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Ashton Kutcher explains to Quora how he prepared for Steve Jobs role
Over on Quora, actor Ashton Kutcher recently left a detailed answer for a user who asked the question "How did Ashton Kutcher prepare for his role as Steve Jobs in the new movie Jobs?" His answer on the site (in which Kutcher is an investor) was actually quite revealing, not only about how an actor prepares for a role, but also pointing out some personality quirks of Steve Jobs. Kutcher started his preparation by reading the script, watching documentaries and interviews, collecting YouTube content and listening to SoundCloud files of Jobs: I then started to dissect the nuances of his behavior, the walk, the fact that he has an almost imperceptible lisp, his accent that was a combination of northern California and Wisconsin, the way he paused before answer, and nodded in understanding, the way he bowed in namaste when receiving praise, and stared with contempt when in conflict. Other Jobs details and mannerisms were pointed out by Kutcher: "How he counted with his fingers (pinky finger first), how he used the word 'aaaaand' and 'noooow' to think about what he was going to say next." Kutcher went on to say that he even read many of the books that influenced Jobs throughout his life, ate foods that Jobs fixated on (carrot juice, grapes, popcorn), researched his favorite artists and studied the entrepreneurs that Jobs admired the most, before meeting with many of the friends and colleagues of Jobs. The jury is still out on how well Kutcher portrays Jobs in the soon-to-be-released movie, but his final words seem to show an amazing amount of respect for the late Apple CEO: But in the end one of the greatest tells of the man were his creations. They were elegant, intelligent, thoughtful, precise, artistic, bold, visionary, complicated, efficient, fun, entertaining, powerful, imperfect and beautiful on the inside and out.... Just like Steve. Jobs opens nationwide on August 16.
Guild Wars 2 releases Bazaar of the Four Winds music
Guild Wars 2's soundtrack might be best known for its core Jeremy Soule composition, but fans of the game are quite aware that ArenaNet has been adding in new tracks on a regular basis with its updates. This week's Bazaar of the Four Winds event included two brand-new pieces of music, and now the studio has released them on its SoundCloud page. The two tracks are Labyrinthine Cliffs and Sanctum Sprint. Give them a listen and let us know what you think!
Twitter #Music to debut later today (Update)
As reported by ABC News, the new Twitter #Music app will officially launch today. It will be available through the Twitter #Music app for iPhone and on the web here. Details are coming in this morning. A post has been published to Twitter's blog with a lot of information. The Twitter #Music app will help you discover music based on what's trending on Twitter, bands and others you follow and music gleaned from tweets. Basically, a music recommendation service based on tweets! According to Twitter, it pulls music from iTunes Rdio or Spotify. Music previews will default to iTunes, and those who subscribe to Rdio or Spotify can log into their accounts and enjoy full tracks as they're available. Twitter notes that other music services will be added in the future. It's going to be fun to play with and we'll have a detailed look at #Music soon. Update: Twitter #Music is available it the App Store now.
AllThingsD: Twitter's music app launches April 12th (update: music site, description appears)
Hungry for the fruits of Twitter's latest acquisition? According to AllThingsD, you won't have to wait long. The usual unnamed sources have told the outlet that Twitter's new music app is due out this Friday, April 12th. True to We Are Hunted's roots, it's said the app will focus on music discovery, suggesting tunes and artists based on various factors, including who you follow on a certain social network. Soundcloud, iTunes and Vevo will apparently do the heavy lifting when it comes to music and video playback, though -- the app won't be a digital music store. Twitter itself is mum on details at this point, but we'll let you know if a little bird tells us anything. Update: Twitter has now made a home for the new service, although we've not been able to sign in just yet. We're guessing that 'go live' switch will be flipped later today. Update 2: In the applications section of your Twitter account, should you choose to allow #music access, you'll notice a blurb describing the application as, "Trending Music Web by [blank]" and a note detailing it as, "the web version of the trending music app." Well, look at that!
Twitter acquires music discovery service We Are Hunted, readies music app?
Last month, rumors swirled that Twitter had acquired music discovery service We Are Hunted to fold it into a forthcoming music app. Today, that acquisition has been made official, with the We Are Hunted team announcing that it's shutting down its services and joining team Twitter, with the promise that it would "continue to create services that will delight you." Alas, there's no more detail provided about what services it'll be creating, but its core competency of tune discovery sure will dovetail nicely with Twitter's rumored preferred method of sonic delivery, SoundCloud. Time will tell if this attempt at a musical social network goes over better than the last one.
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon drops 3 retro tracks on Soundcloud
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is enough of a real thing to receive three high-octane tracks from Melbourne retro electronica group Power Glove, available for a listen on Soundcloud. Blood Dragon appears to be an 80s-inspired version of Far Cry 3's island setting, and the music definitely captures that vibe.So far a series of leaks and Konami code gif hunts place Blood Dragon on XBLA, PSN and PC. For a taste of the Blood of the Dragon, listen to the three tracks from Power Glove: Power Core, Sloan's Assault and Warzone.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
SoundCloud streamlines Pro plans, intros a Pro Partner tier for top streamers
There's been concerns that SoundCloud is shifting its attention too quickly toward listeners at the expense of the creators that gave the site its roots. While we can't say that the audio hub is addressing every concern, it's is determined to keep creatives involved with a much simpler Pro strategy. Instead of offering four paid plans based on storage, SoundCloud is scaling back to two: a basic Pro account hosts four hours of sound for either €3 ($4) per month or €29 ($38) per year, while stepping up to €9 ($12) per month or €99 ($129) per year takes the caps off with unlimited hosting. Quite the bargain when unlimited access previously cost €59 ($77) monthly and €500 ($650) yearly, we'd say. If SoundCloud really, truly values your work, it can also invite you to a Pro Partner level that allows custom branding and a "Moving Sound" image slideshow that syncs up with tunes. Just 10 companies have access to this upper echelon, but everyone else can spring for the more down-to-Earth Pro tiers today -- and with the new discounts, that's not a far-fetched possibility.
Editorial: the new SoundCloud is optimized for listeners, not uploaders
When it was founded in 2007, SoundCloud was primarily focused on enabling file-sharing of original audio tracks, and basic collaboration among artists. The two co-founders came from music backgrounds; indeed, in early interviews they compared their fledgling platform to a musician's version of Flickr or Vimeo. From the start, SoundCloud's embeddable waveforms differentiated it from MySpace, which was soon to begin its vertiginous fall from authority. With this week's relaunch, SoundCloud aspires to more than a gleaming redesign, though it definitely brought out the silver polish for this refresh. The new SoundCloud has reshaped its feature set, formalizing an organic expansion into a broad listening platform. It is more than a refreshed site; it is a new product targeted point-blank at the headphone set rather than the mixing board crowd. Have artists been marginalized in the new and enlarged vision? And for the music fans the site hopes to attract, does SoundCloud work as a listening station?
Korg's iPolysix synth app takes your iPad back to the '80s (video)
Synthesizers are notoriously expensive, especially some vintage models, but how'd you like a Korg Polysix for the bargain price of $14.99? Well, as long as you've got an iPad (or a mini), that's now possible with the iPolysix app released today. The '80s-era analog polyphonic synth is "fully replicated," with plenty of additional tools for tablet composers -- the new Polyseq step sequencer, dual Kaoss Pads with chordal support, and a "production environment" with two synths, a drum machine and mixer. You can also publish your creations and remix tracks with other users via the SoundCloud-integrated Polyshare feature. If you're hemming and hawing about a purchase, make up your mind soon, as the app's price doubles on January 1st. You won't find it in the Play store, but the Android Polysix app we saw running on Miselu's Neiro prototype leads us to believe Google's OS won't be excluded from the jam session entirely. Advert / app demo after the break. [Thanks, fsk1138]
Microsoft announces SkyDrive SDKs for .NET and Windows Phone 8, highlights web integration
After the introduction of new APIs last year, Microsoft has released SkyDrive SDKs for almost every major platform including Windows 8, JavaScript Web library, Android and iOS. Now the cloud service has opened its doors to more of Microsoft's own with new SDKs for .NET and of course, Windows Phone 8. To entice even more developers to its side, the team at SkyDrive also integrated with services like IFTTT (If This Then That), which lets you customize action triggers between different web services, DocuSign, an electronic signature site and SoundGecko, a text-to-audio transcription service. It'll likely take a lot of work for SkyDrive to win over fans of Dropbox and Box.net, but opening up its doors to developers is a step in the right direction.
CCP's Team Klang revamping EVE's soundscape, removing jukebox
EVE Online is full of sound and fury, but does it signify anything? We'll leave that up to you. What we can tell you is that the title's sound suite is undergoing something of a revamp. CCP's latest dev blog introduces Team Klang, which is currently redoing all the turret noises to make EVE "more like naval combat and less like dogfighting or light weapon engagements." Also noteworthy is the fact that CCP is getting ready to remove EVE's MP3 jukebox feature in favor of a soundscape where the music will "play in context of where you are and what you are doing." Translation: there will be individual playlists for hi-sec, low-sec, and null, with 20 base tracks featuring roughly 500 permutations. The devs have placed all 69 of EVE's current tracks on Soundcloud for those of you who want to continue to roll with custom playlists.
Whyd mines YouTube, Soundcloud and others for songs Spotify can't deliver (hands-on)
Remember how long it took Spotify to end up in the States? The issue? Music rights, of course. Before it could make its way to our shores, the service had to strike deals with a bunch of record labels, making sure the artists, the executives and EMI janitorial staffs all get paid. Whyd, a new French music service that will be clawing its way out of beta later this month, offers a bit of a workaround to that conundrum, pulling music from sources like YouTube and SoundCloud, aggregating them into a single dynamic location. That means that all content can be brought in, from some kid playing acoustic originals in her bedroom to long time music streaming holdouts like The Beatles and Led Zeppelin. Once you signed in via Facebook or created a new account, you get started with the search field at the top of the page. From here, you'll find tracks posted by other users. Click on a track and you can watch / listen, Like it, add it or post it to Twitter or Facebook. Songs that are added pop up on the Your Tracks page, a sort of central hub for the site. Playing the tracks from here will pop up a toolbar on the bottom of the page that lets you pause, scroll through the track and skip between songs. For the sake of organization, it's also possible to divide songs into different playlists.
Flipboard for Android gains audio, lets us tune into SoundCloud from our Samsung
Flipboard on iOS has had audio for some time, giving users the chance to go all high-brow as they listen to NPR while browsing the news on their iPad. It's Android's turn to adopt that cultured stance: an update to Flipboard on its newer platform includes the full, listen-in-the-background Audio category channel selection, whether it's thoughtful public radio snippets or spotlights on podcasts and artists. SoundCloud mavens get the biggest fill, both through a direct link to their account as well as a list of specialized channels. Anyone who can already use Flipboard for Android just needs to hit Google Play to add the new audio dimension; Kindle Fire and Nook owners should see a fully tailored experience in a matter of days.
Miselu Neiro Android-powered synth hands-on at SXSW (video)
This is the Miselu Neiro, a "portable, net-enabled social music device" which was announced this weekend at SXSW. We were able see and handle the first-ever prototype fresh off the lab bench at the SoundCloud Open House in Austin. The app-based, Android-powered synth features a two octave velocity and pressure-sensitive keyboard, a capacitive multitouch widescreen, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity and even a webcam. Battery life is expected to be in the five to six hour range. The laptop-sized instrument features audio I/O, MIDI I/O, two USB ports, an HDMI port and an SD card slot. It currently runs Gingerbread on a dual-core TI OMAP processor -- although those aren't the final specs. While the silicon valley startup is mum on pricing and availability, it's teamed up with Yamaha to outfit the device with an NSX-1 DSP chip (for high-quality synthesis and effects) and with Retronyms to create a powerful suite of touch-controlled, cloud-enabled musical apps in time for launch. The instrument also includes a dock area for accessories (such as a speaker bar) and the company plans to license the interface to third-party manufacturers. Beyond the Neiro prototype, Miselu also showcased its older, larger, proof-of-concept device (controlling Ableton Live via MIDI / OSC over WiFi) and a USB-powered digital speaker cabinet built in partnership with Onkyo that integrates Trigence's Dnote technology for high-quality audio reproduction using only 500mA of power. Check out the pictures in our gallery below, then hit the break for our hands-on video -- complete with a walkthrough by CEO Yoshinari Yoshikawa and a drum-machine demo.
Remix & WIN: Winner to be announced live tonight at 9 PM CET (8 PM GMT) (Updated)
Update: Just in case you missed it on Ustream last night, we're thrilled to announce that the winner of our Remix & WIN competition is MIZIM, or Yasmin from Yorkshire, UK. Congratulations, Yasmin! We absolutely loved your remix. To listen to Yasmin's winning remix on Sound Cloud, click here. To all our other contestants, thanks so much for taking part! The long wait is almost over! The winner of our Remiix & WIN competition, with Olivia Broadfield, Propellerhead, SoundCloud and TUAW, will be announced live tonight at 9:00 PM CET (8 PM GMT) on Olivia's Ustream. The winning remix will walk away with Propellerhead's brand new Balance audio interface and a copy of its latest DAW, Reason 6, plus a SoundCloud premium membership, a signed copy of Olivia Broadfield's latest album, "This Beautiful War," and some TUAW merchandise, too! We've been overwhelmed and thrilled with the hundreds of submissions to the competition. It's been a tough job working through the remixes to get to our finalist because there's been such a high standard of creativity and production. Well done! But there can only be one winning remix -- the cream of the crop -- and we can't wait for it to be announced tonight. Until then, if you haven't already, why not take a listen to the finalists on Sound Cloud here?
Music Smasher searches Spotify, Rdio, MOG and more in one shot
When it comes to streaming music services are you something of an agnostic? That's not necessarily a bad thing -- Spotify, Rdio, MOG, Grooveshark, etc... all have their strengths and weaknesses (Spotify, for example, is a great source for Norwegian black metal). The trouble is, it's neither fun nor easy to jump from app to app, web site to web site just to find what you're looking for. Music Smasher simplifies things by letting you search most of the big sources in online streaming tunes simultaneously. It trolls the four services mentioned earlier, as well as SoundCloud and Bandcamp. Well, it searches Grooveshark in theory, but every query we tried simply returned undefined results. Hit up the source to try it out for yourself.
Reminder: Last chance to Remix & WIN
Our Remix and WIN competition, with Olivia Broadfield, Propellerhead and SoundCloud, closes on the 31st January 2012, which means you've just a few days left to submit your remix of Olivia's song 'Say.' We've had loads of entries already (some of which are very impressive), and the judges (Olivia and the TUAW team) have their work cut out for them over the next few weeks! The winning entry will take home Propellerhead's brand new Balance audio interface and a copy of their latest DAW, Reason 6, plus a SoundCloud premium membership, a signed copy of Olivia Broadfield's latest album, "This Beautiful War", and some TUAW merchandise, too! If you haven't already, check out our competition announcement post here for all the details on how to enter. The winning remix will be announced in February 2012. May the best remix win! If you've had any trouble submitting your entry, leave a comment below.
Remix & WIN with Olivia Broadfield, Propellerhead, SoundCloud and TUAW
Calling all producers, mixers and music-making enthusiasts. We've teamed up with UK singer-songwriter Olivia Broadfield (who we recently interviewed here), Propellerhead and SoundCloud to offer you the chance to win Propellerhead's brand new Balance audio interface, a copy of their latest DAW, Reason 6, a SoundCloud premium membership and a singed copy of Olivia's latest album, "This Beautiful War", and some TUAW merchandise, too! In order to be in the running for this fantastic prize, you're required to remix (the best way you see fit) Olivia's song, "Say" off her album, "This Beautiful War" (we'll provide you with the audio stems). The competition closes and entries must be in by the end of January 31st, 2012. Entries will be judged by Olivia and TUAW, with the winning remix announced in February, 2012. To enter, simply email olivia@propellerheads.se and she'll provide you with all the info and links to get started. That's it. Let the remixing begin. Any questions? Let us know in the comments below.
Daily iPad App: SoundCloud
Popular social music network SoundCloud released its iPad app on Thursday and we took the app for a quick spin. For those that have never used SoundCloud, it's an online service that lets you upload and share audio clips with other SoundCloud members. The clips can be short sound bites, music tracks or even audio books you create yourself. It has a strong social component that lets you promote your tracks or discover new tracks. It launched in 2007 and has rivaled MySpace as a place for musicians to distribute their music and interact with fans. The iPad app does a nice job of combining the social aspect of SoundCloud with the music discovery and playback features. The app uses a multi-pane interface with a left-side tool bar that has four selectable items. There's a profile section that lets you see your account information, a track section that lists new music in your stream, a comments section that lists the feedback you've received on your tracks and a search section that lets you find new music and new people to follow. This multi-pane interface makes it easy to view multiple layers of information at one time. You can click on the profile icon which opens a pane containing your account information. You can then click on a link to "Your Likes" which displays the tracks you have favorited in a second pane. A click on one of your favorite tracks opens a third pane that lets you control music playback, share the track on twitter, and more. You can only display two panes at a time, but you can swipe between these panes to select the ones you want to view. This layout makes it easy to use the app in portrait as well as landscape view. The SoundCloud app does a nice job with the social features of the service. You can comment on a track right from the app and share the track on Facebook, Twitter and tumblr. The app also does a good job interconnecting members and music. You can listen to a track and view that member's profile. You can see their followers and the music they like and so on. You can spend a lot of time travelling from one profile to another, adding new tracks and new follows along the way. The one thing missing from the iPad app is the ability to view other people's comments on a track when it is playing. On the SoundCloud website, other people's comments will pop up when a track is played. You can read the comments, read responses and add your own. On the iPad, you can add a comment at any point in the track, but you can't see what other people have said on the fly. This isn't a deal breaker and I imagine it's a difficult feature to implement on a mobile device like a tablet. (Good news! SoundCloud reached out to me and the ability to view comments as the track plays back is there. You just have to fullscreen the track to see them. I never used the fullscreen view because I love the multi-pane view so much. I was happily tapping away, finding new follows and looking at new tracks that i never checked out the fullscreen view. If you want to find the comments for a track, just start playing it back and click the fullscreen button. Voila! There they are, and they pop up just like the SoundCloud website,too.) The app is very responsive and music streaming is quick, with minimal buffering over a WiFi connection (I did not test 3G). Music plays in the background, so you can launch SoundCloud, fire up some tracks and move on to another task. Track information also appears on the lock screen, but there are no playback controls that'll launch SoundCloud when you unlock your device. Besides listening to music, you can also record sounds using the iPad and its built-in microphone. When you're done recording, you can upload the clip to your account. The iPad app is a nice addition to SoundCloud and is a must have for iPad owners that use the service. The SoundCloud app is available for free from the App Store. The service is also free, but does require a login and account. %Gallery-137838%
SoundCloud iPad app out now
Music sharing site SoundCloud has had an iPhone app for a while, but the company has just released a version of the service built specifically for the iPad. SoundCloud generally opted for the dual-pane look in the app, which means you can browse around your friends and their shares, all while listening to and learning about any music you happen to pull up on the side of the screen. A video of SoundCloud's app runs through the main features, but you might as well just download the app for yourself -- it's completely free, just like the rest of SoundCloud. There are quite a few apps out there that will let you listen to and browse socially around your favorite music, but if you happen to be a SoundCloud fan or just like the heavy social network integration, you might be excited try this app out.
