June 21, 2006 – HANDHELD IFE supplier digEcor has contracted US family entertainment company Taffy Entertainment to provide children’s content for the digEplayer and new digEplayer devices.

The material will be available next month for viewing on digEplayers operated by Alaska Airlines and Railway Media, which supplies the devices for hire on US Amtrak trains. digEcor says that another 16 airlines could subsequently offer the material through digEplayers on their aircraft.

Meantime, former digEplayer industrial designer and supplier e.Digital is brandishing writs in an effort to fend off a digEcor suit alleging breach of a non-compete agreement.

DigEcor dropped e.Digital as its manufacturing partner following production difficulties that culiminated in non-delivery of a batch of 1,250 digEplayers due at the beginning of this year. e.Digital blames Korean subcontractor Maycom, which was to have carried out the actual work, and is pursuing the company in the Korean courts to ensure that Maycom honours a new commitment to deliver by August.

In the meantime, e.Digital has launched its own eVU handheld product into the IFE market despite claims from digEcor that this violates a non-compete agreement between the two companies. e.Digital has responded with an indignant flurry of legal activity. It wants consideration of the digEcor complaint shifted from state to federal court, has moved to have the complaint dismissed on the grounds that any non-compete provision has expired, and is contemplating counterclaims of its own.