LATEST ADDITIONS

Gracenote, the leading music metadata provider—for the iPod, no less—has cut a deal with music publishers to deliver lyrics in digital form. The company says possible applications include digital music retailers, mobile providers, search engines, music portals, and of course music players and servers. The prospect of seeing the words to a song scrolling down your MP3 player screen is an appealing and timely one. Once listeners could read lyrics in giant LP gatefolds or CD booklets. But even in the heyday of those formats, that wasn't always a given, and in the age of downloads, lyrics have been relegated to unauthorized websites (which may soon see a crackdown). So Gracenote's move is progress. But in a music industry where artists don't always get their fair share, how much can a songwriter expect to get paid if her lyrics are licensed as a new product? Emails on this subject to Gracenote and Gracenote's publicist went unanswered.

<I>TWICE</I> has reported that Samsung is now shipping 1080p rear projection televisions that use that use an LED array instead of a UHP lamp as a light source. The first model on the streets is the HL-S5697W, a 56" RPTV with an MSRP if $4,199.

<span style="float:left;color:#D4D4C7;font-size:100px;line-height:70px;padding-top:2px;font-family: Times, serif, Georgia;">F</span>or less than half the price that my BMW dealer wants to hook my iPod to the 530i's stereo, you can use Belkin's <a href="http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=257270" target=new>TuneBase FM for iPod</a> to hear your music collection through your car's FM radio. It's not an original idea and it's not a first, but it is extremely well designed and implemented. For the most part.

As summer winds down and both camps in the format war rev up for the holiday season more and more titles are being announced in both formats. August will see Lion's Gate release perennial demo favorite <I>Stargate</I> on Blu-ray, and Universal will release such diverse fare as <I>National Lampoon's Animal House</I>, <I>Army of Darkness</I>, and even <I>Fast Times at Ridgemont High</I> on HD DVD.