Thursday, April 9, 2009
The current economic downturn is the perfect opportunity for this social banking service to go mobile.SmartyPig's accounts are securely held in West Bank, they get a 3.05% interest rate and customers can get discount on their purchase from top retailers such as Best Buy or Amazon. If you are one of those who already uses some sort of financial management system for other things you don't have to worry. Integration is easy peasy. You can integrate your SmartyPig account into your preferred financial money management site like Mint, Geezeo, Wesabe, Rudder, Yodlee, Buxfer, and Expensr.
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TunesBag is essentially a social music player that can best be compared to the likes of Lala, imeem and Anywhere.fm in the sense that it allows you to upload your entire MP3 collection, stream it from anywhere over the Internet and share it with your friends. It's completely free and claims to be perfectly legal under Austrian law. I imagine if they were able to outsmart of the rippers from getting their hands on those files it would remain legal since it's a stream and not something anyone could actually burn and download and sell, right?
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We've seen no official word from the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, but phonescoop has it that the Bluetooth 3.0 specification is just about ready for prime time. Reportedly, the spec will feature "dramatically increased speeds, allowing for the transfer of large video files, music collections and photo libraries wirelessly within seconds."
Bluetooth 3.0 will reportedly transfer files at rates of 480 megabits (60 Megabytes) per second in close proximity, and 100 megabits (12.5 Megabytes) per second at 10 meters. At those speeds, high-quality streaming video is a definite possibility, along with a host of other applications that are simply impractical with the current transfer rates.
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Will Wright, the lead designer behind the phenomenally successful Sims franchise, announced today that he has left EA Maxis to start a new project that isn't directly attached to game development.
The Spore designer will instead be heading up a new entertainment think-tank called Stupid Fun Club which, though it has the backing and support of Electronic Arts, does not seem to be directly linked to the publisher.
According to Wright the purpose of Stupid Fun Club will be to develop new ideas and IPs that can used across all forms of entertainment and interactive media. While one application is obviously the creation of new video games, the group will also look at movies, TV, books, comics, internet sites and physical toys.
"The entertainment industry is moving rapidly into an era of revolutionary change," Will said in an announcement. "Stupid Fun Club will explore new possibilities that are emerging from this sublime chaos and create new forms of entertainment on a variety of platforms. In my twelve years at EA, I've had the pleasure to work alongside some of the brightest and most talented game developers in the industry and I look forward to working with them again in the near future."
Labels: bluetooth, electronic arts, music, smartypig, tunesbag, will wright
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Braeden received a Marvel Heroes pinball machine from Santa for Christmas. It's not full size, but it's pretty nice. And I'd say it stands about four feet tall and is maybe 20 inches wide so for his purposes it is perfect and he loves it. The pinball machine of course got me thinking about how awesome it would be to have a mini arcade in our house. Short of winning the powerball and buying a bigger house I really don't foresee this ever happening.
BUT
The Sega Taikan Game Collection from Organic looks back at Sega's custom sit down coin-ops which rocked and veered from side to side to simulate the onscreen action. Four games are lovingly recreated in miniature PVC form as follows:
- Space Harrier
- Super Hang-On
- Outrun
- Thunderblade
I know, I know, it's not even remotely the same, but maybe with a little imagination I could turn my office desk into a pipe dream.
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On Friday, Mufin launched its music player, which analyzes the songs in your music collection based on their audio content, rather than on human analysis or genre.
Mufin stands for music finder, and it's your personal music discovery engine for helping you find, listen to, and discover music online! Mufin has millions of tracks and counting ready for you to explore!
The mufin player doesn't just sort your music by artists or track names like you are used to, but also by sound similarity. It's not just useful when you're building a playlist, but also to keep track of which music tracks go together in your library musically.
Once Mufin has analyzed your tunes, it can recommend similar-sounding songs from your collection. It also catalogs songs in its online database and can recommend music from its own sources, if it doesn't find anything similar on your hard drive.
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Hearst, one of the largest media conglomerates in the world, announced on Friday that it has developed an electronic reader for newspapers and magazines, the way Amazon.com's new Kindle does for books.
Soon you'll be able to read magazines and newspapers on an e-reader.
The news, first reported by Fortune magazine, is really significant, as Hearst owns about 16 daily and 49 weekly newspapers, and has a strong influence on hundreds of magazines. Examples of those include the San Francisco Chronicle, Oprah Winfrey's O, and Cosmopolitan.
Of course what would be better is if one e-reader could do it all. No one is going to want to carry around more than one gadget for reading when we already have a bunch of other gadgets in our pockets and bags.
Labels: arcade, e reader, hearst, mufin, music, sega, video game
Friday, February 27, 2009
Prime View International, maker of electrophoretic displays AKA epaper makes the screens for Amazon's Kindle 2. That much we know. However, rumors that they are working on a larger-sized touchscreen makes us think they are now ramping up production of the "student's Kindle" we heard about last year. *~*~*
Identity theft cases surged in 2008, according to the Federal Trade Commission's annual data.
In 2008, ID theft was by far the biggest complaint to the FTC, representing 26 percent of complaints. The next biggest one--third party and creditor debt collection scams--represented only 9 percent of complaints.
The FTC's annual Consumer Sentinel Network report (PDF), released Thursday, details that ID theft complaints totaled nearly 314,000 in 2008, up from about 259,00 in 2007 and up substantially from about 31,000 in 2000.
The Consumer Sentinel Network is a secure online database that harvests complaints from law enforcement authorities, as well as other groups such as the Internet Crime Complaint Center and Better Business Bureau.
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Small robots the size of riding mowers could prepare a safe landing site for NASAs Moon outpost, according to a NASA-sponsored study prepared by Astrobotic Technology Inc. with technical assistance from Carnegie Mellon Universitys Robotics Institute.
Astrobotic Technology and Carnegie Mellon researchers analyzed mission requirements and developed the design for an innovative new type of small lunar robot under contract from NASAs Lunar Surface Systems group.
The results will be presented Friday in Washington, D.C., at a NASA Lunar Surface Systems conference co-sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its Space Enterprise Council.
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On Friday, Microsoft is releasing a free add-on, dubbed Canvas for OneNote, that takes that same approach to viewing one's notebooks in OneNote.
Because it is an adjunct to OneNote, Canvas requires one really be a heavy user of that program to get the benefit. (It also requires Windows Vista and uses Microsoft's Windows Presentation Foundation graphics technology).
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While CDs have not yet gone the way of the LP, more and more users are starting to carry their entire music libraries on iPods and MP3 players. When it comes time to drive, these users don't want to take a quantum leap backwards to carrying dozens of CDs in their glove compartment. No, these days, any car stereo receiver worth its salt will either play digital audio from an external storage device or seamlessly interface with a portable digital-audio player.
The Alpine iDA-X100 takes a bold step forward by completely eschewing the CD legacy format, moving to a completely USB-based input scheme with full-speed iPod connection, and an exceptional control scheme for navigating large digital-audio libraries.
Those who haven't jumped on the iPod bandwagon will appreciate the Sony XPLOD CDX-GT920U, which natively supports USB devices, but not the iPod. Users who have chosen to carry their digital audio on a Bluetooth-compatible device, such as a mobile phone, will appreciate the Sony MEX-BT2600, which features A2DP stereo audio streaming over Bluetooth.
Labels: identity theft, kindle student, Microsoft, music, NASA, robots
Sunday, February 1, 2009
We already know I'm a geek so I'm not going to pretend, I found a website called Moshi Monsters where you adopt your own little monster pet. And YEAH I adopted one! I named her Merka and she's sort of devilsh looking. Essentially you play puzzles to earn Rox which are Moshi money. Then you can buy food, clothing, decor and even gardening seeds for your Moshi Monsters house. I played for a bit last night and it was entertaining enough. Though I can say it's definitely more targeted for a young teen or middle schooler. I think Braeden will like it in a couple of years, right now it's a little too involved for him as he is only five years old.The challenge puzzles are simple and they gauge your quickness along with your logic which is great for kids. I for one take too long and so I only earn like 5 Rox at a time which is painfully little when some of the monster food costs 60 Rox. Even so it's fun and a time killer.
If you want to adopt a monster and you use thislink, my Merka will earn some Rox.
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Your Spotify is a pretty cool site, though the premise has been done before many times.
The About page says: "Do you remember back in the days when you made mixtapes on your tape recorder? You can now experience the feeling of sharing and listen to other peoples playlists again by using www.yourspotify.com. Simply make your playlist in spotify, copy the URI and paste it in the field under “share your spotify playlist"."
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And something not fun at all is the Valentine's Day virus.
PC World wants us to know it's out there. Spam trumpeting the power of love is nothing more than an old trick dressed up in new clothes, more evidence that the backers of the Waledec bot Trojan are the same bunch that hammered users in 2007 with Storm, security companies are warning.
So just make sure you continue to be careful with what you open and share.
Labels: apps, moshi monster, music, pcworld, spotify, virus
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Input your starting and ending locations, type of genre you would like to listen too, and a custom playlist will be displayed for you. The service is free and is interesting to see what the site picks for you when you travel from the east coast to west or just an hour away.When I typed in Bear, Delaware to Fenwick Island, Delaware and chose the genre "Country" it found 29 tracks which it said I would enjoy during the 98 mile ride.
Thank Goodness Amplified Journeys is still in BETA mode.
Anyway, there are three options as I see it after the list is displayed. You can e-mail, export or print the playlist. While it isn't clear if iTunes or another source for downloading music will join forces with them, it looks like for now you would have to download each specified track on your own.
In the end, I think it's a really neat idea but has a lot of missing pieces and room for error. Still, I give major props to the speak company of harman/kardon for coming up with the idea.
Labels: harman kardon, journey, music, playlists, speakers
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Gotta love Digg man. I received a shout from a "mutual friend" on Digg and it was about not just hating war, but also loving peace. So I clicked and ended up on his website/blog called "Slices of Life." I was perusing and came across such an amazing mashup tool, I just can't even believe I've not heard of it until now.So many thanks to "Slices of Life" for the tip.
The tool is "Musicovery" and what you do is pick your mood, pick your favorite genres and *poof* this brightly colored web of wonderfulness expands onto your screen with results based on your entries. I think you could compare it to Pandora, but really they are quite different because Pandora offers more of a variety of artists I think. But Musicovery allows more customization.
It looks like this is pretty much mainstream music, but the idea is great. I haven't registered yet, I'm just listening and learning as a guest. It's free and it lets you plot your mood on a spectrum and then creates a chart of songs to fit your mood. You can further narrow your results by genre, year and there is a little plus/minus icon you can choose if you don't like the song but that feature is activated only for registered users.
Labels: mashup, music, musicovery
Monday, July 23, 2007
Everyone's familiar with having two knobs in the shower - hot and cold. But what about adding third knob? What would you do with a third knob? Hmm...
The Musical Shower Knob lets you turn on the tunes while you're getting squeeky clean. No more hiding your radio under a towel to prevent sparks from putting a damper on your showering fun. This AM/FM radio is cleverly disguised as a faucet knob (which probably doesn't look like your real knobs anyway). And wouldn't you know, the knob actually controls the volume. No busting holes in your tile - a suction cups secures the knob to the wall. And yes, it's waterproof.
Korea's Funshop
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Amazon has become a one stop shop for many online consumers over the years. The site was especially popular with my friends for CD purchases. Seeing has how digital music sales are climbing, Amazon has announced today that it too will go with that flow. Later this year Amazon plans on opening a digital music store - with a DRM free library consisting millions of songs from over 12,000 labels.
Amazon has not said how much they will charge for songs or the terms on which it would offer music — per song, per album, by subscription or some combination of those plans. It also did not specify a date for the launch of the store.
Article.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Technology is great - especially for the music industry. The Internet has brought a new hope to up and coming musicians - particularly webcasts and internet radio. Starting May 15, US webcasters will face sharp rises in royalty fees that could render a "fatal" blow to the industry. The increases will eventually charge royalties every time an online listener hears a song.
"If these rates stand... I believe we'll see a virtual shutdown all of US webcasting," wrote Kurt Hanson, CEO of AccuRadio. "That will be bad for listeners, webcasters, musicians, and the record industry alike." It would appear that this particular hike in rates will be a great burden on the shoulders of the already low revenue generating radio stations. Those on the other side of the argument claim that it will allow musicians to earn more money for getting air time.
From what I've read, this doesn't exactly look like the best thing for artists themselves - especially if stations can't stay alive.
You can read more here.
A campaign called SaveNetRadio.org has now been set up to pressure Congress to resolve the problem and "create an environment where Internet radio, and the millions of artists it features, can continue to grow for generations to come."
Labels: music, technology
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