Technology notebook
Published 7:40 pm Friday, January 25, 2008
Last.fm adds tracks to its music service
Last.fm has been a popular Internet music player, despite rarely playing exactly the music you want.
You tell it what artist you like, and it plays music from similar artists — but not your favorite. The idea was to give users a way to explore new music and learn about other artists they might like.
CBS Corp., which bought Last.fm last year for $280 million, announced Wednesday this has changed for visitors to Last.fm’s Web site. They can now play specific songs by clicking on them.
Visitors will be able to play a song three times before they’re prompted to buy it through partners such as Apple Inc.’s iTunes or Amazon.com Inc.’s Web site. Last.fm co-founder Martin Stiksel said the company is making 3.5 million songs available for on-demand play.
The “Similar artist” radio was a neat way for Last.fm to avoid the cost of providing music on demand, like iTunes does. Instead, it paid the lower royalties associated with being an Internet radio station.
The music is financed by advertising on the site and by referral awards from music merchants.
Last.fm also is providing a chance for unsigned artists to make money. The service will pay them whenever the tracks they upload are played.
Music on demand may become available later on Last.fm’s standalone player program, which currently plays “Similar Artist radio,” Stiksel said.
Major prize for three Americans: Three Americans have won 2008 Japan Prizes, which each carry a $470,000 award, as well as enormous prestige in Japan, including a ceremony attended by the emperor and empress and national dignitaries.
Americans Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn, who designed a language for data transmission that gave rise to the Internet, will share the Japan Prize in Information Communication Theory and Technology.
Victor McKusick, a genetics professor at Johns Hopkins University School of medicine won the prize for medical genetics and genomics.
Cerf, Kahn and McKusick are to receive medals and the award money at a formal presentation April 23 in Tokyo.
McKusick, a native of Maine, is a key architect of the Human Genome Project and winner of the 2001 National Medal of Science, the United States’ highest scientific prize. He also is the twin brother of former Maine Chief Justice Vincent McKusick and a namesake of the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins.
Cerf and Kahn, who designed a language for data transmission that gave rise to the Internet, also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005, which is this nation’s highest civil award.
Herald news services
