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The Internet Archive will host 490,000 music tracks 'lost' by MySpace
When MySpace announced that it had "accidentally" (and there are question marks around that) lost 12 years of content last month, former users were devastated to learn that many of their audio files -- which they assumed would continue to exist on the site like a digital archive -- had been lost forever. But The Internet Archive comes bearing good news, having managed to salvage a collection of MP3s it's calling the "MySpace Dragon Hoard."
'Super Smash Bros. Ultimate' turns your Switch into a Nintendo iPod
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's veritable museum of Nintendo history extends to the game-maker's iconic music as well. This time out, there are over 900 compositions and Nintendo says if you played them all back to back, it'd take you over 28 hours to hear a repeat. The "My Music" feature is essentially iTunes for Nintendo music. If you want, you can plug your headphones in, turn the Switch's screen off, toss the giant handheld into your bag and listen to the game's music during your commute. You know, if you want to use the hybrid console as a gigantic MP3 player. There's a playlist feature as well, driving the point home even further.
Recommended Reading: Rebooting a hero in 'Spider-Man: Homecoming'
'Spider-Man: Homecoming' Is One of the Best Superhero Movies in Years Christopher Orr, The Atlantic Well folks, the time has come. The team-up between Sony and Marvel for the third different take on Spider-Man debuted this week. So far, the reviews are mostly positive, noting that the duo created a compelling story line for Peter Parker with Tom Holland that establishes the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Don't take my word for it, The Atlantic has a full review (yep, spoilers) with all the details.
MP3 is dead, long live AAC
MP3, the format that revolutionized the way we consume (and steal) music since the 90s, has been officially retired -- in a manner of speaking. The German research institution that created the format, The Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, announced that it had terminated licensing for certain MP3-related patents...in other words, they didn't want to keep it on life support, because there are better ways to store music in the year 2017. Rest now forever, MP3.
We destroyed a collectible Doritos bag to get at its hidden MP3 Player
Junk food and summer blockbusters go hand in hand -- from the nachos, popcorn and candy you buy at the cinema, to action-hero faces plastered on every brand of potato chips at the supermarket. This has been the way of the world as long as I can remember, but this summer, the pairing may have reached its apex. In a perfect storm of brand synergy, nostalgia and guilty pleasures, Marvel has decided to release the soundtrack to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 in the most unconventional format imaginable: a bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos.
Music labels sue YouTube ripping site over piracy
With the downfall of the Pirate Bay and Kickass Torrents, users are turning to another way to get illegal songs: ripping YouTube streams. Record labels have taken note of the problem and sued the largest site, YouTube-mp3.org for $150,000 per violation. They say the site has up to 60 million users and and hosts tens or hundreds of millions of illegal downloads per month. "It should not be so easy to engage in this activity in the first place, and no stream ripping site should appear at the top of any search result or app chart," says RIAA president Cary Sherman.
DJI unveils custom aerial Micro Four Thirds camera
Drone manufacturer DJI has announced its response to news that GoPro is working on a UAV. DJI announced two new cameras for its own flagship drone, the Inspire 1. Dubbed the Zenmuse X5 and X5R, respectively, these cameras are the first aerial cameras to hit the market featuring Micro Four Thirds sensors. Each camera captures 16MP stills and up to 4K/30fps video. Additionally, the X5R is capable of capturing images and video (including lossless 4K CinemaDNG) on either an onboard microSD card or a 512GB SSD mounted just above the gimbal. What's more, each 0.75-pound camera body accommodates four interchangeable lenses (ranging from 12mm to 17mm). The pilot can even adjust the aperture and focus of the lenses from the ground while the Inspire 1 is in flight.
How a file format brought an industry to its knees
MP3. It's the format that revolutionized the way music's been consumed since the late '90s. When Karlheinz Brandenburg, a German acoustics engineer, discovered that an audio file could be compressed down to one-twelfth of its original size without distortion, he created the file-shrinking technology. Stephen Witt's debut book, How Music Got Free, traces all digital music piracy back to the invention of that format, which inadvertently made it possible for people to download and share music illegally. The book details the science and struggle behind the widely used audio technology. And his investigation uncovers the politics and the manipulative men who kept MP3 files from seeing the light of computer screens for years.
I tried to identify high-quality audio samples and failed miserably
High-resolution audio is getting a lot buzz as of late thanks to the efforts of Tidal, Neil Young and others. While Tidal had a test of its own, NPR set up another quiz to see if you can tell the difference between MP3s and uncompressed WAVs. I couldn't, and I listened to the samples through a pair of B&O H6s routed through an Apogee Groove DAC/headphone amp. In fact, the only track out of the six in which I was able to accurately identify the uncompressed audio was Katy Perry's "Dark Horse" (oddly enough, I'm a big KP fan). For reference, 320kbps MP3s, which are the mid-grade option here, are what streaming services like Spotify, Rdio and others use for their catalogs.
OneDrive link to Xbox Music puts your MP3s in the cloud for free
A few months ago info leaked out that OneDrive was getting ready for music storage, then Microsoft confirmed, and now it's here. Starting today, Xbox Music and OneDrive are connected so any music files (MP3, M4A, or WMA) in your "Music" folder on Microsoft's cloud storage service are immediately playable via the web or Xbox Music apps on Windows 8, Windows Phone 8.1, Xbox 360 and Xbox One -- for free. The initial leak suggested there would be 20GB of storage, but Xbox Music's paying Music Pass subscribers will get an additional 100GB of space.
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.
Get Imagine Dragons' League of Legends song for free
League of Legends has an official song for its 2014 World Championship, and you can get it for free today. The song is "Warriors" by the band Imagine Dragons. "To kick off the start of the action, we set out to craft a war cry to rally behind in a creative collaboration with Imagine Dragons," Riot posted on its site. "Whether you're a solo queue warrior or fighting off the LCS jitters –- every moment counts." The MP3 is available for free on the site, but if you want the full animated music video, all you have to do is hit the jump below.
Gold: The secret shame of my late night iPhone order
If you were one of the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, all staying up late last night to pre-order an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, you probably noticed that the roll-out didn't proceed as smoothly as it might have, especially at the US store. With store-down notices going on significantly beyond the 12AM Pacific launch time, it was a mad scramble trying to get an early-shipped device. Outages were so bad that some people started hearing imaginary Mandarin audio tracks floating through their heads. I quickly found out, as did many others, that the iOS-based Apple store app offered the best chance for a pre-order. I hopped in, fully intending to pick up a mid-range 64 GB Space Gray iPhone 6 Plus unit. This is what I call the "accountant's special", as it offers the best mix of subdued coloring and storage value. Apparently, nearly every one else in the Internets hoped to pick up exactly that model since it showed "not available" from the moment I finally got past the AT&T upgrade screen. In fact, the only model I could order with a quick ship date was the 128GB Gold. I'm not terribly against the whole 128GB storage as I can basically put every bit of data I own on my phone along with the gross domestic data product of several small countries but the gold color, well, I'd like to think that I have, er, had, standards. Ever since the gold iPhone 5s debuted, its taste level has been subject to debate. Caught between "shameful bling" and "understated elegance", there fewer people who can figuratively carry it off than people who literally carry it in their purse or pocket. I know for sure that I'm not one of them. Sure, I'm trying to make the best of things -- I'm calling it "Fawkes" after the phoenix in Harry Potter, although I was tempted with "Deputy Parrish" for the ambiguously phoenix-y character on Teen Wolf -- but to me, gold color has always been something that happens to other people. People who live in Florida. Who have fabulous houses. Who drive nice cars and drink champagne. People to whom "lamé" is a metallic fabric and not an MP3 encoder. Steve Sande tells me that he's about to sell his gold iPhone 5s to Gazelle, adding "I've hidden it in a Mophie case for a year". What do you think of the gold iPhone? Cast your vote in this poll and then drop a comment about how your pre-order went. What model and color did you go for? And when do you expect it to arrive or be ready for pickup? %Poll-89389%
GarageBand on Mac now lets you export songs as MP3s... again
As meaningful as GarageBand's mobile life is to Apple, the tune-making app is still considered a valuable piece of real estate on the desktop. However, last year GarageBand for Mac lost MP3 exporting as a feature, something which unsettled some of its users. The good news: today's release brings that back, once again allowing you to export those music creations as MP3 files. Additionally, Apple's thrown in a few Drummers and drum packs from various genres, including songwriter, rock and R&B. Who knows, these kits might play a part in you becoming the next Pharrell. Maybe, just maybe.
Sony shows off its waterproof Walkman... by packaging it in a water bottle
If those ads showing swimmers rocking Sony's new Walkman haven't convinced you it's really waterproof, then get this: you can buy one packaged inside a full bottle of water. "The Bottled Walkman" is currently being sold from vending machines across New Zealand in places like gyms, right beside neon-blue bottles of Gatorade. The idea behind the promotion is to get the device out of electronics stores and into the places target customers actually hang out. Of course, the shock value of being encased in liquid certainly makes the Walkman a bit more enticing than if it was sitting behind the front desk. The big question is, who wants to drink a bottle of water that's had a Walkman sitting in it for days (or weeks) on end? Check out a video of the vending machine in action after the break.
Billboard: Digital music sales decrease for the first time ever, vinyl continues to grow
It was inevitable: After years of highs and then a plateau, digital music sales saw their first decrease in 2013. Last year, digital song purchases dropped almost six percent according to a Billboard report, while digital album sales dropped 0.1 percent. Compact discs continued their downward spiral as well, and took a 14.5 percent loss. On the flip side, pure analog music (read: vinyl) showed an increase of 31.9 percent -- representing a full two percent of music sales. Until Nielsen's SoundScan report for streaming hits, however, we won't know how much of an impact the likes of Spotify or Rdio are having on purchases. We have a hunch it'll be rather telling. [Image credit: karola riegler photography/Flickr]
Amazon's MP3 Android app gets a makeover, now lets you share to Facebook
If you're an Android user who likes to shop for music on the Amazon MP3 app, then you'll be glad to hear that it has received a much needed update. Most notably, the application now looks substantially better and is a lot speedier than before, with Amazon making nice design changes to the UI and tweaking things under the hood to make browsing through it all a breeze. This new version also brings the option to share what you're listening to with Facebook friends, as well as a fresh widget that allows you to have quick access to recently played tunes. It's available for download now, so go on and grab it from either Google Play or the Amazon Appstore.
Winamp, the media player of your college years, is shutting down next month
Winamp, the AOL-owned mp3 player of yore, will close up shop for good on December 20th, which means you have exactly one month from today to use the service -- if you're still using it, that is. In addition to shutting down Winamp.com, AOL and co. will no longer offer downloads of the media player. It's hardly a surprising announcement, but it's a slightly glum one considering Winamp's popularity in the late nineties and early aughts. Go ahead, you have our permission to get nostalgic for a moment or two.
Sony discussing 'how and when' the PS4 will get CD and MP3 playback
News that the PS4 can't play MP3s or CDs out of the box caught many off guard, and it turns out the backlash also surprised Shuhei Yoshida, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios head, and other folks at the company. While Yoshida previously announced that he'd conferred with the PS4 developer team about the matter, he revealed in an interview with Giant Bomb that "the systems guys are discussing how and when we can put these features on PS4." In addition, the head honcho says DLNA support is being looked at as well. Oh, and stow away your tinfoil hats, as the PlayStation boss says the functionality omission wasn't part of an elaborate ploy to rack up more Music Unlimited subscriptions. Instead, he says game features took priority when it came to launch day software, while media-focused ones took the back seat. "We didn't really think about MP3 or DLNA," Yoshida said. "We thought, 'we're going to do that eventually.' We've been doing it with all the products, so it caught us off guard." For now, you can rely on your Xbox One to spin your CDs -- and play MP3s as a PlayTo device -- or blow some dust off that stereo system of yours.
Sony discussing MP3, CD playback in PS4 after surprising fan feedback
When Sony outlined the PS4's hardware features in October, some potential customers were so shocked that the console wouldn't support MP3 files or CDs that they vowed to cancel their pre-orders. President of Sony Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida was surprised by such a heated response. "The biggest surprise for us all internally at Sony was there are so many people who passionately reacted to our announcement that there's no MP3 support or CD support on day one," Yoshida said on Giant Bomb's Interview Dumptruck, caught by Eurogamer. "It's not like we actively decided, 'Let's not do this feature so people will have to subscribe to Music Unlimited. The focus has been more on the game features. Some of the features we wanted but we couldn't get in on day one." The PS4 team in Japan is figuring out the best way to implement the missing media features, Yoshida said: "We didn't really think about MP3 or CD. We thought, 'We're going to do that eventually ....' It caught us off-guard. People don't really talk about these features, right? Some people get really mad and [say,] 'I'll cancel my pre-order!' So as we speak, people in Japan – the system guys – are discussing when we can put these features in." People certainly started talking about media features after Sony's announcement – we asked you (yes, you!) if musical freedom was important in a console, with poll results and your comments compiled here.
