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You are here: Home / Science & Technology / Friday Geekout

Friday Geekout

by $8 blue check mistermix|  April 1, 20118:45 am| 90 Comments

This post is in: Science & Technology

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Here’s some random computer nerd news and analysis:

  • Amazon launched a cloud music service which allows you to upload your music and play it on any Internet-connected computer or (Android) smartphone. It’s going to cost a buck a gigbyte, per year. Anything you buy from Amazon is stored on the cloud for free. I’ve been waiting for something like this ever since Lala was eaten by Apple. What’s interesting about this is that Amazon is doing it without buying licenses to stream music. The record industry has long maintained that any kind of service that stores my music on the Internet for me to play back owes them additional royalties because, well, shut up, that’s why. Amazon has decided to raise their middle finger to that idea, and I’m sure Baby Jesus is looking down from heaven clapping his chubby little hands over the news.
  • Jon Gruber at Daring Fireball is someone I read and respect, but he’s way over the edge on his analysis of Google’s decision to hold back on releasing Android code to phone makers:

    So here’s the Android bait-and-switch laid bare. Android was “open” only until it became popular and handset makers dependent upon it. Now that Google has the handset makers by the balls, Android is no longer open and Google starts asserting control.

    Maybe my understanding of Android licensing is off, but I think it’s always been true that phone makers can take the Android source code and do with it what they will — they just can’t call it “Android”. The issue is that they’re too cheap and lazy to do it. In fact, they’re so cheap and lazy that they’ve been slapping Android on every device they produce and have been failing to issue timely upgrades. Since Android is a Google brand, this makes it look like Google, not the phone manufacturer, is delivering a shitty phone, so they needed to do something to stop the proliferation of crap Android implementations. And pardon me if I have no sympathy for the phone makers’ balls, which they willingly and lovingly placed in the hands of Google because they were unable to write software for the devices they’re cranking out.

  • Speaking of Google, it will be interesting to watch the reaction of ISPs in Kansas City, Kansas after Google drops gigabit fiber on their asses. And I’ll be interested to see if other cities that are struggling to attract businesses and residents will roll out their own fiber. This is one of the ISPs biggest fears, and they’re working their lobbyists overtime in North Carolina to keep their monopoly interest in fiber instead of letting towns install their own. The result of monopoly ISP usage caps is already being felt in Canada, where Netflix has cut streaming quality by 2/3 to let Canadians watch without going bankrupt paying for usage cap overages.
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Reader Interactions

90Comments

  1. 1.

    Served

    April 1, 2011 at 8:59 am

    Cloud storage (for media) excites me more on the home computing from than the mobile right now. I hate taking up a large chunk of my hard drive with music and movies, and external HDDs don’t work as well for wireless streaming. Being able to stream my music at home will be convenient. On my iPhone; however, it will destroy my battery and I’d prefer to have it locally stored, which means I’d have to have it on my computer anyway.

    “The cloud” in general has saved my ass a few times when I had to access a file on a different computer and when an impromptu pitch happened, and I eagerly await the day it’s a “standard feature” of media providers.

    As far as ISPs go, there has to be a time when munis realize that they need to treat internet access and speed as a utility. In my neck of the woods, it’s either Comcast or Uverse, neither of which appeal to me too much, and Uverse only became available in the last year or so. Comcast is unreliable, slow, and has abysmal customer service.

    The problem is that cable providers know it’s cheaper to focus on content provided than upgrading their technology. Laying cable takes time and money, and it’s not like anyone is challenging them in most places, so they can rest on their laurels. No competition means no innovation, and while I get the heebyjeebies thinking about a government ISP, censorship and monitoring and all that, I don’t trust Comcast anymore than I do public officials.

  2. 2.

    kdaug

    April 1, 2011 at 9:00 am

    Speaking of Google, it will be interesting to watch the reaction of ISPs in Kansas City, Kansas after Google drops gigabit fiber on their asses.

    Been watching this one. Was hoping they picked Austin – duh – but got an old coworker up there (well, she’s not old, but we worked together a few years back, at a game studio that folded… whatever) and she was like “Holy crap, y’all are jealous of me, now?”

    Yes. Yes we are.

    Is there an established acronym for “ISPs Shitting in Pants”?

  3. 3.

    jibeaux

    April 1, 2011 at 9:04 am

    That Time Warner Cable bill here in NC pisses me off. My uterus is all chapped just thinking about it. And these are the same people who talk about “freedom” all the goddam time. If the town of Wilson wants to have its own high-speed internet for its own citizens and that’s what it votes to do and the citizens are happy with that, how the holy hell is it “freedom” to make them buy from the black hole of suckitude that is TWC? *
    * Although, I hear, it’s not as bad as Comcast.

  4. 4.

    kdaug

    April 1, 2011 at 9:06 am

    Anyone else having difficulty getting used to “Moosa-Koosa”?

  5. 5.

    AB

    April 1, 2011 at 9:07 am

    In fact, they’re so cheap and lazy that they’ve been slapping Android on every device they produce and have been failing to issue timely upgrades.

    I like Android fine as an OS, and first-party devices like the Nexus phones seem to be ok, but the Android ecosystem is a mess. If what Google’s doing is tightening the screws on how much your device and associated support can suck before you can’t call it an Android device anymore, more power to them.

  6. 6.

    WereBear

    April 1, 2011 at 9:11 am

    I learned about Rural Electrification from the incredibly great series of LBJ biographies by Robert Caro.

    This is the same friggin’ thing. You gotta have broadband and wireless to do business, and yet these troglodytes want to lower wages and raise prices.

    Then, when business sucks, because no one can afford to buy anything, they whine and come up with Ponzi schemes instead.

  7. 7.

    jibeaux

    April 1, 2011 at 9:12 am

    I want to apologize, I meant to say uter*s.

    Carry on.

  8. 8.

    Dan

    April 1, 2011 at 9:12 am

    That Amazon Cloud is going to make them a FORTUNE. I’ve used it and it is great. I bought mp3 songs and albums that I had held off on, because I don’t need to think twice, well, do I want to download this at the office or at home, and if I download it home, will I remember to put it on a jump drive to bring to work?

    With the cloud, I ordered it, listened to it immediately, and downloaded it on 2 computers at home and 1 at work. So they sold me music that I was on the fence about. Now I am looking for more songs and albums in their store because the service is so easy and fun to use.

    And, although you can upload your own music to the cloud, I am sure that people (including me) will just pay a buck or 2 to re-purchase music to save the couple of steps of uploading.

    But it is really, really great.

  9. 9.

    ericblair

    April 1, 2011 at 9:14 am

    @jibeaux:

    And these are the same people who talk about “freedom” all the goddam time.

    “Free”, “Constitutional”, and other such words in current American parlance all translate to “something I like”. To Warner Cable, paying large gobs of money without alternative to Warner Cable is Freedom. There is nothing more to understand from it, and in trying to That Way Lies Madness.

  10. 10.

    Maude

    April 1, 2011 at 9:16 am

    I might have missed it, but how long can a user store music files on Amazon cloud?
    I am not comfortable with Google. They have their fingers in a lot of pies. Their privacy rules are iffy at best.
    I’d would rather see municiple wifi become standard. The prices people pay for broadband internet access are high. A lot of people can’t afford to pay for broadband.
    Perhaps internet access should become more like a utility.

  11. 11.

    Turbulence

    April 1, 2011 at 9:19 am

    Agreed, it will be fun watching the local KC ISPs scramble.

    Right now, the only people I hate more with respect to bandwidth than the ISPs are the municipalities. My town could easily have FIOS, but Verizon won’t sell FIOS unless they’re also allowed to sell TV services. Of course, the town won’t let them: Comcast has an exclusive contract. Which they keep because every year, they donate some cast off shit and a few grand to the local access cable outfit, which means that tons of mouth breathers who have no skills in life besides wanking on local access cable show up for all the city council cable sessions and wank prodigiously about how awesome Comcast is and how no one must ever touch Comcast lest their public access gravy train dry up. I know people in town government and they have a very wise policy of never measuring just how shitty the public access channel’s numbers are lest a cost-benefit calculation force them to kill it and then incur the rage of the ‘look at me ma — i’m on teevee’ morans.

    When I look at how stupid and venal asshole companies like Comacast and Verizon are, I am amazed that there exists a group of citizens so clueless and greedy that they can be easily manipulated by the asshole telco/cable companies.

  12. 12.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    April 1, 2011 at 9:20 am

    if you applied for a job at any of these companies and told them your philosophy was, “if i can’t control it, every little detail, then i have to assume the worst, and react accordingly” you couldn’t get hired in clinton’s economy.

    yet this is how these fuckers manage their internets business.

  13. 13.

    Superluminar

    April 1, 2011 at 9:21 am

    Slightly OT, but as mistermix hasn’t provided our daily Fukushima Freak Out, thought I’d provide this link which really doesn’t sound all that reassuring…

  14. 14.

    mistermix

    April 1, 2011 at 9:23 am

    @Superluminar: I’m taking the day off on that topic.

  15. 15.

    South of I-10

    April 1, 2011 at 9:25 am

    I’ve posted about this before, but my town has completed our fiber to the home project, LUS Fiber. I get 10 Mbps up and down for $28.95. I could get up to 100 Mbps up and down. Cox Communications fought like crazy to stop this project, but we got it done in red Louisiana with a Repub mayor. Cox did succeed in slowing down the build out and making it more expensive. Good luck North Carolina, you are going to need it!

  16. 16.

    mistermix

    April 1, 2011 at 9:25 am

    @Maude: If you buy it from Amazon, they store it for free forever (as long as you have an Amazon account). You get 5 Gigabytes (~1200 songs) of free storage. After that, it’s $1/gigabyte/year.

  17. 17.

    kdaug

    April 1, 2011 at 9:29 am

    @WereBear:

    This is the same friggin’ thing. You gotta have broadband and wireless to do business, and yet these troglodytes want to lower wages and raise prices.

    I’d say federalize it, but that would mean raising taxes on the rich.

  18. 18.

    Tuttle

    April 1, 2011 at 9:32 am

    Comcast was near the point of offering me free blowjobs to not switch to our city’s fiber. Upped my cap, offered free new equipment, upped my bandwidth, dropped the price, offered free months, etc.

    Not good enough you goons.

  19. 19.

    Superluminar

    April 1, 2011 at 9:33 am

    @mistermix
    ok, fair enuff, don’t blame you. I will say that in the spirit of April 1st either you or DougJ should really put up the most awesomest spoof trolling thread ever…

  20. 20.

    mjm

    April 1, 2011 at 9:35 am

    The point with Google’s control of Android, and with Gruber’s piece on it, is that they’re restricting customization of the software to only that which they approve, at least if the hardware vendor wants access to the current codebase. This flies in the face of all of the Free Software Revolutionary “open” rhetoric that they were throwing around the last couple years. This puts the handset/tablet manufacturers in the same position as they are viz-a-viz Microsoft on the desktop. In other words, they just lost a large amount of control over their own destiny with their mobile products.

    Gruber may overstate when he calls Google execs “shameless, lying hypocrites”, but it’s true that Google just pulled a huge rug out from under the Android ecosystem. The hardware manufacturers will no longer be competing to see who can create the best, most innovative user experiences, but competing to see who can be Google’s BFF. That’s great for Google and not so much for consumers, I think.

  21. 21.

    Valdivia

    April 1, 2011 at 9:35 am

    @jibeaux:

    This week or maybe last the New Yorker had a Shouts & Murmurs about a Time Warner bill it was effing hilarious. Wish it was online/goes searching.

  22. 22.

    Superluminar

    April 1, 2011 at 9:37 am

    @kdaug
    I agree with you re:federalising, but I think there are probably legal hurdles WRT interfering in the market. It’s not ideal, but it is what it is *sigh.

  23. 23.

    freemark

    April 1, 2011 at 9:40 am

    Can’t imagine what 1 Gbps would be like. I achieve about 1-2 Mbps with Comcast. As of right now I’m having trouble staying under the 250Gb limit with hd Netflix and even Comcast’s own Xfinity streaming which still counts against me.Don’t even want to think about how bad it is in Canada.

    Really looking foward to Google ramping this up. In areas where FIOS entered competition with Comcast, Comcast’s prices dropped and speeds doubled almost immediately.

  24. 24.

    Valdivia

    April 1, 2011 at 9:41 am

    @Valdivia:

    Here is the New Yorker parody Time Warner bill

    http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2011/04/04/110404sh_shouts_jost

  25. 25.

    J.W. Hamner

    April 1, 2011 at 9:42 am

    The point I saw raised about Amazon’s cloud over at Yglesias’s place was: cellular data usage rates. Plus 3G coverage is still pretty spotty.

    Memory is a lot cheaper than bandwidth… if people start getting hit with big bills or can’t listen to their music everywhere, I wonder how that will go over?

    I guess it’s nice to not need to synch two computer, but it’s not that nice. The cloud is totally overrated by tech heads… get me some cheap fast bandwidth and then we’ll talk.

  26. 26.

    Valdivia

    April 1, 2011 at 9:42 am

    @kdaug:

    You do know his name means Moses Zuchinni right?

  27. 27.

    Maude

    April 1, 2011 at 9:43 am

    @mistermix:
    Gotta love Amazon for this.
    I also like Amazon for under cutting the price of books. Books have too expensive for far too long. Every child should be able to own a book with the lable: This Book Belongs To:

  28. 28.

    JGabriel

    April 1, 2011 at 9:45 am

    Amazon launched a cloud music service which allows you to upload your music and play it on any Internet-connected computer or (Android) smartphone. It’s going to cost a buck a gigbyte, per year.

    That sounds cheap, at first — until you think about it. If you wanted to store a Blu-ray disc in the cloud, that would be $50/yr, just to store one movie. And hard disk space is running about 5.5 cents/gigabyte these days, retail. I’m sure Amazon pays less.

    It’s probably fine for mp3s and epubs, given that we don’t really have the bandwidth infrastructure in the US for people to even consider streaming Blu-ray quality video over the internet, yet. But it’s more expensive than it sounds, and probably more expensive than it should be.

    I suppose the price will come down if it proves to be a viable market and competitors join the field.

    .

  29. 29.

    Comrade DougJ

    April 1, 2011 at 9:49 am

    This Gigabit thing is very interesting indeed.

  30. 30.

    Peter J

    April 1, 2011 at 9:50 am

    I’m not sold on the idea about storing music files in Amazon’s cloud. I would prefer a monthly paid streaming service that also allows you to store encrypted songs locally.
    I wouldn’t want to waste my data plan for streaming music if I can store songs locally.

    Also, 20Gb for music? Unless you favor lossless compression, that would be about 3000-5000 songs, and after reading what you agree to to use the service, I wouldn’t upload anything that I couldn’t show a receipt for…

  31. 31.

    Can't Be Bothered

    April 1, 2011 at 9:50 am

    @J.W. Hamner:

    I get unlimited 3g data on my android through virgin plus enough talk to last me (especially considering any long home calls I can make on my laptop through Google Voice free) for $25/month.. no contract. Anyone stupid enough to pay their exorbitant iphone data plan at this point is a moron, I’m sorry. Not that iphone users can even use Amazon’s service. Amazon has by far the best prices for music and if you can’t understand all the ways that their cloud service totally kicks ass, I feel sorry for you.

  32. 32.

    Menu

    April 1, 2011 at 9:54 am

    What the fuck with the Amazon love? You know who else Amazon has raised the middle finger to? state governments that would like to collect sales tax.
    They do not compete on a level playing field.

  33. 33.

    J.W. Hamner

    April 1, 2011 at 9:54 am

    @Can’t Be Bothered:

    Amazon has by far the best prices for music and if you can’t understand all the ways that their cloud service totally kicks ass, I feel sorry for you.

    Exemplary logic and argumentation. Impeccable!

  34. 34.

    Menu

    April 1, 2011 at 9:55 am

    Shouts and Murmurs hilarious? My mind does not compute.

  35. 35.

    Peter J

    April 1, 2011 at 10:00 am

    @Can’t Be Bothered: If every consumer start using their unlimited plan like they are unlimited, then one of three things will happen when the provider can’t provide enough to all consumers.

    1. The provider adds bandwidth
    2. The provider removes the unlimited plan
    3. The provider changes the price or the rules for the unlimited plan

    Generally 1 tends to be the most unlikely.

    I just find streaming something that could be stored locally wasteful.

  36. 36.

    JGabriel

    April 1, 2011 at 10:02 am

    @Maude:

    I would rather see municiple wifi become standard.

    And municipal broadband.

    .

  37. 37.

    castellan

    April 1, 2011 at 10:04 am

    @mistermix:

    I think you’re misinterpreting where Gruber is coming from regarding the whole Google Android kerfuffle. There were a TON of Android fanboys who poo-pooed iOS because “Android will never EVER be regulated, or controlled, or kept within a ‘walled gardern,’ blah blah blah…”

    Gruber’s point is that this is the other shoe dropping. You can’t begrudge Google making the decision they made. As Gruber said, it’s a bit of a bait-and-switch because they knew that the carriers were too lazy to make the source code their own beyond a few superficial tweaks. But, nearly every argument against Apple’s iOS devices included the whole “it’s not open” argument, which is effectively nullified by this change in direction.

    Now, you’re left with two “walled gardens”: one that is on cheap devices, may not be compatible with all of the available applications built for it, may not be upgradeable, and has as many problems as Windows does running on cheap no-name PC hardware; or one that has provided a uniformly excellent end-user experience, runs on hardware designed specifically for it, and runs applications with panache.

    If you’re willing to jailbreak your iPhone or iPad, you can get a more Android-like experience — and I’ve done that in the past — but it definitely comes with all of the pitfalls extant in a more “open” system.

  38. 38.

    Billy K

    April 1, 2011 at 10:04 am

    Two things:

    1. Go Amazon!

    2. Gruber is right.

  39. 39.

    JGabriel

    April 1, 2011 at 10:10 am

    @Valdivia:

    Here is the New Yorker parody Time Warner bill

    That parody Time Warner bill is suspiciously close to a real Verizon bill.

    .

  40. 40.

    Can't Be Bothered

    April 1, 2011 at 10:11 am

    @J.W. Hamner:

    Let’s fight on the internet! Would you really like me to explain to you why being able to play your music anywhere and being able to download it anywhere to any of your computers is nice?

    @Peter J.
    I do store locally. If you noticed that’s one of the perks of the Amazon service. I can just download it to my multiple devices without synching and transferring all the time. But if I’m, say, at a party at someone else’s house, I can just hop on to my account and play a playlist. And if I run out of storage on my phone I can stream music when I want. And are you really saying that even though I pay for unlimited data I should still always ration it out, because maybe then the company might change my service? Really?

  41. 41.

    J.W. Hamner

    April 1, 2011 at 10:16 am

    @Can’t Be Bothered:

    Would you really like me to explain to you why being able to play your music anywhere and being able to download it anywhere to any of your computers is nice?

    Yes. How is better than having a 32GB thumb drive with all your music on your key chain?

    For when you lose your keys?

  42. 42.

    Peter J

    April 1, 2011 at 10:21 am

    @Can’t Be Bothered:

    And are you really saying that even though I pay for unlimited data I should still always ration it out, because maybe then the company might change my service? Really?

    I’m saying that when enough consumers start using an unlimited service as actually being unlimited and the provider really can’t provide a unlimited service to too many of their customers then something has to change.
    And the change rarely is to the benefit to the consumers.

    What I didn’t say was that you should ration it out.

  43. 43.

    Can't Be Bothered

    April 1, 2011 at 10:32 am

    @J.W. Hamner:

    You’re right coud computing is stupid. I’ll defer to you. Apple, Google, and Amazon are wasting their time.

  44. 44.

    J.W. Hamner

    April 1, 2011 at 10:41 am

    @Can’t Be Bothered:
    Nice way to admit you have no argument… it’s endlessly amusing when rabid fanbois go insane when their sacred cows are “slandered”. But I didn’t say it was stupid, I said it was consistently overrated by techheads given our current broadband situation. For all the endless utopian predictions about how HAWESOME our lives are going to be “In The Cloud” I’ve yet to see anything that can’t be done better and more reliably without it.

  45. 45.

    mclaren

    April 1, 2011 at 10:49 am

    The reaction of ISPs in Kansas City is as predictable as it is inevitable: massive lawsuits. They’re going to stop this gigabit net in its tracks.

    America is headed down, down, down. Broadband where I live has been systematically cut down in speed, throttled, capped, and squeezed into uselessness. All the ISPs are now implementing system resets if anyone even does a google search for the word “torrent” — the connection to the computer shuts down, the ethernet port actually loses its connection. This kind of throttling and capping is going to get ramped up to the point where America’s “broadband” drops below 56 kbit dialup speeds. At that point, prices will skyrocket.

    America is trapped in a death spiral of self-destruction. It’s sad to see this country circling the bowl with the suction drawing it down, but when you look objectively at the amount of torture and mass murder we’ve unleashed against the rest of the world, you have to admit it’s a classic case of karma coming back to bite us in the ass.

  46. 46.

    merrinc

    April 1, 2011 at 11:04 am

    @jibeaux:

    Folks in this area aren’t too upset by the NC legislation. In addition to living in the district of Speaker Tillis, a whole lot of people are highly pissed over the MI-Connection boondoggle. In 2007, the towns of Davidson and Mooresville borrowed 92 million to buy the bankrupt Adelphia system. They’ve been losing money ever since. Both towns are having to subsidize the system’s operating costs and that hasn’t been in easy in these economic times. In Davidson, we’re trying to raise money to keep the goddamn library open, the school board voted to move one of the top rated middle schools in the country out of the town to save some money, and we now have to pay a couple hundred bucks a year for trash pick up (used to be free) to make up the shortfall caused by the town plugging the hole in Mi Connection’s budget.

    So, yeah the Google gig in KYC sounds good. I understand the system in Wilson, NC is nice too. But not every municipality will have the same success. But I doubt we can legislate good judgement. And let’s not forget this legislation was first proposed by a Democrat.

  47. 47.

    MattR

    April 1, 2011 at 11:09 am

    This is the same Amazon that has gone into people’s Kindle and removed a couple George Orwell books it put on sale by mistake, right? I am sure they will never do anything similar with their cloud.

  48. 48.

    cthulhu

    April 1, 2011 at 11:14 am

    I’ve been using the free (well, I made a donation because I like it so much) program Subsonic to do the same thing with my own music server for years. The programmer produced an Android app more than a year ago (a major factor in my getting an Android phone). As I’m soon to top the 70gig mark, a lot of the cloud music servers out there (Amazon isn’t the only one, btw) start to be a notable expense at that level. I also use MediaMonkey to manage my collection. Between those two programs I am set. I will say, that I like to tinker and don’t balk at figuring out the technical aspects of getting Subsonic to work. But one nice thing is that I can set-up logins for friends to listen to my music (I am sure the RIAA would have a problem with this, even though their use is very minor).

    I have heard that the Amazon cloud doesn’t use folders? Is that true? Just one long list of songs?

  49. 49.

    dan

    April 1, 2011 at 11:17 am

    @J.W. Hamner: You’ve yet to see anything that can’t be done better and more reliably without it.

    Just because you haven’t seen it …

  50. 50.

    jibeaux

    April 1, 2011 at 11:22 am

    @merrinc:
    I’m not letting any damn Democrats off the hook, if they’re voting for that crap, I don’t give a shit what their registration is. And I’m sorry if it didn’t work out well in some places. But there is a big-ass difference between acknowledging in 20-20 hindsight that maybe a town should not have taken a chance that it took and FORBIDDING the town from ever taking any chances. If there isn’t any quality, or even any at all, goddam high-speed internet in your town, saying that you’re not allowed to attempt to run your own, you just have to wait for TWC to come to town, is bullshit.

  51. 51.

    Nutella

    April 1, 2011 at 11:25 am

    @Tuttle:

    Competition in a free market actually leads to better service. Wow, what a concept!

    Much as I dislike Amazon’s business practices I hope they do succeed in this to establish the principle that music I have paid for is music I can play as many times as I like on any device I want to play it on.

  52. 52.

    Linnaeus

    April 1, 2011 at 11:26 am

    I’m not the biggest fan of Amazon for a couple of reasons, but this cloud service sounds interesting, so I’ll check it out.

    As for the smartphone OS wars, I’m sticking with BlackBerry for the nonce. Okay, don’t laugh.

  53. 53.

    merrinc

    April 1, 2011 at 11:32 am

    @jibeaux:

    Agreed. We both know the NC legislature wasn’t motivated by a desire to protect citizens from their local government’s bad business decisions – they’re doing the bidding of the cable industry.

  54. 54.

    Can't Be Bothered

    April 1, 2011 at 11:37 am

    @J.W. Hamner:

    Not a fanboi or a techhead. Just a guy that likes that Amazon’s prices for music are consistently and by far the lowest and that they have never fucked or tried to fuck me on DRM unlike Apple. And, yes, I happen to like the idea of having cloud backup and the ability to stream or simply login using a friend’s computer if I want to play a party mix at their house. If I have internet, I have a music player with all my music and playlists. And I like that they went ahead without RIAA approval. It’s time someone told them that once I do the right thing and buy music, I can play and download and do whatever the fuck I want with it on as many of my devices as I want. Being contrary for the sake of it is no virtue.

  55. 55.

    J.W. Hamner

    April 1, 2011 at 11:40 am

    @dan:

    Just because you haven’t seen it …

    So… give me an example. I’ll give you that for things you want (or don’t mind) to share with the public it’s great… but for any other application I’m hard pressed to think of a situation where a cloud is better. Google Docs? OpenOffice is waaaay better and an encrypted laptop and encrypted email is much more secure. Large file transfer? How hard is it to set up a and run basic server and then have full control and physical possession of the files?

    So what am I missing? What are these applications that The Cloud revolutionizes?

  56. 56.

    Dan

    April 1, 2011 at 11:46 am

    @J.W. Hamner: Just sounds like you’re an anal control freak. You wouldn’t be able to enjoy the Amazon cloud without worrying about security or whatever, so just stay clear of it. It is not for you. Good luck with your thumb drive.

    Yes, I put “anal” and “thumb” in the same paragraph. Heh heh.

  57. 57.

    J.W. Hamner

    April 1, 2011 at 12:03 pm

    @Can’t Be Bothered:

    Being contrary for the sake of it is no virtue.

    I don’t think honestly evaluating the pluses and minuses of a service and refusing to swoon because their calculated business move happens to align with my beliefs counts as “contrary for the sake if it.”

    I was initially excited about the idea of not having to synch a new cellphone (the device I replace the most frequently) to my music collection… but then I thought about my experience with Pandora and got significantly less excited. Can’t listen to it on the subway. Can’t listen to it in many buildings. Need pretty good and consistent 3G for it not to need to rebuffer. And I say this as someone with Verizon who lives in Cambridge and works in Boston.

    As for playing music anywhere… an Amazon server isn’t the way I would go since I often want to play music where there isn’t a reliable internet connection (vacation)… but it’s not like I think it’s a bad thing. I just don’t think it will “revolutionize our lives”, as many cloud advocates continually claim.

  58. 58.

    Billy K

    April 1, 2011 at 12:14 pm

    @Can’t Be Bothered:

    and that they have never fucked or tried to fuck me on DRM unlike Apple.

    Dear FSM, I can’t believe people are still bellyaching over this! Look. Apple had a choice; launch iTunes with DRM or scrap the whole thing. They chose to launch the service and then work to remove DRM – which they did, with the help of other competing services. Services that wouldn’t have existed had Apple not opened the digital music doors with iTunes.

    You want to cry about DRM? Whine about the labels that demanded it. Whine about the labels that continue to fuck you every chance they get.

  59. 59.

    justanotherjones

    April 1, 2011 at 12:24 pm

    I love Netflix, I love that they have a good and simple service and have always been straightforward. I really hate that the greedy ISB SOB’s are trying to squeeze them out of the market.

  60. 60.

    dan

    April 1, 2011 at 12:37 pm

    @J.W. Hamner: No one is “swooning” and no one said “revolutionize” except for you. There have been very few “revolutionary” products since the Chef of the Future brought us the Handy Housewife Helper.

    It is just a very cool product that many people can imagine many useful and fun ways to use. You can’t. Oh well.

  61. 61.

    Dave Latchaw

    April 1, 2011 at 12:45 pm

    Amazon’s new music service sounds remarkably like mp3.com’s “music locker”. That ended up with mp3.com being owned by Vivendi/Universal Music. I hope Amazon has better copyright lawyers.

  62. 62.

    dan

    April 1, 2011 at 12:48 pm

    @Dave Latchaw: It’s just copies. Like having a copy of your will at home and one in a safety deposit box.

    No reason to put your music in the cloud then delete it from all of your drives.

  63. 63.

    J.W. Hamner

    April 1, 2011 at 1:02 pm

    @dan:

    It is just a very cool product that many people can imagine many useful and fun ways to use. You can’t. Oh well.

    So what are they? Help me see the light of your carefree and tech loving lifestyle. What am I missing out on when I say “meh” when looking at this service? So far I’ve got: play my own music on my friends’ computer. Is that the extent of it?

  64. 64.

    Dave Latchaw

    April 1, 2011 at 1:41 pm

    @dan: That’s what mp3.com’s lawyers said.

  65. 65.

    burnspbesq

    April 1, 2011 at 1:45 pm

    mistermix:

    I’m sure Baby Jesus is looking down from heaven clapping his chubby little hands over the news.

    Why does Baby Jesus hate musicians?

  66. 66.

    Dan

    April 1, 2011 at 1:50 pm

    @J.W. Hamner: Well, no, I will not help you see the light. Go look at it yourself, figure it out yourself, or go something else yourself. Maybe with your thumb drive.

    There are tech products (or a piece of music, or anything for that matter) that I have no desire for, but I don’t feel the need to tell everyone that it is a pointless product that only fanbois swoon over.

  67. 67.

    burnspbesq

    April 1, 2011 at 1:53 pm

    @mistermix:

    If you buy it from Amazon, they store it for free forever (as long as you have an Amazon account). You get 5 Gigabytes (~1200 songs) of free storage. After that, it’s $1/gigabyte/year.

    Which makes it worse than useless for those of us with 1.5 terabyte music libraries. And how do you access your cloud-stored music from 33,000 feet over the Atlantic?

    External hard drives and iPods are not rendered obsolete by this development.

    I do wish Apple would let me store hi-res files on my devices. In a world where storage is cheap, “CD quality” is an oxymoron.

  68. 68.

    MattR

    April 1, 2011 at 2:01 pm

    @burnspbesq: What? Spending $1500 a year for the cloud seems unreasonable compared to a $150 external hard drive?

    PS. Since Saturday I have been meaning to follow up an earlier conversation by saying “Brattons, schmattons” :-)

  69. 69.

    burnspbesq

    April 1, 2011 at 2:01 pm

    @Nutella:

    I hope they do succeed in this to establish the principle that music I have paid for is music I can play as many times as I like on any device I want to play it on.

    Sorry, but your use of the word “establish” in this context is way off the mark. Apple took all of the DRM off everything it sells in the iTunes store years ago. The iTunes application has never restricted the use of things that you rip from vinyl or CDs. All of the high-res files I buy from HDTracks and record label sites can be downsampled and then put on multiple devices.

  70. 70.

    burnspbesq

    April 1, 2011 at 2:11 pm

    @MattR:

    I haven’t seen a 4TB RAID array for $150 yet, but in general your point is well taken.

    Nice win against the Hoos last week. Do feel free to follow it up by beating the Tarholes in East Rutherford on Sunday.

  71. 71.

    Martin

    April 1, 2011 at 2:16 pm

    Since Android is a Google brand, this makes it look like Google, not the phone manufacturer, is delivering a shitty phone, so they needed to do something to stop the proliferation of crap Android implementations. And pardon me if I have no sympathy for the phone makers’ balls, which they willingly and lovingly placed in the hands of Google because they were unable to write software for the devices they’re cranking out.

    Actually, that is Grubers point exactly. Realize that this tweet by Andy Rubin is what started it all:

    the definition of open: “mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make”

    Android is no longer open. You can’t do that any longer for the development build without getting Google’s permission. And he wasn’t referencing ‘Android-like’ in that tweet, he was referencing Android – that any phone maker could come along and grab the source and build an Android phone. Android has been and will continue to turn into the clusterfuck that is UNIX and linux for the end user, with standard builds being of 17 different versions depending on which flavor you’re running. My 65 year old dad wants a phone. What Android handest/carrier combo is actually going to push out timely updates? Who the fuck knows. And I sure as hell don’t want to take the time to research that when the iPhone is just sitting right there.

    So now Google is saying ‘whoa, this is getting out of hand’ (like nobody could see that coming) and now is closing up the system, requiring everyone get approval from Google. Wasn’t that the complaint against Apple from day one that you needed their permission? And that’s Gruber’s point.

  72. 72.

    MattR

    April 1, 2011 at 2:18 pm

    @burnspbesq: OK. If you want RAID then $150 is too low. But a simple 1.5 TB external drive is about $75 now. And I saw a 2TB RAID for $150.

    Thinking about heading to the game if the weather is nice. Kinda want to see the new stadium for myself even though all my friends say it is a piece of crap.

  73. 73.

    Martin

    April 1, 2011 at 2:23 pm

    @burnspbesq: You can store and play Apple Lossless on the iPod and iPhone. Have been for some time. No compression from the source, so it’s as good as FLAC. Comes in about half the size of FLAC IIRC because it uses a better lossless compression scheme.

    The rumor on Apple’s plans is that their cloud service would sit as a broker between your devices, so if you had a RAID that their cloud server could see, you could request a file on your iPod, it’s ask the cloud server for it, the cloud server would ask your RAID for it, and then it’d transfer/stream it across. So they wouldn’t need to provide all of that storage space, just the bandwidth.

  74. 74.

    MattR

    April 1, 2011 at 2:32 pm

    @Martin: Interesting. You won’t get the same near 100% availability that Amazon’s cloud can provide since it will be dependent on your home network, but other than that it sounds pretty cool.

  75. 75.

    burnspbesq

    April 1, 2011 at 2:48 pm

    @Martin:

    You can store and play Apple Lossless on the iPod and iPhone. Have been for some time.

    Yup, and I don’t hear meaningful differences between a 44.1/16 Apple Lossless file and a 44.1/16 AIFF file on my desktop setup (Ayre QB-9 DAC, Luxman P-200 amp, and Sennheiser HD-800 headphones).

    What I want is to be able to put my 88.2/24 and 96/24 AIFF files on an IOS device. The Camera Connection Kit’s USB interface allows me to bypass the mediocre internal DAC and amp in the iPad and pull the bitstream out to an external DAC, and Cypher Labs recently introduced a portable asynchronous USB DAC. Audiophile to go is possible if Apple will just get with the program.

  76. 76.

    ThresherK

    April 1, 2011 at 3:29 pm

    Speaking as a radio geek, it seems that BPL has been obsoleted before any more municipalities sunk any more money into it and discovered how crappy powerlines are for broadband, but how good it is for interfering with other radio services. For this happenstance I am thankful.

  77. 77.

    wes

    April 1, 2011 at 3:31 pm

    here’s what I’ve been geeking out about:
    http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/28/asus-eee-pad-transformer-shows-up-wearing-honeycomb-to-cebit/

    The Asus eee Pad Transformer differs from other Android Tablets (particularly the Xoom) because:

    – high quality screen (IPS, allows better viewing angles and can be sharper/more vivid)
    – Ability to turn into a kind of laptop with laptop dock, which has a built in battery to extend battery life by 16 hours
    – HDMI out
    – it costs $400 dollars!! $100 less than the ipad, $400-ish less than the Xoom!

  78. 78.

    Peter J

    April 1, 2011 at 3:32 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    Which makes it worse than useless for those of us with 1.5 terabyte music libraries.

    Most people who have 1.5 terabyte music library should stay away from Amazon. This since 1.5 terabyte equals about 2100 uncompressed CDs, or about 3800 compressed with FLAC, or if MP3, 220,000+, and most people with that kind of collection don’t tend to have bought all of it.

    Now, I’m not saying that you haven’t bought your music library.

    Anyway, in about a year or two RIAA is going to demand that Amazon gives them the right to inspect the music stored on the cloud. IANAL so who knows what happens then.

  79. 79.

    Cackalacka

    April 1, 2011 at 3:35 pm

    Just sent a note thanking my NC State Leg Rep for her support in opposing this.

    I’d encourage my fellow tarfeet to do the same (or, alternatively, ask why their rep voted for this stupid piece of shit.)

    Got a nice ‘thank you for paying attention’ note back from Rep. Weiss about 10 minutes after I sent it.

    I hate Time Warner Cable so much I put a DirecTV lunar landing module on my (brand new) roof several years ago. I truly wish horrible, horrible things would happen to the executives of TWC. I really do.

  80. 80.

    Peter J

    April 1, 2011 at 3:37 pm

    @Martin:

    The rumor on Apple’s plans is that their cloud service would sit as a broker between your devices, so if you had a RAID that their cloud server could see, you could request a file on your iPod, it’s ask the cloud server for it, the cloud server would ask your RAID for it, and then it’d transfer/stream it across. So they wouldn’t need to provide all of that storage space, just the bandwidth.

    And Apple will lock you in. But it will hopefully be great for those that only own Apple products, has friends who only own Apple products, and only use Apple products at work. And so on.

  81. 81.

    Martin

    April 1, 2011 at 3:40 pm

    @burnspbesq: Oh, I see. You should know that the DACs in the iPod/iPhone/iPads vary a lot. There are a number of audiophiles at Apple and when one of them get on one of those projects, they tend to put a bunch of extra work into the DAC on the particular model they’re working on. I know for a while the Shuffle had the best DAC in the portable line, but I don’t know how all of that has shaken out in the last few years.

  82. 82.

    MattR

    April 1, 2011 at 3:40 pm

    @Peter J: I have 400-500 GB of music. The vast majority of that space is taken by live concerts that generally run about a GB a show. I can easily see more serious fans amassing a TB or two over several years of downloading (all of it legal, BTW). However, I share your feeling that the RIAA is gonna become interested in what people have on the cloud.

  83. 83.

    cleek

    April 1, 2011 at 3:42 pm

    @ThresherK:
    i use power line networking in my house. it works infinitely better than WiFi, which is unable to maintain a connection from my 2nd floor to my first floor. iTunes, in particular, is astoundingly poorly-behaved if the connection to its library databases isn’t rock-solid.

    no, that’s not municipal broadband, which has to deal with transformers and lots of noise. but the small-scale version is great for in-house connectivity.

  84. 84.

    burnspbesq

    April 1, 2011 at 4:26 pm

    @Martin:

    You should know that the DACs in the iPod/iPhone/iPads vary a lot.

    I do know that. The fourth-generation iPod is generally considered to have the best sound quality of any IOS device, because the DACs were sourced from Wolfson, and those guys know their stuff.

    I don’t begrudge Apple putting mediocre audio circuitry in its mobile devices; they are engineering to a price point, and most of the target audience doesn’t know the difference, for a variety of reasons (don’t get me started on the evils of compression; I will get to Greenwaldian levels of shrill in nanoseconds). I just wish they would be a little more accommodating to those of us who care.

  85. 85.

    Uncle Clarence Thomas

    April 1, 2011 at 4:36 pm

    @castellan:
    .
    .
    Castellan is correct about the interpretation of Gruber.

    Also too, Amazon is in no way a friend or benefactor to the citizen or consumers.
    .
    .

  86. 86.

    Uncle Clarence Thomas

    April 1, 2011 at 4:44 pm

    @Peter J:
    .
    .

    And Apple will lock you in.

    Mr. Dumas, Apple will “lock you in” far less than Microsoft, Google, Amazon, RIAA, NYT, Blu-Ray, etc, etc, etc. For example, who do you think broke the music industry’s “DRM Everywhere” scheme? I request that you stop talking shit in such an ignorant manner.
    .
    .

  87. 87.

    J.W. Hamner

    April 1, 2011 at 5:28 pm

    @Dan:

    There are tech products (or a piece of music, or anything for that matter) that I have no desire for, but I don’t feel the need to tell everyone that it is a pointless product that only fanbois swoon over.

    So refusing to point out that there are better, cheaper, and more reliable ways to achieve the same things offered by a hot product makes you a Saint how?

  88. 88.

    Menu

    April 1, 2011 at 6:29 pm

    @Uncle Clarence Thomas:

    Oh no– Amazon is all about power to the people. And Apple.Let’s see. Who else?

  89. 89.

    burnspbesq

    April 1, 2011 at 8:30 pm

    @Uncle Clarence Thomas:

    I request that you stop talking shit in such an ignorant manner.

    Considering the source, that is one of the two or three funniest things ever written on this blog.

  90. 90.

    Jason Kratz

    April 2, 2011 at 7:57 pm

    So many funnies in these comments. Everyone has their own favorite horse in the race. I like all three players that keep being mentioned here Google, Amazon, and Apple. I have a MacBook Pro. Have had several generations of iPods. Several generations of iPhones. An iPad. Etc. And you know what? I have never felt “locked in”. The reason Apple sells so many devices is because they do a fantastic job making things work very well together. Normal people like this. Normal people like things that work more like appliances vs. computers. I’m a long-time computer geek who prefers the Apple way.

    I also like various cloud services…DropBox being a huge favorite. It has made keeping files in sync among computers and other devices insanely easy. You don’t have to think about it. They take options away in the name of the user experience. You have one folder…you drop stuff there…its synced. End of story. They apparently learned a lot from Apple.

    This “Can’t Be Bothered” character moaning about Apple DRM for music was absolutely hilarious. Apple hasn’t put DRM on music files for *years* now. YEARS. Apple wasn’t the one who wanted DRM on there in the first place. And if you remember (apparently “Can’t be bothered” doesn’t) Apple made it very easy to get around the DRM with CD burning on iTunes. Steve Jobs was the one responsible for working out the details getting DRM *removed*. And again we area speaking in terms of years ago. It just astounds me how anti-Apple some people seem to be that they continue to bring this stuff up. Its ridiculous.

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