Archive for November 10th, 2008

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Who doesn’t care about music ?

November 10, 2008

Through a volontary alarming (and misleading) title, Piratage – Apple se fout de la musique, TF1/LCI deals in fact with many subjects, by interviewing the president of french SACEM : new anti-pirating law, interoperability and DRMs, iTunes Music Store, use of music by phone carriers and internet providers as an appealing product, and finally Deezer. The SACEM admitted some facts : the ITMS is the only music vendor site that works and generates money back to companies and artists, whereas Deezer provides thousands of time less incomes than classical radios, and tends to lower the value of music and artistic work (there is however to note that in the meantime the SACEM made agreements with Deezer).
[iTunes], c’est le seul support qui fonctionne, qui rapporte un peu d’argent.
Avec Deezer, on est à sept millièmes d’euros au titre écouté par un internaute. Il faudrait donc qu’un titre ait été écouté des dizaines de milliers de fois pour rapporter quelques euros qui se partagent entre l’éditeur, les compositeurs et les auteurs. A force de vouloir concurrencer la gratuité, le piratage, on arrive à une dévalorisation de la musique.

And what about the radio economic model used by Deezer : La comparaison avec la radio est limitée. Pour gagner avec Deezer l’équivalent sur de ce que rapporte un passage sur RTL, il faudrait q’une chanson soit écoutée des centaines de milliers de fois…

I added some of my thoughts in the full original article (in french).

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Wings : zen flight simulator for iPhone

November 10, 2008

Wings is an iPhone application that allows to fly among four 3D environments (seasons). It isn’t a true realistic flight simulation like X-Plane, and is only intended to provide zen experience (musics are provided). It is priced 1,99$ and the landscapes seem well done and various. The control (direction) uses the accelerometer, like X-Plane.

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Virtual Ocarina for iPhone : breath controller

November 10, 2008

Smule presents Ocarina, a virtual instrument for iPhone that takes back the breath controller principle, this time using the included devices’s mic. The virtual instrument openings are easily covered by fingers (but be aware not to drop the iPhone), and vibrato (intensity and frequency) is managed by tilting the device. We can also modify the scale (diatonic, minor and harmonic). Finally a globe allows to discover and listen to other iPhone Ocarina players, and rate their performance. Some listed sites provides quick tutorials.
We can watch videos, and the software is priced 0,99$ at the AppStore.