System Sounds

Neat little "song" made out of an assembly of Apple's system sounds.



Also a similar Windows Version

(via TUAW)

How Apple is changing DRM

Cool article on how the insistence on DRM by record labels drove Apple to dominance, and how Apple might change the rules to stay on top now that the labels are leaning towards no DRM.

How Apple is changing DRM

Adventures in Public Transportation

We went to see Mason Jennings play in Santa Monica last night. (Actually at Barnum Hall on the Santa Monica High School campus...odd venue.) Since my wife works in Westwood and we live on the east side, it made more sense for me to take the bus to her office than to go crosstown in two cars.

I know that public transportation in LA (especially the bus) has a bad reputation, but I was pleasantly surprised. Got on at Vermont & Sunset and arrived in front of UCLA 55 minutes later. The bus has a tv screen showing news, trivia, games, and ads. There's also a map (powered by MSN) with GPS that always shows you where you are and announces the next stops. It was on time and relatively clean, though the comfort of the seats left a little to be desired. Riders were mostly students, though that probably had more to do with the route and the time of day (I rode at 4:30pm).

The trip planner on the website was also relatively impressive. Granted it could have a little better error correction and navigation, but not having to enter a city and using a / between intersections is pretty brilliant. I'm surprised the mapping engines haven't picked this up as the standard instead of fumbling around with thethe mishmash of &/and/+ that they always have. Also surprised we didn't pick this up for the surfboard, as for me it's much more fast and natural to type a / without looking than & or +.

MadTV iPod Ad Spoof

Spoofing Apple and Feist simultaneously:

Pas d'Internet pour vous

France Sets Sanctions Against Internet Piracy
Internet users in France who frequently download music or films illegally risk losing Web access under a new anti-piracy system unveiled on Friday.

The Truth About DRM-Free music?

Not sure I fully understand this, but interesting. Seems they'd be able to track popularity and how viral something is relative to it's original source, but getting it down to the individual user would be difficult and/or expensive.

Could Audio Watermarking Help Make MP3s Free?
Audio watermarking involves taking a song and manipulating it digitally to create an audio pattern that is unmistakable to the right software -- such as Activated's -- though undetectable by human ears.

The tracking technology allows advertisers to gather information about the consumer and the effectiveness of the ad. Such data, according to Silberstein, is so valuable that advertisers would be willing to pay five to 10 times rate of a regular ad for an watermarked ad. That data works particularly well with "call-to-action" type of ads, in which consumers, after listening to an ad, respond or click on a link to buy something or otherwise opt in to the advertiser's campaign, Silberstein said.

We listened to songs about fire while Griffith Park burned...

Couple of on-topic discoveries related to the Griffith Park fire.

1. The Los Angeles Fire Department has an official blog, and it's well done and pretty damn informative at that. Gotta love seeing new media put to good use in simple yet unsuspecting ways. Can't wait for the day when it's not so unexpected to see something like this.

2. Sitting down to dinner and wanting to drown out the noise of the helicopters, I opened iTunes, typed "fire" into the search box, and assembled a quickie themed playlist. (Some might remember my "Rain" mix CD that I kept in my car during June gloom a few years ago. I so amuse myself...)

> > Light My Fire -- The Doors
> > Fuel for Fire -- M. Ward
> > Fire Coming Out of the Monkey's Head -- Gorillaz
> > Fire On The Bayou -- The Meters
> > Ring of Fire -- Johnny Cash
> > Firetruck -- Mike Doughty
> > Fire and Rain -- James Taylor
> > Fire -- Jimi Hendrix
> > Ceasefire -- Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine
> > Play With Fire -- The Rolling Stones
> > Chinese Firedrill -- Mike Watt
> > Fire In My Head -- Piers Faccini
> > Fire In The Garage -- Papa Grows Funk
> > Fire On The Mountain -- Grateful Dead
> > Fire Tender Red -- Abdoujaparov
> > Firehead -- Devics
> > Fireplace -- R.E.M.
> > Firetruck Remix -- Mike Doughty
> > Friendly Fire -- Citizen Cope
> > I Set The World On Fire -- The Thorns
> > Ring Of Fire -- Social Distortion
> > Lake Of Fire -- Nirvana
> > Playing With Fire -- Stereo MC's
> > This Fire -- Franz Ferdinand
> > The Unforgettable Fire -- U2

As we went through the songs, I realized that some that had fire in the title didn't really fit the theme ("Firehead" by the Devics; "Fire in the Garage" by Papa Grows Funk), and others that had fire in the lyrics should have really been included but weren't due to the nature of the iTunes search function. ("April 29, 1992" by Sublime: "wanna let it burn wanna wanna let it burn"; "Laid" by James: "this bed is on fire...")

And then it hit me how brilliant this rumored deal between Apple and Gracenote to provide lyrics in iTunes could be if done right.

Imagine the mixtape making power of being able to search a music library for words and phrases contained in the lyrics. Or how many more songs you might buy if you could literally search based on "that song that goes..." Filmmakers could import a script into a tool that would spit out suggestions for the soundtrack. Vacation mixes could dig up ditties that reference your destination. The list goes on and on.

It's more than just allowing for an iPod based singalong. This is going to be huge.

Save Internet Radio

I don't usually post things like this, but...

Save Internet Radio Petition

Recent legislation has nearly tripled royalty fees for streaming Internet radio stations such as Pandora and KCRWMusic.com, which could be the death of this industry as the fees prevent them from sustaining a viable business.

Signing the above petition sends a customizable email to your political representatives expressing your objection to this ruling.

Special bonus on topic UI coolness:

Love how filling out the "Your Name" box in the signature section of the petition auto parses and populates the first name/last name boxes on the right hand side. Brilliant, elegant simplicity at its best.

Acoustic Classical Thrash Metal

Rodrigo y Gabriela blew me away at the KCRW Sounds Ecelctic show last night.

How Pandora Works

Been using Pandora since Neil turned me onto it last year and really love it. Great way to find good music, and fascinating how the "Music Genome Project" sounds like a simple analogy at first but then goes really deep and makes a lot of sense as the ultimate recommendation engine.

Stumbled onto their official blog while playing with the new Backstage feature and it led to a trail of interesting bits on how it all works. The podcast below is especially good.

Pandora's Box (article)

Founder Tim Westergren interviewed on Behind the Net (podcast).