Kit said to ease development of flash-memory writers that plug into PC’s USB port was announced by STMicroelectronics. Card writers developed with kit can have single or multiple card slots and need no ASIC or external program or data memory, company said. Kit’s reference design interfaces with virtually all popular card formats, it said.

PlanetWeb still is supporting online connectivity for Sega’s now-discontinued Dreamcast console, CEO Ken Soohoo told us. “We finally got the Java browser released and with the right profile,” he said, and Dreamcast owners “can now look at over 75% of Web applets using our Java.” Although number of Dreamcast owners going online has dropped significantly from one million reached last spring, there still is small but loyal audience, he said: “PlanetWeb has actually taken over the browser as a product. In the past, all the audience got the browser updates for free every 6 months.” To build incremental revenue, he said company now planned to charge $20 fee for each new browser update.

William Neukom to retire at year-end as Microsoft exec. vp- gen. counsel after 22 years with company; successor is Brad Smith, who advances to senior vp-gen. counsel.

As other dot-coms have folded around it, Netflix continues to increase its subscriber base and number of strategic relationships, while competing online DVD rental companies have failed to provide significant challenge, according to Netflix.

Despite claims that DVD players capable of online connection were poised to enter market in big way in 2001, it now looks like this year will see only limited introduction of Internet-enabled DVD machines, with more planned for 2002. But future of players viewed by some as key to “wired living room” still remains somewhat cloudy, with DVD Forum now not expected to approve internet DVD standard until mid-2002 at earliest.

Activision said its 3-for-2 stock split became effective Nov. 21. Split was announced Oct. 25.

When 10 of world’s biggest movie studios, broadcasting and cable networks banded together late last month to sue SonicBlue (CED Nov 2 p1), their goal wasn’t simply to stop potential copyright infringement. They also are seeking to stop SonicBlue and its new personal video recorder (PVR), ReplayTV 4000, from reshaping entertainment industry as it’s known today. In legal filings and interviews, plaintiffs said they feared that ReplayTV 4000 could undermine advertising that’s foundation of their businesses. PVR has 2 features that have brought wrath down upon corporate parent SonicBlue: (1) It can skip commercials. (2) It allows users to transmit broadcasts and movies to up to 15 other people through broadband connection.

Finance, human resource management and IT will be areas most prone to Philips cost cuts “as these constitute the majority of our overhead cost,” Philips Pres.-CEO Gerard Kleisterlee told senior management in Nov. 19 internal letter on implementing previously announced plan to cut overhead 25%. Letter was released by Philips Fri. “in the interest of clarity” in wake of speculative media reports on impending cuts. Kleisterlee said group management committee met Nov. 16 and was encouraged that company could identify “low-hanging fruit” amounting to 100-150 million euros that could be saved “in a relatively short term.” He said committee agreed to streamlining of “all support functions in every area of the company” to improve organizational efficiencies. He said problem was that “support structures are replicated” at many organizational levels of company. He said outlook was toward savings “that go well beyond” target of 300 million euros, “particularly if we take a wider view on overhead and scrutinize the indirect overhead at all layers of the organization.” Meanwhile, LG Philips Displays joint venture said Fri. it would cut 124 of total of 450 employees in Philips home town of Eindhoven to reduce costs in wake of worldwide downturn in demand for TV picture tubes. Reports quoted Philips as saying layoffs were not included in 11,000 job cuts already announced by company.

Technical reasons for playback problems that forced BMG record label to replace copy-protected CD are becoming more clear. Meanwhile, worldwide recording industry body has issued statement condoning use of copy protection, but insisting that CDs be clearly labeled as such.