Gadgety News

Here’s a bit of news that will make quite a few people happy, especially my bro - who’s getting a guitar soon so he and his daughter can learn to play

Apple has unveiled a new version of Garageband that, as well as adding some new features, includes the option for users to actually learn an instrument or song from within the application!

Best of all, this tuition comes direct from the artist who recorded it.

Garageband will be bundled with nine basic lessons for guitar and piano, but you’ll be able to hop online and download more.

You can also get those special lessons from celebs including John Fogerty, Fallout Boy and Sting.

These lessons are beamed to your rehearsal space/kitchen in the form of high quality High Def videos of the artist talking you through the process.

No pants, dry text or boring lecture here folks!

I think that this is an incredibly cool move as quite a number of people are getting interested in playing an actual instrument after having a giggle on Guitar Hero et al.

And let’s face it; it’s also an extra revenue stream for Apple.

Each lesson will cost $4.99, or around £3.50.

I’m all for it but what do you think?

And they’re off!!

Apple’s ‘12 Days of Christmas’ promotion has started.

So if you’ve got a new iPod or iPhone - or just want to load up with some free tunage you can start with the video to that infectious Ting Tings tune “That’s Not My Name”.

For me I can’t help thinking of “Mickey” by Toni Basil - but it is still a cool tune…..and I’m probably showing my age……………

The promotion, which will run from Boxing Day until January 6 will see iTunes gifting you a free piece of content on a daily basis.

Skip merrily along to http://www.itunes12daysofchristmas.co.uk/ and sign in with your account to download the Apple freebies each day.

All together now:

They call me ‘hell’, They call me ‘Stacey’, They call me ‘her’, They call me ‘Jane’.
That’s not my name - That’s not my name - That’s not my name - That’s not my name……………..

Gawd bless ya g’vnor! Mr Apple sir, bless ya heart.

It has been confirmed that Apple will be giving away free media content between Christmas and the new year.

The iTunes Store will be offering a free download every day for twelve days as part of its “12 Days of Christmas” promotion.

The tag-line seems to be “a great way to start filling the iPod you received for Christmas”.

I reckon it’s more a case of ‘download from us and not anyone else….especially that pesky Amazon MP3 lot!’

The first download will be available on Boxing Day and then every day afterwards until 6 January 2009.

Apple says downloads will include rare singles, exclusive live tracks, free music videos from some of the biggest artists in the world plus classic TV episodes.

Any which way you cut it - it’s stuff for free so tis a goodly thing in my book….errr….iPhone

iTunes

When I was told to check out “iFrogz” I wasn’t sure what to expect.

I certainly didn’t expect headphones! 

These look pretty funky and they set themselves apart from the rest by offering a stupid amount of optional designs.

Of course, until getting some of these cans over my lug-holes I can’t say how good the audio is through them but as far as having something personalised to groove to these might make plenty of sense.

So, those options then.

Well:  You’ve got different art and colors for the headbands, outer earpiece, cushions, and…you get the idea.

The earbuds start at $20 and Headphones at $35 so I wouldn’t expect studio/audiophile quality here but for some cool ‘phones that show your style I think that you’d be hard pressed to find such a choice for the price.

If you’re looking for something that’s like an iPod then you could do a lot worse than to check this little beauty out!

The Cowon O2 is coming to the UK and it is more than adequate to taunt the iPod and blow raspberries at the best of the rest.

Memory for all your media ranges from 16GB to a lovely 32GB of flash storage.

That’s not enough? Then whack in an SDHC card for up to 32GB more!

Video caresses those eyes of yours via the HD-friendly 4.3-inch TFT LCD screen and there’s compatibility for just about every audio and video format around - yes, even MP3’s!

If it wont play; well……you’ve probably made it up yourself!

Throw in video recording, photo viewing, a respectable battery life of 18 hours of music per charge and an open source operating system - the latter of which could bring forth some interesting downloads, stuff and things.

There’s no pricing details as yet, but as most of us know, Cowon players are generally very competitively priced

Cowon

I downloaded this yesterday while it is still free

iTalk is a new sound recording app for iPhone, iPhone 3G, and 2nd generation iPod touch.

This natty little app allows you to create one-touch, high-quality recordings which can be transferred over to your Mac or PC.

You’ll need to download the iTalk app from the iTunes App Store and whack it onto your iPhone/iPod touch for the recoding/playback bit while the buddy prog, iTalk Sync, runs on your computer to transfer recordings from iPod or iPhone for editing and sharing. 

iTalk Sync connects to your iPod touch or iPhone wirelessly via your local Wi-Fi network, with recordings saved as high-quality AIFF files, playable in iTunes and most other media players.

I’ve only had a quick play around with it and the quality sounds pretty good for a free app - handy for a quick recording of a riff before I forget it or a melody line that comes to me on the bus or tube - it happens!

Griffin’s iTalk is free for a limited time, and is now available at the iTunes App Store.

iTalk Sync is now available as a free download at www.italksync.com.

Grab it while it’s hot (and free!).

I’ve seen double-adapters for headphones plenty of times but if you’re anything like me you’re gonna end up leaving them at home.

Some bright spark has had the brains to shove a splitter on a keyring - genius!

Now a pair of friends can happily share tunes safe in the knowledge there will be an acceptable earphone to ear ratio - although I’m not sure how it affects sound quality and/or volume.

Buy it here: Gadgets.co.uk for under 7 quid!

Yay!

We Brits are getting the rather fabby Korg DS-10 Synthesiser for the Nintendo DS before our American cousins!

I mentioned this app a while ago but now it has finally been released.

The synth as been developed by AQ Interactive and manages to pack a complete Korg MS-10 synth inside the handheld device.

This is no dodgy homebrew either; it has Korg’s official seal of approval and has been created by a crack team of game developers. The software makes full use of the touchscreen to generate new sounds and you can connect up gates just by drawing in the wires.

If you want to collaborate and make some serious tunes, you can hook up with up to seven other DSs wirelessly. You can also save up to six different tracks.

Can’t wait to see artists start getting their DS’s out on stage.

This is a totally cool bit of kit.

Songreference has a free download for the Windows version of iTunes (Mac to follow I guess) and Winamp called MiniTube.

MiniTube will sniff out the music video of whichever MP3 you are playing at the time.

That’s cool enough but it then plays it all synced up to the song.

The syncing part is the trickiest bit and, quite frankly, makes all the difference.

The plug-in also has links to Wikipedia information on each song.

See a demo video here.

If you’re looking for a little more Zen with your listening and would like the choonz  to enable you to “transcend to a different plane” how about ”a fully wireless speaker whose rotund shape defines its independence”?

Say “Hajimemashite” to the Kenwood Hibachi.

This round planter shaped cordleses speaker is designed to be at the heart of your living space.

With strong references to the Japanese foyer as the “warmest place at home” (Hibachi is also a warming plate in Japanese cooking), the speaker comes with a transmitter that hooks onto your audio source and has a 30-meter range.

It features an ambient light that can be set to glow at an intensity suiting your mood and is customisable.

This light is also a charging indicator, that lets you know when the speaker is fully recharged - then it’ll play for a full day.

You can even take it outside to help you meditate or play Parilament Funkadelic at your BBQ party!

Designlaunches

Those whacky, crazy and imaginative people over at KDDI AU Design Project in Japan have come up with this great funky concept for the next generation of music-phones.

Named Box To Play, it starts off as a really neat mobile blower with the regular keypad, camera and stuff…. but then the magic happens!

It transforms into its own speaker system with a graphic visualizer around its 4 sides.

You really must check out the movie of the concept here: KDDI AU

Via Gizmodo

iPhone users and those that have an iPod Touch can now stream music from their puter officially thanks to a new app just launched on the Apple App Store!

Called Simplify Media, the new application allows you to navigate artists, ablums and genre and works over Wi-Fi, EDGE and 3G.

You’ll need to download a secondary application on your PC/Mac for the application to work but that aint a big deal now is it?

You’ll also be able to stream music from up to 30 friends as well as being able to view album art!

Apple has said recently “New versions iTunes and the iPhone Software could theoretically eliminate this problem by syncing only the metadata — or tiny files containing the barebones attributes of each media item or playlist but not the content itself — from a user’s iTunes library to their portable devices.”

It seems now you can but someone’s bet Apple to it :0P

Via - Appleinsider

It’s looks like something a rather large dog might play with.

It features skulls.

You can shove an iPod or iPhone on top and listen to your choice cuts.

This log-dock will set you back $90.

Nice, but not sure it would be a peacful pipe…………..

These stylish and desginery noise makers have that retro-puter icon chic.

If you can cast your mind back to the 90’s and recall the old Windows sound/speaker icon you’ll understand what the heck I’m on about….ah that 286DX……………such good times……….

These speakers are bang up-to-date Using NXT technology they promise a decent response and the sub unit will take care of the low-end.

As well has hooking them up to your swish minimalist desktop set-up you can also hook the speakers up to the mobile music device of your choice using the bundled cable.

£59.95 from IWOOT

Electro Box’s miShake PMP has a 2.4-inch touchscreen, “explosive external loudspeaker,” 4GB of internal memory, miniSD expansion slot and support for a multitude of audio/video file formats.

All pretty run-of-the-mill so far yeah?

But to change tracks and shake up the order just give it a good jerk (so to speak) and there comes the next track - more like Sony’s Shake control rather than the liquid media remix in Jeff Noon’s ‘Needle In The Groove’ but we’re getting there.

Price for this nifty kit? How’s £119.95?

Via Pocket-lint

Well, thankfully, it seems my job as a bass player is safe, for now.

Techdirt are waving the human flag.

There has been a study of how people’s brains reacted to music that was played by human musicians vs. computers.

The upshot is that our brains respond more to the music from musicians. FOR THE WIN!!! :0D

Basically, it sounds like our brains can detect the fact that humans play music with more feeling, and we respond accordingly.

Although………………there are some human musicians that I’d gladly feed to a waste-disposal unit…..but hey…..it takes all sorts dunnit?

Pioneer Japan have announced that they’ve developed a 16 layer Blu-Ray disc which can hold 400GB of data!

The capacity of each layer is 25GB and, using the disc manufacturing technology usually employed for DVD’s, 16 layers are laminated on to the disc.

So they’re half-way there then - as the necessary tech for the reader has yet to be perfected.

Further details and technical information will be released by Pioneer at the International Symposium on Optical Memory and Optical Data Storage 2008 (ISOM/ODS2008) that is to be held in Hawaii from July 13.

We are all aware of Bang & Olufsen.

The make top end phones, hi-fi and that groovy mp3 playing phone the Serenata (I wrote a review before moving this blog to its current home).

Now they bring us the plainly titled EarSet 2 and EarSet 3.

The EarSet 2 is the Bluetooth lug-grabber and has two omni-directional microphones that employ what’s called Digital Signal Processing (DSP) that helps clean up the sound by suppressing wind and other background noise for the best transmission possible.

EarSet 2  should be pretty comfy to wear as it has a fully adjustable clip to fit on your ear and a fold out mic.

Unfurling and folding up the mic functions as an on/off switch for the device. Calls and volume are operated by a single switcharoo!

The EarSet 3 isn’t wireless but will still inject clear tones down your aural cannals - yup, both lug-holes!

As well as being designed for chatting on your mobile blower you can listen to those mp3’s you’ve stored on it as well.  It will no doubt be great for those stand-alone MP3 players or hook it up to your new Apple iPhone 3G.

The EarSet 2 is around £200 and the EarSet 3 is about £150ish

B&O Webiste Page 1 and B&O Website Page 2 via Coolest Gadgets

When the major record label was taken over by private equity the promise to “take a new approach”

They were even pointing to examples like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails as the way to go if I remember correctly.

It all looked promising when they were threatening to leave the RIAA and the IFPI and they got in some new techy talent.

Unfortunately the latest news is that EMI has sued both Hi5 and VideoEgg over user-uploaded videos that includes some EMI music.

Ok, under the DMCA, these sites are not responsible for any infringement from its users - and if EMI has a legal beef with anyone, it would be those who uploaded the content.

But, of course, it sues the people that might actually have money.

Hmmmmm, you know, that ”new approach” to the industry is looking quite a bit like the old approach now isn’t it?

Hunting down and threatening your fans and the websites that actually help ‘promote’ your acts for free isn’t going to go down too well is it?

What do you reckon the results are going to be?

Do you agree with EMI’s approach?

Techdirt

It’s now time for Eton’s DAB radio to get the Porsche Design treatment. 

Eton have launched the Porsche Design P’9123 stereo with the claim that it takes sound and design “to the limits“.

Apparently capturing the “essence of Porsche design”, the P’9123 has been made with a “double wall construction with a geometric acrylic casing fused to the metal housing, rubberised paint on the grill and a ventilation system for cool air circulation.”

Hmmmmmmmm……….. 

Sound comes out via three 1.5-inch full-range drivers and 3-inch active subwoofer.

Also on-board is DAB/AM/FM radio and short wave frequencies, an OLED alphanumeric display, an alarm clock radio, iPod/iPhone dock and metallic remote control complete with torch (I’m guessing for bedtime listening and finding where the other half of that broken biscuit went).

Measuring 130 x 141 x 229mm and weighing in at 2.8 kilograms, the P’9123 will go on sale in August for £480.

I need to hear it before I can say whether it sounds as impressive as it looks but so far so good :0)

Website - Eton