Archive for the ‘gadgets’ Category

Cashmere Tech Wrap-Up

Friday, April 8th, 2011

UPGRADED TWITTER SEARCH HELPS YOU FIND NEW PEOPLE TO FOLLOW

Twitter has rolled out an update to its search tool that makes it easier to find new people to follow.

Now, when you search for a given topic on the microblogging site, you’ll get suggestions of people and accounts that tweet about that topic. For instance, a search for “movies” yields Roger Ebert, Judd Apatow, Jon Favreau and the iTunes Trailer account under the “People results for movies” sidebar.

You can get further suggestions by clicking on the “People” tab on the left-hand side search results where you can also browse recent tweets about the queried topic. In the movies example, further results include Tom Hanks, DisneyPixar and Kevin Smith.

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YOUTUBE LAUNCHES LIVE STREAMING PAGE

YouTube, the video site owned by Google, on Friday unveiled a page highlighting live programming and said users have asked for more live streams.

“With over 2 billion views a day, it’s easy to think about YouTube as a place to watch videos recorded in the past,” it said in a blog post. “But you’ve told us you want more – and that includes events taking place right now. In response, we’ve live streamed a number of popular concerts, sporting events, and interviews, but primarily on a one-off basis.”

The initial rollout of YouTube Live will “integrate live streaming capabilities and discovery tools directly into the YouTube platform for the first time,” the video site said.

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SONGZA RETOOLS AS SOCIAL RADIO

Over the last few months Songza has made the transition from quirky streamer of YouTube audio to a non-interactive DMCA compliant radio model with a licenced library of 11.3 million songs.  Internet radio is a crowded field, but Songza’s angle is to make listening social. “The under 35 demo spends 87 minutes per day listening to music in a social vacuum,” according to Songza’s Eric Davich. “That experience will change, like many other experiences on the web, to become far more social and immersive.”

Social radio on Songza means playlists created by people: friends, celebrities and groups of users collaborating.

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SMALL CARRIER GET BIG TAILWIND FROM SOCIAL MEDIA

THE popularity of Richard Simmons, the fitness guru known for his big personality and tiny shorts, peaked sometime in the 1980s, but on YouTube he is enjoying something of a Justin Bieber moment.

Mr. Simmons stars in an in-flight safety video for Air New Zealand in which, along with providing standard instructions about oxygen masks and flotation devices, he leads crew members clad in fluorescent spandex and leg warmers in aerobic exercises. Since being uploaded to YouTube on March 28, it has garnered more than 1.9 million views.

Air New Zealand may be a small carrier with a modest presence in the United States (it flies only from airports in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Honolulu), but its online videos, just as surely as its airplanes, seem to always take off.

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INVISIBLE INSTRUMENT – AN IPHONE BASED MUSIC TOOL

At Music Hack Day NYC, Tim Soo won the top prize with his invisible instruments. Using the iPhone and Wii controller as a MIDI device, he is able to create music out of thin air. Thus far, a drum set, violin, cello, bass, keyboard, and guitar have been developed with many more coming soon. How soon? Soo is currently seeking funding via Kickstarter. Check out Soo’s cover of “Just The Way You Are” by Bruno Mars.

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Cashmere Tech Tuesday: Meal Snap

Tuesday, April 5th, 2011

Soon, you’ll be able to toss that hateful food diary in the trash (not that the entries were truthful anyways). The iPhone’s latest health-minded app, Meal Snap, enables the user to count calories simply by sending in a picture of a meal, to which a rough estimate is sent back and logged.

How can this be accurate, you ask? Well, “accurate” is certainly a stretch, which accounts for the caloric “rough estimate.” While the company explains the app’s inner workings as “magic,” Meal Snap’s charmed calculations can spit out a wide spectrum of possibilities. As seen in the screenshot above, a “small handful of cashews” returns a count of anywhere between 150-614 calories.

Meal Snap might be more effective at attaining peace of mind than a smaller waistband, but it’s good to have at least some idea of what you’re shoving into your mouth.

You can find Meal Snap on the App Store for $2.99 right here.

Cashmere Tech Wrap-Up

Friday, March 25th, 2011

AMAZON.COM LAUCHES APPSTORE

Amazon.com opened its version of an app store for smartphones today, focusing exclusively on apps for Android-based devices.

The Appstore (as it is called) launches with 3,800 apps available, and is offering a free download of an exclusive level of the highly popular Angry Birds game to draw attention. It’s available both online at amazon.com/appstore, and can also be downloaded to users’ Android phones — essentially replacing the default Android app shopping experience.

There’s a few interesting twists here.

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PSONAR TO OFFER ‘PAY AS YOU GO’ MUSIC SERVICE

Early on, the single introduced music to kids.

It was a cheap way to decide which albums to buy. Many argue that the single helped establish a record buying habit in youth that would carry on for the rest of their lives.

Today, kids use YouTube and file sharing as a cheap why to decide which singles to buy, and well, “not” buy. A new music service called Psonar is hoping to achieve a similar feat, to offer fans a cheap way to listen to music in general. For a Cent per play, the service will let users stream any song they want. They can ‘pay as they go’ or buy 5$ worth, i.e. 500 streams. It also lets friends “gift” playlists to each other.

Psonar has an interesting business model; it aims to position itself between the gray area of buying songs or paying a monthly fee to a subscription service. In some ways, the service does target kids that are looking for a cheap and legal method to consume music. A Cent per play doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

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BANDORIUM – THE NEW WEBSITE TO FIND LOCAL AND LIVE MUSIC

Bandorium is a Music Social Network where Fans can listen to local bands and find venues that have live music. Whether you’re a Band looking to promote your next gig, a Fan looking for a place to go, or a Venue looking to put the word out that you support live and local artists, Bandorium is the place to go.

How would you like to be able to find local artists in your area and listen to their music? Bandorium.com makes it easy to find venues that offer live music. Everything from local coffeehouses, restaurants, bars and taverns, to full-fledged concert halls, it’s all there at Bandorium.com.

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COLOR’S AMBITIOUS PHOTO APP SEEKS TO REINVENT MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING

Say hello to Color, a new mobile photo-sharing application with a star-studded list of entrepreneurs and an eye-popping $41 million in funding. Its goal is nothing less than to become the ultimate local discovery tool.

The app, which made its debut just a few hours ago on iPhone (and very soon on Android), is best described as public photo and video-sharing app for groups. Yet it doesn’t have the typical friending or following that you’ll find on Facebook, Twitter, Path or Instagram. Instead, Color chooses which pictures you see based on your location and how often you’re sharing photos with someone else. Every photo and video is public, not only to the people you consider your friends, but to any stranger within your proximity.

When you launch Color, the app delivers a stream of content from anybody within 100 feet of your location, as well as anybody within your “elastic network.” In Color, you don’t choose your network; instead, the app determines your social network by figuring out who you’re hanging out with on a regular basis. Every time two friends use the app near each other, Color’s algorithms detect it and use it to essentially rank your friendship. You can also curate your elastic network through actions such as asking the app to “Show More” of a particular friend or liking/commenting on a friend’s picture.

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SEAMBI: DYNAMIC PRODUCT PLACEMENT

SeamBI is an advertising technology innovator that enables brands to seamlessly integrate their product or message into existing television, film and Internet content. Its proprietary technology guarantees advertisers DVR-proof, targeted audience exposure, without compromising the integrity of the content.

SeamBI’s patented technology is an easy-to-use system that allows advertisers to integrate their product or brand directly into original programming content, when viewer engagement is at a maximum. Advertisers now have the ability to work in concert with on-air campaigns, complimenting and reinforcing their marketing message with digital brand integration during the programming itself. The SeamBI solution provides unprecedented product placement opportunities for brands which may not have been able to participate in traditional product placement due to time and cost restrictions.

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Cashmere Tech Wrap-Up

Friday, March 4th, 2011

HASHABLE KICKS #SS AT TAKING NAMES

It’s time to ditch those business cards and thank-you notes for good. Hashable’s here and making it easy to (virtually) do both.

Michael Yavonditte wants Hashable–which combines the connection mojo of LinkedIn, the hashtag shorthand of Twitter, and the check in functionality of Foursquare–to change the face of networking.

“People are really interested in accessing who is connected to whom, and how strong those connections are. That is the kind of data we have,” Hashable’s CEO tells Fast Company. More to the immediate future, Yavonditte and his team plan to unleash a guerrilla marketing campaign at SxSW that they hope will make them the darlings of the interactive conference, a position Foursquare clinched last year.

“Foursquare popularized the notion of a person wanting to know if their other friends are at Starbucks [or some other location]. With Hashable you are checking in with a person as opposed to location. We are the inventors of people check-ins.”

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FACEBOOK SNAPS UP GROUP MESSAGING SERVICE BELUGA

Beluga caviar is some of the world’s most sought after (and expensive).

So it’s a name that suited Beluga, the group messaging service, which was also sought after in Silicon Valley.

Google employees behind Beluga — Ben Davenport, Lucy Zhang and Jonathan Perlow —  were in the midst of raising a round of angel funding that had become quite competitive when Facebook, fast becoming the Moby Dick of Internet companies, swallowed it up Tuesday, snapping up its talented team and its popular service.

It’s clearly a catch. TechCrunch’s MG Siegler called Beluga his “group messaging white whale,” as he quickly became hooked on it. Beluga lets users send instant messages, photos and location information to groups.

“This was a good, fast move by Facebook,” Siegler wrote.

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7 EXCEPTIONAL STRATEGIES FOR MARKETING SINGLES

The use of the ‘single’ has always been a popular way to release music, dating all the way back to the introduction of the gramophone player in the early 1900s when the 7-inch, 10-inch or 12-inch vinyl ‘single’ was the premier music format. Although newer technology has moved the focus to the album rather than the single, the digital music format seems to be giving ‘the single’ a resurgence in not only popularity, but in importance as well.

The Single has now evolved into a multi-purpose marketing tool, giving musicians the opportunity to offer different styles of ‘singles’ to their fans for a variety of different outcomes.

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TWEETLOUDER – HOW FANS TRACK FAVORITE BANDS

No matter how dedicated of a fan you are, it takes time to add all of your favorite bands to Twitter. Track them down. Determine if they’re worth following. And add them.

TweetLouder is a new service that seeks to simplify this task.

It uses your Twitter account and your music listening history to connect you with show updates from your favorite musicians. Snyc your music accounts up from iTunes to Pandora and in moments, an official list of Twitter accounts is created.

One click and an act is followed.

This service comes by way of the concert tracking startup SonicLiving. This shows the power of open APIs and how value can be created. Tell your fans.

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HOW TO: TURN YOUR FACEBOOK PROFILE PHOTO INTO A VIDEO

Some Facebook users — myself formerly among them — are obsessive profile tweakers. We edit our list of interests. We reorganize our photo albums and experiment with awesome profile photo hacks. We weigh carefully whether we want to “Like” this Page or that, because we wonder how that information will be inferred. And we’re always just a little bit, well, bored with our profiles.

Enter FlipYourProfile, a new Facebook app slash browser plugin that allows you to replace your profile photo with a video. That’s right. You no longer have to have a boring still image in your profile photo box. You can have a moving, breathing, sound-generating profile video on loop.

The app was built by Cisco and DDB Singapore as a way of promoting the former’s line of Flip video cameras.

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Apple Announces iPad 2, Ships March 11

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011

The new iPads, which sport a thinner and lighter design, will be available in stores March 11.

The iPad 2 will use a new A5 chip that Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, says is twice as fast, along with nine times faster the graphical performance. of the original iPad. For late adopters, it will come in two colors, white and black, and is 33% thinner and lighter, at 1.3 pounds instead of 1.5. Apple will also offer a HDMI connector, allowing iPads to plug into flat screen TVs.

With their new tablet device, Apple’s  inspired manufacturers like Motorola, Toshiba and Hewlett-Packard, to move forward with creating their own tablets, however at a larger price tag. The new iPad 2 will start at $499 for the 16GB Wi-Fi version.

The electronics icon also introduced a new  protective case, the “smart cover”, for the iPad, based on magnets, which slips over the iPad and puts the unit to sleep when not in use. The case can be used to prop the iPad up as well when on an airplane, for instance.

Check out some of the pictures of the new iPad 2 below. The iPad 2 will be available March 11th  with the 3G model available for both AT&T and Verizon networks.

Cashmere Tech Wrap-Up

Friday, February 25th, 2011

APPLE AND INTEL INVEIL THUNDERBOLT I/O TECHNOLOGY

So it’s perhaps not the most original moniker that Apple and Intel could have chosen, but it’s here just the same. After years of waiting Apple has launched its implementation of Intel’s Light Peak standard and it’s called Thunderbolt. It’s making its appearance on new MacBook Pro models and it’s promising 10Gb/second transfer rates. That’s dual-channel, too so you’ll get 10Gb/sec both to and from your devices. Apple suggests this will be useful for external RAID arrays, Gigabit Ethernet adapters, and also mentions support for “FireWire and USB consumer devices” along with HDMI, DVI, and VGA over DisplayPort. Apple expects that Thunderbolt will be “widely adopted as a new standard for high performance I/O,” but we think the USB 3.0 crew might have a thing or two to say about that. Full PR is embedded below.

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FACEBOOK UNVEILS REDESIGNED PAGES

Today in SXSW jockeying …Introduction service Hashable, which has the pretty ambitious goal of ridding the world of business cards, is announcing its Android offering and a slew of features just in time for the Interactive party event to end all Interactive party events, SXSW. In case the message wasn’t loud and clear, its also got a fancy SXSW set up on its site, so I guess its hoping to win the app Super Bowl or some other stupid sports analogy pertaining to being the app with the most SXSW usage.

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AMAZON ADDS STREAMING VIDEO TO PRIME SUBSCRIPTIONS IN A BID  TO RIVAL NETFLIX, HULU

Amazon.com has officially jumped into the fray of subscription video-streaming services, charging into competition with Netflix and Hulu Plus, among others.

However, the Seattle-based retail giant is taking a different route than Netflix and Hulu. Whereas both of those services charge a monthly fee of $7.99, Amazon has added its streaming video to its Amazon Prime membership.

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TINEYE.COM: REVERSE IMAGE SEARCH

TinEye is a reverse image search engine. You can submit an image to TinEye to find out where it came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or to find higher resolution versions.

TinEye is the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology rather than keywords, metadata or watermarks. It is free to use for non-commercial searching.

TinEye regularly crawls the web for new images, and we also accept contributions of complete online image collections. To date, TinEye has indexed 1,882,458,529 images from the web to help you find what you’re looking for. For more information, please see our FAQ, and for some real TinEye search examples, check out our Cool Searches page.

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NEW YORK MAGAZINE’S VULTURE NEW “ANTICIPATION INDEX”

New York Magazine‘s website introduces a new feature today called the “Vulture Anticipation Index.” It’s a staple of cultural journalism to say what’s got “buzz.” But Vulture’s insight is that actual data is better than something some reporter overheard a cocktail party. To that end, New York decided to get scientific about buzz. Using technology from Trendrr, which we’ve covered here before, the Vulture index compiles a regularly updated list of what people are talking about.

Snoop D-O-quadruple-G Stars in The G-Connection!

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

Snoop DoGGGG has added two G’s  to his name to launch the new Samsung Galaxy 4G LTE phone on MetroPCS in this new G-Connection commercial co-starring Warren G, Brittany Dailey, and Ted Williams!

Watch video below as ReGGie, GreGG, and Snoop DoGGGG try to win the affection of the lovely Ms. Dailey in this hilarious spoof of the 80′s dating show, the Love Connection.

And don’t miss out on a rare chance to meet Snoop Dogggg up close and personal by entering the “Indulge with Snoop Dogggg” sweepstakes exclusively at MetroPCS retail stores through March 31st. One winner will walk away with a VIP trip for two to a Snoop concert this summer, including airfare, front-row tickets and backstage passes, as well as two Samsung Galaxy Indulge smartphones with MetroPCS 4G service. Enter today. For more information check here MetroPCS site today.

Cashmere Tech Wrap-Up

Friday, February 11th, 2011

AOL TO BUY HUFFINGTON POST FOR $315 MILLION

In a bid to make itself relevant again, struggling Internet pioneer AOL Inc. announced late Sunday that it would buy the Huffington Post, the well-known news and opinion site, for $315 million in cash and stock.

As part of the deal, Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington will oversee a new group responsible for bringing together all editorial content from both companies including news, technology, music and local media websites.

The deal, which was signed Sunday with approval from the boards of both companies, is something of a gamble for AOL, which is looking to reignite growth in advertising revenue.

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BASECAMP IS NOW ON YOUR MOBILE PHONE

Access all of your Basecamp projects. Post new messages for your team and clients to see. Read and add comments to project messages and milestones. Create and check off project to-do items. View all of your Writeboards, image attachments, and files such as Microsoft Office documents or PDFs in their original format.

Click to see full list of compatible phones and more details

SKYGRID UNLEASHES SOCIAL MESSAGING AND AGGREGATION PLATFORM FOR BRANDS, GROUPS AND CELEBRITIES

SkyGrid, a startup that offers a powerful business news aggregator, is deviating slightly from the content model into social today. SkyGrid is launching Groups, a social messaging platform that connects conversations people are having all over the web – on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and others, by topic or ‘group.’

SkyGrid Groups are pipelines of real-time, public information about a topic, sourced from news sites, Twitter, Facebook, brands and more. Using SkyGrid’s patented “stream-browsing” technology, Groups will aggregate mentions, photos, news, videos and more from hundreds of services. A group’s creator can filter which videos, Tweets, status updates, or other content they want to include in the group. Users can join groups to follow the real-time conversation around certain topics (but have to be approved by the Group’s creator).

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5 WAYS ARTISTS CAN USE FOURSQUARE TO ENGAGE FANS AND MORE

In an interview at MIDEM, Foursquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai said the location-based social network is now valued at more than $250 million with over 6 million users, potentially increasing to 10 million by June. Though Foursquare is now seeing increased competition from Facebook and Twitter which have both recently integrated their own location-based services, Foursquare’s staggering growth in 2010 looks like it will continue to flourish into 2011.

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MARKETERS OPTIMISTIC ABOUT FINDING SOCIAL MEDIA ROI

Marketers are hopeful that this will be the year that they finally link social media marketing to ROI, a new survey says.

According to the report from Bazaarvoice, 74% of CMOs predict they will finally tie social efforts to hard ROI this year. The survey polled 175 CMOs from The CMO Club, including those from B2C and B2B companies in various industries.

In 2009, 84% of companies did not measure social media ROI — in 2011, that’s not an option. Business decisions are best made when they are based on hard numbers that measure success, and social media efforts are no longer an exception.

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Cashmere Tech Wrap-Up

Friday, January 21st, 2011

SNOOPIN’ ON INSTAGRAM: THE EARLY ADOPTING-CELEB JOINS THE PHOTO-SHARING SERVICE

Hip-Hop artist Snoop Dogg has begun using Instagram. Earlier this week, he tweeted out his first picture to his nearly 2.5 million followers. It’s Snoop in a suit “bossin it up”. And yes, he used a filter.

Snoop’s arrival on Instagram follows the service quickly getting one million users to sign up in less than three months. And it follows a wave of brands coming on board to try it out. Again, step one and two.

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SKYPE DOES BETTER WITH GROUP CALLS THAN MOBILE

Making audio and video calls between computers over Skype is now so common that the company’s name has become a verb. People ask others to “Skype me” or say they are “Skyping.”

But the Luxembourg-based service had been a bit slow in getting into a couple of areas that other companies have jumped into: mobile video calling, and computer-based video calls involving multiple people. Now, Skype has entered both arenas, and I’ve been testing the features. A couple of weeks ago, Skype introduced free mobile video calling to its iPhone app and has plans to extend the same functionality to certain Android-based phones running on Verizon’s new high-speed 4G network later this year. And, last week, at the Consumer Electronics Show, it launched a paid service it had been testing that allows for group video calling on computers.

Verdict: Like some competing services, Skype’s mobile video calling varies greatly in quality and therefore isn’t especially reliable. Its computer-based group video calling, however, worked well in my limited tests and is nicely designed.

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HOW TO ENGAGE FANS ON TWITTER LIKE SNOOP DOGG

As a Hypebot reader, you’re undoubtedly informed on the importance of artist-fan relationships and how Twitter has broken down the walls between the artist and the fan by keeping each one at arm’s length from another. Yet still, many artists I know refuse to enter the “Twittersphere” as they are still not fully convinced that they need it to communicate with their fan base.

While an artist may not necessarily need to Tweet, it certainly opens up an entirely new landscape for fan interaction and engagement.

One music artist who is a master of digital fan engagement through Twitter is Snoop Dogg. As of this writing, Snoop has 2.4 million followers! This gives him an incredible sphere of influence. So how does Snoop keep his fans engaged?

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VEVO & UNIVERSAL PUBLISHING TEAM FOR “INSIDE THE HITS SONGS”

Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG), the world’s leading global music publisher, has teamed up with VEVO, the leading premium music video and entertainment service, to launch an original series, INSIDE THE HIT SONGS, which highlights the craft of songwriting.

The brainchild of UMPG and VEVO, INSIDE THE HIT SONGS will give music fans a unique behind-the-scenes look at what is involved in the art of songwriting and the process of making a hit song from conception to recording. The first episode will feature an exclusive interview with The All-American Rejects, chronicling the creation of their hit single, “Gives You Hell,” which was one of the most played songs of 2009, according to ASCAP.

VEVO and UMPG have slated noteworthy interviews for the series, including an inspiring interview with the legendary hit-maker Glen Ballard, sharing his experience of working with Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones on “Man In The Mirror.” Additionally, Keri Hilson reveals the process behind writing her hit single, “Knock You Down,” a collaboration with Kanye West and fellow UMPG songwriter Ne-Yo.

Click to read full press release

INSIDE THE SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN FOR THE 2011 GRAMMY AWARDS

The 53rd Annual Grammy Awards are just around the proverbial corner, and to herald their arrival, the Recording Academy is busting out with an innovative social media campaign involving geolocation, mobile, web, social media and even augmented reality.

This year’s campaign, dubbed Music Is Life Is Music — a joint effort between the Academy and the creative team at TBWA\Chiat\Day — centers around the idea that everyone has a musical journey with memories tied to certain songs and locations.

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Numark NS6 Has WNAMM and Twitter Buzzin’

Friday, January 14th, 2011

We were pleasantly surprised by the traction and the amount of positive feedback that Numark’s NS6 has been stirring up on Twitter while being showcased at Winter NAMM this week.

The NS6 is a four-channel Digital DJ controller with built in mixer and four decks of software control, compatible with Serato ITCH – an exciting new product for DJs and DJs in the making.

Other products that have been turning our heads at NAMM and buzzing up the Twittersphere are the Alesis StudioDock (the world’s first pro audio dock for the iPad) and the Akai SynthStation49 (keyboard controller for iPhone and iPod touch).

For pictures and more information about these products click on the below links:

Numark NS6

Alesis StudioDock

Akai SynthStation49

Tweets about the Numark NS6: