On Wednesday, May 2, Tualatin, OR–based Digimarc was granted 28 patent applications for digital audio watermarking technologies that it had filed for between 1993 and 1995. The US Patent Office issued a "Notice of Allowance" approving Digimarc's patent claims, and on the same day informed the company that 74 of the 94 claims made in Digimarc's US Patents #5,636,292 and 5,850,…
search
Can pirate chasers attend to business while accusing each other of piracy? Digimarc and Verance Corporation, two competitors in the digital watermarking race, have been swapping accusations over patent infringements.
On March 12, Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. announced that Sony Corporation 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.
Stanford R. Ovshinsky, President and CEO of ECD, noted the significance of the announcement, saying, "ECD is proud to continue and expand its long association with Sony, a leader in this field. Technology licensed…
See it, hear it. That is the essence of an engineering project underway at the University of Applied Sciences in Fribourg, Switzerland—one that needs the assistance of a highly qualified PhD student.
The position is intended for an "enthusiastic and open-minded graduate," who will participate in "Sound Extraction from Images of Disc Records," a "VisualAudio" research project. The student chosen for the project will join the "GIRAF group" in the Computer Science Department under the guidance of Professor Rolf Ingold of the University of Fribourg, the degree-granting institution.
"…
Does the SLP in the Cary SLP-98P tube preamplifier's name stand for "sweet little preamplifier"? Art Dudley sets out to determine if Cary's latest version in the SLP preamp series lives up to the moniker.
Next, Jonathan Scull takes a turn with the Cary CAD-280SA V12 power amplifier, describing it as "a handsome amp, and smaller than its name might lead you to think. In fact, it's an interesting combination of the neat'n'petite and pure flamboyance."
To open his review of the Theta Digital Generation VIII D/A converter, Kal Rubinson notes, "We audiophiles are ever hopeful that, however…
The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is reporting that sales of DVD-Video players also capable of playing high-resolution audio formats have taken off this year, compared to 2002. According to CEA market research, manufacturers shipped 148,000 DVD-A and 100,000 SACD players to retailers through May of this year.
But format success may take time. If history is any judge, the CEA's Sean Wargo says, we could see the majority of consumers enjoying high-rez audio by the year 2015, "with an even more rapid acceptance of the new audio technologies across the next decade and really driving…
Using a personal computer as an audio component has certainly gained ground with gearheads in the last several years, and many new products, such as media servers, blur the line between a traditional component and a PC. At the same time, the general public is still resisting the idea of booting up their stereos or TVs.
The computer industry, however, would like to find a foothold in everyone's living room, and Intel has just announced a new set of media technologies and standards aimed at lending a hand: Viiv (sounds like "five" and I'll bet someone got at least $30k to come up with it).…
Few music lovers who grew up in the 1950s and '60s could have failed to be influenced by torch singer Peggy Lee, who died of heart failure at her Bel Air home on Monday, January 21. Lee was 81 and had been in ill health for several years.
Like Dave Brubeck's "Take Five," her great classic recording of "Fever" was one of those spare, elegant tunes that formed the musical zeitgeist for a whole generation. They were songs that seemed to be everywhere in the sixties—utterly cool, with an adult sophistication we could only dream of acquiring. "Fever" was as incurable as malaria. Once you had…
Want to do some audiophile shopping and do some good for others? The Cable Company, along with several manufacturers and audiophile publications, have set up a program by which they offer to donate up to 10% of August purchases to CARE and the International Rescue Committee, these contributions to be used to assist the worldwide disaster-relief efforts of those humanitarian organizations.
According to the company, in the four previous "Summer Against Hunger" efforts they have, with the help of underwriting manufacturers, raised a total of over $50,000 in contributions. The Cable Company…
The high-end audio industry may be in a slump, but the public's appetite for recorded music appears as voracious as ever. MP3, the hottest upstart in the digital audio market, got a big boost in late June when Diamond Multimedia Systems Inc. announced the next generation of its popular Rio digital music player, the Rio PMP 500, due to arrive in stores this fall.
At $269, the new PMP 500 offers several advantages over its predecessor, the PMP 300. The 500 can handle up to two hours of music in the MP3 format, or in several other formats, including Microsoft's Windows Media Audio. The…
One of the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is that the US Copyright Office hold hearings every three years to ensure that the DMCA is operating properly. For one month prior to those hearings any interested party can submit comments calling for exceptions or revisions. The latest comment period began on January 4, 2006 and has resulted in some fascinating comments.
Among the most eye-opening was a joint reply filed by 14 content-providing trade groups, including the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and…