Bent Corner

Blogging from Williamsport, Maryland so you don't have to.

Tag: iPod

The Music Balloon

music-balloonI saw this speaker for the iPod (or any other audio device that has a 3.5mm jack) over at Unplugged and was immediately impressed with it’s awesomeness. Like most cool gadgets, it originates from Japan.

It comes in colors other than pink if that’s not your thing. Instead of using a battery, it comes with a USB cable to charge it for use. Looking at the specs, I don’t see the frequency spectrum that it encompasses, but something tells me that it falls short of 20Hz – 20,000Hz.

If you want one for yourself, it will run you ¥3,990 ($44.59).

Did Last.fm hand over user information to the RIAA?

lastfm_logosvgI’ll be honest and admit that I never really understood what was so great about Last.fm.  It’s a music community website based out of the UK that allows users to track their listening habits.  Users can then share their musical listening habits with others on social networks or on blogs.  I remember installing a WordPress plugin that displayed the recent albums that I’ve listened to on my iPod or in iTunes.

I quickly realized that I was rightfully embarrassed by my own musical tastes and promptly deleted the plugin.  I don’t need the whole world knowing just how fond I am of 80’s new wave music.

It now appears that Last.fm wasn’t only making this information available to it’s users, but to the The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) as well.

From TechCrunch:

Last.fm didn’t hand user data over to the RIAA. According to our source, it was their parent company, CBS, that did it. That corresponds to what our original source said in conversations we had after our initial post and before CBS lawyers became involved. But we didn’t want to update until we had an independent source for that information, too.

I didn’t even know that CBS owned Last.fm.  I’m sure that if I ever bothered to read the Last.fm user agreement, that tidbit of information was embedded deep in the fine print. 

If this is truly, it’s truly a scummy thing to do on the part of CBS. Not that this would be the first scummy things they ever did.

Opie and Anthony lose their terrestrial radio gig

ltpopieandanthonyMorning radio shock-jocks Opie and Anthony have been let go by CBS radio. The company is doing a complete overhaul to New York City’s K-Rock which as of today, became a Top-40 station.

The two still have their job at Sirius XM. They were doing their K-Rock show from 6am to 9am and they would then trudge over to the XM studios and do a satellite only show till around 11am. Sirius XM was also simulcasting the K-Rock show on satellite.

Though this sucks for Opie and Anthony on a personal financial level, it will make for a better radio show on Sirius XM. Not only will they not have to worry about the FCC, they wont have to adhere to a strict schedule for commercial breaks. That got to be very annoying.

Opie and Anthony were getting good ratings on K-Rock. They weren’t getting Howard Stern ratings, but I doubt Howard Stern would be getting the numbers he got only five years ago on terrestrial radio. It’s a different world today. People buy iPods and they download music online. They buy satellite radios. The people left listening to terrestrial radio are the ones that are too cheap to buy either an iPod or a satellite radio.

I can’t imagine that this demographic is real desirable with advertisers.

Why would someone want to buy a Microsoft Zune?

I honestly cannot see why somebody would purposely choose to go out and spend money on a Zune mp3 player. Microsoft’s lame attempt at producing something to compete with Apple’s popular iPod mp3 player. I understand that Microsoft felt the need to once again go out and copy something another company first came up with. Once they realize consumers like whatever another company was able to come up with on their own. It’s what Microsoft does.

They “created” MSN when they realized people liked going online with AOL. They “created” Internet Explorer when they realized people like accessing the web with Netscape. They saw how scary popular the iPod was so they “created” an mp3 player of their very own.

Microsoft doesn’t so much as create as it does mimic. In the case of copying Apple’s popular mp3 player, they seem to have done a poor job. Worse then they normally do when they copy something. They actually chose to make one of the three available colors brown. Who does that?

Just who do they expect to go out and buy a Zune? People that have lost bets and must now do something both stupid and humiliating? Are iPods banned somewhere in the country that I’m not aware of? One of the reasons iPods are such a killer piece of hardware is because it meshes easily and seamlessly with iTunes. Microsoft has Windows Media Player. Ouch.

I’m sure there are some Microsoft loyalists out there that will run right out and buy one of these things. I just cannot imagine anyone really wanting one of these Zune players more then they would an Apple iPod.

Microsoft’s Zune Only Looks Simple [Washington Post]

Apple Computer rips off a music video for a commerical idea

Apple Computers has been accused of ripping off the video from an alternative rock band by the name of The Postal Service. Both the Apple Computers commercial and the music video are nearly frame by frame copies.

I find this to be ironic. This band stole their name from the quasi government agency that is tasked with delivering my mail six days a week. The same quasi government agency that could never seem to be able to successfully deliver my weekly issue of Sports Illustrated. In other words, they stole it.

It’s like one big circle of life type of thing.

The Post Office steals from me. Alternative music band steals name from Post Office. Apple Computers steals video idea from alternative rock band. I am pretty sure that all this means that I am legally and morally justified in downloading some MP3’s of The Postal Service (the alternative rock band) without paying for any of it. They stole something (the name) from something (quasi government agency) that stole from me.

What makes this even funnier is that when I bought my iPod, the first thing I see as I remove it from the packaging is a warning to not steal music.