Limewire in the Cloud, New Software for Smartphone Virtual Keyboards, Ingrooves Hooks Up With Vevo, Introducing Movie-a-Minute.com, Lakers Break Tweets-per-Second Record
In weekend discussions with
Digital Music News,
Limewire execs described their plans for an upcoming, subscription-based "ecosystem" that includes desktop and mobile apps, a web-based component and both downloading and streaming aspects. The team is also working up a range of recommendation components including push playlisting and curated content. According to DMN, this will be more than just a toll booth on a neutered P2P, and it’ll be cloud-based, meaning that collections and content will be accessible from anywhere. LimeWire is also playing nice with
iTunes. "Users will have complete and instant access to their entire library and catalog across their desktop, devices, and in the cloud," a company executive relayed. "By syncing iTunes playlists and content to the cloud, users' existing libraries are available to access and stream to a wide range of connected devices." Further, once a song is downloaded through the LimeWire ecosystem, it gets added back into the existing iTunes collection as well. That ultimately syncs with decidedly offline devices like an
iPod classic. Of course, major labels (and publishers) are suing this company with a passion, DMN notes. But according to LimeWire, label executives are also supporting the post-gavel initiative. "We can confirm that in our ongoing dialogues with numerous industry executives, this service has been very well received," another LimeWire source relayed. The company offered a tentative launch date of "late 2010."... Seattle inventor
Cliff Kushler has come up with new technology called
Swype that allows users of smartphones with virtual keyboards to glide a finger across the keyboard to spell words, rather than tapping out each letter, the
N.Y. Times reports. [
Watch a demonstration of Swype on YouTube.com] “We’ve squeezed the desktop computer, complete with keyboard and mouse, into something that fits in a pocket,” Kushler explained. “The information bandwidth has become very constricted. I thought, if we can find a better way to input that information, it could be something that would really take off.” Swype’s software detects where a finger pauses and changes direction as it traces out the pattern of a word. The movements do not have to be precise because the software calculates which words a user is most likely trying to spell. Capitalization and double letters can be indicated with a pause or squiggle, while spacing and punctuation are automatic. Kushler estimates that the software can improve even the nimblest text-messager’s pace by 20-30%. Swype is now being used on seven smartphones in the
U.S., including the
HTC HD2 and the
Samsung Omnia II. By the end of the year, the company says its software will be on more than 50 models worldwide. No deal yet with Apple, but the company is tinkering with software for the
iPhone and the
iPad and hopes to show it to Apple soon…
INgrooves, which provides digital distribution, marketing and promo services, announced today that its frontline music videos are now live on
Vevo. That’ll put clips from such indies as
Metal Blade (
Cannibal Corpse,
Job For a Cowboy,
As I Lay Dying),
ESL Music (
Thievery Corporation), (
Shaggy) and
Sargent House (
Good Old War), along with videos from such acts as
The Ettes,
The Crystal Method,
Tila Tequila,
Tracy Lawrence and
The Foreign Exchange, on the ever-expanding site. Hyped INgrooves chief McDaniels: “We’ve utilized our proprietary, cutting-edge technology to deliver our music video content to Vevo and couldn’t be happier to lead our labels onto one of the most-viewed entertainment websites on the web.” Added Vevo topper
Rio Caraeff: “We’re thrilled to welcome INgrooves’ thriving roster of artists to Vevo. A digital distribution leader, INgrooves adds depth and breadth to Vevo’s music programming, thereby enhancing the fan experience across our entire network.”… This from
Very Short List:
Titanic is more than three hours long.
Gone With the Wind comes close to four. But what if you could know everything you need to know in under a minute? The website
Movie-a-Minute takes classic and not-so-classic movies (um,
Hitch...really?) and boils them down to a couple of pithy lines:
All About Eve—“People in show business turn MEAN”;
The Godfather gets summed up with two pieces of dialogue; and
Dr. Strangelove simply reads, “Oops.” Of course, we’d never recommend not
watching some of these gems in their entirety, but for those of you who want to be able to knowledgeably quip about
Patch Adams (“Medicine schmedicine. There’s nothing a clown nose won’t cure”), then this is the site for you…
Twitter says it registers an average of 65 million tweets a day and about 750 messages per second. But in the 30 seconds after
Japan scored against
Cameroon during Monday’s
World Cup match, soccer fans wrote a record 2,940 posts per second. That record was broken three days later, immediately after the
Lakers secured their Game 7 victory over the
Celtics, with 3,085 posts per second. The lesson here is obvious: If you’ve recorded a game on your DVR, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES OPEN TWITTER.