Will Podcasts Et Al Kill Local Broadcasters?

“The rise of the on-demand world has local suppliers of content everywhere unsettled. In one sense, it’s the classic tale of old-guard businesses struggling to withstand a disruptive technology. (Think Napster and the record industry.) But it’s also a lesson in how media are benefiting by embracing the new broadcast landscape of content without boundaries.”

Organ-Makers Run Afoul Of New European Union Laws

“Two European Union directives, which come into force in the 25 EU countries in July, ban the manufacture of ‘electrical equipment’ containing more than 0.1 percent lead. The statutes are intended principally to reduce the volume of lead seeping back into the environment mainly from discarded mobile phones and other disposable modern technologies. But the 1,000-year-old art of organ-building appears to have been swept up in the legislating zeal.”

Dealers Scour Art Schools For Stars

“With global auction sales hitting $4.2 billion last year and scores of new galleries fighting for inventory, some dealers are reaching out to a largely untapped group of American artists: the impossibly precocious. From art hubs like New York to spots like Fort Wayne, Ind., dealers, collectors and museum curators are scouting artists still in their teens and early 20s. Painters who aren’t old enough to rent a car are hiring personal assistants, turning down interviews and having their work snapped up by such major collectors as Michael Ovitz and Charles Saatchi.”

The Dancing Faces

For two years, artist and choreographer Jonathan Stone has been filming people dancing with just their faces. “They’re like little character portraits,” he says. “Everyone chooses their own music, so I have absolutely no control over that. As I film lots of people, it builds up a portrait of a population and the varieties of musical taste. It can be anything from classical music to bits of jazz and thrash metal.”

PBS Online?

PBS is considering putting its shows online. “My goal in running PBS is that no matter what choice consumers in the digital age decide to do … we recognize the need to make content available to any of those platforms, and right now we’re moving in that direction.”

Think Your Computer Through It

Scientists are working on a computer that could be controled by brainwaves. “We are dreaming of something like a baseball cap with electrodes in the cap that can measure the brainwaves. People could just put on the cap and have a wireless connection from these electrodes to a computer and they can play video games.”

Wyner Wins Pulitzer

Yehudi Wyner has won this year’s Pulitzer for music. “Commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra through the New Works Fund (established by the Massachusetts Cultural Council), the concerto was premiered by soloist Robert Levin and the BSO under the baton of frequent guest conductor Robert Spano on February 17, 2005.”