Posted on 14/2/2009, 12:17 am, by Colin Charles, under
Tech.
I’ve always liked Ayumi Hamasaki’s music. And to see that her next album, will be released on a USB drive (instead of a CD; do they still release albums on cassette tapes?), is simply great news. You get a diamond-studded two-gigabyte thumb-drive, with the songs only taking up a mere 800MB (for 13 tracks, 6 videos, and the lyrics booklet). Its expected to sell anywhere between 4,000-5,000 Yen (RM156-195, so a lot pricier than a CD, which normally retails for RM40), and no word if the songs are DRM-free, what quality the MP3’s are, and so on. This is the first in Japan, and probably the first in the world!
Now, the newest Honda City isn’t just shipping with a CD Player, but a USB port too. They reckon it’ll be easier to connect and charge your iPod. I reckon, that if more and more artistes start distributing USB thumb-drives, we’ll be seeing more USB ports in cars.
Read more at: Ayu takes digital music to the “Next Level”
Posted on 23/6/2008, 10:03 pm, by Colin Charles, under
Books.
I for one, welcome that O’Reilly will soon be offering books for the Kindle, and as DRM-free digital bundles.
There’s a reason why I have a Safari subscription: I like reading technical books on my laptop (because I can search through it), and more importantly, because recently I have in my possession, an eBook reader (from Sony).
There is no mention if Safari subscribers get access to the eBook bundles (currently, I already am at the most expensive Safari subscription you can get). My current method is downloading chapter by chapter, but I’m only given 5 download tokens a month, for free.
James Webster posts a comment on the blog, asking if this will be available for Safari users… Andrew Savikas replies saying they’re working on it.
Today, each PDF chapter I get off Safari, is DRM-free (its just a PDF, no need to input password, etc.). It’d be nice if I could just download the entire book (with one download token), and read it on my eBook reader, as is…
O’Reilly, if you’re reading, it’d be the smartest thing you’d do. Again, you will then lead the pack, from Apress or Packt.