PATREONItems 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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LCD monitors were supposed to free up our precious desk real estate as they relegated bulky CRTs to the local landfill. But with the quantity and quality of high-definition content increasing and LCD prices continuing to drop, widescreen LCDs are becoming increasingly prevalent. Now our desks are filling up again--only this time in width, instead of depth. Still, for many, this is a small price to pay for the relatively large screen area and wide aspect ratio that these widescreen monitors offer.One such widescreen LCD monitor is Asus's MK241H 24-inch display, which sells for a manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) of $499. It measures just under 22-inches wide, which is a typical width...
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LCD monitors were supposed to free up our precious desk real estate as they relegated bulky CRTs to the local landfill. But with the quantity and quality of high-definition content increasing and LCD prices continuing to drop, widescreen LCDs are becoming increasingly prevalent. Now our desks are filling up again--only this time in width, instead of depth. Still, for many, this is a small price to pay for the relatively large screen area and wide aspect ratio that these widescreen monitors offer.One such widescreen LCD monitor is Asus's MK241H 24-inch display, which sells for a manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) of $499. It measures just under 22-inches wide, which is a typical width...
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There should be no doubt as to whether the engineers at HP dream in black-and-white or in color. The question should be: How many colors do they dream in? The answer: over one billion. That's how many colors HP's new DreamColor LP2480ZX LCD is capable of displaying: "The HP DreamColor Display features a new liquid crystal display (LCD) that provides a range of more than 1 billion colors in a 30-bit, LED-backlit display. The display is now shipping worldwide for a U.S. list price of $3,499."Three and a half grand might seem pretty steep for a display, but for a number of professional-level, color-accurate-critical applications, the level of accuracy that the price buys is truly mission critical:...
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Dell’s lineup of flat panel displays have proven themselves to be reliable, stylish, and typically right on par price-wise with some of the most inexpensive LCD monitors on the market. They’ve delivered exceptional bang for the buck, and throughout the years, they’ve managed to improve the quality of the screens and the overall feature sets while overall prices have gone down. While this is also true for the rest of the monitor industry, Dell has retained their reputation for reliability, which still sticks with them today. Sure, Dell displays don’t have the raw sexiness of Apple’s Cinema series displays, but they’re typically quite a bit cheaper while offering more functionality.Perhaps the...
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We’re willing to bet that many of you have wildly varied opinions of Dell. Some no doubt consider them a huge, monolithic corporation who pushes out generic computers without a soul; while others consider them to be pioneers of the low-cost PC movement, who (almost) single-handedly made computers available to nearly every price point. No matter what your opinion of Dell as a company is, it is difficult to find many people in IT circles who dislike their monitor division. Dell’s lineup of flat panel displays have proven themselves to be reliable, stylish, and typically right on par price-wise with some of the most inexpensive LCD monitors on the market. They’ve delivered exceptional bang...
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Stealth Computer Ships Industry's First 24" Widescreen Rugged LCD Monitor with Touchscreen InterfaceToronto, Canada ~ May, 2008 - Stealth Computer a division of Stealth.Com Inc., a market leader in the industrial computer and peripherals market has released a new Model: SV-2400Industrial Grade, Panel Mount LCD monitor. The 24" all steel enclosed touch screen LCD Monitor is built to withstand the demanding effects of harsh environments typically encountered in industrial plant floor and Human Machine Interface applications. The NEMA 4/IP56 LCD front-panel withstands water, dust and dirt intrusion and performs well beyond ordinary commercially available monitors. The high precision 24" widescreen...
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Earlier this year we stumbled upon a widely circulated You Tube video (at least in tech circles), in which a man is seen ruthlessly abusing a poor LCD monitor. The protagonist starts by letting a child draw on the screen with a black permanent marker. Taking matters into his own hands, the man then proceeds to take a pen-knife to the surface of the screen, followed by multiple strikes with a hammer. The abuse of a perfectly good LCD monitor isn't what struck us about this particular video, however. The unique element that caught our eye and set it apart from similar videos is that the LCD monitor survived the episode completely unscathed. The monitor was ASUS' LS201. After seeing...
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Earlier this year we stumbled upon a widely circulated You Tube video (at least in tech circles), in which a man is seen ruthlessly abusing a poor LCD monitor. The protagonist starts by letting a child draw on the screen with a black permanent marker. Taking matters into his own hands, the man proceeds to take a pen-knife to the surface of the screen, followed by multiple strikes with a hammer. Deciding that he isn't quite done, he gets out the big "guns" and holds up a crossbow. To show us he means business, he puts two test shots into a piece of wood. The metal crossbow bolts easily penetrate the surface and lodge in the wooden block with an audible thud. Finally, he turns the crossbow on the...
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