Posts filed under 'Online Music'
Video search engine Blinkx is to license its technology to Microsoft.
The agreement allows Microsoft’s multimedia and online products to “have the option to integrate Blinkx services if their customers request such a service”.
Financial details were not disclosed.
San Francisco based Blinkx uses its proprietry voice recognition software to analyse and index video content from around the web. This differentiates it from services such as YouTube which actually host video content themselves. Blinkx already powers video search on sites ranging from AOL to ITN, Lycos and Times Online.
October 10th, 2006
iTunes have been counting down over the last few days to their one billionth sale and a day ago it finally hapenned. The lucky buyer will be showrered with Apple gifts including $20,000 of iTunes vouchers, an iMac and a spanking new iPod.
The beneficiary of these prizes is a resident of Michagan, USA. Alex Ostrovsky won’t be able to grab the loot and return to obscurity however, as Apple will set up a scholarship to the world-famous Juilliard School of Music in New York in his name, something that will probably fox students in years to come. The billionth song “Speed of Sound” was purchased as part of Coldplay’s “X&Y” album.
Apple thanked all their users in a statement. “Music lovers like you in 21 countries around the globe have purchased 1 billion songs from the iTunes Music Store,” the note read. “And for helping us reach this massive milestone in digital music history, we’d like to thank you.”
Steve Jobs himself also weighed in with an attack on music piracy and a slap on the back for iTunes for slowing the march of illegal downloading. “I hope that every customer, artist and music company executive takes a moment today to reflect on what we’ve achieved together during the past three years. Over 1 billion songs have now been legally purchased and downloaded around the globe, representing a major force against music piracy and the future of music distribution as we move from CDs to the Internet.”
February 26th, 2006
Apple is preparing to celebrate the sale of the one billionth track through the iTunes music store by awarding a gift to the person that makes the milestone purchase.
The lucky shopper will win a 20 inch iMac, 10 60GB iPods, and a $10,000 iTunes gift card, as well as having an Apple music scolarship in their name (slightly strange that one). However, it’s not just the one billionth customer that surfs home with goodies, the 999,900,000th customer does as well… and the 999,800,000th…and you get the drift. The minor prizes are a 4GB iPod nano and a $100 iTunes gift card.
“Music lovers like you in 21 countries around the globe have purchased nearly one billion songs from the iTunes Music Store,” says the Apple website. “And as we count down to this massive milestone in digital music history, we’d like to thank you for joining us.”
We’ve got one billion reasons to celebrate, and we’re starting with you
February 7th, 2006
RealNetworks announced today that its Rhapsody online music service will be promoted on select HP consumer desktop and notebook PCs sold in the United States.
Under a new agreement with HP, Rhapsody will be available via select HP Pavilion, Compaq Presario and HP Pavilion Media Center TV PC product lines. Rhapsody will also become the default player for all major audio files formats, including RealAudio, Windows Media Audio, AAC, and MP3.
“We’re pleased to be working with HP to deliver Rhapsody via their new consumer notebook and desktop PC lines,” said Dan Sheeran, Senior Vice President of the Music and Video Division at RealNetworks. “This new agreement will enable a much wider audience of consumers to experience Rhapsody and use it to manage their personal digital music collections. We’re pleased to bring Rhapsody to HP and a growing list of leading companies like Comcast, Cox, and Sprint.”
“HP is committed to bringing consumers the best PC entertainment experience,” said Bob Lund, general manager, worldwide beyond the box team, Personal Systems Group at HP. “We selected Rhapsody because we want to give our customers a compelling choice for their music management software and easy access to a leading subscription music experience on the Web.”
In addition to Rhapsody’s free music management software, new HP PC customers will have access to the Rhapsody service, which lets anyone listen to and legally share songs of their choosing. Consumers can listen to 25 full tracks from Rhapsody’s extensive music library for free each month, and enjoy unlimited access to the software’s other features at no cost. Consumers can also access Rhapsody’s integrated music download store to purchase their favorite songs and albums; songs are 99 cents each and most albums are $9.99. Downloads purchased from Rhapsody can be transferred to virtually any portable music player, including Apple’s iPod line.
For those looking for an even richer music experience, users can easily upgrade to Rhapsody Unlimited ($9.99 per month), stream an unlimited amount of music, and also download an unlimited number of songs to their PC’s hard drive to enjoy offline for as long as they remain subscribers. Rhapsody Unlimited subscribers can also create custom internet radio stations based on their favorite artists, access thousands of artist-based radio stations or nearly 100 pre-programmed Internet radio stations, and view more than 1,500 music videos within the application. Additionally, consumers may subscribe to Rhapsody To Go ($14.99 per month) and enjoy all the benefits of Rhapsody Unlimited with the added capability of taking their favorite music with them on a compatible portable music player.
Starting in spring 2006, RealNetworks and HP plan to offer a 30-day free trial of the Rhapsody Unlimited service to consumers who purchase new HP and Compaq consumer notebook and desktop PCs.
Since launching in 2001, Rhapsody has received multiple industry awards and honors. Last month PC Magazine honored the service with a Best of 2005 Award, naming Rhapsody “Best Music-Streaming Service,” the latest in a string of honors for Rhapsody. In March 2005, PC World awarded Rhapsody its coveted Best Buy Award, and in 2004, Rhapsody was recognized as the ‘Best Downloadable or Subscription Music Service’ in the Billboard Digital Entertainment Awards.
January 5th, 2006
The blogs are alight with discussion about the discovery that a recently released Sony music CD installs a rootkit when it is played on a Windows PC.
A rootkit is a tool that can be used to compromise computer systems without detection. The existence of the rootkit was uncovered by Mark Russinovich of Sysinternals and documented in fascinating detail on his blog.
Although the right of music companies to protect their assets is being grudgingly accepted by most computer users, the use of such tools to do so is being widely condemned, not least by Mark Russinovich himself.
“The entire experience was frustrating and irritating,” he writes. “Not only had Sony put software on my system that uses techniques commonly used by malware to mask its presence, the software is poorly written and provides no means for uninstall. Worse, most users that stumble across the cloaked files with a RKR scan will cripple their computer if they attempt the obvious step of deleting the cloaked files.”
The end user has to agree to a license agreement before the CD will play which does make mention of the DRM software to be installed.
“…this CD will automatically install a small proprietary software program (the “SOFTWARE”) onto YOUR COMPUTER. The SOFTWARE is intended to protect the audio files embodied on the CD, and it may also facilitate your use of the DIGITAL CONTENT. Once installed, the SOFTWARE will reside on YOUR COMPUTER until removed or deleted. However, the SOFTWARE will not be used at any time to collect any personal information from you, whether stored on YOUR COMPUTER or otherwise.”
Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? The good folk of the internet don’t think so and an almighty stink is being kicked up.
Sony has yet to respond.
Source: MediaCenterPCWorld
November 2nd, 2005
Yahoo! is to test a new search engine dedicated to all things music. The search engine will index content on various online music stores, including Apple’s iTunes and Real Networks’ Rhapsody, as well as Yahoo!’s own service. It will also index music files stored outside of the music publisher sanctioned services, so there will be a fair amount of illegally copied material there to be searched. Yahoo! skip past this issue by saying that they will rely on music publishers to ask for the removal of illegal content from the index, although how this will wash with the like of Sony (who seem to be increasing litigious) is anyone’s guess.
The music itself will be supplemented with content about the music and bands, so a search for ‘Oasis’ will pull up results about the band itself, discographies, latest news and links to where you can buy tracks. Yahoo! will earn commission on any sales through partner sites, but they claim to see the new search engine more as a tool for creating loyal Yahoo! users than as a direct revenue generator.
August 4th, 2005
The European iTunes stores have notched up of 50 million sales since launch.
First to get the iTunes treatment were Germany, France and the UK in June of last year, and Apple followed this up with a pan-European store serving Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland in October.
“We’re thrilled to have sold and delivered over 50 million songs in our first year”, said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Applications. “We’d like to thank European music fans for making iTunes such a success.”
These sales figures remain a drop in the ocean compared to Apple’s global revenue from iTunes. Over 430 million downloads have taken place worldwide, mainly from the USA.
June 24th, 2005
Contois Music Technology has filed a lawsuit against Apple, alleging that the iTunes software infringes a patent that it holds. The lawsuit aims to obtain damages and the right to stop Apple distributing iTunes.
The particular patent in question (US Patent No. 5,864,868) is called ‘Computer Control System and User Interface for Media Playing Devices’.
TechSmec.com hasn’t taken the time to dig the patent out, but the title looks as vague as most other technology patents around today. Remember BT trying to enforce a patent on the hyperlink a few years ago?
Contois claim that the interface behind the patent was exhibited at Comdex in the mid 90s when it would have been seen by Apple employees, or future Apple employees. They have asked the court to take into account the fact that they allege a willful violation of the patent in 19 cases.
June 21st, 2005
Luxpro has already fallen foul of Apple once this year when it exhibited its ‘Super Shuffle’ mp3 player at CeBit. With a good kicking from Apple’s lawyers no doubt still ringing in its ears, Luxpro has come back with the MX-585D. The name may be different, but it still bears more than a passing resemblance to the iPod Shuffle.
In fact, it ‘improves’ on the Shuffle as it has a 64×48 OLED display. Supported file formats are MP3, WMA and WAV and it has support for DRM as well. According to Luxpro, the MX-585D offers 10 hours of play on a full charge.
However, to confuse matters, Luxpro also seems to be selling what it calls the ‘Super Tangent’. Whether this is the MX-585D or a renamed Super Shuffle, we can’t tell. Whatever the answer, the write-ups aren’t good with one disgruntled buyer telling iPodlounge that the buttons do not work well, battery life is terrible, and the recorder simply did not record.
For a photo of the Shuffle…sorry the Tangent…sorry the MX-585D, see Digitimes.
June 2nd, 2005
Making a CD copy for ‘personal’ use is something that we’ve all done, but of course, we draw the line at making copies for our friends. Don’t we?
It seems Sony are about to put to the test, the popular view that copy protection is bad because it stops us backing up our music CDs. They are to trial a technology that would allow a single CD copy to be burned, but attempting to rip tracks from the burned CD would be prevented, effectively limiting the reach of a single copied CD.
The technology, known as ’sterile burning’ has been developed by UK company First4Internet.
“The secure burning solution is the sensible way forward,” First4Internet chief executive officer Mathew Gilliat-Smith said. “Most consumers accept that making a copy for personal use is really what they want it for. The industry is keen to make sure that is not abused by making copies for other people that would otherwise go buy a CD.”
Sony have not revealed which CD releases will be protected by sterile burning.
Source: ABC (Australia)
May 31st, 2005
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