Mark Fleischmann

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Ears On
BART Teams Up with iPod
Mark Fleischmann  |  May 16, 2006
Are you about to bring your iPod to San Francisco, Oakland, or the Bay Area? Then don't forget to download Bay Area Rapid Transit information before you leave home. In addition to the BART system map, you'll also get schedules, station information, and email warnings whenever the system changes. The map will work only on iPods with color displays and iTunes 4.7 or later. For skeds and stations you'll need a display (color or B&W) plus the Notes feature. BART also offers a PDA QuickPlanner for the Palm OS and Pocket PC and a Wireless QuickPlanner for web-enabled mobile devices. For other cities, check out isubwaymaps.com (formerly ipodsubwaymaps.com before Apple's lawyers sent a nastygram). The enthusiast-fueled site has maps of Berlin, Bilbao, Boston, Chicago, Hong Kong, London, LA, Lyon, Melbourne, Milan, Montreal, NYC, Paris, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, Toronto, Vancouver, and Washington DC. Paypal donations appreciated but not compulsory.
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Music Reviews
Bartók—The Miraculous Mandarin, Dance Suite, Hungarian Pictures—Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, Marin Alsop (Naxos) [DVD-Audio, SACD/CD, CD]
Mark Fleischmann  |  Aug 26, 2005
Imagine the score for a 33-minute film noir with nonstop action. That's Béla Bartók's The Miraculous Mandarin in a nutshell, although it's actually a one-act dance suite. The story concerns three thugs who use a young woman as bait to rob a series of victims, culminating in the Mandarin. They murder him—but not before he consummates his passion for the girl. The plot had enough sex and violence to get it banned immediately upon its 1926 debut in Köln, Germany.
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Ears On
Battle of the Batteries
Mark Fleischmann  |  Feb 27, 2006
Digital camera pooping out on you? Duracell says its new PowerPix can power twice as many pictures as an ordinary alkaline battery. The PowerPix uses a new NiOx technology—that's nickel-oxy-hydroxide for those of you majoring in chemistry. Meanwhile, Panasonic makes the same claim for its new Oxyride batteries, compared to its own Alkaline Plus, adding that a new version will deliver three times as many pictures around the time the swallows return to Capistrano. Finally, Energizer says its e2 Lithium lasts seven times as long as competing alkalines and that e2s have replaced all the alkaline batteries aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. Any of them should keep your remotes under control for years.
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Audio Video News
BB to Offer Same-Day Streaming
Mark Fleischmann  |  May 25, 2010
Best Buy's newly acquired CinemaNow will stream movies on the same date as their DVD release.
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Ears On
BBC Goes Online
Mark Fleischmann  |  May 30, 2007
The British Broadcasting Corporation has been busy lately. Its iPlayer is about to relaunch following a beta test. It will enable viewers to download single episodes or entire series a month after airing. In other BBC news, an archival project will put a million hours of historic material online for free, according to the Guardian. In this case there's a catch. You'll have to pay the annual BBC license fee to access it. The archives include an interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, conducted two days before the shooting, in which they candidly discuss the impact of their relationship on the Beatles. There's also an interview with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., conducted the day before his death, in which he says: "The important thing isn't how long you live, but how well you live."
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Audio Video News
BBC Radio 3 Goes HD Online
Mark Fleischmann  |  Dec 17, 2010
Of course the BBC is Britain's version of public radio. Its Radio 3 channel is strong in classical, jazz, world music, new music, and spoken-word drama.

According to Andrew Clements of The Guardian, "toggling between the HD service and the usual Radio 3 website broadcasts revealed greater definition and the more spacious, warmer sound of the new format. There was far more bloom on the tone of the instruments in the Brahms horn trio, and a real depth to the orchestral 'picture' for the Tchaikovsky, all of which really did seem comparable to Radio 3 FM, though still worlds away from what CDs or old-fashioned vinyl LPs can offer." Since we don't have access to Radio 3's FM or HD signals, we'll take his word for it.

A BBC press release says: "Initially, the stream will only be available for live programmes (not on demand) for UK listeners only." BOO! "It will be available through pages on radio networks' websites and special event sites, although the ambition is to integrate HD Sound into iPlayer and Radioplayer as the technology develops."

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Audio Video News
BD Managed Copy Slowly Emerging
Mark Fleischmann  |  Nov 18, 2009
There's good news and bad news about Managed Copy for Blu-ray. The good news is that as of December 4, 2009, the ability to back up programming will be encoded into all disc releases. The bad news is that players taking advantage of the feature have yet to see the light of day.
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Audio Video News
BDA: HD Claims Misleading
Mark Fleischmann  |  Sep 02, 2008
Full HD, a.k.a. 1080p, is every videophile's highest ideal. That's probably why satellite operators and so many others claim to supply it. But these claims are "irresponsible" and "misleading," says the Blu-ray Disc Association.
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Audio Video News
Be Afraid, Very Afraid of the Internet of Things
Mark Fleischmann  |  May 31, 2016
What hackers can do to your computer, they can do to any connected device. They can kill your lighting system by turning it on and off 10 times per second, unlock and start your car, access your baby monitor, even tamper with the drug-infusion pump next to your hospital bed. But it would take some pretty slick moves for a hacker to find these devices on the Internet, right?
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Audio Video News
Beatles Catalogue to Be Released on USB Stick
Mark Fleischmann  |  Nov 06, 2009
The recently remastered Beatles catalogue is about to be issued in the form of a USB stick. Interestingly, this first non-CD digital release will include FLAC files at 24 bits (a big improvement over 16-bit CDs) and 44.1 khz (same as CD). MP3 files at 320 kbps will also be included on the 16GB apple-shaped USB stick.
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