Category: Digital Music
Drum Kit Tshirt lets your chest rock out
This awesome shirt, from ThinkGeek blows the headphone jack t-shirt and the Wi-Fi t-shirt out of the water. It features seven drums, and an inbuilt speaker. Each drum has a different sound….
Muxtape postmortem: what really happened
There were a lot of questions around the shutdown of Muxtape back in August. The cryptic message left on the site seemed to suggest that it would be back in a matter of days, but as the days passed, it seemed increasingly likely that it was gone forever. As users shifted to other sites, it was clear that the RIAA’s big clunking fist had shut down the popular music sharing service for good…
UPDATED: MySpace Music launches… just not in the UK
Licensing sucks. That’s the conclusion that I’ve come to. It means that we in the UK can’t watch any of the music and video-on-demand services from the States, like Pandora and Hulu. Given that most of the players involved operate globally, I’m amazed that global licensing isn’t more commonplace, but this post isn’t about licensing. It’s just that licensing is preventing me from giving you a proper review of MySpace Music – which launched at 8am this morning…
"Astrobiology Rap" commissioned by NASA
So this is where American taxpayer’s cash is going, and why NASA can’t afford to develop a space shuttle replacement. They’re commissioning Welsh students to rap for them. Full credit to the bloke though, he’s actually really good…
OPINION: Sony Ericsson's "PlayNow" service is a little better than it first appeared
I was a bit doubtful of “PlayNow” when it first appeared on my radar. I’m still not convinced that it’ll suddenly persuade everything that it’s worth buying music again, but the deal is slightly sweeter than it originally appeared to be…
NOISE GATE: Wi-Fi enabled MP3 Players
From today, I’ll be contributing a new weekly column to the site every Tuesday afternoon about digital music. We’re calling it Noise Gate – which refers to an electronic device that cuts through the noise and crackle of an analog signal and delivers you a noise-free result. In the same way, I want to cut through all the crap surrounding digital music, mainly delivered by major labels and tech companies, and deliver you the pure, unadulterated facts. Think you can handle them?
RUMOUR: Amazon MP3 on the gPhone
There’s a rumour floating around the interweb that Amazon’s MP3 store will be available on Google’s forthcoming mobile phone, which there’ll be an announcement on later today. If it’s true, it would be a powerful boot in the face to Apple, Nokia and Sony Ericsson, all of whom have either launched, or are preparing, mobile music stores.
SlotMusic – albums on SD cards from SanDisk
Here’s the latest novelty music format to come from a technology company desperate to get a piece of Apple pie. Albums on MicroSD cards, from SanDisk. SanDisk, who have second place in the MP3 player market with 11% market share, reckon that the way to get consumers to re-engage with buying music is to provide it to them in a mostly useless format…
BT Digital Music Awards – nominations announced
It’s that time of the year again – the BT Digital Music Awards. These are awards which are given to bands, artists, labels, shops, and other digital music services which really use the web to its greatest advantage. Although there’s quite a lot of “which band has the prettiest website” rubbish in the awards, there’s also categories like “Best Digital Service”, “Best Music Shop” and “Best Music Hardware”….
Slacker G2 – properly personal radio on the move
Okay, close your eyes and relax your mind. Think about nothing – just a grey backdrop. Now allow an MP3 player of your choice to float in. iPod, Zune, whatever. Doesn’t matter. Now, from the other direction, float in Last.fm, or Pandora, or any other personalised radio service. Allow yourself to get a little cross-eyed as the two objects merge in your head and you visualize a portable device that streams a mix of songs to you based on your listening habits – your likes and dislikes.
