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Injection-molded vinyl could offer better sound and lower costs
The vinyl resurgence trudges on and a Dutch company is working on a new production method that could bring big changes to how the format is made. Symcon built an injection molding system for pressing vinyl records that not only reduces production costs and provides better audio quality, but it also uses 65 percent less energy during the manufacturing process. Energy is saved by not using steam to heat and press records and the company hopes it can eventually cut turnaround times from 12-16 weeks down to two.
Sony's hi-res turntable and software make it easy to go digital
Vinyl has seen a resurgence lately, with sales growth for this format outpacing digital. To stay on top of that trend, Sony refreshed its record player lineup to include the not-so-memorably named PS-HX500. Though it cuts a familiar figure, resembling many minimalist-style turntables, it was built with a 21st century purpose: to make quality digital copies of your treasured discs. That's important for long-time collectors, of course, but also newer vinyl enthusiasts, who will likely want to convert their discs into a high-resolution digital format as painlessly as possible.
VNYL's wireless turntable lets your pals follow along on Spotify
Perhaps you've heard of VNYL: the $39 record subscription service that sends you three new albums a month based on your musical tastes. After offering the vinyl aspect of the audio equation, the company is looking to provide the gear you'll need to spin those records, too. TRNTBL (we should've seen this coming), is a belt-driven wireless turntable that connects to your speakers, headphones and other devices via Bluetooth and AirPlay. Despite its claims, the gadget isn't the first wireless turntable, as both ION and Audio Technica have Bluetooth-equipped models of their own.
Discogs' vinyl-tracking app goes wide February 29th
Whether you call it "vinyl," "wax," "black crack" or something else entirely, we can all agree that poring over shelves for new records can be a time-consuming, but ultimately rewarding, process. And now, the folks at Discogs are making it easier to see if that copy of the Lost Highway soundtrack you found is the real deal or just another bootleg. Come Monday, the internet's preeminent destination for music collectors is taking its iOS app out of beta.
Vinyl fans rejoice: Discogs finally has a dedicated mobile app
For whatever reason, it took until now for Discogs, the internet's premiere destination for record collectors, to get an app of its own. Sure, iOS users have Milkcrate which hooks in with the vinyl database, syncs your collection automatically and lets you add to your stash via a barcode scan, but Android crate diggers don't even have a halfway decent app to check prices or whether or not an LP is a bootleg. And no, searching for stuff on Amazon isn't a valid substitute -- especially not for albums that are either rare or out of print. The iOS app is in closed beta starting tomorrow, and it builds upon the work that Milkcrate's done, while the Android beta tentatively launches in October.
'Bit.Trip' limited vinyl soundtrack loaded with killer indie games
The folks over at iam8bit have been knocking it out of the park pretty regularly. Earlier this year they released the absolutely gorgeous vinyl edition of the Hotline Miami 2 soundtrack, an equally beautiful video-game world map and during ComicCon the outfit unveiled the limited edition soundtrack for Battletoads on wax. The latest project looks like it could be just as special: a "greatest chips" collection of games and music from the the lovely (and unapologetically difficult) indie series Bit.Trip. While the multi-colored bullseye picture disc and fancy Drew Wise album art are cool enough on their own, it's the digital offerings packed in that are pretty awesome in and of themselves. In addition to the aforementioned accoutrements, the $25 asking price also nets you download codes for each of the seven Bit.Trip games and their full soundtracks. It's a circus of value!
RIP New Music Tuesday. Hello New Music Friday.
If you're like me, your Tuesday morning ritual includes browsing the New Releases section of your go-to streaming service. Did you notice the list didn't change today? Whether it's Apple Music, Rdio, Spotify, Tidal or another app, you'll have to wait a little longer this week to get your new music fix. Why? Well, this is the week the music industry transitions from releasing albums on Tuesdays to doing so on Friday. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), an organization that's "the voice of recording industry worldwide" and represents over 1,300 record companies, opted for the switch to cut down on piracy. By establishing a global release day each week, IFPI looks to cure the woes caused by albums being available in some countries before others.
The NHS wants to give wearables to hospital patients
To cut costs and improve patient care, the NHS is looking to technology more than ever before. Under its latest proposals, Britain's healthcare service wants to introduce free wi-fi across all of its hospitals, giving doctors and nurses the ability to use tablets on the wards. The hope is that this will reduce paper waste and speed up administrative tasks, giving staff some extra time to visit their patients. It also opens up the possibility for patients to wear wearables, such as skin sensors. Patients with diabetes, for instance, could then be monitored around the clock to help doctors spot early signs of deterioration.
Vinyl is back, and now it has its own UK top 40
Vinyl is making a comeback. Album sales in the UK climbed to 1.29 million last year -- the first time the 1 million mark has been surpassed since 1996. The format is still just a fraction of the total UK albums market (1.5 percent, to be precise) but now its success is being recognised in the charts. The UK's Official Charts Company is launching two vinyl-specific top 40s today -- one for albums and another for 7-inch and 12-inch singles -- for the first time in Britain. The renewed interest in vinyl doesn't appear to be slowing either, with album sales in the first quarter of 2015 up 69 percent from the same period last year. Is the growth from audiophiles, collectors, DJs, or a mixture of all three? It's not clear, but in the age of streaming, it's nice to see that analog still has a place with music lovers.
Streams and vinyl sales double while music downloads dwindle
Need even more proof that vinyl is more than just a passing fad for the Pabst Blue Ribbon crowd? Here goes: While digital album and song sales continued their downward spiral, record sales have more than doubled since last year. All this is according to Nielsen Soundscan, which reports that the 9.2 million wax tally is the highest since it started tracking sales in 1991. For context, however, digital sales still bested physical by a massive margin (CDs weren't broken out, according to The Wall Street Journal), with 106.5 million albums downloaded in 2014. Meanwhile, individual song sales dipped 12 percent compared to 2013.
Vinyl demand is so high, a record label opened its own factory to keep up
Jack White and his Third Man Records imprint aren't the only ones benefiting from the vinyl boom. Oxford, Mississippi-based Fat Possum Records took matters into its own hands, building a pressing plant to meet the demands of its avid collectors. After using other record makers and encountering issues with backorders and the headache of international shipping, founder Matthew Johnson (with a hand from others) bought used equipment and set up shop in Memphis. The plant is modest compared to other more established operations, but with the new setup, the goal is to crank out 13,000 to 14,000 records a day -- plus it'll keep everything in-house. Fat Possum's vinyl releases include LPs from Modest Mouse and Waylon Jennings. If you'll recall, White's Lazaretto is the best-selling vinyl release in two decades, serving as more evidence that the classic format refuses to die. [Photo credit: David Buchan/Getty Images]
No one has a platinum album in 2014
The decline in album sales is certainly nothing new, thanks to the smattering of streaming options now available to eager listeners. However, 2014 looks to be particularly awful. Forbes reports that nearly 10 months into the year, no release since January has yet to reach platinum status -- a release that sells 1 million copies (in the US). What's more, only one has sold a million copies: the Frozen soundtrack that hit shelves last year. At this point in 2013, five different albums had hit that sales mark (Justin Timberlake's The 20/20 Experience led the pack). How bad are the numbers? Well, the best-selling effort that was actually released in 2014 is fourth on the year's sales tally (Eric Church's Outsiders). And singles are seeing the same fate, albeit at a slower pace. So far, 60 tracks have sold a million -- down from 83 at this point last year. As Forbes points out, sales usually see a boost during Q4 (holiday bump), but most of the top sellers like Adele, Katy Perry and others don't have new material on tap before the year's end. However, Taylor Swift's 1989 is set to release on October 27th, so there's hope? [Photo credit: Gabe Souza/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images]
NY State to launch a patient portal that gives residents access to health records
If you've ever wished you had more immediate access to your health records beyond just asking your doctor for a copy, then you might want to consider a move to New York State. Dr. Nirav Shah, NY state's commissioner of health, has announced that New York will be the first state in the country to launch a new patient portal that'll give you access to your health records from the comfort of your home. Created by Mana Health and the New York eHealth Collaborative, the portal will incorporate information from the Statewide Health Information of New York (SHIN-NY) plus the state's All Payer Database. Shah also promises that all data will be interoperable so that records from different doctor's IT systems will play nice together. You won't just be able to view them either; Shah says that said data can also be plugged into third-party apps and services in case you want to manage your health in more detail.
World of Tanks sets new concurrency record of 1.1 million tanks tanking
Wargaming.net's World of Tanks has again broken its own world record for player concurrency, hosting 1.1 million players simultaneously on the game's Russian cluster. This new total handily defeats the previously reported record of 190,541 online players set in March of 2013, though Wargaming.net did note in its press release that average concurrency has been hovering near the 900,000 mark "for the past few months." According to the studio, which now boasts offices in Chicago, Baltimore, Seattle, Austin, Paris, Kiev, Tokyo, and more, World of Tanks has over 75 million players. The press release was not specific on whether these are active players or simply registered accounts. [Source: Wargaming.net press release]
Lord of the Rings Online: Helm's Deep breaks beta records
Will Lord of the Rings Online: Helm's Deep break records when it launches next week? Only time will tell, but Community Manager Rick Heaton said that the expansion has already done so in beta. On the forums Heaton posted, "It's the first expansion that we've had since Shadows of Angmar that required us to add servers to the beta world to match the number of players trying to log in and participate. It was the first beta since Shadows of Angmar that actually tripped our login queues on the beta world and forced us to raise the max player population." Helm's Deep launches on Monday, November 18th.
GTA5 officially breaks PSN records, Guinness records less officially
The Sony Blog has confirmed that Grand Theft Auto 5 is the most-downloaded game in the history of the PlayStation Network, while Guinness World Records has awarded not one, not two, but seven titles to Rockstar's sandbox full of murder and mayhem. Whether it's virtual law or real-life records, Grand Theft Auto 5 breaks more bad than ... yeah, you see where that joke was going. According to a Guinness statement, GTA5 now holds the record for: Best-selling action-adventure videogame in 24 hours Best-selling videogame in 24 hours Fastest entertainment property to gross $1 billion Fastest videogame to gross $1 billion Highest grossing videogame in 24 hours Highest revenue generated by an entertainment product in 24 hours Most viewed trailer for an action-adventure videogame There are, however, conflicting accounts of the statement's validity. According to GameSpot, a Guinness representative claimed that the records team "worked directly with Rockstar on obtaining the figures." However, GameSpot also reports that a Take-Two Interactive representative said the numbers didn't come from them. "We can't verify its accuracy and we haven't commented on GTA V's performance beyond the two releases that we issued," the representative told GameSpot.
Amazon vinyl sales up 745 percent since 2008, 8-track mulling comeback
This surely marks a faint glimmer of hope for all the beaten-down and forgotten formats out there. Granted, the vinyl record has been out of fashion recently but still, a 745 percent increase in Amazon sales marks some pretty impressive growth. So, why the bump? A retro explosion? A new-found appreciation for fidelity in this world of streaming compression? The answer's likely a little bit of both. Also, don't underestimate the power of Amazon's AutoRip feature. See, vinyl's not only the fastest growing music medium on Amazon, it's also the most popular format for AutoRip, which entitles buyers to MP3 versions of physical albums they buy. Obviously, though, it's a bit tougher for most music lovers to rip vinyl than, say, a CD. So, which records are selling best? As of the weekend, the top vinyl titles include albums by the Death Grips, Amy Winehouse and Arcade Fire. Daft Punk, Nirvana and Paul McCartney managed to make their way into the top ten, as well. Those who prefer their information served up in a handy graphical format should click through to the source link below.
EVO 2013 smashes viewership records with 1.7 million spectators
This year's Evolution Championship Series, colloquially known as EVO 2013, was the most-watched fighting game tournament ever broadcast through Twitch.tv, according to the streaming site's VP of marketing, Matthew DiPietro. "It was nearly fifty percent higher than last year's EVO, which was the previous record holder," DiPietro said in a statement. "1.7 million tuned in during the course of the weekend." Records for concurrent, game-specific viewership were also broken, with Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 peaking at 144,848 simultaneous viewers. Estimations place Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition and Super Smash Bros. Brawl at approximately 125,000 and 134,000 concurrent viewers each, respectively. Numbers like these, while certainly impressive, aren't all that surprising considering that this year's EVO was easily the most thrilling in the event's 11-year history. With legal drama, release date/DLC/new game reveals and some truly surprising winners at the end of it all, EVO 2013 put on one hell of a show.
NYPD now has Android smartphone arsenal to pull up records, identify perps
Thanks to an NYPD pilot program, over 400 officers have special Android smartphones that allow them to pull up suspect data on the spot, according to the New York Times. Patrol car-mounted laptops can be slow and cumbersome, while the call-disabled handsets (which look like Samsung's Rugby Smart in the image above) let patrolmen see a suspect's criminal record on the spot and even know if a felon hides drugs "in his left sock," according to one cop. The custom app can also dig up info like open warrants, arrest and incident records, orders of protection and photos of everyone who's been arrested in a particular building, for instance. They can even drum up the location of every video camera pointed at a particular spot -- so, watch where you spit that gum, scofflaw. [Image credit: New York Times]
Torment Kickstarter closes at over $4.1 million, most-funded game in Kickstarter history
The Kickstarter fundraising campaign for Torment: Tides of Numenera has come to a close, raising $4,188,927 over the course of its 30 days on the crowdfunding site, more than 465% of its original $900,000 goal. This makes Torment the most-funded gaming software ever on Kickstarter, as well as the second-most funded gaming project in general, bested only by the $8.59 million raised to get Ouya off the ground.Torment's Kickstarter has been a runaway success since it began on March 6, earning the totality of its original $900,000 goal in less than 24 hours. Since then, developer inXile Entertainment has added Planescape: Torment lead designer Chris Avellone to the project, in addition to delaying the game past its original December 2014 release window and into 2015.
