The CD, At 30, Is Feeling Its Age

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Nice historical perspective in, “The CD, At 30, Is Feeling Its Age,” from NPR’s music news blog, “The Record,” from 1 October 2012.

Pop quiz (no peeking!):

  1. What was first commercial album to be released on CD in October 1982?
  2. How much did the first commercial CD Player (Sony CDP-101) cost?
  3. Where did CBS and Sony open the first manufacturing plant in the U.S.?
  4. What was the first album to sell 1 million copies on CD? (Hint: it was released in 1985)
  5. What automaker provided the first in-dash car CD player to be factory installed?
  6. In what year did Hewlett-Packard introduce the first CD-R (Compact Disc-Recordable) recorder to cost less than $1,000?
  7. By what year did online music sales cause CD sales to decline by 20%?
  8. In 2007, the artist sometimes known as Prince gave away a free copy of what CD album in Britain’s Daily Mail newspapers?
  9. In 2012, according to Nielsen Company and Billboard, the market share for CDs is plummeting. What percentage of U.S. album sales are CDs in the first half of 2012?
  10. How many CDs do you own? Is that number greater or lesser than the number of .mp3 or other digital audio files (including digital rips of CDs that you own)?

Share how well you did in the comments!

Building Babbage’s Analytical Engine

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Computer Experts Building 1830s Babbage Analytical Engine: http://nyti.ms/u1bfan

A fascinating project to construct the Analytical Engine, a “room-size mechanical behemoth” that Charles Babbage (1791-1871) envisioned, and partly designed, but never built. See the Interactive Feature “Before-Its-Time Machine”. The project team, led by John Graham-Cumming, a programmer, and Doron Swade, a former curator at the Science Museum in London, have digitized Babbage’s surviving blueprints but are relying on crowd-sourcing to determine exactly what should be built. Plans will be posted online next year, and the public will be invited to offer suggestions. Sounds like fun!