Music

I've spent the whole week uttering rude words at my iPhone 5.

Some had four letters, some have had fewer. Several had four syllables. All were expressions of utter disdain, frustration or disappointment.

I'm very suggestible, you see. And this week, two very clever tech CEOs publicly denigrated Apple's lucky charm, making it seem like it was the result of a couple of parts that had fallen off a Segway.

First, there was BlackBerry's Thorsten Heins, who declared that the iPhone user interface is as old as Jay Leno's jokes. Well, his actual words were: &… Read more

"Well, yes, maybe we do lack a little taste. Maybe. OK, if you really insist. But doesn't everyone like jokes about drunken women? Doesn't everyone like a booth babe or two, swimsuit or no swimsuit? No? Oh. Really?"

This might have been the inner monologue in certain areas of Samsung's vast collective cranium, after again falling foul of accusations of, well, giving a bad show.

You might not yet have forgotten (and my colleague Molly Wood certainly hasn't) Samsung's touchingly misguided attempt to launch the very fine Galaxy S4 on a New York … Read more

Education becomes more difficult by the day.

Kids have their heads buried in gadgets and bongs. For them, virtual communication is the only real communication there is.

So how can you get them to think about the wider world? One game developer, Littleloud, thought it would be stimulating to create an iPad game called Sweatshop HD.

This tasked the young players to maintain, yes, a sweatshop. It was, indeed, helpful during the game to ignore human rights and hire frightfully young employees. Just as in real life.

Apple, though, felt it was too much like real life. According to Pocket Gamer, … Read more

Sadly, we never got to see the headline: "Steve Jobs: Why I love my Nexus 7."

Nor are we likely to be soon struck by the words: "Steve Ballmer: Why I use my iPhone in the bath."

Yet in a candid and refreshing interview, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt cheerily admitted that his own company had yet to drag his dextrous fingers away from his precious BlackBerry.

Speaking with the Guardian's editor in chief, Alan Rusbridger, at the Activate conference in India, Schmidt explained: "Look, I've tried to go cold turkey. I've tried … Read more

It's late afternoon. It's warm out and you're ready for a nap. You put on your Mico headphones and, as your eyelids droop, your headphones select a soothing mix of Kenny G, Enya, and Air Supply. An electroencephalograph sensor sits on your forehead to help the device scan your brainwaves and interpret your mood. Soon, you're off to la-la land.

Mico works with an app. The headphones relay your mood to the app, which then selects songs from its database of mood-tagged songs. It would be really cool if you could think "Spinal Tap" and then have Nigel Tufnel rip off a guitar solo, but that's out of the technological realm for Mico -- for now at least. Currently, it can only figure out if you're stressed, sleepy, or focused.… Read more

For those of you who've had your eye on the Sonos subwoofer -- or Sub, as it's officially called -- but have held back on purchasing due to its rather hefty $699 price tag, take note that Sonos has begun offering a matte-black version of the same speaker for $100 less, or $599.

When releasing the swanky-looking, glossy black version of the Sub last year, Sonos had promised to deliver a matte version, and here it is, albeit in limited quantities. According to a PR rep, "Sonos has made a limited quantity available for purchase via Sonos.com, … Read more

One shouldn't rely on the same sources of inspiration every day.

Sometimes, even the finest of one's muses just doesn't amuse. Sometimes, even the greatest of one's heroes gets drunk and bangs his head on the pedestal as he falls.

However, one brave enterprise wished to measure the brands that inspire real human beings the most.

It is called Added Value. It has just released its list of the most inspiring. Perhaps the information that might cause the most perspiring in certain parts of the West Coast is that apparently Apple's brand has become less … Read more

Pandora has tuned up a Windows Phone 8 app that's both free and ad-free.

Available as of today in the Windows Phone store, the app offers all the standard features for Pandora listeners.

You can create up to 100 different stations based on your tastes in music. You can tell Pandora what you like and don't like by giving each song a thumb's up or thumb's down.

You can filter certain songs that you won't want to hear and flip on a switch for higher-quality audio. Existing Pandora users can log in with their current … Read more

As interest grows in the online music subscription sector, one pioneer appears to be throwing in the towel.

eMusic quietly announced a merger yesterday with K-NFB Reading, an e-book distributor founded by noted inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil. Adam Klein, the company's chief executive for the past three years, has also left the company, The Wall Street Journal reports.

"I am very pleased with the significant repositioning of the company and its future direction," Klein said in an e-mail to the Journal confirming the exit.

The newly merged company will "create a consumer-centric interface that makes … Read more