By Sean Fallon, 6:30 PM on Fri Sep 18 2009, 3,484 views (Edit, to draft, Slurp)

Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte is set to be the "first clown in space" when he blasts off for the ISS later this month. He also has some surprises planned for the crew that just might get him killed.

"I'm a person with a pretty high spirit, who's there to crack jokes and make jokes to those guys, and while they're sleeping, you know, I'll be tickling them," Laliberte said.

Laliberte even has a pocket full of red clown noses to give to the crew. Oooh boy...this is going to be the longest ISS mission ever. If they can handle this, Mars should be no sweat. Fortunately, this will be the last wealthy, eccentric space tourist the crew will have to deal with for quite some time. Astronauts from the US will take up the extra seats on Soyuz missions in order to travel back and forth from the ISS while the shuttle program transitions. [Yahoo via Neatorama]

LOL

Not a shock, but interesting nonetheless to have it confirmed via the stats...

Yes, your eyes don't deceive you: the SIIA has updated its "Don't Copy That Floppy" vid. Set *cringe* factor to maximum.

Before reading on, watch the video above. It’s from Guitar Hero 5, and shows the inclusion of Kurt Cobain’s likeness – a very good one too – as an avatar in the game. But what’s causing a right royal rumpus today is the fact that the character doesn’t just appear when gamers are playing Nirvana songs – he can be unlocked for use on other tracks too.

Such as Bon Jovi’s ‘You Give Love A Bad Name’.

Which, as even fairly casual Nirvana fans will tell you, isn’t quite reflective of Kurt’s actual musical tastes when he was alive. And that’s putting it lightly.

Music journalist Everett True posted a no-punches-pulled verdict on his blog, accusing Courtney Love and Dave Grohl – in their roles as Nirvana rightsholders – of being “F***ing corporate cock-sucking memory-destroying fret-wanking MTV-supporting fame-chasing money-grabbing grave-turning publicity-loving vacuous spoiled jaded c***ing rock whores.”

And now Courtney Love herself is angrily tweeting that it’s not her fault and that she’s going to sue the game’s publisher Activision for breach of contract.

It remains to be seen whether that’s true, but it has to be said, Activision should have seen this problem coming a long way off when it started licensing avatars in this way. Whether it has the legal right to make the virtual Cobain mime to any song it wants or not, for fans it may undermine the reason for including Kurt in the game in the first place.

Tags: courtney love, guitar hero 5, kurt cobain

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 4:29 pm and is filed under Digital Music News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Ouch: definitely one to file under "read what you're signing away in the contract"... Between this and the Cobain trainers I think we can say the man's legacy is well and truly sold up the river.

TweetDeckTweetDeck

is fast becoming the de facto accessory for social media fanatics. The Twitter desktop application is certainly seeing formidable competition, mainly from the likes of SeesmicSeesmic

, or web-based alternatives, but their ultimate mission is to become more than just a TwitterTwitter

app and be a browser for the real-time web.

A new version of TweetDeck (v0.30), which launches this morning, aims to push the application in that direction. With Twitter still front and center, the new release also embraces a boatload of additional FacebookFacebook

functionality and adds in MySpaceMySpace

integration. It’s almost everything Conan envisioned for the year 3000.

The consummate Twitter follower will also love that today marks the simultaneous launch of the TweetDeck Directory which features predefined columns for one-click following en masse and instant column addition to your TweetDeck.

Facebook Frenzy

When you open up the spiffy new version of TweetDeck, the biggest improvement you’ll notice is the enhanced Facebook features. Instead of just status updates flying by, you’ll be able to create columns for the full news feed, single out a column for just status updates, photos, videos, or wall posts, and create custom columns for any of the above for specific groupings of your Facebook friends.

Essentially, if you can do it on Facebook, you can now do it via TweetDeck. You can update Facebook Pages, view or add comments and likes, see who’s tagged in photos, watch photo slide shows, and mouse over user avatars for a myriad of additional options like updating the user’s wall, sending the user a message, or translating an update.

Not Your Average Twitter Directory

Another biggie is the new TweetDeck Directory. It’s essentially like other directory apps, expect that TweetDeck has gone ahead and categorized Twitterers into column-friendly lists. Topics and genres span pop culture, entertainment, and sports to include Twitterers who are well known in categories like: Tech News, Hip Hop, Journalists, Comedians, and Football.

Once you see a list you like, you can click to scan the included Twitters, and then select “Add Column” to add it instantly your TweetDeck. In doing so, you’ll also start following the pre-selected Twitterers.

MySpace and More …

Got a MySpace account you still keep an eye on? No need to admit that to us (we have them too), but you can use the new version of TweetDeck to keep an active eye on what your friends on the other social network are doing. You can create a column for your MySpace friends’ activity, your comments, and your friends’ status and mood. Plus, you can use TweetDeck to update your MySpace status/mood.

There’s also a ton of minor and major improvements to the application. Check out the list below for even more feature enhancements:

* Drag and Drop photo sharing – Simply drag a photo to TweetDeck in order to post it on Twitter, Facebook or MySpace.
* TweetPhotoTweetPhoto

has replaced TwitPicTwitpic

as the default photo sharing service.
* Improved interface – We’ve simplified the UI to group features by service and also simplified the update window so you can simply paste or drag and drop a link into the main space and it’ll automatically be shortened and added to your tweet.
* Minimise to tray – Adding the ability to keep TweetDeck running but minimise it to tray.  This is one of our most requested bug fixes.
* Click on a hashtag to create a new search column and see what people are talking about immediately.
* Add your bit.ly account details to use your own account when using bit.ly as a shortener in TweetDeck.
* Quick Profile – Simply enter a Twitter name to view profiles in TweetDeck.
* Better follower management – your follower list will be kept up to date over time (including removing people you no longer follow).
* Open to non Twitter users – Users no longer require a Twitter account to use TweetDeck opening up TweetDeck to all Facebook and MySpace users.

Woahhh - how much new functionality!?

Spotify mobile app receives mixed reaction

Tue, 8 Sep 2009 | By Alex Farber

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Spotify’s mobile app has received a mixed reception from consumers following its launch in the iTunes App Store yesterday.

The app, which can only be accessed by customers paying for the £9.99-a-month premium service, has so far received an average rating of just two stars out of five from more than 1,800 consumer reviews.

While more than 400 consumers have rated Spotify five stars, this has been offset by more than 1,100 giving it just one star.

Consumers’ criticism centred around the fact they were expecting the service to offer access to free ad-funded music like other online services.   

Many claimed to have deleted the app immediately after downloading it following the realisation they can only access it after subscribing to the premium service.

However, those who are prepared to pay for Spotify have rated the user experience highly.

One comment read, “You wouldn’t rate an Aston Martin one star because you couldn’t afford to drive it.” 

“You wouldn’t rate an Aston Martin one star because you couldn’t afford to drive it" seems to sum it up entirely for me.

For those of you who are sick of the convenience of Bluetooth earpieces and want to live your dream of talking to your fingers like pretend phone from your childhood should look into this concept device.

Designed by BCK, a team from Argentina, its a very simple concept. The user talks to the hand using the yellow ring that fits halfway down the little finger, and then listens with the pink ring on the thumb. (Why is the thumb look like its been drawn on the picture?)

This is one concept that probably won’t catch on, ever. Unless you can make a display to put on the palm. Maybe there is some alternate reality where this technology came into fruition. Enjoy this poem after the jump.

One ring to hear your calls,
One ring to talk in,
Two rings to take your calls,
and with the Bluetooth bind them.

Okay, it didn’t really rhyme, but somehow I couldn’t get The Lord of the Rings out of my head when I saw this device. In the end, though, I decree this device as “silly”.

Of course, I never equated The Lord of the Rings with anything silly, even though there is a scene where a dwarf, and elf, and Viggo Mortensen are running across the plains in really fruity costumes.

Well, you never know what’s going to be a hit and what will be a dud.

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hahaha - love it!

Has anyone gotten this Ubiquity verb for the Posterous bookmarklet to work??

Paul McCartney, Elton John and other prominent British musicians have spoken out against the government's ridiculous proposal to disconnect people who've been accused of infringing on copyright from the Internet, calling it 'expensive, illogical and "extraordinarily negative".' Damned right. Cutting entire families off from access to e-government, health information, work, education, friends, family, and freedom of expression freedom of assembly and freedom of the press because someone accused one member of infringing copyright is terrible.

The UK government's own research shows that households without Internet access operate at a huge disadvantage, paying more for basic necessities than online counterparts -- everything from premiums on their phone- and gas-service because they can't opt for electronic statements to missing out on jobs and other opportunities. To treat the Internet as a luxury item that can be taken away from whole housefulls of people because one member has been accused of a civil infraction flies in the face of justice, proportionality and due process. Civilised countries don't engage in collective punishment.

In a statement seen by the Guardian, a coalition of bodies representing a range of stars including Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John and Damon Albarn attacks the proposals as expensive, illogical and "extraordinarily negative".

The Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (Basca) and the Music Producers Guild (MPG) have joined forces to oppose the proposals to reintroduce the threat of disconnection for persistent file sharers, which was ruled out in the government's Digital Britain report in June.

The plans have already been attacked by privacy campaigners, internet service providers and a range of MPs, some of whom accuse the business secretary of being influenced by secret meetings with senior figures from the music and film industry, a charge he denies.

The coalition accuses the government of being backward looking, saying there is "little support from logic" in proposals to cut off file sharers - a move welcomed by the record companies and UK Music, the umbrella body for the entire industry.

The statement says: "We vehemently oppose the proposals being made and suggest that the stick is now in danger of being way out of proportion to the carrot. The failure of 30,000 US lawsuits against consumers and the cessation of the pursuit of that policy should be demonstration enough that this is not a policy that any future-minded UK government should pursue."

YouTube and PRS make peace as musicians protest about plans to punish file sharers

Previously:

• French "three-strikes" copyright law passes -- but may be dead ...
• France's three-strikes copyright rule is unconstitutional and ...
• New Zealand ready to reintroduce "three strikes" copyright rule ...
• Three strikes proposal for print - Boing Boing
• South Korea prepares to nuke its technological competitiveness ...
• UK govt proposes idiotic two-strikes-and-you're-out Internet ...
• French Parliament Say Non to Sarkozy-style "Three Strikes ...
• Three strikes you're out - Boing Boing

The Music Ally Weblog

« Spotify selling Premium subscriptions through real-world retailers

Rock Band: Radiohead isn’t real, but we’d buy it if it was »

Radiohead guitarist – “MP3s sound fine to me”

It’s become fashionable for artists to grouse about the sound quality of MP3 files, but Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood is bucking the trend. “They sound fine to me,” he tells the New Yorker.

“They can even put a helpful crunchiness onto some recordings… We listened to a lot of nineties hip-hop during our last album, all as MP3s, all via AirTunes. They sounded great, even with all that technology in the way. MP3s might not compare that well to a CD recording of, say, string quartets, but then, that’s not really their point.”

However, he does have wider concerns about the abundance of MP3s and digital music, suggesting that it means “people are encouraged to own far more music than they can ever give their full attention to… That abundance can push any music into background music, furniture music.”

The full piece is well worth a read.

Tags: jonny greenwood, Radiohead

This entry was posted on Friday, September 4th, 2009 at 3:26 pm and is filed under Digital Music News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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