Giant Japanese consumer electronics manufacturer Matsushita Electronics Industrial Co Ltd has licensed Apple Corp’s Firewire digital interface technology. The company will use Firewire – which was recently adopted by the IEEE as a standard, IEEE 1394 in consumer products such as televisions as well as semiconductor designs. Back in May, Matsushita was among eight companies who adopted Firewire as a core specification for home networking interconnection (CI No 3,412). In November, Firewire was adopted by the US National Cable Television Association and Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association as the baseline spec for digital television receivers and set-top boxes (CI No 3,531) – with Firewire-enabled DTV equipment expected by November 1999. An Apple spokesperson refused to comment on how much Matsushita had paid Apple for the licensing deal.
