Word: videodiscs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...billion write-off for five years of studio mismanagement. Soon afterward, Sony co-founder Akio Morita, who had continued to help guide the company despite suffering a stroke in 1993, resigned as chairman. Then Sony found itself losing ground to rivals in the race to develop the digital videodisc, expected to replace the videocassette recorder and the compact disc...
There is a relaxed, nonhierarchical atmosphere as the seven young managers of the "WebDVD" group, all in the standard winter uniform of khakis and flannel shirts, gather in a windowless conference room near Gates' office. They have been working for almost a year on a digital videodisc intended to provide content along with Web browsing for television sets, and he wants to review their progress before leaving for Japan, where he will meet with such potential partners as Toshiba...
Though the videodisc is not at the core of Microsoft's business, this is a competition Gates plans to win. The group argues that the $10-per-unit royalty is too low. "Why charge more?" he asks. They explain that it will be hard to make a profit at $10, given what they are putting in. Gates turns stern. They are missing the big picture. "Our whole relationship with the consumer-electronic guys hangs in the balance," he declares. "We can get wiped." Only the paranoid survive. "The strategic goal here is getting Windows CE standards into every device...
...Guests can draw a bath, close the drapes, dim the lights or crank up the stereo simply by speaking commands into the Cyber Suite's electronic "Butler in a Box." There's a fully wired wide-screen net TV for easy video conferencing and Web surfing, a new digital videodisc player that shows films in eight different languages and a headset for exploring the make-believe world of virtual reality. "Thirty years ago, we were the first hotel to have color TVs in all the guest rooms," says hotel managing director Jim Petrus. "Now we're redefining state...
...seem to have plenty of cash to spend on new educational technologies. The state of Florida has contracted with ABC News and National Geographic to develop multimedia programs on subjects ranging from the environment to the cold war. This fall more than 500,000 Texas schoolchildren began using a videodisc series, Optical Data Corp.'s Windows on Science, in lieu of a standard textbook, as their first formal introduction to science. William Clark, president of Optical Data, argues that the multimedia approach may be necessary to reach children raised on Sesame Street and MTV. Says he: "We have to teach...