Technology, hardware, and gadgets. WiFi speakers, digital dashboards, and more.
RAIN founding editor Kurt Hanson is reporting from Tokyo, where he is surveying the tech, culture, and audio landscapes. This is his fourth report. iPhones are popular in Tokyo, but there is a peculiar exception. Continue Reading
Over the past 14 years, RAIN has reported to you from around the world — including publishing a week’s worth of early RAIN issues from an Internet-enabled café in Copenhagen, reporting on a popular new trend among young people in Prague called “texting” (way back in 2002), and producing an early cellphone-only version of RAIN in Tokyo, and more.
Now, founding editor Kurt Hanson sends a bulletin and photos from Tokyo, where he is observing the tech and online music scenes. Continue Reading
Clear Channel’s iHeartRadio is partnering with ad-tech provider AdsWizz to create “unique and integrated digital advertising capabilities,” it was announced this morning. The partnership will enhance ad insertion and targeting across a wide scope of brands and content — over 840 Clear Channel radio stations that stream live webcasts on the iHeart platform. Continue Reading
LH Labs, part of Light Harmonics, completed a crowdfunding campaign to fund creation of the Geek Wave. Although Geek Wave doesn’t have the star power of Pono Music behind it, the LH Labs team still received huge financial support from audiophiles: this “high-performance portable music player” exceeded its initial Indiegogo goal of $38,000 and closed out with $1,323,073 in pledges. Continue Reading
On Friday, the team behind new high-rez music ecosystem Pono Music announced that rock legend Neil Young will take on the role of CEO, replacing John Hamm at the helm, with Rick Cohen taking on the role of COO. The new music service is reportedly scheduled to launch by the end of this calendar year, a timeline bump from the original April goal. Continue Reading
Today is the 35th anniversary of the Sony Walkman’s launch. The Sony Walkman was not the first product to demonstrate the mobile potential of music — that would be the transistor radio. But the Walkman did give mobility to personal music collections, via cassette tapes. Continue Reading
Apple has non-publicly introduced high-def audio into the new iOS 8 mobile operating system which will be launched later this year. Coupled with Apple’s acquisition of Beats Electronics, the addition of high-quality audio eats into the market Pono Music hopes to establish. Continue Reading
Billboard and Twitter launched their new real-time, interactive song charts today. It is apt to say these “go live” today, as they are real-time, constantly updating lists fed by the continuous crowdsourced flow of Twitter references. We refreshed the trending 140 list repeatedly, watching songs shift position, moving up and down the list. Continue Reading
Music-recognition app SoundHound upgraded its iOS and Android apps, deepening its search, discovery, and listening experience. Those front-end enhancements are matched on the back end by technology improvements that make music identification faster and more accurate. RAIN tested the new app. Continue Reading
Microsoft is apparently preparing a music storage system to be combined with its subscription streaming service, Xbox Music. Combining owned files with a cloud-based streaming service covers all the bases for users who likes streaming music, but still value their purchased music collections. Continue Reading
Geo-fencing technology has entered the online audio discussion and potentially affects legal and business issues. Most recently, according to an Inside Radio report, the ability to identify where users are listening to web-delivered audio is unlocking some previously-blocked sports. Continue Reading
Streaming solutions provider Abacast announced today that it has been named a finalist in the Red Herring Top 100 North America awards list for 2014. Red Herring runs this annual awards list to promote and honor privately-held technology start-ups and scale-ups. Continue Reading