No longer in Beta, Google has announced an update to their Google Music Service. Here is the breakdown.
The service will remain free to host 20,000 of your tracks online, for streaming playback via mobile devices, download and syncing of playlists between devices. I love being able to set a playlist as available for offline playback and forget about it until I want to listen to the music when a connection isn’t there. The service downloads music in the background, and has the ability to limit music streaming and downloads to wifi connections only if you are worried about blowing your data cap.
You can now buy tracks via the Android Market, and they will be available immediately in your online library, and sync to your computer shortly thereafter. There are a pretty good amount of free tracks available right now, some good some bad, some neither here nor there. You can do all of this from your browser, and the music shows up in your library within seconds.
The missing cog so far has been the social element. Google Music now allows your friends to listen to any song you buy once, via invitation. More than enough to share and let them know f they would like to buy it on their own. I like this addition, and I hope that they one day will open the sharing up to the rest of the songs in our library as well, but baby steps here folks.
The service now goes up against the Apple Music store directly, If yo have an Android device 2.2+ and you want the Music app update you can always download it immediately, or wait for the app store to prompt you. I like this player and I hope they come out with a app based client for iOs devices soon.
After being commisioned to cover an entire train station consisting of 8-bit artwork, Finnish artist Lars Arrhenius went to work. The Thorildsplan Tunnelbana station, a train station in Stockholm, Sweden, was redecoratred in 2008.
The entire station is covered in artwork inspired by early 1980′s Nintendo games. The artowrk consists of Dig Dug, Pacman, Super Mario Bros, and Legend of Zelda.
It is a quite the popular piece of artwork. It has even been used in a video. MadCraft, a punkpop band from Finland, used the creation as a backdrop for the music video for the song NeverAgain.
If you don’t know, I am quite the Legend of Zelda fan. So when I saw this video, one question came to mind. What the heck is a marimba. After a few google searches I found the answer. As for how it sounds, I think it is beautiful. Especially when it plays any Zelda music.
There is a new kid on the music block. And I don’t mean a boy band craze you have to run away from… unless you wander into a bad room. Turntable.fm is a new service currently in limited / not limited beta. If you have a friend who is in the beta on facebook sign in and you’re golden. If you don’t have a friend you could either request an invite, or Like the CaffiNation, and request to be my buddy. And then you get in. Easy Peezy.
You get to search things already uploaded, and add your own songs to the mix. The you play a single song. If people like your song it gets voted up, if they don’t it gets voted down. 5 people get to DJ in a room. each one picking a single song in a row. However you need to have good music taste. I have, shall we say, very eclectic music taste I play what I feel like at the moment. I am horrible at staying on point. My personal collection and playlist verifies this on more than one occasion. A picture of my room is above. Look below to find someone with better music taste than I… DJ Woooooo was apparently “spinning some fat beats” or at least thats what the kids tell me to say he was doing. Woooo Indeed.
RIAA please don’t kill this I’ve found all kinds of fun new artists, and new music through it. CrowdSourcing Playlists beats the pants off Pandora. There are interesting licensing restrictions, how many times an hour an artist can be played ect. I’m still playing around.
For 53 years, The Grammy Awards have shown the appreciation of everything in the music industry. They give awards to all different kinds of music, ranging from Rock and Pop, to Gospel and Polka. However, one category that has not been recognized is the music in video games.
With the Grammy’s reevaluating their award categories for 2012, they have finally decided to bring some appreciation to the video game music world. They decided to add the oppurtuity in 4 different categories: Best Song Written for Visual Media, Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media, Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media, and The Music for Visual Media.
This sounds like a publicity stunt to try and get the younger generations interested in the Grammy’s. While it does seem like a cheap trick, I believe it would actually work. I just think it is about time to see the works of Koji Kondo and Martin O’Donnel get some appreciation.
AT first glance Piano Playing Pen is a pen with the ability to read music, and play it back to you. And that is almost correct, this pen will play the tones to the music as you swipe it over the page, the only problem being that it only works on special sheet music. I was very excited as someone who knows how to play a couple different instruments one of the biggest problems I have with sheet music is the tone and the pacing of the music. If i can hear a piece being played, hummed or even sang I can play it that much easier. Yes i can read music but a device like this that could work without boundires would be awesome.
Still for only $20 this is a device that could help almost any student get up to speed, or tempo in this case while they are learning how to read the music correct. Every good boy deserves fudge! FACE and all those little tricks will still carry you long after your skills have moved beyond the pages that work with this but imagine being able to run this over new music and getting a leg up on how its supposed to sound? That would be awesome.
The holidays are now upon us, I hope you had time to enjoy some of the sights and sounds of the season thus far, But from here on out it is a storm of family and fun for our family. The CaffiNation Lair might be a bit bare in the coming week so I decided to do an advanced copy for your enjoyment on Christmas Eve. Please see the attached Card, Santa Likes Coffee too you know.
But Seriously, I couldn’t do this show without listeners like you, who comment, download, enjoy and hopefully return for the next round of fun. Thank you from the very bottom of my heart for the time you have spent with me over the past year and I can only hope to earn your time again in the future
Tonight’s show is a bit of a deviation from the normal show. We talk about some heady topics, such as Race relations online, we delve into Linux as a tool for educators, and we dig into some really useful utilities that you may want to consider for your PC. Overall I hope this show ends up being very useful to you.
With podcamp looming in the next week, school starting up and plenty to do around the house this episode squeaked out despite the odds. Lots of interesting little tidbits of technical knowhow on this episode
Today’s Show: Bears, Robots, Music, comics, brolly, caffeine, and Starbucks
The short week is almost over. So now is the time to fill up on news before everyone shuts off their machines and unplugs for the BBQ laden weekend. Which you should. We are Full to the brim of caffeinated content and techy goodness
Back channel tidbits over at my Tumblr Blog Grinds
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