising the general public awareness that there is a new form of accruing music legally is very valuable.''
Those services have the backing of the slump-ridden recording industry, which has been slapping customers with copyright infringement suits for using free but unlicensed online song-swapping programs like Kazaa.
... Ms. Lauzen's latest study, which analyzed the 2002-3 prime-time season, found that women made up 22 percent of all creators, executive producers, producers, directors, writers, editors and directors of photography, a percentage that has remained virtually unchanged for the last four seasons.Meanwhile, on screen, male characters outnumbered females by almost 2 to 1 (62 percent males, 38 percent females). The women were also younger than the men: 70 percent of all characters in their 40's and 80 percent of those in their 50's were men. Among major characters, only men held political office or were military or religious leaders. A total of 93 percent of business owners were men.
But the presence of at least one powerful woman behind the screen translates into more women on-screen and more powerful women on-screen, Ms. Lauzen found. For example, women accounted for 36 percent of all characters in programs without female creators, compared with 44 percent of all characters in those with at least one female creator.
"I don't think there's some grand conspiracy out there," Ms. Lauzen said. "I think it's a subconscious thing going on. People hire people they feel comfortable with. But you can't possibly understand TV unless you look behind the screen to who is putting the words in the characters' mouths." Ms. Lauzen is just one of a growing number of feminist and communications theorists who have been studying the portrayal of women on television.
An ambitious new study of the top 15 Nielsen-rated network sitcoms from 1950 to 1999 by a group of Ohio University researchers, for example, is trying to document more precisely the ways TV warps reality and ducks nuance.
NYNewsDay:
After years of false promises and halting starts, HDTV -- the ultimate in TV picture sharpness -- finally appears to be ready for prime time. A combination of lower prices and more HD programming, bolstered by the trend toward spending more on in-home comforts, has helped accelerate the flow to high-definition television.
More than 2.4 million HDTV sets were sold in the United States in the 12 months ended in September, according to the NPD Group, a research firm based in Port Washington. That's a 50 percent jump from a year earlier and triple the number sold two years ago.
"This is going to happen much, much faster than anyone thought even six months ago," Bryan Burns, vice president of strategic business planning at ESPN, which has launched an HD channel, said at a recent SportsBusiness Journal media and technology conference in Manhattan.
Industry analysts, executives and retailers say there are a number of reasons HDTV is gaining traction and that this holiday shopping season should provide a key test.
The lowest price tags have dropped to $599 for a 26-inch set, down from $1,000 a year ago, although prices for a 63-inch flat-panel set can reach as high as $20,000. High-definition programming, while still too scarce for HDTV junkies, has become available enough to justify the purchase for more consumers. Cable TV companies are offering 60 million homes set-top boxes that transmit HD signals, often for no extra fee to digital customers or $5 to $10 extra per month, while satellite TV providers offer HD packages for about $10 extra per month. And sleek flat-panel sets that adorn walls have captivated shoppers, even if their prices are still out of reach for many. "It's the near equivalent of moving from black-and-white to color," Charles Dolan, chairman of Cablevision Systems Corp., the biggest cable operator in the New York metro area, said of the growing popularity of high-definition television.
Dolan has tried to catch the trend by launching a nationwide satellite TV service called Voom that will feature 39 HD channels, compared with five to 10 channels at competing satellite and cable companies. "High definition will quickly become the standard," he said at the satellite TV industry's SkyForum conference.
Twenty-one of those channels -- including one with art gallery tours, two with sports and 13 featuring movies -- are being created for Voom by the Rainbow Media division of Bethpage-based Cablevision. Dolan, who recently put a 61-inch HDTV set in his Oyster Bay home, says the key to sparking more interest in HDTV is providing a lot more programming.
Skeptics, however, still abound. They say that beyond the most rabid of HDTV fans, who are endlessly enthralled by the clarity of fish swimming, dust settling and tennis balls flying, the market may be limited. And even the zealots may be frustrated by the shortage of programming that takes full advantage of high definition.
"I don't think the high-definition transition is like black-and-white to color," Ken Aagard, senior vice president for operations at CBS Sports, said at the SportsBusiness Journal conference. "I think high definition is just going to be another niche."
MRONS:
Scarborough Research and Nielsen Media Research in the US have recently formed a partnership to offer the NSI Profiler—a new qualitative television rating which combines Nielsen Station Index (NSI) ratings with Scarborough’s qualitative consumer indices.
This combination of Scarborough’s premier qualitative information with the NSI rating – the currency for television audience measurement – enables users to take lifestyle, shopping preference, and other consumer behaviours into account when determining the propensity of a viewer to tune into certain television programs. The NSI Profiler is available through Scarborough’s PRIME NExT data analysis software to all clients who subscribe to both Scarborough Research and Nielsen’s local ratings service.
‘In a world where media choices are seemingly limitless, an in-depth understanding of the local television viewer is vital for competing in today’s economy,’ said Bob Cohen, president, Scarborough Research. ‘The creation of this qualitative rating will add a new dimension to the buying and selling process and ultimately improve our client’s return on their investment. As a response to marketplace demands, we are pleased to bring this new measure to our users.
Independent:
Police forces are to introduce a revolutionary method of taking fingerprints, which makes it virtually impossible for offenders to erase incriminating evidence.
This wipe-proof fingerprinting technique gives a much clearer image of the whorls and ridges of the finger than the fluorescent powder currently used by detectives. Scientists at the University of Sunderland have developed this new tool for detectives, which is based on a special dust made up of millions of minuscule specks called nanoparticles.
Only one billionth of a metre in length, each nanoparticle has a sticky surface which enables it to attach itself tightly to the oily residue left by a fingertip. They are also impregnated with a special dye to help scene-of-the-crime officers to identify prints left by criminals.
Nanoparticle technology has already been used by "nuisance control" officers to prevent vandals defacing buildings with graffiti. Forces, including Avon and Somerset and West Midlands police, are already planning to carry out trials of this advance in forensic science within the next 12 months. There has also been interest from the US where police in Texas and Florida are hoping nanoparticle technology will increase their clear-up rate for all types of crime.
Professor Fred Rowell, from the University of Sunderland's school of health, natural and social sciences, said that one of the advantages of nanoparticle-fingerprinting is that results can be obtained more quickly than from DNA screening.
"Using nanoparticles should get better definition of fingerprints. It should improve the detection rate in the long-term," said Professor Rowell. "It makes identification easier, and provides better sensitivity. Even with a fraction of a print, police are able to make an identification."
TheGuardian:
The United States is embarking on a multimillion-dollar expansion of its nuclear arsenal, prompting fears it may lead the world into a new arms race.
The Bush administration is pushing ahead with the development of a new generation of weapons, dubbed 'mini-nukes', that use nuclear warheads to penetrate underground bunkers.
Last week, it gave a quiet yet final go-ahead to a controversial research project into the bunker-buster. The move effectively ends a 10-year ban on research into 'low-yield' nuclear weapons. Critics fear it may lead other countries to push ahead with developing such weapons. It also comes at a highly sensitive time diplomatically, with the US lobbying countries such as Iran and North Korea to abandon their nuclear plans.
'The United States is spurring a new global arms race with our own development of a new generation of nuclear weapons,' said Democrat Ellen Tauscher, who led an unsuccessful bid in Congress to have the programme scrapped.
The new warheads are designed to use shockwaves to destroy deep bunkers even if the bomb does not reach them. Experience in Afghanistan and Iraq has shown army planners that bunkers are being built deeper and more securely. 'We have to be able to match our capability to our potential targets,' one White House official said.
But critics say the weapons won't work and doubt claims that the radiation will remain underground.
The US Army plans to convert two existing nuclear bombs - the B61 and B83. The B61 can be dropped by B-52 bombers or F-16 jets. The larger B83 has explosive yields of one to two megatons. Research will focus on hardening the bomb casings so they can penetrate layers of steel, rock and concrete.
Anti-nuclear campaigners say the B83's large size makes its classification as a 'mini-nuke' debatable. 'The powers that be describe them as low-yield weapons. But that is far from the case,' said Jay Coghlan, director of Nukewatch.
TimesHerald:
Though the 358th reservists are eligible for a 15-day rest and recreation break, they are required to spend at least a full year in Iraq. At least one 358th officer, who asked not to be identified, said a long deployment wasn't what she and others had anticipated.
"We didn't sign up for two weeks off and the rest of the year deployed," the officer said. "We have jobs that we need to get back to."
In the past, Army reservist typically spent about one weekend a month training locally in a chosen occupational specialty. Weekend duty included classroom and physical fitness training, and during the summer there was a two-week training requirement.
Since the Iraq war, all that is changing. In 2004, U.S. National Guard and military reserve units will take on more of the combat burden in Iraq, according to Associated Press, replacing some army troops with a smaller, lighter and more mobile force equipped with fewer tanks and more armored Humvees and other light infantry vehicles.
The Department of Defense's transformation initiative envisions lighter, nimbler forces with service branches working jointly on missions. In the future, troops should be able to mobilize quicker and arrive at their overseas deployments in a matter of days.
Currently, there are 130,000 troops serving in Iraq - about 20 are reserve forces. Next year's troop rotation is scheduled to take place between January and April.
By April, nearly 40 percent of the 105,000 troops in the fresh force will be National Guard and reservists. Also, the U.S. Marines plan to use about 6,000 of their citizen-soldiers in the switch-out.
U.S. forces in Iraq are already traveling lighter these days, trading firepower for mobility, many armored divisions having traded many of their Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles for Humvees.
A contingent of 5,000 soldiers in a combat team called the Stryker Brigade, from Fort Lewis, Wash., has been training in Kuwait since October in preparation for duty in Iraq. The unit's Stryker vehicle, which is half the weight of a tank, will debut sometime in 2004.
Obesity is the fastest-growing major health problem in the United States. In 2000, 31 percent of American adults were obese, up from 23 percent in 1990 and 13 percent in 1960, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.And those, like Mr. Rosenthal, who are classified as "morbidly obese" tripled in number in just a decade, to 2.2 percent of the population in 2000.
The perils of morbid obesity are not limited to life-threatening ailments like Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure; merely getting the health care other people take for granted is beyond their reach.
Severely overweight people cannot fit into standard wheelchairs, waiting-room armchairs, blood pressure cuffs, hospital beds and gowns, or M.R.I. and CAT scan machines.
X-rays often cannot penetrate far enough into their bodies to produce useful images, and wall-mounted toilets snap off under their weight.
About:
...Along with the TV application, there is the Gemstar Guide+ TV listing software that is integral to the EASYLOOK functions. This application downloads TV listings based on your television service and location to provide up to a week's worth of programming schedules. While using this application, it is also possible to watch the TV tuner in the upper left corner. This application is ad supported with two ads displayed on the left side of the programming window.
One of the outstanding features of the All-In-Wonder software bundle is the video recording capability. Video can be captured and stored to the hard drive for later viewing or through time shifted display similar to a personal video recorder. Programs can be scheduled for recording through the TV listings or by browsing the listings with the remote control via EASYLOOK. The programming can be stored in the ATI VCR format that provides high quality with low file sizes or the more standard MPEG standards. The MPEG standard is the choice to use if you would like to record the programs onto CD or DVD.
One of the major additions to the All-In-Wonder 9600 Pro is the inclusion of an FM tuner. A simple FM antenna is necessary in order to use the tuner. Once installed, simply load up the FM player tool to start listening to the radio. Of course, finding stations will be a bit more of a challenge than the TV tuner. First it does not have an autoscan feature like the TV player. This means you must manually tune them in.
...Similar to the TV recording functions, the FM tuner also has an on-demand feature for scheduled recording or time delayed playback. Recordings are restricted to the MP3 format with a fixed 224 Kbps constant bit rate. This isn't much of a problem since the MP3 format is very portable, but the bit rate is much higher than is required for FM radio quality sound.
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Note: There is no charge for the directory service and prices for the cards that pop into an AGP slot on a PC range from $100 - $400. This is another strong indication that PVRs and PARs (personal audio recorders) will probably be standard features in future PCs and LCD TVs. - N. Wada
SBC Internet Services is promoting an online video-on-demand service from Movielink, in the hope of luring new customers to its broadband access with film rentals.The high-speed Internet access provider, a unit of SBC Communications, has teamed with Movielink to create a co-branded Web site of video downloads for subscribers to SBC Yahoo DSL, the companies said Monday. New members will receive $10 in movie rentals from the service, which is powered by Movielink. The online video company, a joint venture of five major Hollywood film studios, lets people rent, download and watch movies on a PC for roughly $4 a title.
The partnership is a trial, and terms were not disclosed.
"By working with Movielink, SBC Yahoo DSL members receive a more robust choice in true broadband content," Tyler Wallis, executive director of SBC Consumer Marketing, said in a statement.
For Movielink, the deal promises greater exposure among its target market: broadband subscribers. The company has long faced difficulties in winning moviegoers over to rent films online. But as increasing numbers of people sign up for high-speed Net service, it has more opportunities to sell its movie downloads, which are less likely to result in a shaky picture on a PC, or on a TV set fed by a PC, if a broadband connection is used.
TheAge:
Australia's health ministers have rejected widening calls for a ban on television food advertising aimed at children, saying there is no evidence that promoting fatty, sugary foods to children makes them overweight.
The Australian Medical Association yesterday joined most other big doctors' groups in calling for a ban.
Participants at yesterday's health ministers conference in Sydney agreed obesity was a big cause of preventable health problems and poor eating habits were creating a huge health and financial burden. However, the push from doctors to ban the television advertising of inappropriate food was not discussed.
The AMA's decision to call for a ban comes after the release this week of a report, Children's Health or Corporate Wealth, compiled by the Coalition on Food Advertising to Children, which found the vast majority of commercials were for foods high in fat, sugar or salt, and of low nutritional value, and cited studies showing these influenced children's diets.
Michael Rice, the children's health spokesman for the AMA, said: "Health ministers must today put children's health ahead of the wealth of big business by banning the TV advertising of unsuitable and unhealthy food to kids.
"Studies have shown that advertising unsuitable foods during peak children's television viewing times leads to an increase in the consumption of these foods."
Boyd explained Friendster this way: "It allows you to purposely say who the people in your world are and to allow them to see each other, through a connection of you." An individual registered at Friendster has a home page with photos, a brief profile and photos of people to whom they have agreed to link. That person can then browse his or her network or search it for dates or activity partners.Ms. Boyd says that the real world has a set of properties, which she calls architectures. With its deceptively simple set of features, her thinking goes, Friendster bends or replaces all of the real-world architectures.
For instance, when two people speak to each other, they assume their conversation is fleeting, but e-mail and instant messaging, by making that conversation persistent, offer a new architecture. When two people greet each other on the street, neither can see (nor hope to grasp) the range of the other's social network. For that matter, no individual can see information about his or her own social network: who knows whom, and how.Friendster offers a mix of architecture-changing tools and technologies: e-mail, a profile (which offers a persistent presentation of self) and a coarse representation of a social network.
ABC:
MARK COLVIN: The stranglehold that Qantas enjoys on the so called 'Kangaroo route' between Australia and London faces a new challenge tonight, after Sir Richard Branson's international airline, Virgin Atlantic, won approval to fly into Sydney.
An agreement between aviation authorities in Britain and Hong Kong allows Virgin Atlantic to begin flights from Hong Kong to Sydney. The airline already offers a number of services between Hong Kong and London. The deal saw Qantas' share price fall by as much as four per cent as investors faced the prospect of greater competition on the Kangaroo route.
Michael Rowland reports.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Sir Richard Branson has been talking about flying Virgin Atlantic jets into Australia for so long, that a lot of aviation analysts were starting to think it may never happen. So the deal reached overnight between Hong Kong and Britain took more than a few by surprise.
One of those reading the news release twice was Peter Harbison, the Managing Director of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation.
PETER HARBISON: First reflex is somewhat surprised. I didn't think that this would go through at this stage.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: The deal went through only after the British government allowed Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific airline to fly from London to New York.
Mr Harbison says Virgin Atlantic will undoubtedly benefit from the agreement, most particularly on that first hop of the kangaroo route, between Sydney and Hong Kong.
PETER HARBISON: In terms of direct impact, the greatest effect will be on the Hong Kong-Sydney route which is currently basically the preserve of Qantas and Cathay Pacific.
Adding Virgin Atlantic onto that route is going to create some additional capacity of course, which will dilute the power of the existing carriers and also create a bit of high level competition at the premium end of the market.
SMH:
A hacker famed for defeating Hollywood in a cyber-piracy trial has rejected allegations he has illegally unlocked a code that enables unauthorised copying of music files from the internet.
Jon Johansen, a 20-year-old Norwegian computer programmer who was cleared of piracy charges in January, has developed a source code for copying music and posted it on the internet less than a week before he is due to appear in an Oslo appeals court.
Johansen's code allows users of Apple Computer Inc's new iTunes online music store to break digital rights management (DRM) technology that prevents people copying files downloaded from the service.
On an internet site named "So Sue Me", Johansen said critics had "failed to understand that by buying into DRM they have given the seller complete control over the product after it's been sold", calling them "clueless about copyright law".
The new program circumvents iTunes' anti-copying program, MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding, by legally opening and playing a protected music file in QuickTime, but then, essentially, draining the unprotected music data into a new and parallel file.
There are other programs that can circumvent copy protection schemes by capturing analog audio, though that typically causes a loss in quality. The program on Johansen's site appears to capture unprotected digital data, which could be used to make perfect copies of an unlocked tune.
BBC:
The PlayStation 2 console is being launched in China next month, despite concerns about widespread piracy.
Sony chairman Hiroshi Shoda said the company had to face the reality that piracy could not be totally eliminated.
More than 60 million PlayStation 2's have been sold worldwide, generating almost two-thirds of the company's operating profits
... In the past, the major console manufacturers have steered clear of China because of the risk of product piracy.
In September, Nintendo became the first one to brave the Chinese market, announcing plans to sell a version of its GameCube console.
Now Sony has followed suit, aiming to capitalise on an untapped market for video games.
Nintendo has a special GameCube version for China
"We have to realise the reality, that piracy cannot be controlled 100%, not only in China but also in other parts of the world," said Sony China Chairman Hiroshi Shoda.
"We have to be courageous, to face the reality."
As more consumers begin surfing the Web and sending e-mail messages on cell phone and hand-held devices, along comes a new worry: worms and viruses that spread via Internet-enabled handsets.The problem is still small, with only a few cases reported globally. But as operating systems in cell phones become standardized, hackers will probably begin focusing on vulnerabilities in those systems as they have with personal computers.
And as cell phones and personal digital assistants connect to the Internet at ever faster speeds, more users will be able to download files with attachments - some of which may be infected.
Asia, where high-speed networks and text messaging on mobile phones are common, is the most vulnerable to these threats. As carriers in Europe and North America adopt similar technology, they will confront the same kinds of hazards.
Telecommunications companies currently spend as much as $8 billion a year fixing handsets with programming errors, faulty mechanics and other problems. Now some are scrambling to prevent virus attacks that could cost carriers millions of dollars more in repairs and lost business.
If I were an entertainment industry executive, I'd worry less about college students sharing files on the Internet and more about what's happening in China.The Chinese government just announced a government-funded project to develop an alternative to the DVD. Called "EVD" (for "enhanced versatile disc"), the new format is reported to be technically superior to DVD, especially for recording and showing high definition television programs (HDTV).
Normally, I don't get too worked up over a new recording or storage format, especially when it's competing with an already entrenched standard such as DVD or CD. But every other time I've reported on a new standard, it was being pushed by a company or, at most, a consortium of companies. It's extremely difficult for a few companies -- even when it includes the likes of Sony or IBM -- to overturn an entrenched standard, but we're not talking about companies here.
We're talking a country that's home to 1.3 billion people. In 2002, according to the CIA Word Fact Book, China had a purchasing power of $5.7 trillion dollars. OK, the U.S. has one-fourth as many people and twice as much purchasing power, but China is still an emerging economic powerhouse that is getting stronger and richer all the time.
The sites are offering deal-hungry consumers a way to quickly compare merchandise and prices from thousands of Web retailers.It didn't take long for Paul Rattay to grasp the power of shopping comparison sites on the Internet. He figures he saved at least $150 on a Sony digital camera by turning to DealTime.com to hunt for the best prices with a few quick clicks of his computer mouse.
"I could have just gone to Amazon, but I figured I could get a better deal by shopping around a bit," said Rattay, a 34-year-old software engineer who ended up buying the camera from an online merchant so obscure he can't remember the name. "You have so much information at your disposal on these sites that I plan to use them as a reference for price points, if nothing else."
For deal-hungry holiday shoppers such as Rattay, the Internet is offering more help than ever, as online search engines morph into price-sorting machines that can compare products from thousands of merchants in seconds.
The shopping services have been around for awhile, but they have become increasingly useful in recent months. Most of the top sites have expanded the number of merchants that they track and introduced new features designed to make it easier for consumers to quickly call up an array of product research.
Product comparison sites have become such a major draw that they attracted 33 million unique visitors in October, according to ComScore Networks, a research firm. Total traffic to the sites rose 9% from the same time last year, making them one of the Web's fastest-growing categories.The free shopping assistance is available through search services offered by California companies Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Ask Jeeves Inc., as well as specialty online commerce sites such as NexTag Inc., BizRate.com, PriceGrabber.com, MySimon, and New York-based DealTime — now known as Shopping.com Inc. Shopping.com did best among the specialty sites in October, with nearly 15.5 million unique visitors. Like some of its rivals, Shopping.com is making a major holiday push — it recently launched its first TV ad campaign in a few major markets.
Most of the sites scour inventories of major retailers such as Amazon.com Inc. and Target Corp., as well as quirky upstarts such as Petshed.com and Givinggallery.com. With the comparison sites monitoring so much merchandise, their services are gaining wider appeal after years of catering to gadget-loving geeks rummaging for bargains.
The fastest-growing areas on Yahoo's shopping channel, for instance, include home decor and clothing, said Rob Solomon, who oversees the product comparison service for the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Internet giant.
Culver City-based PriceGrabber is so confident it can offer something for everyone that it is selling gift cards that can be used toward purchases from any of the 3,000 merchants tracked by its site.
It's all part of "an unmistakable shift in the way consumers open their wallets online," said Chuck Davis, chief executive of Los Angeles-based BizRate.
A year ago, BizRate's site monitored 5 million products carried by 3,300 stores. It now spans more than 25 million products from 39,000 merchants, which generally pay sites such as BizRate for referrals.
The sites typically include side-by-side comparisons of similar products made by different manufacturers, as well as prices offered by different merchants and reviews written by consumers.
The services can sift through a multitude of merchandise or focus on products that fit the shopper's preferences and price range. Most sites include tools that factor shipping costs into the final price and identify whether a product is in stock.
Although the sites profit from the referral fees they collect from listed merchants — a factor that sometimes sways their search results — the site operators insist their top priority is satisfying shoppers so retailers stay happy too.
"Merchants are really hungry for the customers that we send them because these are people who are usually really ready to shop," said Purnendu Ojha, chief executive of San Mateo-based NexTag.
Part of the reason for these sites' expanded popularity is the sheer growth of Internet commerce. Through mid-October, consumers spent nearly $37 billion at online retailers this year, excluding travel sites, according to ComScore. That was an 18% increase from the same period last year.
But even when they aren't planning to buy online, consumers increasingly are turning to product comparison sites to research prices and features before hitting the mall, said Dan Hess, a ComScore Networks analyst.
Despite his positive experience finding a camera, Rattay sees limits to the usefulness of product comparison sites. "I don't think I would use them to buy bedsheets," he said.
LA Times Registration Required
...But the buzz at her Midwestern agency - and in the fashion buyers' offices of New York and the garment factories of Hong Kong - is that the current specifications for every size, from 1X to women's 8 to men's medium, may soon be sent out for alterations.
In September, the last of 10,800 volunteers stepped into a booth at a shopping mall, stripped nearly naked and submitted to a 10-second body scan under white light. In exchange for $20 in cash, a $25 gift certificate or, in some cases, no giveaway item, the volunteers contributed to a database that could give manufacturers vital marketing information while helping shoppers find clothes that fit, either in stores or online.
...
Mr. Lovejoy would not disclose preliminary results, but he did drop one bombshell: of 4,000 women included in the survey, less than 10 percent met the definition of misses size 8 established by ASTM International, formerly the American Society for Testing and Materials, which develops standards through industry consensus for products, systems and services. Yet the fit of today's clothing is often still based on the notion that size 8 is closest to the midpoint of the size range of American women. Some companies, sensing that the standards are obsolete, have already moved the base line up to size 10. The sizing survey aims to substitute data for hunches.
HoustonBusiness Journal:
A century after oil gushed out of the ground in Texas at Spindletop, a Houston company is planning to build a pipeline to bring oil to Texas from Canada.
Enbridge Energy Partners LLP last month announced plans to develop a new 630-mile, $600 million crude oil pipeline from Superior, Wis., south to Wood River in southern Illinois, where it will connect with an existing Enbridge pipeline that runs north from Cushing, Okla.
Enbridge plans to reverse the flow of the old pipeline, which has traditionally carried oil north from the oilfields of Oklahoma and Texas to Illinois. By 2005, that pipeline is expected to begin bringing 200,000 barrels of Canadian crude oil a day south to the major oil pipeline hub at Cushing.
And the ultimate target of Enbridge's strategy is to bring Canadian oil all the way down to the Gulf Coast.
It's a sign of the steep decline in U.S. land-based oil reserves and production.
It's also related to the political upheaval in Venezuela, which was a major exporter of oil to the U.S. -- particularly the refineries along the Gulf Coast -- until a national strike against the government earlier this year decimated that country's oil production and exports.
"There is huge heavy oil refining capacity on the Gulf Coast, and that's why Enbridge wants to build these pipelines -- to tap the huge oilsands reserves in Canada and bring it to the enormous markets for heavy oil on the Gulf Coast," says an industry consultant in Houston whose firm has been involved in advising Enbridge and some of its refinery customers.
WashingtonTimes:
Greece will provide an unprecedented 50,000 police and soldiers for next summer's Olympic Games in Athens, a newspaper reported Monday.
The country will deploy 10,000 soldiers in support of the 40,000 police, including a battalion trained in dealing with nuclear, chemical and biological attacks.
Greek Defense Minister Yannos Papantoniou told London's Financial Times: "We want to be able to prepare our forces for any eventuality."
The security budget for the games has reached an unprecedented $650 million and the Athens government is committed to spending up to $1 billion on games security in 2004.
GameGirlAdvance
"Where the Girls Are" article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday suggests that the game industry is waking up to the commercial possibilities of paying attention to the growing female market.
Some numbers provided by the Entertainment Software Association in the article are interesting:
26% of electronic game-players are women over 18.
21% are boys 6-17,
12% are girls 6-17,
38% are men over 18.
The article also notes that "For the holidays this year, Codemasters says it will run its most aggressive U.S. ad campaign ever, placing print ads in magazines including CosmoGirl, YM, Teen People and Working Mother. The multimillion-dollar campaign also features TV spots set to start airing next month on the WB network, during "7th Heaven," "Smallville" and other shows popular with young women and girls."
Note: Before you jump to any conclusions about ESA's numbers, check out the comments on GGA related to this posting. - N. Wada
See also GameGirlAdvance:
The U.S. videogame industry today is larger than Hollywood's domestic box-office receipts and is closing in on music sales. Doesn't a sector that size deserve sophisticated mainstream critique, even academic study?
... Some of the academics complain that the videogame industry lacks the sort of critical media eye that has accompanied the development of cinema, and has acted as cheerleader for more creative and important -- if less financially lucrative -- films.
Without such legitimate critique, they argue, the industry will take few chances on things besides violent fare, sports games and half-hearted ripoffs of Hollywood. If the games industry is ever going to get beyond its current fascination with heavy ammunition, high-speed chases and pixelized hot-tub vixens, their argument goes, the public has to hear from reviewers who can call the game makers to task or applaud loftier offerings -- and do it for a new, bigger audience.
Instead, videogame reviews are stuck in the Pac-Man era. Matteo Bittanti, a researcher in Italy, says games are still judged on graphics, sound, longevity and playability. That would be like film critics writing only about a movie's audio track and special effects.
The magazines out now are primarily "magalogs, official catalogs, unofficial promos and buyer's guides masquerading as serious information," Mr. Bittanti says.
The academics want a videogame version of Cahiers du Cinema, the French film review founded in 1951 that assisted the birth of the French New Wave movement and championed the likes of Hitchcock and Truffaut.
... Better videogame criticism is a good idea. But for it to matter, games will have to expand their cultural and social impact to match their economic weight. Game publishers should work harder to attract more gamers outside of their traditional demographic market. They can also offer some more sophisticated fare, games worth writing about.
HeraldNet
If a parent wanted their children to develop attitudes like Gary Ridgway, the confessed killer of at least 48 women, these games might provide a good training ground.
... First, people were thoroughly chilled by confessed serial killer Ridgway's admissions and descriptions a week ago.
Even the sanitized details within the King County prosecutor's summary are so bad that the cover page warns that the report "... contains graphic and disturbing descriptions," which may not be suitable for every reader.
... Second, these games are not movies. Nor are they spectator games. Rather, they are simulations.
...The youngsters who hold the joysticks and sit at the keyboards hold the guns and axes. Young players practice cutting heads off. They rehearse shooting police officers and urinating on them.
... Third, the Mothers Against Violence group sent underage youngsters into familiar stores, and 15 out of 17 of the stores sold adult games to children under 12.
... One danger for children lies in any tendency of parents to think "not my child."
Before drawing that conclusion they should consider four facts.
Video games are expected to reach $20 billion in sales this year. That is a sizable piece of the growing economy everybody is hoping for, and it works directly against what most parents want for their children.
Every year, enough video games are sold to put two of them in every American household.
More than nine of every 10 American children play video games.
Research shows that playing violent video games increases children's violent thoughts and aggressive behaviors.
BBC
Condoms have made a rare appearance on Chinese state television as part of an official campaign to highlight the dangers of Aids.
The 30-second film, broadcast across China, showed a young couple, with a voiceover explaining the importance of safe sex.
It was prepared for World Aids Day on 1 December, according to state media.
China faces a growing Aids problem, but has been cautious about officially promoting contraception.
...The disease is estimated to have increased by 30% a year in China since 1998, with more than 800,000 infected with HIV.
The United Nations warns China's Aids cases could rise to 20 million by 2010.
MediaWeek:
Speaking at the Measuring Media in the Future conference organised by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising on Tuesday, Professor John Naughton said: "The ball game is over.
"We're moving from an economic system dominated by push media and moving to a completely different world which is a pull world - where consumers are empowered by digital technology and only get what they want."
Naughton was referring to the growing popularity of Personal Video.
Recorders, and predictions that in the next few years an increasing amount of media - including TV programmes - will be accessed and watched via the internet.
"This is a pull world, and if we want to thrive in it then we have to find a way of recognising that fundamental shift," he said.
Forbes:
Hewlett-Packard plans to offer its own brand of large flat-screen TVs from spring, the latest sign that major technology companies seek growth in a home entertainment market traditionally dominated by consumer-electronics companies, the Wall Street Journal said in its online edition.
The computer and printer-maker plans to offer both a liquid crystal TV and a larger screen that uses plasma technology, according to people familiar with the matter.
The devices will have tuners to receive broadcast signals, but "I wouldn't call it television," said Vyomesh Joshi, the executive vice president leading HP (nyse: HPQ - news - people )'s consumer advance. Rather, HP says the offerings will complement its other products for creating and managing "digital content," such as photos, music and video.
At the heart of HP's living-room strategy is the company's "Media Center PC," a sleek silver and black device that looks more like a stereo component than a personal computer, said the Journal. It has ports to plug in cable television, a VCR and audio devices.
It incorporates a TiVo-like digital video recorder and DVD player, as well as a dock for a digital camera. HP's Joshi said he realized the company's opportunity in TV display while visiting a Circuit City (nyse: CC - news - people ) store where HP had hooked up a media center PC to a large-screen plasma TV. Joshi heard a customer say, "Oh my God. I didn't realize you could do that."
Forbes
... Newly issued ratings data showing that men aged 18 to 34 are watching less TV, amid sagging viewership overall, will put the onus on broadcasters to invest in riskier programming and fight harder for advertising, media experts said Tuesday.
Media buyers said some networks have already been offering "make-goods" -- free commercial time to advertisers who were promised bigger audiences -- which could total up to $300 million to $500 million this year.
"The loss is especially troubling to the networks because advertisers pay premiums to reach (young men)," said Jack Myers, editor of a media industry newsletter.
"The networks, just to stay even, will need to get higher prices next year. There's already a backlash against prices advertisers were paying this year, so it's going to be a very difficult negotiating period," he said.
... For their part, the networks downplayed the significance of the reported decline in male viewers aged 18 to 34.
CBS ratings chief David Poltrack said the Nielsen "white paper" confirmed that about half the drop-off fell within the range of normal year-to-year fluctuations.
"It doesn't look like any real change in lifestyle by young males or any real significant defection from the ranks of television viewers," Poltrack told Reuters
Poltrack said one explanation could be that young men, including those who live with their parents, watch more TV outside the home and beyond Nielsen's reach.
The head of ratings and research of NBC, Alan Wurtzel, agreed that the notion of the vanishing young male has turned out to be a myth.
"Nielsen has basically agreed that about half of this decline is not real.... It's a measurement issue," he said. "I just don't want anybody to feel that television has become irrelevant to a group of people when it just isn't true."
...Jon Swallen, director of media knowledge for Interpublic Group's Universal McCann agency, said the networks were caught in a bind between needing larger audiences while being averse to groundbreaking shows that cost more to develop.
"If programming becomes increasingly similar and undifferentiated ... the natural result for viewers is confusion, apathy and forsaking the television for something else," he said.
MSNBC
... Cable, after all, is where the juice is these days. Cable is where you’ll find risk-takers and programming with creative passion and vision. As for the broadcast networks, well they obviously continue to be mired in a play-it-safe rut.
With big money and ratings at stake and numerous fickle advertisers to appease, broadcasters tend to operate in a climate of fear. Consequently, so much network fare is the bland residue of conservatism and compromise. There is little incentive to be unique and daring.
In contrast, cable often leads the way in providing bold, edgy shows that defy the formulas. By now, everyone is familiar with HBO and its string of high-quality hits, including “The Sopranos,” “Sex and the City,” “Six Feet Under,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “The Wire.” Those shows blow away almost anything the networks can offer.
But other cable outlets are making headway as well. Little FX has two of the most compelling and daring dramas on the air in “The Shield” and “Nip/Tuck.” Comedy Central, which continues to push the envelope with “South Park,” also offers “The Daily Show,” the mock newscast that gleefully wallows in political satire — a form of humor the networks have all but abandoned.
And when it comes to innovative, buzz-generating shows, cable continues to make a splash in prime time. Last year MTV struck paydirt with “The Osbournes.” This year, Bravo grabbed gobs of attention with the hilarious “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.”
The trend is just as pervasive, if not more so, in made-for-television movies and miniseries, a genre that cable has dominated in recent years. While the networks generally stick to superficial explorations of current events (i.e. NBC’s disappointing “Saving Jessica Lynch”) and fluffy show-biz biopics, cable, led by HBO, churns out award-winning films that outclass even some of the better theatrical offerings.
BBC:
United States Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says he has seen evidence that two Arabic TV networks have been co-operating with insurgents in Iraq.
He said both al-Arabiya and al-Jazeera had been in "close proximity" to attacks against coalition forces, sometimes even before they occurred.
Mr Rumsfeld added that he could not make a final judgement on the issue.
On Monday the US-backed Iraqi authorities banned al-Arabiya - a Dubai-based channel - from Iraq.
The Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) accused the station of inciting murder "through the voice of Saddam Hussein".
On 16 November the channel broadcast a recorded message said to be from the former Iraqi leader calling for new "resistance".
UPI:
Open societies are emerging in the Islamic world. This is mainly due to cable television, the Internet, and mass education, according to Dartmouth College anthropologist Dale F. Eickelman, who has observed new ways of thinking as a result of these developments.
Eickelman studied the impact of new media as part of a major research project on Islam and democracy conducted by Boston University's Institute on Religion and World Affairs, or IRWA, and sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts. This UPI series is largely based on the IRWA undertaking.
What Eickelman witnessed in Morocco applies to most of the Middle East: "State television and radio have lost the battle for eyes and ears except for the countryside, where there is no alternative. Most of the sets are tuned to al-Jazeera Satellite Television or one of the newer Arab satellite channels."
From Casablanca in Morocco clear through Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, Qatar's al-Jezeera, which has been patterned after CNN, dominates the new public sphere. "For many viewers, its Arabic news broadcasts have become the standard against which other broadcasters are judged," Eickelman writes.
In most Arab countries, reliable surveys of viewing habits are lacking, he allows. But there is one place from which dependable figures have been culled -- Gaza and the West Bank. Its inhabitants have rated al-Jazeera TV as the most reliable source of information (33.7 percent), Eickelman reports. Other satellite channels follow with 26 percent, well ahead of the television stations operated by the Palestinian authority and Israel.
Altogether, Eickelman observed that the new media have had "profound consequences for the political and religious imagination. First, they create and sustain a new public." Combined with modern mass education, they "offer wider, competing repertoires of intellectual techniques and authorities and the erosion of exclusivities that previously defined communities of discourse, extending them also to women and minorities."
Furthermore, "viewers can now watch religious and political authorities and commentators explain their views and answer questions more as equals than as distant orators who cannot directly be challenged," Eickelman writes. "Moreover, it is not just religious specialists who debate religion but other educated persons and public figures.
StraitsTimes:
A new chapter in the history of journalism unfolds today as The Times, arguably Britain's most venerable daily newspaper, appears in both its traditional large-paper format and a smaller, so-called tabloid version.
The change is of major importance in that it might well be symptomatic of a profound shift in British reading habits and social divisions.
It might also indicate a trend which could spread throughout the English-speaking world.
... Full-format newspapers, the so-called broadsheets, have been perceived as quality publications for the more educated and affluent while tabloids are for the masses - and newspaper editors know their audiences well.
So a war could erupt in some corner of Europe and The Sun tabloid might ignore it completely, devoting its front page instead to a story about a film star's divorce.
A mere glance at the newspaper being read was often all that was needed in order to evaluate an individual.
If it was The Sun, the reader was probably a single, male manual labourer. If it was The Guardian, the reader was probably a Labour Party voter of higher education and usually a civil servant.
The Daily Telegraph was for Conservative voters, The Financial Times reserved for people in the banking and insurance sectors, and The Times the newspaper of record in which members of the ruling class read about one another and announced their births, marriages and deaths.
...Everything changed, however, when The Independent, the smallest of the quality dailies, launched a tabloid version recently.
To the amazement of media experts, its circulation jumped by more than 7 per cent last month, a huge amount in a crowded and generally declining newspaper marketplace. The temptation for The Times to follow suit became inevitable.
But the fundamental question to which nobody seems to have an answer is why, after centuries, does the basic distinction between the tabloid and the broadsheet appear to be crumbling so rapidly?
The explanation may lie partly in a changing Britain, and it may be partly related to more global shifts in readership habits.
...Newspapers no longer provide the most immediate news source and cannot compete with the electronic media in speed of delivery.
People read newspapers either in order to obtain wider background commentaries on stories which they already know, or as pure entertainment.
The result is that education levels, social origins or income are no longer the determinants in newspaper consumption.
Indeed, the entire make-up of the readership of the press is being reshuffled.
Furthermore, the availability of many press articles on the Internet has further affected the question of a newspaper's format.
Net immigration to the United States rose dramatically by 1.4 million in each of the past two years, about half a million of whom were listed as illegal aliens, a report said yesterday.The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) said if the numbers remain unchanged, this decade will mark the most massive wave of immigration in American history, with 45 million immigrants -- about 14 percent of the country's total projected population -- forecast to be residing in the United States by 2010.
The extensive FAIR report also said the figures show that immigration totals are unrelated to the labor needs and economic conditions in this country. Despite a weak U.S. economy and rising unemployment in the United States since 2000, the report said, immigration significantly has outpaced record levels seen in the 1990s and has shown no sign of abating.