Hasta La Gadget!

Physical media has long been in a battle for its life, and this includes print publications. We’ve already seen other newspapers and magazine go the all-digital route, but today Newsweek announced that it’s ending its print edition and will be going on digital starting in 2013. The publication also said that they could be facing job cuts in the process.

December 31 will be the publication’s last issue, and they will move entirely to a new digital format using the name Newsweek Global, which will be a subscription-based online magazine optimized for tablets and browsers. The Daily Beast, Newsweek‘s sister site, will be posting some of the content. The site is said to have seen a 70% increase in traffic this year to 15 million unique monthly visitors.

Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown and CEO Baba Shetty say that the publication has “reached a tipping point at which [they] can most efficiently and effectively reach [their] readers in all-digital format.” Both Brown and Shetty clarified that Newsweek is simply “transitioning,” and aren’t saying goodbye to it.

However, it’s expected that the publication will be “streamlining” its editorial and business operations, which means it expects to lay off a number of its staff. Nothing is final, and the decision makers are still working things out, but Brown said that there will be “many options to choose from” in 2013.

[via The Daily Beast]

Newsweek to halt print edition, go all digital is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Exactly 30 years ago, the first commercially-released CD album hit store shelves. On October 1, 1982, Billy Joel’s sixth studio album, 52nd Street, was re-released to the public. The album was originally launched in 1978, but it was selected for re-launch on the all-new digital compact disc to coincide with the release of the first CD player, the Sony CDP-101.

Research and development of the compact disc actually began well before 1982. Beginning in 1974, electronics company Philips wanted to create a whole new audio platform that was both small in size and better quality than vinyl records and cassette tapes. Three years later, the company finally established a lab where they would make CDs and CD players. They called them “compact discs” to follow along with their other naming conventions that they had, like the “compact cassette”.

At the time, Sony was also developing their own CD technology, but the two companies eventually merged their efforts and partnered up for the official consumer launch of the CD in 1982. Of course, CDs were met with a ton of skepticism at first. It wasn’t until several years later that CDs began to actually take off. Heck, I was still using cassette tapes in the 90s.

Even though the percentage of people in the world that use CDs is continually going down, you can’t deny that the format made a huge impact on the music industry. Even though nothing really outperforms the quality of a good vinyl record, newer platforms like CDs and MP3s are still extremely popular and are the go-to format for most music listeners these days.

[via The Next Web]

Image via Flickr

The CD turns 30 today is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s time for Barnes and Noble to make an effort to cross the sea as their Nook lineup is ready and willing to spread across the entirety of the UK this summer. The company has been working with a variety of UK retailers and has struck a collection of deals to stock several models of the Nook e-reader tablet lineup this Fall. Starting in mid-October the Nook Simple Touch as well as the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight will be popping up both online and in physical shops across the nation.

This move will have the UK being the first location outside of the USA where Nook e-reader devices have been sold. With Barnes & Noble making it clear that their last financial year brought in $933 million for the Nook lineup alone, it’s no wonder they’re expanding out beyond the shores of the United States. The Amazon Kindle lineup is already sold throughout the UK, and this book retailer is gnawing at the bit at a chance to join in on the fun.

Be sure to check out our Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight review to see what you’ll be grabbing very soon!

The Nook Simple Touch as it exists today is a tablet device with a 6-inch display working with e-ink technology for easy reading both indoors and out. This device is currently out only in the USA and also has 2GB of flash memory, build-in wi-fi connectivity, and 2GB of RAM. You also get a microSD card slot for memory expansion and easy movement of files to and from other devices.

We’re expecting this device to be released in essentially the same price range as the original and will be working with nook.co.uk as well for digital content. You’ll be able to both download new reading material from the web and load 3rd party content with the microSD card slot once this device heads your way soon!

Nook heads to UK to convert e-reading nation is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Band members of the legendary metal band Def Leppard have announced that they’ve reached an impasse with their record label and will be freezing sales of all original recordings of their music. What they’ve done instead of accepting an unfair amount of royalties, so they say, they’ve decided to record what are effectively covers of all their original songs that’ll then be pushed to iTunes et all in a much more direct way that’ll have them cashing in as much as possible. One would hope that they’ll do a bit better than KISS did with their latest double-album (one of which was all covers of old songs too) Sonic Boom.

Thus far Def Leppard have only revealed a couple of tracks: “Pour Some Sugar on Me” and “Rock of Ages”, but they’ve let it be known that a whole lot more is on the way. Universal Music Group is reportedly stopped from releasing any Def Leppard tracks from the original albums due to the contract between the label and the band. Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott spoke to Billboard.com this week on the matter.

“When you’re at loggerheads with an ex-record label who…is not prepared to pay you a fair amount of money and we have the right to say, ‘Well, you’re not doing it,’ that’s the way it’s going to be. Our contract is such that they can’t do anything with our music without our permission, not a thing. So we just sent them a letter saying, ‘No matter what you want, you are going to get “no” as an answer, so don’t ask.’ That’s the way we’ve left it. We’ll just replace our back catalog with brand new, exact same versions of what we did.” – Elliott

You’ll be able to see many more tracks popping up in the near future if the first two singles continue to sell well. At the moment, Billboard has “Sugar” ringing in at 21,000 downloads in the USA while “Ages” has 5,000. Hopefully soon we’ll also be seeing Animal, Hysteria, and Love Bites – soon!

[via TechDirt]

Def Leppard re-recording entire catalog while originals freeze is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.