LATEST ADDITIONS

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.sony.com">Sony</A> and computer storage company <A HREF="http://www.westerndigital.com">Western Digital</A> announced that they will form a strategic partnership to co-develop a new hard-disk drive (HDD) for consumer audio and video applications. According to the announcement, prototypes of the AV HDD will be developed and tested for verification of basic technologies by the end of March 1999. Commercialization of the AV HDD is being targeted for the year 2000.

Ready or not, here it comes. Last week, <A HREF="http://www.broadcast.com/">Broadcast.com</A> announced that it will begin streaming movies over the Internet this month, starting with the Humphrey Bogart/Ingrid Bergman classic <I>Casablanca</I>.

The two biggest names in the direct broadcast satellite (DBS) business are about to become one. On Monday, December 14, Hughes Electronics Corporation announced that it will buy <A HREF="http://www.ussb.com/">United States Satellite Broadcasting Company</A> (USSB) for $1.3 billion in stock and cash.

Another step toward a standardized audio/video home network was taken last week when eight consumer-electronics manufacturers agreed to implement a patent license program for the <A HREF="http://www.havi.org/">HAVi</A> specification. The companies involved in the announcement are <A HREF="http://www.grundig.com/">Grundig</A>, <A HREF="http://www.Hitachi.com/">Hitachi</A>, Matsushita (<A HREF="http://www.Panasonic.com/">Panasonic</A>), <A HREF="http://www.philips.com/">Philips</A>, <A HREF="http://www.sharpelectronics.com/">Sharp</A>, <A HREF="http://www.sony.com">Sony</A>, Thomson Multimedia, and <A HREF="http://www.toshiba.com">Toshiba</A>. Under the licensing program, the HAVi home-network architecture will be made available to the electronics and multimedia industries in spring 1999. Philips has been designated to serve as the licensing contact on behalf of the eight companies.