Technology News

Kid Rock and Ac/DC Rank 3,4 in 2008 Despite Anti-Digital Stance

Source: HypeBot
December 16, 2008

Nielsen SoundScan reports show that Kid Rock's “Rock N Roll Jesus" was the third best selling album of the year in the U.S. as of the beginning of December.  The release was CD only until nearly a year after its release, when  Rhapsody grabbed exclusive digital rights where its sold only 3,000 digital copies so far.

AC/DC has still not gone digital with its “Black Ice" which was released exclusively via Wal-Mart. But it is the fourth best selling album ...

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Is iTunes the Evolution of Music? Maybe Not

Source: PC Magazine
December 16, 2008

It's been more than five years since Apple's iTunes store changed music retail by introducing single-track digital downloads. But it wasn't until 2008 that most musicians and labels started to wonder out loud whether selling music by the track is good for their bottom lines. Two of the year's biggest rock acts, AC/DC and Kid Rock, insist that their albums only be sold whole. And since Apple only rarely allows this, neither act allows iTunes to sell its albums in ...

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Delta Rolls out Wi-Fi in Select Flights

Source: PC Magazine
December 16, 2008

Delta Air Lines is finally getting on board with modern technology, one baby step at a time. The Atlanta-based company announced today that it will begin rolling out Wi-Fi on select flights, beginning with small shuttle flights between Reagan National Airport in Washington, LaGuardia in New York, and Logan in Boston. The Washington Post points out, however, that the plan won't last. Beginning in March, the company will be swapping DC-to-New York planes out with those from a company called ...

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Startup Banks on Making Money from Free Broadband

Source: All About Jazz
December 15, 2008

For the past three years, a startup called M2Z Networks has been figuring out a way to blanket the nation with a free wireless broadband network to ensure all Americans have access to basic high-speed Internet connections. Along the way, the company has found support in powerful corners of Silicon Valley and Washington. It has attracted funding from several of the Valley's top venture capital firms. And it has captured the interest of Kevin Martin, the chairman of Federal Communications ...

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Steinway Music System Delivers for Audiophiles Who Have It All

Source: All About Jazz
December 15, 2008

Music nuts lust after spatial sound: output so precise you can pinpoint each instrument's location in the recording hall. Well, the room-size Model C isn't just spatial, it's intergalactic.

We dare you to listen to this integrated CD player, amplifier, and speaker symphony without jumping up to conduct. While most speakers are sealed boxes, Steinway's engineers left these open, replicating the resonance of live instruments. And unlike other systems, which convert the audio signal from digital to analog in the ...

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Disc Shelf: A Place to Release Albums Online

Source: All About Jazz
December 15, 2008

Recently a service for musicians was opened. The service is called Disc Shelf and allows musicians to upload their music and present it to their listeners in form of albums: singles, EPs, LPs, promo discs and WIPs (work in progress). Each album receives a unique URL for distribution.

The whole idea of the project is to have works online that would have no ratings, comments, no weird menus and without it looking like a web page. Instead, it looks more ...

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Paolo Olivi, madonnatribe.com: Artists, Fans, and Web 2.0

Source: MidemNet
December 14, 2008

In this guest post, MidemNet speaker Paolo Olivi, founder of fansite MadonnaTribe.com, explains how, from fanzines to web communities, fans have always led the way…

Once upon a time, we used to call them fanclubs. In most cases, an official artist’s fanclub was able to reach fans on a national or international basis, while fan-managed associations had a smaller, sometimes regional scale.

The most lively clubs challenged themselves in the editorial field, creating what were brilliantly labeled fanzines. Long time ...

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Ted Cohen: It Was the Worst of Times, It Was the Best of Times

Source: MidemNet
December 14, 2008

This year's Midemnet marks our tenth anniversary, and what an amazing time we've been privileged to observe. The early pioneers: Napster, Liquid Audio, MP3.com, Rioport, Rhapsody, Soundbuzz, Musiwave, OD2, Melon, Puretracks, the next generation: Kazaa, Pandora, iTunes, and Limewire, and the newcomers: Amazon MP3, Omnifone, Nokia's Comes With Music and EchoNest. These innovative ventures have changed the face of music forever. However, as we look back at the past decade, it's clear that it hasn't been very kind to the ...

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