iPod

I had a charter family membership Seattle's Experience Music Project or EMP, which opened in 2000. But after a couple years, I gave it up. The exhibits didn't change enough to warrant a lot of repeat visits, our periodic out-of-town guests had all been at least once, and the promise of early alerts about live shows at the museum never seemed to come through. (The one show I really wanted to see, the Television reunion in 2001, was sold out before I was ever informed about it.)

With a teenaged niece in town and my daughter just getting … Read more

A couple weeks ago, I pondered if early adopters of the iPod and other MP3 players were starting to lose patience with the random shuffle function. Too much black and white, not enough gray.

Almost on cue, start-up Instinctiv came out on Thursday with its first application, an iPhone and iPod Touch application called Instinctiv Shuffle that will derandomize the random iTunes-shuffling feature.

Instinctiv Shuffle uses an algorithm similar to that developed by Pandora and other taste-tracking sites to select the perfect song to play next--like having a professional DJ sift through your collection.

There's a catch: Instinctiv Shuffle … Read more

Since the rise of the iPod as a cultural icon, writers and music fans have written countless tributes to the random shuffle function. The argument goes that human curators are no longer needed, the random switches of style to style are bracing and interesting, and albums are absolutely a thing of the past.

Today at the barbershop, the house sound system played "21st Century Schizoid Man" by King Crimson, followed by some unrecognizable metal, followed by Alicia Keys, followed by some female-fronted punk that sounded a little like X but wasn't, followed by "No Quarter" … Read more

The new iPhone is looming, right? Current iPhone models are not being restocked or are 'sold out', buzz is being generated. It's a different kind of buzz than last time around though. There aren't 'leaked' pictures, there aren't many purported leaks, or any increased amount of feverish patent-trolling to see what's coming. It seems that there won't be a ground-breaking paradigm shifting this time around, right?

On the larger vein of waiting, though, I'm a pretty impatient type. A bit ADHD too. But you know the type of person I'm talking about: people … Read more

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes points to piece that all too well demonstrates the tendency to take unfortunate events and draw irrational conclusions. In this case, the implication is that the death of a British Columbia man who was hit by a falling helicopter could have been averted if he hadn't been wearing his iPod.

Kingley-Hughes says

Now, I don't know about you, but iPod or no iPod, I really don't expect to be crushed horribly from above by a wildly flailing helicopter when picking up my mail. On top of that, I really don't fancy my chances of … Read more

Very few people have sat out the iPod revolution.

At least, very few people who read CNET News.com and took the time to answer a poll about iPods, that is. Last week we asked readers to participate in an iPod survey to help inform a separate story on the future of the iPod, which ran over here.

A few disclaimers: this survey was not sanctioned by The Official Group That Makes Surveys Officious, and should not be viewed as a competitor to data complied by professional survey companies or market research firms. I think it is more representative of … Read more

More than six years into the iPod era, Apple still stands atop the music player landscape. But what comes next?

Apple is at a crossroads in the evolution of the product that arguably saved its bacon. Without the iPod fueling Apple's profits and investments, we probably wouldn't have spent the past year talking about Apple's surging Mac business or its game-changing iPhone.

After years of double-digit gains, iPod growth has finally trailed off. The market is arguably saturated: do you know anyone who wants to take their music on the go who hasn't bought an MP3 … Read more

The iPod survey is back up and running, please take a minute or two to share your thoughts on the iPod if you haven't already.

Due to an overwhelming response yesterday in just a few hours, we had to close our iPod survey before we could upgrade to a larger account that permits more responses. We got nearly 1,000 responses in 3 hours, which was far more than I anticipated when I signed up for the basic account. Thanks to PollDaddy.com for helping us get back up and running this morning.

The idea is to gather some … Read more

I had a problem. Years ago, I bought Microsoft's now-discontinued Digital Media Plus Pack for converting my LP records into digital files. Because it's a Microsoft product from back in the day when Microsoft was gung-ho about Windows Media, it only rips to Windows Media Audio. And of course, it's Windows only. (Other than that, it's a great tool--very easy to use, never messes up line leveling, and has a good algorithm for removing pops and scratches.)

Back when I used iTunes and my iPod exclusively, I'd simply rip the album into WMA, then import … Read more