- Aren’t You Being a Little Hasty in Making This Data Free? — very nice deconstruction of a letter sent by ESRI and competitors to the British Government, alarmed at the announcement that various small- and mid-sized datasets would no longer be charged for. In short, companies that make money reselling datasets hate the idea of free datasets. The arguments against charging are that the cost of gating access exceeds revenue and that open access maximises economic gain. (via glynmoody on Twitter)
- User Assisted Audio Selection — amazing movie that lets you sing or hum along with a piece of music to pull them out of the background music. The researcher, Paris Smaragdis has a done lot of other nifty audio work. (via waxpancake on Twitter)
- Cologne-based Libraries Release 5.4M Bibliographic Records to CC0 — I see resonance here with the Cologne Archives disaster last year, where the building collapsed and 18km of shelves covering over 2000 years of municipal history were lost. When you have digital heritage, embrace the ease of copying and spread those bits as far and wide as you can. Hoarding bits comes with a risk of a digital Cologne disaster, where one calamity deletes your collection. (via glynmoody on Twitter)
- ThinkTank — web app that lets you analyse your tweets, break down responses to queries, and archive your Twitter experience. Built by Expert Labs.
ENTRIES TAGGED "audio"
Four short links: 25 March 2010
Against Open Data, Singalong Selection, Library Release, and Twitter Analysis
Max For Live: Making Musicians Into Programmers
Ableton’s Live is one of the top music creation and performance platforms out there. It is a complete music suite with instruments, sound management and a performance interface. It is used by DJs, bands, and hobbyists. At a cost of several hundred dollars Live is within reach of most tech-savvy musicians. This fall Ableton is releasing Max For Live, an API of sorts. Max For Live is going to introduce a new generation of musicians to (visual) programming. And I don’t think that they’ll stop at playing around with the Ableton Live controls.
Is Print a Preference or a Habit?
Over on the O'Reilly Radar blog, Dale Dougherty posted on students increasingly prefering the sound of MP3 over higher quality music: [Jonathan Berger] has them listen to a variety of recordings which use different formats from MP3 to ones of much higher quality. He described the results with some disappointment and frustration, as a music lover might, that each…
Audible CEO: Publishing Has History of Tech Ambivalence
In an interview with Fast Company, Audible CEO Donald Katz discusses the publishing industry's history of slow technological acceptance: Publishing is an industry pursuing a noble cultural calling. But publishing has always had an ambivalent relationship to technology-driven change. In fact, the music publishing business spent a whole lot of time trying to kill off the phonograph. The publishing…
Last Days of the Audiobook Cassette
In the wake of Hachette's last cassette-based audiobook, the New York Times eulogizes a format many thought was already long gone: Cassettes have limped along for some time, partly because of their usefulness in recording conversations or making a tape of favorite songs, say, for a girlfriend. But sales of portable tape players, which peaked at 18 million in…
UK Service Brings Audiobook Downloads to Mobile Phones
UK-based GoSpoken has partnered with Random House to make 50 audiobook titles available for purchase through the GoSpoken mobile download service. GoSpoken is currently aimed at early adopter UK residents who have broadband-capable cellphones (specifically, HSDPA-enabled) and mobile data plans. Managing director Tony Lynch describes the genesis of GoSpoken on the company's blog: As I travel round London, I…
Tag an Audio Clip, Buy it Later
Digital tagging and mobile downloads could reduce the line between content discovery and purchase.
Amazon Acquires Audible
On the heels of news that Amazon is struggling to keep up with demand for the Kindle (I ordered mine three weeks ago, and still no word on ship date), comes word that they're acquiring Audible.Along with the Kindle, this move makes sense for the online retailer as a bet that demand will continue to grow for books in non-print…
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