3DO MAKES DEAL WITH MACROMEDIA WHILE DEVELOPERS WAIT FOR TOOLS

3DO of San Mateo, CA, has announced plans to develop a 3DO Authoring Toolkit that is primarily targeted toward developers who are artists. The toolkit will include Macromedia’s Three-D, MacroModel 1.5 and Director applications as well as “extractors,” file format conversion tools that are capable of converting Macromedia data into 3DO’s Multiplayer file format. Though no one is yet speculating on price, the Authoring Toolkit is likely to cost less than the original $2,995 3DO Developers Toolkit.

3DO has more than 250 licensees, but Susheela Vasan, director of market development for 3DO, says only 60 to 70 companies have actually bought the 3DO development environments necessary to create titles for the Multiplayer.

According to Vasan, the newer toolkit is being developed to meet the needs of artists, who have shown interest in creating titles for the 3DO Multiplayer. “The 3DO toolkit was built to meet the needs of a programmer,” says Vasan, “but many of our licensees have said they are waiting on authoring tools before they invest in the 3DO hardware station.”

The two toolkits are complementary, but are considered standalone development environments for the Multiplayer. The 3DO kit, Vasan says, is targeted toward programmers who are comfortable working with C, a widely accepted programming language. The kit provides only limited art creation tools, including an animation/paint package and Adobe Photoshop plug-ins.

According to Bud Colligan, CEO and president of Macromedia, the two companies will also work together to create authoring and playback technology.

3DO is still working on file format conversion tools for its toolkit. The company says it expects these to be available this year. There are no plans to sell the extractors as a stand-alone product to licensees, who already own the $4,995 3DO hardware stations and have Macromedia tools in house.

TWO DOWN, ONE TO GO FOR CDPD

Fire up those PDAs: the group of cellular carriers working on the open specification for the Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD) project recently released version 0.8 and 0.9 of the specification to developers. A final version of the specification — yes, that would be 1.0 — will be released in July.

CDPD will enable wireless data communications for devices such as portable data terminals, automated vending machines and personal digital assistants, or PDAs. The technology allows the transmission of packets of data during idle times on the cellular voice channels.

Wireless service providers are getting a jump on the technology. McCaw Cellular, a leader of the project and the largest cellular service provider in the nation, has founded a new Wireless Data Division. The division will begin deploying a nationwide CDPD network starting in August. It plans to bring wireless data service to 50 percent of its market by year end, completing the CDPD rollout by the second quarter of 1994. Ameritech has announced similar plans to test the technology in Chicago by year end, and other cellular carriers should announce similar launches shortly.

In field tests, the transmission rate for CDPD is up to four times faster than existing wireless services. CDPD claims a carrying capacity of 19,200 bits per second (bps), approximately a page and a half of text. Ardis, an analog data network jointly owned by Motorola and IBM, and RAM Mobile Data, a digital data network run in partnership with BellSouth, use systems separate from cellular networks, but in the same general radio-frequency range. Transmission rate for Ardis is 4,800 bps; RAM Mobile Data’s is 8,000 bps.

CDPD is designed to integrate easily into existing cellular networks, requiring cellular carriers to install additional radio transmitters, routers and software. McCaw claims the cost for cellular voice customers who want to take advantage of the data service will vary depending on the transmitting/receiving device. A PCMCIA add-in card, for example, might cost around $500.

Cost for using the network will be less expensive than a cellular voice call, according to Rob Mechaley, McCaw VP of technology and general manager of the Wireless Data Division. Lower costs are assured because unlike cellular voice calls, the CDPD system “is based on what is sent and received, not on time used,” says Mechaley.

McCaw believes the first adopters of the service will be “large corporations with vertical tracking applications, like UPS,” says Mechaley. Regardless of who signs on first, McCaw and other CDPD carriers should have no shortage of customers. According to market research by Booz Allen and Hamilton Inc., there will be more than 13 million users of wireless data services by 2000.

The CDPD project, led by McCaw and IBM, includes cellular carriers Ameritech Mobile Communications, Bell Atlantic Mobile Systems, GTE Mobilenet, Contel Cellular, Nynex Mobile Communications, PacTel Cellular, Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems and US West.

SESAME STREET COMES TO ELECTRONIC ARTS, VIA CTW

New York-based Children’s Television Workshop and Electronic Arts, a San Mateo-based video game developer, have announced a long-term exclusive agreement to produce interactive media for children based on CTW’s popular children’s television program Sesame Street.

All titles will be jointly developed by CTW and Electronic Arts’ EAKids division, which develops software for kids aged 3 to 14. “A lot of the motivation for titles will come from CTW because they understand kids and what they want,” says Diane Flynn, director of marketing for EAKids. “We are the specialists in developing software.” Electronic Arts will be responsible for marketing and distribution of the titles.

The goal of the developers is to produce Sesame Street titles that “educate through entertainment” — a concept CTW has successfully promoted since its founding in 1968. Titles featuring Bert, Ernie, Big Bird and Cookie Monster will have no pint-size potential audience, either. CTW’s television and print programs reach children in more than 80 countries.

“We share the same philosophy on product development and how kids learn,” says Flynn. “Fun is a key element in the learning process, as is bringing the kid back to the game again and again.”

In many ways, the crossover of Sesame Street from television to interactive media is a natural. Characters featured on the show regularly call on its home viewing audience to sing, dance and count along with the program. Interactive titles will encourage similar interactions, only the characters will talk back to children as well.

Electronic Arts is hoping to get the first titles on the market by Christmas or early 1994. The $50 to $60 titles will be for kids aged 3 to 6.

The companies plan for “many, many titles on many platforms,” says Flynn. Titles will be produced for a number of platforms including computers, video game machines, CD-ROM and the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer.

LUCAS, SGI FORMALIZE BOND WITH JEDI ANNOUNCEMENT

Just a month after IBM announced the formation of its digital imaging and special-effects studio called Digital Domain — built in collaboration with film director James Cameron and visual effects expert Stan Winston — George Lucas and Silicon Graphics Inc.’s CEO Ed McCracken announced the formation of JEDI, the Joint Environment for Digital Imaging, which is located at Lucas’s Industrial Light & Magic company headquarters in San Rafael, CA.

Except for the official naming of the digital production studio, christened JEDI after the good guys in Lucas’s blockbuster Star Wars trilogy, not much at Lucas’s renowned production house is expected to change as a result of the announcement. ILM, which already uses more than 70 SGI workstations and 150 image processors as part of its digital production setup, has for many years been an unofficial media lab to the computer graphics industry, and to SGI in particular since 1987.

Lucas says he expects to cut the cost of creating special effects at ILM by 25 percent through the use of computer technology. According to Lucas, he has reduced production costs on his TV series Young Indiana Jones to one-tenth of the traditional price tag by using computer-generated images mixed with live action footage. He says that as the technology evolves and digital image quality improves, he will bring those same cost-cutting techniques into play for producing motion pictures.

In addition, ILM uses dedicated phone lines to link directly with clients in Hollywood or on location. ILM says the system was first implemented during production of Jurassic Park, so that Steven Spielberg, the director of the upcoming film, could preview dailies in Poland, where he is shooting his next film project, but it’s actually been in place longer than that. Our sources just never wanted to publicize it before, for competitive reasons.

For Silicon Graphics, the alliance with Lucas is a way to restate publicly SGI’s claim to being the technology platform of choice among the entertainment community, as big-iron computer companies move in on Hollywood with products such as IBM’s Power Visualization System. Even though the entertainment industry accounts for only 10 percent of SGI’s business, it is growing rapidly, according to McCracken.

More importantly, he says, members of the motion picture industry are some of Silicon Graphics’ most demanding clients. “The film industry is our toughest customer on realistic digital images,” says McCracken, “and their criticisms drive SGI systems forward.”

Technology built in partnership by the two companies will eventually make its way into the commercial market, according to McCracken. He says the goal is to make “tools that artists can use.”

The partnership between Silicon Graphics and ILM is non-exclusive. Members from SGI say we can expect similar announcements involving the technology company and other digital production studios in the near future.

PARAMOUNT, AT&T INVEST IN SPECTRUM HOLOBYTE

Spectrum HoloByte, the interactive entertainment software developer and publisher of blockbuster games such as Falcon and Tetris, recently received $10.3 million in its second round of equity funding.

The Alameda, CA-based company, which was founded in 1986, made that money in two and a half months, according to Barry James Folsom, the newly appointed president of Spectrum HoloByte. He says the game company attracted several substantial investors, including AT&T Ventures, Paramount Communications Inc. and Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm.

The company, which has exclusive rights to produce computer and video games using the names and characters from the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, plans to invest the money in new title development for the Super Nintendo and Sega CD game platforms as well as the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer and DOS personal computer platform. Folsom says he expects the Star Trek titles to be in stores by Christmas of this year. The 3DO version, he says, will be shipped when the player is ready.

Spectrum is also working on a location-based entertainment (LBE) installation based on the hit TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation. The Edison Brothers of St. Louis, acclaimed as geniuses in LBE, have been contracted to develop the virtual reality experience that will be installed in malls around the country. No release date for the planned installations has been announced.

Folsom would not comment on other potential licensing deals with Paramount Pictures except to say that Paramount is on the board of directors at Spectrum, and together they have “kicked around a few ideas” but nothing has been decided.

MOTOROLA NEW ENTERPRISES INVESTS IN VR COMPANY

The Motorola New Enterprises group, which has a charter to identify emerging technology and new market opportunities for Motorola, recently invested an undisclosed amount of money in Virtus Corp., a Cary, NC, software company that has carved itself a niche in the commercial VR market with its 3D modeling and visualization program, Virtus Walkthrough.

In conjunction with the investment, according to Virtus’s VP of marketing, David Sink, the two companies have agreed to a partnership that involves research and development work on issues pertaining to human interface design and navigation for hand-held devices and online services.

“Motorola’s world view matches up closely with ours,” says Sink. “We believe it’s going to become a global village and having universal access to information is going to be an issue that companies such as Virtus and Motorola might be able to address. There has to be communications — that’s Motorola. Also there has to be some kind of access/user interface company, and we believe that’s Virtus.”

Virtus, he says, is working on prototyping real-time, object-oriented 3D worlds that can be navigated with a remote control. For example, a person using a device that supported this type of interface, he says, could enter a “virtual village” that mirrors his or her real community. As the viewer “walks along the streets,” he or she could enter a WalMart-type store and order school supplies for the kids through a home shopping service or go into a restaurant and order a meal that will then be delivered.

Bob Burton, vice president and general manager of Motorola’s New Enterprises group, while unwilling to go into any details, did say he sees Virtus as “an enabling technology that may help us as we look at new markets that we might want to pursue.”

As an example, Burton says, “It would be prudent to assume that since we are in the hand-held devices business that there would be an applicability for the type of services Virtus could provide.” He also mentioned that the New Enterprises group has recently invested in an information services company called Info Enterprises, based in Chandler, AZ, which could potentially benefit from an enhanced information navigation system. Stay tuned.

MEDIA VISION LAUNCHES INTERACTIVE PUBLISHING DIVISION

Media Vision, the Fremont, CA-based company that is known for its multimedia hardware technology, recently formed the Multimedia Publishing Group to develop entertainment and educational CD-ROM titles for the Mac and PC.

At the helm of this new venture are Min Yee, former publisher of Microsoft Press and VP of Microsoft’s multimedia division, and Stan Cornyn, founder and former president and CEO of Warner New Media. It is rumored that Media Vision has put as much as $50 million into the Multimedia Publishing Group.

For Media Vision, the lure of software is all in the profit margins. “The obvious handwriting on the wall is that a lot of money will be made in content,” says Satish Gupta, VP of strategic marketing and product development at Media Vision. “The question is, can we do it right? We’re confident we can. We know the business.”

Media Vision, founded in 1990, is perhaps best known for its add-in sound cards and video compression technology for Macs and PCs. The company has also developed a substantial chip business. About one third of its business is with more than 55 OEMs, such as Philips, Sony, IBM and Compaq. The company has done extremely well in the hardware business — reported revenues for 1992 were $68.9 million, a 730 percent increase over the previous year.

With hardware sales gradually leveling off throughout the industry, Media Vision hopes software offers more long-term growth potential. “We expect our growth margins to be better in software than in hardware,” says Gupta, and plans to make use of its existing distribution channels to sell software.

“Sales of multimedia software packages are synergistic with sales of our hardware products through already established computer distribution and mass merchandising channels,” said Paul Jain, Media Vision president and CEO, at the announcement. “These products occupy the same shelf space and are bought by the same consumers.”

Cornyn and Yee will be responsible for finding sources of interactive content and developing software titles using Media Vision hardware and technologies. They will also establish and maintain relationships with developers. Media Vision corporate will run operations, marketing and sales.

The Multimedia Publishing Group’s biggest struggle may come from the limited — and untested — market it is targeting. The group says it will specialize in developing “education and entertainment titles for upscale home PC users,” according to Gupta. Media Vision’s titles won’t “compete against multimedia game vendors and existing vendors at all, really,” says Gupta. “We’re trying to find the high end of multimedia titles.” The first titles will be out this fall, according to the company.

KALEIDA UPDATE: LATER THAN EXPECTED

The best-laid plans of company negotiators were thwarted when Kaleida Labs was unable to close deals with charter members of its hardware alliance by the end of March, as it had expected (see Vol. 2, No. 10–11, p. 12).

Kaleida, based in Mountain View, CA, is the joint venture between Apple Computer and IBM to develop core multimedia technologies. Kaleida’s strategy is two-pronged: One, the company is creating the ScriptX cross-platform scripting language that enables developers to create one title that runs on a variety of machines; two, it is signing up hardware partners to create ScriptX-capable multimedia players.

Dan’l Lewin, director of manufacturer relations for the venture, says that part of the delay is that companies Kaleida had not earlier considered as potential “charter members” pushed back the deadline considerably. No date has been reset for when the members of the alliance will be formally announced, but Lewin says discussions with major manufacturers are continuing apace.

In fact, by the time the alliance is made public, Lewin says to expect “at least three or four companies” besides Apple and IBM to announce their membership.

In addition, a recent trade magazine report quoted Kaleida president Nat Goldhaber as saying ScriptX would be delayed until the first quarter of 1994. (Those knowledgeable about such matters doubt it’ll even make it then, software development being the inexact science that it is.)

However, it’s only fair to point out that ScriptX is not even fully enough implemented to be alpha software. (For non-computer types, alpha software is the functional equivalent of having just poured hot water into the Jello powder — all you really know is what it’s going to taste like when it’s done, but it hasn’t gelled.)

Of course, such public relations setbacks make great hay for Kaleida competitors, who are claiming the company doesn’t have product and has no firm commitments from hardware manufacturers other than Toshiba, whose relationship with Kaleida was announced a year ago at Digital World. And indeed they may be right, but saying that there are problems at this point is not only a bit disingenuous, it’s also premature.

The first public demonstration of ScriptX will be at the Digital World Conference in June.

PAPANEK LEAVES TIME INC. FOR BIGGER FISH AT TIME LIFE

After only a year as Time Inc.’s director of new media, John Papanek has been appointed editor-in-chief of Time Life Inc. Starting on June 1, he will depart New York City for Alexandria, VA, and launch what he hopes will be an opportunity to create and sell real digital media products that people want.

Papanek says it would be a big mistake to interpret the redeployment as anything but a move up. The kinds of products sold by Time Life’s direct marketing experts are, he says, much more suited to digital, interactive media than the magazines he worked with at Time. “There isn’t a new media business in 3-4 million circulation magazines,” he says. (Don’t tell it to Newsweek, however, which just launched its Newsweek Interactive for the Sony MMCD player.) “Maybe they’re a title for a Newton [personal digital assistant], but there are no CD-ROM opportunities there.”

He believes the real market for CD-ROM today is for children, and Time Life — which markets directly to 20 million consumers — has a children’s division. “This will be a lab for legitimate new media products,” says Papanek. “We’re going to focus down into the niche, find our customers and create products to satisfy them. There’s more potential here than any other place.”

Though books are still the biggest sellers under the Time Life umbrella (the ubiquitous Mysteries of the Universe series sold 13 million copies), the Video and Television division is growing fast, as is the music division, which specializes in selling compilations and anthologies.

The music group just cut an exclusive deal with Rolling Stone magazine — which heretofore never lent its name to any commercial enterprise it didn’t control — for the Rolling Stone 25 Years of Essential Rock compilation, a $99, seven-CD set marketed via a 30-minute infomercial of artist interviews and performance footage.

Rights were negotiated by Time Life lawyers, a skill that’s likely to come in handy for future interactive music products, as these seem poised to make the most significant market entrance of any new media product to date (see story on Ion, p. 8).

Papanek is also excited about the potential of creating programming for interactive TV, as Time Life Video and Television is the fastest growing division within the company. International media products are also under his purview.

The potential for Time Life to become a leading publisher of digital media seems actual, as opposed to virtual. With revenues of its own of more than $500 million (Time Warner is a $13 billion company), Time Life is one of TW’s most active divisions. In existence for more than 30 years, it’s a Fortune 500 company all by itself.

It will also be interesting to watch if Papanek is able to push Warner New Media’s interactive titles successfully into the mainstream. WNM, plugging along in Burbank, CA, is still plagued by the low visibility and a scattershot approach to its market that’s typical of most CD-ROM publishers today, even one with parents as rich and famous as Time and Warner. But who knows? A few well-placed infomercials may take care of all that.

SRI STUDY FOCUSES ON DIGITAL VIDEO TRENDS

Non-profit research organization SRI International based in Menlo Park, CA, is in the midst of an 18-month, million-dollar multiclient study on digital video for 30 companies in the computer, consumer electronics, telecommunications and entertainment industries.

Steve Krause, a senior industry analyst involved in the study, says the goal is a thorough investigation of the commercial ramifications of digital video technology as it’s developing today.

Though he would not comment about specific companies involved, Krause says the 18-month study is sponsored by most of the major players in the convergence industries, including some that compete with each other. Participation in the study is still open.

By the end of the project in September 1993, Krause and his colleagues will have produced several major reports, including a critical look at various video compression algorithms and proposed standards, applications and user needs, platforms and hardware, networking and telecommunications, and what Krause calls “the payoff question” — software.

PARAMOUNT TECHNOLOGY GROUP DEBUTS INTERACTIVE TITLES

The Paramount Technology Group, a new business unit under the Paramount Communications umbrella, has been busy since it opened its doors this past November. The group, headed by Keith Schaefer, has at least six interactive multimedia titles in development and plans to deliver the first of these products this August — ahead of its projected fall release schedule.

Richard Scarry’s Busytown, a beautifully illustrated children’s title, is expected to debut this summer on floppy disk for the DOS and Macintosh platforms. Although Busytown is based on famed storyteller Richard Scarry’s characters to which Paramount owns the digital rights, it includes primarily original content not found in any of the author’s books.

Targeted toward three- to seven-year-olds, the title helps teach children how things work by interacting with 12 different visual playgrounds, including a house, a gas station, a deli called Bruno’s and a ship with Captain Salty at the helm. In Busytown, the cursor is Mr. Huckle, one of the author’s main characters. The product is being “beta tested” with children from Head Start and preschool programs located in the San Francisco Bay area.

Busytown, which is expected to retail for $59.90, will also be released for the Windows and Macintosh CD-ROM market this fall. According to Schaefer, the title is in development for the 3DO Multiplayer and will be released for that platform in 1994.

Other educational titles in the works at Paramount include Amazonia and The Virtual BioPark, which are both being produced in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoological Park in Washington, DC, and codeveloped by AND Communications of Los Angeles. Paramount’s Computer Curriculum Company is funding 70 percent of the development of these educational

CD-ROM titles since it will distribute them into the middle school science market.

Amazonia, which is based on a “Swiss Family Robinson”-type premise where the user takes on the role of a member of a family that has been lost in the Amazon, will include footage shot by the Brazilian government and from a BBC documentary on the Amazon. The Virtual BioPark allows the user to explore four different environments — including city, ocean, prairie and desert — through six different animals, including a cheetah, pigeon, prairie dog and octopus.

In addition to the educational titles, the group plans to enter the game market as well. In September, the Paramount Technology group plans to release Lenny’s Room, an interactive, animated, musical-game venture that features “an irreverent penguin,” who, according to Schaefer, is tuned into Penguin TV. Although details were unavailable, other titles in the works at Paramount include a game title based on the hit TV series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as well as a CD-ROM title based on Paramount’s upcoming movie, Addams Family Values, a sequel to the The Addams Family. Both are slated for 1994.

COMPANIES RESPOND TO IMA REQUEST FOR TECHNOLOGY

The computer technology industry appears to be rallying around the Interactive Multimedia Association in its attempt to establish cross-platform compatibility standards for multimedia applications and data. The Annapolis, MD-based IMA, which issued three Requests for Technology (RFT) this past December, recently announced that it has received a number of responses from companies including Apple, AT&T/NCR, Avid Technology, Gain Technology, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Kaleida Labs and SunSoft.

According to Philip Dodds, the executive director of the international trade association, the IMA is pleased with this high level of response. He says it indicates the possibility of cross-platform multimedia solutions within months instead of years (see Vol 2, No. 8 p. 32).

Kaleida Labs and Gain Technologies have provided letters of intent to submit their scripting technology specifications to the IMA. A cross-platform scripting language would allow for interactive media titles developed on a particular platform to play on a variety of other platforms, such as Macintosh, Windows, DOS, CD-I and Unix.

Apple Computer and Avid Technology plan to respond to the RFT for multimedia data exchange. The data exchange RFT defines the requirements for exchanging files among different hardware and software platforms and applications.

The multimedia service RFT addresses the increasing need for distributed multimedia data types such as video and audio in local area networks, wide area switched networks, cable television systems, and for teleconferencing. Hewlett-Packard, IBM Corp. and SunSoft have stated that, together, they will submit a joint multimedia services specification. AT&T/NCR will also submit a response.

In a separate announcement, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, The Santa Cruz Operation, Sun Microsystems, Univel and Unix Systems Labs announced they would submit a joint multimedia services specification based on their common open software environment (COSE) initiative.

The RFTs will be reviewed by evaluation teams that have been elected by the technical working group responsible for drafting the individual RFTs. The evaluation and submission process has been open to all parties.

The IMA will publish “recommended practices” based on the RFTs in the fourth quarter of 1993.