Apple to launch iPod with automatic volume control

Listening to music non-stop has never been easier since the iPod came along.

But future versions of Apple's MP3 player are to be adapted to prevent users from playing tracks at full blast through their earphones for too long.

Amid growing fears that listeners could cause irreversible damage to their hearing - the highest setting is as loud as a chainsaw - Apple is developing an automatic volume control.

A new patent reveals that the next iPods and iPhones could automatically calculate how long a person has been listening and at what volume, before gradually reducing the sound level.

The device will also calculate the amount of "quiet time" between when the iPod is turned off and when it is restarted, allowing the volume to be increased again to a safe level.

The patent states: "Since the damaging effect on users' hearing is both gradual and cumulative, even those users who are concerned about hearing loss may not behave in a manner that would limit or minimise such damaging effects."

Listening to volumes below 70 decibels is considered safe. But iPods can currently reach volumes of over 100 decibels - the equivalent to standing 10ft from a pneumatic drill - and enough to cause permanent damage after just 15 minutes.

Some MP3 players can even exceed 120 decibels.

In April, Apple revealed it had sold more than 100million iPods worldwide and was expecting, by the end of this year, to have sold more than 4.5million iPhones. Of those 200,000 will have been bought in Britain.

Its patent application, however, is the first time Apple has acknowledged concerns over the risk the iPod poses to hearing and comes after a series of damning studies highlighted the potentially damaging effects.

The Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) has led calls for restrained listening and claimed that more than four million young people aged between 16- and 24-years-old are at risk of hearing damage from listening to loud music.

Its research showed more than half of that age group were listening to digital music players for more than an hour a day. Twenty per cent notch up more than 21 hours a week.

RNID chief executive Dr John Low said: "If young people don't heed our warnings about safer listening, they could end up facing premature hearing damage.

"If you regularly plug in, it is only too easy to clock up noise doses that could damage your hearing for ever."

Last year, researchers in the U.S. claimed that listening to an iPod on full blast for just five minutes a day could cause irrevocable hearing damage.

Audiologists from Harvard University said consumers should limit their listening to about four-and-a-half hours a day at 70 per cent volume, or 90 minutes at 80 per cent.

Many MP3 players in Europe, including France, have had volume levels capped at 100 decibels.

Apple refused to comment on its patent application.

Emma Harrison, head of campaigns at RNID, said: "If the next generation iPods do what the patent claims, it could help to protect the hearing of millions of its customers."

It is unclear whether owners of the next-generation iPod will be able to switch off the automatic volume control.

The iPod was launched in 2001 with enough memory to store 1,000 songs. The latest models can hold many times more. The Queen is said to have one capable of holding 1,500 songs.

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Gemei Readies Fancy US Series Media Player

Gemei’s United States X590 is inspired by the most powerful country, boasting a design that is simply, well, Chinese. The X590 boasts a 2.5-inch screen that supports 16 million colors. On each side of the screen is a rather roomy setup of buttons that makes it obvious this PMP is meant for gaming. Hopefully you’re into MD / SFC / NEO games. If movie watching is your thing, you have an array of file formats playable on the X590: RM, RMVB, FLV, AVI, DAT. For audio, MP3, WMA, APE and FLAC are supported. No word on price yet but we know it comes in lilac.

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MP3 Blogs Offer File Sharing Even the RIAA Could Love

Although the term "file sharing" has all sorts of ugly connotations, it's not necessarily a bad thing. In some cases, it's even a win-win-win situation for the recording industry, music lovers -- and Google.

There are countless MP3 file-sharing sites that don't look anything like BitTorrent or Lime Wire. They're low-key, homegrown blogs that don't host illicitly copied music, but do provide links to third-party sites, or storage lockers, such as Megashare, where pirated music is stored. These bloggers do it for the love of the music, they say, but it doesn't hurt that they make a little money from advertising along the way.

The low-profile success of MP3 blogs, and the apparent unconcern of the music industry, is in stark contrast to the aggressive anti-piracy actions taken by the Recording Industry Association of America in other spheres. For instance, the RIAA recently won a $222,000 judgment against a single mother of two for using file-sharing software Kazaa to trade copyright files. No similar action has been taken against MP3 bloggers.

Many of these sites, like Hangover Heart Attack and It's Coming Out of Your Speaker, run ads through Google's AdSense program, which means that Google, too, makes money from sites that direct people to bootleg MP3 files.

Anyone can sign up for AdSense -- bloggers, publishers, nonprofit groups or even aspiring poets -- although Google's terms-of-service agreement prohibits websites that promote illegal activity or infringe on others' rights. Google sells ad space on members' sites, and it splits the revenue with the publishers.

Technically, these blogs could be considered illegal. The RIAA could make a claim that bloggers who direct people to pirated music may be committing "contributory copyright infringement." And a claim could even be made against Google for profiting from the sites, says attorney Eric Custer, a partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.

But who wants to put a stop to it? The RIAA declined to comment for this story, but the publisher of one MP3 aggregator, who asked to remain anonymous, says music labels have been extremely cooperative. This blogger monitors more than 3,000 music blogs daily, providing links to files that have been uploaded to various music lockers. And no, the blogger has never been asked by a label to take a link down.

"Actually, we've been contacted by labels, promo agencies and even musicians and bands to help promote them. Which we've done, free of charge," the blogger wrote by email. The blogger also has the impression that the site has helped expose people to music they wouldn't otherwise hear, and may even help drive CD sales, although there's no hard evidence of this.

A major moneymaking operation it is not. The blog, which generates thousands of pageviews daily from thousands of unique visitors, makes its creator just 75 cents for each hour put into it.

Google keeps the AdSense revenue split confidential, so it's unknown exactly how much the company makes from each publisher in the program. In a recent SEC filing, Google said it pays "most" of the fees it makes from advertisers to publishers. A 2006 New York Times report suggested one publisher, Digital Point Solutions, took home 78.5 percent of the revenue, presumably leaving 21.5 percent to Google.

Whatever the split, AdSense is an incredibly profitable operation for the company, generating billions in revenue each year. In the third quarter of 2007 alone, Google made $1.45 billion, or one-third of its revenue, from AdSense. The amount of money generated by music bloggers, though, could be fairly marginal.

"Proportionately, I think (blogs) probably represent a very small percentage of the file-sharing market," says Eric Garland, co-founder and CEO of BigChampagne, a Beverly Hills, California, market research firm that follows the file-sharing universe. "There are always going to be different mechanisms or vehicles for exchanging files, but ultimately, people go to a search-driven environment that you find in file-sharing applications."

For its part, Google denies responsibility for content on the AdSense network and says it acts fast when it identifies publishers who violate its terms of service. And to enforce this policy, Google reviews participating sites to weed out content that violates the AdSense terms-of-service contract.

"In the same way we crawl websites (for our search service), we crawl publisher websites to flag information that may violate our policy," says Google spokesman Brandon McCormick. "Every site at some point goes through a manual review. It's something we take very seriously."

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Free DVD MP3 Ripper

Free DVD MP3 Ripper can extract audio from DVD, VCD/SVCD and MPEG (MPEG-1, MPEG-2) files into MP3 which can be played in MP3 Players. The program is a freeware and does not contain any form of malware, including but not limited to: spyware, viruses, trojans and backdoors.

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