Music + Tech Round-Up – Feb 7 2014
MUSIC AND TECH ROUND-UP
Friday’s come back around again and it’s almost time to go home. Not quite though. It’s been an interesting week in the Music + Tech industry. Check out the best of this week’s news below:
Google Gets Caught Out At Midem
Google was heckled at Midem for not taking YouTube MP3 converters out of search results and therefore making it easy for a pirate to download music. The tech giant was asked “Why is it so easy to steal from you?” Their VP of YouTube content, Tom Pickett struggled to answer the questions as his excuses were exposed by other audience members.
Meanwhile, Google also announced they made a change to push YouTube videos to the top of new music search results.
Music Inc. – An Insight To The Industry
UK Music and the Intellectual Property Office have collaborated to launch a game that gives players an insight into the ‘challenges encountered by artists in the digital age’. We downloaded the game to see what it’s like and it’s pretty cool. You sign an artist, send them to the studio, plug radio stations, tour, improve PR and even take time out. Not to brag but we managed to score a number 1 hit on the game!
Integrations For The Home Heat Up
It was announced via twitter that both Beats Music and Rdio are already working on integrations for Chromecast. Spotify commented that it is not a priority for them.
Beats Music impressed us by having a Sonos integration ready for day of launch even though a Google Play integration still doesn’t exist for Sonos. This year will be important for music services integrating for devices in the home. It will be exciting to see these offerings racing to the task and to see where they go – and don’t go.
Could Bugs Solve World Hunger?
Scientists have come up with the idea to mush up bugs into a paste and 3D print them into the more appealing form of a sweet. This method of getting protein would be a lot cheaper and more efficient than cattle farming and is being posed as the solution to world hunger.
What do you think? Would you eat bugs if they looked more appealing?
Ditch The Textbooks, Grab A Tablet
In case our numerous Twitter accounts hadn’t hinted to you already, we love social media at 7digital. Social media has become essential for businesses in this digital age, but what about schools? A teacher in Norway has got her class engaged with their education using the power of social media to create a ‘digitally rich’ environment. Instead of a textbook, each student has a tablet which they use to post their work on their own blog where other students and teachers can comment. They also have a group on Facebook where the whole class can post, cleverly avoiding the issue of the students adding the teacher as a friend.
It seems to be working in Norway, but could this ever work in other countries? Should our students trade in their brick-like textbooks for a tablet, or do kids already spend too much time on social media?
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