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The MP3 Isn’t Dead

Jason Tate

The MP3 format is about to have the patents surrounding it expire. Here’s Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors on what that means:

One of the companies who held patents covering some uses of the MP3 format has terminated its licensing program because its patents have run out. What this means is not that the MP3 format is about to evaporate, but rather, that lots of audio software that previously avoided encoding files into MP3 will now be free to support it without paying a tithe to Fraunhofer.

This is great news for everyone. I’ve spoken to several developers of audio and MP3-related software who have been watching the clock run out on MP3 patents so that they could release MP3 features into the world—both in brand-new apps as well as existing ones—without buying into Fraunhofer’s expensive licensing regime.

And Marco Arment:

Until a few weeks ago, there had never been an audio format that was small enough to be practical, widely supported, and had no patent restrictions, forcing difficult choices and needless friction upon the computing world. Now, at least for audio, that friction has officially ended. There’s finally a great choice without asterisks.

MP3 is supported by everything, everywhere, and is now patent-free. There has never been another audio format as widely supported as MP3, it’s good enough for almost anything, and now, over twenty years since it took the world by storm, it’s finally free.

I still remember the first MP3 I downloaded (it was The Simpsons’ theme song) and not understanding how it was such a small file. I was blown away.

Inside the New Apple Campus

Jason Tate

Steve Levy goes inside Apple’s new spaceship campus:

We drive through an entrance that takes us under the building and into the courtyard before driving back out again. Since it’s a ring, of course, there is no main lobby but rather nine entrances. Ive opts to take me in through the café, a massive atrium-like space ascending the entire four stories of the building. Once it’s complete, it will hold as many as 4,000 people at once, split between the vast ground floor and the balcony dining areas. Along its exterior wall, the café has two massive glass doors that can be opened when it’s nice outside, allowing people to dine al fresco.

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Instagram Launches Selfie Filters

Instagram
Jason Tate

Josh Constine, writing for TechCrunch:

Today Instagram Stories adds a more subtle and mature but error-prone copycat of Snapchat’s beloved augmented reality selfie filters. The eight initial “face filters,” as Instagram calls them, work exactly like Snapchat, and let you add virtual koala ears, nerd glasses, a butterfly crown or wrinkle-smooth makeup to yourself and friends in photos or videos.

Instagram, like their parent company Facebook, have the whole “just copy your competitor’s idea” thing down to a science at this point.

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Logic Tops the Charts This Week

Jason Tate

Logic has the number one album in the country this week:

Rapper Logic notches his first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, as Everybody bows atop the list. The set, which was released on May 5 through Visionary/Def Jam Recordings, earned 247,000 equivalent album units in the week ending May 11, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 196,000 were in traditional album sales.

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