Posts by bzemsky bzemsky
July 6, 2005, 08:32 AM ET
Dell, Napster Combine Forces to Sell Music Sharing
Buy a server, get built-in song downloading. Those are the terms of a new deal offered to colleges by Dell, the PC manufacturer, and Napster, the legal music-sharing service. The companies announced the offer this morning.
This fall, when Dell sells servers to colleges looking to bolster their networks, the company will also sell subscriptions to Napster, arguing that the service helps colleges reduce piracy and cut down on Internet traffic. The servers will come with software, designed by Napster programmers, that locally caches tunes so students will be able to download them without clogging campus Internet connections.
The University of Washington at Seattle will be the first institution to try the service: This fall Dell will install 10 servers, each outfitted with Napster’s caching software, to help the university manage its first experiment with a legal downloading service.
... Read MoreJuly 1, 2005, 06:00 AM ET
Beep Beep
Forget those tedious piano lessons that your mother made you suffer through as a child. Researchers at the University of Southern California have developed a computerized system that allows the user to play music using a steering wheel and gas and brake pedals. Essentially, the researchers say, the user "drives" his or her way through the music with the system, known as the Expression Synthesis Project. The device permits people to experience playing music without having to first master an instrument, the researchers say. The system is programmed to guide the user through Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No. 5 in G minor. (The Chronicle, subscription required)
Read MoreApril 29, 2005, 08:19 AM ET
Surveillance of Library Records
The head of a subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives said on Thursday that he supported renewing a provision of the USA Patriot Act of 2001 that would allow law-enforcement officials to demand the records of patrons of college and other libraries. (The Chronicle, subscription required)
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Each day on Wired Campus, The Chronicle's technology reporters highlight key IT developments and put them in perspective.