Technology News

Yo-Yo Ma Brings Remix Culture to Music's Ivory Tower

Source: All About Jazz
January 9, 2009

Viewer's Cut: Interactive Film Gives Editing Tools to You Pop artists have welcomed others to remix their songs online. Now classical music aficionados can get in on the act.

Renowned cellist and 15-time Grammy winner Yo-Yo Ma is hosting an online competition, inviting listeners to add their own accompaniment to his performance of the traditional hymn “Dona Nobis Pacem," from his latest album, Songs of Joy & Peace. “Just releasing a CD is constraining to an artist," Ma ...

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Fancorps Takes over Contest to Prove the Value of Street Teams

Source: HypeBot
January 9, 2009

A constant question in the new era of music marketing is, “What actually works?". Digital street team enabler Fancorps set out to offer some proof by asking members of four of its band street teams to vote for their favorite artists in the 2009 Alternative Press Readers Chart. The result? Teams using the Fancorps platform (Forever The Sickest Kids, Anberlin, Hit The Lights, and Ludo) grabbed the top four slots. “When we learned of the AP ...

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The Sheldon Offering Online Pre-Sale of Tickets for Neville Brothers, Dr. John

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
January 9, 2009

The Sheldon Concert Hall is offering online ticket buyers a 24-hour head start on purchasing seats for its “Mardi Gras Mambo" benefit concert, which is scheduled for Sunday , February 8 and will feature the Neville Brothers and Dr. John and the Lower 911.The online pre-sale begins at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, January 9. To purchase tickets, log on to metrotix.com/promotions and enter the promotion code MAMBO09. Single tickets are $75 for orchestra seats, $65 for balcony seats ...

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Coming Soon to Cellphones: Free over-the-Air TV

Source: All About Jazz
January 8, 2009

Millions of consumers by year's end should be able to watch free, over-the-air television on cellphones, PDAs and other portable digital devices.

The result of initiatives that will be unveiled today by some of the nation's largest TV station owners and electronics manufacturers. The changes promoting on-the-go viewing are “quite significant," says John Eck, president of the NBC TV Network and Media Works. “If we play it right, it can be a compelling service," for example, by offering local news, ...

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Garage Invention Turns Restaurants into Power Plants

Source: All About Jazz
January 8, 2009

Would you like power with those fries?

A new garage-engineered generator burns the waste oil from restaurants' deep fryers to generate electricity and hot water. Put 80 gallons of grease into the Vegawatt each week, and its creators promise it will generate about 5 kilowatts of power. That's about 10 percent of the total energy needs of Finz, a seafood restaurant in Dedham, Massachusetts, where the first Vegawatt is being tested. At New England electricity rates, the system offsets about ...

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Obama Asks Congress to Delay Digital TV Switch

Source: Michael Ricci
January 8, 2009

President-elect Barack Obama today asked Congress to delay next months planned switch to all-digital broadcast television, warning that the TVs of millions of Americans could lose their pictures because of major problems in the government's preparations.

In a letter to Congressional leaders (PDF), John Podesta, co-chairman of Obamas presidential transition team, urged that the Feb. 17 conversion date be extended. A major reason was the announcement this week by the Commerce Department that it had run out of money for ...

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Obama Fighting for His Right to Blackberry

Source: All About Jazz
January 8, 2009

Security aides, still debating Blackberry For President-elect Barack Obama, parting with his Blackberry is such sweet sorrow.

In fact, it isn't yet certain that he'll give up his hand-held device once he takes office. Obama acknowledged in a nationally broadcast interview Thursday that the Blackberry is a concern, “not just to the Secret Service, but also to lawyers." Asked in an interview broadcast on NBC's “Today" show whether the issue had been resolved, Obama replied, “I'm still in ...

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Microsoft Releases Windows 7 Beta as a Free Download

Source: All About Jazz
January 8, 2009

Microsoft's excitable CEO Steve Ballmer showed off Windows 7 -- the slick, fast, user-friendly successor to the much-maligned Windows Vista -- and said it will be available as a public beta on Friday.

Unveiled by an intense Ballmer during his keynote address on the eve of CES 2009, Windows 7 will offer better performance on underpowered machines such as netbooks, support for multitouch interfaces, and simplified home networking. Ballmer said that this would be the “best version of Windows ever" ...

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