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First of all: that name. Google Play Music All Access. Perhaps Google's presenters realized, as they were driving to the I/O keynote, that they had forgotten to name the new music-streaming service, and came up with that clunker backstage. Uniqu...

Google's lawyers visited the Second Circuit Court of Appeals last week for a polite conversation with three judges and attorneys from the Authors Guild. You remember -- the book-scanning thing? Yes, the case is 7 years old and still unresolved. Th...

"What happened is way worse for musicians. It has forced musicians to be marketers." John McVey, producer, Coupe Studios "I fear that in general the only musicians able to create a truly independent and successful career are those who had one bef...

"I think the consumer is going to be driving this train for quite a long time." -- Casey Rae, deputy director, Future of Music Coalition In 2003, the iTunes Music Store established an environment for downloadable music at exactly the time when con...

"iTunes is a stepping stone along the way." -- Jim Griffin, OneHouse LLC On April 28th, the iTunes Store basked in a milestone 10th birthday. Two years before its 2003 launch (as the iTunes Music Store), Apple introduced the iTunes client as a des...

I drive a two-seat roadster known for its great handling. The last thing I want is for a machine to take the steering wheel out of my hands. My car company isn't into self-driving cars, but others are: Ford, BMW, Audi. And, of course, Google is movin...

Business battles are often ecosystem battles, in which brands develop a matrix of conveniently connected products and services, in an attempt to lock customers into a dependency. Offline companies follow this tack (think razors and blades). But the i...

You've seen the videos -- thousands of starlings flocking in the sky to swirl and surge across wide, cloudless backdrops. The beauty of their coordinated motion is stunning. The phenomenon is expressively called murmuration. There might be purpose to...

Pope Who? White smoke over the Vatican doesn't stand a chance as a trending topic next to the black cloud over one of Google's most beloved products. Google Reader has landed on the company's sunset list, and will wink out of existence on July 1. Pro...

In an episode of Elementary, a TV reinvention of Sherlock Holmes, there is an audacious product placement for the Microsoft Surface tablet. Holmes, a techno-adept detective working in New York, whips out a Surface to do some quick research. He snaps ...