Mp3 players have evolved drastically in last decade and even since the primary music players were introduced in 1800’s. There have been some dramatic changes in size and storage capacity in Mp3 players. The history of playback music was considered the base for the multimedia devises we are using now. Listening music in a playback mode was first introduced in 1877 by instrument known as phonograph in 1877 having a limited amount of storage and a bulky body it was evolved to CD players by the beginning of 20^th century, (“Acoustic”, 2010), and then to even compact flash drive players called Mp3 players. However, keeping this immense progress in mind the most significant change in this mode of listening to music will occur between next two decades. This era will be marked by two milestones in the development of Mp3 players 2015 and 2020. Both of these years will witness some most sophisticated and fully equipped Mp3 players comprising of all the necessary features to ease the usage. However, this technology which seems to be everlasting for ages tend to get phased out towards the end of 2020’s and begins to merge with other superior gadgets having multi features.

In the year 2015, the capability of mp3 players will go more diverse. These music players are manufactured to be more approachable for daily users. It comes with the ability to sort a song and making infinite new playlist. This has made even easier by tagging a specific song from a variety of playlist (“Future of Technology and Mp3 Players”, 2009). Flexibility and simple design will also be a big issue touched during 2015. It will evolve as a stylish necklace worn during parties and travelling. These players can be worn on the neck connecting a wire with the headphone in your ears. This minimizes the complexity of wire handling. Moreover, no one would need to take the player off the neck to change the song. It will have an in-build human voice recognition processor, through which the player can translate a human voice into electrical signal which can be used to change song, mode, or adjust volume. (“High Gadgets”, 2010) These players also have ability to load live radio song into your own music player by compatible application so that you can listen to it whenever you want. They will also include some additional features such as external mic, photo viewing capability which is more enhanced on their beautiful and large colour screen. As more and more players are coming out with many additional features same as cell phone, it will a have a significant effect on the price.

In the year 2020, a new form of the Mp3 player will be designed which will replace old style players. The mp3 players will come with an inbuilt internet, which will have connection to many music websites and your personal pc wirelessly. With this we can listen to unlimited music anywhere and anytime. There will be no need to update your song every month. Those web sites are all you will have on your players for music, but they will be full of convenient applications as well. The music will not be compressed anymore and the players will keep updating itself with latest updates and software (“Wireless Mp3 players”, 2009). Moreover, for all these features no one has to buy a new devise because it all can be done by installing software in the Mp3 player like an add-on in a computer. Towards 2024, keeping in mind that these mp3 players include features same as cell phones; manufactures in 2024 will utilize wireless technology where Mp3 players can be separated from Headset or speakers (“Portable Players”, 2021). They are made user friendly and even more compact with touch screen operations. To be able to play song for longer time and continuously units are made more energy efficient and runs on solar power. Large bulky systems are out and so are internal iPod batteries that you can’t replace without professional help.

By the year 2029, the technology of mp3 player and its features will attain a point where the privilege it provides will be offered by many other more sophisticated gadgets. Every evolution it has taken is geared towards the minimizing its gap between smart phones. It has moved to the flash drive, instead of their hard disk to store data, this promises faster and smaller operation. In the longer term, mp3 players will eventually merge and become more integrated with all media. Going along with the change in the price of the multimedia players in the past, more and more competition with other gadgets will cause dramatic fall in their price (“Future of Music listeners”, 2012).  They will be used in media library in colleges and universities, where they will replace CD and old platform of music recoding. At this point manufactures will stop producing such music players independently. They will rather prefer it to combine with other electronic devise. This will mark the end of portable Mp3 players.

Acoustics. (2010). In Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved March 20, 2010, from Encyclopedia Britannica Online. from http://search.eb.com.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/eb/article-64050

France, Jasmine. (2009 June) “Wireless Mp3 players” from http://reviews.cnet.com/4321-6490_7-6574456.html

James, Mark. (2012 August). “Future of Music listners” The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved December 30, 2012, from http://en.wiki.org/w/index.php?title=vodcast&oldid=361484623

Kingham, J. Top 5 “High Gadges”of 2016. Retrieved December 30, 2029, from http://www.bloggerspot.com

Sood, Netesh. (2009, April). “The future of technology and Mp3 players” from http://www.gadgetell.com/tech/comment/the-future-of-technology-and-mp3-players/

Portable Players (2021, May) In WikipediaPro, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved December 2, 2021, from: http://www.wikipediapro.com/stream_statistics/content-database.html

Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta: A pioneer in Electrochemistry. From http://www.italian-american.com/volta.htm(1990)

Super Scientists Count Alessandro Volta (California 2006) from: http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/scientists/volta.html

Wikipedia.(2010, March 28). Alessandro Volta.Retrieved March 31,2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_Volta

The Mp3 players have evolved from many different styles of recording and listening music. The historical framework of Mp3 players and their playback mode is built on the concept of handwritten music, Phonograph, cassette and CD recordings. These techniques remain into existence for many years and they gradually removed the sound from its original source. Slowly, people started to realise that this way of listening to popular music is much more efficient and convenient. At last, the introduction of Mp3 players changed the mode and view of perusing music. Now, it is the most common source of listening music through which we can edit the song which we like to hear.

Pre-Industrial Era:

The pre-industrial era of recording music took lot of time to be recognized. Prior to the 20th century, popular music was essentially folk music – music for and by the people. Initially music can only be heard and enjoyed in live performance and acts (Chanan, 1995). There was no instrument which could record and play a sound back. In this era people do not have excess to mechanical instrument to record sound. Therefore, the only method they could use is to write the music on sheets to record it. This notation of music was only limited within the music producer and composers because they were the only people who can actually understand and play it back. This style of writing music is still being used in live orchestra, although it has made less complicated than before.

Industrial Era:

The industrial era saw many new innovations and techniques which brought the industrial revolution in sound recording. The focus has now changed to mass production. People were looking for something which can preserve the performance and could be played back later. A completely new device was invented called Phonograph. This instrument was capable of both recording and playing it back. At first Phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison. Similar to phonograph another instrument was invented in 1890 by Emile Berliner called Gramophone (Schoenherr, 2005).This had a better quality but still the storage space was very limited. They used to record the sound on plastic which resulted in better clarity than Phonograph (Acoustics, 2010). These devices marked the first step of music through pre-recorded mechanical and electrical medium. It was very popular within music lovers, but gradually it brought out some of its drawbacks such as low quality in sound and less storage space.

Post-Industrial Era:

Post-industrial era consists of the time after industrial revolution till today. This era overcome all the drawbacks and difficulties faced to listen to recorded music since industrial age. Although, the needs and requirement for society kept on increasing, and around this time people have come to know that there is a cheaper and easier way to listen to popular music. All the industrial era’s instruments are considered too big to carry and they also had very less space. This led to the invention of cassette tape players. This innovation was popular for many years; it consists of magnetic tape on which anyone can record their choice of music (Schoenherr, 2005). Considering the magnetic connection of music and recording helped in inventing CD players. CD’s been much more compact and could record some good quality music. There were many continuous developments occurring all round the world to improve this technology and to include more songs in less space and make music players portable. This gave rise to the Mp3 players.

As we can notice, the methods and procedures used in the pre-industrial and industrial age are being still used in some form or another. We are not able to substitute those methods completely. We still require written notation to translate into classical music and we are still using CD’s which works on the concept of cassette’s through changing the orientation of magnetic particles on it. Lastly, Mp3 players are being evolved from phonograph.

Citation:-

Acoustics. (2010) .In Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved March 25, 2010, from Encyclopaedia Britannica Online: http://search.eb.com.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/eb/article-64050

Michael Chanan, “Repeated takes: a short history of recording and its effects on music”. (1995). Retrieved on March 22^nd, 2010 from:http://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=MAn38JBuwKoC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&ots=DwB_i3WlGv&sig=a0rb9lpBmaVAVYv6j23sqYvvfLE#v=onepage&f=false

Musical notation. (2010, March 18). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 21, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Musical_notation&oldid=350568266

Schorenherr, Steven E. Recording Technology History. http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/notes.html [July 6, 2005]

Working on Wiki collectively brought out some of the disadvantages of large group size. Since everyone was working at the same time, it was very hard to communicate with each group simultaneously. Moreover, anyone had the liberty to delete someone else’s post without actually consulting with them  There should have been a live chat tool somewhere on the main page. Some of the advantages of Wiki are it reduces the time involved in finishing the project. If we had used some other source to complete this project it would have take way more time. It is open and transparent to anyone which increases projects efficiency and quality. The fact that it is so easy to use that just in a click one can add ideas. At first the time was limited, and then it lacked one on one interaction and communications. At the end of this lab our group face some issues to post the content; therefore we missed the output from two group members.

The style and structure of my own paper would be much different than what we did in this project. I would have used many transactions between each thought and idea, whereas in our project every group just jammed there points together in the wiki. Focus would have been narrow as compared to what we had in this project.

Spencer Steele, Atish Mathur, Aslan Law, Gustav Louw, Ian Chen, Guanchen Zhang

Spencer Steele, Atish Mathur, Aslan Law, Gustav Louw, Ian Chen, Guanchen Zhang

Monday was a slow day and it was hard for everyone to believe that Olympics has really finished. Apparently, it turned out that people working in downtown Vancouver were depressed to see all the figures and decorations being removed from Granville Street forever. Only place where it’s active and still crowded is the Vancouver International Airport. The question remains, can Vancouver will able to see such an excitement and enthusiasm again? VANOC is trying to engage again with same efforts for Paralympics.

It will take Vancouverites few days to recover from the enjoyment they did in those two weeks. We all know that enthusiasm and patriotism will never be the same again. Although, we must not forget that Paralympics Winter Games are also important for disabled athletes and they need our support and cheer. Vancouver organizing committee are arranging many free activities during Paralympics. They do not want everyone to think that games are over yet. That is why most of the pavilion at science world, downtown Livecity and Robson square will remain open throughout Paralympics. Therefore, starting in two weeks, we should be prepared to show the same support and motivation to the disabled participants. It is time to take out that red color again.

Introduction:

Music has been around us for many decades in the form of live concert, radio, CD, cassette internet, and music players. A fairly new mode of listening music is Mp3 players. Mp3 players have a huge capacity of storing music file which can be heard anytime and anywhere. This devise has keep on evolving since it is been created. The most amazing innovation in Mp3 players is that its size is decreasing and features are increasing. Capacity to store music can go up to 30GB, features such as, in-build radio, movie players. In today’s mp3 players we can create our own playlist, upload pictures, videos, and surf Internet; it is more than a simple music player. Anyone can just plug in the output device, like speakers or headphone and can listen to hundreds of songs continuously.

Article’s Summary:

In the article “Deafness impact of IPod or Mp3 players” Felicity Bleckly examines the negative effect of listening to music from Mp3 players for long interval of time. The young people are suffered by hearing problems on listening to music at loud volume and for long time.  He enlightens us with the danger of damaging ears by listening to high volume of music through Mp3 players. A survey was conducted on young people that showed that people increase their music player’s volume when travelling through crowded areas which causes more sever affect on their ear drums. Some youngster often refuses to use the additional feature on IPods and Mp3 players which help their ear and limit decibel. Cowan advised that it is most important to reduce time we spend per day listening music through Mp3 players, and breaks are necessary.  (Bleckly, 2009)

Opinion:

These Mp3 players have a huge social effect on today’s society. Mp3 players are a device used by mostly every middle aged people; therefore, anything in excess is not always well for health. This article show everyday users of Mp3 players how dangerous continuous listening to these devise could become. Mp3 players are no doubt most convenient methods to listen to music, at the same time, using it in excess can ruin our hearing power. A researcher Fan- Gang Zeng found that many students are having the same condition of their ears as of 50 to 60 years old person. (Fisher, 2007)

This explains that students exposed to hearing loud music cannot sustain so much pressure on their ear drums. The ability of Mp3 players to store and play hours of music, as a result, users listen continuously without taking any break in between. Survey also shows that younger children have narrow and undeveloped ear canals; therefore the effect of exposure to music for long time has more negative effect on them.   (Fisher, 2007)

Solution:

Mp3 players is a personal devise, therefore it can become very hard to prevent someone using it. However, we should restrict teenagers and students from using it for long intervals. New Mp3 players should have in-build decibel limiter which works automatically according to the noise level outside. This will help users to listen to music without actually increasing the volume from the Mp3 player. The use age of Mp3 players should not be allowed during classes and lectures. It will restrict and limit users to hear music and provide them break from continuous listening.

References:

1)  Bleckly, Felicity. “Deafness impact of IPod or Mp3 players”, 2009, Bella Online’s Deafness Editor, Retrieved on February 10, 2010 from: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art38027.asp

2) Fisher, Marla Jo. “Experts worry about harm to hearing from MP3 players”, The Sydney Morning Herald (January 4, 2007), Retrieved on February 10, 2010 from: http://www.smh.com.au/news/digital-music/experts-worry-about-harm-to-hearing-from-mp3-players/2007/01/04/1167777193761.html

Studio Lab Assignment #1

January 18^th 2010

1          Gustav             778-230-7663 glouw@sfu.ca
2          Atish                778 231 9773 atishm@sfu.ca
3          Guanchen        604 722 3718 gza10@sfu.ca
4          Spencer          604 785 7060 sls10@sfu.ca
5          Aslan               778 991 2992 aslanl@sfu.ca
6          Ian                  778 858 7603  ianmingc@sfu.ca

1.0 – Intro

For our activity we decided to use Facebook, the emailing service provided by SFU, our cell phones, and of course, Morse code. Of the four we chose, Facebook and emailing proved to be relatively more efficient than communication via cell phones and Morse code. Reasons being all to obvious: Morse Code was almost impossible without technological assistance and cell phones were used on a text to text basis. After the activity we played a game called telephone. A message is passed through a number of people and deciphered by the listener. The chain brings a comical upbringing, as the message that was long to start off with, did not make the message easier to pass on.

1.1 – The Process

Before starting, we decided to trade our contact information with one another so that we could communicate. Exchanging contact information on paper proved problematic but we solved this by email. So before using any sort of “high-tech” communication means, it required of us to start from “primitive” ideas, (i.e. by talking with each other to share contact information). Through facebook and emails, we easily copied and pasted the message, then sending it to each other without losing any parts of the message. However, Facebook would sometimes fail to inform the user because of refresh issues. On the other hand, email was proved to be the most efficient way to communicate since everyone had access to it and there was no such refresh issues as facebook. When we used Morse code to transfer our message, a Morse code generator and converter had to be used since none of us were familiar with the technology. A converter was quickly found on Google and allowed us use of this technology, but Morse code still proved to be the most complicated and time consuming. In addition, the use of our cell phones proved to be a little more difficult, as the message became incoherent due to the countless typos and a function in the cell phone in which words are spelt out for you if you hit a certain combination of keys. For example, when typing the word “of”, sometimes the result would be “me” instead. Because one of our team didn’t bring his cell phone, it proved difficult to circulate the message without the use of email.

1.2 – Errors and complications

A common aspect of all technologies was the ‘copy & paste’ function. This function was very useful because it insured that none of the message would be altered or lost if we were to retype the message. The only downside to this formidable function is if the original message was already corrupted.  Also, each of the technologies requires the access to certain devices and the internet, so any means of communication relies most on particular platforms, i.e. computers and the internet.  The critical problem that arose during the lab was the inconsistency of our own team members. Some members of our group did not have the specific technology that we had chosen for this activity, such as a cell phone, or a facebook account. It was also relatively difficult to get everyone online or available to check the message as soon as it was sent, so there was a lag during the flow of message. This increased the amount of time it took for our group to get the message across. Not having access to any of the four media we chose proved to increase the level of difficulty when trying to transfer messages. Through this lab, we realized that technology is a valuable asset when we want to deliver and receive messages accurately and quickly but only when everyone has access to the same form of communication technology.  One other delay in passing the message was copying it from the main computer.  People who had their laptops were quick in send the message to their teammates than us, since they just had to do some clicks, whereas, we had to retype the on to our computer.

Part 1 – Facebook

“It is impossible to understand social cultural changes without a knowledge of the working’s of media.”

The Instagator:  Gus

Reciever #1 :  Atish

Reciever #2 :  Guanchen

Reciever #3 :  Spencer

Reciever #4 :  Aslan

The Finisher :  Ian

First, the message was passed around to everyone to go on Facebook, as it was the quickest way of information transfer.  Below is an email Spencer sent out telling everyone to go on Facebook. Once, on Facebook we used the Facebook chat feature, this feature was used for  all Parts as well for getting people to check their various communication technologies. Gus started the chain by “copy and pasting” the message into the chat box, and from there everyone transferred it along the line quite quickly.

Part 2 – SFU Email

“Our “Age of Anxiety ” is , in great part, the result of trying to do today’s job with yesterday’s tool with yesterday’s concept.”

The Instagator:  Atish

Reciever #1 :  Guanchen

Reciever #2 :  Spencer

Reciever #3 :  Aslan

Reciever #4 :  Ian

The Finisher :  Gus

Was the easiest to work with. We basically purged the inbox and relayed the message back to the founder.

Part 3 – Morse Code

“Students of modern are persistently attacked as evaders, idly concentrating on means or processes rather than on “substance”. The dramatic and rapid changes of substance elude the accuser.”

Using a Morse code translator from http://morsecode.scphillips.com/jtranslator.html we were able to cipher the message.

Every member in the team broke the code down with the online Morse code translator for checking the spelling of the words. Then each of the team members ciphered the code back to Morse code and pass it along to the next person. Although Morse code was the most complicated form of communication technology we used among the four technologies, it still accomplished the communication task with no errors in the message.

Part 4 – The Cell Phone

“Survival is not possible if one approaches his environment, the social drama, with a fixed unchangeable point of view the witless repetitive response to the unperceived.”

The Instagator:  Spencer

Reciever #1 :  Aslan

Reciever #2 :  Ian

Reciever #3 :  Gus

Reciever #4 :  Atish

The Finisher :  Guanchen

Since a fellow team member lacked a phone, we had to transfer the message partially via email. In the end, because of all the typing errors on Spencer’s Moto Adventure using T9, the message ended up like it is above. Using cell phones to relay messages proved not only complex but time consuming. A keypad would’ve worked best, but still, a group is as fast as its slowest member. In this case, we would have all required keypad phones, which is funny, because a phone is meant to be used verbally. Furthermore, difficulties surfaced when a team member lacked a cell phone. From there on, the message was relayed by email, then back to phone where it found its way back to its founder.