MP3, the digital audio coding format, changed the way we listen to music and drove the adoption of countless new devices over the last couple of decades. And now, it’s dead. The developer of the format announced this week that it has officially terminated its licensing program.
Spotify has been the biggest music streaming service to find a business model that users can accept, and music labels can endure. In its early days, the company positioned itself as “a viable alternative to music piracy.” But allegedly, the company’s beta was filled with pirated MP3 files.
Back in 1894, Olaus Henrici invented a machine called the Harmonic Analyzer. Way ahead of its time, it could pick out all the individual frequencies that make up complex sound waves—a technique we now rely on for everything from compressed audio to digital images.
Improv Everywhere is an NYC-based guerrilla prank group who's various missions have included planning a massive Best Buy infiltration and turning a busy New York subway stop into an underground spa. For their latest social experiment, the team gave 2,000 people instructions via headphones, severely confusing local…
Not that any of us needed proof that the times are a-changin', but grown-up hippies looking to grab this impressive omnipedia of Bob Dylan's music might be dismayed to discover that instead of vinyl, it comes packaged on CDs as—well as this adorable USB flash drive housed in a faux harmonica.
Neil Young has announced that his new Pono music ecosystem—which promises to "present songs as they first sound during studio recording sessions"—will launch early 2014.
Sony has just proudly launched a new range of MP3 players, that are light,offer long battery life and... probably won't sell. Does anybody actually buy MP3 players these days?
It's hard to listen to music while you're swimming because even waterproof earbuds that actually stay on try to conduct sound through air to reach your eardrums, and there's not a lot of air underwater. The FINIS Neptune works on this issue by sending sound waves straight into your face. Total bombardment. In a good…
Here's something that should have an obvious answer for most people (some crusty folks like me who avoid large crowds and loud sounds would beg to differ), is listening to MP3s and vinyls better than listening to live music? LIVE MUSIC DUH! If you don't listen to live music, you don't love music. If you don't go see…
If workouts take you from pounding the pavement to plunging into the pool with little time to spare between, Sony's new one-piece Walkman might be of some interest to you.
Your front lawn is full of gravestones, skeletons hang from the trees, and a haze of cobwebs coats your porch. Yup, you've gone all out this Halloween to make your house the spookiest on the block.
Action movie legend Bruce Willis is apparently eyeing up a legal battle in order to guarantee that he can pass his massive iTunes library onto his children when he dies.
Gizmodo is officially 10 years old! And, while we've been celebrating this all week, I thought it would be fun (and/or funny) to take a look back at the ancestor gadgets we would all be using if someone were to turn the dial back, way back, all the way back to 2002.
Amazon is giving away $2 of Amazon MP3 credit and if you really want to stretch those imaginary dollars, you could land 8 ridiculously popular, played out to oblivion songs for free right now. That's right, Amazon is pretty much giving away music.
Your LP collection may be the coelacanth of storage mediums, but it is often a repository of tracks and titles that you simply can't get anywhere else. Here's how to digitize your wax-platter music, and finally drag the last remnants of your analog life into the 21st Century.
This year marks the 15th birthday of Winamp. During that time it went from being a must-have piece of software to languishing in complete obscurity. But where did it all go wrong?
Remember when your orthodontist said you could get a flavored retainer and you were all Glitter? Pshh. I want my mouth gear watermelon-flavored or not at all! Well, prepare to feel like a dated, oldtimey loser: Aisen Chacin, a Design and Technology student at Parsons the New School for Design, has created a…
MP3 bloggers were the revolutionaries of music criticism, taking on established outlets like Rolling Stone and Spin by being faster, cooler, and more musical - in that they could embed what they were talking about. Readers could hear it for themselves as they read the blog, rather than looking for it on Napster or…
Everybody hates having to stop reading ebooks, listening to music and playing Angry Birds during take-off. But it's not a fact of life; the FAA is rethinking its policy on using electronic devices during takeoff and landing. About. Bloody. Time.
Google Music is out of beta and it pretty much does everything we thought it would. It will let you buy, store, stream and share tracks you already own. Sounds familiar... maybe because it's an entirely unoriginal idea.
