x If you're attending this year's NAB 2007 in Las Vegas, we hope you include the RAIN Las Vegas Summit '07 in your plans. This year, our lauded annual Summit will be all-day Monday, April 16th, (with our customary cocktail hour following), just steps from the Las Vegas Convention Center at the Renaissance Las Vegas Hotel. (That's the Convention Center on the left in the photo above.) Over the next few weeks, we'll announce the meeting agenda and give you a run-down of scheduled guest speakers. We hope you can join us! xx

From Hits Daily Double: "There’s a new chief in town at Yahoo! Music.

"Following the departures of founders David Goldberg and Robert Roback (previous RAIN coverage here), both of whom exited earlier this month, Ian Rogers has been named General Manager of Yahoo! Music...

"Yahoo’s acquisition of Rogers’ Santa Cruz-based media software firm Mediacode brought him to the company in 2003 as Director Product Management, overseeing the growth of the Yahoo! Music website as well as Yahoo! Music Unlimited, its unlimited music subscription service...

"The Indiana University grad (pictured) was Chief Technology Officer at rVision from 1995-’98, then was a 'Decentralizer' at Nullsoft/AOL in Sedona, CA, helping develop the Winamp online player. He segued to work at the Beastie Boys’ Grand Royal as President, New Media... before starting Mediacode in 2001."

Read the entire article (log-in required) at Hits Daily Double.

From Reuters: "The urge to merge within both the recording and satellite radio industries this week reflects how tough it is to compete profitably  within the evolving digital media market.

"Struggling satellite radio operators XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. announced a proposed $4.9 billion merger and Warner Music Group Corp. this week said it had approached Britain's EMI Group Plc about a possible takeover bid in the latest twist in a seven-year mating saga between the two.

"The deals are seen as defensive reactions to an increasingly complicated digital entertainment  market...

"As the record industry struggles to change into an increasingly digitally-based business, satellite radio providers are asserting the explosion of portable music players, Internet-delivered music and cell phone-based content services is hurting their efforts to turn profitable.

"Indeed, XM and Sirius have said they should be allowed to merge as they now compete with every audio device consumers use, from typical car radios to digital music players.

"'Over a decade ago, when the first satellite licenses first came out, there were no iPods, there was no HD radio, there were no streaming music on cell phones,' XM Chairman Gary Parsons told Reuters in a phone interview."

Read the entire article at Reuters.

From New Scientist: "The recordings of a British concert pianist who found fame in the last years of her life have been exposed as hoaxes — by Apple's  iTunes music player.

"Joyce Hatto (pictured) died in June 2006... A series of recordings showed her masterful command of a wide range of composers including Liszt, Schubert, Rachmaninov, Dukas and more.

"Last week, a critic at the Gramophone magazine got a surprise  when he put a Hatto recording of Liszt's 12 Transcendental Studies into his computer. The iTunes player identified the disc as being recorded by another pianist, Lászlo Simon. He dug out the Simon album and found it sounded exactly the same as the Hatto one.

"iTunes had stumbled on a hoax...

"Gramophone decided to go to expert audio company Pristine Audio. Their detailed webpage on the Hatto case shows what they found, and lets you listen to the evidence... Many are direct copies of other pianist's work — some are tweaked versions where a recording has simply been slowed down...

"As yet, all the Hatto recordings they've looked at have been copies. Hatto's husband, who produced and released them, says he cannot explain the similarities."

Read the entire article at the New Scientist.