"news from the future" entries
A rare post about the music industry that isn't completely depressing
The Qtrax debacle is getting most of the attention this week, with Warner Music's ridiculous CEO compensation close behind, but there is promising news in the music industry worth noting. Late last year, there was much fuss around Radiohead's decision to eschew usual distribution schemes and release In Rainbows in a variety of formats, among them free downloads. It was…
More on the Virtual Reality Audio Headset
A few weeks ago, I posted an entry entitled The Future of Cell Phone Headsets. David Battino wrote a few days to let me know that Peter Drescher, the author of the article that sparked that entry, just published a follow-up article describing the potential hardware in his imagined virtual reality headset in more detail. He includes more application scenarios…
Yahoo! spanked over copyright in China
Yahoo! were found guilty of mass copyright infringement by a Chinese court, for offering a search that linked directly to illegal MP3s. Baidu, who were also being sued, did not get spanked. Why? Nominally it's because Baidu was being prosecuted for offences that weren't illegal at the time I suspect that really it's because Baidu is viewed as a local…
iTunes Finally Allows Streaming … At Least to Grammy Voters
Despite protestations by the Cupertino Claque to the contrary, Apple Kremlinologists assume that Steve Jobs and Co. have had a music-streaming strategy ready to go, should the competition force it. That hasn't been necessary yet: The various DRM-encumbered music-streaming services haven't done much to challenge Apple's digital-music-selling dominance. And all evidence suggests that the current model has shifted plenty of…
Multi-touch Raises the Bar
There's been an awful lot of commentary about Amazon's new Kindle. It's clearly lived up to its name, and ignited a lot of discussion and excitement about the new possibilities of the always-on electronic book. I wanted to add one more piece of fuel to the fire. But it's not about ebooks, or even much about the Kindle. It's about…