IT Happens : September 2004
Monthly News Notice of IT Happenings
Issue - 39

MP3 Special

Feature of the Month

MP3 Inventor Designs New 3D Audio System

Brandenburg, the inventor of MP3 has come up with a new technology that he says will revolutionize audio, creating super-realistic sound for theaters, theme parks and living rooms.

Iosono the new technology is described as true "three dimensional audio," which can give the impression that a noise occurring in a movie sounds exactly like someone shouting from outside the theater walls. 
"Iosono employs a ring of speakers around the listening space, immersing the listener in sound and providing life-like sound reproduction. The whole room becomes a sweet spot, while sounds cannot be identified as coming from individual speakers," according to Fraunhofer.

"By recreating sound waves along the array of speakers, Iosono can reproduce sound coming from any direction, even sounds moving though the listening space." Iosono's innovation is that it recreates natural sound waves using a technology called "Wave Field Synthesis."


Source : (www.newscientist.com)

Quote - IT

We have changed the industry ……
The industry needs to know how to harness the new digital mediums and opportunities. They need to explore the positives rather than the negatives.
- Karlheinz Brandenburg - 

Personality Of The Month

The entertainment industry has seen many standards and inventions but the emergence of the software music standard MP3 has turned the music world on its head. The man behind this success whose combined knowledge of maths, sound and electronics is Dr. Karlheinz Bradenburg the pioneer and co-inventor of MP3 at Frauenhofer Institute headed by Professor Dieter Seitzer.

Within Germany his invention got few headlines, but he got a big reception when he took the format to Silicon Valley in 1997. He demonstrated that he could reduce a WAV file to a fraction of its length without the listener knowing the difference.

Bradenburg has many tempting offers before him, including many professorships in the USA. However, he remains down to earth and modest and seems happy with his small world just outside Berlin.

He told the German press that everyday he logs on to the Internet and looks for new MP3 sites and people making use of the standard he helped bring about, ' This gives me the best feeling of all says' Bradenburg. 

IT Snippets 

A TREAT FOR MUSIC & JEWELLERY LOVERS

Korean MPIO announced a new small Pendant Music Player called MPIO Fl300.

This new gift for jewellery lovers facilitates them by playing 10 to 12 songs at a stretch.

The pendant features 3D sound and 6 pre-set equalizer settings. 
So wear the pendant while driving and entertain yourself with songs because it free's you of the tension of carrying a stereo along.

Source : (www.technologyreview.com)

PORTABLE MUSIC PLAYER “ BOOM “

MPIO calls the FG 100 the “BOOM”. The new portable music player features a classic Boom Box design. 

It supports USB 2.0 and a cool 43 hours playing time with just one AA battery. Besides that it features a 6 band equalizer, FM, and direct encoding. The specification page says it has a Optical In. That is a first for a portable music player to feature a optical In plug.

Because of its light weight and small size one can carry it along for picnics and other outings. 
With such a long hour of playing time it frees one of the tension of changing the CD. Infact it opens a new idea of 43 hour of party dance.

Source : (www.technologyreview.com)

Web Watch 

www.ACIDplanet.com 

ACIDplanet.com is the Internet's premier site for new music and unique artists. It's home to a growing online community of 100,000 exciting, individual digital musicians. 

At ACIDplanet.com you create and upload your own music for the world to hear. Or listen to music created by others. Enter contests where you remix music by major artists. You could even get discovered by label reps. It's all about the music here, all the time. 

You don't need ACID software, the industry's #1 loop-based music composition tool, to join in the activities at ACIDplanet.com—but it helps. ACID XPress, is the free ten-track mixing and composing application. Plenty of free content; new "loops" (sound samples optimized for use in ACID software) and complete ACID projects are available weekly on 8Packs page. 

The ACIDplanet web site is a forum for interacting with other musicians, to collaborate, to listen, to chat and get involved. Publish your song and watch it rise to the top of the charts. ACIDplanet.com is your record label and stage, at one convenient URL. 

IT Humour 

Q. What do you get when you play a new age song backwards?
A. A new age song.

Q. What happens if you sing country music backwards?
A. You get your job and your wife back. 

Q. How can you tell someone is a true music lover?
A. When they even put their ear up to the bathroom keyhole


IT Quiz 

  1. What is mp3PRO ?

  2. What is meant by MPEG-4 ?

IT Quiz Solutions

  1. mp3PRO is the next generation of MP3. It extends its capability to provide CD-quality stereo at 64kps (half the MP3 size) with full frequency bandwidth.mp3PRO players can play MP3 and mp3PRO content meaning you can still deploy only one codec and not loose compatibility. 

  2. MPEG-4 offers theatre quality audio-video right inside your home It is a combination of MPEG AAC (Advance Audio Coding) and SBR. (Spectral Band Replication) coding technologies This combination increases the efficiency of MPEG AAC by up to the factor of two. As a result it delivers streaming and download 5.1 surround at 128Kbps, CD-quality stereo at 48 kbps and excellent quality stereo at 32 kbps. This level of efficiency fundamentally enables new applications in the markets of mobile, Internet and digital broadcast