MP3 and PDF plug-in dependencies engineered away

Pdf.js rendering a page in Firefox 4.0 Two different projects are working to engineer away plug-in dependencies for PDF files and MP3 audio in Firefox and other browsers. PDF files are typically rendered by Adobe’s Reader but this plugin is quite heavyweight and has been plagued with security holes in recent times. Google addressed the problem by incorporating its own, non-Adobe plug-in into Chrome, but Mozilla’s Andreas Gal is taking the plug-in out of the equation with his pdf.js plan. Pdf.js will render PDF files in HTML5 with JavaScript using Canvas and SVG APIs.

Gal hopes “that a browser-native PDF renderer written on the web platform allows web technologies to subsume PDF”. The code has been developed in the open over the last month and, at the time of Gal’s announcement, it lacked, for example, Type1 PostScript font support.

It is expected that pdf.js will implement the most commonly used PDF features within three months and at that point, there will be a release of a pdf.js Firefox extension. Ultimately, Gal hopes that it will ship with Firefox where it will improve usability and security for users, but gives no schedule for that. Pdf.js is licensed under a BSD licence and the project is looking for external contributors. For more detail, developers should consult the project wiki.

JSMad plays an MP3 with no native support The other project looking to de-plug-in the browser is jsmad, a pure JavaScript MP3 decoder which runs on Firefox 4.0 and later. A demo page plays official.fm music and uploaded mp3 files. It makes use of the Web Audio API and Audio Data API.

As the project is based around these standards, it provides a snapshot of current HTML5 audio support in browsers. Jsmad works out of the box on Firefox 4.0, and works in Firefox 5, 6 and Aurora with one configuration change to work around a bug. In Chrome 12 dev (Linux),13 (OSX) and Canary on Windows it works with some distortion due to a forced sample rate, if the WebAudio API is enabled. Opera, Safari and the iOS and Android browsers all lack the required APIs so are unable to work.

Author of jsmad, Amos Wenger, says he hopes his work will open up a “whole world of realtime audio applications implemented in JavaScript” such as dj mixers, samplers and sequencers. Wenger says that jsmad has been created to “push the limits of what is being done with JavaScript, much in the spirit of pdf.js”. Jsmad is available under a GPLv2 licence and in the future the developers plan to enhance buffering, optimise the code more, and support MPEG layer I and II.

(djwm)

Get bigger sound out of Apple gadgets with iWow

In this age of the iTunes and MP3 audio, hi-fi has turned into lo-fi. In exchange for having thousands of songs at our fingertips on our mobile phones and iPods, we settle for compressed and often lifeless audio.

• SRS Labs

  The iWow 3D adapter from SRS Labs.

SRS Labs

The iWow 3D adapter from SRS Labs.

There are plenty of back-end remedies that attempt to breathe some life back into digital music. I have a cradle that connects my iPod to my home theater system. And I’ve tried several sound docks that pump tunes from an iPod through amplified speakers.

But none of those solutions was as satisfying as the iWow 3D adapter from SRS Labs. The tiny, $60 gadget coaxed better sound from my iPod that what I got from a $200 sound dock or a $600 stereo amplifier.

SRS has been working magic with digital audio for more than 20 years. Dozens of products including computers, TVs, mobile phones, home stereos, and car audio systems come with SRS technology built into their audio circuits. SRS typically widens the sound stage and enhances the stereo effect.

I’ve heard SRS audio on many of those devices, but none of them had the impact of the iWow 3D.

The iWow plugs into any Apple gadget that uses Apple’s 30-pin connector. That includes iPhones, iPads and most iPods. When you connect headphones, earbuds or a cable to a full sound system, you immediately hear cleaner, richer and more detailed sound. Bass tracks have more definition, vocals are more separated from the music, and high notes don’t get clipped.

Everybody on my iPod, from Sugerland to Sinatra, was in better form than I had heard since I consigned them to an MP3. The improvement was obvious and dramatic, whether I was listening with high-quality headphones, cheap earbuds or with the iPod connected to full sound system.

The iWow works straight out of the box with an iPod. Users of other igadgets — anything that has access to the Apple store — can download and install a free app that gives you more control over the iWow. It lets you adjust the sound for three different listening environments: Headphones, Speakers or Car.

You can also tune the sound for a wider surround effect and tweak the bass and treble. That could be useful for movies and games as well as music.

SRS Labs sells the iWow 3D adapter on its website, www.srslabs.com for $59.99. A version with a set of earbuds and replaceable color faceplates costs $79.99.

Posted

Microsoft PSF-00001 64GB Zune HD Video MP3 Player – $220 + Free Shipping

Buy.com has a discount deal available on this Microsoft PSF-00001 64GB Zune HD Video MP3 Player which reduces the price down to $299.99 – $80 Instant Discount + Free Shipping = $219.99!

With the Zune HD you have a grasp on all your favorite media and music anywhere you go! It’s super slim and stylish and sports a large 3.3-Inch OLED multi-touch screen with a 16:9 resolution ideal for all your videos. To take it even further you have instant access to the Zune Marketplace where you can get new songs and videos on your own terms and with Wi-Fi connectivity you have a full Internet Browser at your fingertips. You even have full access to HD radio so you always have listening choices that are new. This model has a massive 64GBs of internal memory which allows you to hold up to 16,000 songs at once or 96 hours of video.

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Dirt Cheap! Best Amazon MP3, Apple iTunes Alternatives. Download Legally.

Trust me when I say it, illegal downloads (pirated music) account for 90% of the music downloaded online today. To be more exact, 5,000,000,000 illegal songs : 500,000,000 legal downloads per year (as of 2006; now they say it’s around 88% or 7:1).

There are more than 500 music stores online (from 40 countries), but none actually sell cheap music. Hence an average customer often tends to download music - – for free – - from pirate sites, whilst knowing that it’s illegal.

Bother not! You can still be a goodie while downloading music at dirt cheap rates – – I mean $0.10 is cheap compared to $1 per song, isn’t it? And you are even able to download a full album for a single dollar.

So, as promised, lets take a look at the best Amazon MP3 and Apple iTunes (and alike) alternatives for legal music downloads online…

MP3CAPRICE.COM – – The cheapest alternative. Offers songs for as low as $0.12 each and music albums for less than $2. The only thing is, you need to add at least $10 to your account upfront and you’re ready to download $11 worth of music content ($30 worth of music downloads for $25, $65 for $50, and $140 for $100).

All music content is CD quality (i.e., constant bit rate of 256kbps or 320kbps only).

SOUNDSBOX.COM – – Download songs for $0.14 each, or a full album for less than $2 again. Songs are encoded at a minimum of 192 kbps and up to 320 kbps (bit rate). You get $0.30 free balance to start with, once you signup for an account.

GOMUSICNOW.COM – – Charges $0.15 per song and less than $2 per album. Songs are of good quality, encoded at a bit rate of 192 kbps and above (even 320 kbps).

MP3SALE.RU – – A very good place to purchase some quality music (320 kbps). Charges in Euros. Songs are priced at around €0.10 and most albums cost less than €1.

Looks like it’s got a sister site MovieBerry that sells movies in HD and low resolutions. HD movies cost $3.54, and the price comes down to $1.14 for lower quality.

MP3PANDA.COM – – Offers songs for $0.15 and albums for less than $2. Songs are encoded at 192kbps through 320 kbps.

OTHERS: Also, do check out JustMusicStore, MilliSong, LegalSounds and MP3Fiesta for some cheap quality songs. These are the next best alternatives.

HUNGAMA.COM – – Indians can try this website. Offers songs, videos, wallpapers and ringtones for as low as Rs.1. Choose a plan that suits you, and you are good to do.

Do you know some even better alternatives? Let us know in the comments. Sites included are sources for cheap English pop music downloads. You can help us improve this list, for other languages too. But legal content only.

So, do you like it? It’s taken me some time to generate this list. Hope it’s useful.

NOTE: Some of these sites may restrict the number of times you can download a song once purchased; some need deposits. So, go through the Help / FAQ sections on these websites thoroughly.

The websites are deemed legal by the law of the country they reside in (mostly Russian). So, it should perfectly safe to download from these websites… but, do so at your own risk (I do not guarantee anything).

Amazon Lowers the Price of their MP3 Music – Popular Songs Drop to 69 Cents

(Best Syndication News) In an effort to win business from Apple iTune and other music services, Amazon has lowered the cost of some of the MP3 downloads.

The mega-internet retailer lowered the price of some of their popular Mp3s twenty cents to 69 cents. “Instantly buy all the bestselling new songs for only $0.69 each and gift your favorite songs to your friends,” the company said.

Apple has dominated the marketplace for years, with an estimated market share of 70 percent. Compare that to Amazon’s share of only ten percent.

These low price songs include all of their “new release” best sellers, including Bridgit Mendler’s, “Breakthrough”, The Beastie Boys “Make Some Noise”, and Wiz Khalifa “No Sleep”. The last two were explicit versions.

According to a report from ifpi, piracy is taking a bite out of profits. Although global digital music revenues reached $4.2 billion in 2010 (+12%), “local music is collapsing”.

Over the last few years people are spending less on music. Another report found that the average consumer spent $46 on digital music, which is half from the year before.

Some of the songs on Amazon’s list cost $1.29 on the Apple iTune store. It is uncertain whether Amazon will profit more or whether Apple will follow-suit and lower their price. One thing for sure, Amazon is hoping music lovers buy more music (from them).

By: Nancy Connors

Amazon MP3 Cuts Prices to 69 Cents, How Low Can Prices Go?

After all of the crazy news of the Amazon Cloud Player service going offline for days at a time, Amazon.com has announced that they’ll start selling MP3s at the low low price of 69 cents through their Amazon MP3 Store. They’re hoping to hit iTunes head-on and encourage people to sign up for the new service and upgrade to the streaming Amazon Cloud Player with an increased 20 GB  storage.

Spacelab Poll:

Of course, they might be looking to increase their slice of the online music market … they currently hold only 12% compared to Apple’s 70% with iTunes, according to figures released by NPD Group. Amazon is the number two player, obviously a distant second.

Amazon could be entering loss leader territory, a tactic used to sell music at cost to gain customers with the hope of getting them to buy additional items. What do you think about this? Does Amazon’s price of 69 cents go to low, devaluing music at a time when it’s increasingly hard for artists to make living off of music sales? Take our poll and tell us what you think.

Amazon updates MP3 app for Android

Sponsored links, if any, appear in green.

Amazon has released a small update to its MP3 app for Android that adds lock-screen music controls and other features. The Amazon MP3 app allows users to play back music stored both locally on their Android phone or tablet and on their Amazon Cloud Drive. In addition to the lock-screen controls, Amazon MP3 will now utilize the equalizer modes found in Android 2.3 Gingerbread and 3.0 Honeycomb, as well as remembering the last playing song after the device goes to sleep. Bluetooth headsets can now skip back to the previous song with their on-board controls. Amazon MP3 is free and now available in the Android Market.

source: Android Market, via: GottaBeMobile

Price war! Amazon launches 69-cent MP3 store for top-selling tunes

Amazon.com, which is a distant No. 2 to Apple Inc. as a retailer of downloadable music, has upped the ante or, rather, lowered its prices to compete with iTunes.

The Seattle online company is now pricing select top-selling tunes for 69 cents, down from 89 cents previously. Many of the songs in Amazon’s 69-cent store sell for $1.29 on iTunes, including Katy Perry’s “E.T.”, Jennifer Lopez’s “On the Floor” and Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.”

 
Amazon, which in March launched a cloud music locker service, has tried over the years to chip away at Apple’s dominance in the digital music download business by pricing most of its songs below what they go for at iTunes. So far, however, Amazon’s market share remains where it has been the last two years, around 10%, while Apple continues to have about 70% of the digital download music market, according to Russ Crupnick, digital music analyst at the NPD Group, which no longer publicly releases market share data.

Adele’s ’21′ most downloaded album of all-time on Amazon.co.uk

Adele’s chart-topping ’21′ has set yet another sales record.

It has become the most downloaded album of all-time on Amazon.co.uk.

The 22-year-old star from London, who is currently number one on the website’s best-sellers chart, has now beaten the record previously held by Take That with The Circus.

Roger Greensmith, music and MP3 manager at Amazon.co.uk Ltd, said: “Adele’s success, particularly following her Brit Awards performance in February, has been phenomenal.

“2011 is already shaping up to be Adele’s year with ’21′ achieving so much and her previous album ’19′ is also flying high in the Amazon MP3 download charts as our second most-downloaded album of the year.”

Most downloaded MP3 albums of all-time on Amazon.co.uk are:

1. Adele – 21

2. Take That – The Circus

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3. Kings of Leon – Only By The Night

4. Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More

5. Take That – Progress

6. Lady Gaga – The Fame Monster

7. The Killers – Day & Age

8. Lily Allen – It’s Not Me, It’s You

9. Florence & The Machine – Lungs

10.Plan B – The Defamation of Strickland Banks

Amazon, Music, And A Sunny Forecast For The Cloud

Editor’s note: Guest author David Porter is the CEO and founder of 8tracks, the handcrafted internet radio network.

Last week, Amazon launched its Cloud Drive, with an emphasis on music storage.  While there have been a number of “jukebox” services these last 10 years (Napster 2.0, MusicNow, Virgin Digital, Yahoo Music Unlimited, MTV Urge, MOG, Spotify, Thumbplay, Rdio), relatively few “locker” offerings have emerged—although rumors of new locker services from Apple and Google sound promising.  Last week, Amazon leapt ahead of both rivals in launching Cloud Drive, a service that allows you to stream, for free, any songs purchased from Amazon.  

It also allows you to upload up to 5GB from your existing music collection for free storage and streaming; if you pay an additional $1 (or more) per year, you get an incremental 1GB (or more) of storage.  Amazon has not (yet, at least) negotiated direct licenses with content owners for Cloud Drive.

While it is creating quite a stir, remember that music in the cloud isn’t new.  Jim Griffin envisioned the “heavenly” jukebox more than a decade ago, and Listen.com executed a subscription-based version of the concept in the form of Rhapsody in 2001. During the same period, myplay and My.MP3.com introduced the music locker, another vision for music in the cloud but populated with a user’s existing music collection, without the subscription fee. Offering cloud-based access to your music collection obviously extends its value, making it available from another computer or a mobile device, and ensuring you don’t lose it if your hard drive crashes.  

For Amazon, it makes sense to pursue a locker service: they’ve perfected cloud-based content storage and delivery for thousands of web-based startups with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon Web Services (AWS) already provides hosting and data transfer.  What’s interesting, however, is that the consumer-facing Cloud Drive is actually cheaper than its existing business-facing offering.  While Cloud Drive charges only $1 per GB per year (beyond the free allotment), AWS charges $1.08 per GB per year for storage alone.  If each song in a person’s uploaded collection were streamed once per month, on average, AWS would require an additional $1.20 per GB per year for data transfer (or roughly $2.28 per GB in total).

Since Cloud Drive could well generate less than half the revenues as AWS for the same offering, it seems Amazon is offering the storage as a loss leader to gain digital music market share. Amazon undoubtedly hopes to wrestle away some market share from Apple’s iTunes, particularly in view of the growing base of Android users not yet served by a Google download store.  Its bold “first move” without licensing deals from the music labels could complicate and delay negotiations at Apple and Google.  Early adopters of Cloud Drive—especially Android users—might then consider the switching costs and choose to stick around even once Google and Apple launch their own competing services.

In addition, while I’m personally bearish on the mainstream prospects for the subscription-based, on-demand model, it’s also worth noting that a music locker may provide a more logical transition from the a la carte world of ripped CDs, iTunes, and Amazon’s MP3 store to the celestial jukebox of Rhapsody and Spotify.  At some point, it will make more sense for hardcore locker user to switch to unlimited music subscription services. For instance, a Rdio subscription costs $60 a year, which is the same as keeping 65 GB of music on Cloud Drive (5GB for free + 60GB at $1 per GB per year).

But will Amazon get away with offering Cloud Drive without a license?  I think there’s a good chance it will.  While there’s no doubt some grey areas are not yet adjudicated, it appears the labels can live with (i.e. won’t sue) a service that allows people to upload music from their own collections, provided there’s a unique copy of each track stored and no related features that make it easy to infringe.  My.MP3.com was sued and lost because it allowed users to “beam” CDs in their computer hard drive, providing access to the “bits” ripped from CDs purchased by MP3.com (rather than the user’s CDs).  This feature also made it easy to replicate a friend’s CD collection in the cloud.  In contrast, the plain-vanilla locker service of myplay was never sued.

Likewise, the current suit against MP3tunes, another music locker service founded by Michael Robertson, focuses on a user’s ability to “sideload” music they don’t own from around the web, plus the use of a single copy for each track streamed. However, so far, mspot and Amazon—not to mention myriad other services like Google and Dropbox that have broader storage purposes but are often used for hosting music—haven’t been sued.

Although, the industry has been experimenting with different models for online music services for a decade, I am hopeful that the entry of Amazon, and soon Apple and Google, will finally bring music to the cloud in a meaningful way.

Turn CDs into karaoke mixes

I’m always on the lookout for something that’s really different. DARTech has cooked up a clever software product that begins with the already popular technologies of MP3 music files and recordable CDs. Next they added in ripping, the ability to read music tracks off of CDs and convert them into wave or MP3 files. To complete the recipe, they tossed in a really innovative technological twist inspired by the popularity of karaoke. The result is DART Karaoke Studio, a program that literally lets you remove the performing artist’s voice from most any recording.

Anyone who has tried to sing along with a favorite song knows it’s no fun competing with the person whose voice is on the track. You can buy karaoke songs, but they’re usually either classics or songs that have been out for a while, and they’re usually not arranged like the recording artist’s version. And because they take time to produce, you won’t find a karaoke version of a newly released hit.

But with Karaoke Studio, you don’t have to wait for anyone. Just pop any audio CD into your computer’s CD-ROM drive, press the DeVocalizer button on Karaoke Studio’s control panel, and the singing virtually disappears. The DeVocalizer works on MP3 files as well. The only requirements are that the original recording be in stereo with the artist’s voice coming from the center image. Most are.

The level of success regarding vocal removal depends primarily on how the recording was made. Results vary from total vocal removal to a slight residual echo. But even with an echo, your singing along usually masks it or it’s perceived as a reverb effect. The echo also makes for a slightly audible sing-along guide that can help improve your performance style and phrasing, or at the very least assist you in mimicking the original artist’s interpretation of the song.

For the technologically minded, Karaoke Studio removes the vocals by a process known as destructive interference. You may have seen or heard of other products that use this method such as electronic car mufflers and headphones that cancel out airplane and construction noise. By putting one of the left or right channels out of phase from the other, any center image sound that is on both channels is cancelled out. Usually this process results in a loss of bass, but Karaoke Studio tweaks the sound by letting you adjust the amount of phase balance, filtering out only the vocal frequency ranges and adding extra bass.

After using the Remix feature that lets you add your own voice to the recording, you can burn your own CDs with Karaoke Studio’s recording feature. Or create a new MP3 file with your voice for uploading to computers around the world. Whatever format you select, Karaoke Studio supports you from start to finish. You can even type in the lyrics and watch them appear on the screen in synchronization with the music. Imagine the fun as you send your singing CDs to friends and family, unleashing MP3 files of you singing the newest hits to computers everywhere. Clay Aiken, eat your heart out.

Karaoke Studio sells for $49.95 and requires Windows. A professional version that lets you create actual karaoke CDs that work in most karaoke machines, along with visual cuing of the lyrics, is available for $199.95.

www.dartpro.com

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updates, life, technology

Northern Exposure (CMW Edition): Freedom or Death, ‘Virginia Woolf’ — Free MP3

Joe Fuda

Canadian Music Fest features 800 showcasing bands at over 55 live music venues during five nights of performances in Toronto this week. Our exclusive Northern Exposure column highlights some great tracks by homegrown artists playing Canadian Music Week‘s CMF.

What do you get when two major-label escapees join forces? Well, some pretty engaging tunes, if Toronto electro-folk duo Freedom or Death is any indication. Vocalist Sway Clarke and instrumentalist Steve Fernandez met while working for a big record company and decided to take their first-hand knowledge of the music biz to seize creative control over the music-making process themselves.

Even their band name is a direct nod to the pair’s fiercely DIY focus, and the two handle all writing, producing, recording, and performing duties on all their tracks. A classically-trained pianist, Fernandez also has a background as a DJ, while Clarke honed his songwriting and vocal chops fronting several bands over the years.

The result of this creative meeting of the minds melds Clarke’s soaring Jeff Buckley-esque vocals with Fernandez’s clever arrangements that bolster soft folk melodies with poppy synths and effervescent percussion.

It’s the kind of unique sound that’s managed to garner plaudits from the likes of the Wall Street Journal (who praised their CMJ showcase) to music blog Earmilk (which came up with the apt description: “It’s like Bon Iver carpooled with the Junior Boys on the way to the Massive Attack concert, but they got snowed in”).

Following the release of their debut self-titled EP last year, Freedom or Death are set to drop the seven-track ‘Ego’ EP in April, which expands on their early promise by incorporating additional sonic textures into the mix while maintaining their organic approach to electro-pop.

Inspired by ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,’ the 1966 movie starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, EP track ‘Virginia Woolf’ incorporates sound clips from the classic film to explore the age-old conundrum of the dysfunctional relationship.

Built around a gentle acoustic guitar melody and Sway’s plaintive vocal, the tune sounds at once completely familiar and yet utterly fresh — a feeling truly great songs tend to evoke. Just when you think you know exactly where the melody is going, things take a seemingly random turn with synths and handclaps punctuating the dreamy vibe. And yet, somehow, it all meets in the center to sound just right.

“But it’s okay/We’re falling out from under/Still you’re always/Leaving me around,” Sway sings, his voice taking on all the world-weariness of the titular author. Given that she knew a thing or two about the human condition, we have a feeling she may well have related to the tune’s introspective bent.

Freedom or Die play tonight at the Baitshop at 9PM ET

Upgrade your headphones for better sound

What’s the best way to make your music sound better? Get better headphones. Ditch the free headphones that came with your MP3 player or smart phone. These free headphones often sound flat and tinny. Instead, upgrade to a pair that will bring out the details in your music.

• By AFP, AFP/Getty Images

  Jered Taylor and Carter Alldredge at the Macworld show in January. Upgrading headphones can improve sound on your MP3 player, smartphone or other mobile device.

By AFP, AFP/Getty Images

Jered Taylor and Carter Alldredge at the Macworld show in January. Upgrading headphones can improve sound on your MP3 player, smartphone or other mobile device.

A pair of quality headphones will cost about $100. However, you will find good models in the $50 range. High-end models can run upward of $1,000. Here are some tips to pick the perfect pair.

Headphone type

First, decide what type of headphones you want. This will depend largely on where you will use them. Personal tolerance for the different styles also comes into play.

Large, over-the ear “cans” are best for home use. They form a seal around the ear to block out external noise. If you don’t need this, consider open headphones. These sit on top of the ear and provide the best sound. They don’t block external noise.

For on-the-go use, look at earbuds or in-ear canalphones. In-ear headphones form a seal inside the ear canal. Perfect for noisy environments, they eliminate most outside noise. But many find them uncomfortable. Earbuds come with earclips, behind-the-neck headbands or no-headband designs. They may be more comfortable.

• TECH TIPS: Ask Kim

Driver type

Your musical tastes also matter. They will help you determine the headphone driver type to select. The driver produces the sound. Most headphones use dynamic drivers, which provide a full range of sound.

In comparison, balanced armature drivers are smaller and more efficient. They’re mostly used in in-ear canalphones. High or low frequencies may be clipped. Manufacturers should help you match models to music type.

Some headphones use static drivers. Found in headphones that run $500 and up, static drivers offer the best sound. They require an external power source, which means they’re not as easy to take with you.

Frequency response

Measured in hertz, frequency response is the range of sound that headphones can produce. The human ear perceives sounds in the 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz range. Look for headphones that cover as much of this range as possible.

Smaller headphones that use balanced armature drivers often have trouble with lower frequencies. For music with a lot of bass, pay attention to lower frequencies; you may prefer larger headphones with dynamic drivers. With jazz and classical music, midrange and high frequencies are more important.

If you use your headphones to listen to MP3s, keep in mind that MP3s are compressed, meaning that some sound was removed to achieve their small file sizes. They don’t have the full frequency range as music on CDs and won’t sound as good. Headphones can’t restore the missing music details to MP3s.

Also consider impedance, which is measured in ohms. The higher the impedance, the more power required to produce sound. Lower numbers are better, particularly for portable headphones. Look for a maximum impedance around 60 ohms.

Noise isolation vs. noise cancellation

Make sure you understand the difference between noise-isolating and noise-canceling headphones. Noise isolation is a passive technology. The headphones form a seal blocking outside noise, allowing you to listen at lower volumes. The more noise blocked, the better.

Noise cancellation is an active technology. The headphones sample ambient noise and emit a signal to cancel the noise. They command a premium, and some users complain of pressure on the ear drum, but noise-canceling headphones may be the best choice for frequent flyers.

Headphones that block external noise can help protect your hearing. However, these are dangerous in certain situations. You may not hear impending dangers. For example, never use them while driving.

Some final advice

Also look for tangle-free, replaceable cords, on-cord controls and a microphone. A wide selection of tips for in-ear headphones is essential. Poorly fitting tips won’t fully block outside noise.

Some good in-ear models to consider are the Klipsch Image S4 ($80) and Etymotic HF3 ($180). Over-the-ear models to consider are the Skullcandy Aviator ($180) and Sennheiser HD 218i ($80). If you want noise-canceling headphones, look at the Bose QuietComfort 15 ($300).

Finally, don’t expect to try headphones in the store before you buy. Sharing headphones is a good way to get an ear infection. If possible, buy from a store for audiophiles. The salesperson can provide valuable advice. And always check the return policy.

——

Kim Komando hosts the nation’s largest talk radio show about computers and the Internet. To get the podcast or find the station nearest you, visit: www.komando.com/listen. To subscribe to Kim’s free e-mail newsletters, sign up at: www.komando.com/newsletters. Contact her at C1Tech@gannett.com.

Posted | Updated

MP3: Wild Flag’s “Glass Tambourine”

?Last March, riot grrrl dreams came true when Sleater-Kinney musicians Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss revealed they were working together again. In the fall, the duo, joined by Mary Timony (Helium) and Rebecca Cole (The Minders), announced the birth of Wild Flag, an all-girl quartet.”‘Glass Tambourine’ is a song that exemplifies a lot of why I love being in Wild Flag,” Carrie Brownstein told NPR’s All Songs Considered. “It starts off as a warped pop song and then veers into something more psychedelic. There are melodies, harmonies, and then a fair amount of chaos. For this very reason, it’s one of our favorite songs to play live. There is an improvisational aspect at the end, and we rarely know what’s going to happen.”

On April 16, in celebration of Record Store Day, Wild Flag will release a seven-inch vinyl, and its full album is due out in early fall.

Follow County Grind on Facebook and Twitter: @CountyGrind.

Apple offers new and improved MacBook Pro laptops
Apple Inc. has rolled out new, faster versions of its popular line of MacBook Pro laptops, the familiar gray notebook computers frequently seen in coffee bars and on television shows.

The latest line of portable computers, which Apple updates annually, include speedier processors, a higher-resolution built-in camera for video chatting and a new data transfer technology called Thunderbolt. Laptops account for about 14% of Apple’s quarterly sales.

Thunderbolt is a USB-like connector that can send data between devices at a rate of 10 gigabytes per second. (By comparison, USB 2.0 transfers data at about 480 megabytes per second.) Intel, which developed the technology with input from Apple, said a full-length high-definition movie can be transferred in less than 30 seconds and one-year’s worth of MP3 music can be downloaded in 10 minutes.

Thunderbolt sockets can also be used to connect computers to external monitors.

All the new laptops will come with a built-in front-facing camera above the screen. They are dubbed FaceTime HD cameras, after Apple’s proprietary software that allows users of its computers and mobile devices to conduct video chats over a Wi-Fi connection.

The move in effect sweeps Apple’s old laptop cameras, called iSight, out of the company’s laptop line. FaceTime HD allows for high-resolution, widescreen video chats and photos, and works with most other Macs, as well as the iPhone 4 and the latest iPod Touch.

The new MacBook Pros, now on sale, start at $1,199 for the version with the 13-inch screen, $1,799 for the 15-inch model and $2,499 for the 17-inch version.

Apple also announced an upcoming version of its computer operating system, called OS X, that the company said was inspired by the look and feel of software on its iPad tablet computer. Programs will fill more of the screen, enable more complicated “touch” gestures with the trackpad and allow users to download applications from a centralized store.

The new version of the operating system, which Apple has dubbed Lion, will be available to consumers this summer, the company said.

In addition to a variety of TV shows, Apple’s products appeared in 33% of the top 100 movies at the U.S. box office in 2010, according to a report released by market research website Brandchannel on Tuesday. The site gave Apple its 2010 Award for Overall Product Placement.

david.sarno@latimes.com

Intel Thunderbolt Could Do For Video What MP3 Did For Audio (INTC, AAPL)

Intel introduced a new technology called Thunderbolt (formerly codenamed Light Peak) on new Apple MacBook Pros this morning, and it could spark a revolution in digital video — sort of like MP3 did for audio ten years ago.

Long-term winners will be computer makers and businesses geared toward amateur consumer video, like YouTube and Cisco’s Flip camera. Hollywood may not fare so well — remember what happened to the music industry — although there are better copy protection technologies in place for video today than there were for audio in 1999.

Thunderbolt is meant to replace USB, which hasn’t had a major update since 2000.

A lot has happened since then, particularly with digital video. The Flip camera and smartphones made video capture a mainstream activity. Hard drives got big enough to store hundreds of hours of video. But getting video from a camera to your PC, or from your PC to a backup device or other piece of hardware, has been annoyingly slow.

Here’s how Thunderbolt will help:

• Data transfer speed of 10 gigabits per second. That’s 20 times faster than USB 2.0. In practical terms, that means you can transfer an entire Blu-ray disc in 30 seconds, or a fat video file — say 2GB — in a couple seconds.

• It has two separate channels for both upstream and downstream transfers, and supports “daisy-chaining” multiple devices, so you can swap video among a bunch of devices at the same time.

• It will work with a pretty decent range of devices: a single Thunderbolt port supports both DisplayPort, a relatively new type of connection for monitors, and PCI Express, which is used on devices like backup hard drives. PCI support also means that it will be pretty easy to build adapters for other kinds of interfaces — for instance, Thunderbolt-to-Ethernet (networking) or Thunderbolt-to-Firewire (a previous transfer protocol that is faster than USB, but still 8 times slower than Thunderbolt)

At launch, Thunderbolt will appeal mostly to media creators and professionals, and companies like Avid — a big maker of professional audio and video editing software — are among the first to support it.

It’s also important to note that Thunderbolt is not going to revolutionize video by itself. There are other bottlenecks that can affect video performance, including graphics processors and operating system limitations. Broadband speed is also a problem once you try to upload all that video to the Internet.

But think back to when MP3 started to become popular in the late 1990s. Portable MP3 players didn’t store very many hours of audio, the sound was bad, the software for creating and playing them sucked, and it took forever to upload and download them on the dial-up connections most people had.

Over the next few years, companies like Apple gradually refined the necessary pieces and bandwidth increased. Now, almost everybody who has a computer uses it to store, transfer, and play music. Computer audio has become mainstream.

So look ahead five years, and it’s easy to imagine consumers creating, copying, and swapping huge numbers of video files as quickly and easily as they do with audio files today. Thunderbolt isn’t the only necessary piece, but it removes a big bottleneck.

Now don’t miss: The Gadgets That Will Work With Intel’s Insanely Fast Thunderbolt

Join the conversation about this story »

Hope for fearful dentist patients

(UKPA) – 3 hours ago

Nervous patients who cannot stand the sound of the dentist’s drill could be offered relief by a new device.

Scientists at London universities have developed a gadget which cancels out the sound of the drill, leaving people free to enjoy their own music.

Patients simply unplug their headphones, plug the device into their MP3 player or mobile phone and then plug their headphones into the device.

People can still hear dentists and other staff speak to them – the tool only filters out the sounds of the high pitch of the drill.

The gadget contains a microphone and a chip which analyses the incoming sound wave and then produces an inverted wave to cancel out the unwanted noise. It also uses technology called adaptive filtering to “lock on” to sound waves and remove them, even if the amplitude and frequency change as the drill is being used.

Experts from King’s College London, Brunel University and London South Bank University are hoping to attract funding from an investor to develop the device further.

It was initially the brainchild of Professor Brian Millar at King’s College London.

Prof Millar said: “Many people put off going to the dentist because of anxiety associated with the noise of the dentist’s drill. But this device has the potential to make fear of the drill a thing of the past.

“The beauty of this gadget is that it would be fairly cost-effective for dentists to buy, and any patient with an MP3 player would be able to benefit from it, at no extra cost.

“What we need now is an investor to develop the product further, to enable us to bring this device to as many dental surgeries as possible, and help people whose fear of visiting the dentist stops them from seeking the oral healthcare they need.”

Copyright © 2011 The Press Association. All rights reserved.

Device ‘muffles dentist’s drill’

9 January 2011
Last updated at 21:14 ET

By Dominic Hughes
Health correspondent, BBC News

An invention which cancels out the noise of a dentist’s drill could help people overcome their fear of a check-up, researchers have claimed.

For many, the sound of the drill is a big cause of anxiety when it comes to visiting the dentist.

This new device allows patients to listen to music on an MP3 player, while the sound of the drill is blanked out.

Patients are, though, still able to hear the dentist’s voice because not all sounds are filtered out.

The device is similar to noise cancelling headphones, but while they work on analogue technology – using resistors to suppress low frequency sounds – this device is digital.

It works by turning the sounds of the dental consulting room into a digital signal.

A special chip called a digital signal processor analyses the incoming sound from microphones placed close to the dental drill.

It produces an inverted sound wave to cancel out unwanted noise in the headphone signal.

It also uses “adaptive filtering” technology, where electronic filters lock onto sound waves and remove them, even if the wave’s amplitude and frequency change as the drill is being used.

But this also allows other noises like the dentist’s voice to come though.

So a patient could simply plug the device into their MP3 player and then, via their headphones, listen to their own music without being disturbed by the noise of the drill but still be able to hear the dentist.

‘No extra cost’

Developed by experts at King’s College London, Brunel University and London South Bank University, it was originally the idea of Professor Brian Millar of King’s Dental Institute.

Continue reading the main story “Start Quote

It’s such a distinctive sound, the pitch is probably recognised around the globe”

End Quote
Dr Mark Atherton
Brunel University

He was inspired initially by the efforts of car-maker Lotus who were trying to develop a system that removed unpleasant road noise, while still allowing drivers to hear emergency sirens.

After more than 10 years of research and collaboration with engineers, Professor Millar and his team have developed a prototype.

“Many people are put off going to the dentist because of anxiety associated with the noise of the dentist’s drill, but this device has the potential to make fear of the drill a thing of the past.

“The beauty of this gadget is that it would be fairly cost-effective for dentists to buy, and any patient with an MP3 player would be able to benefit from it, at no extra cost.”

Dr Mark Atherton of Brunel University’s School of Engineering and Design said allowing the patient to still hear the dentist was a key theme throughout the project.

“You can’t switch the patient off. They want to have a conversation with the dentist, so they can’t just put a pair of ear-muffs on, they still want to hear a voice.”

But Dr Atherton said the designers found that just reducing the noise of the drill, by putting on ear defenders for example, was not enough.

“The dental drill noise is so distinctive the brain still recognises it and people still hear it, such is the anxiety.

“It’s such a distinctive sound, the pitch is probably recognised around the globe. Most people have heard it and, sadly for some, they dread it.”

The team are now looking for investors to make the device commercially available.

Professor Millar said it has the potential to help people overcome their fear.

“What we need now is an investor to develop the product further, to enable us to bring this device to as many dental surgeries as possible, and help people whose fear of visiting the dentist stops them from seeking the oral healthcare they need.”

Pink Floyd’s New EMI Deal Allows For Release Of MP3 Singles

Entertainment News
 

(RTTNews) - 
Pink Floyd have reached an agreement with their record label EMI to release back catalogue singles. The band’s remaining members – Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason – had fought the release of individual tracks for 10 months before reaching this agreement.

They argued that doing so would go against a clause in their contract which required EMI to “preserve the artistic integrity” of their music. The band won a legal battle to keep the music unreleased last month.

No details of the terms of the agreement or the band’s reasons for changing their opinion on the MP3 issue have yet been released.

EMI label head Roger Faxon issued a statement on the new deal, saying: “Pink Floyd are one of the most important and influential bands of all time. We’re looking forward to continuing to help the band reach new and existing fans through their incredible body of work.”

by RTT Staff Writer

For comments and feedback: contact editorial@rttnews.com

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