Music still sounds the same as ever - the strut and jive or hip hop, the rollicking passion of rock, the cool precision of jazz - but everything else is changing in a hurry. Digital technology has revolutionized how we listen, where we listen, how we collect and how we share it. The face of music has changed for good.

{mosgoogle}The revolution is led by an astounding outburst of new technologies and products, from sleek portable digital music players to wireless home networking devices and online stores, like iTunes, that sell music one song at a time.

Look at how this have evolved. In the past we had to buy our music in a fixed format - normally 10 to 14 songs on a CD, LP, cassette, or 8 track (for those who remember what those were). But with the advent of the always connected home computer, services have emerged that allows us to pick and choose, like internet radio. There are so many ways digital technology has changed the way we consume music. Let's look at how this happen and where it's heading.

You Say You Want a Revolution

The changes started in the early 1980's with the arrival of the digital recording and debut of the CD. Now, PCs and home internet access have sparked a second revolution. Music can be stored and transmitted over networks and that changes everything.

Why? Data compression technology made music files smaller. Digital copies made on a PC using "ripping" software sound almost as good as the original, but take up a third or less storage capacity. And new lossless compression system such as FLAC promise perfect copies using about half the data. Now you can store a lifetime of music on a hard drive the size of a pack of playing cards.

The next paradigm shift came from high speed internet access, which led to online music stores such as iTunes.  The convergence of high speed networks and data compression also makes it possible to "stream" digital music from a computer to wireless home network music players or internet radio stations.

Alongside all of this, ongoing advances in miniaturization of storage media and computer electronics create a recipe for profound cultural change. Let's look at what happened in three music listening zones; on the street, in the car and at home.

Digital Music On The Street

{mosgoogle}Before MP3s, there was the Sony Walkman and its imitators; cassette, CD and mini-disc. Digital music has had its greatest impact in this portable music space.

Digital music players hold up to 15,000 songs on the largest capacity iPod. The players are smaller and lighter than CD or cassette players - the smallest fit on a key chain. And most play for hours without wearing out batteries. The new Sony 100 series Network Walkman models, for example, play continuously for 70 hours on a single AAA battery.

This synergy between digital music, the PC and portable devices is fundamentally changing the way people, especially young people, listen to music. They can listen wherever they go now.

Apple may not have been first with a portable digital music player, but it has defined the category. The secret to iPod's success? A lot of it is the subtle simplicity of the player - the thing just works. The free iTunes software make it easy to record music from CDs to PC or Mac, organize it into play list and transfer it to an iPod. The iPod also features a brilliantly simple click wheel user interface and terrific sound.

While it is enormously popular, iPods is just the tip of the portable music playing iceberg. Companies such as Creative Labs, iRiver, RCA and Sony are giving Apple a run for its money Sony in particular has learned from Apple the importance of the way music players look. A lot of users, especially young users, see these products as a way to express their uniqueness, to identify themselves. The company's latest 500 series digital Walkman products are about the length of a lipstick tube and just a quarter-inch thick. They come in a range of liquid metallic colors and feature organic electro-luminance technology for the brightest possible display.

Digital Music In The Car

{mosgoogle}Most new car CD players can play discs with MP3 and other digital music files. You can copy several hours of digital music from a computer library to a single disc. All the major car stereo makers have MP3 CD decks from about $150 to well over $1,000.

A smaller but growing number of car decks feature auxiliary audio line-in jacks so you can connect a digital music player using a standard audio cable plugged into the player's headphone or line-out jack. Sony's 2005 Xplod Specialty Series offers this features, as do decks from many other manufacturers.

It's also possible to play digital music from a portable player over a car stereo system using a cassette or FM adapter.

iPod has also made its presence felt in the car audio realm. High-end automakers such as BMW, Volvo and Alfa Romeo now offer iPod interfaces in the cars as an option. Alpine, one of the premier names in car audio, makes an adapter, the KCA-420i, that allows you to plug an iPod into any of its Ai-NET models and control it from the car system.

What's next? Mobile wireless networking. Just imagine, you pull into your garage and the Wi-Fi enable player automatically logs on to the home network and begins downloading a fresh selection of music from your PC library for the next day. SoniqCast already has a product that does this. Others will follow.

Digital Music At Home

{mosgoogle}Some of the most exciting changes are happening in the home. High-quality audio peripherals can turn any PC into a great digital music player. But most people don't want computers in their music listening rooms. Which is where Wi-Fi network - now simple and inexpensive enough for consumers - and media center PCs are starting to change things.

Wi-Fi lets you distribute digital entertainment from room to room. A Wi-Fi network consists of a router, usually connected to a high-speed internet service, plus computers and media devices that wirelessly communicate with each other and, through the router, with the internet.

Now add a wireless music player, such as the Creative Labs Sound Blaster Wireless Music Receiver. This device plugs into your home entertainment system and receives digital music streamed over the Wi-Fi network from your PC that's located in a different room and feeds it to the home stereo for superior sound.

Wireless media products, such as MediaLounge from D-Link takes it further, letting you stream music from internet radio stations. They can even deliver digital video from your computer to TV.

Media center PCs offer an entirely different way to solve the problem. They're designed to sit next to the home entertainment center and manage digital media distribution throughout the home. Some even look like home entertainment components rather than PCs - though they do come with keyboards.

{mosgoogle}Media Center PCs can record TV programs off the air into their huge hard drives, and store all your digital music, too. They connect directly to TV and stereo, but also have Wi-Fi networking to send digital entertainment to other rooms in the house.

Consumer electronics vendors are getting into networked digital music, too. Onkyo has a new line of Net-Tune Network Receivers. They're conventional stereo and A/V receivers that can connect to a network using Ethernet cable or, with the addition of Wi-Fi bridge, wirelessly. The Net-Tune products play music stored on computers in the network, plus internet radio stations.

The ubiquitous iPod, meanwhile, can play a role as well. Several manufacturers have developed speaker systems that doubles as iPod charging docks - the sleek-looking and big sound Bose SoundDock, for example. Slip the iPod into the dock, push play and music fills the room. Of course, you also plug an iPod, or any portable digital music player, into your stereo system.

The changes all these technologies have wrought are profound, but don't think for a minute we've seen the last of them. The digital music revolution continues. Stay tune.