Tag Archives: vinyl

Episode Links, Podcast

PTJ 376: Retro Fever

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El Kaiser and J.D. take a walk down a repaved Memory Lane on this installment of Pop Tech Jam, discussing the growing public interest in old 20th-century analog treasures like film cameras, vinyl records — and “X-Men” cartoons. Later in the show, El Kaiser reviews a pair of sleek wooden headphones, the Meze 99 Noir model. All this and more here on PTJ 376!

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PTJ 160 News: Vroom Vroom

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Well, well, well… According to a report in The Wall Street Journal earlier this week, Apple is committed to producing an electric car and aims to have it tooling down the road by 2019. So I guess we’ll pencil in that grand demo for September 10th, 2019, eh?

pencilThe stuff that Apple did announce on this past September 9th is finally starting to roll out. iOS 9 hit the download channels last Wednesday and already has a 50-percent adoption rate among users with compatible iOS devices. The second version of the Apple Watch OS also arrived this week after a short bug delay. The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus begin to land in stores and delivery trucks on Friday. The 4th generation of the Apple TV is due out in late October (even though iFixit has already found one and torn it down to see how it works) and the iPad Pro with the optional $100 Pencil is due in November. Apple is also issuing the rare refund in its App Store after the creator of the $3 Peace ad-blocker for iOS had second thoughts over ethics and yanked his app .

kindleAmazon is not letting Apple grab all the TV and tablet press, though. Last week, the company announced a new gaming edition of its Fire TV box, and an update to its Fire TV box that brings 4K streaming and the Alexa voice-controlled assistant. Amazon also rolled out a version of its Fire tablet for less than $50, beefier upgraded hardware for its other Fire tablet models and well as a $100 Kindle Fire tablet for kids. Choices, there are choices.

Dot-Com Collapse II on the way, or just a little wobble? Collective discounts site Groupon announced this week that it was cutting 1,100 jobs and closing down operations in at least seven countries as part of a restructuring plan. And Oyster, the so-called Netflix-for-reading company announced it was shutting down its e-book subscription service it launched in 2012. According to Re/code, however, a number of Oyster employees are headed to Google to shore up the Google Play Books store

Speaking of Google, the company just updated its Wallet app for iOS. Like the previously released Android app, the revamped Google Wallet now emphasizes sending money to friends instead of paying for merchandise in a store.

office16Also revamped and updated: Microsoft Office 2016 for Windows. It’s available to Office 365 subscribers who are paying $100 or $70 a year after the free trial period. The Home & Student edition is also available as a one-time purchase for a price of $150. Microsoft is also making its Office 2016 for Mac available for a one-time purchase. (Some people, however, prefer LibreOffice, iWork for iCloud, Google Docs or even Office Online.)

beretIn legal news, the French government agency that regulates data has rejected Google’s appeal in the right-to-be-forgotten. At this stage of the process in the French legal system, Google has no legal possibility to appeal the order and may have to pay a fine if it doesn’t comply. Russia is also mad at Google and accused the company of violating Russian anti-monopoly laws earlier this month. Penalties may ensue there as well.

vinylPandora is having a better time of it with legal matters. The music-streaming service said it was pleased that the U.S. Copyright Office agreed that Pandora’s agreement with Merlin Network, a global rights agency for independent musicians, was admissible as a benchmark in royalty proceedings. A panel of three judges known as the Copyright Royalty Board has been working on setting royalties for Internet radio and is expected to have a decision in mid-December. (Also in the music world, the Recording Industry Association of America reports that while total revenue was essentially flat for the first half of 2015. Vinyl sales were rising, though!)

And finally, the Onion humor site, which started the ClickHole spin-off for goofy viral video, is having a go at the countless celebrity gossip sites online. The Onion’s new site is called StarWipe. Decked out with hot pink and bright blue accents, Star Wipe currently features such headlines as “Emmys Photos We Can’t Stop Staring At Even Though We’re Supposed To Be Controlling Air Traffic” and “Rihanna Says She And Taylor Swift Have Different Fan Bases, Has Clearly Never Been To University Of Missouri Party.” StarWipe is just starting out and still has a way to go to top some of ClickHole’s triumphs like “Yes! Ham Goes Up an Escalator.” Oh, let’s watch that one again shall we?

Tech Term

The Galapagos Syndrome

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There were two news items this week that really resonated with me. At first glance the similarities weren’t obvious but as I kept going over the findings in each story the connection became clearer.

First off, streaming audio continues to grow in 2014 with almost 80 billion streams reported. Not a surprise. Neither is the fact that CDs continue their apparent inexorable slide into oblivion, registering a 14% plunge when compared to equally dismal sales figures from 2013.

But here’s the eyeopening point. According to Rolling Stone magazine and other news sources, interest in vinyl continues to be a noteworthy music industry trend.

The 12-inch record had its best sales year in decades, moving 9.2 million units; a 52 percent increase over 2013.

Vinyl sales now account for six percent of all physical music sales.

The other fascinating business bulletin was out of Japan. Market researcher MM Research Institute noted that flip-phone shipments rose 5.7 percent to almost 11 million in 2014 while smartphone shipments fell 5.3 percent to just shy of 28 million, down for a second year in a row.

The argument can be made that both flip-phones in Japan and vinyl records in the United States are experiencing a phenomenon known as the Galápagos Syndrome.

This term refers to an isolated development branch of a globally available product and alludes to the phenomena Charles Darwin encountered in the Galápagos Islands which helped in the development of his Evolutionary Theory.

In the late 90s and early 2000s, Japanese cell phone technology was years ahead of what electronics companies were producing in other countries. Smartphones like the iPhone have taken a huge chunk out of the Japanese market but the flip-phone is still extremely popular.

Vinyl, while technologically inferior to the CD, offers a more tactile and satisfying experience for the listener. The combination of the warmer analog sound, larger album art, and traditional liner notes and sleeves makes vinyl a much more attractive option for the music lover.

After being derided by their manufacturers and generally ignored by consumers, the 12-inch record and flip-phones continued their evolution with incremental improvements.

Record companies use heavier virgin vinyl at pressing and better quality paper for sleeves and gatefolds. Enhanced recording techniques make audio quality vastly superior to what was being produced at the height of vinyl’s popularity.

Flip-phones offer similar functionality to what’s found on smartphones and have features like physical keyboards and voice-call quality that in many cases are superior to what you’d get on a rectangular slab.

Both the record companies and electronics manufacturers believe the sales spikes are fads but come on admit it, deep down we all miss flipping our Startacs open like Captain Kirk did with his Starfleet issued communicator…

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PTJ 101 News: Song of Dice and Ire

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openThis past Tuesday was supposed to be the end of the first-round public comment period for the proposed Net Neutrality (or Open Internet) rules but forth by the Federal Communications Commission. Due to an overwhelming volume of people trying to deposit their $0.2, however, the FCC has now extended the initial round of comments until Friday, July 18th, at midnight. [Quick! To the Rantmobile!] The FCC’s website even has a chart showing the huge flurry of messages coming in through the site’s Electronic Comment Filing System on this particular topic. In addition to mere mortals, several large tech companies  have stated their support for an open internet and thirteen US senators also called on the FCC to support net neutrality. A decision could come in September, after the next round of comments.

The FCC is also hearing it from the DISH network, which has formally asked the agency to block the pending Comcast-Time Warner merger due to serious competitive concerns. (By the way, the FCC just picked its panel last week to review that looming deal.) DISH also doesn’t like the proposed AT&T and DirecTV merger, but the company should be celebrating the recent court ruling in favor of its Hopper DVRs.

Adding to the alphabet soup: the FAA and the FTC: A few weeks ago, the Federal Aviation Administration said it wasn’t authorizing drones for commercial use, but Amazon is persisting. Last week, the megamoo überstore filed an official request to the administrator of the FAA to ask for an official exemption from the No Commercial Drones rule.  In other Amazon news, the battle with publishers over ebook pricing drags on and oh, by the way, the Federal Trade Commission just sued the company for improperly billing parents for in-app purchases made by their children.

drones

If the rumors are to be believed, the iPhone 6 will come on two sizes, (a 4.7-inch and a 5.5-inch screen model) but are whispers from analysts that the 5.5-phablet-size version will be delayed due to complications with components and the manufacturing process.  So if you want to buy the thing that doesn’t offically exist yet, you may have to wait a little longer.

Microsoft, which is starting to but cloud and mobile moves of its own, has plans for a $199 Windows laptop from HP in time for the holiday season, as well as similar low-cost laptops from Acer and Toshiba for about $249. Take that, Google Chromebooks.

After a month of drama, diving and oh, fútbol, the 2014 World Cup wrapped up in Brazil this past weekend as Germany won the large gold trophy. Along with setting new records for global television viewership, the tournament was also the biggest streaming multimedia video event in history. The Spanish-language channel Univision Deportes got 81 million total viewers for the tournament and was up 34% in viewership from the 2010 World Cup.

Also up in recent numbers — album sales on vinyl. Nielsen Soundscan’s mid-year report shows the once-dominate format for audio recordings has clawed its way back to 4 million units from near-extinction at the hand of CDs and digital downloads .

In robot news, the folks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working on phase-changing material made from wax and foam that could allow robots to become “squishy” or shift between hard and soft states. These robots are intended for good works.

supermoonNow, if you missed the supermoon on July 12th, there’s another one on August 10th, and some are calling it the superdupermoon because it will be even brighter and larger than the previous mere supermoon. August 10th will see the moon’s perigree coincide with the hour that the moon itself is most full. There will also be a supermoon hat-trick this year, with another (but dimmer) one occurring on September 9th.
Mark your calendars.

The frostiness between Samsung and Google is probably going to get a little more polar vortex-y as Samsung has opened its own Android app store that its users can shop instead of Google Play. The new store is called Galaxy Apps and claims hundreds of exclusive programs just for Samsung shoppers.

Samsung is also working with Google’s Nest division on their own Internet of Things standards club called Thread Group.  They are not alone.

And finally, Dungeons & Dragons is not just a role-playing game, it’s a skill-builder for writers and programmers. As The New York Times reported earlier this week, several renowned authors like Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Junot Díaz, Sherman Alexie, Sharyn McCrumb and yes, George R.R. Martin were all influenced by the game and said it helped with their development as writers. D&D’s ability to teach players creativity, narrative and problem-solving skills is nothing new. In his 1998 Gen X memoir, Extra Life: Coming of Age in Cyberspace, author Davis S. Bennahum said the complexity of the game even got him into computer programming. Perhaps there’s hope for the younger generation today, who have grown bored with repetitive casual games. Wizards of the Coast just released a Dungeons & Dragons Starter Kit for $20 this week.  Get rolling!

Podcast

PTJ 74: Just Droning On and On and On

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We’re baaaaack! In an effort to burn off some of the calories we packed on during our time off we’ve put together a super-sized show. J.D. pits voice enabled personal assistants from Google and Apple against each other in a Hunger Games-style battle to the death! Okay, that may be a little heavy on the hyperbole but she does see what each can do. Musician, recording engineer, record producer and vintage home audio enthusiast Michael Puretz visits with El Kaiser to discuss affordable high-end stereo equipment. In the news Amazon tests drone deliveries for their Prime subscribers; Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One battle each other for holiday sales supremacy; Motorola has a Cyber Monday Meltdown; Apple’s iPad grabs close 70 percent of holiday tablet sales so far; and NASA confirms that Comet ISON has largely disintegrated.

Episode Links, Music

Mad Props

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Big, big thanks go out this week to Jocelyn Gonzales for her make-me-wanna-go-find-my-vinyl-NOW! interview with Colleen Murphy of Classic Album Sundays. If you like to really listen to music (or want to learn how to better tune your ears to it), be sure pop on over and visit the CAS YouTube page, which has some great clips and links to the group’s other social media feeds; the documentary on the lasting power of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is a great place to start.

And as always, we send a massive note of appreciation here to the gang at BROS for hosting the show, and this blog, each and every week. Check ’em out here!