LATEST ADDITIONS

Decreasing losses are often greeted as gladly as increased profits. <A HREF="http://www.echostar.com/">EchoStar Communications</A> has reported that its net operating loss decreased from $792.8 million in 1999 to $621.2 million in the year 2000. Total revenue for the year ended December 31 amounted to $2.7 billion, an increase of 70% over 1999's $1.6 billion. The direct broadcast satellite operator reported revenues of $805.1 million for the final quarter, up an impressive 56% from the same period in the previous year.

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.thomson-multimedia.com">Thomson Multimedia</A> announced what the company terms "an aggressive new effort" designed to bring HDTV within reach of more American consumers. Thomson, which manufactures and markets the RCA brand of television and video products, says it will be trimming suggested retail prices of RCA HDTV sets by 20%, effective in April.

Is computer code that allows a user to violate a copyright a protected form of free speech, or is it an "illegal device"? The <A HREF="http://www.mpaa.org/">Motion Picture Association of America</A> (MPAA) has aggressively pursued legal action against internet entrepreneurs, such as <A HREF="http://www.2600.com/"><I>2600, the Hacker Quarterly</I></A>, that promoted DeCSS, a 57-kilobyte code, invented in 1999 by 15-year-old Norwegian student Jon Lech Johansen, that allows DVDs to be copied onto computers' hard drives and then transmitted over the internet.