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| Press Release |
September
29 , 2000 |
| DDI
POCKET Launches Sound Market, a Rich Content Downloads
Service |
DDI POCKET,
Inc. is pleased to announce today that it will launch
Sound Market, a service offering music, entertainment
and educational content to users where users are able
to take advantage of the features of H" services which
are reliability of the high speed data transmission, low
fees and its support for downloading images.
Today, there is a focus on the music delivery service,
where users can download compressed music data from the
Internet. This service can be offered to mobile handsets
by taking advantage of H"'s high speed transmission and
low fees. The next generation mobile communications service
will be a reality, with the expansion of the market and
content are considered as merchandise to be purchased.
Sound Market is a service that provides music, entertainment,
education and other meaningful information for daily lives
in data, compresses the data and enables users to download
them. The data downloaded is stored in the memory card
of the handset, and can be replayed on a player. The variety
of the content to be provided includes music, entertainment,
education, culture, languages, sounds of nature among
many others.
At the initial stage of the service provision, the service
will be based on a technology standard for delivering
music content to mobile devices, called Keitai de Music,
which are being developed by Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.,
Hitachi, Ltd., Fujitsu, Ltd., and Nihon Columbia Inc.
The devices needed for Sound Market are the combination
of RZ-J90, a device made by Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. that
support feel H", and the KdM remote control player RZ-RM1
that is connected to the RZ-J90, or the RZ-J91, a device
with a player built-in, that will be released from Sanyo
Electric.
DDI POCKET will be aggressively promoting rich content
downloads services taking advantage of the large service
coverage of the 64kbps data communications services, which
is the fastest among mobile services, and the low service
fees. |
| Sound Market, a Rich
Content Downloads Service |
When downloading content
with heavy data such as music, users must be able to download
them in a short time at low fees. In this aspect, Sound
Market is a next-generation service fully taking advantage
of the features of H".
Sound Market will provide a wide variety of content from
entertainment to education, in addition to downloading
of music content. |
| Field
of content to be provided |
* |
Music with
a MD quality |
| * |
Entertainment
such as Rakugo and Manzai, the Japanese comedy shows |
| * |
Educational
content, such as English conversation |
| * |
Languages
and dialects |
| * |
Cultural content
such as lectures and interviews |
| * |
Sound of the
waves, humming bugs and other sounds of nature |
| 1. Overview of Sound
Market |
In providing sound Market,
DDI POCKET collects music and other content access fees
from users (DDI POCKET service subscribers) together with
communications fees, and pay content access fees to content
providers.
DDI POCKET subscribers are not required to apply for another
service in accessing the Sound Market content, but they
need the devices that support content downloading services. |
| 2. Service Overview
of Sound Market |
| Sound Market provides the
following services. |
| (1) |
Download and
replay
Users access the Sound Market Center, and from the menu
panel, select music of their choice, download and store
the content into a memory card, and are able to replay
it afterwards.
The content is downloaded simultaneously with the provision
of the license keys to read the encrypted content data
or the license keys are being provided separately. |
| (2) |
Listening
to songs before purchasing
Users are able to listen to the content of their interest
before purchasing it. They are able to take the advantage
of H"'s high sound quality. They will be accessing the
servers for trial listening of the music and the music
will be provided via voice communications circuit. (Approximately
45 seconds for one song title.) |
| (3) |
Gifts
You can give the Sound Market content to the other Sound
Market users as gifts. For example, you can give to your
friend his or her favorite song as their birthday present.
You give to your friend a license key of the selected
song title. You also pay for the content fee. |
| (4) |
Guide of CD
stores by using the location information function
Users who wish to purchase the CD of the songs they have
listened to, or had purchased from Sound Market, will
be able to visit the CD shop closest to their present
location, guided by the information location functionality
provided by DDI POCKET. |
| (5) |
Purchase of
CDs by catalog shopping
Users are able to purchase the CD of the songs they have
listened to, or had purchased from Sound Market, from
the online catalog shopping sites on their handsets. |
| 3. Adoption of Keitai
de Music System |
| Sound Market will begin
based on a technical standard called Keitai de Music,
which is a music content delivery system for mobile devices
developed by four companies, Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.,
Hitachi, Ltd., Fujitsu Ltd., and Nihon Columbia Inc. The
principal features of Keitai de Music system standard
are as follows. |
| (1) |
Data compression
standard
The original content (CD data) is too heavy for downloading.
In order to adjust the data volume so that sound quality
will not be significantly affected, MPEG-1/AudioLayer3
are being used for data compression. |
| (2) |
Specifications
for copyrights protection
Copyrights are protected and illegal copies are prevented,
by using UDAC-MB, a technology used widely for protecting
content, assuring content security. UDAC-MB is a technology
that strongly protects content from illegal use, by securely
exchanging replay license key data among the content distribution
server system, secure multimedia cards, and music replay
chips. |
| (3) |
Secure multimedia
card
The card comes with the encryption/decoding functionalities,
and is able to store the license keys, etc., that are
used for encryption and decoding, in the protected space
in the card. Furthermore, content protection command sets
had been added to the card, achieving a level of security
required by music delivery systems. |
| 4. Usage fees of Sound
Market |
| The fees for using Sound
Market are as follows. The content fees are charged to
users together with communications fees. (Users are charged
content fee when the downloads have been completed.) |
| (1) |
Communications
fees (for browsing the menus, listening, and downloading
content)
13 yen/60 seconds (a flat fee nationwide during all hours) |
| (2) |
Registering
for sending Sound Market content as a gift
10 yen/once |
| The service is scheduled
to begin on November 30, 2000. |
| 6. Structure of Sound
Market and Roles of Components |
H"LINK is a direct Internet
access service where users are able to access the Internet
with the H" and feelH" handsets alone. In addition to
e-mails and other text based IP connection services, the
wide ranging portfolio of services including the location
information service, ASP services (for businesses), mixed
multimedia content such as sounds/music (feel Sound),
images in color (for feelH" users), and the rich content
downloads service such as Sound Market, is spreading the
possibilities of the mobile content services where users
just need a mobile handset.
Going forward, DDI POCKET will work on other types of
rich content such as images and games. |
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