mp3

LAS VEGAS--As the people's representative at CES, I wander around in search of the real, the understandable, the verifiably human.

It's harder than you think when so many people here still believe--despite all the evidence known as Apple--that specs sell.

So when I saw the name "Speedo" on a booth, I felt naturally excited. Having grown up in that Europe place, I have some small understanding of why European men so enjoy wearing briefs to practice their butterfly.

It's about both sex and confidence. Europeans are generally more comfortable with exhibiting their bodily wares. Their … Read more

Music buyers may be able to sell their used CDs and vinyl albums, but they're not allowed to sell or distribute used digital tracks and albums in the same way, EMI said in a copyright complaint filed today in New York.

EMI, one of the four largest recorded-music companies, is accusing ReDigi, the startup that enables music owners to sell their unwanted and used MP3s, of numerous counts of copyright infringement, CNET has learned. The suit doesn't come as a surprise.

ReDigi calls itself "the world's first online marketplace for used digital music," and the … Read more

Continuing this week's unofficial deals-under-$10 theme, let's talk cheap tunes.

For a limited time, Amazon is offering 129 one-hit wonder MP3s for 69 cents each. (That's the promotion's landing page. If you want to see the choices in list form, click here.)

You've probably heard most, if not all, of these songs on the radio, which is still the place where one-hit wonders are born. And maybe you even bought an entire album just to get one song--only to be disappointed by the rest of the tunes.

Heck, maybe you've long harbored a … Read more

Were you lucky enough to receive a new Mac laptop or desktop this holiday season?

Once you've booted up that shiny new Mac for the first time and have had a chance to look around, check out our Best apps for Mac to get the lowdown on great apps you can download. We feature both free and paid software in our collection and there's something from just about every category.

Whether you want a different browser than Safari, want to discover and listen to new music, or just need a multiservice chat client, this collection has got you … Read more

While iPods and iPhones can have fairly large storage capacities, people's music libraries often are vastly larger, resulting in them having to select a subset of their music to bring with them on the go.

To address this problem, Apple includes an option in iTunes to convert songs from higher qualities to lower ones at around 128Kbps sampling rates when being transferred to an iPod or iPhone. This saves on space, especially in environments where the higher quality in less compressed files is not needed.

While this process should save space, some people are finding that iTunes' size calculation … Read more

Cloud, schmoud. I like my music the old-fashioned way: in MP3 format, stored on my hard drive and/or smartphone. Especially when it's free.

Today I've rounded up four great audio freebies, including some Christmas music, a best-of-2011 collection, and even a Sherlock Holmes collection. Take a look:

Audible, one of my favorite sources for spoken-word audio, is offering The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, unabridged, for free. (Okay, technically this isn't an MP3, but still.) This nine-hour collection includes 12 of Holmes' "most famous cases." You do need an Audible account to get this (and … Read more

An AirPort Express will let you listen to iTunes over your home stereo speakers. Airfoil is an application that takes that simple functionality and turns it up to 11. The iTunes-AirPort Express combo is perfect for listening to iTunes on your nice stereo, but what if you want to hear music from a browser-based app like Pandora? Or Sirius Radio through an app like StarPlayr? Or work with audio from your Elgato EyeTV? Airfoil lets you send audio from any application (even your system audio) to your AirPort Express, so you can use your stereo for anything from RealPlayer and … Read more

Any audiophile would appreciate a portable Bluetooth speaker this holiday, but electrician-turned-artist Devin Ward has a more sustainable solution: he guts vintage clock radios and recycles them into desktop speakers for your laptop, smartphone, and tablet computer.

You probably have a similar tube radio lying around the house, but Devon does the work for you and rewires the internal circuitry, replaces faulty electronics, and even adds a 1/8-inch audio jack that lets you play music out of any device with a standard headphone minijack.

You're left with a speaker that probably won't sound as clear as the Bose SoundLink, but definitely looks better on a shelf and has the added benefit of an AM/FM radio.

According to Core77, Devon admits that the receiver may pick up some fuzzy static from electromagnetic interference, but if you're willing to deal with that and a $200-plus price tag, you may have just found the perfect holiday gift.

Check out Devin's Etsy store to buy, or click through the jump for more photos.… Read more

You almost can't go wrong giving the gift of music, so take a look at our top audio picks in this year's Holiday Gift Guide.

My opinion is that one can never have too many headphones since each model offers a different sound profile, but check out these alternatives for the audiophile on your gift list.

A good place to start is obviously a portable music player like the versatile Apple iPod Touch, but I also love the Logitech Wireless Boombox for iPad.

It lets you stream music from any device with a Bluetooth connection (most current smartphones, … Read more