October 23, 2006, 2:03 PM PDT
Buzz Out Loud Show Notes: I want my space elevator
Posted by: Veronica Belmont

Well, we don't have our lunar lander or our space elevator, but that doesn't mean that people aren't trying! The X Prize Cup has been in full swing for a while, but it seems like more people are being disqualified, or having their projects explode, than are making any real headway. But they're still rocket scientists, so I can't really say anything, can I?

EPISODE 339

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October 17, 2006, 2:25 PM PDT
Splice lets you mix and mash up music online
Posted by: Elsa Wenzel

Splice is an online music production community for editing, mixing, tagging, and collaborating on original songs. Its Flash-based audio sequencer lets you throw together beats and melodies even if you've never edited music before, then share the results with other users. Automatic beat matching allows you to layer, say, a house groove onto a hip-hop track in a matter of moments. Mixing very different tempos can yield some wacky results.

An amateur could use Splice, for instance, to compose a soundtrack to a homemade YouTube video. Or an electronic musician on the road could grab some original loops and preview how they'll sync together by logging onto Splice. This song took about 10 minutes to make.

Creative Commons licensing means that everyone's work is fair game for the Splice community to use, as long as you give credit where it's due. So far you can peruse the profiles of about 120 of Splice's more than 5,000 registered users, but you can download from the larger pools of DRM-free tunes at CCMixter or Freesound, and then mash them up in Splice.

Splice displays waveforms to help you line up beats, allowing you to drag and nudge sequences and use keyboard shortcuts, such as the spacebar for playback. It handles basic time-stretching and looping functions, with up to eight channels per song. You can upload MP3, WAV/AIFF, OGG, FLAC, and other file types to your account or download MP3s from Splice; ID3 tags are coming soon. You can even record directly to the site using your computer's built-in microphone.

Personal profiles include a picture of yourself (with Che Guevara as the default) and a description of your musical tastes to encourage mingling with other users. Since MySpace has become a sounding board for musicians of the moment, imagine if it put mixing in all of its users' hands like Splice does.

This beta service is built for Firefox but also works in Internet Explorer and Safari. Any song you save will be available for other users to remix; unfortunately you can't hide your work. For now, Splice is a bit slow and lacks some essential editing functions such as zooming. But music aficionados and would-be producers can have a lot of fun surfing other people's creations and concocting new tunes.

Source: Music Thing (thanks, Miguel)

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October 17, 2006, 12:40 PM PDT
Another CNET blog to crave
Posted by: Lindsey Turrentine

Rev up your RSS reader--CNET has a brand-new blog. Its name says it all: Crave (http://crave.cnet.com) will cover the hottest and coolest digital gadgetry that you must have. Check it out (over and over and over again) for the latest in freaky, funny, or just plain awesome consumer electronics.

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October 13, 2006, 10:48 AM PDT
Zen Vision:M firmware upgrade removes FM recording
Posted by: Molly Wood

Despite the cheerful existence of VCRs, DVRs, and DVD recorders, apparently the music industry still doesn't buy the whole "recording broadcasts is fair use" argument. And since they tend to have a lot of influence (if not friends), the RIAA has succeeded in getting Creative to disable an advertised feature of the Creative Zen Vision:M--namely, FM recording. The latest firmware update to the Zen Vision:M removes the FM recording feature of the device, and according to some forum users, tech support has responded thusly: "With regards to your enquiry, you may like to know that the FM recording feature is removed due to licensing issues." As is so often the case, technology marches forward, and industry marches backward.

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October 13, 2006, 8:29 AM PDT
Escape trendy iPod colors, stay on Bono's good side
Posted by: Lindsey Turrentine

Oh yeah, and do good, too. Today, Apple snuck onto its store (but not without some speculation) a special edition, fire-engine red iPod Nano branded with the "PRODUCT(RED)" logo on the back. Apple donates $10 from each sale to the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa as part of the (RED) campaign, which Bono and friends created "to engage the private sector in the fight against AIDS in Africa."

The red Nano seems to be no different from its 4GB pals (in pink, blue, green, and silver) and costs the same. And, dare I say this, it looks a lot hotter than the iPod U2 of yesteryear.

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• See product information for Apple iPod Nano (2nd generation, 4GB, pink)
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October 12, 2006, 4:22 PM PDT
Red iPod Nano to benefit HIV/AIDS charity?
Posted by: Jasmine France

Apple Insider is reporting that U2 frontman Bono is pairing up with Oprah (and other celebs) to unveil a new red version of the iPod Nano. Purportedly, the special 4GB player will sell for $199, with $10 of every sale going to the Global Fund, which helps women and children affected by HIV and AIDS in Africa. The Chicago Tribune snapped a shot of the two celebs listening to the red Nano in Chicago's Apple store, and it's looking pretty legit. They are apparently filming a promotional segment that will air on tomorrow's The Oprah Winfrey Show.

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October 12, 2006, 4:00 PM PDT
SimpleCenter: iTunes for the rest of us?
Posted by: John P. Falcone

If you have a hard drive full of digital media--photos, videos, and music--and you have the need to sync to a portable device, Universal Electronics' updated SimpleCenter may be right up your alley. The software, which has just been updated to version 4.1, boasts a variety of new and updated features that digital media mavens will appreciate.

SimpleCenter is a Windows software package that works with a variety of devices, including the Sony PSP, the Nokia N80 and N93 smart phones, and most USB mass storage and Plays For Sure devices. In addition to being able to sync your media to those devices, SimpleCenter can also transcode files to compatible formats (particularly useful for getting video files onto the PSP and the iPod, for instance). The software can also act as a UPnP server and stream media to other devices on your home network (it's compliant with version 1.5 of the working draft DLNA standard). There's an option to access and share your photos and movies online via the Web.

For those keeping score, quite a few of those features are not available on iTunes and Windows Media Player. There's a catch, of course: most of the good stuff is available only if you pay $30 to upgrade to SimpleCenter Premium. But Universal Electronics offers the Premium version as a free 30-day trial, and the basic media management and playback functions remain enabled even if you choose not to upgrade. In other words, if any of those features pique your interest, you should download SimpleCenter and kick in the tires to see if it's the right media manager for you.

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October 12, 2006, 2:07 PM PDT
Sony's noise-canceling MP3 player
Posted by: Jasmine France

Early this morning, Sony announced its latest digital audio player, the NW-S700, and dubbed it the best-sounding Walkman yet. This is apparently thanks to the device's built-in noise-canceling technology. Noise-canceling headphones are nothing new, but a noise-canceling MP3 player is not something I've had the chance to meet...and I thought I might not still: most reports cite only the Japanese release of the NW-S700. However, the press release I received clearly lists U.S. pricing ($169 for the 1GB version, $199 for 2GB) and availability (November).

The player looks like the love child of the NW-E000 and the NW-E500: it has the thumbdrive look (though not the built-in USB interface) of the former and the multifunctional control knob of the latter. It also comes in an three shimmery colors: violet and pink for the 1GB version, and black for the 2GB. And I'm happy to report that the special-edition brown model appears to be a Japan-only release. (What is it with brown gadgets lately? Ick--not for me, thanks.) I'm also pleased to note that Sony is straying from its monochrome displays in favor of a full-color OLED display that supports album art, though from the looks of it, the teeny tiny square isn't much to look at. But hey, at least it's something. The NW-S700 will also feature a built-in FM tuner for radio fans, and it boasts a marathon-esque 50-hour rated battery life. I can dream that a SonicStage update is in the works for this release, but I doubt that's very likely.

As for the sound quality, Sony's general manager for personal audio Koba Kobayashi "is confident that even audiophiles will be pleased with this Walkman digital music player." Well, I don't know about that. Noise-canceling technology by nature processes the sound even more than it has been already, and audiophiles already have gripes with digital music. But it's a forward-thinking feature, and I appreciate Sony's putting it out there--we don't see many new MP3 features nowadays.

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October 12, 2006, 11:32 AM PDT
iPod beauty school
Posted by: James Kim

iPod accessories magnate DLO has just premiered its Care Kit for iPod, a "three-step scratch and cleaning solution" for the world's most popular player. Packaged like a product you'd find in Sephora, the $30 Care Kit includes a daily cleaner, a fine scratch remover, and a heavy scratch remover. Additionally, you get a few cleaning cloths, including one with microfibers). The kit claims to get most scratches out of worn and torn iPods (but not their metallic backside) and preserve the pure complexions of new iPods-- after all, these are chemicals we're talking about here. This stuff has "iPod infomercial" all over it.

We just got some; we'll test it out and let you know how well it works.

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October 09, 2006, 5:27 PM PDT
LaLa.com revives WOXY
Posted by: Jasmine France

At 10:10 a.m. tomorrow, CD trading service LaLa.com will begin rebroadcasting popular Internet radio station WOXY.com in conjunction with a plan to allow members of LaLa.com to create their own radio stations for free public streaming. I had a chance to sit down with a LaLa rep and talk about the new relationship, as well as the changes that are taking place now that the service is out of beta and gaining steam.

A record store experience
If you take a moment to cruise around LaLa (if you don't want to register, just click on the album art to enter the site proper), you'll notice how nicely visual--lots of album art and a member image scroll across the top--the site is. But something is missing: music. Can you imagine entering a record store and hearing nothing but other shoppers flipping through albums? Depressing, isn't it? LaLa founder Bill Ngyuen, who, incidentally, has had some great ideas in the past and thus some disposable income to burn, started thinking about how to remedy this. In the process, he found out about a well-received alternative radio station called WOXY.

WOXY: A history
Ohio-based WOXY launched in September 1983, with the aim to be an independent alternative and modern rock station; it was quite successful. It received more than its fair share of praise from the music press and its listeners. (Fun trivia: Dustin Hoffman repeated WOXY's tagline--"97X--Bam! The Future of Rock & Roll"--more than 70 times in the movie Rainman.) In 1998, WOXY launched an Internet stream of the broadcast station and gained listeners from around the world. But despite this success and retention, the station owners announced in 2004 that they were selling the broadcast license and related properties and closing up shop. The day after the last broadcast, as the staff wandered into the parking lot prepared to say good-bye for good, two angel investors approached the group and proposed to keep the Internet broadcast on the air. Unfortunately, the funds dried up, and WOXY quietly stopped streaming last month.

LaLa.com + WOXY.com = BFF
Or "WOXY, the station that wouldn't die." Not so long after the off-the-air message popped up on WOXY.com, Bill posted a message on the boards entitled White Knight, expressing his interest in saving WOXY and creating a partnership with LaLa.com. The post has had more than 75,000 views and 71 pages of replies. The first pages are filled with skeptical yet hopeful messages, while the end pages are full of excitement for the upcoming relaunch of the station, which will have its own streaming link on LaLa.com as well.

But the WOXY DJs aren't the only ones who'll get to entertain the members at LaLa.com. The service is also launching its own station creator, which will allow members to create massive playlists that will act as radio stations that all other members--and eventually the general public--can stream from the site. An alpha group of DJs (a selection of established members) has already been given access to the tool, and those stations will be available tomorrow. Currently, the radio feature has a long way to go--the interface is imperfect, and there are only about 150,000 tracks from which to choose. Eventually, the radio interface will have a dial for tuning into your favorite members' stations, and many more songs will be available for adding to your station.

Trouble from the RIAA?
Actually, no. LaLa has been very careful about following the letter of the law, which includes obtaining the proper licenses and imposing certain rules on the DJs. The stations must be at least three hours long, you can only use two songs per artist, and you cannot listen to your own station (bummer). But, hey, it is free, so I'm not gonna complain too much.

LaLa.com has more cool music plans for the future. Stay tuned for a full review of the service.

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