iTunes Overhaul coming!

Just reported from PC Mag ... a big overhaul from Apple coming to your iTunes

here's the full story ... as it develops
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2406455,00.asp

the Perfect Pandora Station

How to Create the Perfect Pandora Station

By Barb Gonzalez • Posted: Jun 26, 2012

If you’re in search of the perfect music station, with a little dedication and patience, you can customize Pandora. For the uninitiated, Pandora is a free online music-streaming service. Unlike other “free” online music services, it can be streamed to smartphones, tablets, TVs, media-streaming devices, and more without a premium subscription fee. Because of Pandora’s licensing agreements, you can’t choose specific songs to create playlists. Also, you cannot skip more than a few songs each hour unless you purchase a Pandora One subscription for $36 per year.
Pandora became popular for its Music Genome Project, in which it looks at the “DNA” (musical qualities) of a song—vocals, rhythms, and a number of other identifying factors. When you choose a song, album, or artist, Pandora finds other songs with similar qualities and adds it to that station. While a song is playing, you can find out its DNA—country influences, mellow rock implementation, paired vocal harmonies, melodic horn lines, and many more distinctive qualities—by clicking on the menu or button and choosing “Why did you play this song?”
Customize Your Stations
If you are dissatisfied with the songs that play on a station, or you want to listen to the quintessential station of ’70s storyteller vocalists, you can create your perfect station. To be successful, you must consistently use Pandora’s tools.
The Tools in Pandora’s Box
Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down: Sure, these are basic tools to mark the music you like and don’t like. On Pandora, they’re also tools for shaping your ideal station. Using the Thumbs Up button while a song is playing tells Pandora you want to hear more songs on this station that are similar to the current song. Thumbs Up also adds variety to the station, as the DNA from that song is added to what Pandora looks for when it adds songs to the station. If the current song has more horns than the song that started the station, then more songs with horns will play.
Using Thumbs Down tells Pandora you don’t think the current song fits this station. Thumbs Down does not necessarily mean you don’t like the song. It simply means, “Don’t play this song on this station.” You may like the Rolling Stones, but don’t want to hear the band’s music when you’re listening to a Norah Jones station (an unlikely scenario, but you get the point). The song may play on another one of your stations. Thumbs Down narrows the DNA that creates a station with songs that have more musical qualities in common.
Add Variety
Perhaps Pandora is missing the mark and the songs played on a particular station don’t fit what you had in mind. Or maybe you’ve narrowed the list and the station is getting boring. There are tools exclusive to the Web-browser version of Pandora on your computer to help you. With the Add Variety tool, you can either mix it up or show Pandora another example of the kind of song you like. Click the Add Variety button below the name of the station in your station’s list. Type in a new artist or album and more songs like it will play.

Edit the Station
A station can be edited from your computer’s Web browser. To edit a station, log in to your account at Pandora.com, click the Options button beneath the station name (i.e., Weezer Radio), and choose Station Details. This will bring up your station’s page. There will be a list of artist seeds and track seeds, along with all of the songs on which you clicked Thumbs Up. This is the most direct way to customize your station. By clicking Add, you can add artists or specific tracks to help shape the station. If a song or artist is taking the station in the wrong direction, remove it or them from the page. Here, you can also delete songs from the Thumbs Up list if you feel they are affecting the choice of music.
Final Tips
If you want the perfectly customized Pandora station, it may take merciless use of Thumbs Down. If you like a song but don’t want it to play in this particular station, you can move the track to another station or create a new station from that song or artist. After you have created the new station, you can give it the Thumbs Down in the current station. This way, you know you can still listen to the song, but it won’t mess up the customization of the station. As hard as it was, I’ve had to Thumbs Down Simon & Garfunkel and Crosby, Stills & Nash because I was trying to create an all-girls station. Many listeners find that they want better-quality audio than Pandora offers. The premium Pandora One subscription offers that high-quality sound.

Sony & Panasonic - a Joint OLED venture

Sony and Panasonic are expected to announce a cooperative agreement next week to develop ways to mass produce next generation organic light emitting diode (OLED) televisions, sources told Reuters Friday.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/22/sony-and-panasonic-to-announce-oled-hdtv-partnership-next-week/

Why This Is Important: With LG and Samsung planning to release 55-inch OLED TVs within the next year, a collaboration between Japanese TV giants could speed development of competitive products.

Confirmed: The New iPhone Will Have A 19-Pin “Mini” Connector

Although the form factor and actual size are still unknown, TechCrunch has independently verified that Apple is working on adding a 19-pin port, replacing the current 30-pin port, to the new iPhone. It is a move that will surely send shocks through the iPhone accessory ecosystem.

The new port is similar in size to the Thunderbolt port available on many MacBook devices but we're told by three independent manufacturers that the pin-out will be different.

Apple’s 30-pin ports have been the standard since Apple released the third generation iPod.

Sharp unveils 'world's biggest' LED TV

Sharp announces 90" LED LCD TV - Imagine this mounted in your Home Theater!

Standing 4 feet high and 6 feet, 8 inches across, the new Sharp Aquos LED TV is called the biggest of its kind.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Sharp unveils a 90-inch Aquos, billed as the biggest LED TV in the world
• The TV stands 4 feet tall and is 6 feet, 8 inches across
• Set is less than 5 inches thick and weights 141 pounds
• The cost? Roughly $11,000

(CNN) -- How's this for a superlative? The biggest TV in the world.

It may not be that simple. We know of at least a couple of plasma screens that are larger.

But with a 90-inch screen, Sharp may have just rolled out the biggest LED high-def television on the market.

The new Aquos LED TV, unveiled Tuesday, stands 4 feet tall and is 6 feet, 8 inches across. (As Consumer Reports notes, that means your television screen would be as wide as an average NBA forward is tall).

A Perpetual Debate: Owning Music In The Digital Age (NPR)

A Perpetual Debate: Owning Music In The Digital Age

 

by Robin Hilton (NPR)

The discussion over music sharing and compensation has been taking place since long before digital downloads were available.

This past weekend's post from Emily White, our current All Songs Considered intern, provoked heated discussion about the current state and possible future of music consumption and creation. Emily's personal essay — as a young person who came of age after the moment when music became widely available digitally — was about the evolution of her views toward the music industry, artists and how to support them, as those issues relate to rapidly changing technology.
As Emily writes, she put together a large collection of music from a variety of sources, mostly from friends and her job at a radio station, but including some file-sharing in elementary school. She concludes by saying she has since "come to realize the gravity of what file-sharing means to the musicians" she loves, and that she "can't support them with concert tickets and T-shirts alone."
But Emily's essay stepped directly into a massive, ongoing and very heated debate about how we get music and how we compensate the people involved in making it. One reader notes in the comments section that people who file-share music think they're "sticking it to the man," but that "the only thing the consumer, who calls him/herself a 'fan' is sticking it to [is] the independent artists." Another reader writes, "You are killing the souls of future musicians." One of the most referenced (and thorough) responses came from David Lowery, songwriter for the bands Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, and lecturer for the University of Georgia's music business program, who took on (among other things) the revered place that new technology holds in moving the younger demographic away from payment to musicians. "Congratulations," Lowery wrote, "your generation is the first in history to rebel by unsticking it to the man and instead sticking it to weirdo freak musicians!"
On the other side, some readers noted Emily's desire to see a new way to pay artists for their work. One wrote that her generation is "on the cusp of a new vision, a new way of seeing the world, which unapologetically demands more not less." Others called her "brave." Today we got "In Defense Of Emily White" from the co-founder of Whitesmith Entertainment and Readymade Records (in a complete coincidence, she's also named Emily White).

The passionate response we got from our readers echoes more than a decade of musicians, record labels, record stores, fans, songwriters and lawyers trying to sort out a way for everyone to be compensated or charged fairly. Over that same time, we have seen huge changes in the field, from the rise of Pandora and other streaming services to reports of huge increases in royalties payouts for digital sales and streams to Spotify's announcement today of a streaming radio service. And yet, it can sometimes feel like we haven't made much progress.
Let's be clear: The debate over compensation doesn't break down along generational lines, and didn't begin with Emily's essay. We know people have been downloading and sharing music — legally and illegally — for years. The 21st century models for recording music, getting it to fans and compensating everyone involved remain works in progress. The way that these models are changing and the ways in which the many individual viewpoints intersect and come into conflict have played out on our site and on our air over these years, and we look forward to continuing the discussion.

For more reading, head over to The Record and check out "Where To Buy Music To Get More Cents On The Dollar To The Musicians" and more in our "That's What Fans Are For" series.

NPR's standards and views on personal use of the music (and books) we receive for review, are covered in our editorial guidelines. You can also download our complete Ethics Handbook.

80% of Blu-ray players stream ...

( from Home Media Magazine ) Blu-ray Disc players are doing more than resurrect disc sales with the only true 1080p home entertainment experience, the devices are increasingly used to access subscription video-on-demand (more content) http://www.homemediamagazine.com/digital-evolution/npd-80-connected-blu-ray-players-stream-content-27571

Sharp's 90-inch AQUOS is World's Largest LED TV

Earlier this year at International CES, Sharp took the wraps off their LC-80LE844U, which at the time was the world’s largest LED LCD TV, measuring an 80-inch screen. Now bettering their own achievement, the brand has launched an LED HDTV that measures 90-inch, giving it the tag of the world’s largest LED HDTV.
Why This Is Important: These extremely large, high-performance LED HDTVs have created a new, lucrative market for retailers and, as Sharp explains, do not use as much electricity as one might assume.

Young listeners opting to stream, not own music  http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/15/tech/web/music-streaming/index.html?hpt=hp_bn5

New Updated Airport Express - still $99

At WWDC 2012, this week, Apple announced an update of its little Wi-Fi router, the AirPort Express Base Station.
 
 The new model is no longer a wall wart design, instead taking on the square, low-profile look of Apple's Extreme Base Station and Time Capsule. With the redesign, it has both 10/100 Ethernet LAN and WAN jacks and one audio jack to connect to speakers  The audio jack works with standard analog minijack cables or optical minijacks, for an all-digital connection. You can use any iOS device (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch) or an iTunes-equipped computer on the AirPort's network to stream music to that device using Apple's AirPlay feature. The big upgrade this time around is dual-band 802.11n -  it runs 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless frequencies simultaneously, so it'll automatically connect to the one that will give you the fastest connection. Otherwise pretty much the same handy little device.

How to make your speakers sound better than ever

Play great-sounding music Blu-rays, DVDs, and CDs like these.

by Steve Guttenberg

June 13, 2012 7:36 AM PDT

Since most people listen to music on free earbuds, plastic computer speakers, or car audio systems, it's easy to understand why great-sounding new recordings are rare. Even so, exceptional ones sneak through from time to time, and when I have a stack of candidates, http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-57451651-47/how-to-make-your-speakers-sound-better-than-ever/?tag=posts

Remembering Mom And Dad's Record Collection (NPR)

Remembering Mom And Dad's Record Collection

Hear The Discussion

All Songs Considered

[42 min 11 sec]

• Add to Playlist
• Download

 

Hear The Songs

Enlarge Courtesy of Bob Boilen All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen, possibly singing with his parents, circa 1959.

June 5, 2012

If you grew up with parents who love music, chances are you raided their record collection at some point. What did you find? Was there an artist or album or song that shaped your tastes in music today, or something you still carry around with you years later?

LG to sell 50,000 OLED TVs in 2012

LG Electronics, the world’s second-biggest flat-screen television maker, plans to produce and sell 50,000 55-inch organic light-emitting diode (OLED) televisions this year, a senior company executive said.

Why This Is Important: While the number from LG seems low for a worldwide launch, given the high suggested retail and the buzz surrounding OLED technology, the unit sales prediction for this year seems in line with what is expected to occur.

More on OLED technology


PM Systems is a LG dealer and will have OLED available as it arrives in the next few months.

Universal Remote training

well I trained today in Woburn - CCP University - or Computer Control Programming, with Mr Hank Eisengrein from Universal Remote Control.  He's a great trainer from New Jersey - a nice blend of education and good humor, and practical tips along the process.   Oh and he bought us all lunch.  So I took notes and now at home I'll apply as much as I can; probably tomorrow nite I program the plasma TV, the cable DVR and the Blu-ray player.   Then I'll add in the Roku and the Squeezebox :)  I came back with a couple of their new model MX-780 remotes that use this CCP programming and are their most affordable.

Listening to Folk Alley in the background, speaking of streaming music.  That station always makes me happy!

Scott's TV

Here's Scott's TV we did a year ago in Weymouth in his new beautiful condo.  This is a 37" LG 1080p LCD - he doesn't have a home theater; I may suggest here a sound bar with powered subwoofer for performance with simplicity.  This TV and audio covers his living room and kitchen areas, and the LCD TV is on an articulating mount that lets him adjust its optimal angle as he rearranges his living space.

When will we have perfect speakers?

Interesting article by Steve Gutenberg on CNET the other day ...

Speakers make sound by moving air, but perfect sound reproduction may be a long way off in the future.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-57442737-47/when-will-we-have-perfect-speakers/?tag=mncol;1n