Across the Pond

It’s Over (or just beginning): iTunes is DRM-Free

-DjD- — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 07:15:48 +0000

It’s been a bit of a battle over the last few years but DRM-free music is finally here. Let’s recap:

~2006 and prior - Music industry can’t fathom the possability of DRM-Free music… it will be the end of the Industry.

Feb 2007 - Steve Jobs writes ‘Thoughts on Music‘.

The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store.

May 2007 - EMI (one of the ‘Big 4′) provides it’s entire music catalog to iTunes DRM-Free. Songs are available at a higher 256kbps quality and previously purchased tracks can be upgraded for the price difference (~$0.29/track) automatically.

June 2007 - iTunes surpasses Amazon and moves into the #3 spot for US music sales.

Sep 2007 - Amazon launches DRM-Free MP3 store with 2 million tracks including those from EMI and Universal . They later add Warner in Dec and Sony BMG in Jan 2008, thus becoming the first online store to offer DRM-Free music from the ‘Big 4′. Analysts believe this will loosen the grip of iTunes over the music industry.

Jan 2008 - iTunes becomes the #1 music retailer in the US, surpassing brick and mortar giants Best Buy and Walmart. Amazon remains in fourth with 6% market share.

Dec 2008 - Amazon is growing while physical CD sales slump, but still no rival to iTunes.

But Piper Jaffray financial analyst Gene Munster estimates that Amazon will sell 130 million tracks this year — a paltry sum compared with the 2.4 billion songs iTunes is expected to sell in 2008.

Yesterday - The Industry realizes, digital is where it’s at. Apple announces full iTunes catalog is going to iTunes Plus format. (DRM-Free, 256kbps, fully compatible with Mac/PC/iPod/Zune/Squeezecenter/etc). 8 million DRM-Free tracks available now. Remaining 2+ million coming by end of Q1.

Digital music is here to stay. Next up digital video.

Theoretically Similar Posts:

Blu-ray’s Next Battle: Digital

-DjD- — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 08:00:46 +0000

The New York Times had a good read out yesterday on the upcoming challenges for Blu-ray.

The argument comes down to, while Blu-ray may have ousted HD-DVD as the optical format of choice, consumers increasingly have far more to choose from than traditional optical media.

Blu-ray’s backers, including Sony and the Walt Disney Company, face a growing chorus of skeptics that says the window for a high-definition disc format may be closing fast.

One reason is that discs of all kinds may become obsolete as a new wave of digital media services starts to flow into the living room. On Monday, for example, the Korean television maker LG Electronics plans to announce a new line of high-definition televisions that connect directly to the Internet with no set-top box required. The televisions will be able to play movies and television shows from online video-on-demand services, including Netflix.

“The Blu-ray format is in jeopardy simply because the advent of downloadable HD movies is so close,” said Roger L. Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates.

Personally, I think the Times has this nailed. We’re not there just yet, and Blu-ray probably will be a financial success for the industry, but it’s worth taking pause if you’re thinking about investing heavily in a Blu-ray centered home theater. [Dad, take note. :)]

Between Hulu, Netflix On Demand, the iTunes Store, and many other handy devices or services coming to market, it’s worth taking a second look, even if you’re not the most technically savvy.

More on this in a future post…

Theoretically Similar Posts:

Looking Back

-DjD- — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 10:00:10 +0000

Following up on my Looking Ahead post it seemed appropriate to also look back. It’s easier to look at today and say what still isn’t done, but often this overlooks all that has been accomplished.

I’ve picked a couple key things per year to focus on:

2002:
Published my first paper in Macromolecules just before my 21st birthday.
Took my first trip abroad to London.

2003:
Graduated from Carnegie Mellon with honors and my BSc in Chemistry.
Started my career as an Analytical Chemist at Merck in Rahway, NJ.

2004:
Founded Sounds for Sights LLC with a friend of mine. We produce and distribute downloadable audio walking tours for New York City.

2005:
Proposed to Jen at Machu Picchu, Peru.
Left Merck to pursue SFS full time.

2006:
Published two additional papers from research I completed while at Merck.
Returned to full time work for Reckitt Benckiser in Montvale, NJ.
Married Jen on Grand Bahama Island and had a lot of fun planning the wedding, making invitations, and coordinating everyone’s travel.

2007:
Jen and I applied for, received, and accepted positions abroad with Reckitt.

2008:
Relocated to the UK.
Ran the HC Andersen Marathon, my first, in 4 hours 2 minutes.
Helped elect Barack Obama the 44th President of the United States.

2009:
So, what’s in store for the year? Who knows?!

I’ve tried to pickup Italian a time or two and would like to put in the time for that. I want to stay in shape after the marathon and may try my hand at swimming. I’ll continue to enjoy photography and will share and learn on Flickr. I’ll continue to develop myself, apply what I’ve read and learned, and expand my career beyond Analytical Chemistry. And of course, I’ll still be dabbling online, with technology, and here at AtP.

No one can predict the future so beyond 2009 who knows what we’ll find here. I hope having kids, owning a house, and continuing to travel and see the world with Jen will make the list!

Theoretically Similar Posts:

Looking Ahead

-DjD- — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 09:00:08 +0000

This isn’t a politically motivated post, but the Presidential election has had me thinking.

What are you doing right now and where do you want to go in the next 10 years because it’s up to you to make it happen.

Ten years ago Barack Obama was starting his 3rd year in the Illinois state legislature. Since then he’s exploded onto the national stage with a rousing speech at the 2004 democratic convention. He won a seat in the US senate, and now he’s about to become the 44th President of the United States.

This is an exceptional case of course, but there’s still no reason the same can’t apply to us. Black or white, rich or poor, young or old, there isn’t time for excuses.

Your path need not be as crystal clear as ‘I want to be the President of the United States’ and unexpected events will certianly change things along the way but we can still work toward some abstract goal.

Maybe it’s to setup a small business or start working in a new field. Maybe it’s to retire comfortably or go back to school. Whatever it is, nows the time to take a look at where you want to be. Not because it’s New Years, but because we’ve once again been reminded, that anything is possible.

Theoretically Similar Posts:

New Years hangover for Zune users

-DjD- — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 09:43:30 +0000

I’d suggest that if you’re trying to get past the perception that you still can’t compete with the iPod, or that you still have serious issues in your software development process, that the last thing you need is to have every single 30GB Zune you’ve sold simultaneously die on New Years due to a bug in calculating the a leap year date.

Shouldn’t calculating and displaying the date be something Microsoft already has figured out a time or two before?

Via CNET News

Theoretically Similar Posts:

US Christmas

-DjD- — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:11:10 +0000

Continuing the Christmas theme, here are some shots from our visit home. It’s been great to be home for a couple weeks with the families. Thanks for everything!

My Family

The Duran Men

Presents

Christmas Bokeh

London Tea Cups

Theoretically Similar Posts:

Photos on Moo

-DjD- — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 10:00:11 +0000

The good folks at Moo have featured two of my photos in their Wedding Ideas section. Thanks guys!

Original wedding photography by the fabulous Mindy Sonshine. Seriously. We couldn’t have been happier!

If you haven’t heard of Moo you should check them out. You can print all sorts of custom goodies like minicards, stickers, and postcards.

Theoretically Similar Posts:

UK Christmas

-DjD- — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:00:16 +0000

We initially debated getting a Christmas tree since we’ll be heading back to the US for quite a while. In the end we couldn’t pass it up, especially considering we didn’t have a tree last year.

Our Tree

Colorful Ornaments and Me at Harrods

Covent Garden Icicles

Theoretically Similar Posts:

Nintendo dominating gaming sales but here comes Apple

-DjD- — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 08:00:44 +0000

Let’s cut to the chase… the iPhone has been huge.

Plenty of smart people predicted it would be a flop either because they simply missed the mark, or perhaps more cynically, because they just didn’t want to believe it.

Well, in only 18 months it’s become clear that Apple is having a field day with the iPhone. They’ve smashed their 10M mark prediciton for CY08, the iPhone ranks highest in customer satisfaction according to J.D. Power and Associates, it is now outselling all Windows mobile phones combined and nipping at RIM’s heels, and Apple’s just getting started. So much for:

“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.” -Palm CEO Ed Colligan

Many have also noticed that Apple is making a BIG push on games as well, but I’m not sure the potential here has been fully understood. The iPhone isn’t simply transforming the mobile phone market, it’s expanding it to a mobile computing, mobile gaming, mobile web surfing, mobile just-about-anything-you-can-think-of market, and it’s going to be big.

Take the recent figures from NPD on gaming console sales. As usual, Arstechinca has a nice write up about the shear dominance of Nintendo in the market.

But what about the iPhone? Let’s take a look at how iPhone/iPod touch sales compare to the market dominating Nintendo DS. Conveniently, the sales figures for the DS were also much easier to come by.

We can take away a few key points from this:

Last quarter iPhone sales were on par with the DS.
iPhone sales are expected to continue to grow rapidly, far faster than the DS.
Add in sales of iPod touches as well and Nintendo suddenly has a force to reckon with. We can’t know the exact number for sure because Apple doesn’t breakdown iPod sales by model. However, assuming a conservative 10-15% of iPods sold are touches accounts for an additional 5 to 8 million gaming devices in peoples’ hands.

We’ll see what happens in the coming months but at this point Apple appears to have struck another chord, this time in gaming. The seamless integration of the App Store, iTunes, and device, coupled with the processing power, motion/touch control, over the air downloads, and location based services seems to have hit the mark.

As Arstechnica concluded “We’ve seen the future of gaming, and it is casual.” Quite frankly, this fits perfectly with gaming on the go with the iPhone & iPod touch.

—

For more reading, John Gruber has an excellent analysis and summary of Apple’s new “third leg” for the company.

Source data: iPod Sales - DS Sales

Theoretically Similar Posts:

My Favorite iPhone Wallpaper

-DjD- — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 16:10:23 +0000

Original photo from our Amsterdam trip is here.

Theoretically Similar Posts: