Monthly Archives: October 2003

MIT debuts music-swap

Posted on by Kathy E. Gill

On Monday, MIT debuted a system that lets students listen to 3,500 CDs over the school’s cable television network. Since this is analogous to broadcasting songs over the radio, the license is relatively inexpensive (the cost of the MP3s).

The MIT project is called “Library Access to Music” or “LAMP.” Students can select 80 minutes of music from a playlist; the music is then piped through one of 12 channels into the student’s room. The music can be played through a TV, a laptop with an audio jack, or external speakers.

Rather than negotiate the headaches of digital copyright, the student project (funded by a Microsoft grant) purchased MP3s of 3,500 CDs that their fellow classmates had suggested in a prior survey; the purchase, through Seattle-based Loudeye, was authorized by the National Music Publishers Association’s licensing arm.

Links: CBS/AP; San Jose Mercury News; USA Today; LAMP web site; MIT Press Release.

Wal-mart leading economic indicator

Posted on by Kathy E. Gill

The old saying was “as goes Detroit, so goes the nation.” Today, we should substitute “Wal-Mart” for Detroit.

The ubiquitous retailer is the nation’s largest private employer (1.1 million); it accounts for 9 percent of US retail sales. Its annual US sales of $203.7 billion dwarf the combined sales of the next four largest US retailers: Home Depot, Kroger, Target and Sears.

To control costs and manage deliveries, Wal-Mart implemented a costly technology system in the ’90s. Electronic data exchange allows it to optimally manage inventories with its 21,000 vendors. And the vendors take note: Wal-Mart accounts for more than half the sales of AT&T phone cards; 28 percent of Dial products; and 20 percent of sales for Hershey Foods, Clorox, Revlon and Rayovac.

Analysts do not expect President Bush’s tax cut to have much of an economic stimulus, based on sales at Wal-Mart.

Sales at Wal-Mart and other “box” stores (Costco, Target and even Long’s Drugs) have eroded sales at traditional grocery stores. Currently there are grocery store strikes around the country, brought about in part by firms trying to hold the line on labor costs. The average unionized grocery store employee makes $13.00 an hour; the average non-unionized Wal-Mart employee makes $8.50 an hour.

Office upgrade touts collaboration

Posted on by Kathy E. Gill

Reuters reports that Microsoft unveiled the latest version of Office today. The application suite is designed to allow people to collaborate on documents using the Web.

Another reported feature is “self-destructing” documents. The Globe & Mail focuses on Outlook’s spam filtering and Microsoft’s positioning of Office for enterprise (group) use, versus “individual” purchase.

A different tune (update)

Posted on by Kathy E. Gill

Trade press and mass media continue to report on Apple’s (new) iTunes for Windows. PC World reports that Apple sold 1 million tunes in three days after the launch.

Internetnews.com likened Apple’s move to throwing down a “guantlet” to other music sites. “I think this will come down to Apple vs. MusicMatch unless Microsoft enters, which is expected, and changes the overall dynamic,” industry analyst Rob Enderle told internetnews.com.

Articles (analysts) also reference the competing technologies — Microsoft’s Windows Media Audio (WMA, a proprietary codec designed to compete with MPEG3) and Advanced Audio Coding (AAC, an industry standard).

AAC is designed to give the highest audio quality in smallest file size/bit rate. And it’s not new. Moreover, many experts insist that it is “the state of the art in audio compression technology.”

The “battle” between MP3 and AAC has been compared with VHS-BetaMax, where the best technology “lost” due to hardware incompatibilities. That’s not (necessarily) the case here, as many players can “hear” both AAC and MP3; backwards compatibility is now expected by consumers. Will Microsoft capitulate, that is, will it conform to standards and support AAC? That’s the $64 question.

For a great explanation of AAC, see this 2000 column by Joe Coffee.

Geeks may wish to read the ISO standard.

The Crutchfield Advisor explains file types. This National Institute of Standards and Technology table (2002) compares audio, image, text and video formats; the table also lists the “owner” of the technologies.