Hotspots, iPod and the death of cassettes

The Hotspot index says Melbourne has 26,243 people per hotspot. Sydney comes in at 36,000, Australia as a whole at 42,850. US 38,632. UK 22,963. But the modern Asian megacities beat all, with HK at 19,654 and Singapore 12,604. In Melbourne (and I assume other cities) they were investigating the idea of hotspots on trains, which could be a moneyspinner. Would almost make an hour-long commute from somewhere like Frankston or Belgrave bearable.

The Queen has an iPod. Hmmm, can’t see her rocking out to Bohemian Rhapsody.

Meanwhile MP3 players and CDs appear to be killing off cassettes. Yeah, and good riddance, say I. Poor sound quality and no random access combined with a fragile physical media. But it does remind me of a classic line from Alas Smith & Jones: “What is Dolby? It’s basically a very complicated system for playing cassettes with the little green light on, or off.”

2 thoughts on “Hotspots, iPod and the death of cassettes

  1. BillyJoeBob

    “…combined with a fragile physical media.”
    What are you talking about? I have cassette tapes that are over 20 years old. They have been kicked, dropped and sat in the car for years on end in the hot Texas sun and still work. I have one that is 10 years old that I used to carry and use as an ice-scrapper while in Korea (it was Blondie); I still ahve it, and it still works great. I would scrape the ice off the windscreen, bang the ice off on the hood, wipe the water off on my jeans, then pop it in and listen to it.
    True, the sound quality does suck. And I thought cassettes were killed off about 10 years ago? I kinda wish mini-disk had caught on in the Western world like it did in Japan.

  2. daniel Post author

    I was thinking of the tape itself. I’ve had plenty that have warped, stretched, or got caught up in players.

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