MIT engineers have developed a paper-thin loudspeaker that can turn any surface into an active audio source. MIT News reports: This thin-film loudspeaker produces sound with minimal distortion while using a fraction of the energy required by a traditional loudspeaker. The hand-sized loudspeaker the team demonstrated, which weighs about as much as a dime, can generate high-quality sound no matter what surface the film is bonded to. To achieve these properties, the researchers pioneered a deceptively simple fabrication technique, which requires only three basic steps and can be scaled up to produce ultrathin loudspeakers large enough to cover the inside of an automobile or to wallpaper a room.

A typical loudspeaker found in headphones or an audio system uses electric current inputs that pass through a coil of wire that generates a magnetic field, which moves a speaker membrane, that moves the air above it, that makes the sound we hear. By contrast, the new loudspeaker simplifies the speaker design by using a thin film of a shaped piezoelectric material that moves when voltage is applied over it, which moves the air above it and generates sound. [...]

They tested their thin-film loudspeaker by mounting it to a wall 30 centimeters from a microphone to measure the sound pressure level, recorded in decibels. When 25 volts of electricity were passed through the device at 1 kilohertz (a rate of 1,000 cycles per second), the speaker produced high-quality sound at conversational levels of 66 decibels. At 10 kilohertz, the sound pressure level increased to 86 decibels, about the same volume level as city traffic. The energy-efficient device only requires about 100 milliwatts of power per square meter of speaker area. By contrast, an average home speaker might consume more than 1 watt of power to generate similar sound pressure at a comparable distance. The researchers showed the speaker in action, playing "We Are the Champions" by Queen. You can listen to it here.

An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from an opinion piece written by Elizabeth Spiers, former editor in chief of The New York Observer and the founding editor of Gawker: Among the many brilliant touches in the dystopian workplace thriller "Severance," on Apple TV+, are the perks offered by Lumon Industries, the cultlike, fluorescent-lit corporation where the series takes place: company-branded Chinese finger trap gag toys; cheery if mediocre caricature portraits; a baffling "waffle party"; the much-discussed "music dance experience"; and, more than once, a melon-ball buffet served on a rolling bar. It's hard not to see real-world analogues -- in the table tennis and kombucha taps of Silicon Valley, and especially in the post-pandemic flurry of office happy hours and gift card giveaways, as companies try to lure white-collar workers back to offices. At the high end, a real estate data company offered employees who returned to the office a daily chance to win $10,000, a trip to Barbados or a new Tesla; more common incentives are company swag, pop-up snack stands, Covid personal protection gift bags and stress balls.

Companies aren't wrong to perceive a reluctance to return to offices among some workers. Even if bosses see the return as simply a resumption of the terms employees had agreed to, workers are increasingly aware of the ways that those terms have shortchanged them. After two years, those who were able to work from home have seen real benefits -- reclaiming time from commutes, flexibility for family responsibilities, freedom from perpetual distractions and restrictive dress codes -- and now they can't unsee them. Surveys taken last year indicated that two-thirds of workers would prefer to have continued remote work options and would sacrifice $30,000 in raises to keep them. Somewhat higher percentages of women and Black knowledge workers say they are reluctant to return to offices.

But among executives and managers, there's still a strong perception that in-person work is the only real work. So as younger workers in particular resist company mandates to return to their desks in the overly air-conditioned offices where many had never felt comfortable, companies are trying to sweeten the deal. [...] I've come to think of these corporate toys and rewards as the work equivalent of the cheap prizes you win at a carnival after emptying your wallet to play the games. The difference is that the point of the carnival is to have fun, and the prizes are incidental. In the workplace, this is just a laughably terrible trade-off. Who wants to give up the two hours a day they gain by not commuting for a coffee mug? "Putting in long hours at the office is often conflated with a strong work ethic and more productivity, though it may not be indicative of either," adds Spiers. "To make employees feel this approach is reasonable, many employers blur the line between work and the rest of life, while offering little diversions here and there to approximate fun."

Privacy is one of the selling points of Apple products. But for employees who develop these products, it can be a pain. The Information: Apple doesn't collect a lot of customer data from its services, including Apple Maps, the Siri voice assistant and its paid video-streaming service, according to more than a dozen former employees. And the customer data it does collect from products like the App Store and Apple Music aren't widely accessible to employees who work on those and other products, these people said. That makes it difficult for Apple to mimic popular features developed by its competitors, which collect more data and have fewer restrictions on employee access to such information, they said.

Look at Apple TV+. The paid video-streaming service, unlike its bigger rivals, doesn't collect demographic info about customers or a history of what they have watched, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation at Apple. That means Apple TV+ employees can't analyze how customers move from one piece of content to another, making it next to impossible to recommend more videos to them based on their preferences -- a contrast to Netflix, Disney and other streaming services, which use such data to get customers to watch more videos. [...] From Apple's app recommendations to new features for Siri and the company's Goldman Sachs-backed credit card, Apple engineers and data scientists often have to find creative or costly ways to make up for the lack of access to data. In some cases, as with Apple TV+, employees simply have to accept limitations on what they can do.

A police officer in Santa Ana, California, admitted to blaring Disney favorites from a squad car PA system in an attempt to keep citizens' videos of their actions off of YouTube. Jalopnik reports: It just so happens they woke up a sleeping city council member, who took police to task for their annoying and suspicious tactic. Using copyright infringement against those who record police actions hasn't really work so far, which may be why this officer decided to really blare Disney tunes during an investigation of a car theft. At the moment, the video posted by Santa Ana Audits is still up after being posted six days ago, so it's safe to say this officer woke up an entire community for nothing.

Santa Ana PD release a statement on Twitter acknowledging the video. Santa Ana PD told Vice that using squad car audio system is not department policy. YouTube won't always remove a video for copyright infringement. Sometimes the site will place an ad on the video, with proceeds going to the copyright holder.

Sonos has acquired Dutch startup Mayht for approximately $100 million in a cash-only deal. "Mayht created a new type of speaker technology that makes it possible to pack a lot more oomph into much smaller spaces, with power savings as a nifty side-effect," reports TechCrunch. "Specifically, it created a new type of transducer -- the foundational element within speakers that create sound. Mayht has re-engineered them to enable smaller and lighter form factors without compromising on quality." From the report: Interestingly, outside of some reference speakers, the Mayht team was never planning to put its own products out to market, clearly flirting with existing speaker giants for an acquisition. Sonos liked what it saw and decided to put a $100 million ring on it to consummate the relationship, acquiring the startup. The acquisition was formally announced today.

"Mayht's breakthrough in transducer technology will enable Sonos to take another leap forward in our product portfolio," said Patrick Spence, CEO of Sonos. "This strategic acquisition gives us more incredible people, technology and intellectual property that will further distinguish the Sonos experience, enhance our competitive advantage, and accelerate our future roadmap." The Mayht team, in turn, was also pretty psyched to find a corporate partner to bring its tech to market. "We are very excited and proud to become a part of Sonos," said Scheek. "Our dream has always been to set a new standard in the audio industry. The integration of our technology into Sonos products will further revolutionize high quality sound."

Apple faces an additional EU antitrust charge in the coming weeks in an investigation triggered by a complaint from Spotify, Reuters reported Monday, citing a person familiar with the matter said, a sign that EU enforcers are strengthening their case against the U.S. company. From a report: The European Commission last year accused the iPhone maker of distorting competition in the music streaming market via restrictive rules for its App Store that force developers to use its own in-app payment system and prevent them from informing users of other purchasing options. Such requirements have also come under scrutiny in countries including the United States and Britain. Extra charges set out in a so-called supplementary statement of objections are usually issued to companies when the EU competition enforcer has gathered new evidence or has modified some elements to boost its case.

"English rock band Pink Floyd has released new music for the first time in 28 years," reports UPI, "with proceeds from the track going to humanitarian relief in Ukraine amid its ongoing conflict with Russia."

"The single will be available on all streaming and download platforms..." the band said on their official web site. [Including downloads on Amazon Music and Apple Music]. "This is the first new original music that they have recorded together as a band since 1994's The Division Bell." The track sees David Gilmour and Nick Mason joined by long-time Pink Floyd bass player Guy Pratt and Nitin Sawhney on keyboards and features an extraordinary vocal performance by Andriy Khlyvnyuk of Ukrainian band Boombox.... David, who has a Ukrainian daughter-in-law and grandchildren says: "We, like so many, have been feeling the fury and the frustration of this vile act of an independent, peaceful democratic country being invaded and having its people murdered by one of the world's major powers...."

"Recently I read that Andriy had left his American tour with Boombox, had gone back to Ukraine, and joined up with the Territorial Defense. Then I saw this incredible video on Instagram, where he stands in a square in Kyiv with this beautiful gold-domed church and sings in the silence of a city with no traffic or background noise because of the war. It was a powerful moment that made me want to put it to music." While writing the music for the track, David managed to speak with Andriy from his hospital bed in Kyiv where he was recovering from a mortar shrapnel injury. "I played him a little bit of the song down the phone line and he gave me his blessing...."

Speaking about the track David says, "I hope it will receive wide support and publicity. We want to raise funds for humanitarian charities and raise morale. We want to express our support for Ukraine and, in that way, show that most of the world thinks that it is totally wrong for a superpower to invade the independent democratic country that Ukraine has become".

All proceeds will go towards Ukrainian humanitarian relief.
On March 11 the band had posted another update on their official site: To stand with the world in strongly condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the works of Pink Floyd, from 1987 onwards, and all of David Gilmour's solo recordings are being removed from all digital music providers in Russia and Belarus....

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Tesla opened its Austin, Texas-based Gigafactory on Thursday, a crucial step in the company's delayed plans to begin production of its electric Cybertruck. To celebrate the opening, Tesla held an event, billed as a "Cyber Rodeo," to which it invited 15,000 people to listen to live music, eat food, and pay homage to Elon Musk and his company. "We are really entering a new phase of Tesla's future," Musk told the audience. Clad in a black cowboy hat and aviator sunglasses, Musk said he was excited to begin working on Cybertruck production at last. "I can't wait to see this baby in production, it's going to be epic."

Along with a new version of the Cybertruck, Musk also showed off a new Roadster vehicle, which is slated to begin production next year. He also teased a robotaxi he said would look "quite futuristic" but didn't elaborate or provide any details. It is the company's fourth factory in the US, following the vehicle factory in Fremont, California, battery factory in Sparks, Nevada, and solar factory in Buffalo, New York. Tesla also has a vehicle factory outside Shanghai, China, and recently opened its first European factory near Berlin, Germany. Tesla spent an estimated $5 million purchasing the land outside Austin, plus another $1.1 billion to build the plant. "We need a place where we can be really big, and there's no place like Texas," Musk said. "We going to move to a truly massive scale."

The Texas factory is expected to be the site where, starting in 2023, Tesla will make its long-delayed Cybertruck. Indications that the Cybertruck would be delayed first emerged last year, when the online reservation page was changed and then later withdrawn from the site. Musk had said that he expected a few trucks to be delivered to customers by the end of 2021, but no deliveries were ever made. The Cybertruck has already gone through some changes since its initial reveal in 2019 -- including the addition of a comically oversized single windshield wiper, traditional folding mirrors, and invisible door handles. In addition to the Cybertruck, Tesla also plans to build Model Ys and Model 3s destined for the East Coast, as well as the long-delayed Tesla Semi. The company has already started to build Model Y crossovers at the unfinished Texas Gigafactory in the fourth quarter of 2021, according to the company's latest earnings report.

Apple, looking to address criticism of its competitive practices by the European Union, developers and U.S. lawmakers, pointed to a report showing that third-party apps are thriving on the iPhone and other devices. From a report: In a study published by Analysis Group and touted by the iPhone maker, analysts said that Apple's own apps are infrequently the dominant option and only account for a small share of app usage. "We found that Apple's own apps, while used by many, are rarely the most popular of a given type and are eclipsed in popularity by third-party apps for nearly every country and app type we considered," the report said. In the U.S., the report found that Spotify is 1.6 times more popular than Apple Music, that Google Maps is used 1.5 times more than Apple Maps, and that Netflix is 17 times more popular than Apple's service. The Amazon Kindle service, meanwhile, was 4.5 times more popular than Apple's Books app.

Internet fads come and go faster than a hiccup, but one that's somehow lasted almost as long as the internet itself is the "Rick roll." From a report: The term refers to an online prank in which the "Rick rollee" receives a URL address and it leads them to the music video for singer Rick Astley's hit debut single "Never Gonna Give You Up." The opening synthed "doo-de-doo-doo-doo-doo" has created more grins and eye rolls than when the song scored an ungodly amount of airplay in 1987. Sky Elements Drone Shows found a way to Rick roll a sizable portion of the city for April Fools' Day with 300 of its customizable drones by forming a QR code in the sky that linked to Astley's music video.

An anonymous reader writes: The operator of YouTube rippers FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com has announced that he will appeal the piracy verdict, where the RIAA won $83 million in damages. According to his attorneys, the legal process has gone off the rails, as the music companies didn't have to prove a single instance of copyright infringement. More context on the verdict, from TorrentFreak: Last October, the RIAA secured a major victory in its piracy lawsuit against YouTube-rippers FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com and their Russian operator Tofig Kurbanov. A Virginia federal court issued a default judgment in favor of several prominent music companies after the defendant walked away from the lawsuit. According to the order, there is a clear need to deter the behavior of Kurbanov who failed to hand over evidence including server logs. "A less drastic sanction is unlikely to salvage this case," the judge wrote.

Following this win, the RIAA asked for an injunction to stop the sites' worldwide stream-ripping activities. In addition, the music group demanded nearly $83 million in damages. Both of these requests were taken up in a report and recommendation issued by Magistrate Judge Buchanan last December. "Defendant's Websites caused the Plaintiffs to lose profits and streaming revenue because of the enormous internet traffic to and use of the Websites' stream-ripping functions," Judge Buchanan wrote. Mr. Kurbanov's legal team opposed this recommendation, arguing that the music companies failed to provide evidence that any infringing activity actually took place in the United States. Also, if the court believes that damages are appropriate, they should be substantially lower. The RIAA predictably disagreed and asked the court to stay the course and take over the recommendation. After weighing the positions from both sides, that's exactly what happened.

A review of 26 studies finds benefits of music on mental health are similar to those of exercise and weight loss. From a report: "Music," wrote the late neurologist Oliver Sacks, "has a unique power to express inner states or feelings. Music can pierce the heart directly; it needs no mediation." A new analysis has empirically confirmed something that rings true for many music lovers -- that singing, playing or listening to music can improve wellbeing and quality of life. A review of 26 studies conducted across several countries including Australia, the UK and the US has found that music may provide a clinically significant boost to mental health. Seven of the studies involved music therapy, 10 looked at the effect of listening to music, eight examined singing and one studied the effect of gospel music. The analysis, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open, confirmed "music interventions are linked to meaningful improvements in wellbeing," as measured quantitatively via standardised quality-of-life survey data. The effects were similar whether participants sang, played or listened to music.

"Music was one of the first industries that felt the sonic boom of the internet, starting with song-sharing websites like Napster in the late 1990s and iTunes digital downloads later," writes the New York Times.

They take a quick look at how the music industry "survived an online revolution," arguing that streaming services "saved the music industry from the jaws of the internet," making it financially healthy and giving it a wider reach.

"But all is not entirely well." Even now, the music industry in the United States generates less revenue than at the peak of the CD. There's a raging debate about how long the gravy train from streaming will last. And many musicians and others say that they're not sharing in the spoils from the digital transformation....

First, I'll lay out the case that the music industry is doing awesome. More than 500 million people around the world pay for digital music, mostly in fees for services such as Spotify, Apple Music or Tencent Music, which is based in China. Those services have given the industry something it has never had before: a steady stream of cash every month. The industry also is making money a gazillion ways. When you watch a music video on YouTube, money flows to the people responsible for that song. TikTok pays record companies when videos feature their popular songs....

Revenue for the music industry has been increasing consistently since 2015, but revenue from all sources — including streaming subscriptions, CDs and royalties from elevator music — is still less than it was in 1999. Total industry revenue back then was about $24 billion adjusted for inflation, and revenue in 2021 was $15 billion, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. (Global sales data from a different music trade group show a similar trajectory.) There aren't an infinite number of people who are willing to pay the going rate in many countries of $10 a month to access a whole bunch of songs on their phones via a service like Spotify. That's what worries people who believe the music industry's digital success has peaked.
Finally, the article points out that even the most-popular songs...aren't as popular as songs got in the past. And then it links to a story headlined "Streaming Saved Music. Artists Hate It."

"The big winners are the streaming services and the large record companies. The losers are the 99 percent of artists who aren't at Beyoncé's level of fame. And they're angry about not sharing in the music industry's success."

Tom's Guide tested a Mac Studio workstation equipped with an M1 Ultra with the Geekbench 5.4 CPU benchmarks "to get a sense of how effectively it handles single-core and multi-core workflows."

"Since our M1 Ultra is the best you can buy (at a rough price of $6,199) it sports a 20-core CPU and a 64-core GPU, as well as 128GB of unified memory (RAM) and a 2TB SSD."

Slashdot reader exomondo shares their results: We ran the M1 Ultra through the Geekbench 5.4 CPU benchmarking test multiple times and after averaging the results, we found that the M1 Ultra does indeed outperform top-of-the-line Windows gaming PCs when it comes to multi-core CPU performance. Specifically, the M1 Ultra outperformed a recent Alienware Aurora R13 desktop we tested (w/ Intel Core i7-12700KF, GeForce RTX 3080, 32GB RAM), an Origin Millennium (2022) we just reviewed (Core i9-12900K CPU, RTX 3080 Ti GPU, 32GB RAM), and an even more 3090-equipped HP Omen 45L we tested recently (Core i9-12900K, GeForce RTX 3090, 64GB RAM) in the Geekbench 5.4 multi-core CPU benchmark.

However, as you can see from the chart of results below, the M1 Ultra couldn't match its Intel-powered competition in terms of CPU single-core performance. The Ultra-powered Studio also proved slower to transcode video than the afore-mentioned gaming PCs, taking nearly 4 minutes to transcode a 4K video down to 1080p using Handbrake. All of the gaming PCs I just mentioned completed the same task faster, over 30 seconds faster in the case of the Origin Millennium. Before we even get into the GPU performance tests it's clear that while the M1 Ultra excels at multi-core workflows, it doesn't trounce the competition across the board. When we ran our Mac Studio review unit through the Geekbench 5.4 OpenCL test (which benchmarks GPU performance by simulating common tasks like image processing), the Ultra earned an average score of 83,868. That's quite good, but again it fails to outperform Nvidia GPUs in similarly-priced systems.
They also share some results from the OpenCL Benchmarks browser, which publicly displays scores from different GPUs that users have uploaded: Apple's various M1 chips are on the list as well, and while the M1 Ultra leads that pack it's still quite a ways down the list, with an average score of 83,940. Incidentally, that means it ranks below much older GPUs like Nvidia's GeForce RTX 2070 (85,639) and AMD's Radeon VII (86,509). So here again we see that while the Ultra is fast, it can't match the graphical performance of GPUs that are 2-3 years old at this point — at least, not in these synthetic benchmarks. These tests don't always accurately reflect real-world CPU and GPU performance, which can be dramatically influenced by what programs you're running and how they're optimized to make use of your PC's components.
Their conclusion? When it comes to tasks like photo editing or video and music production, the M1 Ultra w/ 128GB of RAM blazes through workloads, and it does so while remaining whisper-quiet. It also makes the Mac Studio a decent gaming machine, as I was able to play less demanding games like Crusader Kings III, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and Total War: Warhammer II at reasonable (30+ fps) framerates. But that's just not on par with the performance we expect from high-end GPUs like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090....

Of course, if you don't care about games and are in the market for a new Mac with more power than just about anything Apple's ever made, you want the Studio with M1 Ultra.

Spotify may be the latest service to adopt NFTs. According to the Financial Times, the company is "drawing up plans to add blockchain technology and non-fungible tokens to its streaming service, fueling excitement in the crypto and music industries about the potential of NFTs to boost artists' earnings." It comes just days after Mark Zuckerberg confirmed NFTs will soon be coming to Instagram. From the report: Two recent job ads show Spotify is recruiting people to work on early stage projects related to "Web3," a tech buzzword for a blockchain-powered network that some crypto enthusiasts hope will wrestle control back from the Big Tech platforms that dominate today's internet.

Spotify's recruitment in the sector appears to be at an exploratory stage. It pointed to Web3 in a recruitment notice for an engineer on its "experimental growth" team. "This small and full-stack team is responsible for driving growth through new technologies, like Web3," the ad said. A separate Spotify job listing, for a manager in its future-gazing "Innovation and Market Intelligence" group, shows the music streaming service is looking for a candidate with experience in "content, creator, media, web3, and emerging technology industries" to "help define Spotify Moonshots," a term for ambitious new projects. The report goes on to note that Spotify "was an early collaborator on Facebook's ill-fated cryptocurrency project, Diem."

Daniel Ek, Spotify's chief executive, told a company podcast back in 2019 that cryptocurrencies and blockchain could allow users of "a service like Spotify [...] to be able to pay artists directly," especially across international borders or in regions where few people have traditional bank accounts. "That can open up massive opportunities where all of a sudden, a user in Japan might pay a creator in Argentina. And that opens up huge opportunities for how we can further our mission."

Spotify is drawing up plans to add blockchain technology and non-fungible tokens to its streaming service, fuelling excitement in the crypto and music industries about the potential of NFTs to boost artists' earnings. Financial Times: Two recent job ads show Spotify is recruiting people to work on early stage projects related to "Web3," a tech buzzword for a blockchain-powered network that some crypto enthusiasts hope will wrestle control back from the Big Tech platforms that dominate today's internet. Spotify is the latest tech giant to venture into NFTs and head off potential competition from crypto start-ups. This week, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg confirmed a Financial Times report earlier this year that Instagram would soon start to support NFTs. Other social media companies, including Twitter and Reddit, are also working to build new features for displaying or trading NFTs. NFTs use blockchain technology to certify ownership of digital assets. The vast majority of the $17.7bn worth of NFTs traded last year were for visual artworks, games and collectibles, according to market tracker Nonfungible.com.

Winamp will sell a non-fungible token (NFT) linked to its media player's original 1997 graphical skin, becoming the latest company to blend nostalgia and crypto. The Verge reports: Winamp will put the NFT up for auction through OpenSea between May 16th and May 22nd, followed by a separate sale of 1997 total NFTs based on 20 artworks derived from the original skin. The proceeds will go to the Winamp Foundation, which promises to donate them to charity projects, starting with the Belgian nonprofit Music Fund.

The NFT sale appears to be a combination of a publicity move and a fundraising effort. Winamp is sourcing the derivative art NFTs by asking artists to submit Winamp-based works between now and April 15th, then giving selected artists 20 percent of the proceeds from each sale of their image as an NFT. Nineteen of the pieces will sell in editions of 100 copies, and the remaining one will have 97; they'll all sell for 0.08 Ethereum -- around $210 at current exchange rates. The artists will get 10 percent of any royalties on later sales, where the seller will set their own price.

Winamp's head of business development Thierry Ascarez tells The Verge that buyers will get a blockchain token linked to an image of either the original skin seen above or one of its derivatives, which is a common setup for NFTs. Buyers will have the right to "copy, reproduce, and display" the image, but they won't own the copyright. Likewise, selected artists will agree to transfer all intellectual property for their work to Winamp, according to a page of terms and conditions (PDF).

Apple has rolled out macOS 12.3 and iPadOS 15.4, bringing the highly-anticipated (and delayed) Universal Control feature. Engadget reports: The tool, which is in beta, allows you to control a Mac and iPad at the same time with a single keyboard and mouse (or trackpad). You can enter text on either device and drag files between them. Apple initially said Universal Control would be available last fall, but in December it delayed the release until this spring. Apple has enhanced spatial audio on M1-powered systems as well. Apple Music now has dynamic head tracking support for compatible AirPods. You'll find settings for fixed and head-tracking spatial audio in the Control Center. There's also several new emoji, more filters for the Podcasts app, optional notes for saved passwords and more accurate battery capacity readings, among other changes.

iOS 15.4 was also released today, adding the option to use Face ID while wearing a mask. "The updates also add 37 new emoji characters and they lay the groundwork for the new 'Tap to Pay on iPhone' feature that allows NFC-compatible iPhones to accept payments through Apple Pay," reports MacRumors. "There are also updates to add custom domains to iCloud Mail right on device, Siri enhancements, new Emergency SOS features, and tons more."

Dust off those plastic binders that lived in the back seat of your car and fire up the boombox, because compact discs are back. From a report: CD sales enjoyed year-over-year growth for the first time since 2004, according to the Recording Industry Association of America's annual sales report. Combined with the decade-long vinyl sales explosion, overall physical music sales grew for the first time since 1996. Physical music sales exploded to the tune of $1.65 billion in the U.S. last year, according to the RIAA data. CD sales grew to $584.2 million nationally last year, up more than $100 million from 2020. By comparison, 2021 vinyl sales increased to $1 billion annually, up from $643.9 million.

LimeWire has announced it will relaunch as a "mainstream-ready, digital collectibles marketplace for art and entertainment, initially focusing on music" in May, confirming a Tuesday scoop by Slashdot that reported precisely the same thing. Engadget adds: Its backers believe that it will be a place for artists and fans to create and sell digital trinkets without the "technical hurdles of the current NFT landscape." It is hoping to partner with a raft of high-profile musicians in the hope of spreading word about LimeWire's resurrection in the hope of getting a million willing buyers signed up before the first year is done. The phrase of the day is ensuring that "NFT newbies" are well catered-for, offering easy signup, pricing in US dollars and a lack of any crypto-based gatekeeping. Users will be able to buy straight from their credit cards (or any other regular money) via Wyre's payment platform, which is also used by OpenSea. The company added that it is working with "top-tier artists" from the music world who will create content for the platform and also open lines of communication with willing fans.