( YouTube Link ) Watch this programmed robot arm, complete with creepy pink hand, scratch away on some vinyl like a true turntablist. I don’t know whether to feel amazed by the programming, or deflated by how easy this robotic arm makes the rhythmic scratching of records look. Either way, it can’t compare until the robot arm is switching records, using a crossfader, and syncing songs on the fly. Until then, the DJs of the world are safe from their robotic overlords. And don’t all robots have a tin ear? –via AnimalNY
The European Union’s digital agenda commissioner has hit out at digital entertainment, claiming that the millions of pounds spent enforcing rights issues online has only served to make people hate copyright and hasn’t cut online piracy. Speaking at the Forum d’Avignon conference, Neelie Kroes also told delegates that to stem digital piracy, the copyright system needs overhauling. “Is the current copyright system the right and only tool to achieve our objectives? Not really, I'm afraid,” she said. “We need to keep on fighting against piracy, but legal enforceability is becoming increasingly difficult; the millions of dollars invested trying to enforce copyright have not stemmed piracy.” Sur le pont? “Citizens increasingly hear the word copyright and hate what is behind it. Sadly, many see the current system as a tool to punish and withhold, not a tool to recognise and reward.” So what's the answer? Kroes posits that we need to start over, with “the artist at the centre, not only of copyright law, but of our whole policy on culture and growth.” She also emphasised the need for digital flexibility, describing the current system as “the straitjacket of a single model”. That’s all very nice and seems rooted firmly in fact, but Kroes’ speech highlighted lots of problems without really putting forward any new solutions, instead backing the a “one stop shop” rights database and the importance of making content available at speed. But with music streaming services like Spotify finding that music labels are abandoning ship due to poor returns and the jury still out on movie streaming, the real question is what the digital entertainment industry should try next.
There are many audio & video players for Windows and Linux. We had also reviewed few super cool audio players for linux such as Decibel for Ubuntu , Sound Converter for linux , Qmmp (Winamp like for Linux) and few free open source video editors for Linux. Let’s talk about the list of best open source audio & video players for Linux operating system. aTunes : aTunes is a full-featured audio player and manager for Linux. It can support mp3, ogg, wma, wav, flac, mp4 and radio streaming. You can also customize it, edit music tags, organize music and rip audio cds. It is a cross platform app and works in Windows and Mac OS. JaJuk : JaJuk organizes and plays music. It is a full-featured application geared towards advanced users with large or scattered music collections. It is a cross platform app and works in Windows and Mac OS. Using multiple perspectives, the software is designed to be intuitive and provide different visions of your collection. Guayadeque : Guayadeque is a music management program designed for all music enthusiasts. It is Full Featured Linux media player that can easily manage large collections and uses the Gstreamer media framework. Supports mp3, ogg, flac, wma, aac formats, etc. Also has a online radio and equalizer. Banshee : A music and video player which can manage your podcasts, Internet radio and keep your portable device loaded with good stuff. You can also import from other devices such as android, iphone etc and sync across devices. You can buy music, queue tracks, shuffle songs and has a powerful search and smart playlists feature. Banshee has been featured in the best 4 linux applications that you should have . Exaile : A music player and manager written in Python. It incorporates automatic fetching of album art, lyrics fetching, Last.fm scrobbling, support for tabbed playlists, many portable media players, internet radio such as shoutcast. Rhythmbox : Rhythmbox is an integrated music management application, originally inspired by Apple’s iTunes. It is free software, designed to work well under the GNOME Desktop, and based on the powerful GStreamer media framework. Internet Radio support including last.fm streams. Transfer music to and from iPod, MTP, and USB Mass Storage music players, Play, rip, and burn audio CDs. Listen : Listen is an audio player written in Python. Thanks to it, you can easily organize your music collections. It supports many features such as Podcasts management, browse Shoutcast directory. It provides a direct access to lyrics, lastfm and wikipedia informations. It intuitively creates playlists for you by retrieving informations from lastfm and what you most frequently listen to. Clementine : Clementine is a multiplatform music player inspired by Amarok focusing on a fast and easy-to-use interface for searching and playing your music. Edit tags, supports mp3, ogg, flac and many other formats. Cross platform app works on Windows, Mac OS and Linux too. You can remote control this app using Wii remote, MPRIS or the command line. Quod Libet : Quod Libet is a udio player written in Python, using the Mutagen tagging library. It’s designed around the idea that you know how to organize your music better than we do. It lets you make playlists based on regular expressions. It lets you display and edit any tags you want in the file. And it lets you do this for all the file formats it supports – Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MP3, Musepack, and MOD. Amarok : Amarok is a powerful music player for Linux and Unix, MacOS X and Windows with an intuitive interface. It makes playing the music you love and discovering new music easier than ever before. Apart from this you have Decibel and Qmmp players for Linux . Liked this post? Got something to say? Share/Comment below. You can also Get Regular Updates. Subscribe to Free RSS Feeds or Email Updates. Follow us on Twitter @madrasgeek and Like us on Facebook . Tagged as: audio player , Linux , mp3 players , Music Tools , open source Share :
You’ve heard the rumors, seen the videos, you may have even messed around with a DJ sort of app on an iPad before, but here it is – this is the real deal – here you go. What we’re looking at here is two bits of awesomeness, together combined to create one “it just works” sort of digital DJ situation. First there’s the djay app developed by algoriddim. This is an app that displays for you two tracks of music (or any sort of audio) that you can control with what everyone knows to be modern DJ controls. Equalize, mix, record, and play. And you can do it all with the hardware bit of this equation: the Griffin DJ Cable. Plug the cable into your iPad 2, start up the djay app, and you’ll be on your way to not just blasting out audio, but previewing it as you connect one of your two new ports into your pair of headphones, the other connected to your fabulous gigantic speakers. Now I’m not going to get too extremely in-depth with this app because while it’s created with the ability to tend to even the most high-class and skilled DJ folk on the block, it’s made simple enough for essentially any halfways intelligent and/or musically inclined humanoid to use with ease. Flip back and forth between tracks, speed up or slow down tracks, and turn up or down the tracks as you see fit. Add tracks automatically from a list or add them manually to either side as you need. You’ll be able to see the music levels above the records on either side to see how far you are in the track, and you’ll be able to mark any moment in the track with a pin then get back to that pin at the press of a button (these are the two buttons below the digital vinyl.) Album covers are displayed in the vinyl disks as well – it’s all pretty or totally nasty depending on your own collection of tunes. All of this is relatively simple to use, once you figure out which each of these little switches and buttons mean, you’ll be able to keep your hands flying across all the bits without a hitch. One of the very awesome features on this app for all those who just want a long party from a playlist is the ability to set up that playlist, then set up an array of transitions between the tracks that use the beginning and ends of the tracks themselves to make it sound ever so natural – you could even pretend you’re doing it yourself if you’re a weirdo like that – no judgements! Then comes the connection to the hardware, the simple cord splitter that plugs into the top of your iPad 2 and outputs to your high quality pair of headphones and your super awesome speaker set. What we’re outputting to here is slightly less than that just for the demo because we wanted something small and something bright, but you can bet that in our tests with the big guns, there’s been no ill will toward sound quality. Mostly because there’s no real loss of quality between the original port at the top of your iPad 2 and your new set of ports here, one for headphones, one for speakers. The DJ Cable does what it says it does, nothing more, nothing less, and it just works. That’s the theme here, working like it says it does. The quality of this set, the app and the hardware, is reflected by the fact that Apple uses the app for their iPad TV commercials and can often be seen to be having it featured on their in-store iPad units. As far as the cord goes: you can purchase that in any Apple store as well. It’s almost as if this set doesn’t need another endorsement, but here it is: try out the app, and if you like it, buy it, and buy the cord too because you’re going to be glad you’ve got it once you’ve got it. You can pick up the app on the iTunes app store for $19.99 [View in iTunes] You can purchase the Griffin DJ Cable from algoriddim’s online store for $19.99 as well [Buy it Now] ALSO note that there’s a slightly more advanced version of all this also made by algoriddim and Numark, that being the iDJ Live iPad 2 DJ station which, again, works with the same app as is reviewed here. Relevant Entries on SlashGear.com Numark iDJ Live offers iPad owners bedroom DJ skills Griffin Technology StompBox for iOS devices now available Griffin jump on iPad accessory gravy train Griffin offers new Cabinet Mount for iPad perfect for the kitchen Griffin Ships iMarker For Crayola ColorStudio HD iPad App Griffin Amplifi Keeps It Simple, Yet Performs Griffin HELO TC iPhone-controlled helicopter on sale now [Video] Time Warner Cable Launches iPad App, First Ever To Play Live TV iPad 2 Griffin DJ Cable and djay app by algoriddim Review [Video] is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear . © 2005 – 2011, SlashGear . All right reserved.
Ultraportable notebooks are finally fast enough that we can use them as our main machines. But damn, the SSDs they pack are small—how are you supposed to fit your entire music library on one of these? You're not. Get that music off your hard drive, bawse. First off, you can get a lot of mileage out of streaming music services; there's no need to tote all 25 Air Supply albums around with you. But for the rest of your musical needs—those Phish bootlegs and Marky Mark freestyle sessions—consider getting your songs a second home. First Things First: Get the Music off Your Old Computer Say you just picked up one of those shiny new MacBook Airs that everyone loves —instead of just migrating everything over from your old machine, be selective. Before you do anything with your new computer, though, you need to get your iTunes music library off your old computer. Luckily, doing that is very simple. And these instructions work for Mac or PC. Tell iTunes Where You Want to Dump Your Music 1) Make sure your old computer is running the latest version of iTunes. There shouldn’t be an issue with loading a library from an older version of iTunes to a newer one, but do it just to be safe. 2) You’ll want to create a new location for your default iTunes Music folder on whichever external drive you plan to use. To do this, go to the menu bar and click iTunes > Preferences… . 3) From there, you want to click the Advanced tab. The first item in the list will be the iTunes Media Folder location. 4) Click the button to the right that says Change , and either select a folder in your external harddrive that you’ll want to use, or create a new folder. Once you’ve selected a folder, click OK to exit the preferences menu. Then Dump Your Music 1) Once you’ve selected a new location for your music files, return to your music library. 2) From there, go back up to the menubar and click File > Library > Organize Library . 3) Check the box that says Consolidate Library and hit OK. This will begin the process of copying all your music files into one folder (the one you previously designated) on your external hard drive. Depending on how many songs you have, this could take a while. Copy Your iTunes Database to an External Drive You've spent years rating songs and building playlists—don't give them up! To make sure those musical memories aren't lost, you're gonna want to copy over your iTunes library database from your old computer to your external harddrive. 1) Go into your Music folder (where the iTunes folder is stored by default), or wherever you’ve decided store your iTunes library files. 2) There should be a folder simply named iTunes . If there are any music files in the folder (which would be found in iTunes > iTunes Media > Music ), delete those files, but nothing else. 3) Then, drag/copy that folder to your external HDD in its entirety. Now you’re ready to move to the new computer. Now, What Are You going to Do With All That Music? Now you know how to offload your entire iTunes Library to an external drive, but should it be a NAS or a standard drive? Or should you upload to a cloud storage locker? There are pros and cons to each, depending on how you live your life. Option 1: Keep Your Music on a Standard External Drive If you’re in lurve with iTunes, have a lot of Apple-DRM’d content, actively manage an army of iOS devices, or just spend a lot of time listening to music on your computer, importing your old iTunes database onto your new computer and pulling your library from an external drive is a great bet. It’ll look like it’s all right there on your machine, just like the old days. That said, you have to plug into said hard drive to get at your stuff. But if you’re the kind of cat who plugs into a USB hub or a notebook doc when you’re at home anyway, this solution is perfect. Especially if you want the ability to sync your iOS device without formatting it again, and be able to access all your old ratings, playlists and playcounts. Here’s how to do it: 1) If you’ve already installed iTunes, make sure it isn’t running. 2) Locate the Music folder on your new computer. If you’ve already installed iTunes, there should be a folder named iTunes there. Delete it. 3) In a new window, locate the folder named iTunes you copied to your external HDD. 4) Copy that iTunes folder into your computer’s Music folder. 5) Now it’s time to open iTunes. Hold down the option key while launching iTunes. 6) iTunes will ask whether you want to create a library or choose a library. Select Choose library , then navigate to your Music folder, then your iTunes folder on your computer and double click iTunes Library.itl . 7) If everything went according to plan, your music library should have made smoothly made the transition to a new computer and external harddrive. But let's say there's music you know you'll want to listen to when you're not connected to your drive—your work or studying playlist, for example. You can actually set up a separate, smaller library, and it won't get mixed up with your main megalibrary, either. It's a little advanced, but you can handle it: 1) Hold down option when opening iTunes. 2) When asked if you want to Create a Library or Choose a Library, select Create Library. 3) Name the library whatever you want, but something logical like “Music on Laptop” probably makes sense. 4) Drag any music files you want from your external harddrive into the Music folder of your computer. 5) Once they’ve been copied over, drag those files into the iTunes app, where they will appear. 6) Now you have a separate library of music stored locally. To switch back to the library with the songs stored on your external drive, quit iTunes, relaunch iTunes (while holding down the option key), elect to choose which library you want to open, and find the iTunes library in your Music folder you initially copied over to your laptop. Option 2: Stream it From a NAS Drive The second thing you can do is to keep all your music on a NAS drive, which means you can access files over your local network without having to directly connect your computer to the drive. This is great if you have a lot of DLNA streaming devices like a Sonos system or Boxee Box. And once you’ve offloaded your music from your old computer (follow the same steps as above, just select the network-attached drive instead of a USB-linked one), all you have to do is tell the device where to look on the drive. As far as working with iTunes, a NAS drive isn’t perfect for managing and syncing files to devices (it’s sloooow), but once you’ve imported your tracks into the library, it streams pretty well, depending on the speed of your network. You can also get a NAS that supports the iTunes server feature, where all your music will show up in your local iTunes library as a streaming playlist. Option 3: Stick it in the Cloud If priority #1 for you is having your music accessible ANYWHERE you go, there’s always the cloud. There are currently only two services that are worth looking into: Google Music and Amazon Cloud Drive. Neither is perfect, but they both more or less do what they say they’ll do, which is make your music available to you anywhere you go. You can stream in a browser or an Android device, and if you want it locally, you can pull files from the cloud. Each service uploads in its own way, but what the two have in common is a particular disdain for your musical metadata. Playcounts and ratings go out the window of the magical airship that ferries your music to the firmament. Also, if you suffer from data caps or sucky bandwidth, the cloud will likely rain on your parade. Furthermore, if you have a massive music library, storing large chunks of music in the cloud can get costly. Amazon offers up 20, 50, 100, 200 and 500 gigabyte chunks of storage at a cost that breaks down to a dollar per gig per year (ie, 50GB=$50/year). Google Music is still in beta and working out its pricing. So now you can rest easier knowing you have three solid housing options for your music library now that’s it has moved out of your laptop. Which one you pick ultimately comes down to your listening habits, but one thing is clear: a big laptop hard drive is no longer a must. You can keep up with Adrian Covert, the author of this post, on Twitter or Facebook .