The Apple Iphones are the latest technological gadget that people have gone completely crazy for. Iphone owners know that these devices have the capability to download free Iphone games from the Internet. However, only half of these owners know where they can get free Iphone games and the same half know what they need to [...]
You might not see iPods on Paris runways, but electronics have undergone a transformation from a utilitarian necessity to a fashion accessory. While electronics aren’t exactly replacing jewelry as a status symbol - bling is still the thing - the types of gadgets a person can’t live without speaks volumes about his or her lifestyle.
Those [...]
I’m going to tell you about a great idea I’ve recently discovered. You can now watch TV anytime you want without actually having to have a television. With TV on Your PC you can watch where ever there’s a computer or laptop!
With TV on Your PC you will have access to more than 12,000 channels!! [...]
VOIP stand for Voice-over-Internet protocol. At a very basic level it is the idea of using a data network to transfer voice between two points. Although voip has become a buzz word in recent years has it origins as far back as the early 1970s. The pioneering work of Danny Cohen at the University of [...]
Launching a classical music download store is a very brave, or perhaps foolhardy, thing to do. While kids shell out loadsamoney for ringtones, classical music buyers tend to be pernickety about recordings, and careful with their money, as Passionato may soon discover.
Passionato is a straightforward site offering classical music albums at decent quality but not at low prices. Typically, albums cost £7.99 for 320kbps MP3 versions and £8.99 for lossless Flac, though some cost £4/£5, and there are tracks at 79p/99p. Tracks are mercifully free of DRM (digital rights management) copy protection, so you can play them on anything, including iPods.
You can browse Passionato’s catalogue by Composers, Artists, Genres/Periods or Record Labels. The labels include EMI, Naxos, Chandos, and BBC Worldwide. Deutsche Grammophon isn’t listed, but there are lots of DG albums inexplicably hidden under Universal Classics & Jazz.
The navigation doesn’t always work. Looking for the sublime Alison Balsom, for example, I went to Artist, Instrumentalist, and clicked Trumpet, but she’s not in the 76 results or its alphabetical listing. A global search for Balsom finds three albums, which is OK, but searching for Lang Lang finds hundreds because the hits include the “Sung Language” subheading, Jean Langlais, Nadia Boulanger etc. “Lang Lang” in quotes gets no results. Did no one test this thing?
Really there should be an Advanced Search facility so you can specify composer, work, orchestra etc. It would be uniquely better if you could also specify things like modern or period instruments: we can dream!
The site also has sections for new releases (Critic’s Choice), a chart and special offers – sign on and you get 10 free tracks.
Currently, Passionato doesn’t have a deep enough catalogue or enough musical information. The catalogue ultimately depends on all the music majors signing up and making “out of print” recordings available. Ideally, for example, I want all four of Karajan’s great Beethoven cycles, a choice of the original or remastered versions, and a guide to the differences. Passionato just has the remastered 1961-62 set and a couple of quotes.
Full background information is probably not affordable unless you crowdsource it by providing a wiki or – as Amazon does – user reviews. Passionato has neither.
But the biggest problem is money: if you find something you want, will you buy it?
Take, for example, the Bach concertos played by Hilary Hahn. Passionato wants £7.99 for the 320kbps MP3 version. However, go to Amazon.co.uk and you can buy a new CD for less (£6.23 plus £1.24 shipping from Caiman USA) and rip it yourself. Which I did, ages ago.
At Amazon.com, the MP3 version (256kbps) costs $8.99, and individual tracks cost 89c instead of 99p. For those who enjoyed the controversial Russian site AllOfMP3.com, MP3sparks.com offers the same download for $2.38 at 192kbps, with tracks at between 14c and 28c. And, of course, popular stuff like this circulates for free on file-sharing networks.
Given the scale of the market challenge, one has to wish Passionato luck. It will need it.
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The free gifts actually help in promotion of any product or service very easily. Moreover, the case of ‘monopoly’ no longer exists in any arena of business. Where there is only one individual earning profits in any particular he is bound to have a competitor very soon. The main aspect that rules the economy is [...]
Ipods are a type of portable media player or method of listening to music that are made by the company Apple Inc. and first burst onto the electronic market on October 23, 2001. Ipods quickly became popular with the listening public because they are sleek, slim, easy to carry and can hold many songs. These [...]
So, while it turned out to be a myth that China would drop the Great Firewall during the Olympics, it’s still a bit surprising to hear that China is apparently blocking at least some access to iTunes. Apparently, an organization put out an album of pro-Tibetan songs, and asked Olympic athletes to download the songs and put them on their iPods as a sort of quiet protest. Of course, then the group put out a press release, claiming that 40 Olympians had done so… and, suddenly folks in China are having trouble accessing iTunes. Not surprisingly, a “semi-official news portal” of the Chinese gov’t claims that folks in China are denouncing Apple for even offering the music, and are calling for the musicians featured on the album to be banned from playing in China.
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Tiernan Ray, over at Tech Trade Daily, has an amusing post up explaining the rather circuitous route of a particular Apple rumor found on various Apple rumor sites. Basically, one Apple rumors site claimed a new research report was coming out detailing potential upgrades to various Apple products. But, the problem was that there was no such new report. The research firm in question had actually released a report over a week earlier. And then things got even more mixed up:
Macrumors, in mentioning the phantom report from *today*, cites a PC World article from yesterday, that erroneously references the August 6 note as being analyst comment *today*, meaning, Monday, the date of the PC World article. Even more hilarious, in the Macrumors post, the author says that the phantom report from today about updates to the Mac laptops and iPods is “consistent with whispers we’ve heard.” And he cites … ta da! A post from AppleInsider last week commenting on the original August six note. Oy vey.
So, basically a report from last week is used to confirm a non-existent report from this week, which is actually… the original report from the week before.
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We’ve covered the disturbing levels of secrecy surrounding the ACTA treaty — which is basically a way for various industries to push through new copyright laws without having to actually go through the legislative process. The most annoying part is how secretive various governments have been in crafting the treaty — basically allowing various industry groups to tell government trade representatives what they want, and then letting the governments negotiate amongst each other. This process leaves out many parties impacted by these rules (and the public!). Michael Geist has some details on how Canada has taken this process to new levels of secrecy beyond even that in the US.
Apparently, the Canadian government has created an “insider” group to work with the government on the treaty. What’s disturbing is that this insider group seems to involve mostly lobbyists who have a one-sided take on this issue. Not included are any lobbyists from industries who are opposed to ACTA or any sort of representative of consumer rights or privacy issues (which is a big concern, considering that ACTA may allow border searches of laptops and iPods). Given that the Canadian government is already getting beaten up for writing its newly proposed copyright laws in secret with help only from industry representatives, you’d think that maybe (just maybe) it would try to be a bit more open and inclusive with ACTA. Apparently not.
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