Life in the Digital Age

All good things must come to an end. It’s one of the many unfortunate truths of life and one that people who listen to music over the Internet may have to come to terms with sooner than later.

See, Internet radio has been a thorn in the side of the music industry since it hit the mainstream a few years ago. When lots of little Web sites popped up, the record industry figured everyone must have been making tons of money (why else would anyone want to play great music for other people? It couldn’t be for the love of it, could it?). So the suits in the biz decided it was time they took their slice of the pie. And if the slice wasn’t the biggest, what would be the point?

Last March the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board accepted rates proposed by SoundExchange, a company that represents labels and artists, that would require Webcasters to hand over as much as 70 percent of their revenue.

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If you follow tech even a little bit, you’ve probably heard that the release of the next generation iPhone is eminent – rumor has it hitting stores on June 9 – and believe it or not, the newest version of this little technological marvel may be more popular the second time around.

The rumors leading up to the release of the new iPhone have taken on a fever pitch in the past month and I can’t get enough.

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Sometime between the demise of Napster and the rise of MySpace, music underwent a transformation. Music changed from being a tangible good that people willingly paid for to being a service that anybody who has ever owned an MP3 player takes completely for granted.

That tiny paradigm shift, from goods to service, completely turned the recording industry on its ear. We all know what happened next – the industry freaked out, sued its customers and dug its own grave.

I’m not going to say that something like that wouldn’t be easy to deal with. How would you respond if your decades-old business model gets taken apart in the span of five years when the product you’ve been selling becomes essentially worthless in the eyes of the consumer?

I’m sure you wouldn’t turn around and start suing the people who buy your product, but this column isn’t about the record industry’s past decisions. There’s no point in dwelling on the could’ve-should’ve-would’ve even if the RIAA is still suing its customers because they are over-valuing music that isn’t worth the tiny 1s and 0s that make up those digital files.

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The HD DVD/Blu-Ray format war never really had a chance to get off the ground.

There wasn’t a long, protracted battle, the name-calling was rather benign, and only a few consumers got burned when Toshiba raised the white flag and killed the HD DVD format, ceding victory and control over DVD’s successor to Sony and its Blu-Ray discs.

For most people this was a non-issue anyway. And why shouldn’t it be? The DVD is still going strong – they look great, work in every DVD player and computer around and are relatively inexpensive.

Blu-Ray discs, however, are only useful to people who have an HD TV, a Blu-Ray player or Playstaion 3 and a lot of cash to burn. I’m told the picture and sound quality is sooooo much better than regular DVDs, but I’m not sure the amount of money needed to build a home theater system capable of achieving Blu-Ray’s true potential is really worth it.

The key to that true potential is the new blue laser technology at the heart of the Blu-Ray and HD DVD format.

Like regular DVDs, Blu-Ray discs are read by a laser, but where the normal DVD players use a red laser, Blu-Ray players use a blue laser. The blue laser technology, much like the red laser, reads information from pits in the surface of the DVD.

Blue lasers, however, can read and write information in much deeper, smaller pits, allowing for more information to be stored on each disc. Normal DVDs can hold a maximum of nine GB of information, while Blu-Ray discs can hold around 50 GB.

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It’s never good when the government goes messing with television. TV is probably the one thing that keeps the general public sedated enough so we don’t pay attention to what the government is actually up to. Here’s hoping the planned switch from an analog TV signal to a digital one goes off without a hitch, lest a riot start over the public’s inability to watch Oprah or NASCAR.

And while I might find that kind of outrage sort of funny, the fact is, the coming change to the way TV is broadcast will hardly be noticed by the majority boob tube-consuming public.

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