Technology News

Barnes and Noble Takes On Amazon in Ebooks

Source: PC Magazine
July 21, 2009

Years after online retailer Amazon stole the wind from the sales of Barnes & Noble's physical bookshelves, the retailer has struck back with the launch of an e-book virtual warehouse. B&N launched the Barnes & Noble eBookstore on Monday, which currently offers 700,000 electronic titles and will offer more than a million by 2010, according to B&N. Prices will start at $9.99. B&N also said it would partner with Plastic Logic on its upcoming e-reader device, due in 2010, and ...

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Music Industry Lures Casual Pirates to Legal Sites

Source: Michael Ricci
July 19, 2009

PARIS Record company executives say there are three kinds of music fans. There are those who buy music, and those who get a kick out of never paying for it. And then there are those whom Rob Wells at Universal Music Group calls dinner party pirates: the vast majority of listeners, those who copy music illegally because it is more convenient than buying it.

If those low-level copyright cheats could be converted to using legal music services, the digital music ...

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Canada's Privacy Commissioner Criticizes Facebook

Source: PC Magazine
July 18, 2009

The popular social networking site Facebook is not doing enough to protect the personal information it gets from subscribers, and it gives users confusing and incomplete information about privacy matters, Canada's privacy commissioner said on Thursday. “It's clear that privacy issues are top of mind for Facebook, and yet we found serious privacy gaps in the way the site operates," Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart said in a report on an investigation into Facebook. The report said Facebook violates Canada's privacy ...

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Youth Music Box Democratizes Music Creation

Source: HypeBot
July 18, 2009

Is Everyone Making Music A Good Thing? If you are one of those people who thinks that there's already too much mediocre music being released every year; check out this set-up designed to introduce teenagers to the “joys" of creating music.

Youth Music Box allows four people - of any age and musical ability - to collaborate on digital music project with ...

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Bose Launches Home Wireless Audio

Source: PC Magazine
July 18, 2009

Bose announced a new wireless music solution for the home today, the SoundLink. Available August 27th for the serious-commitment price of $549.95, the SoundLink will stream music from your PC's music library to anywhere in your house. The concept here has already been seen in products from Creative and Altec Lansing, to name two, but these products were more iPod-centric and have not seen the sales success that a typical Bose release enjoys. The system utilizes a USB key that ...

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AOL: We're a Music Destination, Not a Radio

Source: PC Magazine
July 17, 2009

AOL on Thursday defended its music strategy, and took issue with a Tuesday report from the NPD Group that said while consumers are most familiar with AOL Music, Pandora gets the most play in terms of actual usage. “The report … measured us on a metric that we're not even striving for, which is essentially the amount of music listened to," Bill Crandall, vice president and editor-in-chief at AOL Music, said in a phone interview. NPD found that of the ...

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Internet Dependency Level

Source: All About Jazz
July 17, 2009

If the ancient Egyptians had the internet, there would have been 11 plagues in Exodus, with unreliable DSL tucked in between the frogs and the lice.

Its a pain when your DSL goes down, but the bright side is that it gives you a chance to rate yourself on the Internet Dependency Scale. Just compare your actions to those listed below and youll know what sort of pathetic digital symbiont you really are.

Stage 1 Internet Dependency Immediate ...

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Pandora Preferred in Online Music Services

Source: PC Magazine
July 16, 2009

When it comes to online music services, consumers are most familiar with AOL Music, but in terms of actual usage, Pandora gets the most play, according to a Tuesday report from the NPD Group. Of the 4,051 people polled by NPD in the first quarter of 2009, about 30 percent were aware of AOL Music, followed by MySpace Music at 25 percent, Yahoo Launchcast with 21 percent, and Pandora at 20 percent. When it comes to actually listening to music, ...

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