Barry Willis

If you were thinking about buying a copy of <A HREF="http://www.321studios.com">321Studios</A>' DVD-backup software, you'd better hurry. On Friday, February 20, a San Francisco federal judge ruled that the company's popular "DVD X Copy" software is illegal, and ordered a halt to its distribution within seven days.

Pioneer buying NEC Plasma: NEC announced Friday Feb 6 that it would sell its plasma display panel (PDP) manufacturing business to Pioneer. NEC plans to concentrate its efforts on "network solutions and semiconductors," according to the announcement. The deal, estimated by Japanese analysts at about $379 million, could make Pioneer the dominant player in the hot plasma display market. The company projects that its PDP market share will rise from 14% to 22% as a result.

In late January, the US Department of Justice began a preliminary inquiry into the Blu-ray group, a breakaway from the <A HREF="http://www.dvdforum.org">DVD Forum</A>. Composed of Sony Corporation, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Philips Electronics NV, seven other manufacturers&mdash;and recently joined by Dell and Hewlett Packard&mdash;the Blu-ray group is suspected of interfering with the Forum's progress in establishing a standard for high-definition/high density DVD technology.

Most of the early marketing studies done on the potential of interactive TV demonstrated that most consumers wanted nothing more than to order movies and possibly pizza. Most of the interactive features currently available to cable subscribers are low-key offerings like local movie schedules.