Cool Tech Reviews

Eric Bangeman at Ars Technica:

Over the past few years, we have watched Apple climb the music sales chart courtesy of the iTunes. Last month we learned that Apple passed Best Buy to become the number two retailer in the the US in December. Now, Apple has ascended to the top of the charts, surpassing Wal-Mart for the first time ever, according to an NPD MusicWatch Survey for the month January contained in an internal Apple e-mail which was leaked to Ars Technica but has not been officially published.

Yet another industry where the Internet is putting traditional means of distribution in the shade. The CD music business isn’t over yet, but the handwriting is on the wall. Also of interest in the NPD numbers - Amazon’s music sales seem to be struggling despite their brand new (and highly touted) online MP3 store.

Downloads free of annoying Digital Rights Management (DRM) shackles seem to be popping up all over and now classical music buffs can join the party:

Classical music lovers like myself are finally getting some respect in the digital world. One of the oldest companies in the music business, Deutsche Grammaphon, now a division of Universal Music Group, announced it was making a catalog of 2,400 classical albums, including 600 that are out of print, available for high-quality, DRM-free download from the DG Web Shop starting Nov. 28.

The link isn’t live yet, but the format will be a near-CD 320 kilobits per second MP3 and the price is very reasonable:

(more…)

Back in May, Amazon announced an online music store selling DRM-free MP3s and today they launched a beta version:

(more…)