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Stories filed under: "pop"

DailyDirt: Uncommon Un-Colas

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

A vast number of soft drinks are available, and some of the most popular ones seem to have started as medicinal tonics (even the ones that aren’t called “energy drinks” nowadays). Coca-cola was once a headache medicine that contained an unhealthy amount of cocaine — that wasn’t completely removed until 1929. Here are just a few other strange sodas with some unusual natural ingredients.

• Pepsi is launching a new soda sweetened with stevia (and sugar), but it’s only going to be available online at Amazon. Pepsi True is not shipping yet, but there are already a few reviews from people who haven’t tasted it. [url]
• Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray soda has been around since 1868, and it may be the only celery-flavored soda that is mass-produced commercially. Celery was once considered a superfood with medicinal powers, so they made a tonic from it, and that story is nearly the same for several other popular soft drinks with supposedly healthy ingredients. [url]
• The Un-Cola 7 Up was also known as ‘Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda’ when it debuted in 1929. The original formula also contained lithium which, at high doses, is prescribed to treat bi-polar disorder. Lithium citrate was removed from 7 Up by the 1950s, but the drink still contains only “100% natural” flavors. (Note: drinking water may contain trace amounts of lithium, too.) [url]

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: 7up, cel-ray, cocaine, drinks, food, lithium, natural ingredients, pop, soda, stevia, sugar, tonic
Companies: 7up, coca cola, pepsi

DailyDirt: Healthier Sodas Still Aren't That Healthy

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

It’s not easy to introduce a new soda (or pop or whatever you like to call carbonated soft drinks). Just try to find a bottle of New Coke, Crystal Pepsi, OK Soda or 7Up Gold — and those are just the discontinued sodas that had some significant marketing campaigns behind them. The successful introduction of diet sodas has evolved into a trend toward “healthier” sodas with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, real sugar, no BVO, herbal supplements and all sorts of other ingredients that might provide some kind of health benefit. However, some of these healthy sodas are dying off because consumers don’t seem to want sodas that sound too good for you. Here are just a few examples of healthier sodas you might want to try.

• Pepsi Special is a diet soda that contains dextrin — an indigestible fiber that can make a person feel full and reduce the body’s ability to absorb fat from foods. This beverage has recently been approved for sale in Japan, but it’s not the only soft drink with dextrin on the Japanese market. (NB: drinking a lot of indigestible fiber might keep you in the bathroom for a bit longer than usual…) [url]
• A few years ago, Coke and Pepsi both introduced “healthy” sodas (Diet Coke Plus and Tava, respectively). These carbonated beverages were fortified with vitamins and minerals, but they didn’t quite catch on. [url]
• Coke and Pepsi weren’t the first to try adding vitamins and minerals to soda — in 2004, 7Up Plus hit the shelves a few years before Diet Coke Plus and Tava. 7Up with antioxidants also ran into some problems, and a lawsuit from the Center for Science in the Public Interest made the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group agree to stop adding vitamin E to drinks and claiming to have antioxidant health benefits. [url]

Filed Under: 7up, 7up plus, antioxidants, dextrin, diet coke plus, diet soda, drink, fiber, food, health, minerals, new coke, pepsi special, pop, soda, tava, vitamins
Companies: coca cola, dr pepper snapple group, pepsi

DailyDirt: DIY Soda (Pop Or Whatever You Call Carbonated Beverages)

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Making your own carbonated soft drinks has a few benefits — from knowing where all the ingredients came from (eg. no brominated vegetable oil) to getting the satisfaction of creating your own custom flavoring. It’s not quite as simple as punching a button on a vending machine, but it’s not exactly rocket science, either. Here are just a few links on being your own soda jerk.

• Sodastream has been around since 1903, but it went public on the Nasdaq in 2010 and started expanding its DIY soda making system to take on the big soft drink makers. But marketing itself as an alternative isn’t always easy, and it had to change its 2013 SuperBowl commercial to remove Coke and Pepsi logos. [url]
• The secret recipe for a can of Coca-Cola isn’t just getting the mixture of caramel coloring and phosphoric acid right; there are also a zillion other details from packaging and distribution that have been optimized. The top of the aluminum can is actually a different aluminum-magnesium alloy from the rest of the can, engineered so it can have a pop-top and still withstand the pressurized contents. [url]
• When making your own soda, be sure to use 100% essential food oils that are rated food grade. Recipes to make Open Cola and the “original” Coke are available, but there’s a bit of set up involved. [url]

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: beverage, flavoring, food, open cola, pop, recipes, soda, soft drinks
Companies: coca cola, pepsi, sodastream

DailyDirt: Smarter Soda Machines

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Water fountains have improved somewhat over the years, but soda machines are really getting quite advanced. Not just limited to refrigerating sugary beverages, these vending machines are going to start tracking consumer behavior and offering some entertainment along with a frosty refreshment. Here are just a few examples of high-tech vending machines trying to connect with customers to sell more soft drinks.

• A Coca-Cola vending machine in South Korea will dispense free Cokes if you dance for your drink. The machine uses a Kinect controller and promises not to make fun of your Gangnam-style moves. [url]
• Intel has demoed a Coke machine that uses one of its Core i7 processors so that it can handle a giant touchscreen interface with interactive videos. Hopefully, the blue screen of death won’t inconvenience too many thirsty patrons. [url]
• Vending machines are going to start telling you how many calories are in the beverages they sell. Pretty soon, these machines will also start guessing your BMI and suggesting diet sodas… [url]
• The Coca-Cola Hug Machine was dispensing free drinks to people who hugged the vending machine. Getting to first base with the soda machine didn’t offer any additional benefits. [url]

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: beverages, kinect, pop, soda, vending machines
Companies: coca cola, intel

DailyDirt: Making Sweet Music

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Plenty of people complain about how pop music sounds formulaic and that several boy bands seem to be manufactured with minimal variations between them. Someday soon, though, computer algorithms might create more pop music than humans can even attempt to compose. Here are just a few steps towards a world filled with machine-made music.

• Researchers have developed a piano tuning algorithm that can perform the task almost as well as a trained human ear. Yet another job that robots are going to take away from humans…. [url]
• Genetic algorithms are often taught in machine learning classes, and these algorithms have been applied to all sorts of fields — including music. Computer-generated fugues might not sound too pleasant, but neither does trance music… [url]
• Using a ‘Hit Potential Equation’, computers can analyze pop singles and predict future hit tracks. The researchers behind this project admit, “_musical tastes evolve, which means our ‘hit potential equation’ needs to evolve as well._” [url]
• To discover more interesting tech-related content, check out what’s currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: algorithm, machine learning, music, pop, robot, trance

New Pope Confuses Technology Reality And Fiction

from the fixed-that-for-you dept

Slashdot drew our attention to an article about the Pope warning of the dangers of new technologies, that came with the title: New technologies confuse reality and fiction: Pope. However, I’d argue that flipping the words around a bit, as I did in the title to this post, seems a bit more accurate. For years, with pretty much every new media/technology invention there’s been some sort of moral panic about how it’s somehow harming people’s ability to tell truth from fiction. And there never seems to be any sort of evidence to support this. In fact, it seems that the only people still confusing reality and fiction are those who insist that technology has this magical property of ruining people’s ability to tell reality from fiction.

Filed Under: fiction, pop, reality, technology

When Even Pop Boy Bands Don't Need Record Labels…

from the ...-the-record-labels-are-in-trouble dept

We’ve been pointing out why record labels should still have a place in the modern music landscape, if they’re willing to change their business models to meet with the new marketplace reality. However, if they keep doing stupid stuff, they’re not going to get very far. Reader SteveD writes in to point out that, McFly, a popular British pop boy band — the type of band that you would think is one of the few that still fits into the sweet spot of the major label marketing machine — has ditched their label and is considering “pulling a Radiohead” in letting their fans set the price. I’d encourage them to pull a Reznor instead, as the Nine Inch Nails experiments are much more well thought out in terms of the business model.

Either way, the key sentence in the article explaining why the band split from the label:

The band felt that their old label wasn’t embracing those changes and are keen to experiment with new ways of getting music to fans. Tom said: “There’s not a set way of doing things anymore. Now, especially with stuff like downloads, or giving music away, there’s so many options for what you can do.”

If that’s not an indication of a record label shooting itself in the foot, it’s hard to see what is. This is the type of band that could use a big label’s help in distributing the music in the most effective manner, and the label is refusing to help. No wonder the record labels are struggling. In this case, by the way, the label was Island, a subsidiary of Universal Music, which has been one of the most proudly thick headed labels in trying to understand the new digital landscape.

Filed Under: boy bands, business models, mcfly, music, pop, record labels
Companies: universal music