Technology News

Readers Overwhelm Europe's New Digital Library

Source: PC Magazine
November 21, 2008

BRUSSELS - Europe's heritage went digital Thursday when the European Union launched an online library putting famous works such as Dante's “Divine Comedy" and Beethoven's 9th Symphony just a mouse click away. Europeana (www.europeana.eu) gives multilingual access to two million digitized books and other items of cultural and historical significance held in over 1,000 institutions in the 27 EU states. “Europeana offers a journey through time, across borders, and into new ideas of what our culture is. More than that, ...

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McCartney, Guns 'N' Roses Debut on Myspace

Source: PC Magazine
November 21, 2008

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney and Guns N' Roses released their biggest hits on vinyl records and compact discs, but on Thursday, their new albums will debut online on MySpace. Users of MySpace, the world's largest social network on the Internet, will be able to listen for free to “Electric Arguments," the new album by McCartney's side-project group The Fireman, and “Chinese Democracy," the long-delayed album by hard rock band Guns N' Roses, before the songs are in ...

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STLtoday Adds Jazz Coverage with Culture Club Blog

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
November 21, 2008

STLtoday, the Web site of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, has revamped what was once the site's classical music blog into a “fine arts" blog called Culture Club that also will include news of visual arts, theater, dance and jazz. The latter two subjects will be covered by the Post's Calvin Wilson, who's written frequently about jazz for the paper.This is the first week for the new combined effort, and so far the only jazz-related posts are previews of ...

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NPR Jazz Notes Newsletter Now Available

Source: All About Jazz
November 20, 2008

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Hidden Jazz Downloads (Vol. 6)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
November 20, 2008

Every couple of months or so, I spend a few hours running my e-fingers through the iTunes' “bins" looking for jazz gems that have been quietly added to the store's inventory. At iTunes, it seems, albums are flipped in abstractly, like baseball cards, barely promoted and sometimes even mislabeled. That happened with a James Moody collection I found recently. As jazz lovers know, iTunes doesn't do much to market jazz titles, preferring instead to plow the glitz into rap and rock. ...

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Youtube Tests out High Quality Stereo Surround Videos

Source: All About Jazz
November 20, 2008

YouTube has quietly started testing out real HD quality videos on a smattering of its content, a development that is getting attention from viewers in message boards and blog forums this week.

The new format could be a big move for YouTube, as the video size is over 80MB, which means that they are probably the same H.264 encoded mp4 files available in the iTunes store. Getting premium quality video available on the site is integral for YouTube's success as ...

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Apple Bends to Studios Adds Copyright Protection to Macbooks

Source: All About Jazz
November 20, 2008

Appearing to cave to Hollywood demands, Apple has quietly added a restrictive copyright protection mechanism to its new MacBooks that is preventing customers from watching movies on external displays. Apple has secretly included a copy protection scheme called High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) in the external display ports on the latest models of it MacBooks, released in the middle of October. Apple has not disclosed the new anti-copying mechanism, and now increasing numbers of customers are discovering that they cannot ...

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St. Louis Jazz Notes News: Addthis, Plus More Ways to Get STLJN

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
November 20, 2008

It's been a busy couple of weeks here at StLJN, with a lot of breaking news and relatively high traffic (as well as some nagging computer issues that still aren't totally resolved). While there's a momentary lull in the action, I wanted to take the opportunity to convey a couple of bits of site-related news. First, you may have noticed that the bottom of each StLJN post now features a button labeled “Bookmark." This button launches a little ...

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