Music

SanDisk ‘Connect’ With Yahoo For Wi-Fi Music Service
Flash memory maestros Sandisk have announced that they’re hooking up with Yahoo Music Unlimited To Go to provide a service that lets music fans fuel up their music players wirelessly.
After connecting the Sansa Connect media player to the Internet via Wi-Fi, users will be able to listen to LAUNCHcast Internet radio, rummage through Flickr photos and check out what Yahoo Messenger friends and nearby Sansa Connect owners are grooving to.
Meandering music fans will also be able to access Yahoo’s free music services or connect to Yahoo Music Unlimited To Go subscription service to download tunes to their players, without the need to connect it to their home PCs.
“We see this as a very strong partnership with Yahoo,” purred top SanDisk marketing bod Eric Bone, adding that he saw his company progressing from “fast-follower mode to a technical-leadership mode” in a market still dominated by the ubiquitous iPod.
The attractive 4-gigabyte palm sized player comes with a bright 2.2″ screen, a tactile scroll wheel, a microSD slot and a built in mono speaker for sharing the music with (quiet) friends. There’s also a slightly strange looking stubby antennae for the wireless connectivity.
As well as wirelessly connecting to Yahoo’s Music service, the Connect supports MP3s and DRM WMAs provided by other services like Rhapsody, but you’ll have to get out Ye Olde cable to transfer the music from your desktop.
The Sansa Connect is set to retail for around $250 in the States. We haven’t heard any news about UK pricing/release dates yet.
It looks like it’s a beauty and we’re looking forward to getting out hands on it.
SanDisk Sansa Connect MP3 Player
10 April, 2007
iPod Hits 100 Million. Celebs Fawn All Over The Place
Yesterday, Apple announced that it had shifted its 100 millionth iPod, making it the fastest selling music player in the history of the known universe and quite possibly beyond.
The iconic iPod first appeared in November 2001, with Apple going on to introduce a host of different models, including five generations of the original iPod, two generations of the iPod mini, two generations of iPod nano and two generations of iPod shuffle.
With the Apple PR backslap machine set to ‘turbo,’ Steve Jobs issued a statement personally thanking, “music lovers everywhere for making iPod such an incredible success.” And he means that most sincerely, folks.
Never one to knowingly underhype his own products, Jobs continued; “iPod has helped millions of people around the world rekindle their passion for music, and we’re thrilled to be a part of that.”
As ever, celebs were lining up for a piece of the profile-boosting action, with Mary J. Blige apparently suffering some sort of strange pre-iPod amnesia, claiming that she found it “hard to remember” what she did “before the iPod,” before going on to claim that the player was, an, err, “extension of her personality.”
John Mayer, another GRAMMY award winner (and quite possibly the owner of a degree in corporate fawning) was also ready and willing to crank up the gush-o-meter, announcing that the “iPod experience has kept the spirit of what it means to be a music lover alive.”
We’ve no idea what on earth that means. But we know it’s poppycock.
10 April, 2007
Play Bestival: Learn Ukulele Via MySpace
Our Sister site, Ventnor-Blog, has been scooping the world with announcements of who and what will be appearing at the amazing, manic extended weekend that is Bestival.
Besides the now-known amazing acts of The Beastie Boys, Chemical Brothers, a whole slew of talented ladies, Primal Scream, Jah Wobble and many others will be appearing.
The latest mold-breaking announcement of today is that willing punters, will themselves be able to play on stage at this coming Bestival, if they’re willing to pick up a ukulele and learn to play it.
That’s all very lovely, but what’s the relevance for Digital-Lifestyles? Well, the innovative way that enthused Uke holders will get up to speed on the required songs is via MySpace.
The whole jolly lot is being organised by the venerable Dulwich Ukulele Club (background) through the Night of 100 Ukes’s.
On there, in the lead up to Bestival, will appear details of the songs, the lyrics that need to be learnt and the cords that need to be sweated over in pursuit of Ukulele-nirvana.
The majority of preparation through practice will be done in the privacy of Uke-ers homes, but besides the planned rehearsal at “a central London pub” in August, Who knows, they might even choose to use Skype to Live to have remote practices.
We’re going to keep an eye on this one, both in our personal pursuit of Uke-ism and to watch how this MySpace-driven mass learning works out.
Night of 100 Ukes’s MySpace
Bestival
Bestival Latest News
4 April, 2007
Apple And Record Companies Charged In EU iTunes Row
The European Commission has dished out formal charges to Apple and ‘unnamed major record companies’, accusing them of restricting music sales in Europe.
The EU alleges that agreements between Apple and the record companies are guilty of breaking European Union rules that prohibit restrictive business practices. It’s far from the first time that the EU and other Northern European Countries has got wound up about Apple and iTunes.
“Consumers can only buy music from the iTunes online stores in their country of residence and are therefore restricted in their choice of where to buy music, and consequently what music is available and at what price,” said Jonathan Todd, European Commission spokesman.
“The statement of objections alleges that distribution agreements between Apple and major record companies contain territorial sales restrictions,” he added.
Promptly shifting the blame on to the record companies, Apple insisted that they’d tried to operate a single pan-European iTunes store accessible to peeps from any member state but were foiled by music labels and publishers imposing legal limits on the download rights.
The Commission first got involved back in 2005 after the UK consumer group Which? pointed out that iTunes purchasers in France and Germany were paying far less than us poor chumps in the UK (67 pence against 79 pence).
Apple and the record companies now have two months to defend themselves in writing or take part in an oral hearing which usually happens around a month after a written reply has been received.
This latest development is unrelated to yesterday’s deal between Apple and EMI.
Source
3 April, 2007
Apple And EMI Cut High Quality DRM-Free Music Deal
It wasn’t the bonanza of Beatles songs that some had hoped for, but Apple has just announced that all of EMI Music’s vast catalogue of digital music will be available for purchase without digital rights management from the iTunes Store from next month.
The DRM-free tracks from EMI will be encoded at a high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding – making them “virtually indistinguishable” in audio quality from the original – but at a higher price of $1.29 per song (compared to 99c for 128bps downloads).
Users wanting to ‘upgrade’ their library of previously purchased EMI content to the higher quality DRM-free versions can do so if they’re prepared to fork out 30 cents a song.
“We are going to give iTunes customers a choice — the current versions of our songs for the same 99 cent price, or new DRM-free versions of the same songs with even higher audio quality and the security of interoperability for just 30 cents more,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.
“We think our customers are going to love this, and we expect to offer more than half of the songs on iTunes in DRM-free versions by the end of this year,” he added.
Keen not to miss out on the quote-fest, Eric Nicoli, CEO of EMI Group, piped up: “EMI and iTunes are once again teaming up to move the digital music industry forward by giving music fans higher quality audio that is virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings, with no usage restrictions on the music they love from their favourite artists.”
Using the new DRM-free EMI downloads, users can enjoy the tracks without any usage restrictions that limit the types of devices or number of computers that purchased songs can be played on – something that was celebrated by a guy called Eric Chiu posting on the Engadget site who gleefully commented, “My BitTorrent Engine is ready to fire on full cylinder… Demonoid and Piratebay, be ready for the new era of EMI Music.”
Apple
EMI Music
2 April, 2007
Beatles Songs For iTunes?
After years of throwing squadrons of lawyers at each other, the big Apples – Apple Inc and Apple Corps – kissed and made up a few months ago and now it looks like they can’t stop the love.
Yesterday, record company giants EMI Group PLC announced that it planned to unveil “an exciting new digital offering” with Steve Jobs and the gang at Apple, leading pundits to conclude that The Beatles’ music catalogue is finally about to be made available through Apple’s iTunes online music store.
Spinning the expectation-o-meter right up to eleven, EMI revealed that their chief executive, Eric Nicoli, and Apple head honcho Jobs will be holding a news conference today, which will be supplemented by a “special live performance.”
The Beatles have famously refused to sign up to iTunes and other online music services for years, and many expect the download charts to be instantly filled up with the Fab Four’s songs as soon as their catalogue becomes available.
Of course, the fact that the story broke on April Fool’s Day has led some to think it might be a bit of a jolly wind-up wheeze, so I guess we’ll have to wait to see if the scheduled 1pm conference happens or not.
Mind you, if it is an April Fool’s it’s a pretty crummy one compared to Google’s TiSP Toilet wireless network one.
2 April, 2007
Complete My Album Launched By Apple iTunes
As is often the case, there’s been rumours circling for a long time about the possibilities of Apple launching an add-service for iTunes, to give credits for tracks purchased.
Today they’ve announced it’s for real. The new Complete My Album will give iTunes users 79p credit per track for each track on an album that they decide to purchase, if they’ve bought the tracks individually first.
To illustrate, a user who’s already purchased three 79 pence singles and decides to buy the corresponding £7.99 album would be able to download the remaining songs to complete the album for just £5.62, without having to pay for the same tracks again.
Well done for Apple for launching this, but frankly, it only seems right anyway.
There’s two caveats. Customers only have 180 days from the purchase of the first track to buying the whole album, and it doesn’t looks like it’s going to be all albums as they’re referring to “qualifying albums.”
The music industry don’t really have an option in increasing the likelihood of punters buying more music from them. Complete My Album is just such a offering. As to whether people will be tempted into buying those extra tracks from the album, that they purposely didn’t buy when they were originally buying the track is quite another matter.
29 March, 2007
Pop Band Fratellis Launch Memory Stick Chart Bid
With a keen eye for drumming up a handy bit of pre-release publicity, Scottish band The Fratellis will be releasing their new single tomorrow on a USB memory stick.
Although it’s not the first time that a USB stick has been used to release a pop single – last October the soporific Keane released copies of “Nothing’s In My Way” on the same format, and managed to sell out stocks in a day.
Around 7,000 Fratellis USB sticks will be made available exclusively at HMV stores and on the company’s website, although sales of the stick – like the Keane single before it – won’t be included in the charts.
Ready and willing to start plugging ‘product’, Lee Jenson, marketing head of Fratellis’ record company, Island Records, said: “The success of the Keane single last year convinced us that music fans would welcome more audio releases on this format.”
“If demand really does start to take off, it may well become viable to think about releasing selective albums on USB as well, especially if they were to become eligible for inclusion in the chart,” he added.
After the official UK chart rules recently changed to allow song downloads to be counted towards the Top 40, there’s been growing demand for making memory sticks eligible, although it seems like a mighty wasteful format to us. Do we really need a housefull of low capacity USB sticks?
Priced at £3.99, the (Mac and PC compatible) USB stick will include a copy of the “Baby Fratelli” single and a free video.
Fratellis
19 March, 2007
Bling Player Screams Steal Me
As if the life of the portable music player listener isn’t hard enough to survive already, MediaReady has brought out a new range to attract the eye of street magpies – the Bling Player.
As you might guess from the name, the Bling Player has rather a lot of bling-esque stuff stuck to it. The young dudes and dudesses at Digital-Lifestyles tell me that this is referred to as being “iced out,’ or at least it used to be – street phrases move fast.
There’s two models available DOGTAG or SKULL’N’BONES, which MediaReady tell us creates “a new kind of fashion statement.”
The Bling Player is a 2Gb Flash player with FM radio built into it, capable of storing 30+ hours of music or 16+ plus hours of video. We hear that it “will ship to leading consumer electronics, clothing, and jewellry retailers,” starting April 2007.
The price of $199 will possibly mean that prospective purchasers will need to sell a bit of their current bling to own it.
MediaREADY Bling Player
14 March, 2007
They Want Your Pod! Brixton On iPod Alert
Although some may already feel that walking around Brixton is akin to taking a stroll around another planet, we began to think we might have been transported to a parallel universe when we spotted bright garish yellow billboards appearing all around town exclaiming, “THEY WANT YOUR POD!”
The signs were appearing everywhere – on lamp posts, railings and street furniture – warning the denizens of Brixton that large dark silhouetted shapes were hell bent on taking their “POD.”
Fearing a Day of the Triffids-like invasion of Coldharbour Lane, we took a closer look and saw that the boards were illustrated by a large black blob of a humanoid facing up to a thinner humanoid sporting the trademark white cable of the Apple iPod player.
In smaller text underneath the screaming headline, “BEWARE” the sign goes on, “Street robbers are targeting persons using mp3 music players in this street!”
It turns out that far from warning visitors of an impending alien pod-snatching mission, the signs are part of the ‘Safer Lambeth’ initiative by the Metropolitan Police.
Although the sign doesn’t actually tell you what to do to prevent being ‘jacked’ (© Richard Madeley ), we guess the iPod imagery is a way of advising music listeners ecstatically flailing their limbs a la iPod advert that they should show a little more discretion on the mean streets of Brixton.
Of course, being Brixton, it was only a matter of hours before the sign was joyfully subverted, with stick-on labels in the same colour and typeface altering the message to read:
“THEY WANT YOUR POD – BECAUSE YOU TOOK THEIR SOUL.”
13 March, 2007