Posts filed under 'Online Music'
The price of flash memory, in particular NAND flash, is set to fall sharply as DigiTimes reports that Samsung and Toshiba are “aggressively planning to ramp up their output of 8Gb NAND flash chips”. In the meantime, the journal also reports that Apple will release a 2Gb version of the iPod shuffle in June, with a 4Gb version in August.
The increase in capacity of the iPod shuffle is a natural progression in the light of falling prices for flash memory.
The original price of US$58 for an 8Gb NAND flash chip is expected to eventually fall to $30.
Samsung’s 4Gb NAND flash memory was first developed in September 2003. Following the New Memory Growth Model of double density growth every 12 months (conceived by Dr. Chang Gyu Hwang, president and CEO of Samsung Electronics Semiconductor Business), five generations of NAND flash memory have been introduced consecutively: 256Mb in 1999, 512Mb in 2000, 1Gb in 2001, 2Gb in 2002, 4Gb in 2003 and 8Gb in 2004. The company expects to roll out a 16 GB part in the second half of this year.
May 30th, 2005
It seems like the perfect union, so the only surprise is that it’s taken Apple so long to integrate podcasts into iTunes.
Podcasts are internet-based radio shows that are shaking up the industry. Anyone with a microphone and some basic software can create a podcast and place it online for download to mp3 players. Major broadcasters, such as the BBC, are also joining in by making several of their shows available in podcast format.
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, demonstrated to a US Wall Street Journal technology conference, how the new version of iTunes, available in a few weeks, will allow users to access, organise and manipulate podcasts.
The integration of podcasts into iTunes will surely open up and even larger readership for this new and exciting medium.
May 26th, 2005
Bill Gates has dismissed the iPod in German daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung saying, “I don’t think the success of the iPod can continue in the long term, however good Apple may be.”
He drew a comparison between the current battle between the iPod and other portable music devices and the struggle between the Mac and the PC.
“Apple was once extremely strong with its Macintosh and graphic user interface, like with the iPod today, and then lost its position,” Gates said referring to the fact that Apple had a strong presence in the desktop market in the late 80s and early 90s, before losing out to Microsoft.
The iPod share of the portable music market is currently around 87.3%, down from a peak of 92%, according to market research firm NPD Group.
May 13th, 2005
Search giant Yahoo! has waded into the online music battlefield by launching Yahoo! Music Unlimited, a service which allows consumers to download unlimited tracks, from a library of over 1 million, for only $60 per month.
The model is similar to that of Real and Napster (which it undercuts by %60), but contrasts with that of iTunes where users pay per file.
Users will not be able to burn the tracks to CD for the $60 annual fee. For that privilege they must pay 79 cents per file, still 20 cents cheaper than the 99 cents charged by iTunes. Yahoo! Music Unlimited uses the WMA format and Windows Media Digital Rights Management 10. This support enables subscription tracks to be transferred to any portable device that supports WM DRM 10.
“We are committed to being at the forefront of the rapidly growing online music segment,” said Lloyd Braun, head of the Yahoo! Media Group. “Yahoo! Music Unlimited draws on the best of Yahoo! to provide personalization and community features unlike anything else in the marketplace.”
“From premium radio to an entirely on-demand experience, Yahoo! Music Unlimited has assembled all the key elements to fulfill consumers’ needs,” said Dave Goldberg, vice president and general manager, Yahoo! Music. “For a great value, users get to listen to as much music as they want, while utilizing superior innovations in playlist generation and community features to enrich and expand their music experience.”
Yahoo! Music Unlimited is based around the Yahoo! Music Engine software, which lets consumers rip, mix and burn CDs, import and manage music, and transfer music to portable devices. It also integrates tightly with Yahoo! Messenger, allowing users to share playlists with their contact list.
May 11th, 2005
Apple has launched four new iTunes Music Stores in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland featuring songs from all four major music companies and over 1,000 independent record labels.
“The iTunes Music Store has revolutionized the way we discover and enjoy music, and is now selling more than half a billion songs per year,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Applications. “With iTunes Music Stores now in 19 countries, music fans around the world can enjoy the number one online music service in the world.”
In conjunction with the iTunes Music Store launch in Switzerland, Apple and UBS today announced a promotion to give every Swiss citizen a free song on the iTunes Music Store as part of their new “UBS Generation” and “UBS Campus” packages. UBS is offering song cards for music downloads in all of their branches, which can be used instead of a credit card to purchase tracks from the iTunes Music Store.
At the same time Apple started to ship iTunes 4.8 including new Music Store features and support for transferring contacts and calendars from your computer to your iPod, although you’ll need Mac OS X 10.4 to do so. A new feature that Apple is keeping quiet about, presumably while it runs live user testing, is video. Short promo clips are available to download in the mp4 format and will play on both PCs and Macs. It would seem to be a short leap now for iTunes to offer full length video and to charge for it.
May 11th, 2005
You may think that having those tell-tale white earphones plugged into your head while you ride the subway / tube / metro makes you look cool. Well, we’re not arguing, but it also acts as a big sign above your head saying “$400 iPod over here - please steal me!”.
Figures just released by the New York Subway show that although crime as a whole is down, theft is up with no less than 50 iPods reported stolen this year already. That may not seem like many, but it’s 50 more than were stolen in the whole of 2004.
The transit authority are so concerned about how their figures are skewed because of a wave of iPod theft that they are urging you to replace the white earphones with cheaper, less-distinctive models.
So, the thieves won’t know you have an iPod, but then neither will anyone else, and as 90% of the point of owning an iPod is showing off, you might as well have saved your money and bought an iRiver instead.
April 28th, 2005
A lot of devices have been touted as “iPod Killers” in their time - the portable media center and the Sony PSP to name two - and now Nokia think that they have got one on their hands as well.
The Nokia N91 combines a mobile phone with a 4-gigabyte hard disk to create a portable music player with room for up to 3000 songs. Digital music formats supported include MP3, M4A, AAC and WMA.
The N91 wears its music player heart on its sleeve with an industry standard 3.5mm stereo headset jack and keys dedicated to music control on the face. In fact, the mobile phone keys are hidden behind a slide-down cover.
“The Nokia N91 delivers both a fantastic music experience and cutting-edge phone features,” said Jonas Geust, Vice President, Music at Nokia. “What sets the Nokia N91 apart is the fact that it is always connected - you can download new music while on the move, add it to your favourite playlist and then share your playlist with friends. It’s truly the world’s best mobile connected jukebox.”
Connecting to your PC via USB2.0 or Bluetooth it looks exceptionally easy to manage your playlists.
Convergence devices haven’t always caught on - there can be just too many functions in a single product, but TechSmec.cpom thinks that a combination of two things that the man on the street is beginning to find essential - the mobile phone and the iPod - is a bit of a winner.
iPod killer? Maybe.
April 27th, 2005
Real Networks will announce today that it will launch a subscription service for digital music.
For a monthly fee of $14.95, which includes a subscription to the existing Rhapsody service which streams music to desktops, users will be able to move music files to portable devices.
Analysts are not convinced that Real has put enough effort into distinguishing the service from others in the marketplace, such as Napster-to-Go.
Source: MediaCenterPCWorld.com
April 26th, 2005
There’s been no official word from Apple, but the signs are that iTunes is about to launch its long-awaited Australian store.
The source of the rumours is, strangely, Aussie (or is he from New Zealand?) actor, Russell Crowe, who has a part time job as a rock musician.
Crowe claims the store will open for business on April 28, and that songs will cost A$1.80 per track.
Australian DJ BeXta confirmed the rumours when she recently wrote that “iTunes is about to become available in Australia finally.”
The final piece of the rumour jigsaw is that Apple has reportedly booked several radio and TV advertising slots for Thursday - the assumption being that these are for iTunes ads.
April 26th, 2005
More bad news for file sharers today as the UK High Court has granted an order requiring five IPSs to disclose the identities of 33 more individuals alleged to have illegally distributed music files on P2P networks.
The individuals concerned had uploaded more than 72,000 music files to the internet.
The ISPs concerned now have a fortnight to give the BPI the identities of the filesharers which brings the number of people in the UK to face legal action for illegal filesharing up to 90. They will face claims for compensation and the legal costs in pursuing them.
BPI General Counsel Geoff Taylor said: “This court order should remind every user of a peer-to-peer filesharing service in Britain that they are not anonymous. These 33 people will now face paying thousands of pounds in compensation. We are continuing to collect evidence every day against people who are still uploading music illegally, despite all the warnings we have given. If you want to avoid the risk of court action, stop filesharing and buy music legally”.
April 21st, 2005
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