Having slagged off computers in a previous post, I am glad to report that I have recently come across an intelligent implementation of computing.
I have been using the Spotify service for some time now - if you don't know it, it gives you legal access via the internet to millions of songs. You don't download the songs, you simply select what you want to listen to and stream it. We use it a lot in the bands I play in when rehearsing, so that we can listen to songs and remind ourselves how they go!!
Problem is that you tend to run it from your PC and then play it through the crap speakers you have attached. Hey presto, check this out, a hi-fi receiver that you connect to the Internet and lets you stream Spotify, last.fm etc with proper quality.
Obvious when you think about it, so why has it taken so long for someone to come up with the idea? In tomorrow's world you won't own albums - you will just stream what you need when you need it.
I personally would also be turned on by a version that ran on my cable TV and let me select whatever album I wanted - I can then connect the TV output to the hi-fi, which is sitting next to it. They do it with movies / TV programs etc. - have I missed the music service?
I have also bought a couple of Kindles for me and her indoors, and I must say that we are very impressed.
OK, I realise that all of this makes it difficult for the book and CD retailers, but what they have to do is recognise that the world is moving on and change their business model to exploit the new world of ubiquitous digitisation. Negroponte predicted all this in his book years ago - what a clever man.
