DigitalArmm

Viral Music Video Makers OK Go Part Ways With EMI

Mark Hefflinger — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:26:31 +0000

London
- OK Go, the band that made the Rube Goldberg machine music video and recently
had a public tiff with record label EMI over the ability for fans to embed said
video, has asked and been let out of its contract with EMI’s Capitol Records. The
band will now re-release its new album "Of The Color of Blue Sky" on
its own label, Paracadute Records. Singer Damian Kulash tells New York Magazine
that EMI was not funding the level of promotion the band desired, noting,
"The issue is that they just don’t have any money" — referring to
EMI’s public financing struggles.

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Report: Apple iTunes LP Format Not Gaining Traction

Mark Hefflinger — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:22:32 +0000

Los Angeles
- Apple’s (NASD: AAPL) iTunes LP format, which adds lyrics, cover art, videos, animation and
other extras to a digital album, has disappointed labels that have experimented
with it over the past six months since its launch, GigaOM reports. Music
industry sources told GigaOM the format is not much generating consumer recognition,
and only 29 iTunes LPs are currently on sale — including a dozen available at
launch. Some are balking at the up to $60,000 extra it can cost to produce an
iTunes LP, which can eclipse overall sales for many albums.

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MySpace Revamps Games Site, Offers iPhone Gaming App

Mark Hefflinger — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:20:48 +0000

San Francisco
- News Corp.’s (NYSE: NWS) online social network MySpace on Wednesday announced the launch of its new MySpace
Games site, aimed at improving users’ gaming experiences. Unveiled at the Game
Developers Conference in San Francisco,
the site features new tools and functionality for both users and developers.
The company said that nearly one-third of its users play games on the site, and
it hopes to increase this figure to 50%. Along with the revamped site, MySpace
announced a MySpace Neon application for the iPhone that will let users access
their MySpace games on the smartphone.

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MTV Games Prepping “Rock Band 3″ for Fall Release

Mark Hefflinger — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:16:28 +0000

New York
- Viacom’s (NYSE: VIA) MTV Games and development studio Harmonix are working on "Rock
Band 3," the next iteration of their music karaoke game that will not
feature a specific at — like the Beatles or Green Day — for release in the
fall. Electronic Arts (NASD: ERTS) will again be the distributor for the title

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OK Go Splits With EMI

Stephen Bernstein — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:00:03 +0000

OK Go has left EMI and will re-release its latest album, “Of The Color of Blue Sky,” on its own Paracadute Recordings label.

The group has another viral video hit on its hands, but the latest came after a public flare-up over an EMI policy that prevented the band’s fans from embedding the YouTube video on other sites. Singer Damian Kulash had an op-ed in the New York Times about the policy’s impact on the band’s career.

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Pink Floyd sue EMI over download royalties

Stephen Bernstein — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:56:43 +0000

Pink Floyd are suing their record label EMI, claiming that it has no right to sell their songs except as part of full albums. According to a 1999 contract, tunes like Money and Another Brick in the Wall cannot be “unbundled” from the albums on which they appear; EMI alleges this does not apply to downloads.

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Five must-have iPhone photo editing apps

Zohreen Adamjee — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:45:41 +0000

Taking photos is easy. Taking unique photos, however, requires a good eye, a decent camera, and often some editing skills and patience. Luckily, for many of us who possess none of the above, there exists the iPhone. There were many photo editing applications I was able to find, but here are a few that have now become sine qua non to my camera-clicks.

Hipstamatic - $1.99

There is something really charming about the color gloss that this application coats over pictures taken. I found that you can literally take a picture of anything with this app– your toe, a few grains of rice, leftover eggplant in your fridge – and almost be guaranteed that the picture will look really cool. There are three different lenses featured in this application: the Kaimal lens which make the pictures look like they were taken during India's Mughal period, the Jimmy lens which gives the illusion that the photos was taken through a light yellow lens, and (my favorite) the John S lens which adds a silvery – blue layer to the picture. The borders can also be changed which make the pictures further appear as if it was taken in a different era. An option to purchase more types of lenses and borders is available. A frustrating drawback to this app is that it does not allow the user to edit photos that are already saved to the user library (unlike all the other apps below), nor does it make it possible to view or save the original photo as it would appear without any of the setting adjustments.

ColorSplash - $1.99

This app is the equivalent to a grown-up coloring book. Pictures can be uploaded or taken directly from the application. Upon being uploaded, the photo's color is stripped, revealing a black-and-white version of the original. By touching the screen with one's finger, the original color magically reappears back onto the picture. The nice thing about this application is it allows you to save any picture session you're working on and come back to it at any time to make adjustments. Users can also upload their final product to Facebook, Flickr or Twitter directly from the application.

Comic Touch – $2.99

The app allows users to insert conversation-bubbles onto the photo and fill it with text to make it appear as though people in the picture are saying or thinking that particular text. Pictures can be uploaded or shot directly while in the application. Certain parts of the picture can also be distorted, giving it a fun, cartoonish feel. Another feature allows you to place a focal point on a given area of the picture and have the color splash out in different directions from that focal point. (See the picture of the Griffith Observatory above) Users can save their individual editing sessions and also e-mail the photos directly from the application without first saving them to their photo library.

CameraBag - $1.99

This is possibly the most addictive photo app I found, primarily because it offers the users 12 different ways to instantly see a different version of the same picture with just a simple finger movement. The lenses vary from adding a light shadow around the border, making the colors more vibrant, adding a thick border, making the picture look like it was pulled strait out of a Magazine, and versions making it appear as though the picture was taken with a camera from the 1960's or 70's. It's possible to e-mail different versions of the original picture directly from the app, and the app also saves the original picture if a picture is taken and adjusted directly from the application.

Polarize – Free

Polaroid announced last year that they would bring back their cameras after ceasing production in 2008. As fantastic as it is to walk down the street sporting a bulky camera around your neck, it's actually possible now to make Polaroid-style pictures with your phone. Polarize can pull existing photos from your phone's photo library, from Flickr or instantly create a Polaroid from a shot taken directly from the application. Some drawbacks are that you can only fit 14 letters on the caption and there's no option to directly upload the final photo to social media sites.

To see some examples of photos we edited and took through these applications, see the slideshow on the top of this post.

–Zohreen Adamjee

Images: Various images from the five photo applications. Credit: Zohreen Adamjee / Mark Milian

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Tech Talk Podcast

By THE NEW YORK TIMES — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:43:05 +0000

This week’s podcast includes the changing fortunes of Pandora, the Internet radio site and an exploration of geek style.

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Spotify Inks Finland Deal With TeliaSonera for Web, Mobile, TV

Mark Hefflinger — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:59:03 +0000

London - Streaming music
service Spotify has signed a deal with telecom TeliaSonera, which will be the
exclusive seller of Spotify’s premium service in Finland. TeliaSonera will offer the
service to its 1.6 million customers across broadband, mobile and IPTV services.

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EMI CEO Leoni-Sceti Exits; Allen Named Executive Chairman

Mark Hefflinger — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:37:56 +0000

London
- Struggling major record label EMI Music on Wednesday said that CEO Elio
Leoni-Sceti will step down on March 31, to be replaced by Charles Allen as
executive chairman.

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