Archive for the ‘Audio’ Category

This week’s episode of the Gadget Lab podcast is heavy on fruits. High on vitamin A, Dylan Tweney gushes over the pluot, a plum-apricot hybrid, while yours truly dishes out this week’s announcements of brand new Apple gear.

Apple’s iPod family all scored major upgrades. The iPod Nano has become a puny touchscreen badge with a built-in clip that should be ideal for athletes, and the iPod Touch is now up to par with the iPhone 4. The iPod Shuffle was refreshed as well — also a badge-like clippable form factor, but with the traditional click wheel rather than a touchscreen.

Apple also announced a brand new Apple TV that’s about a quarter of the size of its predecessor. It streams movie and television rentals, but it faces one major limitation:  only two television networks (Fox and ABC) are on board to offer programs for the device. For now, it’s not an adequate replacement for cable TV.

However, in a future software update, iOS devices will be able to wirelessly stream their iTunes videos and music onto the Apple TV by using a feature called “AirPlay.” We ponder on the potential for Apple to reshape the TV industry if the company eventually allows you to beam content from third-party iOS apps (such as Hulu) onto the Apple TV. It’s wishful thinking, but not an impossibility.

Finally, Samsung has officially launched a tablet to compete with Apple’s iPad. The Samsung Galaxy Tab is a 7-inch touchscreen tablet powered by Android OS 2.2, meaning it supports Adobe Flash. We share our impressions of the device after some hands-on testing.

Oh, and those pluots? They come from Frog Hollow Farm, and they really are delicious.

Like the show? You can also get the Gadget Lab video podcast via iTunes, or if you don’t want to be distracted by our smiling faces, check out the Gadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Lab video or audio podcast feeds

Or listen to the audio here:

Gadget Lab audio podcast #87

http://downloads.wired.com/podcasts/assets/gadgetlabaudio/GadgetLabAudio0087.mp3

Originally posted here:
Gadget Lab Podcast: iPods, Apple TV and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab

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This week’s episode of the Gadget Lab podcast is heavy on fruits. High on vitamin A, Dylan Tweney gushes over the pluot, a plum-apricot hybrid, while yours truly dishes out this week’s announcements of brand new Apple gear.

Apple’s iPod family all scored major upgrades. The iPod Nano has become a puny touchscreen badge with a built-in clip that should be ideal for athletes, and the iPod Touch is now up to par with the iPhone 4. The iPod Shuffle was refreshed as well — also a badge-like clippable form factor, but with the traditional click wheel rather than a touchscreen.

Apple also announced a brand new Apple TV that’s about a quarter of the size of its predecessor. It streams movie and television rentals, but it faces one major limitation:  only two television networks (Fox and ABC) are on board to offer programs for the device. For now, it’s not an adequate replacement for cable TV.

However, in a future software update, iOS devices will be able to wirelessly stream their iTunes videos and music onto the Apple TV by using a feature called “AirPlay.” We ponder on the potential for Apple to reshape the TV industry if the company eventually allows you to beam content from third-party iOS apps (such as Hulu) onto the Apple TV. It’s wishful thinking, but not an impossibility.

Finally, Samsung has officially launched a tablet to compete with Apple’s iPad. The Samsung Galaxy Tab is a 7-inch touchscreen tablet powered by Android OS 2.2, meaning it supports Adobe Flash. We share our impressions of the device after some hands-on testing.

Oh, and those pluots? They come from Frog Hollow Farm, and they really are delicious.

Like the show? You can also get the Gadget Lab video podcast via iTunes, or if you don’t want to be distracted by our smiling faces, check out the Gadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Lab video or audio podcast feeds

Or listen to the audio here:

Gadget Lab audio podcast #87

http://downloads.wired.com/podcasts/assets/gadgetlabaudio/GadgetLabAudio0087.mp3

Visit link:
Gadget Lab Podcast: iPods, Apple TV and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab

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Reformat the Planet

Reformat the Planet, the documentary film examining both the annual Blip Festival and the community that it celebrates, has just been released as a 2 DVD set. With improved audio, supplementary footage and a brand new short, it’s a more intricate examination of the chiptune scene than even its original critically acclaimed form.

REFORMAT THE PLANET (RTP) is a feature-length documentary that delves into the movement known as chip music, a vibrant underground scene based around creating new, original music using obsolete video game hardware. Familiar devices such as the Nintendo Game Boy and Nintendo Entertainment System are pushed in new directions with startling results.

Using New York as a microcosm for a larger global movement, RTP maps out the genesis of the first annual Blip Festival, a four-day celebration of over 30 international artists exploring the untapped potential of low-bit video game consoles. With floor-stomping rhythms and fist-pumping melodies, trailblazers of the chip music idiom descended upon Manhattan to pen a new chapter in the history of electronic music. Since its debut at the 2008 South by Southwest Film Festival, RTP has played to audiences around the world, continuing to expose new fans to the chip music movement.

For this ultimate home release, Portland’s 2 Player Productions, the same team behind “Penny Arcade: The Series,” joined forces with online specialty retailer Fangamer to ensure that the design and packaging properly reflected the passion and creativity of the film itself. This double DVD is available now – though the site itself still lists it as a pre-order – for a scant $15 American, and Fangamer also provides a number of interesting value-added bundles. (I mean, who doesn’t love Game Boy papercraft?!)

Whether you’re a die-hard chiptune fan or a new listener just discovering the scene, Reformat the Planet is all but required watching. Snag your copy today. For a better tomorrow.

REFORMAT THE PLANET trailer from 2 Player Productions on Vimeo.

View post:
Chiptune Documentary Reformat the Planet Now Available on DVD

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Reformat the Planet

Reformat the Planet, the documentary film examining both the annual Blip Festival and the community that it celebrates, has just been released as a 2 DVD set. With improved audio, supplementary footage and a brand new short, it’s a more intricate examination of the chiptune scene than even its original critically acclaimed form.

REFORMAT THE PLANET (RTP) is a feature-length documentary that delves into the movement known as chip music, a vibrant underground scene based around creating new, original music using obsolete video game hardware. Familiar devices such as the Nintendo Game Boy and Nintendo Entertainment System are pushed in new directions with startling results.

Using New York as a microcosm for a larger global movement, RTP maps out the genesis of the first annual Blip Festival, a four-day celebration of over 30 international artists exploring the untapped potential of low-bit video game consoles. With floor-stomping rhythms and fist-pumping melodies, trailblazers of the chip music idiom descended upon Manhattan to pen a new chapter in the history of electronic music. Since its debut at the 2008 South by Southwest Film Festival, RTP has played to audiences around the world, continuing to expose new fans to the chip music movement.

For this ultimate home release, Portland’s 2 Player Productions, the same team behind “Penny Arcade: The Series,” joined forces with online specialty retailer Fangamer to ensure that the design and packaging properly reflected the passion and creativity of the film itself. This double DVD is available now – though the site itself still lists it as a pre-order – for a scant $15 American, and Fangamer also provides a number of interesting value-added bundles. (I mean, who doesn’t love Game Boy papercraft?!)

Whether you’re a die-hard chiptune fan or a new listener just discovering the scene, Reformat the Planet is all but required watching. Snag your copy today. For a better tomorrow.

REFORMAT THE PLANET trailer from 2 Player Productions on Vimeo.

See original here:
Chiptune Documentary Reformat the Planet Now Available on DVD

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Reformat the Planet

Reformat the Planet, the documentary film examining both the annual Blip Festival and the community that it celebrates, has just been released as a 2 DVD set. With improved audio, supplementary footage and a brand new short, it’s a more intricate examination of the chiptune scene than even its original critically acclaimed form.

REFORMAT THE PLANET (RTP) is a feature-length documentary that delves into the movement known as chip music, a vibrant underground scene based around creating new, original music using obsolete video game hardware. Familiar devices such as the Nintendo Game Boy and Nintendo Entertainment System are pushed in new directions with startling results.

Using New York as a microcosm for a larger global movement, RTP maps out the genesis of the first annual Blip Festival, a four-day celebration of over 30 international artists exploring the untapped potential of low-bit video game consoles. With floor-stomping rhythms and fist-pumping melodies, trailblazers of the chip music idiom descended upon Manhattan to pen a new chapter in the history of electronic music. Since its debut at the 2008 South by Southwest Film Festival, RTP has played to audiences around the world, continuing to expose new fans to the chip music movement.

For this ultimate home release, Portland’s 2 Player Productions, the same team behind “Penny Arcade: The Series,” joined forces with online specialty retailer Fangamer to ensure that the design and packaging properly reflected the passion and creativity of the film itself. This double DVD is available now – though the site itself still lists it as a pre-order – for a scant $15 American, and Fangamer also provides a number of interesting value-added bundles. (I mean, who doesn’t love Game Boy papercraft?!)

Whether you’re a die-hard chiptune fan or a new listener just discovering the scene, Reformat the Planet is all but required watching. Snag your copy today. For a better tomorrow.

REFORMAT THE PLANET trailer from 2 Player Productions on Vimeo.

Read the rest here:
Chiptune Documentary Reformat the Planet Now Available on DVD

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Reformat the Planet

Reformat the Planet, the documentary film examining both the annual Blip Festival and the community that it celebrates, has just been released as a 2 DVD set. With improved audio, supplementary footage and a brand new short, it’s a more intricate examination of the chiptune scene than even its original critically acclaimed form.

REFORMAT THE PLANET (RTP) is a feature-length documentary that delves into the movement known as chip music, a vibrant underground scene based around creating new, original music using obsolete video game hardware. Familiar devices such as the Nintendo Game Boy and Nintendo Entertainment System are pushed in new directions with startling results.

Using New York as a microcosm for a larger global movement, RTP maps out the genesis of the first annual Blip Festival, a four-day celebration of over 30 international artists exploring the untapped potential of low-bit video game consoles. With floor-stomping rhythms and fist-pumping melodies, trailblazers of the chip music idiom descended upon Manhattan to pen a new chapter in the history of electronic music. Since its debut at the 2008 South by Southwest Film Festival, RTP has played to audiences around the world, continuing to expose new fans to the chip music movement.

For this ultimate home release, Portland’s 2 Player Productions, the same team behind “Penny Arcade: The Series,” joined forces with online specialty retailer Fangamer to ensure that the design and packaging properly reflected the passion and creativity of the film itself. This double DVD is available now – though the site itself still lists it as a pre-order – for a scant $15 American, and Fangamer also provides a number of interesting value-added bundles. (I mean, who doesn’t love Game Boy papercraft?!)

Whether you’re a die-hard chiptune fan or a new listener just discovering the scene, Reformat the Planet is all but required watching. Snag your copy today. For a better tomorrow.

REFORMAT THE PLANET trailer from 2 Player Productions on Vimeo.

More:
Chiptune Documentary Reformat the Planet Now Available on DVD

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Apple Wednesday showed off a sporty new model in its popular line of tiny MP3 players, the iPod Nano, a “retina display”-enhanced version of its iPod Touch, and a new version of its iPod Shuffle.

The new iPod Touch is basically the same as the iPhone 4 but thinner, and without the phone: it gains the latter’s high-resolution display, front- and back-facing cameras for videoconferencing, A4 chip, three-axis gyroscope, and iOS 4.1 with Game Center.

The display, which Apple calls a retina display, is the same 326 ppi, 24-bit color LED screen found in the iPhone 4.

The new Nano, which is a small square apparently about 1.5 inches on a side, does away with the click wheel on previous models, replacing it with a tiny, square touchscreen that nearly covers the face of the device.

The Nano has hardware buttons for controlling the volume. It will support the voiceover feature that first appeared in the iPod Shuffle, and will also have an FM radio and support for the popular Nike+ pedometer/fitness add-on. Apple claims its battery will last for 24 hours of audio playback.

The iPod Nano will come in two versions: one with 8GB of storage for $150 and one with 6GB for $180.

Apple also announced a small, square, screenless version of the iPod Shuffle. It’s actually larger than the previous model Shuffle, but CEO Steve Jobs said that customers missed the control buttons, so the clickwheel interface returns to the larger Shuffle with this model.

The iPod Shuffle will have 2GB of storage and will cost $50.

For full coverage of Apple’s press conference, see Wired.com’s live blog of the event.

Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Continue reading here:
Sporty New iPods Tout Tiny Touchscreens, Retina Display

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SAN FRANCISCO — In a sign that its television “hobby” has turned into serious business, Apple announced an aggressively-priced new set-top box that takes aim at the heart of the cable TV and DVD rental industries.

The new Apple TV, which will go on sale at the end of September for $100, is a puny box just 1/4 the size of the previous model. It has an HDMI port, a power supply built in it, an optical audio port, an Ethernet jack, and built-in Wi-Fi.

“It’s silent, cool and tiny,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs, showing off the dimunitive metallic box.

Despite rumors, the product was not rebranded as “iTV.” Jobs did not state whether it was running a version of iOS, although the Apple TV’s new interface includes some very iOS-like touches, such as icons that jiggle when you are rearranging them on the home screen.

Apple joins an increasingly crowded and risky scrum of companies trying to reinvent television for the internet age. Netflix and Hulu both have been offering streaming video playback of movies and TV shows, with some success, for over a year. Google is working on a set top box that would blur the line between TV and internet fare, YouTube is said to be planning mainstream film rentals and Amazon is rumored to be planning its own Netflix-like video streaming service. But the real threat are the cable companies and TV networks, which have a lock on the shows that people want to watch — and so far, there’s been little incentive for them to open up their tightly-controlled ecosystems to internet upstarts.

Apple’s play is for convenience, but it’s not the cross-platform strategy needed for dominance, wrote Andrew Eisner, a director at online electronics retailer Retrevo.com.

“A TV OS vacuum exists at the moment and unfortunately for consumers, TV manufacturers appear to be filling it with their own proprietary offerings,” Eisner wrote recently. “Apple needs to gain control of the third screen or TV screen, after smartphone screens and computer screens, and the TV industry needs to move away from closed environments and let their connected TVs work with all the apps and streaming content that consumers are finding so appealing.”

In an implicit acknowledgement of Apple TV’s poor sales to date, Jobs again referred to the product as the company’s “hobby.” He showed the new Apple TV at a press conference here on Wednesday.

But Jobs was careful to cast the company’s previous product as a learning experience, and indicated his intention of throwing more of the company’s weight behind the upgraded Apple TV.

Apple TV customers will be able to rent first-run HD movies for $5, at the same time as they’re released on DVD. That’s a substantial improvement from the past, when there were significant time lags before movies were available through iTunes.

Customers will also be able to rent HD TV shows from ABC and Fox for $1, a discount from the previous price of $3. The shows will run without commercial interruption.

Netflix customers will also be able to stream video from Netflix via Apple TV, and can also use the device to browse and view YouTube videos and content uploaded to Apple’s MobileMe service.

Customers can also stream content from ther computers, including photos, videos and music, with no syncing required.

The company will also be providing an iPad app that customers can use to control what appears on the screen via Apple TV, essentially turning the tablet into an oversized remote control.

Apple is already accepting preorders for the new Apple TV on its site.

For full coverage of Apple’s press conference, see Wired.com’s live blog of the event.

Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

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Read more:
Apple Takes Aim at Cable With Tiny New Apple TV

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Sony’s not taking competition from the Amazon Kindle lying down. The company has added touchscreens to its three e-reader models, while switching to the new ‘Pearl’ screen from E Ink for better contrast and improving the user interface on the devices.

What the company hasn’t done is drop the price. Sony’s cheapest e-reader will cost $180–and that’s without Wi-Fi or 3G–while Amazon charges $140 for the Wi-Fi version of the Kindle.

“The bottom line is we didn’t want to compete on price,” says Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading business division. “We wanted to build quality and overall experience. We want to give consumers the feel of buying an e-reader, not a toy.”

Sony three e-reader models are the Pocket, Touch and Daily Edition. The $180 Pocket Reader has a 5-inch display, 2 GB memory and will come without W-Fi or 3G access. That means users can only load books by connecting the device to their PC using a USB cable.

The $230 Touch Edition has a 6-inch display, 2 GB onboard memory, expansion slots for up to 32 GB of additional memory, the ability to play audio files and Wi-Fi connectivity.

The $300 Daily Edition model includes both Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity and sports an even larger 7-inch display. It too has 2 GB of onboard memory and an expansion slot for up to 32 GB additional.

Sony’s new e-readers raise the stakes in the e-reader market. In July, Amazon introduced the third generation of its Kindle e-reader, including a Wi-Fi only model, and slashed the price to make it more competitive with rival Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The move took a toll on smaller e-reader makers who haven’t been able to compete on either price or scale of their book stores. Earlier this month, Foxit announced it will stop development on its eSlick e-reader. Plastic Logic canceled its plans to bring its e-reader to market, while Cool-er’s e-readers have been listed out of stock in the U.S. for months.

Sony is betting on better design to draw in users. Its new e-readers are colorful (hot pink, red, silver and black) and have an aluminum body that gives them a better finish and feel compared to the plasticky- shell of the Kindle or the Nook.

But the biggest change has been the introduction of the touchscreen across all models. Previously only one of the models called Touch Edition had a touchscreen.

Unlike the capacitive touchscreens popular on mobile phones, Sony’s e-readers use optical touchscreen technology so it responds to both finger and a stylus.

A major problem with the earlier version of Sony’s touchscreen e-reader was the touchscreen layer added to the top of the display. The layer decreased contrast, making the e-reader’s display difficult to read compared to the Kindle or the Nook, and also offered a sluggish response to touch. The optical touchscreen technology seems to have solved some of the problems and in my brief hands-on with the devices I found the display to be startlingly responsive and quick.

The Pearl display has also helped improve contrast and render crisper text.

“The number one focus for us is the reading experience,” says Haber.”The e-reader is not the Swiss Army knife of devices so we have done everything to make the experience immersive.”

Over the next few weeks, Sony also plans to launch mobile apps of its reader software for the iPhone, iPad and Android.

In improvements to the user interface, Sony will incorporate book reviews from the GoodReads site into its book store. It has also expanded the news stand section of its book store and partnered with more news publishers such as The Guardian and The Harvard Business Review.

Sony hopes to ship the Touch and Pocket models in the next few days. The Daily Edition e-reader will not be available till early November.

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Photo: Sony Touch e-reader/Sony

Read more:
Sony Takes on the Kindle With Touchscreen E-Readers

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Steve Jobs introduces the iPhone 4's videoconferencing feature FaceTime at WWDC 2010. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Apple will hold a press conference Wednesday, where Steve Jobs is expected to announce the birth of new stars in his product galaxy, including (probably) new iPods and (possibly) a successor to Apple TV.

As is always the case, Apple has been careful to guard its announcements. The result has been the usual widespread guessing game among Apple worshippers and members of the press. But given the timing of the event, we can make some easy guesses: Apple’s annual September event has always revolved around iTunes and iPods.

Based on a handful of credible reports and some evidence, this time around we expect some interesting upgrades. A touchscreen iPod Nano and an iPod Touch with dual cameras are almost to be expected. It’s also possible that Apple will introduce a complete do-over of the Apple TV.

Wired.com will be attending the Apple event Wednesday, which begins 10 a.m. PT, so check back at Gadget Lab for live blog coverage. To stay plugged in 140 characters at a time, follow @bxchen or @gadgetlab on Twitter.

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