Cool Toys Department

I’ve been playing with MP3pro, a new file format that is exactly half the size of MP3s, with higher sound quality. The even neater part is that you can play MP3pro’s with your old MP3 player. It sounds great. And it eliminates Windows Media’s technical advantage.

You can download an MP3pro encoder and player from RCA. (Remember RCA? I thought they were long gone.)

News.com writes: “None of the Big Five (record labels) are going to distribute without security,” said Gartner analyst P.J. McNealy. “Unless that’s there, (MP3 proponents) are unlikely to get any of the Big Five.”

Hello? Who cares what record companies do?

One of my neighbors abandoned this cool stereo receiver. It’s a Beomaster 2400 from 1980. In 1980, I really lusted after these kinds of things. So I took it home.