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Media The Internet

Streaming Audio 10 Years Old 220

Posted by Zonk from the now-more-than-ugly-pixels dept.
SlimySlimy writes "This month, streaming audio turns 10. Though first introduced by Real, streaming multimedia is so commonplace today it's hard to believe that it didn't even exist 10 years ago. In line with one of their previous press releases, RealNetworks has released a mysterious website and letter from CEO Rob Glaser celebrating 10 years of Internet streaming audio, as well as announcing a yet-to-be-revealed 'revolution' in digital media. 'On April 26, we are changing the rules of the Internet again, and digital music will never be the same.' Here is their press release from 1995 (when they were still Progressive Networks) announcing the first streaming Internet multimedia."
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Streaming Audio 10 Years Old More

Streaming Audio 10 Years Old

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  • I know what it is.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by avdp ( 22065 ) * on Sunday April 24, 2005 @01:29PM (#12330462)
    It's some sort of two-wheeled motorized single passenger vehicle. Oh wait...

  • In other news (Score:3, Funny)

    by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @01:30PM (#12330466) Homepage Journal


    Streaming video still buffering...

  • FP (Score:5, Funny)

    by peterpi ( 585134 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @01:30PM (#12330475)
    First Po

    [buffering 36%]

  • 10 years of.... evolution? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by green pizza ( 159161 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @01:31PM (#12330479) Homepage
    Am I the only one who isn't impressed with the state of streaming media these days? I think the current RealOne player is garbage. At least the original RealAudio wasn't nearly as bad, but it still consumed a lot of RAM and CPU cycles on my 68040.

    At least VoIP and video conferencing have taken off and work quite well.

    What are some of the better one-way, RealOne-like streaming formats these days?
    • Real has always really really sucked. WMA actually streams pretty nicely I thought.
    • WMA works well a lot of the time if you ignore the problems with it being a propriatary format. Comedy Central has some streaming clips of, say, the Daily Show that work quite nicely.
    • At least the original RealAudio wasn't nearly as bad, but it still consumed a lot of RAM and CPU cycles on my 68040.

      The travesty is that it's been 10 years and streaming video still LOOKS like it did on a 68040.

    • Re:10 years of.... evolution? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jschottm ( 317343 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @03:38PM (#12331379)
      I think the current RealOne player is garbage.

      Could you be a little more specific? I stream terabytes of data with Real without much of a problem. The client has finally been cleared out of all of the crud - if you want a step by step guide you can read mine here [vt.edu] and the server's finally stablized to the point that they run for months without restarting the server application.

      At least the original RealAudio wasn't nearly as bad, but it still consumed a lot of RAM and CPU cycles on my 68040.

      A 225K stream in the current version of RealPlayer takes up 7-15% of my 2.0GHz Pentium-4M that I just tested it on.

      Having worked with or investigated the three common streaming mediums, I think that Real offers the best quality for things such as Powerpoint presentations or capturing writing on a document camera. For larger (640x480) movies, I've found that QuickTime with Sorenson 3 seems a little better. However, QuickTime for Windows can be tremendously unstable and generally brings Windows down with it as well. It's also much harder than Real to get working on the client end.

      Windows Media has never impressed me much - it's a variant of MPEG4 without much going for it other than the fact it's free. When Comedy Central went from Real to Windows Media, I noticed a drop in quality, even though they went up in bandwidth.

      As far as what's being done with streaming media, I use the streaming legal music services (alternate between Napster and Real Rhapsody) and am happy with them - I've got more than enough bandwidth to use them at work and they let me listen to the stuff I don't like enough to buy but want to hear every now and then. It's helping improve education - many of the students I work for enjoy being able to review the lectures after the fact. It means we can place movies online for them to watch without them having to go to the library to watch a physical copy (that someone else may have already checked out).
      • Thanks man. I never realized that you could cancel out of the registration part. I've always hated that. One thing I hate about the installer is the intentional pause/freeze just before the option to install Google Bar. The pause makes some people click twice thinking that they have mis-clicked and the toolbar installs without them ever seeing the question.
    • What I want to know: why are we still bothering with streaming audio when so many people have enough bandwidth to grab an hour of audio in a minute or so?

  • How times of changed (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24, 2005 @01:31PM (#12330481)

    In Win95, Real Player came as standard and had no spyware or data monitoring capabilities at all, it played ra and ram files and thats all it needed to do, tip for budding software companies in there somewhere iam sure

  • So... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24, 2005 @01:32PM (#12330487)
    ...does this mean "annoy-the-hell-out-of-me"-ware is now 10 years old?

    I despise RealPlayer.

  • I thought a mysterious website was a site where no one knew the URL for it.

  • I'm confused (Score:5, Funny)

    by smeenz ( 652345 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @01:33PM (#12330495) Homepage
    So wait.. do we hate Real or not ?
  • streaming multimedia is so commonplace today it's hard to believe that it didn't even exist 10 years ago.

    Actually, I find it harder to believe that it is now 10 years old. Now I feel old.

  • Solution searching for a problem? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Taladar ( 717494 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @01:35PM (#12330510)
    Seriously, isn't Streaming Audio/Video just another solution searching for a problem that isn't there? Why should I use Streaming Media and suffer from bad quality, have to disable my other uses of my connection, risk having to wait for re-buffering,... when I can just download the same content in a proper format and use fast forward and rewind it, pause it,... in any way I like while watching it full screen in good quality?
    • Because 10 years ago, most people didn't have fast connections and most people didn't have the hard drive space to store it.

      And because today, content providers often don't want you keeping a copy of their content on your hard drive.
    • because some people cant wait 5 days for stuff to download over their dialup
      • Its not like streaming media uses some magic crappy quality=>good quality transformation algorithm. The basic rules for quality/byte are the same for both types of video. The only difference is that streaming video/audio is practically unusable if the datarate is too low while downloading is still possible and can even be resumed later after switching off the computer.

    • Re:Solution searching for a problem? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 24, 2005 @01:40PM (#12330551)
      Seriously, isn't Streaming Audio/Video just another solution searching for a problem that isn't there? Why should I use Streaming Media and suffer from bad quality, have to disable my other uses of my connection, risk having to wait for re-buffering,... when I can just download the same content in a proper format and use fast forward and rewind it, pause it,... in any way I like while watching it full screen in good quality?

      Live broadcasts

    • Re:Solution searching for a problem? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by tommertron ( 640180 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @01:41PM (#12330561) Homepage Journal
      when I can just download the same content in a proper format and use fast forward and rewind it, pause it,... in any way I like while watching it full screen in good quality?

      Sounds great, unless you're listening to a live broadcast. Or something that content providers want you to listen to, but not own.

      • Or something that content providers want you to listen to, but not own.

        If you can hear it, you can record it. Streaming media is no more secure than any other DRM-protected audio... that is, not protected at all.
        • that is, not protected at all Maybe not for you or me, but the average user has no idea how to record or rip streamed audio. Just like DVDs can be copied and burned, but not by the average user - it's still an obstacle.
          • Maybe not for you or me, but the average user has no idea how to record or rip streamed audio.

            In other words DRM only provides protection against people who are not normally interested in abusing the video stream that are protected by it.
            • In other words DRM only provides protection against people who are not normally interested in abusing the video stream that are protected by it. Umm... then who were all those people sharing music on the P2Ps? Or making copies of CDs, and before that, tapes? A lot of people are interested in it, but the easier it is to do, the more people there are who are going to copy content.
              • then who were all those people sharing music on the P2Ps? Or making copies of CDs , and before that, tapes?

                Tell me, who is this person who can figure out how to make a copy of a tape but can't figure out how to plug that 3.5mm jack into the back of the computer instead of the back of the casette player?
                • My mother, my father, and probably anyone over the age of 40. Audio tape recording has been made simple and obvious: there are two decks, one of them has a Record button right by the Play button. Most people, though, would be surprised to discover that a sound card can actually accept sound!
                  • My mother, my father, and probably anyone over the age of 40.

                    Ah, and these are the people who are passing music around on the P2P networks? But never mind that...

                    Audio tape recording has been made simple and obvious: there are two decks, one of them has a Record button right by the Play button. Most people, though, would be surprised to discover that a sound card can actually accept sound!

                    Where did I say anything about the sound card being an input device? They were recording stuff to tape, what's sto
    • Seriously, isn't Streaming Audio/Video just another solution searching for a problem that isn't there? Why should I use Streaming Media and suffer from bad quality, have to disable my other uses of my connection, risk having to wait for re-buffering,...

      When I get home from work, I want to wind down, relax, click on a favorite radio station, and just sit back and listen. P2P was fun, but I no longer have the time for it.

    • It solves [*] a real problem if you're an expat. There are things I can't watch or listen to on television or radio where I live now, particularly sporting events. I don't think many of them are even available by other, more dubious means, even if I didn't mind catching a game or a match a few days after it was played.

      [*] For a certain, very loose definition of solve. It may be ten year old technology, but it's still crap, unfortunately.

  • Please (Score:2, Insightful)

    by m50d ( 797211 )
    Don't criticise real, just this once. They introduced it, they were doing it over 28kbps modems (which is probably where all the buffering lines come from...it doesn't happen anymore, it didn't happen on a decent connection, what do you want them to do on a connection so slow, it's not funny), we should salute them.
    • I recently downloaded Real One Player for Mac OS X and I can personally attest to the fact that they have serious quality issues to iron out. I dl'd the player to listen to the Final Four streaming. I live in Germany and miss sports back home. While the basketball games streamed just fine, anything with video stuttered. Often I lost the connection completely and the clip started over, only to flake out again half way through. Another grievance: If you clip on any news piece from the CNN NewPass you ca

    • my DSL must suck, then ... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Heisenbug ( 122836 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @01:58PM (#12330691)
      They introduced it, they were doing it over 28kbps modems (which is probably where all the buffering lines come from ...

      No. I have DSL. If I go try to watch, say, the Daily Show on Real or WMP, I expect that about half the time I'll have pauses or drops in quality or whatever because of connection issues. If I go to watch, say, a movie trailer in Quicktime, it downloads as fast as possible, shows me how much is downloaded, lets me start when I think I'll be able to see the whole thing, and lets me pause and jump around within everything already loaded without lag if I want to see something again or wait until the rest is loaded.

      All of the cracks about Real come because the model of only giving you the data *right* when you need it is simply inferior to the model of giving you all the data at once. It's another example of rights holders crippling their own damn product in a hopeless attempt to prevent you from downloading it and showing it to your friends.

      If web sites are using realtime streaming to show live content, then fair enough -- I don't blame Real if the connection gets slow. If they're using realtime streaming to show short pre-recorded clips that could easily fit in a RAM buffer, then they deserve ridicule for doing it, and Real deserves ridicule for encouraging it.

      • Re:my DSL must suck, then ... (Score:5, Informative)

        by GarfBond ( 565331 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @02:33PM (#12330916)
        Then you haven't used a modern version of RealPlayer recently. RealPlayer 10 does exactly just what you describe: precache the file if your connection can handle it while it's playing. I've even noticed WMP10 doing this not too long ago, so this feature is not unique to QT.

        At least on Windows, here's how you enable it:

        • Tools>Preferences
        • General|Playback Settings
        • Cache on-demand streams for faster seeking and smoother playback
        Next time you're playing a file, you should notice a little green bar scrolling across the progress bar, indicating how far ahead you've cached the file. I don't know if this requires the special Helix server to do this, but I don't think so since it does it on basically every file I've played. The windows media-equivalent might require the server use the WM Server though, since this isn't something I've seen happen too often. If you want to eliminate the "buffering" syndrome, you might want to turn on TurboPlay too, which is in the same panel as the cache setting. I have no idea if either of these are turned on by default (but they probably should be).
      • If they're using realtime streaming to show short pre-recorded clips that could easily fit in a RAM buffer, then they deserve ridicule for doing it

        I work in streaming media - my average file is around 80 minutes long. The files range from around 180-500MB. Is that a good enough use for you?

        Real deserves ridicule for encouraging it.

        I don't believe that any of the Real manuals that I've read include encouragement to show short clips via streaming.

        It's another example of rights holders crippling thei
  • Just like cell phones and the voice encoders. They are complete crap most of the time, 'cause it's cheaper for the phone companies, even though the technology exists (and isn't all *that* expensive) to have our voices sound perfect in cell phones.

    The audio quality of streaming media can be decent, but it often is not. This appears to be for the reason that websites need to cater to those with poor connections. And sure, some sites offer multiple versions of the same thing of varying quality, but that's a

  • 10 years old? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Thuktun ( 221615 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @01:40PM (#12330560) Journal
    Wouldn't MBONE [hanafos.com] count as streaming multimedia? It predates that by three years.
    • Heck, in 1993 I was doing:
      rsh otherlab 'cat /dev/audio' > /dev/audio
      on our SunOS boxes and listening to microphones.
  • I do understand that there is enormous amounts of research and new technology poured into streaming media, but I still think to end-users (and myself), streaming is still a disappointing technology. Right now, with windows media and real, it often times is a crap shoot if the media will be there when you're watching it, leading to pauses and the infamous buffering problems. Real and Windows Media are sketchy programs that seem more interested in an attractive interface than ensuring the media looks good. Sure, we can go back and forth about if more people had broadband why it would be better, but right now the crappy resolution, encoding artifacts, and sub-par audio on many streams is unacceptable/unusable.
    The best streaming I have seen is simple net-radio MPEG streams (or ogg), or apple quicktime. Apple trailers, though they take longer to buffer being such large files, tend to "guess" when to play it more accurately and are encoded like a professional video should look.
    What I simply do not understand is why more websites, if they're pushing the same amount of bits either way, don't offer the complete file for download. I know that sometimes it is streamed to prevent copying, but more often than not, streamed media is not stuff that one would not want copied (being public an all). It may even reduce strain on the server with re-viewings done locally. I think users would be much happier to wait a minute longer if they get a high-quality video/audio file and they know won't stop half way.
    It's a cool idea, but even after 10 years, its got a way to go.

    • What I simply do not understand is why more websites, if they're pushing the same amount of bits either way, don't offer the complete file for download.

      One reason is bandwidth conservation. Most people do NOT view/listen to the entire content file. With downloads, you have to dump the whole thing on them (or at least a LOT more than if you streamed).

      Not to mention having to wait for the download to complete. For -really- brief clips, sure, there is no difference. If you are having problems with s

    • I've found it's pretty much the opposite of what you say. Quicktime is horrible on linux, but both real and wmv play perfectly in my browser (konqueror) with kaffeine, with no difficulty at all unless there's a stupid player detection thing. The quality looks fine, wmv gets blocky at high compression rates like jpeg but that's all. Oddly I have more difficulty with radio streams than video, none of my normal mp3 players play them reliably, and kaffeine feels like overkill.
      • You seem to be refering to hacked codecs, so any quality comparison is sort of a crap-shoot. Only real as far as I know supports native streaming. As far as radio, MPEG streaming seems to always work so long as the server is responding, what sort of radio streams do you have problem with?
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Only 10 years old? (Score:4, Informative)

    by bytesmythe ( 58644 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <ehtymsetyb>> on Sunday April 24, 2005 @01:41PM (#12330569)
    How exactly are they defining "streaming audio"? Cuseeme was developed back in '93. I would consider that streaming media, and it's 12 years old.

    I still remember playing with cuseeme in the computer lab at school. The connection was painfully slow, but it was really cool to see the humble origins of this technology.
  • Streaming media, to me, is a matter of licensing, not technology.

    If I got the option to download an audio or video clip in "256k" or "broadband", I would make the same choices as I do now with "streaming" media, and I would also let it "buffer" and then start viewing the stuff before it was completely transmitted.

    But then I would also have it
    • on disk

    . I could see it once more, check which media player supports the freaky file format, etc.

    Streaming media is the throw-away camera of the digital world.

  • The "true" streaming pioneers (circa 1994) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gashalot ( 5775 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @01:46PM (#12330598) Homepage
    To be truthful, the first stream wasn't in 1996. It was way back in 1994, when WXYC started streaming using CuSeeMe. WREK (Georgia Tech's student radio) also started streaming with their own in-house software the same day WXYC went live, but it was not officially advertised until a later date.

    More information at: http://wxyc.org/about/first/ [wxyc.org] and http://www.wrek.org/wreknet-first.html [wrek.org].
    • I had thought KJHK was the first, but I guess it started just after WXYC. (December 3rd, 1994 [google.com]) Anyway, CUSeemee was clearly being used in substantial "webcasting" efforts long before the date claimed by Real.

    • Re:The "true" streaming pioneers (circa 1994) (Score:5, Funny)

      by zakezuke ( 229119 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @02:34PM (#12330929)
      To be truthful, the first stream wasn't in 1996. It was way back in 1994, when WXYC started streaming using CuSeeMe. WREK (Georgia Tech's student radio) also started streaming with their own in-house software the same day WXYC went live, but it was not officially advertised until a later date.

      Note, the following is neither a troll nor a flame, but rather an accurate account my first experience with CuSeeMe circa 1994 or so.

      I remember CuSeeMe very well. I remember my brother and my self showing our mother this. The future of communication... real time video conferencing around the world for free. On an 68030 based mac we found a reflector site with a number of participants. After a few moments the first guy shows up... shirtless but no big deal. Then the second guy shows up, also shirtless. But as it turns out they were not just shirtless, they were all nakid. The 5th man showed up as just a penis and everyone said, "hi Ralf" or some such.

      We wanted to show our mother the future in communications, and there it was, the future was a bunch of nakid men.
  • How much did real pay for this excelent PR on slashdot? I mean, linking directly to press releases is news now?
  • EFF Patent Busting Project - Top 10 Most Wanted: http://www.eff.org/patent/ Acacia's July 21, 1992 patent + 1 year earlier: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P T O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,132,992.WKU.&OS=PN/5,132,992&RS =PN/5,132,992 Actually this thread topic is wrong. Streaming media is much media is older than this according to prior art submissions by the defendants.
  • I thought that Internet Wave audio had the first live streaming. Maybe it wasn't truly streaming?

  • 10 years of streaming at WXYC (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MacJedi ( 173 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @01:56PM (#12330680) Homepage
    WXYC, the first radio station to stream over the internet, is offering a free CD [wxyc.org] for download to celebrate their own 10-years-of-streaming anniversary. (Be a good citizen and use the torrent. [ibiblio.org])

    • Re:10 years of streaming at WXYC (Score:4, Informative)

      by cianduffy ( 742890 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @02:11PM (#12330791)
      Sorry to piss on the parade here, but XFM, then Alices Resturant, were streaming on the web in 1992

      13 years ago.

      http://www.xfmdublin.com/

      Now, who the hell *listened* to them, I dunno; as I was unable to get a decent net connection in this city till 2004..

      I also doubt they were the first, but it proves WXYC *weren't* the first.

  • hard to believe? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MartinG ( 52587 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @01:56PM (#12330683) Homepage Journal
    it's hard to believe that it didn't even exist 10 years ago.

    Is it?

    Even when you think that 10 years ago Microsoft Internet Explorer didn't exist and 15 years ago the world wide web had only just been invented?

  • Timing -- iTMS is 2 years old on the 28th (Score:4, Insightful)

    by oboylet ( 660310 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @02:02PM (#12330713)
    Sure, this the 10-year aniversary of RealPlayer doing streaming or whatever, but it was 2 years ago (4.28.03 I think) that Apple opened the iTMS for business.

    I see a Press Release flame war ensuing, touting the million or so subscribers that Real claims to have vs whatever million number of songs iTMS has served up.

    Also, Real might be launching some new digital music service to take the steam out of Jobs's crowing over his pet project.

    Just a thought.

  • "Back in June 1993 when HTML was more common in alphabet soup and the MBone, or the Multicast Backbone, was another technical novelty, STD was the first band to perform live on the Internet [std.org]."

  • 10 years? so what (Score:3)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @02:18PM (#12330834) Homepage
    I'm sorry.....but this is obviously nothing more than a cheap press release by Real. So what if streaming video is 10 years old. Big whoop. Can anybody tell me why this anniversary is newsworthy?

  • Shoutcast and XMMS. There are quite a few channels to choose from and in some cases the quality is pretty good. http://shoutcast.com/

    I set up shortcuts to the audio feeds I want, which launch XMMS to play the audio stream.

    OTH live or recorded video streams (usually real) to suffer from buffering and lack of any standardisation.

    If they cant be bothered to impliment a sensible solution, I can't be bothered to waste my time on them.

  • I reversed-engineered this (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Hieronymus Howard ( 215725 ) * on Sunday April 24, 2005 @02:37PM (#12330945)
    At the time that this was released, I was working on a project for streaming audio and video over fibre networks for a Imperial College in London (which is Britains top tech university). I downloaded the real player client and reverse engineered the protocol. To test it, I also downloaded a REM track off the net in .mp2 format. Yes, mp2 not mp3. This probably made me one of the first illegal music downloaders on the net. I wrote streaming software for DEC Alpha unix boxes and got thoroughly sick of hearing "Losing my religion" over and over and over again.

  • I'd stream "Happy Birthday" in celebration but, thanks to extensions of copyright law and overly agressive enforcement, I'd probably be arrested or sued before the candles were blown out!

  • Here's my bet on what it is... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by GarfBond ( 565331 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @02:45PM (#12331019)
    You'll notice that Rhapsody (a very very nice subscription music service, albeit somewhat ugly) and RealPlayer music store are two completely separate programs, and that a subscription in one does not indicate a purchase in the other. I bet this is what their announcement is going to indicate.

    Back in 2004 there was this little noticed press release on their website: REALNETWORKS MERGES REALPLAYER AND MUSIC SERVICES TEAMS INTO SINGLE BUSINESS UNIT [realnetworks.com]. I bet what they're announcing tomorrow is the fruits of their labor, a single program that combines the single-track buy idea with the subscription music idea, into one program and hopefully does it well. Napster does it now, but their subscription program has so many different restrictions on it it's really annoying (eg "buy track only" or "buy album only" and such).

    Obviously the "digital music revolution" thing is a lot of hype, but a combined program would be far more effective than what they've got now, so long as it works well and isn't bloated to hell. Also, it'd be nice if they took this opportunity to upgrade the audio quality on the Rhapsody stream files to something like 160 or 192 AAC/RA10 instead of the 128WMA they use right now (the actual pay per track music store uses 192 AAC)

  • ftp foo.au /dev/audio (Score:2, Interesting)

    by camk ( 26742 )
    I remember back in the day before anyone knew what a URL was, we'd ftp .au files from wustl and pipe it to /dev/audio on our sparcstations instead of saving it to disk (my univiersity acct had like a 1mb quota back then) streaming audio has never been easier than that
  • Someday we'll get multicasting and streaming will actually work.
  • Probably totally offtopic but what the hey,

    anyone know how I can listen to streaming mp3 with my SonyEriccson P800?

  • That's strange. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bratmobile ( 550334 ) on Sunday April 24, 2005 @04:25PM (#12331715)
    I used streaming audio over IP in 1992. But 2005 - 1992 > 10. What's wrong here??

    Streaming audio has been around a LOT, LOT longer than ten years. Commercial streaming audio, maybe. But the idea -- and mature, working implementations -- have been around for far longer.

    Anyone else here use Speak Freely on NeXStep? I still fondly remember being the weirdo in the lab who was "talking to his computer" -- actually, talking to a guy in a different city over voice over IP. That was in 1994, and it even had support for encryption. Not to mention all of the work on MBONE.

    Other streaming audio apps existed long before that, too.
  • ...as well as announcing a yet-to-be-revealed 'revolution' in digital media.'On April 26, we are changing the rules of the Internet again, and digital music will never be the same.'

    Will it finish buffering?

  • NAS is older than that. (Score:2, Informative)

    by AReilly ( 9339 )
    I'm pretty sure that I remember setting up NAS to stream audio to X terminals in the early '90s.

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