Hasta La Gadget!

Last month, we reported that – as part of an ongoing battle between Pandora and the music industry – the Internet radio company would acquire terrestrial radio station KXMZ in order to get an RMLC license. The ultimate goal in the business move would be scoring the lower royalty rates that its competitors enjoy. The ASCAP has long bucked against Pandora’s efforts, and this acquisition is no different: a request has been made for the FCC to block the purchase.

Says ASCAP in the filing: “Pandora is buying KXMZ for one reason – to argue that it is entitled to pay lower music performance royalties to composers, songwriters and lyricists for its billions of online-only internet music streams … Moreover, Pandora’s acquisition of KXMZ would not serve the public interest … The application should be denied.”

According to various statements made by Pandora, the purpose of purchasing a terrestrial radio station is to get the same lower rates that ASCAP provides for competitors, such as iHeartRadio, due to their ownership of terrestrial stations, which have different rates than Internet stations. As we stated last month, Pandora considers this a violation of the Department of Justice decree it is supposed to follow.

Later in June, Pandora’s founder Tim Westergren posted a lengthy statement on the company’s blog regarding the issue, including what he considers to be lies created by the music industry’s “hired guns.” Statements such as Pandora’s desire to decrease royalties by 85-percent, said Westergren, were complete lies created for the purpose of causing the company problems.

Following this, Westergren went on to discuss the issue between spins and plays, whereas a play on a radio station is listened to by many, while a spin is a song listened to by one user. As such, says Westergren, it could take many spins to equal a single play, and such is the nature of contention between what Internet radio stations should have to pay in royalties.

The Petition to Deny was filed by ASCAP on July 25.

SOURCE: TechDirt

Pandora acquisition of radio station KXMZ challenged with FCC block request is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Headphones come in all shapes and sizes, yet offer more or less the same functionality. The folks behind Muzik aim to change this, announcing the soon-to-be-available smart headphones that allow users to natively share the song they’re listening to on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere. This is the first of what will be a line of different wearable technology devices, says the company’s vice chairman John Cawley.

Unfortunately, not much was revealed in the way of specifications, with the announcement instead focusing on what Muzik offers that is different over other headphones on the market: Social Smartware functionality. As such, the headphones are being touted as the first-ever that allow listeners to share what they’re listening to on social networks from the device itself.

The company hints that the sharing functionality expands beyond just Facebook and Twitter, saying that in addition to sharing on those two networks, the headphones also allow users to “send a song anywhere in the world.” Furthermore, the Muzik website speaks of an Android and iOS app that “learns” while users listen to music.

As far as actual design goes, the headphones are over-the-ear and feature capacitive touch controls. Neither pricing nor a release date for the headphones have been released, but the company promises that a pre-order announcement will be made “shortly.” As for the actual launch, the device will hit shelves some time in the fourth quarter of this year.

Muzik President and CEO Jason Hardi said: “While the music industry has seen its challenges, technological advances have also created a world of opportunity, which Muzik is seizing to create an entirely new category. Headphones will never again just be for listening to music or talking on the phone – our headphones will improve the way we socially discover, share, listen and experience music. In addition to music exploration, I look forward to working with the developer community to create amazing applications leveraging smart headphones.”

SOURCE: Newswire

Muzik smart headphones let audiophiles share on Facebook and Twitter is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Of all the things that I figured would go "smart" one day, I hadn’t expected that headphones would be next. But here we are and here are Muzik’s first set of "smart" headphones.

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You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

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Leap Motion launched its groundbreaking motion detection module on Monday, allowing anyone to connect a little box to their Mac or Windows computer that can detect gestures more precisely than Microsoft Kinect can, for a mere $80. Eventually, Leap Motion technology will be integrated into computers, so you won’t even need to buy a separate box in order to wave your hands in the air to select, control, create, and interact with music.

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