Desk Free Computing

On December 17th 2013, Apple Computer was awarded the patent for what they are calling, the desk free computer. There would be no case, monitor, or wired cables. The computer would consist of one device that would project an image of varying sizes that could be projected onto any clean surface.

What is unique about Apple's proposed design is that the CPU would process the images rather than leaving it to the display technology. It would connect to peripherals, like the keyboard, mouse, and printer, using Bluetooth technology. The device would be able to change its images settings by using data from sensors that would collect such information as, ambient light, depth, and display surface color and texture.

The desk free computer would get it's power from batteries or inductive charging making the device completely portable. All of this sounds exciting, but the patent was first filed in 2008. If Apple isn't already working on its desk free computer, there's no telling how long it will be before an actual working model will come to fruition. In my opinion, however, given what's been presented, there's more than enough to look forward to.

Mars Rising

On December 9th 2013, researchers at Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that its Curiosity Rover had discovered evidence of once habitable conditions for life at a dry lake bed on the surface of Mars. While it's not the revelation of finding ancient structures, or even evidence of microbial life, it does suggest that the latter may yet be found.

The area in question is called Yellowknife Bay, and it is believed that water not only once filled the lake, but flowed over the soil there even after the lake had dried up. Some questions were raised as to the presence of hydrocarbons, which are the energy source for micro organisms that live in extreme environments. It is believed that detected high levels of hydrocarbons were influenced by solvents that had leaked from a storage chamber on the rover.

Scientists at JPL still believe that the detection of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen that was found in a rock that was drilled at Yellowknife Bay make a strong case for the evidence of a once habitable environment.

The report also included the first measurement of any radiation hazard that future human missions to Mars might face. Curiosity found that most of the radiation comes from cosmic rays, which come from outside of our solar system. The ten month measurement revealed that the radiation exposure risk of a manned mission to Mars would be 5%. The risk to astronauts working in low Earth orbit is currently 3%. It would certainly be something that volunteers for a manned Mars mission to seriously consider.

Curiosity successfully landed on Mars on August 6th 2012. Since that time the images, data, and experimental findings have proven the rover to be worth it's value. Clearly, there will no doubt be more discoveries in the months ahead.

Touch

There is some speculation that as Tablet sales increase, the demand for PCs will continue to decrease. Some analysts have suggested that the PC may be on it's way out.

In October 2012, Microsoft released Windows 8. Windows 8 is designed to take advantage of today's touch screen technology found on both Tablets and Smartphones. Early in 2013 it was reported that PC shipments had fallen by 11%. It was also reported that the public reaction to Windows 8 was negative. Some Windows users were unhappy with the redesign and much was made about the absence of the very familiar and much beloved, "start," button.

As we move into the end of 2013, more Tablets will sell than PCs, but for the year overall, more PCs will sell than Tablets. As a consumer, these numbers may not mean much at all. And, it may just be a case of the touch technology being so new, and not yet fully adopted.

However, there has been some grumbling among consumers with regard to the increase in the price of touch enabled PCs and Laptops. The price of a Tablet can start around $150 up $500, more or less. A Laptop or PC however, can start at around $400 and cost up to $2000 or more. Clearly one can see that those looking to have their first computer experience may choose to go with the less expensive device. This is not to mention the notion that some consumers feel that they shouldn't have to pay extra for the same touch technology that comes free on their Smartphones.

My personal opinion is that this is merely a "shake out," period. That while Tablets become more pervasive due to their continued decrease in price, PCs and touch enabled Laptops will not only become more prevalent, but less expensive as well. At some point personal taste will serve to keep the PC and Laptop viable.

One of the advantages that I think that Tablet users may come to miss is the availability of a free standing keyboard, which allows PC and Laptop users to view their content on a much larger screen.

Of course there's also the growing use of voice actuation, which will change the game entirely.

WISPs Are Coming

One sure way of getting broadband access to more people is to reach into areas that have previously been inaccessible, such as some suburbs and rural areas. Now, with the growth of technology, WISPs, or Wireless Internet Service Providers are now rising to meet the challenge.

Cell Phone service providers do a good job of giving internet access to their customers, but that doesn't qualify them as WISPs. Current data rates for LTE or Long Term Evolution Technology are much slower than today's broadband providers and can carry caps on how much data can be transferred. A WISP, however would be someone on the order of say, a Satellite TV provider such as Dish Network.

But, unlike a Satellite TV provider, a true WISP would actually be a mixture of satellite and cellular services. A WISP would use a combination of antennas and towers to carry the wireless transmission. In some cases they may make use of a dish placed on a subscriber's home.

Most WISPs offer faster upload speeds than Cable or DSL, which is around 5 to 10 mbps. Upper tier download speeds can reach up to 15 mbps, Some WISPs may put a limit on just how much data can be used, but some operate with no limit cap at all.

WISPs are regional services and generally require a two year contract plus a connection and/or activation fee to get started. The price for residential service may range from $30 to $80 a month.

A WISP may not be what you're looking for in an ISP, but with increasing availability and improved service and functionality, it may just be something that is at least worth looking into. You can find out if there is a WISP in your area by visiting the WISPA website.

New Release

I've just released a new song entitled, "Nth Degree." It's available at iTunes. To hear a full stream, click the Tunecore widget below.

There's also a new video clip! Thank you for listening.

ISON Is Here

The much anticipated Comet ISON is expected to put on a spectacular show as it makes it's extremely close approach to the sun on Thanksgiving day, November 28, 2013. From now until then, ISON is expected to increase in brightness and then fade into the suns glare as it makes its way in. Right now, the comet can be seen as a faint blob of light above the horizon, in the south to south east portion of the early morning sky, at about a half an hour before sunrise.

The comet, C/2012 S1, was discovered by two amateur astronomers, Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok, after observing photographs taken by an ISON telescope in September 2012. ISON stands for International Scientific Optical Network and was established as a Russian initiative to monitor and study near Earth objects and space debris in 2001. In the year since its discovery, comet C/2012 S1 was given the name ISON.

Right now, as ISON gets closer to the sun, its getting brighter and brighter. ISON is expected to pass within 730,000 miles of the sun on Thanksgiving day. At that distance, it is possible that the comet may actually break up and fall into the sun.

If ISON survives its rendezvous with ole Sol, scientists say that it will appear as a very bright comet in the skies of the northern hemisphere. They also believe that the comet will pass in front of the sun as it moves back out into the solar system, and as it dose they may see extreme emissions of ultraviolet radiation. It's said that if ISON survives, it may even become visible during daylight hours.

ISON is expected to be visible with the naked eye through the month of December, including Christmas Eve and Christmas night. Have no fear though. ISON will pose no threat to the Earth. At its closest approach it will still be 40 million miles away, which is a little less than half of the distance between the Earth and the sun.      

Contract Free

On November 13th 2013, Google announced the release of it's Moto G smart phone. What makes that a big deal is that the Moto G is not only affordable, it's contract free.

The Moto G is an 8GB smart phone that sells for $179 and comes unlocked and contract free. The phone needs only a SIM card from any of the major carriers and you're off and running. This effectively eliminates the need for a two year agreement. Some smart phone users have found that the two year contract has not only lead to their paying for services that they may not have needed, but also left them waiting for months when they may have wanted or needed an upgrade.

This may also be good news for those non smart phone users who have been wanting to move on to a smart phone. Many standard cell phone users have found the cost of a smart phone either prohibitive, or a two contract not a viable option, due to credit restrictions or other budget concerns.

Google closed the buy out of Motorola Mobility in May of 2012. Many analyst believed that the company was looking to gain access to the thousand of patents owned by Motorola, while other say that Google clearly has its eye on the success of Apple's iPhone.

Looking ahead, work on curved screen technology has given rise to Samsung's just announced prototype of a foldable smart phone. On November 7th 2013, Samsung announced that they had created a prototype of a smart phone the size of a Galaxy S III that could be folded in half from top to bottom like a lady's compact.

The flexible OLED material used in making the phone is said to have withstood 100,000 foldings without any significant degradation in brightness or image quality at the screen's seam. Samsung says that more testing is needed before the phones can be released to the public. They believe that a two year time frame should be sufficient and are looking toward a 2015 release.

Rhapsody Radio

On November 1st Rhapsody announced the release of Rhapsody Radio. The company has partnered with Echo Nest to provide an update to its mobile app for iOS and Android as well as its web player. The service is ad free, but there's a reason for that.

If you are already a Rhapsody user, you can go to Rhapsody.com, sign in, and preview the new radio for a short period of time. After that you are invited to sing up for a free 14 day trial. If you like what you see and hear, then agree to pay $9.99 a month for an unlimited music listening experience.

Other features include the ability to rewind a song and listen to it again. There's unlimited skipping, track preview, and if you like a song you can add it to your favorites list for playback at a moments notice. Rhapsody Radio also has the ability to play songs more or less like the artist or genre that you've chosen.

While it's true that Rhapsody has taken a bit of a back seat to some of the other streaming media services, they have however, maintained a very clean and clear sound streamed from their network. Downloads have also held a clear and crisp sound. Rhapsody Radio continues this tradition. Even if you prefer one of the other service, you may at least want to give Rhapsody Radio a try.  

Another Earth

Scientists have recently discovered a planet that is roughly the size of the Earth. Kelper 78b, which was discovered in August 2013 is believed to not only be close to Earth in size but it also has about the same density. There are however a few discernible differences.

Kelper 78b has a diameter of 9,000 miles, which makes it about 20% larger than the Earth. Scientists believe that this means that the exoplanet has a similar composition of iron and rock. But, that's about all that's relatively the same. The planet's orbit is only a mere one million miles away from it's sun, and it completes that orbit in just eight hours. Temperatures there, are at least 2,000 degrees hotter than the Earth, too high to support life.

What has been puzzling for researchers is how the planet came to be and how it happens to be where it is. It's not possible for it to have formed within its sun. And, if it had formed further outward and then migrated inward, it would have been drawn all the way into it's sun.

Kelper 78b is a member of a new class of planets that have been discovered by NASA's Kelper space telescope. These planets are small with an orbit around their sun of 12 hours or less. Kelper 78b is the first of these planets to have it's mass measured. Kelper 78b orbits what is considered to be a G-type star 400 light years from us, in the Cygnus constellation.

Of course, no matter how Kelper 78b came to be, it's obvious that it won't be around forever. Eventually, gravitational tidal forces will cause it's orbit to decay and it will fall into it's sun. But, as we continue to search for Earth like planets, it appears that we are getting closer.

Someday, we all may be surprised to find out that an Earth like planet has been discovered in some far away solar system, in it's habitable, or what scientist call, the "Goldilocks," zone.  Would it also be a revelation if oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and liquid water were found there as well?

The Sky Is Falling

By now you may have heard about the asteroid named Apophis, which is due to come very close to the Earth in 2029 and might be on a collision course in 2036. Well. there's a new threat on the astronomical scene. Asteroid 2013 135 is believed to have come within 4.2 million miles of the Earth on September 16th 2013.

Asteroid 2013 135 was discovered by scientist working in the Ukraine. After a weeks worth of observation, it's trajectory has been predicted to bring it back to the vicinity of the Earth in 2032. The scientists who made their discovery on October 8th 2013, after a week of observations, assert that though the asteroid's orbit is uncertain, they believe that there is no chance that it will come in contact with the Earth in the next 19 years.

The story of the near miss got a lot of attention in the media, but NASA, which tracks near Earth objects, was quick to issue a statement siting that this asteroid had a one in 63,000 chance of actually hitting the Earth. NASA feels that as the asteroid becomes more easily observable in the coming months, the Minor Planet Center in Massachusetts will be able to improve on the initial orbit calculations.

It appears that we have some time before Asteroid 2013 135 returns, and though the sky may fall one day, it doesn't appear that that's going to happen anytime soon.

And The Winner Is...

Congratulations to Dr. Peter Higgs and Dr. Francios Englert. On Tuesday October 8th, 2013 Dr. Higgs and Dr. Englert received the Noble Prize in Physics for their discovery of the Higgs Boson. The Higgs Boson is believed to be the particle that gives all other subatomic particles their mass, and was discovered in July of 2012 by researchers at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland.

The awarding of the Nobel Prize gives clear validation not only to Dr. Higgs and Dr. Englert but also to the countless other physicists at CERN who worked on the project. The theory for the Higgs Boson was first conceived in 1964 and after 50 years, science has taken another step forward in solving the mysteries of particle interaction.

There were a number of skeptics who felt that such a particle would never been found do to the amount of energy required to complete the experiment and the size of the particle itself. The most notable skeptic was Dr. Steven Hawking who lost a $100 bet. While I'm not a physicist, I too had my doubts. I thought that such a particle was just another step in the direction of the quantification of space/time, which in my opinion appears to be the case with String Theory. But, I've come to believe that there has to be another field responsible for other such mysteries such as quantum entanglement.

There has been some speculation that due to the discovery of the Higgs Boson, science may be on the cusp of a new paradigm in modern physics. Some believe that it won't be long before light speed travel can be achieved. Or, at least we would be able to un-mass objects by turning off the Higgs, making them easier to launch into space.

What ever the future brings after the discovery of the Higgs Boson, make no mistake about it, it's discovery is huge. In fact, some are calling the Higgs Boson the, "God Particle." At the very least, I think that it's safe to say that our understanding of how the universe works has just taken a quantum leap forward.

Make Way For UHDTV

It's quite possible that many of us are still into those old analog TVs. Maybe you've been fortunate enough to step up to HDTV, after all, they are very affordable now. That's of no matter. At the beginning of this year, TV manufacturers began introducing the next big thing, UHDTV or Ultra High Definition Television.

What's the difference you ask? It's all about the TV set's resolution. The old analog TVs offered 525 lines of resolution. A beam of electrons from the back of the picture tube would scan the screen going over every other line from top to bottom before returning to the top to scan the remaining lines. This is what's know as an interlace scan. For many years, this was the best that you could get.

HDTV or High Definition Television offers 1080 lines of resolution. These lines use digital pixels and every line is scanned from top to bottom, one right after the other. This is know as progressive scan and delivers a much clearer and sharper picture.

UHDTV ups the ante by adding the potential for delivering up 4320 lines of progressive scan resolution. That's more than the 70 millimeter film that's currently used for IMAX movies. Most UHDTVs hitting the market now have a scan resolution of 2160 lines scanned progressively. The overall screen sizes being offered right now are 55 and 65 inches, while maintaining the 16:9 aspect ratio found in HDTVs.

Samsung is offering 55 inch UHDTV sets for $3497.99 and 65 inch sets for $4997.99. Sony is offering 55 inch UHDTV sets for $3499.99 while it's 65 inch sets sell for 4999.99. All of these prices represent a decrease which may not make you want to run right out and buy one, but it does however mark the beginning of a battle for consumer dollars as more TV manufacturers roll out their own versions of UHDTV, and of course, as the sets become smaller.

With Halloween just around the corner, you may not be thinking about Christmas. And while a UHDTV may not qualify as the perfect stocking stuffer, for those who have the resources and a desire for the latest high tech gadget, a UHDTV may just be the gift you need to fill out your wish list.

That's Impossible, Or Is It?

On September 12th 2013, scientists at the University of Queensland in Australia announced that they had achieved quantum teleportation inside an electronic chip. That's right, the process by which information can be transported from one location to another without a physical carrier, just like on Star Trek, is now a reality.

Dr. Arkady Fedorov and Dr. Matthias Baur used the process of quantum entanglement to achieve teleportation. Entanglement is the process by which two or more atomic particles become linked in such a way that the measurement of one particle's quantum state will determine that of the other particles' without any physical contact or when they are at extreme distances from one another.

In Dr. Fedorov and Dr. Buar's system, quantum information is stored as artificial structures called quantum bits. Dr. Fedorov says that the bits can bee seen with the naked eye. This is unusual because when we think of the quantum, we think of something so small that it can't even be seen with the aid of a microscope. What makes their system unique is that it uses a circuit, like that of a computer.

Quantum teleportation allows the transfer of information at a speed and accuracy far above that of data transfers in use to date. Dr. Fedorov says that the process will help in the design and creation of more powerful devices. He believes that questions concerning quantum communication can be answered using electronic circuits at microwave frequencies.

Dr. Fedorov and Dr. Baur foresee a future where experiments in which quantum information can and will be distributed over great distances, by way of microwave or optical interfaces. They expect teleportation to find applications in secure communications, and in more efficient information processing based on the laws of quantum physics.

No mentioned was made about the possibility of the teleportation of macroscopic objects or the eventuality of being able to one day transport a human being. But, this is an exciting breaking through and one that surely proves that while somethings are improbable, we live in a universe where nothing is impossible.

Here It Comes!

Announced this past June 2013, iTunes Radio will become a reality as it launches on Tuesday September 18th. The new steaming music service will be offered as one of two hundred new feature in it release of iOS7.

While tracks stream, users will be offered the opportunity to buy the tracks that they have just listened to. iTunes Radio will become more personal as one uses it. Songs can be rated by use of a star icon and feed back such as "play more like this," or "never play this song," will serve to help shape a listeners tastes.

Two hundred stations will be available with a catalog that will no doubt span the depths of iTunes it self. The service will be able to build stations around artists, songs, genres, or it can even build a station based on your own music library. There's also so the ability to add, delete or reorder your stations by using the Edit Stations features.

The amount of music discovery on a station can be fine tuned by way of a horizontal slider that allows the user to choose between Discovery and Top Hits. iTunes Radio can be accessed from your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Mac, PC, and Apple TV. All stations will be available in the iCloud, so that the stations that you create on one device can be accessed by any of your other devices.

Listeners will be able to use SIRI in order to ask iTunes, "who plays that song," or tell it to "play more like this." iTunes Radio will not only offer tracks by well established artist but it will also offer tracks by up and coming artist as well. And, a Wish List feature will give listeners the ability to buy their favorite tracks at a later time.

iTunes Radio is ad supported and there fore, free. With all of the above features and more, I'd said, that's a very good deal.

What Time Is It?

Wear a Watch? Sony, Samsung and yes, Apple are all betting that the world is ready for wearable tech, such as the smart watch. Just image it as a smart phone only smaller. In fact, Pebble has already released it version this past summer. The unit is capable of linking to your smart phone via Bluetooth. It's app friendly and can allow you to receive or push notifications to your smart phone. The price tag is $100 direct.

Samsung has announced the release of it's Galaxy Gear smart watch. It has size and looks more like a bracelet. Samsung has added more than notifications to the list of it's product's capabilities. Galaxy Gear has a 1.9 mega pixel camera, a built in microphone, and offers Samsung's S Voice virtual assistant. The unit can also be used as a hands free speaker phone. Galaxy Gear can also be linked to your smart phone via Blue tooth and can deliver notifications, texts, and incoming calls from your phone. The price tag is $300.

Sony has just released the Smart Watch 2. The Smart Watch 2 makes use of touch screen technology and uses Blue Tooth 4.0 to link to your smart phone. It too can receive notifications but, though you can answer or reject calls, there's no microphone or speaker, so you won't be talking into your wrist anytime soon. The Smart Phone 2 is compatible with apps that were available for Sony's Smart Phone, plus there will be 400 more apps ready when the device is shipped. The Smart Phone 2 is expected to sell for $260.

Rumors of a smart phone from Apple first surfaced in February. Nicknamed the iWatch, it's been said that it will be launched in the second half of 2013. Details of what to expect as far as what the iWatch will look like or what it's features will be are as yet unknown. There is, however speculation on it's price. It's expected to cost between $149 and $229 and should make it's appearance sometime in 2014.

With a price as low as $100 or as much as $300 I think, and this is just my opinion, that the success of the smart watch will most likely depend on its size, features, durability, and price. It looks as though the price problem has already come under control. It would appear that the best of the rest is yet to come.

The Future Of Communication?

High speed communication may be about to get even faster. Until now we've always used radio waves to communicate with, but in an up coming test, NASA will be using lasers to send and receive data. NASA will be testing the effectiveness of the system with it's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, which will be launched on September 6th, 2013.

If all goes well the test will proceed as follows. First, when the satellite, while orbiting the moon is in view from earth, three ground stations will shoot a laser at it's location. Once one of the beams illuminates the spacecraft, the orbiter will begin transmitting it's own laser toward the ground station and the two signals will connect, lock together, and then begin transmitting.

Data transmission from the earth to the spacecraft should happen at a rate of 20 Mbps while downloads should take place at the even faster rate of 622 Mbps. That's about ten times the speed of current radio transmissions. From this, NASA will be able to send and receive high resolution images, movies, and 3D.

If the use of this technology proves to be successful in future missions within our solar system, especially missions to Mars, it may at some point find it's way into all manner of terrestrial applications. Use of lasers to communicate here on earth my mean not only greater bandwidth but higher communication speeds with less interference, signal loss or degradation.

This is just one more piece of evidence that the future may indeed be, now.

Sideways

On August 13th 2013, SpaceX launched it new experimental reusable rocket nicknamed "Grasshopper," for a successful test flight. The rocket's test marked the first time that a man made spacecraft lifted off and then landed vertically.

The 10 story tall rocket took off from SpaceX's launch facility in McGregor, Texas. The rocket flew to an altitude of 820 feet before flying sideways for about 328 feet. Then, in mid air, it flew back to it's original position and then quickly descended for a perfect landing back on the launch pad.

While the entire flight only lasted for just over a minute, lateral movement, or divert tests are important for showing how well a reusable rocket can be controlled. The larger the rocket the more difficult that can be. At 10 stories, one can see how this successful test will help in designing spacecraft that may one day be used to deliver payloads to the International Space Station.

SpaceX already has a contract with NASA under which it uses it's Falcon 9 rocket and robotic Dragon Capsule for cargo runs to the ISS. One day it may be possible to cut cost by using Grasshopper to carry supplies into space and then fly the rocket back into the atmosphere for a pinpoint landing.

It's conceivable that at some point, with continuing advancements in rocketry, that it may one day be possible to have manned space flights using rockets patterned after "Grasshopper's" design. It might sound like hyperbole, but we may be on the cusp of a new paradigm in space flight technology.

No Absolute Time

It's August, already? That's what I thought the other day when I saw that it was time for preseason football again. As much as I love football, it seemed, at least to me that for some reason, this year, the new season had come a little sooner than expected. 

Of course the reason could be that I had been so busy with various things that I hadn't noticed the passage of time. Days had seemingly whizzed by. Remember when we were kids and days seemed like weeks, weeks seemed like months, and months seemed like years? 

It makes me think back to what Einstein said about time. He said that it was an illusion. He said, “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.”  It would appear that our perception of time is what it all comes down to.

As we get older, the time we spend having a particular experience can become shorter, as a result, the amount of detail that that goes into our stored memories becomes less and less. Because of the lack of greater detail, we get a sense that time is passing faster. The more information that we receive from our experiences the longer our days seem to be and slower our days appear to pass.

What I find most interesting about what I mentioned above is that Einstein also said that the past, present, and future are three stubbornly persistent illusions. He went on to say that space and time are essentially one and the same. For that reason, he believed that the past, present, and future all exist at once, without separation. 

Such a notion can be a bit confusing. I tend to sort it all out by thinking of the past as what we remember and the future as what we anticipate. To put it in another way, the present is the future becoming the past. This is just my opinion, but as humans, even though no two of us can have the same exact experience, we all perceive the world in the same way. The color red is the same to all of us regardless of what language we speak.

It just may be true that we are all suffering from temporal distortion. And, we are not yet able to get beyond a comfort zone where what we know, think, and feel about the passage of time allows us to live above a certain level of frustration that would certainly exist if we thought about such things too long or too hard.

But, maybe that’s just what we need. More time thinking, as we are living.    

What The Numbers Say

I guess that there's two possible views that readers take when they read an economic report about digital music sales. This is just my opinion, but it seems that most are totally disinterested, or what a blogger says about digital music sales can cause a mild fluctuation in the stock market. Either way, no matter how important it may be to share such information, it can come off sounding a bit dry or uninteresting.

This past week Business Insider reported that download sales had "plummeted," from just a year ago. This was the headline they used as they interpreted a report from Digital Music News, that there had indeed been a decline. The data was taken from a Nielsen SoundScan report that stated that sales of digital downloads had fallen from to 682.2 million from last years 698 million. You can clearly see that that's about 16 million or a difference of 2.3%. While that is a drop, you could hardly say that sales have plummeted.

In fact, Billboard just released a report stating that this is more a reflection that digital download sales are merely slowing in their growth rate. They go on to say that due to the increased interest in streaming music services, that this was to be expected. In actuality, digital album sales are up 6.3% for the first half of this year while single unit sales were up 1.6%.

Though some major label artists have already released their albums for this year, there are still many more to come, as most will try to release their projects in the fall. Starting in September major labels begin releasing albums as we head toward the holidays and the Christmas shopping season. The numbers above still place the industry on a pace to match or at least come close to the total digital sales of 2010.

While none of this may make for an exciting read, it does serve to put things into perspective. There's no volatility here, at least that I can see. There seems to be enough room for everyone. It might even be possible that the prediction I read not long ago about 2016 being a big year for the music industry, at least the digital aspect of it, may yet come true.

Next Stop... Your Car

If you like touch screen technology, then your going to really like Apple's new touch screen in the dashboard. The company recently filed a patent to produce a system that will replace most of your car's existing instrumentation.

When Apple announced the forth coming release of iTunes Radio last June, there was some speculation at that time, that that was the next step in the company's move toward the, "connected car." The idea was that was floating around was that the iPhone and iOS would not only provide a way to listened to your downloads, but to make phone calls and access the internet from your car as well.

The touch screen dashboard will be capable of a whole lot more. Apple is looking to make manual control of your car obsolete. The new design is said to include not only touch screens, but cameras for head and eye tracking, lasers for light, and voice actuation for hands free adjustments. Under the new system a driver will be able to control not only the radio and the temperature, but the headlights, wipers, mirrors, and much more.

Apple also intends to add tactile features that will act as knobs and sliders for control of your car's instrumentation. This will be done by the inclusion of indents and raised portions of the screen that will glow when they're ready to be used and fade once the action is finished.

What's being called the "iDash," by some bloggers, is expected to make it's way into vehicles in 2014, in time for the 2015 model release. May car manufacturers are already on board. When all is said and done, it looks like the future is quickly becoming the present.

New Release

I've just released a new single under my given name, John Hughley, entitled, "Runaway Love." It's available at iTunes, Rhapsody, Amazon, and Google Play. To hear a full stream, just click the widget below.

A video clip of "Runaway Love," is available at YouTube. Thank you for listening.

Pandora's Box

I like Pandora, the internet radio site. The first time I used it I thought it was awesome. You didn't even have to log on. You just type an artist's name into the search box and the program generates a station using the music of that artist and those that are similar. What better way is there to listen to music then hearing only what you want to hear?

When I read that Pandora wanted artists whose music they used on their site to take a cut in royalty payments I couldn't believe it. The claim was made that the company was successful but not profitable. That the only way Pandora would ever turn a profit is if the company could pay recording artists less.

Pandora even took their plight before congress in the form of the Internet Radio Fairness Act introduced late in 2012. Many major artists and recording companies were immediately move to action against the bill. However, time ran out on the 112th Congress and the bill was not passed. This year the most recent protests against Pandora have been made by the surviving members of Pink Floyd. The members complained that they had only received $16.89 for 1 million plays of the song "Low."

If a major legacy band like Pink Floyd only got $16.89 for a million plays of one song, then lesser known artist with fewer plays most certainly are receiving even less then that. So where is all the ad revenue that Pandora is getting, really going? Why must the artists, who are supplying the content, being asked to take less for the use of their work? Surely, there must be another way for such a successful company to turn a profit.

Enter iTunes Radio. A Wall Street analyst has just compared iTunes Radio to Pandora and has called it a worthy competitor. As a result, Pandora stock dropped by 9%. With that alone, one would think that Pandora would rethink their strategy. The artists were once in their corner. Why continue to alienate them, when it's their music that has made Pandora what it is today.

Pandora's box is indeed open.

It's About The Return Of High Fidelity

On June 20th, Universal Music Group announced the release of it's new high resolution audio disc called High Fidelity Pure Audio at Dolby Head quarters in London. What's interesting about this news is that this is not the first attempt to introduce such a product. About 10 years ago, it was DVD Audio and SACD. And, there's the question of why now, when consumers are beginning to move onto digital downloads and streaming media?

The High Fidelity Pure Audio disc is basically a Blu Ray disc that can be played back on any Blu Ray device or PS3. The bit resolution is 24/96kHz which has become the standard for recording major releases and is much greater than the 16 bit 44.1kHz found on today's CDs. Most high end mp3s may be 256kbps to 320kbps and the file is a lossy file, which means that some audio was removed when the music was encoded.

The mp3 has been a great start for the age of digital distribution, but it only provides a measure of immediacy, The sound quality has always been lacking. The average listener may not be able to discern the difference between an mp3 and a lossless music file such as FLAC, but with digital, the higher the resolution the better the sound.

There are those who think this move by the High Fidelity Pure Audio group or, HFPA will only meet with failure. There is, and this is just my opinion, the possibility that there maybe new audio devices in the works. And, the release of another optical playback media is a good way to not only take advantage of the growth of Blu Ray, but possibly to introduce new hardware. Also, HFPA discs will be sold with the added bonus of downloading your music as a 320kbps mp3 or lossless FLAC.

This might be a good time to bring the FLAC file to the forefront. A FLAC file is like a zip file for music. No information is lost when the file is encoded. The same amount of data that goes into the file is what you get back when it is decoded. Plus, a FLAC file can be played while in it's encoded form and still deliver the same sound as the file it was made from. Making major releases available as FLAC files would give listeners both the immediacy that they've come to enjoy from downloading, with the added bonus of improved sound quality.

I think that it will be interesting to see just what will happen in the months ahead. While it's clear that most music lovers have kind of forgotten about high fidelity in this digital age, there's always the possibility that all that is needed is time and opportunity for music fans to find their way back to true fidelity at last.

Even More... Shameless Self Promotion

I've just released a new Nprogram single entitled "Sunshine," and it's available at iTunes. It's a mid tempo R&B/Pop groove that kind of fits the season. The song is also available at Amazon, Rhapsody and Spotify. You can also hear the song by clicking the the Tunecore Widget to the right or the one below. A thirty sec video clip of  "Sunshine," can bee seen at YouTube.


Also, I now have mobile apps for both Nprogram and John Hughley that are available for free from Reverbnation. Thanks for listening.

Audiam

I distribute my music through Tunecore, the online digital distribution company that was founded by Jeff Price and Peter Wells. Last year Price and Wells were relived of their duties and summarily dismissed. I was surprised to hear about this move. I know that conflicts can happen with a publicly held company that might find the company's founder/s looking for work, but these guys seemed to have set a new standard for independent music services. Unfortunately, after all this time, the reason for their dismissal remains a mystery.

On June 12th 2013 , Jeff Price and Peter Wells announced their return to the web with an all new company called Audiam. The goal of Audiam is to give independent artists the means to collect money from having their videos played on YouTube. Price and Wells estimate that half of the 25 billion videos posted to YouTube are bringing in about 1.3 billion in advertising dollars a year. Audiam will provide a system to get ad dollars for the other 12.5 billion videos.

The service is currently in beta and is only providing access to those living outside of the US, but Price and Wells expect it to go live sometime early this summer. There's no up front cost to use Audiam, just a flat 25% administration fee. Artists can upload as many songs as they want. Audiam will find videos that use those artists songs and authorize YouTube to place ads on them, and then administer the artists' share.

Audiam will also supply information to YouTube that will allow them to auto - generate buy links to iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play, for placement underneath each video.

Sounds to me as if Price and Wells may be on to something. Up until now most independent artists have not had access to money from views of their videos on YouTube. Clearly, the amount of money that will reach most users of Audiam will probably not be quite as much as major label artists, but at least it will be money that these artist deserve but weren't able to get. I think, and this is just my opinion, that this is definitely something worth looking into.

Let's Do It Again

If you been accessing Classic MySpace,then you've no don't noticed that it doesn't exist anymore. Yep, everything from the old MySpace is gone. As of Wednesday, the New Myspace is the only Myspace you can access. But, I don't have a problem with that.

In fact, while the New Myspace was in beta, I got a chance to add or convert just about anything from the old Myspace that I might have wanted. In reality and in all fairness, that was actually zilch. I liked the look and feel of the New Myspace so much that I looked at it as a whole new website.

The launch of the New Myspace brings along with it a new app for iPhone users, adding the mobile experience that some felt had been missing. The app is free and includes an ad supported radio feature called, My Radio, that builds a station based on user input. Each user has his/her own station which that can programmed with the music that they like or feel that their friends or fans might like. And the app also includes a GIf creator.

The focus of the New Myspace is music and the people who love it. When you log on, the first thing that you notice is that those pesky ad filled pages have been replaced by large thumbnails of your friends/ fans and what they have chosen to share. That, I think, is enough in itself to get get new users into what the site has to offer.

The New Myspace is the website that everyone has talked about for a very long time. The only question is, is whether those of us hungry for the unification of music and social networking will not only go and see what is going on there, but go there ready and willing to participate in the experience that they've all been waiting for.

The Big Squeeze

Like most of us, when I listen to recorded music I usually don't give a thought to why the music I hear, sounds so good.

When you go to a concert or live performance, you usually come away thinking that the show had a great sound or a bad sound based on whether or not the band's FOH (front of house) used compression and EQ. The best live sound is most likely derived from using as little signal processing as possible. The engineer or FOH may deem it necessary to recreate a certain sound or effect from a recorded single or album. The compression and EQ,used during a live show will be mostly on vocals. But, a recorded track is another story all together.

Often, there's so much going on, on a recorded track you have to use compression in order to get a cohesive sound. Compressing a sound alters it's dynamic range. It can make a loud sound softer or a soft sound louder. When it's used in audio recording, compression can even the volume level of each sound, allowing them all to fit together into a mix.

Some compressors have a certain unique quality that can add a coloration to your sound that's actually desirable and many that are used in today's recordings are chosen specifically for that reason. However, when compression is over used, the result can be such a loss of signal dynamics that EQ, or equalization must then be used to bring back what has been squeezed out.

Equalization provides the ability to restore a sound's natural quality by the raising or lowering of specific frequencies. It's like turning up the volume without using gain or attenuation. This works especially well during mastering. When it's clear that a track has been compressed and limited heavily, EQ is used in order to raise the over all volume. This is when boosting or cutting certain frequencies can bring back a sense of the songs character.

Compression and equalization brought together in just the right amounts or used judiciously will not only make a track sound vibrant and fresh, but if they are done so, you will never even know they've been used.

Gently Down The Stream

After spending the last ten years dominating the digital download market, Apple is now looking to follow that up with it's own hybrid music streaming service. Apple intends to take on Pandora and Google for the rights to be the number one streaming music service with what bloggers and tech writers have dubbed iRadio.

So far Apple has managed to sign a deal with Universal, which is the world largest recording company, and on June 2nd they signed an agreement with Warner, while Sony is still holding out over the so called," song skipping," feature. There's also some questions about the payment of royalty advances to some of the major artist on those respective labels. This, however is what enabled Google Play to get it's streaming service up and running so quickly.

iRadio is said to have a feature set that will offer an on demand function, and like Pandora, listeners would be able to rewind or skip a song entirely after listening to a small snippet. At this point it's believed that Apple intends to at least start iRadio as a free service and because of that, many industry insider see it as a "boon," for the music industry.

Apple had hoped to launch iRadio at this summer's Worldwide Developers Conference. I think, and this is just my opinion, that Apple's, "music everyday," commercials are a prelude to things to come. Getting consumers ready for the new streaming service that will no doubt figure prominently as part of iPhone, as well as iPad promotions.

All in all, iRadio sounds like a good thing to me, just like Pandora did, before they began looking to cut their royalty payments to artist. Which brings up the question of whether iRadio will invite independent artists to the table as they did with iTunes. The way I see it, it couldn't hurt. Bringing in the independent artists would mean more variety. More variety would mean a greater selection and a larger audience. Which, might serve to make iRadio, revolutionary.

What's In A Name?

A few years ago, I think just after the release of Windows 98 SE, the word that began to get passed around was, when ever Microsoft issues a new operating system, "always wait for service pack 1." It wasn't long after that, that I found that this was not a bad idea.

Windows 8 is said, at least by Microsoft, to be doing well. In fact, they say that 100 million licenses have been sold so far. However, over all sales for PC s have been slumping and it's being reasoned that Windows 8 is the culprit.

In order to keep pace with Apple, and make a connection with smart phone and tablet users, Windows 8 was designed to use apps on it's start screen. It's Metro Screen is laid out with large tiles that are apps that allow the user to use touch screen technology to access files and programs. This is fine if your computer has a touch screen, but if you're running Windows 8 on a slightly older computer, things can be a little confusing. In fact, that appears to be what has been happening.

Many Windows 8 users were disappointed to discover that the desktop and the start button were not readily available upon boot up. A start menu has replaced the start button and the desktop is accessed by clicking or touching the desktop tile. However, at some point when trying to use certain apps, you end up back on the Metro Screen.

After listening to many complaints from users, and seeing that businesses have been slow to adopt Windows 8, an update has been planned for release later this year. Code name Windows Blue, it will serve as a true update as opposed to a service pack release and will be made available as Windows 8.1.

With the release of Windows 8.1,  there is speculation that users may be given the option to to boot directly to the desktop, and the start button may also make a return. However, Microsoft has stated that they are not yet ready to consider the start screen of Windows 8 a failure. They admit that there is a learning curve, but go on to say that Windows 8 users report that they enjoy using the new interface.

I'd be willing to bet that even if the boot to desktop option and the start button don't make an appearance in this next release, they may return at some point in the future. They may come possibly as add ons that can be downloaded directly from Microsoft, as opposed to third parties that are already doing so. If Microsoft can address the user account controls problem of Windows Vista, surely they can give their users back their desktop and start button.

Tunguska

On June 30th 1908 a powerful explosion shook the region of Russia know as Siberia, near Tunguska The force of the blast was 1000 times more powerful than that of the Hiroshima bomb, registering a 5 on the Reciter scale, and leveling an estimated 80 million trees. Many questions have been raised over the years as to what may have been the cause of this great event. On April 29th 2013,  Russian scientist, Dr, Andrei Zlobin submitted a paper that announced that he had obtained the first evidence of a possible impactor.

In 1988, Dr. Zlobin went on an expedition to the Tunguska impact site. It was there that he found about 100 rocks that appeared to be meteorite fragments at the bottom of the Khushmo River's shoal. However, Dr. Zlobin didn't examine his find until 20 years later in 2008. When he finally examined the stones he found three which showed clear signs of melting and regmalypts, or thumb like impressions on their surface. These impressions are what are found on meteorites and are caused by ablation as a hot meteor or asteroid falls through the earth's atmosphere at high velocity. Using tree ring evidence to estimate the heat of the blast, Dr. Zlobin determined that the heat was was not hot enough to melt rocks or stones already on the ground. Therefore, he concluded that the stones were most likely fragments of whatever had fallen to Earth over Tunguska.

Dr. Zlobin has gone on to say, that a detailed chemical analysis has not yet been done, so the nature of the body that fell will take a little more time before it is known. However, Dr. Zlobin believes that it could have been a comet because comets often have a nucleus that contains rock fragments. He has estimated the density of the impactor to be 0.6 grams per cubic centimeter which is the same as Halley's comet.

While it's clear that there is still more work to be done in order to confirm that the stones came from space, the fact that they have been preliminarily identified as remnants of a possible and/or a probable impactor, may help to shed some light on what caused the explosion. It may also help in determining what type of damage we could expect in any future collisions, and what our chances are for surviving such events.

Many near Earth objects are now being monitored and a vigil is being kept in order to determine if any of those object might someday be on a collision course with the Earth. As they say, it's not a question of if, it's matter of when.