The EU commission wants a set limit on the maximum volume on all MP3 & MP4 players which are sold within the EU. These limits will apply to the Apple iPod range

The EU proposals come after a new report released within the last months that warned that up to 10 million citizens in the EU are in danger of permanent hearing loss as a result of listening to loud music for sustained periods

Experts at the EU Commission want the default maximum volume to be at 85 decibels. However users would be able to override this set limit and boost the volume to a maximum limit of 100 decibels.

In January 2010, an eight week consultation of all EU standardization groups started on these proposals to limit volume. The commission hopes that a final agreement could be reached within 12 weeks

Disturbing results were found at testing facilities where various MP3 / MP4 players were examined by researchers. A number of of the players had a maximum volume level of 120 decibels, that\’s the same as an airplane taking off. This is the issue that the EU hopes to resolve, as at the moment no set safety default volume level applies.

However personal media player manufacturers are required to publish information about risks in their player instruction manuals. For all practical purposes though, users do not reads these, and it doesn\’t prevent the consumer from increasing the volume to maximum. What\’s more,a study has shown that hearing loss amongst younger people is increasing as a result of the use of listing to loud music on earphones.

MP3 players are perceived as being more dangerous than CD players or the \’Walkman\’ because they can store many hours of music and have a long battery life, which allows users to listen to them continuously for long periods without a break. Often while driving when the volume is very high to drown out outside noise. Over time the resulting injury to hearing can be similar that seen in previous years caused by industrial noise.

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A new music file format called MusicDNA will give record companies, recording artists and distributors up to 32GB of information to hold, things like album cover art, song lyrics, and even up-to-the minute blog posts and concert guides, along with a sound file.

It\’s possible that if enough companies come on board, there could be a challenge to the dominance of the MP3, giving users a more album-like experience but in digital form. It will give artists and content owners license to increase their prices per download.

This new format was launched by Bach Technology on Sunday at MIDEM a music-industry conference under way in Cannes, France. Unlike current alternatives to the MP3, such as Windows Media Audio (WMA) and Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), MusicDNA is not a new audio technology, and luckily doesn\’t require new audio codecs, which is a big plus. Rather, as Stefan Kohlmeyer, Bach CEO, the powerhouse behind MusicDNA explained in an interview, MusicDNA is an add-on to existing audio formats.

So what does MusicDNA actually do? Well, it\’s cleaver stuff. MusicDNA analyzes the sound file itself for certain characteristics in 13 categories for example mood and tempo. This data is then encoded as XML and is carried with the file. Content owners can also include data, for example cover art and lyrics, to be included with the file.

What\’s more, this information can also be updated each time the consumer is online–for example, concert details could be added when they\’re announced, complete with links to buy tickets. Bach hopes to generate income by licensing the MusicDNA format to software and hardware producers and manufactures.

One important advantage that Bach has, is that because MusicDNA isn\’t actually a new audio technology, it means that MusicDNA files should play on existing hardware and software. So MusicDNA could work with MP3 / MP4 player. The player will be able to read the audio file, and disregard the XML information. It\’s just possible that MusicDNA could avoid the same story of other formats which have gone up against the MP3, like Sony\’s ATRAC or even Windows Media Audio. Time will tell.

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A man from New Zealand discovers US army information on second hand MP3 player, according to reports from New Zealand TV

The person at the center of this story Chris Ogle claims he discovered the US army information files when he went to download music from the internet to his MP3 player one afternoon.

The New Zealander told reporters that he recovered the confidential data regarding US military personnel on an Mp3 / mp4 player he bought from a second hand shop in Oklahoma, USA.

Chris Ogle, 29, said: \”The more I look at it, the more I see and the less I think I should be looking.\”

The classified data files included the names and also the telephone numbers of US soldiers, according to news reports by a news channel in New Zealand.

Nevertheless, the Pentagon can relax a little, as according the opinion of one expert, these confidential files in question, should not be cause for a security risk, as they are dated from 2005, therefore are already 5 years old.

Still there will be some embarrassment in the US Army, as some files found included the warning that the release of this information is \”prohibited by federal law\”.

Along with the personal details of the US soldiers, including a list of their social security numbers, the digital files also recorded pregnant female troops, who will by now be female troop mothers, and apparent briefings of missions in Afghanistan.

A spokesman from the Center for Strategic Studies in New Zealand, said of course that while this information should not be circulating in the public domain. He felt it was not likely that it would have a negative affect on US national security.

\”This is just slack administrative procedures which are indeed a cause of embarrassment,\” he said.

Mr Ogle, from Whangarei mean time , said he would give the digital files to the US government if requested.

However the US Embassy in New Zealand has declined to comment.

This is not the first time that such laps in security surrounding classified US armed forces digital information stored on portal devices.

In 2006 Afghanistan, it was reported that US investigators recovered stolen flash memory drives that contained sensitive US military data from local shops in Bagram just by a main US base there.

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