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Thom Yorke warns young artists that record labels are dying

Posted by Harshad

Thom Yorke warns young artists that record labels are dying


Thom Yorke warns young artists that record labels are dying

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 09:32 PM PDT

Thom Yorke warns young artists that record labels are dyingThom Yorke, the lead singer of Radiohead has warned young artists to stay away from the big record labels, as the recording industry (as we know it) is dying.

Yorke says talented artists should try to make it on their own without going to record labels for help as the industry is within years of completely dying.

Radiohead's frontman went as far as to say that when the industry dies it will be "no great loss to the world." Young artists should do their best to not "tie themselves to the sinking ship."

It may be "only a matter of time — months rather than years — before the music business establishment completely folds," adds Yorke.

Radiohead released 6 albums through major label EMI but decided to release their seventh album, "In Rainbows," as an Internet download with no specific price set. Allegedly, over 60 percent of downloaders did not pay anything for the album but the "experiment" still netted the band over $1 million, which did not have to be shared with the labels, who are known to take most of profit from CD sales.

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Sega making Dreamcast library available on PS3, Xbox 360

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 09:19 PM PDT

Sega making Dreamcast library available on PS3, Xbox 360Sega has announced its plans today to bring popular Dreamcast titles to the PlayStation Network (PSN) and the Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) this year.

The publisher says the first two games are the wildly popular Crazy Taxi and Sonic Adventure, with fall launch dates.

Says Haruki Satomi, vice president of digital business at Sega: "The Dreamcast is fondly remembered by a large community of dedicated fans as a console that was ahead of its time in terms of graphics, quality and online gaming. There are few things that are more requested from us than making Dreamcast classics available for download in today's digital market place. We're very excited to begin offering gamers our beloved Dreamcast titles again on the current console systems."

The Dreamcast launched on 9/9/99 and was the first console to ever offer online gameplay. Of course, trying to do anything online using a 56k modem is brutal, so the timing was off.

All the Dreamcast re-releases will include high-resolution graphics, 5.1 audio, and achievements and trophies.

Sega has 650 Dreamcast games to choose from.

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Sony to drop price of PS3 to $200?

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 08:51 PM PDT

Sony to drop price of PS3 to $200?While they have since changed it, earlier in the day Sony posted in their new Sony Style 3D site that the PlayStation 3 is available "starting at $199.99."

When clicking through, there was no links to PS3s available at that price point, but Maxconsole agrees that the error is pretty large for such an important website.

Speculatively, Max says Sony could be preparing a new PS3 model, similar to the Xbox 360 Arcade, that will strip some features (like the larger HDD) and sell for $199.

The move could make sense for Sony, which is seeing strong momentum in console sales against rivals Microsoft and Nintendo but still sells their console for $100 more than the Arcade model and the Wii. That being said, it is hard to see how Sony could strip anything from the console except for lowering the HDD size, which would not save very much money for the company at all.

Check the pics here via the source (the site has since corrected the "error"):

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Motorola says Droid sales are still very strong

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 10:36 AM PDT

Motorola says Droid sales are still very strongMotorola co-Chief Executive Sanjay Jha has said today that demand for the Droid smartphone are still "extremely" strong, despite strong sales of rival HTC Droid Incredible, which also sells through carrier Verizon.

Jha also notes that Motorola is suffering from supply constraints, just as HTC has said they are for the Incredible and the EVO 4G, which sells via Sprint.

The main supply issues are due to a shortage of screens from Samsung.

Says Jha: "(Droid) sales are going extremely well. If I could build more I'd sell more."

Looking to the future, Jha said four Motorola phones with 2010 release dates would have front-facing cameras used for video conferencing.

The EVO 4G and the iPhone 4 were the first phones with the ability for conferencing.

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O2 to end unlimited data plans for iPhone customers, as well

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 10:07 AM PDT

O2 to end unlimited data plans for iPhone customers, as wellJust like AT&T is doing in the United States, O2 has announced it will be ending its unlimited data plans before the launch of the Apple iPhone 4, as well.

O2 says that 97 percent of users will not "notice the difference" and will actually save money. The carrier also says that there are really only 2000 or so subscribers on their network that use "extraordinarily" high amounts of bandwidth every month.

Going even further, O2 says 1 percent of its smartphone users use a whopping 36 percent of all mobile data traffic, and that those users are mainly iPhone owners.

Instead of unlimited, users can now buy 500MB, 750MB or 1GB data packages, each of which includes unlimited Wi-Fi time via The Cloud and BT's OpenZone services.

Just like with AT&T, anybody currently with an iPhone contract can still use unlimited bandwidth until the end of their contract but new users will not be as lucky.

Anybody afraid of going over the bandwidth they purchase can check their data consumption on the O2 site.

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Palm settles shareholder lawsuit over HP merger

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 09:43 AM PDT

Palm settles shareholder lawsuit over HP mergerIn late April, HP announced it was purchasing the struggling smartphone maker Palm for $1.2 billion, after at least four other companies gave serious bids.

Palm had put itself up for sale in March after it became clear that the company's phones were not selling and it only had enough cash to last the next 12 months.

At the time, the smartphone maker reached out to 16 different companies and five gave serious offers. Only HP and Lenovo were named as potential buyers, while two other companies wanted to license Palm's patents, including the mobile operating system WebOS.

After Palm accepted HP's bid, which gave shareholders $5.70 a share, angry stock owners brought a class action lawsuit against the smartphone builder, arguing that they did not get the best deal. That suit has been settled today.

Palm would not disclose the financials of the settlement except to say that "it will not affect the amount of the merger consideration that Palm stockholders are entitled to receive in the merger."

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iPhone 4 headed to T-Mobile, says analyst

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 09:30 AM PDT

iPhone 4 headed to T-Mobile, says analystAccording to a note from Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu, who closely follows Apple, the iPhone 4 should be headed to another network this coming fall, with T-Mobile the likely candidate.

Wu cites weekly check-ins with Apple suppliers, and concludes that AT&T will be the exclusive carrier for only nine more months, at the very most.

T-Mobile is the front runner simply because its GSM technology is similar to AT&Ts whereas Sprint and Verizon use CDMA variants.

Wu also notes that T-Mobile sees the iPhone as a way to win back customers it has lost to AT&T so they are more likely to settle for Apple's terms, which usually includes a share of revenue.

Peter Dobrow of T-Mobile USA responded to the rumor: "T-Mobile does not comment on rumor or speculation...Would we like to offer the iPhone to T-Mobile customers in the U.S.? You bet. Ultimately though it is Apple's decision on who carries its product."

Regardless, Wu says Apple is finally feeling the squeeze brought forth by Android OS device sales, which have been picking up speed at a rapid pace and needs to open up its own market.

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AT&T accidentally leaks emails for 114,000 iPad owners

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 09:09 AM PDT

AT&T accidentally leaks emails for 114,000 iPad ownersAT&T has confirmed today that 114,067 iPad 3G owners have had their email information leaked to the Web, with the data being stolen by a group calling themselves Goatse Security.

The group published the emails, which included prominent politicians, celebrities and even military officials.

AT&T says that only email addresses were leaked, however, with any sensitive data like credit card numbers not being compromised.

Reads the AT&T press release: "AT&T was informed by a business customer on Monday of the potential exposure of their iPad ICC IDS. The only information that can be derived from the ICC IDS is the e-mail address attached to that device. This issue was escalated to the highest levels of the company and was corrected by Tuesday; and we have essentially turned off the feature that provided the e-mail addresses. The person or group who discovered this gap did not contact AT&T. We are continuing to investigate and will inform all customers whose e-mail addresses and ICC IDS may have been obtained. We take customer privacy very seriously and while we have fixed this problem, we apologize to our customers who were impacted."

A few of the most notable emails breached, says Gawker are New York Times Co. CEO Janet Robinson, Diane Sawyer of ABC News, film mogul Harvey Weinstein, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Goatse Security stole the data through a script on AT&T's website. All they needed to do was insert an ICC-ID as part of the HTTP request and the script returned the email address associated with that device.

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AfterDawn's 11th birthday

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 08:48 AM PDT

AfterDawn's 11th birthdayHere writing my annual AfterDawn birthday post - and I'm feeling old. Can't believe it was eleven years ago we launched this site/obsession/hobby of ours, AfterDawn.com.. Wow. Anyway, today is our site's 11th birthday -- in an online world, that equals to something like 75,000 years in "real world" time. You know, 11 years ago, the dominant search engine was still Alta Vista and "social media" meant something like "going to a movie theater with your friends" :-) Times change..

Anyway, another year has passed and lots of things have changed. First and foremost, we finally launched a new version of our site back in March. The new design is accompanied with a completely new, language-independent backend. That has helped us with our localization projects and during the past 6 months, we have launched Spanish, Norwegian and Dutch beta versions of our site.

Despite the fact that AfterDawn has been around since the last millennium, our intention is to continue to improve our site's content and technology. We expect to launch several new language versions of our site during the next year or so, and also plan to go our site's sections through, one by one, trying to find ways on how to improve each section's usability.

Keeping traditions alive, I'd like to thank my fellow admins, our excellent staff, our moderators -- and you, our users, who have helped us to make this site something unique, something great, and something that I am personnally proud of. Thank you.

-Petteri Pyyny
AfterDawn.com

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3D gaming for the PS3 coming tomorrow

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 08:39 AM PDT

3D gaming for the PS3 coming tomorrowSony has announced today that 3D games will be available for the PlayStation 3 starting tomorrow. Anybody with the latest firmware will have the ability to play them, but you will need a 3D-capable HDTV, as well, and stereoscopic glasses.

At the same time, the company announced its first line of 3D-capable BRAVIA HDTVs, each of which will come bundled with a pack of 3D games.

The first four games available are Wipeout HD 3D, Super Stardust HD 3D, PAIN 3D and MotorStorm Pacific Rift 3D.

MotorStorm is just a demo, and for PAIN "the stereoscopic 3D content will include the Downtown area and tutorial along with three modes, including two new modes created specifically with stereoscopic 3D in mind, Alien Toss and Ice Breaker."

The other two are full games.

Finally, Sony introduced "The Fight: Lights Out" in stereoscopic 3D, which will use the upcoming PlayStation Move motion control system.

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