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Did This Man Invent the iPod?

September 12, 2008 10:16 AM

By MIKE LEE, ABC News London

British engineer Kane Kramer, 52, has a new invention that will soon be unleashed upon the world. More about that in a moment. One thing is likely. Whether the new gadget is a success or a flop, a lot of people will at least sit up and take note that the inventor is back in the game. 

In 1979, Kramer invented what was to become the iPod.   

But here’s the shocker. Kane Kramer didn’t get a dime for thinking up the concept. And, what may seem even more shocking, he is not entitled to a dime. Kane Kramer also acknowledges that Apple was not at fault for picking up his idea and turning it into a fortune without him. Don’t hit the forward scroll key: this story will play out like an iPod ballad.   

In the beginning (the 1970s), Kramer had been trying to think of a better way to deliver music to people than records or audio tape. He decided, long before the Internet was even sending public data, to try to send music to people down a phone line. Kramer told ABC News: “The only way I could get it (music) down the phone line is to convert the music into digital bits, chop it up, send it down the line, then reassemble it at the other end (in a digital audio box), and that’s what I started with.” 

“Then,” said Kramer, “I started theorizing about it and I [made] the drawings that have become famous because of the likeness to the iPod and a number of other MP3 players. Then I theorized about it and started to do some research, then subsequently in about 1981 I applied for the patents." He added:  “Everyone knew it was the leading edge state of the art.”   

No one seems to dispute Kramer’s claim on the concept that evolved into the iPod, not even Apple Computer. In fact, according to Kramer, Apple flew him to the U.S. last year to testify on its behalf in a lawsuit, to defend Apple against the patent holding company Burst.com, which had claimed that Apple used a patent held by Burst. Kramer supported Apple’s claim it had used his technology, thus admitting who was really the iPod "inventor." 

Disclosure:  Apple CEO and Chairman Steve Jobs is a major stockholder in The Walt Disney Company, the parent company of ABC News.

Kane Kramer has emailed me what seems to be an enhanced graphic representation of his original hand drawing. The new photo is described as a “3D visualisation of Kane Kramer's original IXI player. All colors and details are true to Kramer's original concepts and drawings from 1979. The only addition is the image of the album cover…” The actual Kramer machine never got to the high tech stage seen in this new photo.

So, what went wrong? 

Kane Kramer and his small company, in the 1980s, could not raise the $120,000 needed to update and keep his patent. He and other company board members were squabbling. Kramer accused some of them of being too greedy. No money for patent renewal, no patent. So his drawings and specs became public property, and anyone, including Apple, was free to use them as they wished. It may not sound fair, but it is the law, and inventors know it. 

The iPod, of course, has its own set of features, and is vastly more sophiscated than what Kramer called his "plastic music box," in the late '70s. It’s not as though Apple didn’t develop its own version of that early digital audio player. And Kramer’s prototype box might seem crude in comparison to the Apple iPod. But there is a familiar look to Kramer’s 1979 sketches. He told ABC that the digital audio machine in his drawings was about the size of a credit card. The iPod itself wasn’t launched until 2001. 

The rest of the story is a multi-million dollar blur of regret, mixed with pride, for Kane Kramer. He told ABC News: “When Apple came out and put delivery system, and my device, and the four way scrolling control, and the same look  in a digital audio player that downloads its music…it was all a bit much and I had an odd combination between really being rather pleased and happy.” He added, “I spent nine years of my life working on it, that’s a long time to believe in something and be committed to something and to really only to lose through others' greed.”

The greed he speaks of, he says, is that of his company directors who wanted to split the firm and deal others out of potential profits. He said he doesn’t speak to most of them anymore. Kramer told ABC: “There was a certain sadness and disappointment because it [the Pod] was just everything that I had conceived and basically it was everything that I had built, except for downscaling it.”    

I asked Kramer if he ever imagined how much money he would be worth now, had he not had to give up the patent? There was a long pause, then he said:  “Very very very.” He couldn’t seem to bring himself to utter the word money, but did add: “It [the patent] would have given me the time to put into place the addition two million pounds [about $4 million] to fulfil the orders which we’d taken.” Again I asked how much he might have been worth today. Another long pause, then: “I would probably have given much of it to worthy causes. More than I need.”

That may be one of the understatements of all time.

Kramer said that Apple gave him one of the early models of iPod, but that it broke down and he could not afford to replace it. He says he did receive a consultancy fee for testifying on Apple’s behalf in court, and is negotiating with Apple for what he hopes will be additional compensation for his contribution to one of the most successful gadgets ever.

So, is Kane Kramer one the world’s most successful failures? Or is he one of the biggest failures who invented one of the most successful machines of modern times? He told ABC: “Mostly I feel sorry, particually, for the people around me, who I should be able to do better for [considering] the effort I put in.”

I have not yet met Kane Kramer, but it is hard not to like him on the telephone. He has the inventor’s continous gush of enthusism, and he is obviously a bright spark. And, judging by the way he talks, Kramer seems to have kept his dignity, despite having lost a vast fortune because he couldn’t find a few peanuts to protect his patent.   

Now, Kramer is about to market his latest idea, an automated telephone conversation recorder called "Monicall," which will allow people to have a legally binding copy of phone calls stored with a legal firm. Kramer told ABC: “You’ll be able to exchange contracts over the phone.” 

And there are other uses for Monicall, according to Kramer. He told ABC: "Another use for it is relationship management. You could have a situation where the husband and wife are splitting up and the husband has to pick the children up on the weekend.” He continued: “And the husband is being abusive on the telephone, not picking the children up on time, or threatening her on the phone. An arrangement can be set up through a marriage counsellor, or legal representative where in all of their calls go through Monicall to a third party where legal copy is kept on record.”   

He assured ABC News that his new invention is well protected.

Even if his new venture takes off, his old invention has a multi-billion dollar head start. Without him.

September 12, 2008 in Mike Lee | Permalink | User Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Buy Less Meat, Save the Planet

September 08, 2008 11:24 AM

By MIKE LEE, ABC News London

Should you purchase less meat in order to save the planet?   

It is a subject that gets a lot of people talking. Some feel it is our duty to cut back on burgers, while others say the scientific warnings are unproven, and still others say that governments and the  U.N.  should stay out of their lives, especially out of their stomachs.

Here’s a new development to watch this coming week that could stir up the long-simmering debate over whether the world should raise less cattle in order to cut back on greenhouse gases. 

Updated (Sept 09 2008): The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, in his regular newspaper column  disputes the  U.N.'s  chief climate change scientist  who says we should reduce our  consumption of beef in order to reduce methane gas emissions (from cow manure),  which produce climate warming.   

He said, in part:  “Every weekend, rain or shine, I suggest that we flaunt our defiance of  U.N. dietary recommendations with a series of vast Homeric barbecues.”   The mayor added,  “We are going to have carnivorous festivals of chops and sausages and burgers and chitterlings and chine and offal, and the fat will run down our chins, and the dripping will blaze on the charcoal, and the smoky vapors will rise to the heavens.”

Johnson, a colorful, eccentric and highly educated classics scholar, writes a regular satirical column in London’s Telegraph   in addition to his day job of running one of the world’s largest cities.   In this particular column, Johnson, while poking fun at the  U.N.’s  chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,  Rajendra Pachuri, a vegetarian,  also offers a serious point of view about holding down human population growth as the most effective way of combating climate change.   He writes: “Why, oh why will the modern  U.N.  say nothing about the real issue, the prior issue, the unspeakable truth that is at the heart of deforestation, global warming, the depletion of the seas, the destruction of species and just about every environmental problem that afflicts us?  The biggest threat to the planet is not the lowing of the cows as they take over the Latin American savannah.”   The mayor adds:  “It is the dizzying increase in the numbers of people driving those cows and then eating them. The world's population is up to 6.72 billion, and set to rise to 9 billion by 2050.”

Previous blog:

BBC Online reports that Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will make a speech this week in Britain in which he will call on all of us to consider eating less meat to combat global warming. 

The BBC story added: “U.N. figures suggest that meat production puts more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than transport. But a spokeswoman for the  U.K.'s National Farmers' Union said methane emissions from farms were declining.”   

The BBC quoted Pachauri as saying: “The  U.N.  Food and Agriculture Organization has estimated that direct emissions from meat production account for about 18 percent of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions."

I looked that figure up at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization site, and found this quote: “29 November 2006, Rome -- Which causes more greenhouse gas emissions, rearing cattle or driving cars? Surprise! According to a new report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent -- 18 percent -- than transport. It is also a major source of land and water degradation.”

The FAO online news release went on to say that “The global livestock sector is growing faster than any other agricultural subsector. It provides livelihoods to about 1.3 billion people and contributes about 40 percent to global agricultural output. For many poor farmers in developing countries, livestock is also a source of renewable energy for draft and an essential source of organic fertilizer for their crops.”

I went online to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which said in part: “It has been estimated that one-third of the methane produced each year comes from industrial sources,  one-third from natural sources, and  one-third  from agriculture (primarily animals and manure storage units). Although animals produce more carbon dioxide than methane, methane has as much as 15 times more impact.”   

The EPA online analysis went on to say, “However, one should not overlook the many positive environmental benefits of agriculture.”

Obviously, this issue is often framed in terms of poor nations being asked to cut back on a badly needed source of income and food. That debate is expected to continue.

By the way, I found this quote online from the U.S. Cattlemen’s Beef Board which interrupts the EPA data this way: "Animal agriculture contributes minimally to the production of total greenhouse gases."

According to EPA, raising livestock contributes to methane and nitrous oxide emissions in two ways: enteric fermentation (a digestive process) and manure management.   

The Beef Board says, “Although enteric fermentation and manure management together comprise 28.4 percent of methane emissions, methane emissions account for less than 7.5 percent of total GHG.”

All this puts a lot of cattle producers in conflict with a lot of climate change scientists. Stay tuned.

September 8, 2008 in Mike Lee | Permalink | User Comments (24) | TrackBack (0)

Reflections on Reporting Hurricanes

September 02, 2008 11:25 AM

By Mike Lee, ABC News

Watching the Gustav coverage from overseas, I feel first and foremost for those people who've been  uprooted from their homes and have to worry about whether wind or water will destroy their houses.   The hurricane has been widely covered on TV and in the papers here in Britain. I also feel for journalists who cover the story. 

For reporters, covering hurricanes, especially for TV, is a risky business. By risky, and I confess to being frivolous here, I mean the risk that your live standup in the middle of the storm might not have the intense wind velocity as another network's or station's. I am reminded of this by a rather harsh yet funny piece by Paul Farhi in the Washington Post, about how reporters and anchors try to outdo  one  another by exposing themselves to the storm. I fear there may be a new psychological disorder called "wind envy" developing among reporters whose live performances don’t take our breath away. I mean, pity the poor reporters who can never beat the media coverage that Dan Rather received after he clung to his pole. 

I covered hurricanes as a young reporter in Texas back in the  '60s.  I have a photo around the house somewhere.  And I’m itching to cover another one.  More on that in a second.  Back in those old days, we reporters were lucky.  Live TV remotes were few and far between. We were shooting film.  No live shots, thus no pressure to perform every 30 minutes in the path of flying trees and metal roofs that could cut you in half.

All I had to do was step out of a hotel room for about a minute while my camera operator shot my on-camera  "bridge."  Then we would wait out the storm with food and drink. Often a generous amount of drink.  When it was safe, say only 80 miles per hour winds,  we would drive around, film the damage and talk to folks.  The real pressure was getting our film to the lab in time for that day's newscast.   

So why am I itching to cover a hurricane in today’s pressurized round the clock media environment?   Because I want to put the picnic back into disaster coverage. I want to set up in a bunker, or at least a stormproof building  with windows or portholes for the my live cameras.

I have no intention of setting foot outdoors while it is unsafe. Instead, I will set up surrogate reporters outside my bunker, lots of them.  They will be mannequins, donated by local department stores and anchored to the ground with sandbags.  Out of respect for family viewing, I will dress them, perhaps , as leading contenders for U.S. president and vice president.  Maybe there will be a Paris Hilton entry. We will run a live online contest as to which  "reporter" will be blown away first. Send me your mannequin ideas, so we can prepare for the next storm.

And what about the classic shot of the car that was blown or washed down the road.   That is usually only an aftermath picture.  But I will ask a used car dealer to park a few bangers in front of my bunker so that you can see LIVE if any of them blow away. The dealer can paint his name on the car is about to lose.  Who says that product placement can not happen in hurricanes! 

Want power lines being torn down?   We’ll install a toy power line and watch it being whiplashed.  The same for little tree and bushes, donated by the local nursery. Throw in a few garden R from the local home improvement superstore, and we will have our own little community that will be destroyed in front of our eyes, LIVE.

No reporters will be harmed in the making of this hurricane special. I will be doing my standups from an armchair inside the bunker.   

Joking aside, in the meantime,  in real life, hard work and physical risks will continue among  reporters, and under enormous pressures. I hope they stay safe. And what hurricanes do to residents is no joking matter.

September 2, 2008 in Mike Lee | Permalink | User Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

War of Words: Georgia vs Russia

August 11, 2008 11:44 AM

By Mike Lee, ABC News, London

The Georgian War – are the Russians re-branding themselves as high-roaders against ‘genocide’?

The Kremlin spin machine is using one of the most potent terms in geo-politics to justify it’s invasion of Georgia.  President Dmitry Medvedev, quoted by the Associated Press, said: "The ferocity in which the actions of the Georgian side were carried out cannot be called anything else but genocide, because they acquired a mass character and were directed against individuals, the civilian population, peacekeepers who carried out their functions of maintaining peace.”

Sounds pretty righteous, doesn’t it.  Who can argue against wanting to prevent genocide!  The West often accuses dictatorial regimes of genocide, and those alleged mass killers are sometimes backed by Russia.  Just think of Mugabe of Zimbabwe or the late Milosevic who tried to run over Kosovo. This time, it’s Russia that is accusing a U.S. backed regime, the Georgian government of President Mikhail Saakashvili, of genocide against the independence minded, and pro-Russian, people of the province of South Ossetia. 

So, what’s really going on there?  I won’t try to duplicate the fine reporting from the Georgian capitol Tbilisi by ABC’s Clarrisa Ward, as well as the regular dispatches from the wire services.   Here, in a nutshell, is how the AP describes the conflict:  "Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has long pledged to take back control of South Ossetia, which battled Georgia for de facto independence in fighting that ended in 1992. On Friday, Moscow sent tanks into the region when Georgia launched a major military offensive to retake the breakaway province."

Some analysts say that this is actually "the pipeline war" because Georgia has become a key transit route for oil from Baku in Azerbaijan, to the Turkish port of Ceyhan in the Mediterranean. If the Russians take over Georgia, they could disrupt oil supplies to the West.   

So, have the Russians used the friction in South Ossetia (which it labels as genocide) as a pretext for starting a war in order to get control of Georgia and a strategic western oil supply?  The evidence seems under cooked for that.  Not even the United States is suggesting it, at this point. Such a scenario would put the U.S. and Russia on a potential direct collision course neither appears to want, based on statements so far.


Jonathan Steele, the Guardian’s experienced writer on Russian affairs, says that the pipeline issue is a minor part of a much larger strategic equation:  "an attempt," he writes, "sponsored largely by the United States but eagerly subscribed to by several of its new ex-Soviet allies, to reduce every aspect of Russian influence throughout the region, whether it be economic, political, diplomatic or military."   Mr. Steele goes on to say that "Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili is the region's most enthusiastic proponent of this strategy."

But how far and how fast can Georgia, perhaps with U.S. encouragement, try to weaken Russia’s influence without provoking a reaction that could force Russia to squash Georgia in order to avoid an invitation for wider challenges?   

Has the Georgian regime overplayed its hand?  If so, there is little the U.S. seems able or willing to do other than condemn Russia. U.S. – Russian relations are unlikely to collapse over Georgia.  There is too much else at stake in trade and other bi-lateral efforts around the world. Besides, the U.S. can’t even find enough troops to fight in Afghanistan, much less start a new front.

As for "genocide," the Georgian conflict is proving that no one holds a patent on the word, whatever the truth of Russian claims.

August 11, 2008 in Mike Lee | Permalink | User Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

A Tribute to John Cooley of ABC News Radio

August 08, 2008 7:22 AM

Mike Lee, ABC News, London

Former ABC News Radio Correspondent John Cooley

John Cooley was my hero. You may not know it, but he was your hero too. John was a journalist's journalist. But that says too little. He was a deeply intelligent, perceptive, committed and generous colleague who was unfailingly generous with his time, and with his considerable knowledge of world events.

As a radio correspondent, and an editorial sidekick to Peter Jennings, John was highly influential in helping to shape the foundations of ABC News when it was growing into itself as a world-class news organization in the early 1980s. You probably never knew John, unless you were a world leader, or intelligence operative, a secret source in an outlawed group,or an expert in the major issues of the day. I used to look at John and imagine that his skull was a massive Rolodex. That was before the first personal computers were widespread. I'm still not sure that John ever really needed something as slow as a microchip.

How can I describe him in the flesh? Do you remember those early James Bond films? John Cooley was Q, the inventor who furnished 007 with an endless supply of wondrous gadgets. If you squint your eyes, there is an element of that in JC's relationship with PJ. But Peter was never dismissive of a Cooley cocktail of cold fact and insight. Both men were smart and committed, and complemented one another in a way that provided ABC with a behind-the-scenes rocket booster.

So, John Cooley was no Brad Pitt or George Clooney. But we mustn't be too hard on Brad and George. Very few men, or women, I've known in the media have had John's ability to grasp complex issues, and with such passion. The fact that he did not have the face of a matinee idol was, well, television's loss. But, as they say, he had a great face for radio, and I believe that ABC News radio was lucky to have him.

Others will no doubt speak of John's other considerable body of work as a writer of books on hot-button issues such as terrorism. When did he find the time? At ABC he used to write impossibly long story briefings and proposals that most of us joked about, in part, I think, to cover up for our own lack of detailed knowledge and research. He was scary.

But he was a consummate gentleman, and a life-enhancer. He often seemed lost in thought, but he would always hit the pause button when you interrupted with a question. His answers were generous in detail, and sometimes in length. John was an intellectual rock you could rub against to sharpen yourself. It wasn't just his great friend Peter Jennings who benefited in the early formative days of ABC News, it was all of us who knew him.

I will miss John Cooley. And, know it or not, so might you.

August 8, 2008 in Mike Lee | Permalink | User Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)