Mobile phone music services-NMT

Record labels are predicting that this month's launch of three new mobile phone music services will usher a return of rising sales after years of decline.
The world's biggest music company, Universal, is backing the MusicStation, the Vodafone service. Rob Wells, head of digital at Universal's international division, predicts the £1.99-a-week subscription service will have mass market appeal. "We are at a turning point in the UK," he says, predicting digital music sales here could offset falling CD sales within a year.
Global sales have been falling since 2000, down another 5% to $19.6bn (£9.4bn) last year, according to industry group IFPI. Although digital sales are rising fast, at a tenth of the total market, they have yet to make up for tumbling CD sales.
One place where the gap has been closed is Japan. Total music sales there edged up 1% last year. Japan's success in offsetting falling CD sales - something the IFPI calls reaching the "holy grail" - is largely attributed to the prevalence of mobile downloads.

IFPI director of technology Richard Gooch sees lessons for other music markets. He says: "There are cultural differences, and there are network differences at play so it's not simply the fact of having a mobile music service but in those countries where they have moved towards the holy grail it's generally been on the back of mobile.
"Mobile is obviously extremely important because you have the market reach and secondly, the type of demographics that are very important to the music industry will almost certainly have music-enabled mobile phones." There are already indications that mobile music sales are picking up in the UK. The Orange UK network says its music sales jumped 70% over the past six months and it expects them to double by the end of 2007.

Although prices have fallen, payment is simpler and handsets easier to use, telecoms experts still list several obstacles to record labels' fortunes being transformed.
Philip Makinson at telecoms specialists Greenwich Consulting says at £1.99 a week MusicStation brings big changes for music buyers but not necessarily for music sellers.
"Can something like this save the music industry? Well, MusicStation per se in the short term no. Because firstly it's only on Vodafone at the moment and secondly it's very cheap, meaning that the actual revenue for the music industry per user can only be quite small."

1.What has caused this problem?
2.What are they new media technology this are trying to set up?
3.How will this effect the consumers and the producers?

Boss takes over the road.....

The latest NMT made is all about BOSS

WHO AND WHAT IS BOSS????....A driverless car called Boss has scooped a $2m prize in a Californian race for robotic vehicles.
Boss successfully drove around an urban environment, avoiding other cars, and covering 60 miles (85km) in less than six hours, all without any human control.
The modified Chevrolet Tahoe was one of six cars that crossed the finish line, from a pack of 11 robotic vehicles which set off at dawn. The others had to pull out after crashes or other problems.
The race was organised by the US military's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and is designed to develop unmanned vehicles that could be used in battle situations. Automotive manufacturers say the technology could eventually lead to self-driving cars.
Boss navigated around a simulated town, created on a disused US Air Force base in Victorville, in the Californian desert.
It had to deal with single and dual carriageway roads, junctions, buildings and car parks. As well as the 10 other driverless cars, Boss shared the road with more than 30 professional human drivers to simulate busy traffic.

IS BOSS GOING TO BE IN OUR FUTURE????....
The car industry is watching developments closely.
Larry Burns, GM's vice-president for research and development and strategic planning, said developing cars that drive themselves is a key objective.
"Imagine being able to talk on the phone, eat your breakfast, handle your emails, and leave the driving to the vehicle," he added.
"That would be pretty phenomenal. It's going to a big breakthrough. It's technology that's on the way to 'having cars that don't crash'."
He believes cars with that level of intelligence could be on the road by 2015.