Holding a library in your hands

Article Abstract:

Sony Corp is preparing the Sony Data Discman, a hand-held CD-Rom player which plays changeable disks that contain reference works. The player will retail for about $450 and disks will sell for $30-$50 each. Sony expects to ship the product for Christmas sales. The Christmas deadline presents a challenge for Sony Electronic Publishing Company,which was formed in Apr 1991 to provide electronic books for the system. The new company is suffering from contract disputes with the developers of the reference materials for the disks. Although some developers say delayed publishing of the material will postpone introduction of the Discman, Sony Electronic Publishing representatives say the project is on target with 20 titles now under contract. The Data Discman is considered to have a greater change of being profitable than single-title products such as Franklin Electronic Publishing Company's line of players. Franklin's products, which range from $39 for a spell checker to $400 for an encyclopedia, use cartridges. Franklin is planning to develop cartridge products. Both companies are planning to develop products for business use.

Publishing industry, Innovations, Product development, Product information, Electronic publishing, Disk drives, Reference works, Reference books, Optical Publishing, Franklin Electronic Publishers Inc., FPUB, Reference Book, Sony Electronic Publishing Co., Sony Data Discman (Portable computer)

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CD's store the data, but sifting's a chore

Article Abstract:

The government is storing more and more of its records on CD-ROMs, but lack of industry standards for the technology makes retrieval difficult. Several government agencies are attempting to devise standards. A group of intelligence agencies has united to try to use their combined purchasing power to force manufacturers to use interoperability standards that they are creating. The Airline Transport Association has been developing standards for five years, building on existing industry standards. The government standard may succeed over the airline industry standard because of the volume of business the government does in storage media. If it does, it may be a boost to the CD-ROM industry because users will be able to learn one system and access any CD-ROM, and any CD-ROM will work on any system. The government standard is called CD-RDx.

National security, Standards, Standard, Standardization, Information services, United States. Navy, Interoperability, Government Agency, Conversion of Paper Files, Airline Transport Association

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Disk library introduced by Sony

Article Abstract:

Sony Corp introduces the Laser Library ($699), a CD-ROM (compact disk/read only memory) player. Sony's product will come with six disks including a National Geographic encyclopedia of mammals and an animated Mother Goose fairy tales. Sony will release 20 more titles of its own in 1992. Sony's Laser Library will be on sale in Aug 1991. CD-ROM has been slow to gain favor with consumers, but Sony believes that prices have fallen sufficiently for the time to be right.

Consumer electronics, Sony Laser Library (CD-ROM drive)

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