(Fwd) Eight Consumer Electronics Companies to establish HAVi&#

["Mark McCall" <Mark@xxxxxxx>]

Hi All

Just recieved this press release from Philips and thought you might
be interested..

Regards

Mark

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------

Thu, 10 Dec 1998

Eight Consumer Electronics Companies to establish HAVi&#153 Licensing
Program for the Development of Digital AV Home Entertainment Networks
------------------------------------------------------------
Grundig A.G., Hitachi, Ltd., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
(Panasonic), Royal Philips Electronics, Sharp Corporation, Sony
Corporation, Thomson Multimedia, and Toshiba Corporation today
announced plans to establish a HAVi&#153 (Home Audio-Video
interoperability) licensing program under which the 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.

The eight companies plan to implement a joint patent license program
that will enable interested parties to begin developing HAVi compliant
products in the Spring 1999.  The license would cover the use of the
HAVi logo as well as patents defined by the HAVi specification that
are owned or controlled by the eight companies and deemed to be
essential for the production of compliant hardware and/or software
products.

License holders will be able to develop HAVi compliant software as
well as HAVi compliant digital AV appliances that can be networked
across the IEEE1394 digital interface.  The HAVi compliant software
acts as consumer electronics middleware which is capable of
automatically discovering devices on the network, coordinating the
functions of the various devices, and installing applications and user
interface software on each appliance.

Once connected as a network, HAVi compliant electronics appliances are
immediately interoperable, sharing their resources and capabilities to
offer increased functionality and greater ease-of-use.  Specifically,
these appliances will provide the consumer with the convenience of hot
plug-and-play connectivity, appliance interoperability, and
future-proof operation.

Home entertainment networks based on the HAVi specification promise to
play an important role in enabling entertainment providers,
electronics manufacturers, and consumers to take full advantage of a
wide range of new interactive services made possible by the advent of
digital technology.

Digital content received from digital broadcast, network, and package
media can be distributed throughout the home to any appliances on the
network. Interoperable digital AV appliances- used in conjunction with
the appropriate digital content protection technology- will provide an
infrastructure for many new, exciting services, such as high-speed
Internet access, video-on-demand, and home AV server applications.

About Version 1.0 of the HAVi&#153 Specification

HAVi applications will be able to discover and control compliant
appliances regardless of manufacturer.  Moreover, the applications can
control individual devices within different appliances regardless of
their physical grouping.  Examples of electronics appliances include
set-top boxes, digital VCRs, and hi-fi audio equipment.  Devices
inside such appliances include tuners, displays, amplifiers, stream
converters, clocks, modems, and Internet access functions.

The HAVi specification has been designed to address all aspects of
home networking in an IEEE1394 based, digital AV environment.  The
core specification included components for interchanging messages and
events on IEEE1394, registering and discovering device capabilities
across the network, and for managing digital AV streams and devices.
Version 1.0 offers a more efficient, reliable, and secure solution
featuring the following improvements:

- Java&#153 has been adopted as the HAVi bytecode to make it possible
to represent devices and functions through the use of platform
independent, object-oriented APIs.  This will allow software
developers to create rich, interactive Java based applications and
user interfaces.  HAVI compliant applications can be installed in
electronics appliances by the manufacturer or downloaded from the
Internet and other sources.

- Version 1.0 incorporates new features, including security that
protects against rogue applications and viruses, an event scheduling
element that supports functions such as programmed recording, and
standard programming interfaces that are used to control device
functions.

- The new resource manager component performs a wider variety of
operations. It handles device usage conflicts, coordinates programming
of scheduled events (such as timed recording on a digital recorder),
and monitors the network for removal of reserved devices.

Version 1.0 beta of the HAVI&#153 specification can be downloaded, for
evaluation purposes only, from the following Internet URL:
http://www.havi.org/

Java&#153 is trademark or registered trademark of Sun Microsystems,
Inc. in the United States and other countries.


For further information please contact: Philips Consumer Electronics
Media Relations, Jeannet Harpe, Tel:+31-40-27-33634; E-mail:
Jeannet.Harpe@xxxxxxx



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