Raves have been occurring for many years across the world. They usually happen in large warehouses, miles away from civilisation and have an engrained drug culture. One thing they are famous for however is the noise, ear shattering, high decible noise that makes the whole venue shake.

However a new craze that started in Europe and has now made it to the States is the silent rave. That’s right, a rave where not a sound can be heard. The idea is that everyone who attends the rave brings their iPod or MP3 player, and dances along to their own music.

As weird as it sounds, it’s a concept that has really caught on. Last month a silent rave took place in New York’s union square, where more than a thousand ‘silent ravers’ showed up and raved the night away until 1 am, on the street, in full view of passers by.

Mr. Wesson is an exchange student from London, and he organised the New York silent rave:

It sounds sort of phony, but it really is a liberating experience. You wouldn’t just dance on the street on your own at any time, so the fact that you do it at this event, it’s just really fun.

One thing that always been the scourge of the raver however is the authorities. Gaining approval from the authorities for a silent rave is something that remains a grey area.

He said he didn’t get approval from police for the New York event because he hadn’t anticipated such a massive turnout, but police did show up anyway.

Police only turned up two hours into it, and as far as I know no arrests were made. People were just dancing. They weren’t doing anything wrong. The police stood by and some of them even started dancing themselves.

If late return fees have always put you off getting books from the library, the Central Pennsylvania Library District have found the answer. Members of their library need not worry about returning any books late, or losing them, or even having to make up an excuse such as their dog has eaten them. The reason is that Pennsylvania’s library is offering books on MP3 for patrons to take away with them on their MP3 players.

The audio books are downloadable from their website, and are completely free. The free MP3 books come in both fiction and non fiction titles, and are available from http://digitallibrary.centralpalibraries.org.

This means that the books can be listened to on computers, MP3 players or even burnt onto CDs.

The director of the Schlow Centre Region library, Betsy Allen, said:

We’re very excited about this service. We think this is a wonderfully modern and helpful service that people will embrace.

Members need to download the OverDrive Media Console program that allows them to access the audio books from the website, and they do also need to have a valid library card.

There are currently 200 titles available for download, including fiction titles in the thriller and romance genres.

Japan may be the home of technology and the source of all of the best inventions of recent years, but the Japanese government is looking to introduce a tax on MP3 players. This tax, if successfully imposed, would see MP3 players and the newly released DVRs increase in price for the gadget hungry nation.

The report was published in Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper. It claims that the Agency for Cultural Affairs in Japan is looking to introduce a tax system whereby MP3 player manufacturers would have to pay a fee, or royalty charge, to the music copyright holders to make up for the deemed loss of profits they would incur as a result of the digital download format.

Although no figures have been decided upon, it is expected that the tax may be as high as several hundred Japanese Yen per MP3 player. This cost would then of course be passed on to the customer.

Japan has taxed other digital recording devices in the past, with cassette players and mini-disc players carrying a tax of several percent since 1993.

The government in Japan attempted to extend the law to cover digital media devices in 2005, but failed.

The Music Business Group in the UK is attempting to do the same thing in the UK by persuading the British government. If Japan is successful, the MBG will gain encouragement for their proposals.

Salford based band ‘Ting Tings’ have been chosen to provide the music for Apple’s next iPod and iTunes TV advert.

The track is called ‘Shut Up and Let Me Go’ and features on the Salford based band’s debut album, entitled ‘We Started Nothing’; released on May 19th.

The Ting Tings are made up of two members, Jules De Martino and Katie White. They got together to form the Ting Tings in 2006 while they lived in Islington Mill, Salford, Manchester.

They are set to release their debut album, We Started Nothing, in May 2008.

Previous singles from the Ting Tings have failed to chart in the UK, but with the boost a TV commercial for Apple will give them, expect to hear a lot of the Salford band in the coming months.

The TV commercial will air in the UK and across 22 countries in Europe in the next few weeks, and is already being shown now in the USA.

Previously Apple has used bands such as Feist, CSS and Brendan Benson for adverts for their iPod.

Website audible.com recently gave away MP3 players to students of the Northstar Academy in New York. The company recently released a new website that allows children to download audiobooks on MP3, directly onto their MP3 players.

The idea is to use the technology that children already possess and use for their musical tastes, and use it so that they be introduced to books and find a new love of literature.

According to research from the NPD Group, almost 33% of children aged between six and ten are regular users of MP3 players. Now those children have the chance to listen to bedtime stories with them, as well as their favourite music.

Michele Cobb, president of the Audio Publishers Association says:

I hear lots of people talking, saying that when they put their kids to bed, they put them down with an audiobook.

According to the Audio Publishers Association, sales of children’s books only accounted for 13% of all audiobook sales in 2007. Although that is a small number, it’s almost double the figure that had been predicted by the Audio Publishers Association in 2004.

Don Katz, of audible.com, claims that they can inspire children to read by reaching out to them via the medium of the audiobook:

The world of reluctant readers is huge. Reading outcomes tend to fall apart around third grade.

Katz claims that using the audiobooks will inspire the children to take up reading and fall in love with books.

Listening is a powerful method to retain the meaning of the story and to turn people on to the concept of well-chosen words. The interpretation of the reader, that adds layers to it.

They size doesn’t matter, but bragging about your size when it’s not quite as big as you’re claiming can land you in hot water. That’s just what happened to Creative when they ‘misrepresented’ the size of their MP3 players, and the number of files they were capable of holding.

Apparently they’d exaggerated about their size by as much as 50%. As a result, anyone who purchased a Creative MP3 player in the US between May 5th 2001 and April 30th 2008 could receive a financial settlement.

Creative have now been ordered to make disclosures on the size and capacity of their models. They also have to offer customers who had purchased their players between those dates the opportunity to purchase a new 1GB MP3 player for half price, or if they prefer to receive a 20% discount on any of their products.

Any consumer wishing to claim must do so by August 7th, and they’re entitled to one claim per player bought.

According to Creative:

Creative has denied and continues to deny each and all of plaintiffs’ claims, and denies that anyone has been harmed or deserves compensation.

Seagate previously had to settle over exaggerated claims on the size of the capacity on their hard drives.

Music and technology giant Sony has recently announced its intentions to acquire the media metadate engine Gracenote. Gracenote does a whole host of things related to the download and cataloguing of digital music, such as naming songs that haven been ripped with iTunes and identifying video files so that they can be used for monetary purposes online.

So why does Song plan on purchasing Gracenote? One reason is that many of Sony’s competitors actually use Gracenote’s data to power their digital music information. Sony can make an instant return on their investment simply by increasing the licence fee for using Gracenote.

The fee for Gracenote looks like being $260 million, which represents a sizable investment.

Inside rumours from Sony however say that Sony will keep Gracenote separate from their other business, and will not use it in this way.

The real advantage for Sony seems to be in the way that Gracenote can organise its data across many different media, such MP3 players, media software etc. Sony is looking to find someway to merge its separated interests, such as music, movies, electronics and computer hardware.

Gracenote should be able to do that for them.

There have been a lot of reports lately about the dangers of damaging your hearing as a result of having your MP3 player’s volume turned up too loud. Philips are actually doing something about it. They’ve released a set of headphones aimed at children, which they claim will help protect the user’s hearing from the potential damages that could be caused through high volumes.

The headphones will be named the ‘Philips Children’s Headphones’ and they’ll come with a safety volume lock which will act much like the parental control found on Internet access. The lock will allow parents to control the volume that their children listen to their MP3 players.

Philips have acted after the recent studies into hearing loss came to light as a result of listening to MP3 players at very loud levels.

One such study was carried out at the Hearing Cooperative Research Centre in Australia, where they discovered that 1 in 6 Australians had contracted permanent hearing damage as a direct result to being exposed to high volumes caused by portable music devices, such as MP3 players.

Philips Australia general manager, Matt Moran said:

Philips is committed across its consumer lifestyle and healthcare businesses to improving people’s lives through innovative technological and healthcare solutions, so adding the ability to protect children from hearing loss is a great opportunity for us.

Following the trend of increasing sales in iPod, MP3 and Portable DVD products, the demand for specially designed children’s accessories including headphones is also growing at a rapid rate, providing retailers with a great add-on sales opportunity.

As iTunes and Apple close in on total dominance in the music industry, and the digital music market, it’s worth looking at just how Apple was allowed to get such a stranglehold on one of the biggest industries in the world economy.

With the music business being so lucrative, how can the major labels have allowed Apple to get so big, so quickly? In just five years Apple has grown to own 70% of all online music sales, and is expected to top 28% of ALL music sales come 2012.

Apple’s foray into the music industry after they acquired SoundJam MP in 2000, a program that was to become the iTunes application.

The music labels made an exclusive agreement to license their intellectual property to Apple because initially the iTunes Store was only available on the Mac, which represented a smaller marketplace that the studios could test the fledgling digital download market.

Naturally the sales to Mac users came about very quickly, resulting a Windows version of iTunes being launched soon after; opening up the World market for Apple, iTunes and the music industry as a whole.

This instant control iTunes was afforded has been impossible for anyone to break ever since.

In addition to the monopoly iTunes enjoyed, the global success of the iPod helped increase the reach of the digital download platform.

It seems obvious that pupils probably shouldn’t use their MP3 players, games consoles and mobile phones when they’re in school. They’ll disrupt the concentration of others, and cause the teacher to have serious difficulties in conveying the point of the class upon on the children.

However, a certain school in Wales was rife with such distractions, causing the teacher in question to be sacked from his job due to professional incompetence.

Martin Reynish of Bryn Celynnog Comprehensive in Rhondda Cynon Taf was dismissed from his job at a hearing, due to his inability to control his pupils.

He has since been ordered to take further training within two years by the General Teaching Council of Wales. In the hearing it was revealed that pupils would spend their time listening to their MP3 players and playing on their handheld games consoles during his English lessons. Apparently one pupil even chatted on their mobile phone.

The hearing that saw Martin Reynish dismissed was one that is usually reserved for misconduct.

Mr Reynish apparently failed to control his pupils, or to motivate them between 2004 and 2006.

According to testimonies Mr Reynish was a competent teacher who was faced with a difficult class who wouldn’t respond to motivation. Obviously items such as mobile phones, games consoles and MP3 players should be taken into school with pupils.