Editorials | Stuff-Review

Slow music: listening as an experience, vinyl vs. digital audio

April 14, 2012 at 3:08 pm

Turntable loaded with vinyl record and album cover

This isn’t a discussion on which medium sounds better, analogue or digital, vinyl or CD (or SACD). There are already plenty of articles disputing either way. My only two cents on this is that some vinyl recordings sound incredible on a good analogue system, way beyond what any CD can offer, though CDs offer accurate sound reproduction.

No, this article will tackle listening to music as an experience and how the digital age has changed that. The two extremes are the slow, involved process of listening to an LP and the quick “take-out” experience of listening to digital audio files on a media player, be it an iPod, a Sonos system etc. It’s a subject that has not received much attention and is analogous to the comparison of the reading experience between the good old-fashioned book and the rapidly emerging eBook.

I will certainly not argue that we should trash our PMPs or digital audio systems and go back to listening music on vinyl. I store 95% of my music as digital audio files on a NAS and mostly listen to it from a computer and on the go on a Zune HD. But then I also have a relatively small collection of LPs that provide something more than a quick fix.
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HTC is still brilliant

Editorials News

January 6, 2012 at 7:01 am

So HTC posted its unaudited revenues for Q4 2011, showing a small 2.5 percent fall compared to the same quarter in 2010. The main culprit for this fall was the month of November, with revenues down 19.6 percent.

That’s unusual for HTC, which has been seeing consistent revenue growth for a while. It does however make sense. HTC is big in the Android camp, and at the end of October we saw the announcement of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus (which we’ve reviewed here) as Google’s launch device for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The Galaxy Nexus in fact started shipping in November.

However, tech blogs love big titles, so today we’ve been seeing posts in the lines of HTC losing its steam or even that this could be the beginning of the end for HTC, all of which are far from the truth. First of all bear in mind that HTC’s whole year 2011 revenues grew by an insane 67%.
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Our tech wishes for 2012

Editorials

January 2, 2012 at 7:09 am

First of all we’d like to wish a happy new year to all the Stuff-Review readers out there! We’ve already shared our favorite pieces of tech for 2011 with you. They were visionary products culminating years of advances in technology and engineering, yet using them was effortless. Nevertheless, despite how much we loved them, they can all still be made better; there is always room for improvement in tech.

So, looking forward to what 2012 has in store for us in the world of tech, here is what we’re hoping to see from our gadgets this year.
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Our favorite gadgets from 2011

Editorials Featured

December 27, 2011 at 6:41 pm

The holiday season is a period for introspection and some quality time with our favorite gadgets. As a gadget blog, looking back into what we have covered during 2011, there are a few pieces of tech that really stand out. These are the gadgets that got us excited because they were pushing new boundaries, or they instantly became an integral part of our lives because they perform their task really well. Here are our favorite pieces of tech for 2011, they might not be the most obvious choices, but if you read through you’ll find out why they earned a place in our hearts.
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Apple’s Siri, Google Voice Actions, the past and the future of voice control

Editorials Featured News

October 16, 2011 at 6:57 am

Controlling a device with your voice is certainly nothing new. It’s been implemented time and time again and the execution has ranged from terrible, to gimmicky, to just ok, but it has never taken off. It’s been the sort of thing that you show off at family gatherings to impress older relatives but you never end up using.

It has existed on mobile devices for a while but with very limited capabilities. Feature phones could only do things like call up a number. Then, Google brought it on Android with Voice Search and Voice Actions expanding its capabilities. Now, Apple has officially taken a big step into voice control with iOS 5, the iPhone 4S and its personal assistant Siri. Could this mean that we will soon start using our devices in a different way?

Apple didn’t invent the artificial intelligence (AI) and voice recognition technology that makes Siri happen. In fact, Siri on iOS is the result of Apple’s purchase of same named company, Siri, and the use of third-party voice recognition technology (probably Nuance). But Apple has an incredibly successful history of doing exactly this, taking an existing but flailing technology, ironing out the quirks and making it the norm. The Macintosh made the mouse popular, the iPhone revolutionized touch-screen technology and Siri could be the beginning of a new way to interact with our devices.
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iPhone 4S to be the first smartphone with Bluetooth 4.0, opening the doors to a host of new applications

Editorials News

October 9, 2011 at 8:13 am

You can count the number of devices supporting the Bluetooth 4.0 standard right now on the fingers of one hand. These include the 2011 Mac Mini and the MacBook Air, while the iPhone 4S is the first phone to support the standard. So what does Bluetooth 4.0 offer over the earlier versions.

Bluetooth 4.0 has two major advantages over earlier standards, first is BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy), a low-energy and low-latency mode, second is that it can wake up other Bluetooth 4.0 devices and do no-code pairing. Nevertheless, it remains backwards compatible with all earlier standards, so you can still connect all your legacy devices.
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Amazon Kindle 7-inch Tablet, customized Android and $250 price tag

Editorials Featured News

September 4, 2011 at 6:57 am

There has been a lot of noise around the internet, over the past few weeks, about an upcoming Amazon tablet which will be competitively priced and supposed to finally give the iPad some much-needed competition. TechCrunch’s Siegler blogged yesterday that he has seen and handled the device, which will be a 7-inch tablet simply named Amazon Kindle, but unlike Amazon’s other Kindle devices this one will feature a normal, rather than E-Ink, color touch-screen.

It will run a very customized version of Android with a user interface similar to what we are used to from Amazon, dark, blue with bunches of orange. Content, such as books, movies and apps is presented in a carousel format, à la iTunes Cover Flow.

The device is said to have a form factor similar to the BlackBerry PlayBook but no cameras whatsoever and no physical buttons on the front. The back has a rubber feel and the speakers are on the top of the Kindle tablet, if you are holding it in landscape mode, and the power button at the bottom. Based on the information provided, we’ve made a quick mock-up (see above) of what the Amazon Kindle tablet could look like.

The 7-inch tablet is said to retail for $250 and Amazon is targeting November for launch, while it’s ironing out the software side.

So here is what we know:
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Google+, Google’s social gamble and why it might work this time

Editorials Featured

June 29, 2011 at 3:50 pm

Google has taken the wraps off it’s latest and greatest social enterprise, titled Google+. While Google is no stranger to social, this is its most comprehensive endeavor yet, and all out attack against Facebook. Indeed, past attempts only covered narrow social aspects (RIP Google Wave), while Google+ is trying to encompass a whole lot more, like group messaging/chatting, photo and video sharing and of course keeping in touch and sharing with friends.

We think, that, this time it might actually work for Google, and not only because of the quality or the features of the offering, but also because of the hordes of people waiting to jump ship from Facebook. Although Google is no angel, but rather a listed profit-seeking company obsessed with indexing and cataloging everything, Facebook has taken a lot of heat for its privacy practices, or lack of.

A simple browse around the news reports today and visitors’ comments show how many people are anxiously waiting to help Google provide Facebook with some much needed competition. Before you go running to register though, note that for now, Google+ is an invite only service, and that means you’ll have to register your interest and Google will send you an invitation email (no you can’t get an invitation from someone who’s already in Google+).
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Microsoft may stop development of new Zune hardware, concentrate on software

Editorials News

March 14, 2011 at 4:55 pm

Bloomberg has reported that Microsoft will not introduce any new versions of the Zune portable media player (PMP) and instead focus on mobile phones. The Zune software will continue to evolve on smartphones running Windows Phone 7.

Microsoft will however continue to produce existing hardware, which we guess includes the Zune HD. The decision hasn’t been officially announced, but was rather cited from a Bloomberg source.

Though lack-luster sales were quoted as being a key culprit for this decision, the Zune family has over the years created a very loyal following. As of today the Zune HD has an amazing 927 customer reviews on Amazon which really says the opposite.
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Editorial: iPad 2 forays into content creation – creativity on the go

Editorials Featured

March 2, 2011 at 5:32 pm

When the original iPad was launched the heaviest criticism it received was that it was principally a content consumption device, suited for web browsing, reading, listening to music, playing games and watching videos. The iPad was not suited for serious work; you were more or less limited to just writing emails and short documents.

Smart applications, such as Brushes and SketchBook, pushed the envelope and allowed creative individuals to produce amazing works of art on the iPad but offerings were still limited.
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