With dual mic and dual instrument inputs, he can sing and play at the same time for some multi-track recording, but the Toneport's real strength comes from its included software that models different mic, instrument and amp types to create a whole new sound from the low-cost setup.

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"Companies are suffering information loss, but they don't talk about it because it could easily hurt their business, " explains Duhl, who says businesses will be slower to assign rights to their content until they better understand how it will be integrated into their existing setup, and what the cost will be.

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And to help meet that goal, this master of lean manufacturing is experimenting with a new cost-saving factory setup that it hopes to deploy around the world--while competitors are just now catching up with its last-generation manufacturing innovations.

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The volume of transactions processed is an important metric for exchanges as the incremental cost of processing transactions after the setup of technological infrastructure is very low.

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While confident that the setup wouldn't induce wild fits of feedback, Schwartz's invention would presumably cost a pretty penny, and would likely only make a difference to those professional karaoke singers out there anyway.

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