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Billing itself as a "personalized gateway for music discovery," MOGhttp://www.mog.com">MOG; (a port manteau combination of "music" and "blog") has come out of beta testing and announced "the launch of your favorite new way to waste time on the Internet," MOG 2.0. Since my email tagline is "Waste more time: Read my blog,&quot">http://blog.stereophile.com/wesphillips/">blog," John Atkinson reckoned that I was the logical reporter for this new development.

Four years after its first unsuccessful foray into the American consumer marketplace, Sony's">http://www.sel.cony.com/">Sony's MiniDisc appears finally to be winning serious numbers of converts. Several large-scale retailers, including Best Buy, Circuit City, Service Merchandise, and (soon) Sears department stores, have dedicated MiniDisc displays, with home recorders, portable players, and blank discs available individually or as a package deal. The displays were built with Sony's support, according to Mike Viken, senior VP for Sony's personal audio/video marketing division.

The Minnesota Orchestra has become one of the first symphony orchestras in the US to archive selected broadcasts for online streamed listening on demand. Through an arrangement with Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), which has broadcast virtually every Minnesota Orchestra concert since 1974, the performances are now available for up to a year's time at www.mpr.org/minnesotaorchestrahttp://www.mpr.org/minnesotaorchestra">www.mpr.org/minnesotaorchestra;.

It's been no secret that leading British speaker brand Mission was up for sale—the situation had been spelled out last fall in the Annual Report of parent company NXT plc. NXT is busy pioneering its new flat-panel speaker technology, and shareholder interests were clearly not being well served by "carrying" for any length of time a box-speaker brand whose recent financial reports had been mostly in the red.

British loudspeaker manufacturer Missionhttp://www.mission.co.uk">Mission; has announced a major marketing push into North America with the launch of its new distribution arm, Mission">http://www.mission-usa.com">Mission U.S.A. The company, founded in 1977 and noted for using one of the first polypropylene-cone drivers in 1978, had been distributing its products in the US through Denon Canada.

Audiophiles have had little reason to follow the high-definition video DVD format conflict. Until now.

At the recently concluded SAE-CEA Digital Car Conference in Detroit, representatives of the recording industry joined Panasonichttp://www.panasonic.com">Panasonic; for a DVD-Audio love-fest hailing the format as the "in-car music delivery system of the future." Panasonic's automotive electronics division used the conference and exhibition to introduce and demonstrate its first mobile DVD-Audio systems for OEM distribution. The company also hosted seminars exploring how it imagines DVD-Audio will specifically apply to and benefit the automobile industry.