Kurt Praschak, 15-year veteran at Matsushita/Panasonic P.R. in U.S., leaves today on early retirement plan offer… Colin Newnham, Ultralife Batteries managing dir.-U.K., advanced to European Operations vp-managing dir.; Patrick Hanna, dir.- corporate business planning, promoted to vp-corporate business strategy.
Barnes & Noble plans to open stores in Wausau, Wis., and Beaumont, Tex., in Oct. Chain said it had signed lease agreements for each new location. Wausau store will be 23,000 sq. ft. and Beaumont store 25,000 sq. ft. Each will feature books, CDs, DVDs, VHS titles.
Alcatel and Thomson transmitted MPEG-2 compressed video via DSL phoneline transmission in Paris demonstration Tues. Companies said transmission of high-density content through line with 1 MB bandwidth was made possible by their joint venture NextStream encoding. System delivers audio, video and data to decoder in Thomson set-top box. Plans or timetable for commercialization weren’t disclosed.
Square Electronic Arts (SEA) began shipping Final Fantasy X, exclusive title for PS2, at $50. T (Teen)-rated game is being backed by multimillion-dollar marketing campaign including national print, online ads, TV. SEA, exclusive publisher of all Squaresoft games in N. America, said title was released July 19 in Japan and sold through 90% of 2.14 million units shipped in first 4 days.
DVD marketer Apex Digital will license Vialta’s technology and products for sale in N. America. First product offering will be Vialta’s ViDVD multimedia DVD player. Among other things, ViDVD player enables users to access Internet without PC. It also plays Vialta’s ViMagazine discs, which contain up to 14 hours of programming using proprietary and undisclosed compression method. ViDVD introduction is scheduled for spring and final agreement on product branding will be announced at CES.
Alarmed by finding of study that Californians were storing more than 6 million potentially hazardous end-of-life TVs and computer monitors, Cal. Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB) said it was working to develop “environmentally preferable” product guidelines for disposing of electronic equipment. Guidelines would reward companies that reduced life-cycle impacts and product toxicity, incorporated design for disassembly and implemented reuse and recycling models, among other things, it said.
Amazon.com opened its new Egghead.com Web site powered by Amazon’s e-commerce platform. In announcing relaunch of Egghead.com site, Amazon said it was making “a significant number” of GameCube systems available to Egghead.com visitors via its online partnership with Toysrus.com. Amazon revealed earlier this month it had purchased Egghead.com’s assets in bankruptcy court for $6.1 million. In buying Egghead.com URL, Amazon started redirecting customers from former Egghead.com site. Amazon spokeswoman said her company bought Egghead.com assets because of company’s well-known brand name and potentially to add new customers.
Enroute spokeswoman told us company was “still looking at” GameCube, Xbox and PC as possible future platforms for its immersive video technology. But she said “nothing official has been announced” yet. Palo Alto company said Mon. it had entered into agreement to license its FirstPerson technology to Calabasas Hills, Cal., game maker THQ (CED Dec 18 p7). THQ is using Enroute’s technology in upcoming Britney Spears PS2 game for 2002. Enroute spokeswoman said title of game, price and ship date were unavailable.
Sanyo will show SDMI-compliant portable digital recorder and player using Verance copy protection and watermarking technology at CES. New SSP-PD77R records audio directly to Secure MultiMedia Card (SMMC) without needing connection to PC. Device, which uses Verance watermarking optimized for Texas Instruments’ DSP, was introduced in Japan this month.
Albert Pastino named Take-Two Interactive CFO, replacing James David, who remains with company in unspecified capacity… Appointed at Sega of America: Tom Nichols, ex-EA.com, as mktg. dir., Sega Sports Group; Kirsten Merit, ex-Sony Computer Entertainment America, as PR mgr., Entertainment Div… GameCube designers Satoru Iwata, Nintendo corporate planning dir.-gen. mgr., and Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo dir.-entertainment analysis and development gen. mgr., to keynote first D.I.C.E. (Design, Innovate, Create and Entertain) Summit Feb. 28-March 1, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas… Michael Markey, ex-Gigex, named senior distribution vp for N. America, BAM Entertainment.