Hasta La Gadget!

Though music usually comes from people’s voices or people thumping something on another thing or people wisping their fingers across strings, Japanese artist Daito Manabe found a new form for a musical instrument: the human face. Yep, facial songs. More »

Rumors were circulating earlier this week that Amazon was set to launch a new service called AutoRip. According to those rumors, the service would provide users with digital versions of tracks on physical CD albums that they purchase and no additional cost. The rumors even went so far as to claim Amazon would be making the service retroactive covering any CD that consumers have ever purchased via Amazon.com.

Honestly, the rumor was a bit hard to believe but Amazon has now officially confirmed the service. Even more impressive than buying a CD today and getting free digital versions of the tracks that you can access on your smartphone or tablet is that the service is in fact retroactive. Amazon will give you digital versions of songs on CDs you purchased via Amazon.com as far back as 1998.

At launch, the AutoRip service is offered for over 50,000 albums on Amazon.com with more on the way. Albums available cover everything from new releases to back catalog albums. Amazon’s new service is made possible with deals with major record labels and music publishers. Deals are in place with EMI, Sony, and Warner as well as hundreds of independent music labels. The service is automatically enabled for any music you purchase and is downloadable via the Amazon Cloud Player at no cost.

[via TechCrunch]

Slacker Radio hasn’t done too much the past few years. While they’ve definitely been spreading their service to different devices and platforms, like the Roku streaming media player, and just recently Chrysler’s UConnect at CES 2013, the service hasn’t been making waves like its competitors, Spotify, Pandora, Rdio, etc. However, we’ve been told that Slacker Radio will be holding an event sometime in the near future to reveal a complete overhaul of the service.

A PR representative for Slacker told us that the company will launch a major overhaul of the radio service in order to better compete with Spotify and other popular music-streaming services. We’re not told about any specifics, so exactly what they’ll be bringing to the new service is still a mystery.

However, the service will see a refocusing of its efforts, and the redesign and restructuring will be completely different than what the service is currently all about. It’s supposed to be a pretty major event for the company, and we’ve been hinted that there may be some famous musicians making an appearance at the event, but no details regarding special guests have been confirmed yet.

In any case, we hope to learn more info fairly shortly when the company reveals the new service. They already have a Premium service available, which is fairly similar to Spotify already, so we’re curious as to how the company will redesign the platform, and what new features they’ll bring to the table.

Slacker Radio planning major overhaul is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week the folks at Beats Electronics have announced Ian Rogers as CEO of a brand new stand-along music service-based company that’ll operate under the Beats Electronics umbrella. This move has the Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine founded company pushing forward with this separate sect that’ll be joined by music industry veterans Luke Wood and Trent Reznor as well as music company Topspin. Breaking this all down into its simplest terms: there’s about to be a new Beats-related music entity in the market that sells digital music.

If the world is ready for another music sale service, this may very well be it – the Beats group have invested in Topspin, a group that makes music sales possible for the artists themselves. Artists use Topspin to sell music from their own website as well as through a variety of social media networks, making it a slightly more “universal” model for those who want to purchase music. Though not a whole lot of details have been revealed at the moment (as evidenced by the name “Project”), it could be a winner with such name-ties as Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails fame).

As Iovine notes, “what’s missing from the digital music landscape is a cultural context. We need to bring an emotional connection back to the act of music discovery. With Trent and now Ian we have the right team in place to do it.” Trent Reznor has been known for making his own music available in a variety of unique ways, being very vocally dissatisfied with the connections available to him as a giant artist to the fans of his music.

Here with Project Daisy and the additional brand recognition power of the entity known as Beats, a change may be made. As Rogers notes, “this is the opportunity I’ve been working toward my entire career.” Stick around here at SlashGear for more details as they flow inward – what do you think this team of music magicians will be able to accomplish? We shall see!

Beats Project Daisy pulls off as stand-alone music service is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Sources are claiming that online giant Amazon and is set to launch a new effort called auto rip. People in the music industry have lamented for years the demise of the CD because there is more profit in people purchasing entire CD albums than individual digital tracks. Sources are claiming that Amazon is set to launch auto rip to help lure consumers back to purchasing physical CDs.

According to the sources, auto rip will automatically add songs to an Amazon user’s digital locker at no additional cost when they purchase a complete CD. The sources claim that Amazon might even offer the auto rip service for CDs the consumers purchased in the past. What this means is that users will be able to buy a physical CD to listen to in the car or in their home stereo and get free digital tracks that they can use on digital devices such as smartphones and tablets automatically.

According to the sources, once the digital tracks are in a users Amazon cloud locker, they would be able to access the music from any Web-enabled device. While the feature is being referred to internally as auto rip according to the sources, the final name for the service may be different. Offering digital tracks from CDs people purchased in the past seems like a tall order.

I can only imagine with the number of years Amazon has been around that the company has sold a massive amount of CDs. If the sources are correct about Amazon’s plans for auto rip, the service sounds quite a bit like what movie studios are trying to do with UltraViolet. Many Blu-rays and DVDs automatically come with a digital version that can be accessed online.

[via CNET]

Amazon auto rip tipped by sources is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.