Music retailers cheer first sales increase in 7 years

Jim Donio (right), president of a group representing music retailers, cheered the first increase in music sales since 2004.

(Credit: Greg Sandoval/CNET)

Music retailers sound ready to uncork the champagne on the news that overall sales for the music industry rose for the first time in seven years.
Overall sales were up just a modest 3 percent in 2011, Nielsen Soundscan reported yesterday, but from the music industry's point of view, any increase is manna from heaven. It was common during the 7-year slump to see double-digit declines.
Jim Donio, president of the National Association of Recording Merchandisers, the trade group representing music retailers, called the yearly sales figures "significantly positive."
According to Nielsen, digital album sales came in at 103 million, up 19 percent, and digital tracks climbed to 1.3 billion, an 8.5 percent increase from last year. Nielsen's numbers only account for unit sales and not the revenue generated. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) collects that data, but the trade group for the four major record companies hasn't reported yet.
So what's driving this? Well first, there's no doubt that the popularity of "21," the second album from British vocalist Adele, played a big part. She sold nearly 6 million albums. Adele's track "Rolling In the Deep" also sold 5.8 million copies.
There's a laundry list of other possible factors. The RIAA is likely to say that their antipiracy efforts helped. The association won a copyright lawsuit against the company operating file-sharing network Limewire and it was driven out of business in 2010. Last year was the first full year without Limewire in operation--although plenty of services still enable illegal file sharing.
We have more mobile devices than ever that play music, including the new crop of digital tablets. At the same time, it seems that some consumers continue to opt for CDs and vinyl, says NPD.
Retailers also deserve some of the credit. At the same time that Lime Wire was getting clobbered in court, music got easier to sample, discover, and buy. Fans can get a taste of free tracks at YouTube and Pandora and can receive access to deep pools of songs for a monthly fee at such subscription services as Spotify, Rhapsody, and MOG. A big new competitor also jumped into the fray in the form of Google Music.
We can't forget iTunes, the top retailer in the music landscape, which upgraded by enabling users to store their songs in the cloud and retrieve them via the Web.
It's important to keep in mind that last year's uptick might be a blip. There's nothing to say that sales won't go back into the dumper this year. That said, it still feels like music has some momentum for the first time in a while.

Greg Sandoval

Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. Based in New York, Sandoval is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.

Windows 8 will refresh your PC without losing your data

(Credit: Microsoft)

Windows 8 will provide a refresh option that can automatically restore your PC to a clean state without erasing all your data and customized settings.
Due to appear in the Windows 8 beta that will debut next month, the refresh option makes good on Microsoft's earlier promise that it would give users an easy way to restore Windows in the event of a problem.
As described in yesterday's Building Windows 8 blog by Desmond Lee, a program manager on Microsoft Fundamentals team, the new OS will actually offer two ways to bring Windows back to factory condition:
• The refresh option will keep all personal data, important settings, and Metro style apps, and then reinstall Windows.
• The reset option will securely remove all data, settings, and applications, and then reinstall Windows.
Refreshing Windows would typically be the first option to try if the OS isn't behaving properly. And it's one that Microsoft promises will be completely automated, meaning there's no need to back up your files or settings beforehand.
To accomplish this, your PC boots up into Windows RE (Recovery Environment), saves your data and settings, installs a fresh copy of Windows 8, restores your data and other content, and then restarts into the fresh new OS. Most key settings are preserved with the exception of file type associations, display settings, and Windows Firewall settings.
Of course, there is one another gotcha. The refresh option will preserve your Metro apps, but not your standard desktop apps. According to Lee, Microsoft nixed the idea of restoring desktop applications for a few reasons.
A single desktop app could be the cause of the initial problem. Certain desktop apps leave no trace of how they were installed, making it difficult to restore them. And unlike Metro apps, Windows has no direct knowledge of the many different installer technologies often used by third-party applications.
As a workaround, Microsoft will offer a manual way to create an image of your existing Windows environment, desktop apps included. But this is something you'd have to run on a regular basis to ensure that all newly installed desktop applications are part of the image.
Finally, the reset option is the one to use if you want to start fresh and don't need to keep your applications, settings, or other data.
In this scenario, your PC boots into Windows RE, erases and reformats the hard drive, installs a fresh copy of Windows 8, and then restarts. Since all your data is securely wiped, says Microsoft, this is the right option if you plan to pass your PC along to someone else.
CNET will certainly give both the refresh and reset options a spin once the Windows 8 beta launches to see whether the new features live up to their promise.

Lance Whitney

Lance Whitney wears a few different technology hats--journalist, Web developer, and software trainer. He's a contributing editor for Microsoft TechNet Magazine and writes for other computer publications and Web sites. Lance is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and he is not an employee of CNET.

Sony slashes Tablet S price, signaling trend

Sony Tablet S: now $399.99 for 16GB version, a price cut of $100.

(Credit: Sony)

Sony has knocked $100 off the price of its S series tablet, another sign that non-Apple tablet pricing is trending downward.
The 16GB Tablet S is now $400, reduced from $500, while the 32GB model got cut to $500 from $600.
Specs include a 9.4-inch 1280x800 display, front and rear cameras, Android Honeycomb, 1GB system memory, and eight hours of rated battery life.
Sony is by no means is the first to wield an ax on pricing. RIM's BlackBerry Playbook is the most extreme recent example of tablet price deflation. The PlayBook has been selling--depending on the week--for $300 off its original price.
But Android tablet (the PlayBook uses the BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet operating system) prices are also trending downward from their rarified $700-$800 price tier 2-year-contract-only beginnings.
Consumer 10-inch Android tablets like the 16GB Lenovo IdeaPad K1 Tablet (Wi-Fi only) and 16GB Acer Iconia (Wi-Fi) are priced relatively low from the get-go, now listed at $319.99 and $359.99, respectively at Best Buy. And the 16GB Toshiba Thrive (Wi-Fi) and the 16GB Asus Eee Pad Transformer (Wi-Fi) are both $400.
Is that low enough to trigger significant consumer demand for a 10-inch class tablet? Only the tablet suppliers know for sure but Amazon and Barnes and Noble are not making it any easier by releasing 7-inch tablets for $199 and $249, respectively. The Kindle Fire, in particular, is seeing very strong demand.
Alas, Apple, so far, is pretty much immune to the price pressure impacting mere mortal tablet makers. Ranging from $499 to $829, Apple still sells over ten million tablets per quarter.
Verizon apparently didn't get that memo, though. The carrier just released the Motorola XyBoard priced between $529.99 and $729.99 with a two-year contract (and as much as $899.99 without a contract).
Via Engadget

Brooke Crothers

Brooke Crothers writes about small devices and the hardware inside. He has served as editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET.

Will someone besides Amazon release the next Kindle tablet?

Would Jeff Bezos share Amazon's exclusive grip on the Kindle Fire?

(Credit: Photo by Sarah Tew/CNET)

Amazon sold millions of Kindles this holiday season, led by the company's first-ever tablet, the Kindle Fire, leaving some analysts wondering if other Android tablets might soon be flavored with Amazon's secret sauce.
After a full year of dozens of Android tablets from numerous manufacturers, none--excepting the discontinued and momentarily deeply discounted HP TouchPad--made more than the slightest dent in the iPad's dominance in the slate market. None, that is, until Amazon introduced its clunky but inexpensive loss leader--available for just $199 and preregistered to your Amazon account so you can begin consuming the company's universe of content right away.
Despite the massive gulf between the iPad and Kindle Fire when it comes to price and specs, the two successful tablets do have one important characteristic in common: easy, built-in access to all kinds of content to consume on the device via the iTunes and Amazon stores, respectively.
"Devices need to lead with content services or they're dead in the water," Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps told me. "By next summer we'll have had several months of Amazon demonstrating that a successful consumer electronics product strategy has to lead with content services."
Richard Windsor, global technology specialist for Nomura Securities, went one step further. He sees some of the current Android tablet makers looking to Amazon to help float some of their future offerings, or perhaps going as far as taking over production of the follow-up to the Kindle Fire.
"I'm not convinced Amazon's going to stay in the hardware business very long. Look at their business model--they are selling this thing at cost in order to make money on content. So if you can get someone else to make the tablet for you and sell it with your user experience on it, what do you care?"
Windsor suspects Amazon's first $199 tablet could be a way to "seed the market." He sees makers of competing Android tablets--which consumers seem to view as overpriced and lacking access to compelling content--in a position to start courting Amazon for possible partnerships.
What you could get is a range of designs and sizes to suit different pockets without Amazon having to make them all. You might see an "HTC Dream Kindle" or the "Kindle Fire HTC" or "Kindle Fire 2 10-inch by HTC."
Amazon is famously mum on its future plans. Despite months of speculation, the company refused to acknowledge that it was working on a tablet until it was unveiled by CEO Jeff Bezos this fall.
For its part, Google has been working feverishly of late to make more content available via the Android Market. In the past year books, movies and most recently music have all been introduced for purchase and consumption on mobile devices running the OS, an increasing number of which will soon be getting the much improved Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android.
Despite Google's best efforts, however, no tablet with native access to the Android Market has taken off with consumers. Hot sellers like the Kindle Fire and the Barnes and Noble Nook do their best to push users in the direction of their own content. We'll soon see if other tablet makers opt to follow their lead as well.

Eric Mack

Crave freelancer Eric Mack is a writer and radio producer based high in the Rocky Mountains in a "one bar" service area (for both drinks and 3G). He's published e-books on Android and Alaska, and is a contributing editor for Crowdsourcing.org and A New Domain. He also contributes to NPR, Gizmag, and Edmunds Inside Line. Eric is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CBS Interactive. E-mail Eric.

Hackers get iOS apps to run full-screen on Apple TV

YouTube is among the iOS apps Dublin-based hacker Steven Troughton-Smith got working this weekend in full screen on a jailbroken Apple TV.

(Credit: Steve Troughton-Smith)

 

While you were buying the New Years bubbly and party horns, hackers were busy this weekend figuring out how to run iOS apps natively on Apple TV--and in full screen.
Dublin-based hacker and iOS developer Steven Troughton-Smith--known for getting Siri to work on an iPhone 4 and iPod Touch and even somewhat on an iPhone 3GS--says over the past couple days he and a fellow hacker have managed to get a jailbroken second-generation Apple TV to run iOS apps in full screen at 720p.
The hack, first reported by 9to5Mac, isn't publically available and is considered more of a proof of concept at this time. He says it was done using a custom springboard written by Nick@TheMudKip on a jailbroken Apple TV.
"Nick had written this amazing window manager for the iPad that replaced the entire homescreen, allowing you to run multiple apps side by side, and I realized this could enable iOS apps on the AppleTV for the first time," Troughten-Smith told CNET, adding that he hasn't heard a thing from Apple. "We've spent the past 2 days modifying everything to work really well on the AppleTV screen size, etc, and getting apps to run."
The video at the end of this post tells all. But it's all very preliminary. And there are bugs too--consider this shot Troughton-Smith posted of Angry Birds running sideways:

(Credit: Steve Troughton-Smith)

But it could be the start of custom apps built for Apple TV, as Troughton-Smith alludes in a tweet: "Remember how the unofficial iPhone apps back in '07 forced Apple's hand in creating an App Store? I'd like AppleTV to get the same treatment."

Michelle Meyers

Michelle Meyers, associate editor, has been writing and editing CNET News stories since 2005. But she's still working to shed some of her old newspaper ways, first honed when copy was actually cut and pasted. When she's not fixing typos and tightening sentences, she's working with reporters on story ideas, tracking media happenings, or freshening up CNET News' home page.