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In the crush of new products and technologies scrambling for attention at every Consumer Electronics Show, some intriguing announcements can get buried in the noise and require a closer look than is afforded by a quick listen and chat in a demo room. One such technology on display at the 2002 CES was MaGIChttp://www.gibsonmagic.com">MaGIC;, a new high-resolution audio connectivity standard.

There may be a digital network in your audio future. To help you run it, 17 consumer electronics and computer companies, including Fujitsu, Gateway, HP, Intel, IBM, Kenwood, Panasonic, Microsoft, NEC, Nokia, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, and Thomson recently announced the formation of the Digital">http://www.DHWG.org">Digital Home Working Group (DHWG).

In the perfect digital future, audiophiles would be able to drink from the purest of high-resolution audio datastreams with no worry that someone upstream had polluted the current. But in the real world, content providers and hardware manufacturers increasingly conspire to dirty the flow a little and limit unauthorized consumption by controlling the technology needed to filter out their toxic additives.

The digital music market balances on at least five legs: software producers, technology developers, electronics manufacturers, consumers, and regulating bodies. So, can a two-legged agreement stand? That's the question industry watchers are asking as representatives of two groups, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the technology sector, announced that they have reached agreement on a "core set of principles" to guide their public policy activities regarding the distribution of digital content.

The war over digital copyright protection intensified in late July, when the American">http://www.aclu.org">American Civil Liberties Union launched a legal attack against the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Almost simultaneously, a congressman from Southern California introduced a bill that would give copyright holders the right to hack computers owned by suspected copyright violators.

This spring, downloadable digital music from EMIhttp://www.emigroup.com/">EMI; may begin popping up everywhere, if a new arrangement with Supertrackshttp://www.supertracks.com/">Supertracks; goes as planned. The two companies have created what they believe is a secure system for downloading music to computers, portable players, and to CD burners at kiosks in shopping malls. The news follows by only a couple of weeks an announcement that Warner">http://www.warnermusic.com/">Warner Music and EMI will merge their operations under the larger umbrella of AOL Time Warner.

Visitors to the Listen.comhttp://www.listen.com">Listen.com; website will find a headline on the home page: "Your Guide to MP3 and More." MP3 recordings, while a big hit with young music fans, have not been a favorite of the music business. The key to Listen.com's financial future as a download site is likely whatever ends up falling under "and more."