Billboard has always been a leader in breaking news and inside sources, however they seem to have lost their way a bit online. Thus, Billboard is now looking to grow its service even further and expand into other areas. Today, Billboard is launching a new service called Billboard Live. Having the chance to stream festivals across the ocean is nice, but Billboard offers us a customized version of streaming by letting us choose what we want their cameras to focus on.
According to Associated Press, not only does this new website offer music lovers FREE streaming of selected concerts, but there are options galore! Users get to choose from five different camera angles in which they would like to view the show.
Two more factors that could possibly make this the #1 concert-streaming site? First off, the ADD generation of social platforms have the option to also use Twitter or Facebook without having to leave the website. Secondly, (and of course) it’ll be available on for iPhone.
According to the BBC, iPhone owners in Australia got quite a surprise this week when they found their phones displaying a wallpaper of Astley’s photograph with a message: “Ikee is never going to give you up.”
The Ikee in question is a worm that affects a jail-broken phones, where a user has removed Apple’s protection mechanisms to allow the phone to run any software.
“The creator of the worm has released full source code of the four existing variants of this worm,” wrote Mikko Hypponen of security firm F-secure.
“This means that there will quickly be more variants, and they might have nastier payload than just changing your wallpaper.”
Bad things. Far, far worse than any Rick Astley song!
Currently the worm has only been found in Australia, where the hacker, Ashley Towns, who wrote the program lives. The 21-year-old said he created the virus to raise the issue of security.
The blending of Rick Astley into Towns’ security awareness project is downright genius; what says be careful with your hand-held device better than Rick Astley?
Rhapsody has had a hard time lately as they aren’t really growing their site as much as they would like. However, Rhapsody has just announced that their new iPhone application has been downloaded over 500,000 times. “Over 500K shrewd users have decided that unlimited access to practically any song, practically anywhere ain’t such a bad idea,” wrote Rhapsody’s Garrett Kamps on the company’s blog.
However, in the announcement Rhapsody didn’t mention how many of those 500,000 were paying $12.99 a month for the Rhapsody Unlimited subscription service.
EA Mobile have launched a watered down version of Rock Band for the iPhone.
All the instruments are simulated with the touch screen of course, including the Vocals! (yes, you just tap like a guitar) RockBand comes with a Bluetooth fueled multi-player option for simultaneous slamming. The game has been released with a $9.99 price tag which seems pretty steep for, although its a full RockBband game, is still basically an app. The 20 song play list does include some familiar songs with Lynyrd Skynyrd, Smashing Pumpkins and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts among others, with more available as downloads.
RockBand may have beaten its rival Guitar Hero to the iPhone only to bump into the mini-game brick wall that it Tapulous’ tap-tap revenge. But with more “buttons” it does prove more challenging than the established TTR 3 which should increase its shelf life a bit. But fans of Tap-Tap revenge fans will be quick to point out it is available for just $1 and does have a similar in-app track buying feature. The Playlist in full is.
30 Seconds to Mars – “Attack”
AFI – “Girl’s Not Grey”
All-American Rejects – “Move Along”
Beastie Boys – “Sabotage”
Blink-182 – “All the Small Things”
Blondie – “Hanging on the Telephone”
Foo Fighters – “Learn to Fly”
Foo Fighters – “Everlong”
George Thorogood & the Destroyers – “Bad to the Bone”
Jethro Tull – “Hymn 43″
Joan Jett – “Bad Reputation”
Lynyrd Skynyrd – “Simple Man”
Motörhead – “Ace of Spades ‘08″
Pixies – “Debaser”
Presidents of the United States of America – “Ladybug”
Tapulous has had the music rhythm game scene to itself on the iPod for a long time, but now Harmonix and EA have ported their phenomenally successful Rock Band game to Apple’s iPhone, meaning that you can embarrass yourself pretending to be a Rock star on the train now.
The iPhone game will feature the same 4 instruments (guitar, bass, drums, vocals) as the console version, so if you’ve got 3 friends with the game you can nerd out in the doctor’s waiting room, or on the schoolbus. Rock Band costs $9.99 in the US app store and features the following songs:
Ace of Spades ‘08 – Motorhead
All The Small Things – Blink-182
Attack-30 Seconds To Mars
Bad Reputation – Joan Jett
Bad to The Bone – George Thorogood & the Destroyers
Cherub Rock – Smashing Pumpkins
Debaser – Pixies
Everlong – Foo Fighters
Girls Not Grey – AFI
Give It All – Rise Against
Hanging on the Telephone – Blondie
Hymn 43 – Jethro Tull
Ladybug – Presidents of The United States of America
Lazy Eye – Silversun Pick Ups
Learn To Fly – Foo Fighters
Move Along – All American Rejects
Sabotage – Beastie Boys
Simple Man – Lynard Skynard
Take The Money and Run – Steve Miller Band
We Got The Beat – The Go Go’s
If you don’t have any mates with iPhones, or your mum drives you to school, Tapulous have released the 3rd version of their Tap Tap Revenge Game, which looks equally shiny, flashy and comprehensible only to Japanese people and those under the age of 20. Tapulous’ offering costs a tenth of EA’s game (99c), and has 100 free songs, as well as ‘premium‘ tracks from bands like Blink 182, Fall Out Boy, Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, No Doubt, Tiesto, The KillersKorn, Megadeth, QOTSA, Weezer, AAR, AFI, Keith Urban, Crystal Method, and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Last.fm is to takeover four HD radio stations off CBS in the US including, New York, LA, Chicago and San Francisco. All stations will have the same play-list, which will be determined by the outcome of the weekly charts according to the last.fm website, to feature a mix of music aggregated and influenced by the service’s user-generated weekly charts. Twinned with performances and interviews from its new New York studios. The new station will also be accessable through the website,as well as the already established CBS radio. Which is good news for fans across the pond as the new HD radio stations will only be accessible to HD radio receivers in the new areas: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco.
The broadcast will begin on October 5th, and as well as being able to find it through the named sites it will be available through the relevant related apps through iPhone, iPod Touch and some Blackberries.
UK games developers Rockstar ( famous for Grand Theft Auto series)have produced a platform/sequencer for producing tunes on the PSP. The “Beaterator” has been endorsed by US hip-hop producer Timbaland (watch his review here) who has contributed to providing a library of around 1600 samples. The Sequencer tool also has capabilities to accept any new samples you want to import yourself via memory stick.
The audio engine bounces along at 16 word-length, 22kHz sample rate and includes a mixer with eight stereo tracks, these can be looped wit a built in synth or/and a sequencer pattern. because each pattern can include up to eight sample channels you can create up to a maximum 64 samples in each tune. Extra techy info includes each mixer accommodating up to two insert effects including compression, EQ and Multi-mode Filters along with others soon to be announced. The Beaterator comes with a virtual-analogue synth (mono) with three oscillators. Each oscillator allows you to move and bend the noises with its sinewave anything up to as much as 10 percent. You can see the live demo here. The sequencer also has built in multi-mode filters and two assignable LFO’s (low frequency oscillators). On top of the standard song arrangement (which you’ll probably use most of the time) there is a session mode for playback of your loops or you can just wing it live an make it up as you go along! Glow sticks and whistles at the ready! Buying some external speakers are a must surely!
The Beaterator is due to come out in the US at the end of September (29th) at around $40, an in the UK a month later on October for £30. The developers have announced they intend to release a version of the Beaterator for the AppleiPhone, which has around twice the processing power of the PSP, for the autumn. With some expansion on the synth concept with the touch screen hopefully.
There is a new iPhone application out that is making quite a stir. The application is called “I am T-Pain”. This new iPhone app allows you to hear what your own voice sounds like when Auto-tuned.
Launch the I Am T-Pain app, select you favourite track, and just sing into the Mic on your iPhone. I Am T-Pain will record your new song and then with a single button you can publish your song via email, Facebook or Myspace.
The app is available worldwide and is currently selling in the UK iTunes store for £1.79, click here to check it out.
The app is powered by the leading music iPhone app developed Smule.
We are always looking for new markets for our artists and the gaming market has been on a list for a while now. Tap Tap Revenge is one of the biggest games on the iPhone and Tapulous the makers of the game have an ever growing network. Currently Tapulous has released Coldplay and NIN versions of their game in which they sell for about $4.99 in the iTunes app store. Tapulous has now announced that they have signed Universal Music Group to their roster and will be soon releasing more and more versions of Tap Tap Revenge.
Tapulous chief Bart Decrem admitted that purchases of premium versions of the game were quite modest. However, Decrem has been scaling the concept through the delivery of free apps, a familiar startup model that mostly pushes the monetization puzzle to a later date.
Lady Gaga is rumoured to be the first artist from Universal that will get their own game and im sure it will be released at about $4.99.
It would be great if Tapulous actually released lesser known artists in their free game and even becoming a tool for users to find new unsigned and independent artists, while at the same time releasing premium versions of better know mainstream artists.
We are always looking for new markets for our artists and the gaming market has been on a list for a while now. Tap Tap Revenge is one of the biggest games on the iPhone and 
Loading ...
