Tag archive: MP3

There is no doubt that the move from vinyl to CD and now MP3 has compressed and degraded the quality of music we listen to on a daily basis. Neil Young is hoping to change this. In an interview at the D: Dive Into Media conference yesterday, Young was quite vocal and realistic about where the music industry is and where he'd like it to go. The singer/songwriter claims that MP3s only offer about 5 percent of the true sound bands and… Read More

The iPod revolutionized music and spawned the mass-adoption of MP3 players. And now, multi-functional smartphones might be the iPod's downfall–much like it led to the end of CD players. While the music player's fate hangs in the air, enjoy this visual history and look back in celebration of its upcoming tenth anniversary on the market. [via Vouchercodes.co.uk]

Today, SanDisk introduces the latest addition to the Sansa lineup of MP3 players, the Sansa Clip Zip MP3 player. In addition to sporting a microSDHC slot for expanded storage, the Sansa Clip Zip comes in two different storage sizes. The 4GB model stores up to 1,000 songs (based on an average of 3.5 min songs encoded at 128 kbps) and the 8GB model stores up to 2,000 songs. The microSDHC slot allows consumers to expand the memory of the MP3… Read More

Walmart has issued a memo to all music licensing partners and informed them that the digital music store at “mp3.walmart.com” will be shutting down on August 28, 2011. All music content will no longer be available for download and users are urged to download DRM-free tracks before becoming unavailable. After the store closes up, tracks containing DRM will still be supported and will continue to work as the DRM servers are being kept… Read More

When Amazon launched its Cloud Drive service in March, basic service originally came with 5GB of free space to store your music as well as a music player for the Web and Android devices. This week, Amazon rolled out a promotion that offers Cloud Drive users unlimited music storage, in addition to 20GB of storage space for a cost of $20 a year. Music file types included in the promotion are MP3 and AAC files. In addition, any Amazon MP3 music… Read More

Just a couple of months ago it looked like Microsoft was ready to part ways with the Zune. After being noticeably absent of Zune updates at Mobile World Congress, and the PMP’s difficulty competing with the iPod, Microsoft’s protestations of seeing a “Zune ecosystem” were code for implementing the software into the Windows Phone 7. For Zune lovers, it’s sad news. If anything could give the iPod some viable competition it was the Zune. There’s no… Read More

Music may have kicked off the digital media revolution with the rise of the MP3, but in recent years audio has taken a major backseat to video and communications. The more devices we pile up, the more fragmented our music collections become. Some don't even bother downloading music at all anymore, instead opting for unlimited monthly services or radio alternatives like Pandora. Well, Amazon has taken a step toward changing that.… Read More

The era of mainstream cloud computing officially arrived today with Amazon's launch of three cloud products: Cloud Drive, Cloud Player for Web and Cloud Player for Android. Through this release, Amazon has catapulted itself over the competition, to the forefront of consumer computing — and left Apple and Google eating its dust. The Cloud Drive, news of which leaked out Monday, serves as a “digital locker” for storing any type… Read More

Microsoft’s done a lot of talking at Mobile World Congress this week, but everyone’s starting to notice what it’s not talking about: Zune. Any mention of the media player has been conspicuously missing from the mouths of Microsoft lately, and word is the company plans to kill it off and make way for a new, rebranded product. ZDNet directly contacted Microsoft to find out Zune’s fate. A company spokesperson responded saying, “We’re not ‘killing’… Read More

A recent Pew study surveyed more than 3,000 American adults last year to reveal favorite gadgets among age groups. While the results aren’t terribly surprising, they do reinforce the slipping popularity of the PC. While more than 50 percent of every generation (excluding those 75 and older) own desktops, cell phones are monumentally more pervasive all around. Game consoles are gaining on laptops with 18-to-34 year olds, and actually outrank… Read More

As we expected, Samsung showed off its Galaxy Player at CES. No surprises here: the media player is identical to the Galaxy S smartphone in every way, shape, and form save for cellular connection. It runs Android 2.2 Froyo and has the full set of expected features, including the app store. The SoundAlive technology offers remarkable audio quality, and as far as visuals go, users are of course privy to full support for Flash. Just like we… Read More

Samsung plans to introduce an iPod touch rival at CES next week, Samsung Hub claims. Insiders are saying that the media player will be modeled after the Galaxy S smartphone, without the phone function of course, and run Android OS 2.2 Froyo. Like the later-generation iPod touch, the device will feature front- and rear-facing cameras and come in 8, 16, and 32 GB options. Samsung is wise to manufacture a player that is almost identical to its… Read More

Love your iPhone but need one less gadget in your life? Koostik’s entirely wooden iPhone dock is up to the task. Like the quirky Bone Horn before it, the amplifier uses the same technology as wood instruments and transmits the sound from you iPhone through a labyrinth of timber tunnels. There are no buttons, knobs, or switches either, instead deferring to the iPhone’s control. The sound quality should be good, albeit less powerful than your… Read More

In her third round in court, Jammie Thomas-Rasset has once again been found guilty of downloading and sharing 24 songs on Kazaa. This time, she has been ordered to cough up $1.5 million for a couple dozen tunes, which allegedly included Green Day and Aerosmith. Earlier this year, when Thomas-Rasset was found guilty for the second time, she was ordered to pay nearly $2 million, but the judge in her case ruled that was “monstrous and shocking,”… Read More

For the past few years, car companies have jumped on the digital media bandwagon, offering USB ports to load music from your iPod Touch and Bluetooth streaming audio to play tracks right from your iPhone. Now, new music technology is emerging that goes a step further — letting you play music from Pandora Radio or over a very high-speed wireless network.