As digital distribution grows, the protection of copyrighted material---music, film, video, photographic images, paintings, drawings, and text---becomes ever more important. Tied to this are widespread concerns about maintaining security during online transactions---keeping credit-card numbers and customers' identities hidden from would-be thieves.
He's got his own bonds on Wall Street, houses all over the world, a fashion-model wife, and more wealth than any other rock star to date. But what he really wanted was his own Internet Service Provider. As a result, David Bowie goes online September 1 with the first rock-star-based ISP: <A HREF="http://www.davidbowie.com">BowieNet</A>.
The DAC performance envelope has been pushed further by <A HREF="http://www.burr-brown.com/">Burr-Brown Corporation</A>. The Tucson semiconductor company has just announced the commercial release of its new PCM-1704, an ultra-high-quality digital/analog converter chip boasting a 120dB signal/noise ratio. The new chip supersedes the company's PCM-1702, a DAC found in many high-end products and widely considered the state of the art.
The rule of thumb has historically been to spend more on your speakers than on the rest of your equipment. But audiophiles have found that every part of a system requires attention. Where have you ended up?
A recent report from <A HREF="http://www.jup.com">Jupiter Communications</A> claims that by the year 2002, fully 55% of the US population and 32% of European households will be browsing the Internet. Not only will this change the way poeple gather information for everything from fish food to concert schedules, it will also profoundly affect the way they shop.
The internet has been a boon to music lovers, who now can research almost any piece of music or artist, or shop for obscure discs and memorabilia from a plethora of sources. In an interesting twist on the additional material idea, <A HREF="http://www.sonymusic.com">Sony Music</A> has been making supplemental content for selected CD releases available on a special website.
<B>TOM WAITS: <I>Beautiful Maladies</I></B><BR> Island 314-524 519-2 (CD). 1998. Various prods., engs. AAD? TT: 74:00<BR> Performance <B>*****</B><BR> Sonics <B>****?</B>
Are order and justice coming to the lawless frontier of the Internet? The <A HREF="http://www.ascap.com/">American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers</A> has a new tool for cracking down on unauthorized use of copyrighted material on the Internet. Developed by <A HREF="http://www.omservices.com/">Online Monitoring Services</A>, EZ-Seeker is "web crawler" software that tracks down music and then issues license forms to the users of that music. The announcement followed by less than a week the news (see <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/10208/">previous report</A>) of the <A HREF="http://www.riaa.com/">Recording Industry Association of America</A>'s $750,000 settlement from makers of unauthorized "DJ compilations" of hit songs.
Canton, MA-based <A HREF="http://www.tweeter.com/">Tweeter Home Entertainment Group</A> (NASDAQ: TWTR) has gone public. Last Thursday, July 16, the East Coast audio and video retailer launched an initial public stock offering of 2.71 million shares at an offering price of $17/share.