Buzzsonic.com

We’ve already mentioned the Beastles and the ‘Revolved’ Beatles remix mash-ups on these pages in recent weeks and now there’s another one worthy (or not) of your attention. Beatallica.

Although they’re not in the truest sense of the meaning, mash-up or ‘bastard pop’ as celebrated vigorously on the bootleggers ‘bible’, ‘Get Your Bootleg On’ (or GYBO to those in the know), Beatallica have the spirit of the art down to a tee. A sense of humour and an unlikely clashing of musical genres. Online rockzine Blabbermouth probably summed them up the best by saying that musically they were, “arrangements of Fab Four standards with wonderfully unsubtle references
to Metallica’s songs and a spot-on imitation of James Hetfield’s distinctive vocals…”

So probably more in common with parody like the Rutles and Dread Zeppelin than the genius of Loo and Placido but worthy of a mention here also for their usage of BitTorrent to distribute both their albums, ‘A Garage Dayz Night’ and ‘Beatallica’, not only in the ubiquitous MP3 format but in the lossless audio format Flac. Props all round and great fun to boot (no pun etc….).

Related Reading

Another Beatles Mash Up [MusicbizNews24.com]
Meet the Beastles [MusicbizNews24.com]
Music For the Bootleg Generation [MusicbizNews24.com]
Culture Deluxe [CultureDeluxe.com]

Big Beat ‘Godfathers’ the Chemical Brothers are the latest big names from the world of ‘Electronica’ to get booted and remixed on the eve of the release of their new album ‘Push The Button’.

The Prodigy have been given the same honour twice. Last November ‘Music For The Bootleg Generation’ an unofficial remix of the ten year old rave classic ‘Music For the Jilted Generation’ appeared on BitTorrent and mash-up websites. Their last album, ‘Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned’ appeared on P2P networks, remixed, as ‘Always Outsiders, Never Outdone’ even before the release of the official album.

The Chemicals unofficial remix/mash-up album ‘Flip The Switch’ will be available for download tomorrow, with renegade reworkings from mash up scene hipsters like Cry.On.My.Console, Fake ID, Dunproofin, McSleazy, Big Bad Baz and others. The official album ‘Push The Button’ is released the same day.

Related Reading

Flip The Switch [ChemicalBrothersRemixed.com]
Chemical Brothers-Official Site [ChemicalBrothers.com]
Music for the Bootleg Generation [MusicbizNews24.com]
Boom Selection [BoomSelection.info]

Thanks to the Silicon Valley Good Morning daily newsletter for pointing us in the direction of this one.

There’s not enough people taking good humoured digs at po faced Apple as far as we’re concerned so it was great to see this parody mock-up ‘Apple Store of the Future’ on writer David McCandless’s homepage this week.

McCandless was previously responsible for editing the Seethru website, a big favourite here during its heyday actually and the interactive half of the BBC2 / World Productions drama series, Attachments.

To satisfy Apple’s “slavering techno-fetishist followers” McCandless came up with an iStore front page complete with the iTug firewire masturbation machine, a 6ft x 3ft iPod Maxi and the Apple Mysteron, amongst others.

“The Apple Mysteron. Inexplicable brushed titanium box with a single, tiny green flashing light. Does nothing but looks great. Perfect talking piece for the living room or to put in the corner of an architect’s reception area.” Funniest site this year so far.

Related Links

iTunes iSbogus [DownhillBattle.org]
Our Mac Parody [Happynowhere.net]
Switch Gates [MacBoy.com]
JustOneMoreThing-Mac’N'Stuff-Steve Jobs’ Weblog [JustOneMoreThing.com]

The much vaunted arrival of the eXeem P2P software application was unveiled yesterday. The software that some peer-to-peer advocates are hyping as “download of the year”, Exeem is said to merge the speedy “swarmed ‘ downloads of BitTorrent with the powerful global search capabilities of Kazaa.

Andrej “Sloncek” Preston, Swarm Systems spokesman-the Caribbean registered company behind Exeem-told CNet News, “We have not created BitTorrent, but a totally new P2P, which is a lot different from BitTorrent.” ‘Sloncek’, who operated the now-defunct SuprNova site added, “I think it’s a fresh approach. Only time will tell if it’s going to work.”

The hype seems to have been working with 120,000+ downloads of the new P2P app in little over 24 hours though like many other file-swapping programs, eXeem comes bundled with several pieces of advertising spyware, including the Cydoor Technologies adware utility and the LookSmart toolbar, which plugs into Internet Explorer.

The software isn’t meeting with universally good reviews around the Net. Some users have already complained about the addition of the advertising software. Needless to say an unofficial spyware free version of eXeem, called eXeem Lite has already appeared online as a pre-emptive strike for file sharers wary of spyware laden P2P software like the underfire KaZaa.

Users looking forward to the ‘decentralised BitTorrent’ claims of eXeem will maybe paying attention to the claims of peer-to-peer tracking company BayTSP, who track illegal downloads for major film studios and record companies. BayTSP said it has long provided information on BitTorrent users, including specific files shared and IP addresses, to its clients. It will likely do the same with eXeem, its executives said.

“We can still identify all the BitTorrent users,” BayTSP Chief Executive Mark Ishikawa told CNet. “Everyone who uses it still has the same issues of getting caught that they’ve always had.”

Related Reading

Exeem Opens New File Swapping Doors [CNet News]
eXeem Decentralises BitTorrent Sharing [BetaNews.com]
Exeem Released [Slyck.com]
Why eXeem Shouldn’t be Replacing our BitTorrent Clients [P2P Consortium]
eXeem Lite Launched [Slyck.com]
More On The Exeem P2P App [MusicbizNews24.com]
Bit Torrent Meets Kazaa? Exeem P2P Arrival Imminent [MusicbizNews24.com]
BayTSP Provides Automatic DMCA Notices [Slashdot.org]

UK TV writers David Wellington and Adrian Peters production firm Mantlepies were asked to come up with some sketches for comedian Armando Iannucci’s end of year TV show for the BBC, 2004: The Stupid Version.

They came up with ‘iPod World’ a wry dig at the way the iPod is becoming ingrained into the fabric of society. 2004: The Stupid Version, was broadcast on BBC THREE, on New Year’s Eve. Its starting point is taking all the footage from the year and re-editing and re-voicing it to make it become something completely different.

Iannucci, talking on the BBC website said, “What’s been really heartening about making it was discovering lots of creative and funny people who do this sort of thing for a laugh, but in their homes or during the night in posh commercial editing suites. They then normally send these sorts of things out as virals on the internet.

What I wanted to do was bring some of them together and say to them, look, now you’ve got all the BBC’s resources at your disposal. If you need help, we’ll provide it. Don’t change what you do, just aim higher. And they did. I’ve always fiddled about with videotape anyway, so the programme was also an opportunity to get a few more of those jokes off my chest as well.”

View the clip here (in QuickTime .mov format) and grab it here (5.52MB) ( right click and save as-from Gizmodo).

As predicted for a while now just about everywhere, Apple CEO Steve Jobs yesterday announced Apple Computer’s Flash memory based MP3 player, dubbed the iPod Shuffle.

Unveiled for the first time at the Mac World Expo in San Francisco CEO Jobs said, “It is smaller than most packs of gum,” and, “It weighs about four quarters.”
The iPod Shuffle will sell for $99 and $149. Unlike other iPods, the Shuffle uses flash memory, rather than a miniature hard drive, to store songs and it is priced lower than many competing flash players with less memory than the 512 megabytes and 1 gigabyte Apple will include.

As predicted at MacMind over a month ago the unit comes without an LCD screen.
“Get this: NO SCREEN. Got a cellphone with one of those flat joysticks? This is apparently how you’ll get around on the screenless iPod.”
Like its big brother the hard disc drive iPod, the iPod Shuffle includes a navigation wheel. There’s also a slider on the back of the player that determines how tunes will be played. The first switch position tells the iPod shuffle to play songs from the beginning of the playlist to the end in orderm, one more notch and it will shuffle the songs on the device. The third position turns the device off.

Jobs told Conference goers, “With most flash-memory music players users must use tiny displays and complicated controls to find their music; with iPod shuffle you just relax and it serves up new combinations of your music every time you listen.”

Users can charge and transfer music from their Mac or PC by plugging iPod shuffle directly into a USB port. The Shuffle also doubles as a portable USB flash drive and comes with its own lanyard so you can wear the tiny player. Apple already have a number of accessories for the new iPod including an arm band, dock connector and sports case.

The players go on sale from today on the Apple website.

Related Reading

iPod Shuffle:First Impressions [PlaylistMag.com]
iPod Shuffle Sparks Stampede [Wired.com]
Apple Introduces iPod Shuffle [Yahoo Finance]
Apple Makes Tiny Steps for the Masses [Washington Post]
Apple: Jobs Unleashes Mini Mini Pod [Silicon.com]
Apple iPod Shuffle (512MB) [CNet Reviews]
Turn Any iPod into an iPod Shuffle in 3 Easy Steps! [Flickr.com]

New York based ‘culture meets technology’ activists IPac are , according to their website, dedicated to preserving individual freedom through balanced intellectual property policy. Their latest project is Jailed For A Song which looks at the US Congress’s brushes with copyright law in 2004 and examines several of the craziest items on Big Content’s wish list.

Being Jailed For A Song is what a proposed law would allow. “Skipping commercials is stealing? That’s what some copyright holders think. And spending millions of taxpayer dollars to hunt down file-sharers? Congress nearly passed not one, but two bills that would have done just that in 2004.”

Included in some of the scary looking all encompassing law’s was, S.B. 3021. The bill (passed by the U.S. Senate on November 20, 2004 though still not passed as law due to procedural problems) specifically said that sharing a single pre-release work (song, movie, etc.) carried a possible five-year prison term for even first-time offenders. The two others we all read about last year were ‘The Piracy Deterrence and Education Act’ (PDEA, H.R. 4077) and ‘the PIRATE Act ‘(S.2237) which would have diverted law enforcement agencies to the pursuit of file-sharers at a time when the RIAA’s suits are paying for themselves.

“Copyright infringement is a problem, but the radical political agenda of copyright holders is far beyond what normal Americans want. We need constructive proposals for how to pay artists, protect technical innovation, and end the record & movie companies’ crazy litigation campaign. Congress isn’t listening to the public, and we need to be loud if we want to be heard over the Hollywood lobbyists and record label flunkies.” Points out the site. IPac are urging supporters to get involved and make a stand in the 665 days leading into the next federal election and make every day count.

Related Links

Electronic Frontier Foundation [EFF.org]
Banned Music [BannedMusic.org]
Downhill Battle [DownhillBattle.org]

Its not exactly a groundbreaking new idea, grab an old Beatles album, mash up with random choice of other tracks etc. Still, mash-up DJ/ ‘Frankenstein Pop’ artist CCC has undertaken the not undaunting task of putting his own spin on the Beatles classic 1966 ‘Revolver’ album.

The full track listing and ubiquitous MP3 downloads for ‘Revolved’ will be up next month on its completion, meanwhile there’s five variations already up for grabs, the most promising of which is ‘Eleanor Ciccone’ a rather wonderful pairing of Madonna’s ‘Ray Of Light’ and the Fab Fours ‘Eleanor Rigby’ . Theres an unadventurous mash-up of the Jams ‘Start’ and the Beatles track that was the inspiration for Paul Weller, ‘Start’ and overall its great fun but not nearly as clever as DJ Dangermouse’s groundbreaking (at least in terms of column inches)‘Grey Album’.

Related Reading

Meet the Beastles [MusicbizNews24.com]
MTV Premier’s New ‘Download’ Show [MusicbizNews24.com]
Music for the Bootleg Generation [MusicbizNews24.com]

Philips were showing off one of the oddest entries amongst the army of new MP3 portables at CES last week with the dinky looking Personal Sound System (or the PSS 110 as its known officially).
The super compact digital stereo comes with built in speakers, doing away with the need for the after market accessories needed for iPods to escape the restrictive headphone only playback.

The unit comes with a relatively sparse 256MB (though this is still sufficient enough to cram over four hours of reasonably high bit rate MP3’s on there) with no expansion slot. In its favor there’s an FM radio tuner, WMA and MP3 playback and a built in clock/alarm. Its due in the US in April for around $159.99.

Still a huge list of MP3 players, PMP’s, PVP’s and other similar acronymed portable music and video players that we havn’t had time to mention from the CES gadget fest last week. Koreans iAudio/Cowon ( JetAudio in the USA) had a bunch of funky looking new models–new to the USA that is, some of these have been floating around the Far East for a while– on show in Las Vegas. The iAudio5 (pictured below) has a choice of flash memory ranging from 256MB right up to 2GB. It has a color screen, USB 2.0, support for Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WMA and the newer secure Janus/WMA (see PlayForSure.com, better known as PayForMore amongst digital cynics). Other Flash memory players included the G3, and the U2. Cowon were also showing off the 20GB hard drive big brother M5 and the unexpected A2 portable media player.

Elsewhere there was the Korean Enox EMX 830 said to be the worlds smallest and lightest MP3 player and featuring capacity ranging from 256MB to 1GB.

LG had the 20GB MF-HE 700 with color screen and MP3, Ogg, WMA and video playback function, FM tuner/recorder and voice recording capabilities. And another name new to these shores was Koreans Ezav who were showing off the smooth looking EMP 500 flash player, with the usual 256MB-1GB range, color display and direct MP3 encoding feature.

Related Links

iAudio Cowon Forums [iAudiophile.net]
CES 2005 Portable Audio and Video [CNet]
DAP Review [DAPReview.net]

Geeks and electronic gadget fans attention will be shifting from Las Vegas to San Francisco tomorrow as the much anticipated Mac World Expo opens just 48 hours after gadget-fest Las Vegas ends.

Much of the anticipation surrounds the expected official announcement of a smaller Flash based memory version of the iPod which has already been much whispered and speculated about web wide (including here). I cant think of a portable device that has sprung up so many speculative DiY designs and gossip ever.

The MacMind website was the first one to actually post leaked mock-ups early last month. A few days ago Think Secret had even more information (from reliable ’sources’) with claims that the device will be in 1 and 2GB sizes with the Flash memory module sourced from Samsung. Prices are said to be $149 for the 1 Gig player and $199 for the 2 Gig (which is said to have two mini Flash modules) with manufacturing already underway in Taiwan courtesy of Asustek.

The other much talked about device expected to be elaborated on at the San Francisco Expo (there was a sneak preview at CES) is the Motorola iTunes capable phone which has been the source of frantic debate almost as much as the Flash iPod.

Related Reading

iPod Flash Will Have a Screen? [Engadget.com]
The Chinese MP3 Invasion [MusicbizNews24.com]
Applele [Applele.com]
iPod Flash Player Revealed? [MusicbizNews24.com]
the Cult of Mac Blog [Wired Blogs]

If you want to see just why there are so many manufacturers fighting for the digital portable audio market right now, aside from all the iPod hype, sales of MP3 players more than doubled in 2004, to 6.9 million units, with dollar sales nearly tripling to $1.2 billion, according to data released by the Consumer Electronics Association. The CEA (organisers of the CES) projects that MP3 player sales in 2005 will reach 10 million units and $1.7 billion in dollar sales.

So another tidal wave of MP3 and multi media devices to mention from CES this week, some of them we’ve mentioned before but its the first US appearance for most of them here. Panasonic had four new flash players on show including the SV-SD100 (pictured above) with 256MB and an OLED screen MP3, WMA and AAC playback. Unremarkable judging by the spec but some unusual shapes in the 512MB units the SV-MP120V and the SV-SW120V.

The SAFA SR-M800 model we highlighted last month. There are four models, the 128mb M800F , 256mb M820F , 512mb M850F and the 1GB capacity M890F . The players are available in four colours, blue, red, black and silver. Besides having an integrated FM tuner, line-in recording, and built-in speakers, it also has a 1.5-inch 65,000 color LCD screen you can use to look at your digital photos.

Taiwanese ASmart Technology have some unusual flash models including the weird looking SU-745 and the U-538 (pictured above) both in 128 and 256 sizes and with SD/MMC slots for expansion. RCA/ Thomson introduced the 5 GB Lyra Mini Photo with a 1.5inch LCD screen (where everyone else is already moving to OLED) and a $270 price tag (more than the iPod Mini benchmark of $249).

Related CES News

DAP Review [DAPReview.com]
Report: 2004 U.S. MP3 Player Sales Double to 6.9 Million [CE.org]
I4U CES 2005 News Coverage [i4U.com]

As well as all the usual leading audio manufacturers displaying new MP3 players at this years CES that market is set to get decidedly busier in 2005 with a whole raft of new names (at least to the US) showing off an interesting (though not exactly ground breaking) group of new models. The Mobiblu brand from Korean firm Hyun Won Inc. have some sharp looking players on show.

Three flash models are making their US debut, the DAH 1000 and 1200 both come in choices of 128/256 and 512MB while the 1400 has a 256/512 and 1GB memory option. The DHH-100-5 has a 5GB HDD and is compatible with MP3 and WMA and also the newer DRM’ed WMA format. The feature rich unit has built in voice recorder, USB 2.0, an SD/MMC memory card slot and built in stereo speakers and direct MP3 plug and play encoding (rip without a PC) and retails for $229.

Related Reading

MobiBlu DHH 100-5GB Review [Cnet Reviews]
I4U CES 2005 News Coverage
[i4U.com]
CES 2005 Daily Updates [CrutchfieldAdvisor.com]
Portable Audio and Video CES 2005 [CNet News]
Engadget at CES [Engadget.com]

Dont know a whole lot about Korean gadget manufacturer IOPS but they have a handful of nice but quite generic looking flash players. At CES they are showing off the F4 model which plays WMA, MP3 and Ogg, has USB 1.1, comes in four colors and four memory sizes, the pretty standard 128/256/512 and 1GB flavors. There’s FM receiver and recording, voice recorder, direct encoding feature and OLED display. No details on price or availability. The model is marketed in Europe via Czech Republic based brand Emgeton.

Related Reading
Global Gadget Sales Seen Up 11 Percent in 2005 [Reuters.com]
2005 International CES:Audio [CESWeb.org]

There’s an overused buzz word, the PVP, or the Portable Video Player, or PMP, the Portable Media Player. Whatever. Chicago based Ovideon are better known for their LCD TV screens though they have jumped on the increasingly crowded PVP/PMP bandwagon with the promising looking Aviah portable media player/recorder.

The Aviah player/recorder comes with an integrated TV/Cable Tuner, 5GB 1 inch microdrive, 2.2 inch high res 521 x 218 pixel OLED display, voice recording, Windows Media, DivX, JPEG, MP3 and AVi compatibility and a weight of 5.1 ounces. The device will retail for $599.

Related Reading

Best PVPs [BestPVPs.com]
PVP For You [PVP4U.com]
Portable Video Players [CNet Reviews]

Atlanta based Giant International are at CES showing off some of their Tao brand consumer electronic devices, in particular the Tao WiFi MP3 player and the XM 2Go handheld satellite radio receiver.

The black clad WiFi MP3 unit has a 20GB hard drive and the device lets you download music from anywhere you have WiFi access and can transmit MP3’s to your car or home stereos or any FM radio using the FM transmitter. It’ll be available for around $350 retail.

“The Tao WiFi MP3 once again allows us to deliver on the promise of the Tao brand by bringing wireless downloads to MP3 players,” said Cortlandt Minnich, vice president of marketing for Giant International. “Now, music and audio book lovers with active lifestyles can update their collections whenever they wish and wherever they go.”

Rival gadget maker Soniqcast were the first to market with a wireless MP3 player with the Aireo which appeared February 2004 though was ‘hampered’ by its small 1.5GB drive and chunky size. The sleeker looking 20GB Aireo 2 will follow in mid 2005. Oh, and the Aireo 2 and the Tao WiFi Mp3 look identical, except one’s white, (Aireo) and one is black (Tao).

Related Links

Tao Life [TaoLife.com]
Squeeze Box [SlimDevices.com]
Barix Exstreamer [SmartHome.com]

There’s a more indepth look at the much talked about Beta release of the Exeem P2P client on French file sharing magazine/website Ratiatum , revealed today. Screen shots aplenty and some insight into the functions which include searching for specific files ala Kazaa , though as mentioned before the software is built around the ’swarming’ concept used by BitTorrent and uses a BT client authored by Swedish software engineer Arvid Norberg called LibTorrent.

Rather than being the ‘replacement’ for the Suprnova BitTorrent site it seems that Exeem is owned by an offshore development company much like Kazaa and will be using Suprnova owner Sloncek as its ’spokeperson’ and official PR front. Anxious fans of the now defunct Suprnova site will be alarmed to hear that Exeem is to be shackled with adware and be closed source rather than the Open Source BitTorrent. A public beta outside of the closed circle of 5000 testers will be released later this month.

Related Reading

Exeem “Successor” to Suprnova Announced [Slashdot.org]
Bit Torrent Meets Kazaa? Exeem P2P Arrival Imminent [MusicbizNews24.com]
The BitTorrent P2P File Sharing System [the Register]

Needless to say the closed nature of the Apple iPod software hasn’t stopped the Open Source mob getting their hands dirty with a whole collection of unofficial hacks and software add ons enabling geeks to do things that the standard Apple gear restricts you from doing. One of the main reasons after market firms like Belkin and Griffin can charge $50 for add on devices that enable the recording at a strictly low-fi 8khz.

Philip Torrone at Hack A Day has come up with a hacked work around that enables high quality recording for no cost using the Linux based user interface Podzilla.

iPod Linux Links

WikiPodLinux [iPodLinux.org]
Linux for the iPod Review [XLR8YourMac.com]
iPod Linux Forums [iPodLinux.org]
iPod Linux Installer [Sourceforge.net]
Free Your Music [Hymn-Project.org]
iPodHacks [iPodHacks.com]
Using an iPod with Linux [MIT.edu]
myPod Project [Sourceforge.net]
Podzilla and PTK [Dotink.org]
iPod Mini with Linux [Freedos.org]

All the hype may be about the expected Apple anouncements in San Francisco (the much rumoured Flash iPod and 5GB Mini Pod for two) at the Mac World Expo in a few days time (January 10-14th), but a few days earlier–January 6-9th– in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show 2005 there are bound to be a barrage of new MP3 players unveiled, not least from the Far East.

If Apple are going to show off a flash-memory based player, whats it going to be, 512MB, 1GB ? The bar may already have been set and raised by Korean gadgets kings EZMax who are set to unleash the EZMP-4100 at CES. Looking like just another sub 1Gig flash player the 4100 actually boasts a 2GB drive inside which is double the capacity of nearest rival, the 1gb Creative Muvo Micro N200 and also half the physical size.

There is line-in and voice encoding, a dual earphone jack to share your music with a friend, FM tuner/encoder and even support for open source audio codec OGG Vorbis and the usual MP3 and WMA formats. There is an OLED display and fast USB2.0 connection. If the company can compete pricewise (the Muvo N200 retails for $200) this one will certainly create some ripples against the established giants in the US.

Related Links
Creative Muvo Micro N200 (1GB) [Cnet Asia]