LATEST ADDITIONS

On March 12, <A HREF="http://ovonic.com.">Energy Conversion Devices, Inc.</A> announced that <A HREF="http://www.sony.com">Sony Corporation</A> has expanded its royalty-bearing license under ECD's proprietary phase-change rewritable optical-memory technology to include advanced technology for use in rewritable CD and DVD optical-memory products. Phase-change technology, invented by ECD, is used in PD and CD-RW rewritable optical-memory discs.

Remember how your Uncle Charlie used to hole up in the basement with his ham radio rig? He'd spend hours down there, tweaking his equipment and chatting in an arcane jargon with fellow hobbyists around the world.

March 9, <A HREF="http://www.akm.com">AKM Semiconductor, Inc.</A> introduced the AK5392, a 24-bit stereo analog-to-digital (A/D) converter based on its proprietary dual-bit delta-sigma technology. The AK5392 reportedly achieves a dynamic range of 116dB, said to be a 15dB improvement over other single-chip alternatives.

Coming soon on the <A HREF="http://www.madrigal.com">Madrigal Audio Laboratories</A> website is <i>La Folia</i>, a music webzine. Edited by Mike Silverton, <i>La Folia</i> sets out to supplement the audiophile press by directing its emphasis at recordings elsewhere neglected: present-day art music (aka "classical"), free and improvisational jazz, category-defying hybrids, and whatever else strikes their "clutch of sweet-spot stuckees as rare and well done."

Although standalone music systems will always be part of the audio hobby, it appears that computers are becoming increasingly important. Improvements in data transmission and storage are reported almost daily, and several services now offer downloads of music. When will a computer become part of <i>your</i> music system?

Several companies spanning the personal computer, communications, and consumer electronics industries announced March 4th the formation of a working group that will develop a specification for wireless communications in the home. This specification will allow PCs, peripherals, cordless telephones, and consumer electronic devices to communicate and interoperate with one another.