Nothing ever seems to stand still in the world of technology.
This week has witnessed a death of something many have used to for many, many years - the cassette. The NY Times reports on the demise:
"There was a funeral the other day in the Midtown offices of Hachette, the book publisher, to mourn the passing of what it called a “dear friend.” Nobody had actually died, except for a piece of technology, the cassette tape.
Hachette’s audio department recently held a “funeral” for cassette tapes; an invitation is above.
While the cassette was dumped long ago by the music industry, it has lived on among publishers of audio books. Many people prefer cassettes because they make it easy to pick up in the same place where the listener left off, or to rewind in case a certain sentence is missed. For Hachette, however, demand had slowed so much that it released its last book on cassette in June, with “Sail,” a novel by James Patterson and Howard Roughan.
The funeral at Hachette — an office party in the audio-book department — mirrored the broader demise of cassettes, which gave vinyl a run for its money before being eclipsed by the compact disc. (The CD, too, is in rapid decline, thanks to Internet music stores, but that is a different story.)"
Meanwhile, capturing the latest technology is a newspaper direct to your mobile / cell phone, as the IHT reports:
"The thud of the morning newspaper landing on the front porch may one day be replaced with the beep of download onto a cellphone.
Verve Wireless believes it can save the dying local newspaper in the United States by making it mobile. It offers publishers the technology to create Web sites for cellphones. The company, based in Encinitas, California, already provides mobile versions of 4,000 newspapers from 140 publishers, including Freedom Communications, McClatchy and The New York Times's Regional Media Group.
The Associated Press, its biggest customer, is betting that Verve has the solution to the nagging problem of dwindling print readership. It led a $3 million round of financing in Verve, a rare investment for the news organization.
People are increasingly using their phones to surf the Web. Of the 95 million mobile Internet subscribers in the United States, 40 million actively use their phones to go online, twice the number of two years ago, according to Nielsen Mobile. After portal sites and e-mail services, newspaper content - weather, news, politics, city guides, sports and entertainment - is most popular among mobile users."
This week has witnessed a death of something many have used to for many, many years - the cassette. The NY Times reports on the demise:
"There was a funeral the other day in the Midtown offices of Hachette, the book publisher, to mourn the passing of what it called a “dear friend.” Nobody had actually died, except for a piece of technology, the cassette tape.
Hachette’s audio department recently held a “funeral” for cassette tapes; an invitation is above.
While the cassette was dumped long ago by the music industry, it has lived on among publishers of audio books. Many people prefer cassettes because they make it easy to pick up in the same place where the listener left off, or to rewind in case a certain sentence is missed. For Hachette, however, demand had slowed so much that it released its last book on cassette in June, with “Sail,” a novel by James Patterson and Howard Roughan.
The funeral at Hachette — an office party in the audio-book department — mirrored the broader demise of cassettes, which gave vinyl a run for its money before being eclipsed by the compact disc. (The CD, too, is in rapid decline, thanks to Internet music stores, but that is a different story.)"
Meanwhile, capturing the latest technology is a newspaper direct to your mobile / cell phone, as the IHT reports:
"The thud of the morning newspaper landing on the front porch may one day be replaced with the beep of download onto a cellphone.
Verve Wireless believes it can save the dying local newspaper in the United States by making it mobile. It offers publishers the technology to create Web sites for cellphones. The company, based in Encinitas, California, already provides mobile versions of 4,000 newspapers from 140 publishers, including Freedom Communications, McClatchy and The New York Times's Regional Media Group.
The Associated Press, its biggest customer, is betting that Verve has the solution to the nagging problem of dwindling print readership. It led a $3 million round of financing in Verve, a rare investment for the news organization.
People are increasingly using their phones to surf the Web. Of the 95 million mobile Internet subscribers in the United States, 40 million actively use their phones to go online, twice the number of two years ago, according to Nielsen Mobile. After portal sites and e-mail services, newspaper content - weather, news, politics, city guides, sports and entertainment - is most popular among mobile users."
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