MP3

Glastonbury Festival: sweat and crop circles

2009-06-30T16:22:00Z

You’ve already enjoyed BBC’s coverage of Glastonbury Festival and smirked at the lower rungs of radio presenters suddenly thrust on TV to communicate with members of the public caked in cow pats. If not, you can catch highlights via iPlayer and even listen to Peel broadcast from the festival in 2004 – before a stage was set up in his honour. Click here to see what you missed.

After watching as much footage as possible, I’ll say that Florence and The Machine, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Neil Young were my highlights. I went to gigs in London instead, taking a break from the festival for a year, just like the cows did in 2006 when Mr Eavis shut up shop and let the farm recover.

Debate rages over the red button though – scheduling was very odd and for some reason I ended up watching Tom Jones twice, which is something I wouldn’t recommend to anyone. Unless you want see just how much a man can sweat on camera.

Maybe you actually went to the festival? If so, you can’t have escaped the Sony PR stunt to plug their new XB range of headphones (review soon) and er, Mike Skinner from The Streets. Or maybe you could, as you probably didn’t arrive via helicopter. Unless you are Bruce Springsteen. Either way, here’s a photo and a video link to the three part documentary which shows how to go about making a crop circle: and that's something that iPlayer footage doesn't provide...

Walkman is 30 this month!

2009-06-29T14:23:00Z

Personal audio became an expensive but realistic phenemenon on 22nd June, 1979, thanks to the Sony Walkman TPS-L2. Originally borne out of company founder Akio Morita’s desire to listen to classical music while flying, the Walkman was created by Nobutoshi ‘Mr Walkman’ Kihara, and soon became a real development project. Staff at Sony HQ and Japanese journalists were given
samples at a press launch, and quickly spread the word around the busy streets of Tokyo. It wasn’t long before the appeal spread globally.

The £219 price tag soon fell, after early adopters snapped units up. Popularity reached such levels that, in 1986, ‘Walkman’ entered the Oxford English Dictionary, and the player was seen in a staggering number of blockbuster movies – most famously, perhaps, in 1984’s The Terminator. In 1979, Akio Morita said, “This is the product that will satisfy those young people who want to listen to music all day. They’ll take it everywhere with them.” And who could disagree? After numerous cassette versions, CD and MiniDisc versions of the Walkman were released. Ultimately, however, they never achieved the same level of success as the iconic original.

This month, Sony have released the Walkman X, a touchscreen, Wi-Fi enabled portable player with its sights set squarely on the iPod Touch. If the rise of the iPod has taught Sony anything, it’s that a genuine portable revolution in technology appeals to everyone, regardless of age. After all, with the Walkman TPS-L2 that’s exactly what Sony created in 1979.

Here's a cover from 1979...The end of 1979 was marked with this issue, which carried the line ‘computerised buying guide facts on 2000 hi-fi units’ and unveiled ‘trendy’ rack systems.

And here's an advert from the same issue...Cassettes were big business and TDK advertised five varieties. Our favourite is the TDK SA Super Avilyn, a ‘cobalt enriched formulation, offering a higher MOL across the frequency spectrum’.

Hands-on with the iPhone 3G S at Apple HQ

2009-06-19T14:00:00Z

Today is launch day for the new iPhone 3G S. You can read all about it here, but we thought we'd visit the Apple store in London and check things out before heading to have a quick chat with Apple themselves.

Arriving at the Regent Street Apple store at 9.30, there was a sizeable queue but not one that threatened to get out of hand, despite two hefty security guards looking rather nervous.

Directly opposite is the Nokia store, launching the N97 today. There wasn't a queue (or security) but they did have a giant model of the N97 which passers by looked at, before they saw the Apple store.

We'll have reviews of the iPhone 3G S (and Nokia N97) very soon once we've finished playing with them, but in the meantime, here's a quick hands-on with help from global iPhone product manager Eric Jue.

For those that want to know, the Apple UK offices are decorated in iPhone colours and as sparse as it gets. There's no device anywhere which isn't Apple branded and to sign in, you use a custom Mac login screen which prints a neat sticker badge.

We would have shown you a picture of Jue, but strict guidelines prevent promotion of the 'person not the product'. Anyway, we're sure you're more interested in the iPhone 3G S itself...

The first thing you'll notice about the 16GB or 32GB iPhone 3G S is the surface. It's smoother and designed to leave less finger prints for those that like to eat and type at the same time...there's a landscape keyboard which works well too.

In terms of music, there's now voice recognition for searching for tracks or contacts. You can also activate Genius via voice and there's volume control and mic on the included headphones.

The upgraded processor makes web browsing much faster and the much talked about cut and pasting is simplicity itself. Asked why this function wasn't introduced earlier, Jue admitted it was part technology and part development of how it would work.

Asked whether he expected the public to be quite so vocal about the function, he said it took him by surprise but thinks it was worth the wait: "we wanted to make it perfect".

Developers are now free to develop solely for the iPhone 3G S if they wish, developing Apps taking advantage of the upgraded processor, camera (now 3MP inc tap to zoom function) and compass. You can read about our top iPhone Apps to help you with your home cinema and hi-fi here.

Expect a review very soon and a head-to-head with the Nokia N97 in our September issue, on sale 29th July.

The best iPhone Apps for home cinema and hi-fi fans

2009-06-17T15:02:00Z

At some point this evening, the free iPhone software update – iPhone 3.0 – will be available to download from Apple. The update includes more than 100 new features that will affect all iPhones, including the brand-new iPhone 3G S.

Owners of the iPod Touch will also benefit from the update, although they will have to pay £5.99 for the privilege.

Some of the new features are certainly cause for celebration: highlights include the ability to download movies and TV programmes straight to the device (no need to download to a PC first); the ability to cut, copy and paste (why the bejeezus wasn't that included the first time around?); video recording; and the novel facility (available to MobileMe subscribers only) to find your iPhone when lost – or even remotely wipe its memory if it gets stolen.

In advance of this launch, we bring you our extensive roundup of all the already-existing killer apps for the iPhone: specifically those that will enhance, in one way or another, your enjoyment of movies and music – as well as the hi-fi and home cinema systems you use to experience them.

So, without further ado...

Decibel by Gadget Frontier - £0.59
There are loads of sound level pressure metres available on the App Store, but this is the one we like most, due to its clear layout, decent accuracy and very low price. Simply open the app, turn the phone upside-down so that the microphones are facing upwards (the screen will rotate automatically), and use the analogue or digital readouts to trim your speaker levels. The digital display gives you peak, average and maximum readings, and they’re exceptionally easy to read. There’s no fast or slow setting, but the speed it takes measurements is pretty much spot-on for our use, and results are very close indeed to those of our dedicated SPL metre.

Tunin.FM iCar Radio by Mobilaria - £2.39
Again, there’s no shortage of internet radio apps available for the iPhone, but there are vast differences between them in terms of usability, stations and sound quality. In fact, this one isn’t even the best sounding, but it does have the best signal retention. It uses extra compression to keep your station playing, even when you’re on the move or in a low-signal area, and we’re prepared to accept a little bit of splashiness for that. This is also the only radio app we found that had the full quota of BBC stations. Menus and graphics are very smart, and you can add stations to your favourites. In fact, other than a slightly vague system for browsing, there’s little to complain about, particularly at this price.

The Stanley Level by The Stanley Works– Free
There seems to be a lot of derision concerning the iPhone’s numerous spirit level apps, but we reckon that’s a bit unnecessary. Sure, if you’re building a house, the iPhone is not the tool to use to make sure everything’s level, but if you’re simply checking how horizontal your speaker or wall-mounted TV is, it’ll do the job just fine. The Stanley Level is the best of the bunch in our opinion. It takes two measurements for calibration, but the surface you use for this must be as level as possible. You can then go forth and check the levels of everything in your home, using the bubble graphic and digital readout. Simple, really.

Torch by Savy Soda – Free
You know what it’s like: you need to have a look at the connections on the back of your AV receiver, realise it’s a bit gloomy back there, find your torch in the drawer under the sink, click the button and realise the batteries are dead. And what if you haven’t got and replacements? Well, this whole sorry tale can be avoided if you simply download a free light app for your iPhone. This one is exceptionally simple. You’re greeted by a torch icon when you open the app, which you press to turn your screen white. Although you don’t want to use it to navigate outside in the dark, Torch is brighter than most and perfect for system tweaking.

Radio Times by tvCompass Inc - £1.79
Start by telling this app where you live and how you get your TV (Freeview, Freesat, Sky, or Virgin), and it provides a clear EPG, showing what’s currently playing and how long it’s been playing for. You can skip along to see what’s on later, and there’s a ‘Choices’ tab containing the well-respected magazine’s picks of the day, including full reviews. There’s also a ‘Films’ tab that unsurprisingly displays films only. You can even make a show a favourite, which creates a list of every time it appears during the week, on all channels, in the ‘My Shows’ tab. You can customise the channel line-ups, but some of Sky’s HD offerings are missing. If you’re not a Sky customer though, this is a must-have.

Sky+ by BSkyB – Free
If you’ve registered for Remote Record (it’s a quick and simple setup via your Sky box’s menus) you can login to this app to see a stripped-down EPG and set programs to record. It can be extremely useful, but it’s a bit too stripped-down, especially if you’re an HD fan. The boxes that contain each channel label are too small, cutting off the HD at the end of a channel name. There’s no way to access a list of just HD channels, either, and you can’t set a series link, so although this is a nice start, we’re hoping for a fully-featured update sooner rather than later.

Sonos Controller by Sonos, Inc – Free
As the name suggests, this app’s really only useful if you’re an owner of a Sonos networked music system, but if you are, this is one app you shouldn’t do without. It basically takes all of the functionality of the dedicated remote, but is even nicer and easier to use thanks to the iPhone’s brilliant touchscreen. So you can browse your music collection and Napster, and control the music in all of your zones, all accompanied by large, clear, vibrant artwork. It’s actually better than the standard controller, which costs £280, and that makes it a seriously huge bargain.

Shazam by Shazam Entertainment Ltd – Free
What a useful app this is! Hear a piece of music you like but don’t know the name of it? Simply press tag, point your mic at the source and within a few seconds Shazam will figure out what it is, and even give you a link to buy it from iTunes if it’s available. It’s not always perfect, but it’s right more often than wrong, even picking out Wake Up Time by Tom Petty through the acerbic dialogue of the Californication TV show. Moreover, it’s free, so you’ve got no reason not to give it a go.

Test Your Hearing by Novasa - £0.59
This is intended more as a diverting bit of fun than a serious app, but some people might find it interesting. You put on a pair of headphones and the app plays a number of high- and low-pitched tones – you simply press the button when you hear something and at the end it gives you your hearing age. It’s clear and easy to use, and the test takes just 30 seconds. Of course, if you want a proper hearing test, a trip to the Doctor is the only way to get it right.

Remote by Apple Inc. – Free
It’s fair to say that if you’re an iPhone user, you’re also, at least to a degree, an iTunes user. Well, this app connects to your iTunes library via your wi-fi network, allowing you to control and play your library from anywhere in the house. Play a track and the artwork appears on your iPhone’s screen in large, vibrant fashion. What’s more, it’ll work with Apple TV, and if you’ve got computers or Apple TVs in a couple of rooms, you’ve effectively got a Sonos-style multi-zone system, complete with a touchscreen controller. Very neat indeed.

myMovies by Netwalk - £1.19
This is simply a list manager for your movie collection. You can add a movie using the linked IMDB database, so it automatically adds artwork, synopsis and details. However, the display isn’t neat enough, and the small, clumsy nature of the artwork layout is disappointing. You can specify the format of the movie, including Blue-Ray (sic), but this makes no odds to the way the disc is displayed, and there’s no way to filter your movies by format. The inclusion of a wish list is fine, but far from spectacular. Unfortunately this is the best disc library app available – fingers crossed someone beats it soon.

Movies by Flixster – Free
Despite being distinctly US-centric, this Movies app is rather useful. On the main page it lists films opening this week as well as the current box-office favourites. Because it’s an American app, the release dates often don’t apply to the UK, but you can still click on a film, which provides a second screen giving you movie info and even a trailer that plays directly on the phone. What’s more, if you click on ‘Showtimes’ it’ll bring up the up-to-date times that the film’s playing in your local cinema, based on your current location, and this bit does work for us here in Blighty. Hopefully there’ll be a fully localised version available very soon.

RTA by Studio Six Digital - £5.99
Studio Six Digital is a company that specializes in professional-grade audio apps for the iPhone, offering a number of pieces of software for all types of measurement and calibration. Here, RTA stands for Real Time Analyzer, and it’s designed for speaker testing, room tuning and acoustical analysis. One of the most interesting features is a pink noise generator – you plug the iPhone into your amp and it sends out full-band pink noise. If your system response is flat, the graph will be, too. To be perfectly honest, most modern AV amps have automatic, room-based equalisation, but if yours doesn’t, or if you just fancy some in-depth manual tweaking, you should give RTA a shot.

Speaker Pop by Studio Six Digital - £2.39
This is another, more focussed app from Studio Six Digital, and is designed purely for checking the polarity of your speakers. To do this you need to feed a signal into your system. This can be done by connecting your iPhone directly or burning it to a CD or DVD. Once the pop’s being outputted, you select the speaker type (woofer, midrange or tweeter) and aim the mic at the driver. A big ‘+’ will appear onscreen if your speaker’s connected correctly, and a ‘–‘ will appear if it’s out of phase. In testing we found it to be extremely accurate, but it’s probably only really useful for people with wiring so complicated that they can’t simply follow it from source to speaker.

JAPAN: Panasonic brings a feminine touch to the sutereoinsaidohon

2009-06-12T13:53:00Z

On sale in a couple of weeks in Japan are Panasonic's first in-ear headphones designed for women by women.

The new Moon Jewel RP-HJF5 model is the result of work by an all-female team within the Osaka giant, from the product planning and design right the way through to the marketing and advertising.

The headphones come in a range of 12 colours – one for each birth-month – and they're finished with three cubic zirconia gems on each earpiece.

But the feminisation is more than just cosmetic: the earpieces are made smaller and contoured to fit the anatomy of the female ear, and also designed so they don't get tangled up with earrings, whether they be clip-on or pierced-ear fittings.

Medium, small and extra-small inserts are supplied, and the headphones weigh just 3g without their 1.2m cable, or 12g with.

Panasonic expects to sell around 30,000 pairs a month, at around Y2500, or about £15, a set.

Oh, and 'sutereoinsaidohon'? It's the Japanese for in-ear heaphones!

USA: Never mind the lack of MP3 quality, feel the lack of MP3 breadth

2009-04-01T08:20:00Z

Two things you thought you knew about MP3 and the iPod generation: one is that the quality of data-reduced music is acceptable – but only that – because you can cram so much music onto an easily portable device. The other is that there's so much music out there, the only problem is finding enough space on that portable device to store it all.

Wrong. And wrong.

Research from the States suggest that the download music status quo – and that could be only time you'll see me write those three words together – isn't quite as we'd imagined. For a start, it seems the core market for MP3 doesn't just tolerate the sound of MP3, but may actually prefer it over full-fat CD quality. And that comes not from a company with a vested interest, but a learned professor at Stanford.

Jonathan Berger, Professor of Music at the California university, has been carrying out experiments on each year's new intake of students. It's not quite as creepy as it sounds: for the past eight years the good Prof has been playing his students music in a variety of formats, including MP3, and has noted "not only that MP3s were not thought of as low quality, but over time there was a rise in preference for MP3s".

Berger feels that the data-reduction process gives music what he calls a "sizzle" – a metallic edge to it, and that as young people have become more familiar with that sound, the more they've come to like it.

He reckons it's a phenomenon rather akin to some of us preferring our music on vinyl rather than CD: "“Some people prefer that needle noise — the noise of little dust particles that create noise in the grooves. I think there’s a sense of warmth and comfort in that.”

The iPod sizzle
Mind you, while the iPod/MP3 sizzle may be the way forward for a whole generation's sonic preferences, it seems those same consumers are voting with their feet – or at least their mouse-clicking fingers – when it comes to what's available as downloads.

US market research firm NPD reports that while 13-17-year-olds bought a quarter less CDs last year, exactly as expected, they also cut back on their downloading and ripping of music. Why? Well, it seems they're not that excited by the music out there, or feel they have as much of the stuff as they can handle.

CD sales dropped 26% last year, according to the survey, but paid digital downloads also fell by half as much. OK, so some of that is down to that well-known euphemism, the Current Economic Situation, with 24% of the teenagers saying they had cut back on their spending. But almost as many – 23% – said they already had a suitable music collection, and didn't need any more right now, thank you.

Enough music, already...
NPD says that ""As the portable music player market matures, there's a greater chance that teens will have already acquired the bulk of their collections, which reduces the desire to buy music or the need to get more by sharing and swapping with others."

"In fact it's possible teens could start spending more time creating playlists and posting them online, than they would spend sharing actual song files."

Even 'free' sources of music saw drop-off, with the teens using peer-to-peer sites 6% less, and a 28% decline in the number of CDs they borrowed from friends to make ripped copies.

If all that looks a bit bleak for those record companies who've pinned their hopes on users buying music as downloads, it gets worse. The survey shows a surge of over 50% in online radio listening, while over 31% listened more to the US satellite radio services. Meanwhile 46% of those surveyed said they listened to music on social networking sites, up from 26% in 2007.

Enough bad news for the record companies? No? OK, here's the final kicker – the survey says that "54 percent of teens who heard a song they liked on MySpace Music were likely to simply listen to that song again on the site, compared with only 1 percent who claimed they would click through and buy the song on AmazonMP3, which is MySpace's online partner for purchased music downloads.”

Back to the future?
In other words, we're going back to the golden days of radio, before most homes even had a record player.

A whole generation prefers to listen to that MP3 "sizzle" rather than hi-fi quality, and really doesn't want to be bothered exploring any music it hasn't heard before, let alone buying the stuff.

In such a world, who'd want to be a new artist, let alone a record company executive?

Or indeed a professor of music...?

No sex, please – we're downloading

2009-02-17T14:34:00Z

Tssk, young people today: they're only interested in one thing.

Music.

Yes, in the week the tabloids have been full of schoolgirl pregnancy, teenage paternity claims and everyday stories of Alfie, Chantelle, Maisie and Max Clifford, a new survey reveals that most teenagers would rather go without sex for a week than be deprived of their music.

According to the research, commissioned by Marrakesh Records, home of The Killers, 60% of 16-to-24-year-olds would rather go without sex, not music, for a week.

And that figure rises to 70% for 16-to-19-year-olds, which may be a shock revelation.

Or may just indicate that the under-20s have less opportunity.

However, Marrakesh has more ominous news up its sleeve. "We apologise in advance," it says. "These results may stir unease.

"Anyone within the music industry has good reason to be concerned with our findings."

And what, pray, is set to turn the music industry into a gibbering, hand-wringing mess?

Well, the survey says that " 70% of those who expressed a view do not feel guilty about downloading music for free from the internet."

Sharp intake of breath.

"61% of the age group do not feel they should have to pay for the music they listen to. This is more marked amongst 15-19 year olds, of whom 69% do not feel they should have to pay."

Gasp!

"On average 43% of the music owned and enjoyed by the age group has not been paid for. This increases to 49% for 15-19 year olds."

Cue industry-wide howling, wailing and self-flagellation...

But hang on a minute. Don't we all know that just about everyone downloads music illegally, however much they're told it's theft?

Is it any real surprise that younger downloaders, who presumably have less money, feel less worried about not paying for their music?

And as for almost half of teenage collections being blagged off the internet or ripped from friends' music, there's only one sensible reaction to that.

49%? Is that all...?

File sharers won't be kidnapped by secret police in depths of night, says Obama-pal Lammy. Oh good, say file sharers

2009-01-28T10:52:00Z

Last July I wrote this blog, in which I ranted and raved about some rather limp attempts by the government to look like they were doing something about illegal downloading without actually doing anything at all.

The suggestion, back then, was that the way to deal with file sharing was for ISPs (Internet Service providers) to go around policing, threatening and generally hounding their own customers. As I remarked in my blog, this looked more like posturing than policy, and the whole deal had the whiff of a government meekly suggesting something it had no intention of pursuing, simply in order to get someone powerful off its back.

Well now we have the confirmation that, like all truly bad ideas, the plan was greeted with a tsunami of indifference, not least from the people who suggested it. The Government, after what is known in Whitehall circles as 'a discreet interval', has finally fessed up to the fact that it has no intention of turning that bogus idea into anything resembling a law.

As for the ISPs themselves, Broadband providers the length and breadth of Britain looked up briefly, quietly muttered 'Bovvered?', and went back to conjuring premium package offers based on advertised broadband speeds so wildly optimistic you will only achieve them if you happen to live in one particular house in Weybridge.

I digress. The bringer of these good if slightly embarrassed tidings was none other than intellectual property minister, MP for Tottenham and all-round good egg David Lammy. Lammy was a junior minister of minor import until he self-consciously revealed he's a good friend of Barak Obama, at which point he became in the minds of the British political media a kind of Spurs-supporting John The Baptist.

"We can't have a system where we're talking about arresting teenagers in their bedrooms," Lammy said. While I'm sure we could find plenty of peope who'd take issue with that statement on all sorts of levels, it should be applauded not just for its liberal spirit, but also for its refreshing honesty.

Here's the bottom line: any suggested 'solution' to file sharing which criminalises large swaths of the otherwise law-abiding population is a very, very stupid idea. Ok? Ok.

The sooner we realise – along with likeable Lammy – that those kind of draconian responses are simply not going to happen, the sooner everyone can arrive at a resolution that keeps consumers, producers, artists and, yes, music companies relatively happy.

No, they won't be 'happy' like they used to be. But seeing as music biz 'happiness' used to involve giving £2,000,000 advances to bands as awful as Gay Dad and offering up yearly accounts involving £200,000 annual spends on 'flowers' (euphemism of the century), that's not neccessarily such a bad thing.

A 'media tax' on broadband subscriptions? Maybe that is the way to go. Downloading is here to stay, and the production costs of movies and music have to paid for somehow. The only worrying thing about the recent news was the sight of Feargal Sharkey – ex-Undertones frontman and now the public face of industry group UK Music – naively saying he thinks that 80 per cent of file sharers would be prepared to pay for a legitimate file-sharing service.

Er, has he seen iTunes? Ok, an impressive ten per cent of Europeans use it, but then 20 per cent use file-sharing sites where they can get their media for free. And legal download services account for just eight per cent of overall music revenues – which are falling overall.

Call me cynical, but if all those who bought the 7in single of Teenage Kicks in 1978 could have sat at home and got it for free, what do you think they would have done...?

Yes, there needs to be a solution. But it needs to be something a little more subtle than 'send da boys round.' Here's hoping Lammy can lead the way towards a more thoughtful debate on the subject. Maybe he can get Obama to parachute in with some words of wisdom.....

Inside the Sony Walkman Room

2008-12-05T10:31:00Z

During our recent trip to Sony Japan, we were shown all manner of wonderful gadgets and the kit that you'll be buying next year. Taking a toilet break between presentations to manage our excitement, we stumbled across the Walkman Room at Sony HQ in Tokyo and decided the toilet could wait for a bit.

Sheepishly entering the room, expecting a development lab, Sony engineers dancing in white suits and perhaps some dry ice, we saw every Walkman ever on display. In fact, every portable music device Sony have ever made including CD and Minidisc based players. The first ever Walkman is pictured below - it's called the TPS-L2 and was released in 1979...and yes, you were expected to attach it to your trousers.

The following series of images may bring back a few memories and if you're interested in seeing the 2009 Walkman, you'll have to read the next issue on 8th January. We've got one and want to tell you all about it, before anybody else...

Live from Sony Japan: A whole lot of Roly

2008-11-26T10:34:00Z

Our intrepid editor, Richard Melville, is at Sony HQ in Japan. Before he'd even had time to un-bag his laptop, Sony was shoving musical robots his way. Here's the report, live from his cameraphone, of his encounter with the next-generation Roly...

So, this week, we're spending some time with Sony in Tokyo, exclusively getting inside info on the kit you'll be buying next year. Today we're chatting with the designers behind the Sony Rolly and getting an insight into how the cute portable music robot came to life.

Sony begin by showing a new Rolly, currently only destined for the Japanese market. Linking to your PC, you can program the motion sensitive functions of Rolly via Roll Choreographer, a PC application. It's very complex, with all manner of stats and graphs with an image showing Rolly effects.

Sony refer to the 'arms and shoulders' of the Rolly and are keen to stress and demonstrate the fun nature of the egg shaped player/speaker. By playing Footloose. We giggle a bit, but it's hard not to.

The Rolly software creates motion by analysing song tempo and mood – there's a new 'motion upload' site so you can share your moves with others too. Sony then play a Ricky Martin track, causing the Rolly to dance energetically, flapping its little ears and spinning and flashing.

Then we see delicate ballet moves to softer songs. Finally, it's the science statement: 'Neodymium magnet used in high grade speakers, low key sound reflected from floor'. One thing is clear – the small Rolly certainly produces a bigger sound than you expect.

The new 'pink' model has radio control – you can also control multiple Rollys (up to 7) and make them dance with each other. We hear a bit of Celine Dion while 3 Rollys dance with each other, simulating a bit of robo-love. They interact in cute way and we're reminded of Furbies for some reason.

By linking Rollys, you can play music simultaneously too, adding volume. There's a firmware update for the UK version due, with new 'moves' added. The Rolly is 'not a robot, it's kind of a music brain' says the inventor and Product Producer of Rolly.

He then mentions that the Rolly was conceived during the design process for the robo-dog Aibo, was invented 3 years ago and approved by top bods at Sony instantly. Sales in Japan have been above Sony expectations, though no figures are revealed...

Waterloo sunset for Samsung MP3 player

2008-11-11T18:39:00Z

Samsung today unveiled its latest attempt to take on the iPod (and the new Sony Walkman). The venue for the launch event was the London Eye and, get this, the band (or man) doing an acoustic was Get Cape,Wear Cape, Fly (pictured below). See what they did there?

The new MP3 player is called the Q1 Diamond and comes in 4GB to 16GB models, all boasting FM radio, BBC iPlayer compatibility, voice recording and a 2.4inch screen. Samsung have also added DNse 3.0, an audio upscaler which is claimed to ‘restore a missing sound range’ adjusting the EQ depending on the type of music being played.

The sleek black unit plays FLAC, MP3, WMV, OGG and MPEG4 files and if you want to know how it fares against the iPod Nano and Sony Walkman (plus other rivals), you can read a round up of MP3 players in the next issue, out Thursday Dec 11^th.

We’ll update you with release and price details as soon asthey become available. Meanwhile, if you actually wonder what Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly sound like, you can hear them by clicking here.

Keeping sane on the move

2008-10-13T14:56:00Z

Just in case you were wondering how - and indeed whether - I've been staying sane during this protracted Far East trip, the answer is that I'm just about keeping it together.

And that's despite flaky internet connections, haphazard wi-fi, cumulative jet-lag I still haven't quite shaken off and over-officious security guards here at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair who require me to show my press badge each and every time I take a picture.

Playing no small part in keeping me from climbing the walls is this, which is just about the only thing I've acquired on this trip.

It's Yamaha's NX-U02 USB-powered computer speaker, which has opposing stereo drivers, an onboard bass-boost system, technology designed to store power and then release it as music, and no more than volume up/down and mute controls.

It's been sitting on the desk in various homes and hotel rooms for the past week or so, hooked up to the little Advent laptop I've been using for all this bloggage, along with a must-have Philips SCE7640 portable battery pack, which more than doubles the running-time of the laptop for very sensible money.

With that battery and the Yamaha speaker, all the drawbacks of the bargain Advent are answered - and best of all the Yamaha's cable is long enough to stretch to the bedside table, so I can go to sleep listening to radio from 'back home'.

At the moment I've become a late-night addict of Danny Baker's afternoon show on BBC London 94.9, which is playing right now.

That traffic on the M3 sounds nasty...

The Apple launch: LIVE!

2008-09-08T14:24:00Z

5.25pm

We're currently soaking up the hustle and bustle at the Apple European launch, jostling for position outside the room where all the action will take place.

We're scheduled for a 6pm kick-off, so stick with us to find out all the Apple news, with rumours of a bigger iPod Touch and longer iPod nano reaching fever pitch...

17.50

The launch starts with hearty back-slapping, celebrating the success of the iPhone 3G and looking at its spread across Europe, reminiscing about iPods past and reminding everyone of the launch of movie downloads in the UK... Pascal Cagni, a fast-talking marketing man from Apple Europe seems like he's working against the clock somewhat...

The stats come thick and fast – in the first ¾ of this fiscal year Apple has seen a 45% growth on 2007... market share growth across the board in iPods and PCs, in all the key countries in Europe... basically, Apple is the Daddy, alright?

Time to give it up for the retailers now. It's not just the online stores, of which they now boast a presence in 16 countries and nine languages, when it comes to old-school, high street stores – there are now 17 in the UK, with a special mention for the most recently opened in High Cross Shopping Centre, Leicester (nice mention for them)...

We'll leave Apple waxing lyrical for now... after all, it's the products we're interested in.

17.59

Our first glimpse of the launch in San Francisco – this is what we're here to see – is a room full of journalists tapping away on laptops... The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is where "the magic will happen"...

18.03

Our first look at the copyright warning... and now it's Steve Jobs. We're off.

18.04

We start with 'the ubiquotous iTunes', now offering over 8.5 million songs, 125,000 podcasts, 30,000 TV shows, 2600 Hollywood movies and over 3000 apps for iPhone and iPod Touch... some 65 million iTunes accounts, too. It's the number one music distributor in the US...

New content... it's HD TV shows. The shows will be a dollar more, $2.99. Watch them on your computer or on Apple TV. NBC shows will be coming back too... so that's The Office (US version), Monk, Heroes, Battlestar Galactica... on SD and HD.

Unsurprisingly... we have a brand new iTunes 8, too. The main points are: HD TV shows, improved accessibility, 'browsing' and 'genius'.

Browsing = look at albums by cover picture, browse your library by the artwork. Same with movies and podcasts.

Genius = "It's pretty cool", says Steve. It allows you to pull together playlists of songs that "work together" with just one click. Listen to a song, press genius button, and a playlist is made for you (you can refresh as many times as you like). Naturally you will also get recommendations straight from the iTunes Store of similar songs. Info being swapped between your library and the iTunes Store – anonymously, of course, they say. Combining all iTunes users' info will allow Genius to get "smarter and smarter" at recommending tunes.

18.12

Steve Jobs gets on possibly the biggest Mac we've ever seen to inturn control the projected image of his desktop. We're basically watching Steve flick through his music collection in the new iTunes8. Which is alright, I guess. Quick HD clip of The Office – the US version. Not exactly telling us much about the quality. Still, the Genius button looks like a neat function.

18.15

Still playing around on his Mac, Steve Jobs has pulled out some Elvis... so a certain member of the What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision team will be happy... but we could do with ol' Jobsy moving on to something else now...

18.18

iPod has 73% of market share in US. Big slice of the pie. Over 5000 iPod accessories... 90% of US cars offer iPod integration. Cumulative iPod sales = 160 million. Cor.

And on to new products...

The iPod Classic. It's the end of the thick model. 80GB Classic goes up to 120GB for same price – "That's 30,000 songs in your pocket."

On to the nano... we whizz through the old generation, so we assume a new one is coming... sure enough we have a slimmer, longer, oval-shaped iPod nano. It has the same display – thinnest iPod ever made. Oval shaped unit, certainly pretty slim profile. Steve is a big fan... curved aluminium design, curved glass on display, enhanced user interface, accelerometer from iPhone, Genius function on the nano...

Long menus, more room for album artwork, can be turned sideways iPhone style... landscape mode.

Addition of a pop-up menu when in now playing mode...create a playlist, browse tracks etc as you listen... voice recorder added.

18.25

Oh look, Apple has done 'Shake to Shuffle'... simply shake the nano to skip tracks... we think we've seen this somewhere before...

24 hours battery life for music, four hours of video... on the slimmest iPod ever made. Did they mention the slim thing? We think so...

On to some obligatory environmental guff. The "cleanest, toxic-free iPods we've ever built".

On to colours and we have nano-chromatic... some new colours for nanos, and they certainly look bold and bright.

As for those all important prices... $149 for 8GB model, $199 for 16GB

"OUT NOW"... "BUY BUY BUY"... "CATCH THEM THIS WEEK"... says Steve Jobs.

Also new is a set of headphones, for $29, with a built-in remote control. Also, brand new iPod headphones to sell for $79 – "We think we've finally got it right," says Steve Jobs. At least he knows the freebie ones aren't much cop.

18.32

No time to breathe... it's on to the iPod Touch. New model. Same 3.5in display, but slimmer profile. What's different? Integrated volume control on side, built-in speaker (uh oh – coming to the back of a bus near you). The Genius playlist is on board, too.

36 hours of music and 6 hours of battery life.

$229 – 8GB

$299 – 16GB

$399 – 32GB

...out now

Hmm, so far a little underwhelming with the Touch. There have been little adjustments to the user interface, too... Nike and iPod software built-in, too – no need for the separate receiver, that you previously needed to connect to the nano... well, I use it, so that sounds good to me.

18.39

Lots of talk about the Apps Store, which is built in to theTouch... 100 million downloads so far in the 60 days it's been open.

More talk about Genius... though as Jobs makes live playlists, we start to question quite what connects U2 to Green Day to John Mayer... hey ho, we shall see.

And suddenly we have an Apple product manager playing the brand new game Spore on an iPod Touch. It's all happening. Real Soccer 2009 and Need For Speed will also be coming to the iPod Touch andiPhone... it's “the funnest iPod ever”. Perhaps the Nintendo DS has ruffled a few feathers...

18.47

We're still on the "funnest iPod ever", and there's new 2.1 iPodsoftware – you can upgrade your old Touch.

Also a 2.1 update for the iPhone, which should improve "lots of bugs", improve battery time and stop call drop-off... free from this Friday for all iPhone users.

18.53

Steve Jobs summing up... "We have the best family of iPods and iTunes ever, and we're ready for the holiday season."

And now we have to listen to Jack Johnson, so count yourselves lucky... he's the number one selling male artist on iTunes, don't you know...

iTunes taking over live music?

2008-07-15T09:54:00Z

Following a brief residency at London’s ICA gallery last year with iTunes performances from everyone from Paul McCartney to Kasabian, Apple has set up shop in Camden this month.

Every day during July, Camden’s Koko plays host to a mix of artists and bands and, after each performance, live tracks will be available to download from iTunes. You can see the full line up and try to win free tickets here.

The iTunes Live event raises the question: is Apple set to take over live music? Last year Madonna quit her record label and signed a contract with concert promoter Live Nation, combining recording, merchandise and touring rights for all her new material. The theory is that with CD sales dwindling, live performances (and recordings of live performances) are far more lucrative.

The iTunes Live audience is made up entirely of competition winners, meaning every single ticket is free with money made from iTunes downloads of the live performances. Would the global iTunes download of concert tracks make more money than 2000 Koko ticket (and beer) sales? Of course – which begs the question – how big could the ‘free ticket and pay-for download’ industry become?

Next year, could Apple take over Wembley for a week and offer free tickets to a Live 8 style event, then sell the whole day back to concert goers and the rest of the world as a premium iTunes download package? Given the resurgence of live music and importance of touring an album, it’s a real possibility…

iPhone mania – techno hype or genuine innovation?

2008-07-13T20:20:00Z

"I just don't get all this fuss about the new iPhone," lamented one of my colleagues in the office late on Friday. "I mean, I get hi-fi, and I really enjoy my home cinema system at home, but a phone's just for making calls isn't it?"

Well Jonny, I'm sorry to contradict you, but if the queues outside the Apple store in Kingston on Saturday morning were anything to go by, you're clearly in the minority. I'd popped into the Bentall Centre to do a spot of shopping (and no, not to buy an iPhone – sadly, I'm on Vodafone) and had to barge past the queue snaking along the first floor to get to the other (non-Apple stores).

And guess which was the most-read item on whathifi.com this weekend? No prizes for discovering it was our exclusive review of Mr Jobs's latest creation.

However, not everything went quite as smoothly as Apple might have hoped. As you'll have read already, our own Tom Parsons got very agitated with the ordering process when trying to get his new 3G iPhone online, and judging by the reports in this weekend's newspapers, early customers were left fuming when the computer system linking Apple's stores to 02's network struggled to cope with the demand.

So why all the hoopla? Well, it seems as if the iPhone is the must-have accessory, credit crunch or no credit crunch, and anything else just won't do.

I'm not an iPhone owner, but I do have an iPod Touch. So, keen to get a flavour of what the new iPhone can do, I downloaded the new iPhone 2.0 software from iTunes (it cost me £5.99) and loaded it onto the Touch. Simplicity itself.

And here's the thing. Once you've upgraded to 2.0, there are some brilliant free applications you can download to your iPhone or Touch. Apple Remote allows you to control the music on your Apple Mac computer or Apple TV using the iPhone/Touch as your remote. It logs on to your home wi-fi network and enables you to select, play, pause, shuffle and skip the songs on your computer from anywhere around the house. Very neat.

I've also downloaded NetNewsWire (an RSS reader) and have a choice of zillions of internet radio stations to listen to via the Tuner app. A free eBay app lets you watch, bid on and search for items in real time, and if you fancy something to entertain you on those long train/plane journeys, Super Monkey Ball is a great puzzle game.

Oh, and did I mention there's another app that means you can keep in touch with all your Facebook friends too?

Of course, the only thing my Touch can't do is make phone calls. So for that I need my Sony Ericsson W580i. But frankly having to take two items with me every time I leave the house is a bore. Looks like I'll have to buy an iPhone after all, Jonny!