(* Source:  Zachary Sniderman *)

Posted by brian tiong at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Giles Fitzgerald *)

Dr. Dre does his very best to look like an old school Cylon in this latest promo for Hewlett Packard’s continuing collaboration with the producer. Either that or that’s a fairly heavy-duty cycling mask.

The ad sees Dre in a cybernetic music studio in the future embedding Beats technology chips into the very heart of HP’s products, while the track ‘Detox’ from the new Album by Dr Dre – which seems to be in perpetual sate of pre-release – runs in the background.

The commercial is part of an ongoing partnership between the musician and the technology company on the HP Envy Laptop – a device that HP refers to as the “first laptop made for music”.  HP’s sell here is that the added Beats enhancement will enable users to hear the music the way the artist intended. This is a clear swipe at Apple’s dominance of the music market and the increasing pressure the brand is putting on laptop manufacturers with the iPad.

In the age of MP3, where sound quality is already diminished, its questionable whether this will lure in the average consumer. However, the creative partnership is one that is at least pushing the accepted boundaries of quality when it comes to entertainment and what it means to endorse a product.

Posted by brian tiong at 08:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

 (* Source: Jason Kincaid *)

After months of waiting, it’s finally here. Streaming music service MOG has launched its mobile applications for Android and iPhone, giving subscribers unlimited access to its library of 8 million songs, which can be streamed or downloaded over both 3G and WiFi. If you listen to a lot of music, or just like being able to listen to music on-demand without having to sync to your PC, this is definitely worth checking out. Access to the mobile service costs $9.99 a month, but MOG is offering free 3-day trials when you download the apps (no credit card is required).

When MOG launched its All Access music service back in December, we gave it a rave review, but it was missing one key feature: mobile. These applications bring all of the functionality of the desktop service and they do it one better, by allowing you to store as many songs and albums as you’d like to your phone’s storage for offline access.

Navigating the application should come naturally to anyone who has used the iPhone’s music player (and it’s actually a big step up over the music player that comes stock on Android). After first firing up the app, the first feature you’ll want to try is search. You’ll find the regular options here, like searching by artist and song, but there’s also an option for Playlists, which allow you to search through user-curated playlists created by MOG’s large community of music fans. This is part of a recurring theme in the application: discovery, which is important if you’re keen on tapping into the service’s broad music library. The main navigation screen also includes a list of New Releases, top songs and albums across the service, and a collection of songs handpicked by MOG’s editors on a daily basis.

MOG really shines when it comes to actually getting the music you want to hear onto your phone. When you find a song or album you like, you have two options: you can stream it (just tap the song or album title), or you can download it and store it locally. Next to each song and album is an arrow pointing downward; hit that, and MOG will start downloading the files the background (it’s really nice to be able to download an entire album or playlist in one tap).

More here

Posted by brian tiong at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)