You may not be able to hear the entire song at the Apple but you can get 30-second samples of each song for free - no membership, nothing.
Additionally, anyone with a portable MP3 player is SOL when it comes to streamed music.
And it's never really "breaking even" - I'm still out $10 either way. It's just when next month rolls around I still have the music without paying another $10.
It comes down to how you listen to music. Do you like to try a lot of different music and typically listen at your PC (and have high-speed Internet access) or do you select your songs/bands carefully and want to take your music with you everywhere?
Exactly. It's all streamed. There is copying or transferring. And realistically, there are physical limits on the ability of any one person to stream - bandwidth probably being the biggest.
It's a chance to see what other people like, and maybe find something new to you.
Wow, the BeoLab 5 is one unique speaker. Aside from the price tag I couldn't afford if I wanted, I wouldn't have anywhere to put it. It's much more intrusive than the BeoLab 6000, but then, if you can afford 16.000 Euro for the speakers, you can probably re-design the room to match.
Additional note: the first B&O page linked has some display issues on Safari.
Sure, you can't fold it, but you could roll it up in to a 1" tube that contains batteries, communications, etc. Carry a 1-foot long 1" diameter tube that rolls out into a 19" screen. And it could be much smaller if you wanted.
This would be perfect for "paperback" e-books. Even with the quarter-second refresh time on the screen it would acceptable for "turning the page". Or you could produce a book of the screens, and have the pages fill in with whatever you are reading.
How about electronic blueprints? Dynamic wall art that you can move around easily? Status displays on pillars in the airport?
If they can reduce the refresh time it would be incredible. Imagine a roll-up 19" screen for crowded server closets.
Anything that uses Keychain access is frigged up for me. Safari wouldn't load without freezing until I denied access to the Auto-Fill list. Mail won't quit. Internet Connect freezed trying to load the password for my VPN session.
A proxy pair could manage a decent system. Each basically would have to spider along pages, compress the huge cache, and send it every x hours. Or, a site could perform a "change stream" to off-planet proxies for fastest-possible updating.
Having no engineering experience, I wonder if branch prediction and other forecasting technologies would be helpful in inter-planetary communication. After all, a CPU is desperately trying to figure out what it needs for the future to avoid the painful delays of a cache miss. That seems similar to computing that takes place over long distances.
Of course, the difference between what a program wants and what a user wants are significant.
We'll probably have to set up a differential TTL system for IPs associated with Off-planet resources.
Imagine posting the URL to Jupiter's first web-cam on slashdot. A little over an hour after you click the link, you find out it's been down for 30 minutes.
I imagine it will be free - they will recoup development costs the larger sales volume that the Windows client will provide.
Plus, iTunes stands to have widespread adoption. At $0.00 with the clean, simple interface, the ability to syns to a wide variety of devices, and the Apple Music Store built in, I can imagine it will be popular with Joe Average User.
Do you think Apple could make a physical presence in music stores a possibility?
Much like the Software-2-Go kiosks in stores, there could be a Music-2-Go kiosk. You would create or sign into your AMS account and purchase music. An extra $2.50 or so for the on-site burning, cover art, etc. I don't think it could do the booklets, but maybe...
Of course, you would also be able to burn music you already own. You fly across the country, stop into a music store, burn a CD for $2.50, and pop it into your rental car's CD player.
Welcome to the balancing act that is modern technology. It may not seem like it to you, but Apple has given people quite a bit of leeway with their service.
Apple has more than just customers to think about. The store wouldn't be open if they walked into negotiations and said, "High-quality MP3s, no DRM - that's final." They would have been laughed out of the building. Limiting you to only playing the original file on a computer logged in on your account is reasonable. You bought it, you can play it. You can stream it to three other computers as well. You can burn it to a CD and rip it from there - granted you will lose some quality to the re-encoding.
If you want to buy the music online and still don't like the limitations, get an account with all your friends, and you can all download and listen to the same music. That way you can be a slightly more honest crook that the Kazaa-only users.
I think the samples will be generally usable - you can listen to them without creating an account - but the actual songs will not have the same lack of restrictions. I haven't as yet purchased anything from the Music Store, so I couldn't tell you.
I imagine the only thing limiting/allowing your playing of a song is verification on the account at the Music Store. Much like the Audible.com accounts work, you can add any Audible.com file to your iTunes Library, but you can't play it until your computer connects to the Internet to verify your purchase of said file. Indeed, I suspect that you can use the same account on many computers.
In a "perfect" future for the RIAA, you could use this to have your music follow you around. You drop into your friend's house and log into iTunes as you, download copies of the songs you bought and play them.
...everyone in your house with a computer has to buy their own copy of a song...
I can't guarantee it, but if all the computers use the same account, you should all be able to play the same music without issue.
...each song records which computers are authorized to play a certain song, how many times a song has been burned, and how many times a song has been played?
The song doesn't record which computer can play it - the account and, by extension, the computer, does. It's how many times a playlist has been burned, I believe. And, what's wrong with knowing how many times the song has been played? That's a convenience, to see your top played songs, your recently played songs, etc.
...most independent and rare music is not available...
Did you expect Apple to wait to release the service until they had an answer from every label in the world? They may not have deals with everyone right now, but give them time, the selection will broaden.
It seems you might enjoy a service that offers songs for $0.25 in a lossless format, with no form of DRM, with a selection of every song ever made and nothing less. Just because you can't get Tuva when the service opens doesn't make it a bad service.
Eventually people get fed up with buying three good songs for $15 and so they get a copy from their friend, or the Internet. You can buy an entire album with the Music Store, but you aren't required to do so.
The existing revenue model is irrelevnat because this does not require physical distribution, which means less money is spent on the production process. Buy a song for $1 and they make 25% profit (number pulled out thin air - don't yell at me) instead of 20% profit on a physical CD.
If the integrated the BAT Chording Keyboard and the mouse, you could have convenient one-handed computer use.
The only problems I see are the mouse would be the size of your outstretched hand, and the mouse button would either have to be one of the chording keys (limiting your chording options or making them more complex) or the whole mouse (like Apple's Pro Mouse) which means you would probably have to exert a good bit of force to click the mouse.
Slashdot Mirror
You may not be able to hear the entire song at the Apple but you can get 30-second samples of each song for free - no membership, nothing.
Additionally, anyone with a portable MP3 player is SOL when it comes to streamed music.
And it's never really "breaking even" - I'm still out $10 either way. It's just when next month rolls around I still have the music without paying another $10.
It comes down to how you listen to music. Do you like to try a lot of different music and typically listen at your PC (and have high-speed Internet access) or do you select your songs/bands carefully and want to take your music with you everywhere?
What do you say to that?
*sigh*
Yes, it may be short and unworthy of a reply, but it isn't really offtopic, is it?
Exactly. It's all streamed. There is copying or transferring. And realistically, there are physical limits on the ability of any one person to stream - bandwidth probably being the biggest.
It's a chance to see what other people like, and maybe find something new to you.
But it's not truly confirmed until it has been done twice!
And don't forget Bruce.
Try polyester batting - it's relatively cheap (US $3/yd or so) and has good dampening abilities.
Sorry, my math was from the inaccurate "8000 Euro" listed. It's only 7408 Euro for one, bring the dollar value to US $16,988.14.
Special Thanks to BillYak and his much more accurate comment.
Actually, at the current exchange rate, it would be $18,345.61 for us savages. :)
Wow, the BeoLab 5 is one unique speaker. Aside from the price tag I couldn't afford if I wanted, I wouldn't have anywhere to put it. It's much more intrusive than the BeoLab 6000, but then, if you can afford 16.000 Euro for the speakers, you can probably re-design the room to match.
Additional note: the first B&O page linked has some display issues on Safari.
Sure, you can't fold it, but you could roll it up in to a 1" tube that contains batteries, communications, etc. Carry a 1-foot long 1" diameter tube that rolls out into a 19" screen. And it could be much smaller if you wanted.
This would be perfect for "paperback" e-books. Even with the quarter-second refresh time on the screen it would acceptable for "turning the page". Or you could produce a book of the screens, and have the pages fill in with whatever you are reading.
How about electronic blueprints? Dynamic wall art that you can move around easily? Status displays on pillars in the airport?
If they can reduce the refresh time it would be incredible. Imagine a roll-up 19" screen for crowded server closets.
To quote a Mountain Dew commercial:
We got hosed, Tommy. We got hosed.
Anything that uses Keychain access is frigged up for me. Safari wouldn't load without freezing until I denied access to the Auto-Fill list. Mail won't quit. Internet Connect freezed trying to load the password for my VPN session.
So far that's all I've seen.
A proxy pair could manage a decent system. Each basically would have to spider along pages, compress the huge cache, and send it every x hours. Or, a site could perform a "change stream" to off-planet proxies for fastest-possible updating.
Having no engineering experience, I wonder if branch prediction and other forecasting technologies would be helpful in inter-planetary communication. After all, a CPU is desperately trying to figure out what it needs for the future to avoid the painful delays of a cache miss. That seems similar to computing that takes place over long distances.
Of course, the difference between what a program wants and what a user wants are significant.
But those philotes are so hard to track down.
It strikes me as odd that we discovered technology that lead to the ansibles, when the Formics would have needed no communication devices.
I imagine caching proxies will probably be popular.
We'll probably have to set up a differential TTL system for IPs associated with Off-planet resources.
Imagine posting the URL to Jupiter's first web-cam on slashdot. A little over an hour after you click the link, you find out it's been down for 30 minutes.
I don't know, but UDP will probably be popular.
I imagine it will be free - they will recoup development costs the larger sales volume that the Windows client will provide.
Plus, iTunes stands to have widespread adoption. At $0.00 with the clean, simple interface, the ability to syns to a wide variety of devices, and the Apple Music Store built in, I can imagine it will be popular with Joe Average User.
Do you think Apple could make a physical presence in music stores a possibility?
Much like the Software-2-Go kiosks in stores, there could be a Music-2-Go kiosk. You would create or sign into your AMS account and purchase music. An extra $2.50 or so for the on-site burning, cover art, etc. I don't think it could do the booklets, but maybe...
Of course, you would also be able to burn music you already own. You fly across the country, stop into a music store, burn a CD for $2.50, and pop it into your rental car's CD player.
It's an interesting thought.
Use the iTunes Feedback - This is a perfect time to make suggestions like these, as Apple will be closely examining the feedback.
Welcome to the balancing act that is modern technology. It may not seem like it to you, but Apple has given people quite a bit of leeway with their service.
Apple has more than just customers to think about. The store wouldn't be open if they walked into negotiations and said, "High-quality MP3s, no DRM - that's final." They would have been laughed out of the building. Limiting you to only playing the original file on a computer logged in on your account is reasonable. You bought it, you can play it. You can stream it to three other computers as well. You can burn it to a CD and rip it from there - granted you will lose some quality to the re-encoding.
If you want to buy the music online and still don't like the limitations, get an account with all your friends, and you can all download and listen to the same music. That way you can be a slightly more honest crook that the Kazaa-only users.
I damn near fell out of my chair when I read that. Made my day.
I think the samples will be generally usable - you can listen to them without creating an account - but the actual songs will not have the same lack of restrictions. I haven't as yet purchased anything from the Music Store, so I couldn't tell you.
I imagine the only thing limiting/allowing your playing of a song is verification on the account at the Music Store. Much like the Audible.com accounts work, you can add any Audible.com file to your iTunes Library, but you can't play it until your computer connects to the Internet to verify your purchase of said file. Indeed, I suspect that you can use the same account on many computers.
In a "perfect" future for the RIAA, you could use this to have your music follow you around. You drop into your friend's house and log into iTunes as you, download copies of the songs you bought and play them.
I can't guarantee it, but if all the computers use the same account, you should all be able to play the same music without issue.
The song doesn't record which computer can play it - the account and, by extension, the computer, does. It's how many times a playlist has been burned, I believe. And, what's wrong with knowing how many times the song has been played? That's a convenience, to see your top played songs, your recently played songs, etc.
Did you expect Apple to wait to release the service until they had an answer from every label in the world? They may not have deals with everyone right now, but give them time, the selection will broaden.
It seems you might enjoy a service that offers songs for $0.25 in a lossless format, with no form of DRM, with a selection of every song ever made and nothing less. Just because you can't get Tuva when the service opens doesn't make it a bad service.
Eventually people get fed up with buying three good songs for $15 and so they get a copy from their friend, or the Internet. You can buy an entire album with the Music Store, but you aren't required to do so.
The existing revenue model is irrelevnat because this does not require physical distribution, which means less money is spent on the production process. Buy a song for $1 and they make 25% profit (number pulled out thin air - don't yell at me) instead of 20% profit on a physical CD.
If the integrated the BAT Chording Keyboard and the mouse, you could have convenient one-handed computer use.
The only problems I see are the mouse would be the size of your outstretched hand, and the mouse button would either have to be one of the chording keys (limiting your chording options or making them more complex) or the whole mouse (like Apple's Pro Mouse) which means you would probably have to exert a good bit of force to click the mouse.