Items tagged with CD
Somewhere in a landfill there sits a pile of broken records, busted cassette tapes, and scratched up CDs. To some extent, these are all relics of the past (vinyl is making a comeback, though), having given way first to MP3 files (hello, Napster) and now streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify. One would think that the transition to streaming media is better for the environment, but that might not actually be the case. The University of Glasgow and the University of Oslo collaborated on a study that found that even though the use of plastic for things like vinyl and cassette tapes has gone way down in the modern era, there has been a bump in greenhouse gas emissions, as a result of streaming...
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Video may have killed the radio star, as The Buggles so famously put it nearly four decades ago, but what the band couldn't have predicted at the time is that digital streaming would murder physical media. Best Buy is now an accomplice—the retail electronics chain recently told music suppliers that it was pulling CDs from its stores this month. If you walk into a Best Buy location, there is a good chance you will no longer see rows of music CDs. When communicating its decision to music suppliers, the company said it was yanking them on July 1, this past Sunday. This led to reports that Best Buy was done with music CDs altogether, though that's not actually the case. While Best Buy is saying...
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It's been a while since we heard much out of the RIAA after the organization was frequently in the news during its hunt to force anyone who even thought about illegally downloading music to pay damages. At times, the RIAA filed suits against deceased people essentially making it look like the bad guy to many music fans. The RIAA has now released information that looks at revenue statistics from 2017 and the music industry saw some growth last year. According to the statistics, revenue from recorded music in the U.S. increased 16.5% to an estimated retail value of $8.7 billion. Wholesale revenues grew 12.6% to $5.9 billion. RIAA attributes most of the growth in the industry to paid music subscription...
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In what can be considered a sign of the times, Best Buy has reportedly told music supplies that it is phasing out sales of physical CDs. Interestingly enough, the electronics chain will continue to carry vinyl records, a music medium that predates CDs but has seen a resurgence in recent years. Best Buy will merchandise vinyl with turntables, or record players if you prefer the old school term. Besides vinyl, streaming music is where it's at these days. Spotify is the top streaming music service globally and still boasts the most paid subscribers in the United States, though Apple Music is on pace to leapfrog Spotify in the US by this summer. Between just those two streaming services alone, there...
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What's that sound? It might just be the millions of people uttering "hipster" after reading the title of this post. With a new infographic published by Amazon, it's become strikingly clear that vinyl is hot, even though physical media as a whole is on the decline, and has been for quite some time. Clearly - vinyl can't offer the overall fidelity and clarity of a CD, so why has it suddenly become all the rage? Amazon hasn't divulged any thoughts into the matter outside of giving us stats to toy with, but it does seem likely that there are many different factors contributing to people's interest in vinyl. Personally, and as ridiculous as it might be, I consider vinyl to be artwork that I can hang...
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We hate to break it to you, but even with all the advances in medicine, you won't be around in 1,000 years. Neither will your children, grandchildren, or even great-grandchildren. If we're being particularly morbid and pessimistic, we could point out that the human population might be wiped out by then. That's the bad news. The good news is your data will remain intact, so when some alien life form discovers Earth, or a new species of man pops up, everything they need to know about this generation will be preserved. How is this possible? Through the use of M-Disc technology, a new write once and read forever optical disc format developed by Millenniata. Unlike your current CDs, DVDs, hard drives,...
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When Graham McKenna, the PR guy at THX, contacted me and asked me if I’d like to borrow a new Lincoln MKT SUV for a few days, I jumped at the chance. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t care a whit about the MKT itself. I wanted to check out how THX and Ford engineered the sound system in the vehicle. When McKenna arrived with the MKT, I was a little taken aback. The MKT is built on Ford’s Flex platform. So although it seats up to seven people, it’s relatively low slung. It is, however, long. As it turns out, the MKT isn’t the car for me (even if I could afford the price tag), mostly because it seems to be engineered for fairly tall people – and at 5 foot 7 inches in socks, tall I’m not. Still,...
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I once bought a car because of its sound system...Okay, so I didn’t buy the car only because of the sound system, but it was a key component in my decision making. The car was a Subaru Outback H6-3.O VDC, back in 2001. The car was classic Subaru, spare and lean, all-wheel drive and not very exciting to look at.Then there was the tricked out audio system: an 11 speaker sound system, complete with 200W McIntosh (yes, that McIntosh) amplifier. Part of the speaker system was an 8-inch, long throw subwoofer. The H6 was about 200 pounds heavier than a stock Outback due to the extra sound deadening material under the hood and in the door panels.The audio was phenomenal: neutral, clean and loud when...
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LaCie recently announced the latest versions of its Portable DVD±RW Drive designed by Sam Hecht. The new drives feature a sleek black finish and come with new multimedia burning solutions designed for Mac or PC. The Mac and Windows version comes with Toast 9 Basic, as well as Creator Suite 10 while the Windows Version comes with Creator Suite 10. The LaCie Portable DVD±RW drive is powered by a USB bus so only a single cable is needed to burn CDs and DVDs. The drive is also portable, measuring less than an inch tall and weighing under a pound. LaCie Enhances Portable DVD±RW Drive with New Features and a New Look Slim, lightweight, and compact design USB bus-powered Full-featured...
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Although paid music downloads are certainly popular these days, CDs comprised 65% of all tracks sold in the first half of 2009 according to the NPD Group's MusicWatch survey. Paid digital music downloads increased from 30% market share in all of 2008 to 35% of tracks purchased by U.S. consumers in the first half of 2009. For the purposes of the survey, digital sales included downloads to the PC and over-the-air full-track downloads to cell phones, but they did not include cell phone ringtone downloads. The survey also excluded music-subscription services. NPD defined a full-length CD as offering 12 tracks. "Many people are surprised that the CD is still the dominant music-delivery format, given...
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Netbooks may be all the rage these days, but one thing is for sure: if you need an optical drive, you're hosed. Of course, that's why companies like Lite-On exist--to solve quandaries you never knew you'd end up in. For on-the-go computer users that love the low price and small design of netbooks, but wish they had an optical drive on certain occasions, there's the all new eTAU208.The drive is completely USB powered, meaning that travelers won't even need to hunt down an AC outlet to use it. The entire unit weighs just 0.7 pounds, and there's even a built-in USB cable holder to keep things nice and neat. It is also integrated with a top-loading mechanism for convenient CD/DVD backup and playback,...
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These technology birthdays are always up for debate -- are we basing birthdays on the first prototype? The first shipping product? The first patent application? What? There's also no governmental agency to decide upon these highly important matters, so unfortunately, we're at the mercy of the party planners.On the plus side, this chaos usually leads to more celebrations than usual, and that's exactly what we're seeing here. If you'll recall, we actually celebrated the 25th birthday of the Compact Disc in 2007, so obviously, celebrating its 30th in 2009 just seems a bit odd. Turns out, the 25th birthday was celebrating the silver anniversary of the discs rolling off of assembly lines. This birthday...
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The price of LCD screens has steadily declined and in the last few years, larger monitors are starting to become relatively affordable. This is especially evident in the 19", 20" and 22" categories, where we see a significant number of products in the sub-$300 range. However 24" and larger screens still remained premium products until very recently. In the last year or so we have seen the first 24" screens to dip below the $400 mark appear on the market. The products in this new category of value oriented 24" screens almost universally combine a large and cheap TN panel with a basic monitor housing and stand to produce a cost effective product. While these value oriented 24" monitors offer large...
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Back in May Acer teased us with the announcement of its suped-up, hardcore gaming rig, the Aspire Predator. There's still no word on when we'll see this bad boy in the wild; but in the meantime, Acer is teasing us yet again with the announcement of its new 50,000:1 contrast ratio, LCD monitor, the 24-inch Acer G24. That's fifty thousand, like with four zeros. And just like its Predator announcement, there is no word on when the G24 will be available or how much it will cost. Perhaps Acer is taking a high-toned stance on these enthusiast-grade products: If you have to ask how much they cost, then you probably can't afford them. Or perhaps Acer is waiting for the economy to turn around before unleashing...
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