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At CES2006, we were pleasantly surprised to encounter Jim Shannon in Quartet Marketing Group's exhibit room at the Alexis Villas. "What are you doing these days?" we asked. He gestured around the room. "I'm a partner in Quartet," he said. "I've been here since July."

A University of Michigan research team under Kensall D. Wise has developed a ribbon-like cochlear implant that substantially increases the amount of auditory stimuli over the current models. Approximately 100,000 patients have had cochlear implants to ameliorate profound deafness; however, Wise described these implants as limited in frequency sensitivity, as well as bulky and difficult for surgeons to insert.

It's the ultimate talent show each year, and I don't think you'll find a bigger collection of musical firepower under one roof (Live 8 was outdoors after all): Paul McCartney, U2, Madonna, Gorillaz, Mariah Carey, Coldplay, Linkin Park, Sly Stone, Herbie Hancock, and on and on.

The fourth round of RCA Red Seal Living Stereo hybrid SACD/CDs hit the literal and virtual shelves on February 7. [Kalman Rubinson wrote about the first batch here.—Ed.http://www.stereophile.com/musicintheround/1104mitr/">here.—E…;] Remastered from the original two- and three-channel master tapes using the DSD process, these 10 new SACDs present the material exactly as it was recorded, without equalization, filtering, or other tampering.

The first thing you notice is the rather large black foam rubber foot sitting (standing?) in the room. And then the swanky furniture and trendy layout.

The British Library vs DRM: The BBChttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4675280.stm">BBC; reported February 3 that Dr Clive Field, the British Library's director of scholarships and collections, called the increasing restrictions of fair use by digital rights management (DRM) cause for concern.

Editor's Note: A reader recently complained that we publish too many obituaries and remembrances on this website. "I don't need to be reminded of my own mortality and depressed at the same time by reading all these death notices," he wrote. "I'm a baby boomer and I don't want to read about baby boomers—not their work, [not] their deaths."

Burmester: Burmester">http://www.burmester.de/">Burmester Audio Systems has a new distributor, Soundquest LLC, which has been distributing Audio">http://www.audiophysic.com/">Audio Physic for some time. Tel: (212) 731-0729. Fax: (212) 731-0730.

As we reported last">http://www.stereophile.com/news/012306fairuse/">last week, the Senate Commerce Committee (SCC) held hearings on January 24 exploring regulations to insert "Broadcast Flags" and "Audio Flags" into broadcast signals and audio recordings—markers that would prevent electronic devices from recording the flagged material. What we did not anticipate last week was that the hearings would trigger an outpouring of common sense.

On our regular visit to the Electronic Freedom Foundation's (EFF) Deep">http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004340.php">Deep Links website last Friday, we were alarmed to learn of proposed US Senate broadcast flag legislation that includes provisions to limit fair use to "customary historic use of broadcast content by consumers to the extent such use is consistent with applicable law."