LATEST ADDITIONS

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.dolby.com">Dolby Laboratories</A> won a bidding war for a four-storey office building near its Potrero Hill headquarters in downtown San Francisco. Dolby president Bill Jasper plunked down $18.25 million in cashier's checks for the glass-block building, which had fallen into bankruptcy after it had been used as a diamond-cutting and distribution center linked to both the De Beers cartel and the Russian government.

Last week, <A HREF="http://www.hewlett-packard.com">Hewlett-Packard</A>, <A HREF="http://www.mitsubishi.com">Mitsubishi</A>, <A HREF="http://www.philips.com">Philips</A>, <A HREF="http://www.ricoh.com">Ricoh</A>, <A HREF="http://www.sony.com">Sony</A>, and <A HREF="http://www.yamaha.com">Yamaha</A> demonstrated the read and write capabilities of a prototype DVD-ReWritable (DVD+RW) drive at CeBIT '98. This was the first public demonstration of the write capabilities of the DVD+RW format, which has sparked controversy in recordable DVD circles. Product prototypes based on the DVD+RW specification are expected to reach US markets by this fall.

According to the latest <A HREF="http://www.cema.org">Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association</A> (CEMA) statistics, released March 16, overall video-product sales had their best showing ever for the first eight weeks of a calendar year, with sales up 7%, to 6 million units. Video products also enjoyed their best February performance ever, with overall sales up 7%, to 3.2 million units. Leading an impressive set of video-hardware sales, large-screen and projection TVs were up 8% and 14%, respectively, in the year to date for 1998.

Recently, <A HREF="http://www.hrrc.org">The Home Recording Rights Coalition</A> (HRRC) sounded an alert to consumers and all other users of home VCRs and personal computers. In passing legislation to implement copyright treaties, a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee rejected an amendment that would have preserved consumers' rights to buy and use digital VCRs and PCs capable of making home recordings.