GeekwithEnvy

Music

Google Launches Music Subscription Service

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Google play Music

Google has recently launched a music subscription service, “Google Play Music, All Access“. The launch followed it’s initial announcement at Google’s I/O conference in San Francisco. The service currently comes in two flavors, Standard and All Access. The Standard edition let’s you store up to  20,000 of your songs, have sync-free access to your music from anywhere, and of course you can always buy music from the Google Play library. The All Access option has all of the aforementioned features but also includes an unlimited online radio mode which you can customize to your liking.

The standard option is free. The All Access option will cost $9.99/ month unless you sign up before 6/30, then you can get in for $7.99 / month.

So, Google has a music subscription service now, what’s the big deal? We have seen this before, it’s nothing ground breaking right? Well, the short answer is no but it’s not really about pushing limits, it’s about getting into the game and Google has a big advantage by being deeply integrated to the Android market. That’s a lot of exposure and a lot of potential subscribers. Not to mention that Google will undoubtedly find a way to make things more appealing over time.

 

Chris Hadfield Leaves the ISS With A Cover Song

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Commander Chris Hadfield has made an awesome video, actually he’s made quite a few awesome videos, but in this last one he says goodbye to the International Space Station as he gets ready to land back on Earth by creating an performing an amazing cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”. The video offers something to this song that no other video can and it fits his situation perfectly, it simply captures the moment and the view of Earth is stunning.

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The International Space Station (Credit: NASA)

 

Ruling Says Digital Content Can’t Be Resold

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As digital content begins to play a bigger role in our society we have to begin to try to understand it more and that includes in what ways do we actually own our digital goods. When you make a digital purchase your not actually buying something physical.

It’s kind of strange to think about, but what we’re really doing is buying the rights to use the said digital goods. Some people have started to look at this and wondered that if we own specific rights to use something then we should be able to sell those rights to others and we would then be effectively forfeiting our own rights to use the content.Digital Lock

Sounds pretty straight forward right? I give my rights that I bought to you at a discounted price. Well, as always, there is going to be a huge debate on whether this kind of stuff is actually legal or not and considering this is all brand new, we’re going to have to work that out in court.

This is exactly what has just happened as a federal judge in a case involving Capitol Records v. ReDigi, has just ruled that attempting to resell digital goods is illegal.

The general idea keeping this kind of activity alive was based on the first-sale doctrine, which allows someone who has legally purchased copyrighted material to resell it. This sounds like it should apply to digital content as well but the judge decided that even though Redigi makes users confirm that they have no existing copies and that the uploader will no longer have access to the files after the transaction is made, they still make copies despite ReDigi’s efforts.

This presents a clear challenge for companies like Apple who have plans to offer up a type of “used digital content” system. This also makes it less appealing to move to an all digital platform as used movie, music, and gaming stores will become obsolete and there will be no similar alternative.

iTunes 11 Has Finally Arrived

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Yes, Apple has officially released iTunes 11, which I must say is the biggest change to iTunes in sometime. My first impression of the new iTunes is a bit of a surprise, Apple has done a really nice job with this release. Of course with all things that are new, it will take a while for us to truly evaluate the new and improved iTunes, but so far things are looking pretty impressive.

So what’s new? Well, quite a bit actually. iTunes has essentially been completely redesigned and you will notice these changes the moment you first launch the application.

iTunes 11 ScreenShot
(Credit: Apple)

Preview History:

iTunes 11 now features preview history, something that I greatly appreciate. I actually find that I will preview certain songs and then move on with out keeping track of them, then when I want to go back to the one I liked, I completely forget the song name. This new feature gets rid of the guessing game and it does so across all of your devices thanks to iCloud. The preview history is not just for music, it will also store any movies or TV shows you previewed as well.

Saving your place:

You can now pause any movie, podcast, TV show, iTunesU Lesson, or audiobook and pick up where you left off on any device.

New Mini Player:

Apple is all about mini these days and it’s no different when it comes to iTunes. The new mini player offers up a nice way for you to be able to gloss through your library by providing you with a mini version of it. You can also see what song is going to play next by clicking on the new “Up Next:”  button. The “Up Next:” feature is also available in the full size version of iTunes 11 and will also allow you to queue up music ahead of the song your currently listening to. This feature should come in handy when you’re in charge of the party music.

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The New mini Player in iTunes11 (Credit:Apple)

A Clean New Design:

Yeah, I know looks aren’t everything, especially when it comes to software. I use a ton of great apps that for lack of a better word look like, crap, but are extremely useful. iTunes 11, however, looks great. The new redesign is enough to make you feel uncomfortable at first, but once you settle in you quickly realize that things are where they need to be and that everything looks great. The interface just seems to get out of the way and it lets my content shine. This is also true of the iTunes Store which now features a very image rich experience.

iTunes Store Now Features a Gift Card Scanning Feature:

 

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New iTunes11 Card Redemption (Credit:GWE)

You can now just take a photo of your iTunes Store gift card to redeem it, which is actually a really nice little feature that I missed initially, thanks to MacRumors, who pointed this out.

 

Torchlight II Soundtrack for Free and My Rant

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To help you get in the Torchlight mood, Runic games has released the Torchlight II full soundtrack with album artwork, pretty nice right? You can download the soundtrack for free on the official Torchlight II website. The release day for Torchlight II is Thursday September 20th.Torchlight II Outlander

I don’t know if you’re into this kind of thing or not but personally I love the music from many of my favorite game titles. I think that the music in games is often overlooked, which is quite sad considering the amount of hard work and talent that goes into these compositions. I love listening to soundtracks while I work, I find that it can really put me in a creative mood.

Many gamers will just queue up their favorite play list and turn the in-game music off, which I totally get why you would want to do this after playing the game several times, but when you first play a game, try to experience the game the way the developers wanted you to experience it. I am also referring to the sound effects here too, remember that these guys are custom tailoring the audio to the in-game world around you, it adds an entire layer of depth to your experience.

What’s more interesting is that if you ask most gamers today if they enjoy classical music they would probably answer no, but in reality we are surrounded by it, whether it’s in our favorite games or movies. Now, I’m not limiting everything to just the classical stuff, there’s a lot of other good non-classical tracks out there. I often prefer the more ambient music while I work or study. There are plenty of crazy game soundtracks out there that I like, in fact there’s a ton of classic game music that has be re-done with a full orchestra and includes music from titles like Zelda, Castlevania, and even Sonic The Hedgehog. Just Youtube any of your favorite songs and you will most likely find many different versions and interpretations, there’s even a whole orchestra dedicated to game music. You can check them out here.

So I say to those who work in the game industry and create music and audio effects, your work is appreciated!