music

Just a day after announcing its smallest music player yet, Apple on Thursday released iTunes 8.1, a brand new update to its very popular media player software. Unfortunately, one of its most exciting new features won't be available for several days. ... (Source: thestar.com ) The most anticipated new feature accompanying iTunes 8.1 is the Genius sidebar and playlist tool; however, users are already complaining that it just doesn't work the way it was supposed to. Originally meant to study music, movie, and TV preferences before suggesting songs, films, and shows one might like, a report released ... (view more)

It's "A Beautiful Day" for Research in Motion (RIM), the BlackBerry maker which recently pried rock/pop superstars U2 from the clenched fists of competitor Apple. The band, which has been with Apple since 2004, will partner with RIM to promote its ... upcoming U2 360 Degrees Tour. It was almost five years ago now that world-renowned U2 lead singer Bono and guitarist The Edge stood next to Apple's ubiquitous Steve Jobs in order to promote the tech company's Special Edition U2 iPod. At the time, Apple, U2, and studio Universal Music Group (UMG) promised the triumvirate would deliver "innovative ... (view more)

Apple has announced it will no longer use Digital Rights Management (DRM) copy protection on songs sold through iTunes. The firm also announced prices for individual tracks will vary depending on publisher demands. So far, almost all songs have ... retailed for a fixed rate of 99 cents. That price has upset some record labels which feel their tracks would still sell at a higher price, to the point that overall revenue (split with Apple) would also be higher. The new system will see songs priced at 69 cents, 99 cents or $1.29. (Source: cnn.com ) The new pricing takes effect in April, when Apple ... (view more)

According to most copyright protectors, movie, TV, and music pirating is out of control. Let's face it, just about everyone owns a burnt album, television season, or film on CD or DVD -- heck, maybe even Blu-ray. How do you fight this if the problem ... is so rampant? Simple, say Canadian lawmakers: increase the cost of blank discs. According to reports, Canada's Copyright Board has green-lighted an increase in levies placed on blank CDs by 38%. Part of the reason for the jump is an increase in music compression and the continued rise in songwriter royalties. As the cost of making an album ... (view more)

Despite popular beliefs that video games keep people from engaging in real life activities, opting for Madden over football tryouts or Gran Turismo over studying for a license exam, in many cases games can actually stir interest in relevant ... activities. According to reports, games like Guitar Hero lead kids to pick up real instruments. Research conducted by the Youth Music charity in Britain now suggests that popular rhythm and music-based games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band have probably led about 2.5 million kids to learn real-life instruments. In a report, Youth Music discovered that of ... (view more)

An online music company is launching a new take on the MP3 business model: it's offering unlimited listening (from any Internet-enabled device) to a track for 10 cents. For LaLa, the group offering the deal, this is the third different method it's ... tried. LaLa, which launched in 2006, began as a music business based on members trading physical CDs (originals, not copies), with LaLa charging a dollar to both parties as middleman. Last year it changed the focus to online music, with streaming music available with permission of the publishers (though this feature didn't last long) and the ability ... (view more)

SanDisk has teamed up with the four major record labels to offer legal music sales in a new format: memory cards. The scheme, dubbed SlotMusic, uses the MicroSD format, meaning many buyers will be able to listen to the music directly through their ... cell phones. There'll also be a USB adaptor for plugging the card into a computer. The main selling point of the system is that the music files will have no digital rights management (the copy protection system which heavily restricts usage of many downloadable albums) and that it will be encoded at 320 kilobytes per second. That's a better quality ... (view more)

Prism Prism is an application that lets users split web applications out of their browser and run them directly on the desktop. http://labs.mozilla.com Download Mp3s From Streaming Music Sites Have you ever been annoyed that playlist-based music ... sites don't let you download songs? And once the player moves on to the next song, that song is gone. Or, is it? Most services like the ones above rely on Flash or JavaScript to obfuscate URLs and make it difficult, though not impossible, to download the actual files. In this guide, we'll show you how you can grab just about any file you want by ... (view more)

Innovative online music site Pandora appears to be on the brink of shutting its doors after failing to find a solution to increased royalty costs. The site's appeal, a 'personalised radio station' service by which users could list some of their ... favourite songs and performers, may no longer be marketable after recent demands the site pay more cash for the music it uses. How does Pandora work? Users rate songs and the Pandora system (looking at more than 400 attributes including tone, pitch, style, speed, instruments used and so on) would then play similar styles of music. The technology was ... (view more)

Chinese Internet use is notoriously restricted, which may explain why Google -- a North American cultural icon -- is not the major search engine used by the nation's Internet-connected public. Instead, Baidu is to the Chinese what Google is to the ... rest of the world. Within China, Google has only 26 percent of the search market share, while Baidu holds 63 percent. (Source: crn.com ) Google may be edging in through the launch of a free music search program. How? Baidu is the main gateway for Internet music piracy in China, where less than 1 percent of music downloads are legal. Google's new ... (view more)