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Apple CEO Steve Jobs dies at 56
Apple’s former CEO and co-founder Steven Paul “Steve” Jobs passed away today after his long battle with pancreatic cancer, leaving behind his wife Laurene and four children.
If not for Steve Jobs, it is unlikely that Apple could have become the industry giant it is today. Apple has come a long way with the brilliance and creativity of Steve; pioneering the personal computer industry, touch-controlled cellphones, and many other successful products.
Having just resigned on August 24th 2011, the 56 year old was recognized by many as a visionary and marketing genius. His passing is certainly a tremendous loss for the technology industry and he will be greatly missed.
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White House rickrolls citizens
Today the White House Twitter account decided it was time for a classic internet meme. The many who may think the White House is full of bureaucrats who can’t take a joke might want to reconsider. Earlier today, this was tweeted from the White House Twitter account “@wiggsd Sorry to hear that. Fiscal policy is important, but can be dry sometimes. Here’s something more fun: tinyurl.com/y8ufsnp #WHChat” in response to a complaint about the lack of entertainment found in Obama’s recent briefings.
The link leads to a Youtube video of Rick Astley’s famous “Never Gonna Give You Up”. Entertainment achieved.
Google Music Beta limited release
Recently we were sent an invite to test drive Google’s new Music Beta service. As more cloud music services are appearing, you can be sure there will be lots of competition for Amazon and Google’s respective services in days to come. Cloud music services allow users to access their personal music library across computers, cellphones, tablets, etc. Needless to say, we were quite excited to be invited to the beta of the Google Music service.
As I proceeded to upload music from my music library via their Music Manager application, I noticed I was able to upload FLAC files (alongside the typical MP3, AAC, and WMA formats). Impressed by this feature, I decided it was best to figure out if the service could actually play FLAC files before I went and knocked on all my neighbours’ doors to tell them the great news (maybe that’s not a great idea after all…). As I suspected, there was a catch. Yes, the Music Manager application supports FLAC…but all FLAC files are transcoded to 320 kbps MP3 prior to upload. While this was quite disappointing, we have to give Google props for allowing their users to upload FLAC (kinda…) files without having to transcode them to MP3 files themselves. Then again, as the service is only in their beta release, we can expect possible improvements when everything is finalized.
The Music Manager application used for uploading your music
The Google Music Beta service
