Quit while you are only slightly behind, say four researchers from Microsoft who recently weighed in with their provocative analysis: The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution. The paper defines the "darknet" as a collection of networks and technologies used to share digital…
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As any major college dude will tell you, the file-sharing genie can never be put back into the digital audio bottle. But that hasn't stopped the music business from pursuing its scorched-market policy while simultaneously applying various use-restriction technologies to every digital audio format in sight.
The man who signed the Beatles to their first recording contract has joined garageband.com, an online venture for musicians. On October 21, the San Francisco-based website announced that Sir George Martin has assumed the position of chairman of its advisory board. The board's membership includes some of the music industry's best-known professional and creative talent, according to garageband.com co-founders Tom Zito and Jerry Harrison.
Harrison is a record producer and former member of the rock band Talking Heads. The site was launched in September, with the goal of identifying the best…
Radio will finally go digital in 2001. Among the oldest analog media, radio will be the last to make the transition, but it should make much faster headway in the market than digital television has. Satellite digital radio broadcasters XM Satellite Radio Holdings, Inc. and Sirius Satellite Radio, Inc. are both on schedule to go live in the coming year, aided by partnerships with automakers to make digital receivers available as options in new cars. A strong automotive aftermarket for digital radio receivers is expected, with some industry insiders predicting that the first models will…
The healthy trend for the audio market continues: the Consumer Electronics Association reported last week that revenues from factory shipments of audio products to dealers this February increased by 8% over last February, to a total of $542 million. "The fantastic sales in February spurred the year-to-date total for audio sales to more than $1 billion; a 6% increase over the first two months of 1999," said the CEA.
According to the CEA, the portable audio sector posted the largest increase in the month, climbing 16%, to revenues of $135 million. The CEA says that contributing to the…
New Zealand's Perreaux Industries began creating audio products 30 years ago, starting with the GS 2002 integrated transistor amplifier in 1974, and landed in the US in 1980 with the PMF 2150 amplifier. Dozens of new audio products have been developed since then, many of them groundbreaking, and the latest designs are again available in the American market.
Sanibel Sound of Virginia recently announced it is now the exclusive distributor for the Perreaux line in the US. Sanibel's Steve Davis says his plan is "to offer the range through our well-established network of authorized resellers…
Recordings more than 100 years old can now be heard on the Internet, thanks to a new program established by San Diego-based startup MP3.com. Among the sonic treasures is Thomas Edison narrating a "phonographic trip around the world" recorded in 1888. The site offers copies of Edison cylinder recordings and early 78 rpm discs, all available for free.
Music historian Michael Loughlin worked closely with the Edison National Historic Site to produce the recordings in MP3 format. "It is my goal to make MP3.com the premier place on the net to access historic recordings," Loughlin said. "With…
Jonathan Scull stuffs as many "relatively inexpensive" building tweaks as he can fit into "Fine Tunes" #21. Find out about basic room and electrical treatments on the relative cheap.
Designing loudspeakers is not a task for the faint of heart. But that doesn't stop thousands of would-be speaker builders each year from messing around with cabinets and parts in an attempt to improve on the other loudspeakers out there. Of those thousands of hobbyists, tens form companies, and perhaps one each year strikes gold.
To look at what makes such people tick, we present "Paul Barton: It Doesn…
The popular condensation of Darwin's theory of evolution is "adapt or die." The phrase could certainly have been addressed to the music-industry establishment by any one of four Internet entrepreneurs in a public discussion last week at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club. The four---Gerry Kearby of Liquid Audio, Gene Hoffman of GoodNoise, Arnold Brown of AudioExplosion, and Andrew Keen of Audiocafe.com---gathered at the public affairs forum Tuesday evening, February 22, for a spirited discussion of "The Future of Music Distribution."
An audience of several hundred, including online (and…
The major record labels may put out most of the world's music, but they're doing so on a format first created by Philips and then further developed by Sony: the Compact Disc. In addition to the underlying technology, Philips and Sony established a strict standard for the format, insuring compatibility with all players around the world, which came to be known as the Red Book standard.
According to Philips, recent attempts to add playback restriction technology to new releases is not just a bad idea: Because the Red Book recipe has been altered, the discs no longer qualify as CDs and should…
Can you hear long passages of music in your mind? If so, your brain may be wired for sound like those of professional musicians.
Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, researchers at Germany's University of Tuebingen scanned the brains of eight professional violinists and determined that they can do something that amateurs can't—namely, hear music in their minds alone. The neuroscientists compared the neural activity of equal numbers of professional and amateur violinists, who were asked to "play back" the first 16 bars of Mozart's violin concerto in G major, first by tapping the…