Google is discontinuing its RSS Reader app. This really ticks me off. I use Google Reader at work to scan through a lot of tech sites. RSS is simply the best way to do this, and now I have to look for another reader. Speaking as someone who first accessed the Internet from home in February, 1994 with a 14.4 Kbps modem, this is annoying.
Category: Tech
Closing the MP3 gap
Roku has a nifty Amazon Cloud Player app, and I use it, but it has a flaw that is common to many, if not most, MP3 players. It doesn’t support gapless MP3 playback — tracks with 0 seconds between them. The first sample on the audio player is from the Amazon Cloud Player, and the second is from Logitech’s sadly discontinued Squeezebox system.
[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2013/03/BeatlesMP3Amazon.mp3,https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2013/03/BeatlesMP3Squeezebox.mp3|titles=Amazon Cloud Player,Logitech Squeezebox]There’s no gap between the tracks when played on Squeezebox. Samsung’s media player does the same thing as Amazon’s Cloud Player. Windows Media Player usually does an okay job with gapless MP3 playback, but it isn’t always seamless. Not being a smartphone guy, I don’t know how the iPhone and Android apps handle gapless MP3 playback. Maybe somebody could tell me?
Spring ahead!
Arizona may not like Daylight Saving Time, but I sure do.
National Recording Preservation
With the move to an online world without physical media — the so-called “cloud” — I wonder what sort of evidence of our existence there will be hundreds of years from now. NPR has this feature on what the Library of Congress is doing to preserve America’s audio past and present for the future.
Men who drink… and plan beyond tomorrow!
This magazine ad for Seagram’s V.O. whiskey is supposedly from 1946. Even if it’s from 1956, it’s still an amazingly accurate prediction of flat-panel, high-definition, wall-mounted, widescreen color TV’s!
TV present vs TV future
The Superbowl should be over by now, but I don’t know because I’m not watching it (I probably would be if the Patriots hadn’t been eliminated). Instead, we’ve watched the first five parts of the 13-part Netflix series House of Cards, based on the BBC series of the same name from way back in 1990.
The Superbowl may be the biggest thing on television right now, but it’s just the latest in a long-standing annual event. Netflix is attempting to create the future of television by using on-demand streaming media to take direct aim at cable, and HBO in particular. Putting entire seasons of Doctor Who, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men online for subscribers at no additional cost has been extremely successful for Netflix, so it makes sense for the service to produce its own series, and an excellent one it is.
Netflix is using House of Cards as an enticement to new subscribers, who are welcome to watch all thirteen parts for free. The expectation is, of course, that once they’re online they’ll see what else is available and stay on for $8/month. Reed Hastings has screwed up at least once as CEO of Netflix, but this new direction looks like a winner.