From...

April 22, 1999
Web posted at: 12:17 p.m. EDT (1617 GMT)

by Douglas F. Gray

(IDG) -- Lucent Technologies announced Wednesday that it is working with e.Digital to develop a handheld device to play music downloaded over the Internet.

Texas Instruments will manufacture the device, which will use the Lucent Enhanced Perceptual Audio Coder (EPAC) and e.Digital's MicroOS file management system, according to a release issued Wednesday.

Unlike most other portable media players on the market, the device will play EPAC files instead of MP3 (Motion Picture Experts Group, Audio Layer 3) files, the companies said.

EPAC is Lucent's own compression system, developed by Bell Labs, the research and development division of Lucent. The company is a founding member of the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), the recording industry's effort to develop an open, secure access system for digital music.

Lucent hopes users will feel that the quality of EPACs is superior to that of MP3s, it said. Last week, Microsoft also took a similar gamble when it released the new version of the Windows Media Technologies 4.0.

With Lucent throwing its hat in the ring, the race for a standard is on. Some companies, like Lucent, are focusing on improving the quality of the sound, while others are devoting more energy to increasing the copyright protection. IBM and Sony also announced a new security method and a player earlier this week.