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Here is the spec page for the device. Shock Operating 1,960m/s2 (200G), 2ms half sine wave Non-Operating 9,800m/s2 (1000G), 1ms half sine wave pretty good though.

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The 2G version of this hard drive is already for sale here. I'd imagine this 5G version will look just like it.

Toshiba's press release is here.

Here is the Toshiba page for the same item. It is also interesting to note (if you read the article), that they've had a 2G version of this card around for a year.

Then I went to upgrade my desktop box to Mandrake 7.2, and the install just croaked, repeatedly. It just would not load on my SMP, all SCSI machine. After two days of messing about without any success, I just got pissed off with it. Mandrake seemed to me to have put all the effort into surface glitz while ignoring the underlying engineering. Then I stuck a Debian CD into the drive, and it just booted, loaded, and ran, and I've never looked back.

I don't want glitzy GUI interfaces; I want solid engineering that works every day. Although I've been bitten a couple of times with Debian 'unstable' and now stick to 'testing', I'm still hugely impressed with the overall feeling of solid quality with Debian. All my new servers this year are Debian (most of my older servers are still Mandrake, because they are working and there hasn't - yet - been any need to reinstall them).

Mandrake and the other commercial distributions, like AIX and Solaris and SCO, are essentially maintained by small groups of people working for pay to targets and deadlines set by masrketing. Debian, like Linux, is maintained by a large group of people working for the fun of it to deadlines they set themselves. I believe that the reason Debian is better than Mandrake is the same as the reason Linux is better than AIX and Solaris (yes, I have AIX and Solaris boxes too): fun is a better motivator than pay.

"One of the world's major manufacturers of LCDs, Toshiba announced on Wednesday its first prototype of a polymer OLED display that supports 260,000 colors. The 2.85-inch display is targeted for production in portable devices, such as cell phones and handheld computers, in April 2002."

A quick romp across the net for similarly configured and priced machines yields the following results:

• Apple iBook DVD $1499
  1024x768 LCD
  128 MB RAM
  10 GB HD
  DVD-ROM
  built-in ehternet
  RGB-video out
  firewire
  
• DELL Inspiron 8000 $1549
  1400x1050 LCD
  64 MB RAM
  10 GB HD
  DVD-ROM
  built-in ethernet
  IEEE 1394
  
• Gateway Solo 5300 $1624
  800x600 LCD
  128 MB RAM
  10 GB HD
  DVD-ROM
  ethernet (optional PC-card)
  TV-out
  no fireware/IEEE 1394
  
• IBM A22e $1699
  1024x768
  64 MB RAM
  15 GB HD
  CD-ROM
  built-in ethernet
  unspecified external display port
  no firewire/IEEE 1394
  
• Toshiba 2800 $1469
  800x600 LCD
  128 MB RAM
  10 GB HD
  DVD-ROM
  built-in ethernet
  TV-out
  no firewire/IEEE 1394

(I have omitted some features either becuase we all know how the contents turns out -- i.e. the CPU on the iBook is much slower than the competition -- or becuase the specs were substantially the same -- everyone has USB ports and modems, so why mention it?)

The Apple offering seems to stand up to the competition pretty well, with the notable exception being the DELL Inspiron 8000 which just kicks butt up and down (1400x1050 LCD! profanity, blasphemy, and disrespect! that is some nice hardware! I wonder how well it does with Linux). Most of the stuff I saw that was significantly cheaper than the Apple system didn't come with built-in ethernet and had only SVGA resolution on the LCD, which are two features near and dear to me.

While you can't get a new Apple laptop for the $900 that some models from some manufacturers are going for at the moment, you are certainly not getting ripped off. I'd say that the old saw about overpriced-underpowered Apple hardware is clearly more myth than reality.

Disclaimer: I'm an old Apple hand (my first real computer -- the kind that didn't store its data on cassette tapes -- was a Lisa 2 running MacWorks back in 1984) who has drifted far into the Linux camp of late (though I do own some Apple stock). I went into this comparisson intending to show that Apple was a clearly better value for the price than PC laptops with similar features, but the truth has bested me.

P.S. what I wouldn't give to have support for the TABLE tag on Slashdot.

What suprises me is that we hold products that include hardware to such high standards, but don't demand (or are prepared to pay for) quality in software-only products.

Last year Toshiba confounded the industry by settling a class action law suit for over a billion. That was $210 to $433 in cash to owners of 5,000,000 Toshiba laptop or notebook computers as well as hundreds of dollars in coupons for more Toshiba products. I myself received $398.70 in cash, plus a coupon for $225 as well as a software patch for a notebook computer that was only bought for a $1,299.99 retail price.

And this was all over a theoretical floppy disk controller microcode bug that was never claimed to have been seen in normal use, and never now since floppys are obsolete. Even if Toshiba acted improperly in the handling of such a bug (it still denies this) I think this payout to be extremely unreasonable and leaves other hardware manufacturers having to insure against such litigation.

On the other hand when a software company puts out a product that will fail in 5 years due to a millenium bug, leaves the default security settings open to a virus or crashes unexpectedly, the best you could expect is a software patch (sometimes an upgrade at your cost), but never compensation.

I know software would be more expensive and slower to come out if it had fewer bugs. And I know those as is license agreements that effectively mean use at your own risk. But couldn't we all benefit os much from more quality in software or conversely less litigation over hardware?

BTW, don't feel bad if you didn't make your claim from Toshiba (it's too late now). Any uncollected money is meant to go to charity.

Toshiba is now selling laptops with NVidia's GeForce2 Go chipset (basically a GeForce2 MX squeezed into a laptop). Sounds like the easiest route to me! It's got built-in ethernet and sound, too. And a built-in subwoofer? (I'm skeptical on this piece, but who knows?)

toshiba has a sweet computer, uses the geforce2go, has dvd/cdrw, firewire.
see the Satellite 2805-s402 at toshiba.com.

Perhaps before buying a power laptop like that you should've waited for the GeForce 2 Go from nVidia. It features all the full GPU support of the GeForce 2 MX (it's less powerful than the GTS, but come on, it's a laptop), features full 3D acceleration, and when you plug it into any monitor, you've got the ideal LAN party computer. They are due out imminently from Toshiba and other manufacturers as well. Go nVidia!

Reciever:

• Denon AVR-2800. Very good, clean sound. It does both DTS and DD decoding, and I can bi-wire my main speakers. ($1300)

• Panasonic A-120. It's a little older than most (1 1/2 years old...it's not even on the web site anymore), but it does the job nicely. It passes a DTS bitstream, which is all I was really looking for at the time.($500)

• Toshiba TW40X81 A good T.V. is something that you definately shouldn't scrimp on. I agonized for 8 months over this purchase, but it's the best thing I've ever bought Widescreen baby, YEAH! ($3600)

• All my speakers are by
• Sound Dynamics. RTS-11's for mains ($1000), RTS-7's for rears ($600), and an RTS-C2 for a center ($300). They kick ass, and compare favourably to similar sounding speakers in the price area too.

• A Sub is
• essential to quality movie-watching. It's not only about base you hear, it's about the rumbling you can feel. Mine is a Velodyne CT-100 with a 10" driver. ($750)

Looking back, I guess I spent quite a bit of money, but I don't regret a cent of it. I routinely enjoy watching DVD's at home more than going to the theater. I guess that's what it's all about, eh? :)

Reciever:

• Denon AVR-2800. Very good, clean sound. It does both DTS and DD decoding, and I can bi-wire my main speakers. ($1300)

• Panasonic A-120. It's a little older than most (1 1/2 years old...it's not even on the web site anymore), but it does the job nicely. It passes a DTS bitstream, which is all I was really looking for at the time.($500)

• Toshiba TW40X81 A good T.V. is something that you definately shouldn't scrimp on. I agonized for 8 months over this purchase, but it's the best thing I've ever bought Widescreen baby, YEAH! ($3600)

• All my speakers are by
• Sound Dynamics. RTS-11's for mains ($1000), RTS-7's for rears ($600), and an RTS-C2 for a center ($300). They kick ass, and compare favourably to similar sounding speakers in the price area too.

• A Sub is
• essential to quality movie-watching. It's not only about base you hear, it's about the rumbling you can feel. Mine is a Velodyne CT-100 with a 10" driver. ($750)

Looking back, I guess I spent quite a bit of money, but I don't regret a cent of it. I routinely enjoy watching DVD's at home more than going to the theater. I guess that's what it's all about, eh? :)

It seems strange that no company is making Double Density or Quad Density CD-R writers/readers.

Consider this page at the Toshiba Storage Devices Division which talks about DVD-RAM; A rotational media quite similar to CD-RW (except that DVD-RAM involves the manipulation of magnetic media, sort of like magneto-optical.)

It seems strange that no company is making Double Density or Quad Density CD-R writers/readers.

Consider this page at the Toshiba Storage Devices Division which talks about DVD-RAM; A rotational media quite similar to CD-RW (except that DVD-RAM involves the manipulation of magnetic media, sort of like magneto-optical.)

I think something like the Libretto was exactly what you were looking for - it was small portables with only 64 MB RAM and Pentium MMX processors, and a somewhat tiny LCD that could only do 800x480 or something like that - apart from the battery time. It was basically an x86-compatible, overpowered and horribly oversized PDA that could run Windows (don't know about Linux, I newer saw it tested with a Linux configuration in hardware reviews :)
I don't think that it could run for days though...

I think it was discontinued because of lack of demand though, maybe because it's high price.
I couldn't find any links except from the Swedish site under "older computers" (infos in Swedish, but the specs should probably be globally understandable):

• Libretto 50CT
• Libretto 70CT
• Libretto 100CT
• Libretto 110CT

Trying this again, logged in... >:/
(Note: Your device may vary, but I doubt it.)

The microcontroller in the CueCat is a Toshiba TMP87PH47U 8- bit microcontroller.

After a little searching, I came up with this:
TMP87PH47U Datasheet.

It has 16kb of OTP EPROM, and 512b of RAM and appears to run at 8Mhz.

There are two other chips on the board, a 4066 and an 8-pin SMT chip that I have yet to read the number off of. IIRC, the 4066 is a CMOS bilateral switch.

--K

---

(Note: Your device may vary, but I doubt it.)

The microcontroller in the CueCat is a Toshiba TMP87PH47U 8- bit microcontroller.

After a little searching, I came up with this:
TMP87PH47U Datasheet.

It has 16kb of OTP EPROM, and 512b of RAM and appears to run at 8Mhz.

There are two other chips on the board, a 4066 and an 8-pin SMT chip that I have yet to read the number off of. IIRC, the 4066 is a CMOS bilateral switch.

No you can't. Read the freaking spec sheets for a real RDRAM. Look at the CAS-to-CAS time for a single bank and do the sums yourself.

Prepare to witness the most concerted and massive engineering effort -- both social and technical -- ever undertaken by mankind: The digital equivalent of damming the ocean.

I wrote about this on Slashdot almost a year ago, in the vague hope it might become a featured article: The music and movie industies are working very hard to prevent you from using your lawfully-obtained material in any way they don't want. To that end, they have formed the Copy Protection Technical Working Group (CPTWG), which is working hand-in-hand with a ton of high-tech companies to bring pervasive copy protection measures to your PC.

I saved my original screed on the subject, and it's reproduced below, with appropriate updates. Bottom Line: Do not let them sneak this garbage past you or your friends. If you find that a product contains copy protection, don't buy it, and encourage others to do likewise.

____________________

Recent stories on Slashdot have told of the ongoing "tennis match" between digital content providers versus consumers and technically skilled people. The recent cracking of DVD's Content Scrambling System (CSS) lent ammunition to the opinion held by computing professionals and users that copy protection systems are doomed to fail. The effort has been likened to building a dam against the ocean; a foolish and useless exercise. In Slashdot discussion fora, the point has often been raised, "If you can perceive it, you can copy it. What are they going to do, encrypt the bits all the way to the speaker/electron gun?" If the Copy Protection Technical Working Group gets its way, that is precisely what's going to happen.

I received a piece of email spam today, which actually turned out to be useful (probably the only time that's ever happened anywhere). It directed me to a flat panel display industry group. Among others, one of the links pointed to the California Display Network, which had a link pointing to technical info on flat panel technology. Since I currently earn my living writing graphics card and display drivers, I clicked through to see what I could learn.

I found an entry for an overview of digital visual interfaces, provided by Silicon Image. As I reviewed the headings of the slides, one entry stopped me cold: Conten t Protection Status. Content protection? In a flat panel?? Yup: "Implementation of DVI content protection is suitable for PCs and monitors." [emphasis mine]

Thus began an evening of link clicking and Google searches to find out what this off-handed remark could mean. The slide made mention of the 'CPTWG'. This is the Copy Protection Technical Working Group, a consortium of content providers (movie companies), consumer electronics manufacturers, and players in the IT industry. This is the same group that developed CSS for DVD players.

One paragraph from the above page is particularly disturbing:

CPTWG has focused until now only on "casual piracy [sic]", characterized as what a grandmother can do in her home with her DVD. Piracy [sic] requiring even the level of expertise (and equipment) of her grandson, who might be an EE student, has been excluded from consideration. There is a growing awareness that a broader content protection effort may be necessary.

The most recent meeting of the CPTWG was yesterday, 8 December, 1999. Their meeting announcements may be found here. It costs $100 to attend. According to the site, their last meeting was on 11 April 2000. It's not clear if additional meetings have been held at regular intervals.

The attendance roster from the April meeting (RTF file) lists a very interesting, and possibly worrying, mix of organizations. A partial list of representatives included:

• MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America),
• AFMA (American Film Marketing Association),
• Sony Pictures Entertainment,
• Universal Studios,
• Warner Bros.,
• Disney,
• Paramount,
• CEMA (Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association),
• MEI (parent company to Panasonic), makers of consumer electronics,
• Pioneer, makers of consumer electronics,
• JVC, makers of consumer electronics,
• Philips, makers of consumer electronics and VLSI components (including video encoders),
• Sony, makers of consumer electronics, computers, and displays,
• Toshiba, makers of consumer electronics, computers, flat panels, disk drives, digital cameras, copiers, and laser printers,
• NEC, makers of computers, displays, printers, and telecomm equipment,
• Hewlett Packard, makers of computers, printers, and testing/measuring equipment (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, etc.),
• Quantum, makers of disk drives,
• IBM, makers of computers, disk drives, and bunches of other stuff,
• Compaq, makers of computers,
• Apple Computer, makers of computers,
• ATI Technologies, makers of PC graphics cards,
• Dolby Labs, creators and licensors of audio enhancement technologies,
• Intel, makers of microprocessors, motherboard controllers, and graphics and peripheral chips,
• Microsoft, software market monopolists,
• Dow Chemical (I have no idea why they're here),
• DVD-CCA, licensors of CSS, and currently in court trying to prevent the spread of DeCSS,
• A number of law firms.

If you download the roster and read closely, you'll see every major piece of your computer represented. There is no doubt that at least one part of your computer -- your CPU, your RAM, your disk drive, your graphics card, your monitor -- is manufactured by one of these companies.

If you look further still, you'll see there are no consumer advocacy groups listed.

What are they all working toward? Quite simply, to prevent you from using your lawfully obtained digital material in any way they don't want.

Here's one example of how they'll do it: If you've visited Fry's or CompUSA recently, you'll notice that full-size flat panel displays are starting to appear. Currently, most of these displays are based on the old VGA analog signals, which are converted into the digital signals needed by the panels. The Digital Display Working Group is working on a new connector and signalling standard called Digital Visual Interface (DVI) that will allow computer displays to go all-digital. You won't need a DAC on the video card; the digital signals will be fed straight through to the display. Image fidelity will be much higher, since there won't be any intervening DAC/ADC conversions. Version 1.0 of the standard has been published and is available for download (PDF format). The DVI spec currently does not stipulate copy protection measures. However, plans are in the works to incorporate it.

Intel is one of the primary contributors to this effort. On Intel's developer site, they have some papers on copy protection for IEEE 1394 (Firewire) digital streams. In two separate articles, 1394-based Digital Content Protection: an Intel Proposal, and Content Protection for IEEE 1394 Serial Buses (the latter being a Powerpoint presentation masquerading as a PDF file), Intel outlines its proposal for protecting digital content over Firewire. By using cryptographic authentication techniques, a device offering digital content will "handshake" with other devices on the bus to assure that digital data is only received by, "compliant devices." In a revised overview of the proposal, IDF Talk: Content Protection for the IEEE 1394 Bus, Intel offers concrete implementation details, including:

• DSS (Digital Signature Standard)
• Diffie-Hellman key exchange for device authentication,
• Blowfish cipher for content encryption, with a keylength of 32-128 bits,
• Digital watermarking techniques to declare "rights" (right to playback, right to copy, etc.) to the receiving device.

The full proposal (currently version 0.91), with lots of technical detail, is mirrored on CPTWG's site (the links to Intel's site don't work).

Intel's proposal also recommends that the copy protection system be field-upgradeable to thwart ongoing attacks, and that it should be possible to revoke (read: disable) a device determined to be "compromised." (The tone of the proposals is also interesting. It's previously been thought that, because of USB, Intel is hostile to IEEE 1394. Yet these proposals suggest that Intel's quite enthusiastic about 1394... Once copy protection is incorporated.)

Intel's proposal mentions only IEEE 1394. However, it also mentions that there's nothing preventing the technique being applied generally to any bi-directional link. So for all occurrences of '1394', substitute 'DVI', and you've got an idea of what to look forward to in your new digital monitor. And your new DVD player. And your new HDTV set. And your new USB speakers.

Intel goes even further in their paper, A Framework for DVD-Audio Content Protection. In it, the author suggests that DVD-Audio recorders permanently remember the IRSC (International Standard Recording Code) of every song the device is asked to copy, so that it may only be copied once, period. They go on to suggest that the recorder could have a modem built-in to authorize (read: purchase) the ability to make additional copies.

In short, through this industry consortium, Hollywood proposes to exert control over every link in the digital chain, from the digital camera, to the disk drive, to the CPU, to the graphics card, to your display. They will decide what rights you have. Even if a court decides Fair Use includes multiple copies for personal use (such as assembling a video montage), it won't matter. Your computer will still refuse to make the copies (and probably fink on you, as well).

This coordinated effort is ostensibly to combat unsanctioned copying (which the industry chronically refers to incorrectly as 'theft' and 'piracy'). However, no one has ever been able to provably quantify the value of unrealized sales due to such copying. All dollar estimates that have been published are just that: estimates, based on idealized extrapolations of what-if scenarios. Moreover, although the industry claims to "lose" billions every year, they continue to post record profits. Finally, despite the proliferation of CDR drives and the Internet, most unrealized sales are the result of organized mass counterfeiting rings, not casual copying. None of the proposed methods I've seen appear to thwart mass counterfeiting at all. So clearly there's some other reason for all this.

The thing that puzzles me most is why the computer and consumer electronics industries haven't told Hollywood to take a hike. Intel's copy protection proposals state, in bold letters, "No content protection = No Hollywood content." This belief is taken as axiomatic by all the players, and appears to be the driving force behind the entire effort. This belief is also false.

Audio on CDs are recorded as plaintext, and the music industry continues to earn rapacious profits. Even the with the advent of CDRs, no music industry executive in his right mind would suggest dropping CD sales and going strictly with cassettes and vinyl. If nothing else, the manufacturing costs for CDs are lower than those for cassettes and vinyl. Likewise, DVDs are tremendously cheaper to produce than videotapes. Videotape duplication is a labor-intensive process; DVDs can be stamped out automatically. The savings in cost-of-goods alone would more than balance against any unrealized sales from casual copying. Corporate shareholders, always mindful of the bottom line, will also demand that the studios move to the cheaper, higher-quality process, copy protected or not.

The fact is that the computer and electronics firms are in the driver's seat, and are free to dictate how the new digital formats will work. Hollywood will use whatever format becomes popular, whether it has copy protection or not. They may grumble about it, but they'll use it. The economics afford them little choice.

We are only now beginning to explore the social and ethical consequences of a Star Trek-like universe where everything can be infinitely duplcated at zero cost. We have no idea where things will end up. But now is not the time to start erecting electronic walls and imposing artificial scarcity. The ignoble and richly-deserved death of DIVX showed -- fairly unequivocally, I thought -- that consumers want to make free, fair use of their digital media, without interference from outside. I believe its death reinforces the future toward which we've been pushing for centuries: Increased abundance at reduced cost. We can only hope that the lesson of DIVX will be repeated until it is learned.

Schwab

Yep, Toshiba came up with this. Apparently it uses the SRAM to prevent the screen from needing to be refreshed when the picture is static. (Think of the difference between SRAM, which does not to be refreshed, and your standard stick of DRAM, which does) Check out the eetimes article he re. The problem I see with this is that SRAM can get mighty expensive in large quantities....I don't see them making even an 8" screen with this technique.

Email me.
Don't trust anyone over 90000.

The new Toshiba Tecra 8100s have scroll 'buttons' above the primary mouse button. Ain't cheap on the wallet, though.

Her es Toshiba's page. If you squint, you can see the two smaller buttons above the primary mouse button.

I can't give a first-hand comparison on s-video vs component (what Toshiba brands "Color-Stream") cables, but the theory is that component is better since it basically gives you more bandwidth for the video signal.

Component inputs are standard on a lot of larger TV's now, especially Toshibas. After a good bit of research, I just bought a 32" Toshiba CZ32V51:
http://www.toshiba.com/tacp/direct/ CZ32V51.html
Digital comb filter, PIP, color-stream, "flatter, darker" tube- it's a nice TV and a good set of features for the price (~$600).

You can always feed it anamorphic widescreen DVDs and get a picture better than anything a standard TV can produce. Plus DSS systems are starting to broadcast HD signals for select channels now. Go for it.

You can get the Toshiba TW40X81 for about $2500. The OTA tuner will be about $1k. About 2x the cost of an equivalent standard TV setup, not the $6k they are claiming in the article.

You can get the not-yet-linked-from-toshiba's-site page about this laptop HERE. I only hope that that damn link works, because it has some session ID garbage in it.

Here's what I want to know: Why do they still only include 64mb of ram in their laptops? Anybody who really plans on using this thing is going to bump that to 128mb the moment they get it. Personally, I would much rather have a PII/400 laptop with 128mb than a PIII/500 laptop with only 64mb. The speed differrence would be immense, and the 400mhz one would be the clear winner.

s _release/04172000_3.jsp>Click Here For More Info</a>

Here are some links that might be useful:

Press Release for the 3440CT

Press Release about the cooling technology

Here are some links that might be useful:

Press Release for the 3440CT

Press Release about the cooling technology

• Press release

The press release is equally vague about the tech, but does mention that there's a patent pending, and that it's similar to how car engines are cooled. (Isn't that prior art?)
---

• Press release

The press release is equally vague about the tech, but does mention that there's a patent pending, and that it's similar to how car engines are cooled. (Isn't that prior art?)
---

The (pdf) spec sheet for the 3440ct is here.

I don't see anything about being watercooled, though most of the other facts in the article seem right ( less than 1" thick, 500Mhz Mobile PIII, 3.4 lbs)

I submitted this to Slashdot's Your Rights Online section some weeks ago, but it was rejected. I think the article is pertinent here.

Recent stories on Slashdot have told of the ongoing "tennis match" between digital content providers versus consumers and technically skilled people. The recent cracking of DVD's Content Scrambling System (CSS) lent ammunition to the opinion held by computing professionals and users that copy protection systems are doomed to fail. The effort has been likened to building a dam against the ocean; a foolish and useless exercise. In Slashdot discussion fora, the point has often been raised, "If you can perceive it, you can copy it. What are they going to do, encrypt the bits all the way to the speaker/electron gun?" If the Copy Protection Technical Working Group gets its way, that is precisely what's going to happen.

I received a piece of email spam today, which actually turned out to be useful (probably the only time that's ever happened anywhere). It directed me to a flat panel display industry group. Among others, one of the links pointed to the California Display Network, which had a link pointing to technical info on flat panel technology. Since I currently earn my living writing graphics card and display drivers, I clicked through to see what I could learn.

I found an entry for an overview of digital visual interfaces, provided by Silicon Image. As I reviewed the headings of the slides, one entry stopped me cold: Conten t Protection Status. Content protection? In a flat panel?? Yup: "Implementation of DVI content protection is suitable for PCs and monitors." [emphasis mine]

Thus began an evening of link clicking and Google searches to find out what this off-handed remark could mean. The slide made mention of the 'CPTWG'. This is the Copy Protection Technical Working Group, a consortium of content providers (movie companies), consumer electronics manufacturers, and players in the IT industry. This is the same group that developed CSS for DVD players.

One paragraph from the above page is particularly disturbing:

CPTWG has focused until now only on "casual piracy [sic]", characterized as what a grandmother can do in her home with her DVD. Piracy [sic] requiring even the level of expertise (and equipment) of her grandson, who might be an EE student, has been excluded from consideration. There is a growing awareness that a broader content protection effort may be necessary.

The most recent meeting of the CPTWG was yesterday, 8 December, 1999. Their meeting announcements may be found here. According to the December meeting announcement, the next meetings will occur on 11 January, 2000, and 9 February, 2000. It costs $100 to attend.

The attendance roster from the November meeting (PDF file, sorry) lists a very interesting, and possibly worrying, mix of organizations. A partial list of representatives included:

• MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America),
• AFMA (American Film Marketing Association),
• Sony Pictures Entertainment,
• Universal Studios,
• Warner Bros.,
• Disney,
• Paramount,
• CEMA (Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association),
• MEI (parent company to Panasonic), makers of consumer electronics,
• Pioneer, makers of consumer electronics,
• JVC, makers of consumer electronics,
• Philips, makers of consumer electronics and VLSI components (including video encoders),
• Sony, makers of consumer electronics, computers, and displays,
• Toshiba, makers of consumer electronics, computers, flat panels, disk drives, digital cameras, copiers, and laser printers,
• NEC, makers of computers, displays, printers, and telecomm equipment,
• Hewlett Packard, makers of computers, printers, and testing/measuring equipment (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, etc.),
• Quantum, makers of disk drives,
• IBM, makers of computers, disk drives, and bunches of other stuff,
• Compaq, makers of computers,
• Apple Computer, makers of computers,
• ATI Technologies, makers of PC graphics cards,
• Dolby Labs, creators and licensors of audio enhancement technologies,
• Intel, makers of microprocessors, motherboard controllers, and graphics and peripheral chips,
• Microsoft, software market monopolists,
• Dow Chemical (I have no idea why they're here),
• A number of law firms.

If you download the roster and read closely, you'll see every major piece of your computer represented. There is no doubt that at least one part of your computer -- your CPU, your RAM, your disk drive, your graphics card, your monitor -- is manufactured by one of these companies.

If you look further still, you'll see there are no consumer advocacy groups listed.

What are they all working toward? Quite simply, to prevent you from using your lawfully obtained digital material in any way they don't want.

Here's one example of how they'll do it: If you've visited Fry's or CompUSA recently, you'll notice that full-size flat panel displays are starting to appear. Currently, most of these displays are based on the old VGA analog signals, which are converted into the digital signals needed by the panels. The Digital Display Working Group is working on a new connector and signalling standard called Digital Visual Interface (DVI) that will allow computer displays to go all-digital. You won't need a DAC on the video card; the digital signals will be fed straight through to the display. Image fidelity will be much higher, since there won't be any intervening DAC/ADC conversions. Version 1.0 of the standard has been published and is available for download (PDF format). The DVI spec currently does not stipulate copy protection measures. However, plans are in the works to incorporate it.

Intel is one of the primary contributors to this effort. On Intel's developer site, they have some papers on copy protection for IEEE 1394 (Firewire) digital streams. In two separate articles, 1394-based Digital Content Protection: an Intel Proposal, and Content Protection for IEEE 1394 Serial Buses (the latter being a Powerpoint presentation masquerading as a PDF file), Intel outlines its proposal for protecting digital content over Firewire. By using cryptographic authentication techniques, a device offering digital content will "handshake" with other devices on the bus to assure that digital data is only received by, "compliant devices." In a revised overview of the proposal, IDF Talk: Content Protection for the IEEE 1394 Bus, Intel offers concrete implementation details, including:

• DSS (Digital Signature Standard)
• Diffie-Hellman key exchange for device authentication,
• Blowfish cipher for content encryption, with a keylength of 32-128 bits,
• Digital watermarking techniques to declare "rights" (right to playback, right to copy, etc.) to the receiving device.

The full proposal (currently version 0.91), with lots of technical detail, is mirrored on CPTWG's site (the links to Intel's site don't work).

Intel's proposal also recommends that the copy protection system be field-upgradeable to thwart ongoing attacks, and that it should be possible to revoke (read: disable) a device determined to be "compromised." (The tone of the proposals is also interesting. It's previously been thought that, because of USB, Intel is hostile to IEEE 1394. Yet these proposals suggest that Intel's quite enthusiastic about 1394... Once copy protection is incorporated.)

Intel's proposal mentions only IEEE 1394. However, it also mentions that there's nothing preventing the technique being applied generally to any bi-directional link. So for all occurrences of '1394', substitute 'DVI', and you've got an idea of what to look forward to in your new digital monitor. And your new DVD player. And your new HDTV set. And your new USB speakers.

Intel goes even further in their paper, A Framework for DVD-Audio Content Protection. In it, the author suggests that DVD-Audio recorders permanently remember the IRSC (International Standard Recording Code) of every song the device is asked to copy, so that it may only be copied once, period. They go on to suggest that the recorder could have a modem built-in to authorize (read: purchase) the ability to make additional copies.

In short, through this industry consortium, Hollywood proposes to exert control over every link in the digital chain, from the digital camera, to the disk drive, to the CPU, to the graphics card, to your display. They will decide what rights you have. Even if a court decides Fair Use includes multiple copies for personal use (such as assembling a video montage), it won't matter. Your computer will still refuse to make the copies (and probably fink on you, as well).

This coordinated effort is ostensibly to combat unsanctioned copying (which the industry chronically refers to incorrectly as 'theft' and 'piracy'). However, no one has ever been able to provably quantify the value of unrealized sales due to such copying. All dollar estimates that have been published are just that: estimates, based on idealized extrapolations of what-if scenarios. Moreover, although the industry claims to "lose" billions every year, they continue to post record profits. Finally, despite the proliferation of CDR drives and the Internet, most unrealized sales are the result of organized mass counterfeiting rings, not casual copying. None of the proposed methods I've seen appear to thwart mass counterfeiting at all. So clearly there's some other reason for all this.

The thing that puzzles me most is why the computer and consumer electronics industries haven't told Hollywood to take a hike. Intel's copy protection proposals state, in bold letters, "No content protection = No Hollywood content." This belief is taken as axiomatic by all the players, and appears to be the driving force behind the entire effort. This belief is also false.

Audio on CDs are recorded as plaintext, and the music industry continues to earn rapacious profits. Even the with the advent of CDRs, no music industry executive in his right mind would suggest dropping CD sales and going strictly with cassettes and vinyl. If nothing else, the manufacturing costs for CDs are lower than those for cassettes and vinyl. Likewise, DVDs are tremendously cheaper to produce than videotapes. Videotape duplication is a labor-intensive process; DVDs can be stamped out automatically. The savings in cost-of-goods alone would more than balance against any unrealized sales from casual copying. Corporate shareholders, always mindful of the bottom line, will also demand that the studios move to the cheaper, higher-quality process, copy protected or not.

The fact is that the computer and electronics firms are in the driver's seat, and are free to dictate how the new digital formats will work. Hollywood will use whatever format becomes popular, whether it has copy protection or not. They may grumble about it, but they'll use it. The economics afford them little choice.

We are only now beginning to explore the social and ethical consequences of a Star Trek-like universe where everything can be infinitely duplcated at zero cost. We have no idea where things will end up. But now is not the time to start erecting electronic walls and imposing artificial scarcity. The ignoble and richly-deserved death of DIVX showed -- fairly unequivocally, I thought -- that consumers want to make free, fair use of their digital media, without interference from outside. I believe its death reinforces the future toward which we've been pushing for centuries: Increased abundance at reduced cost.

Nevertheless, the CPTWG and the organizations supporting it are blindly moving forward. It may turn out it's impossible to dam the ocean, but they're gearing up to give it one hell of a try. We can only hope that the lesson of DIVX will be repeated until it is learned.

Schwab

(All prices in USD)

Garmin GPS III Plus receiver (between 350 and 500, depending on where you buy).

Any DVD - no more than $25.

Toshiba TW65X81 or DW65X81 television to watch above dvd's - 4999 for TW, 5800 for DW.

Nokia 8860 - around 800-900

New Car - expensive

Another New Car - expensive

Luxury Car - more expensive

In lieu of computer, please send the TV. I have enough computers.

-m

Toshiba came out with a computer as powerful as this one, the same size, but with an 850MB hard drive and it runs linux beautifully!

The size is really nice for fitting into a backpack or if space is tight, and getting used to the keyboard doesn't take much time, but it's no replacement for a real PDA (battery life, suspend time) nor for a desktop (too small to type comfortably) and the psion doesn't even have PCMCIA or anything...

They were a bit more than $1k, but you can get the 75MHz (OCable to 120) on ebay for $500... and I'm selling mine if anyone is interested (I managed to get ahold of a Sparcbook)... They have new one, the Libretto 110 for $1600 with a 233MHz processor in them.

Sure the touch screen in this Psion is cute, but if they want to compete, they are going to have to bring down the price.

If there are laptop size terminals out there, I'd bet you'll pay through the nose for one.

So a cheap laptop should do. I bought a refurbished Toshiba (Don't buy a used one from private sale. Warranties are extremely important for laptops, where you can't simply replace a flaky component.). Refurb is the way to go. I'm happy with mine (though I desperately need a RAM upgrade).

Check out this link:

http:// www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Toshiba.woa /wa/goto?page=encore

Toshiba spec sheets are here.
Select your model then look at the spec sheet. Chip types and other useful information.