Music

Ticketfly lets venues, promoters customize loyalty programs

Ticketfly, a ticketing and marketing service, has launched an initiative aimed at giving venues and event promoters the ability to direct targeted rewards at their most loyal customers.

The impetus behind the Fanbase initiative, announced Wednesday, is that while 7 percent of ticket buyers generate 30 percent of the revenue brought in at the gate of events utilizing Ticketfly tickets, there has previously been no way to adequately identify, reward, and motivate those people.

While other ticketing and marketing services have rolled out other loyalty programs, San Francisco-based Ticketfly said its new program is the industry's most sophisticated effort … Read more

Google close to launching streaming music service

Google is close to unveiling its streaming music service, as it prepares to take on Pandora, Spotify, and possibly Apple.

In March, Google signed a deal for two streaming services with Warner Music -- one tied to YouTube, the other to Google's Android music platform, Google Play. And now Google has struck deals with Universal Music as well as Sony Music, according to a report in The Verge, which suggests that Google could make the announcement at tomorrow's big developer conference, Google I/O.

While Google has been working with the music labels on two services, sources tell … Read more

Snag online videos with Clip Extractor Pro, now 50% off

Ever had to go on a long trip, knowing you'll be outside your data network or a Wi-Fi access point? Now you can easily store all of your favorite videos ahead of time and load them up to any device for later viewing. Clip Extractor Pro is perfect for downloading all of your favorite online videos. Whether your video-streaming site of choice is YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, or MetaCafe, Clip Extractor has got your back.

Grab movies uploaded by friends and family from the biggest video providers out there. Save birthday and anniversary memories off YouTube, archive Epic Fail movies … Read more

Amazon rolls out Cloud Player app for PCs

Amazon quietly released a Cloud Player app for PCs as an extension of its music streaming service.

While PC users could already use the player through the Web, the new app, noted by Mashable on Monday, also allows for offline storage. We've contacted Amazon for more details and will update if we hear back.

The app automatically syncs your music library with any files on your computer that you haven't added to the cloud yet and exports your Amazon MP3s to iTunes and the Windows Media player.

You also can upload an unlimited number of Amazon songs, plus … Read more

Bill Gates: Steve Jobs was better at design than I was

When the sense of personal competition has gone, when time has passed, the memories become more acute and more accurate.

During Bill Gates' interview Sunday night with Charlie Rose on CBS's "60 Minutes," Microsoft's chairman released some emotion when speaking of visiting Steve Jobs during the Apple CEO's last days.

He said they're talked about what they'd learned and about families.

He said the conversation wasn't melancholy, but it clearly is an emotional memory for Gates.

When it came to business, Gates admitted that Apple "put the pieces" together on … Read more

Chris Hadfield sings Bowie's 'Space Oddity' in ISS farewell

How do you top months of amazing photos, demos, and tunes done aboard the International Space Station? If you're Chris Hadfield, you cover David Bowie's "Space Oddity" in a showstopping finale.

On the eve of his return to Earth, the Canadian astronaut released a beautifully done video of himself singing the 1969 classic.

Mixed with the help of staff at the Canadian Space Agency, musician Emm Gryner, and others, the cover features a somber piano intro and modified lyrics that reference the Soyuz capsule that will return Hadfield to Kazakhstan. … Read more

Gingrich to world: Rename the cell phone

It's time this country addressed the real issues.

Things cannot go on the way they are and cometh the hour, cometh the man. That man is Newt Gingrich.

No, the great Republican doesn't want to impeach the President, repeal Obamacare and institute conscription for everyone aged 15 and older.

Well, those aren't his current priorities. Instead, he believes that for America to progress we need to call the cell phone something else.

Please, this is serious.

In a video posted to YouTube on Friday, Gingrich made his case, while waggling his encased cell phone.

"If it'… Read more

Take it to the limit: Fostex TH600 headphones

The Fostex TH600 full-size headphones' sound is downright addicting. They take you inside the sound of a recording like few other headphones can. Unfortunately, Fostex's U.S. distribution of its high-end headphones is very limited (it's a Japanese company), but Fostex dealer Moon Audio was kind enough to send over a sample pair of TH600 headphones ($1,299) fitted with an extra-cost Black Dragon V2 cable. Fostex also offers much less expensive models, including the $129 T50RP, but the company mostly caters to the pro sound market.

The TH600 has large 50mm drivers, matched with an unusually powerful … Read more

Twisted Sister's legal threats over coffee shop's URL

Are they going to take it? Are they going to take it? Are they going to take it anymore?

These are the fundamental questions surrounding a legal threat presented by a lawyer for Twister Sister's founder, John Jay French, to a tiny coffee shop in Mission, Kan.

The coffee shop is called Twister Sisters. It is run by two sisters. They are twisted. Actually, as The Prairie Village Post reports, Sandi Russell and her sister Nancy Hansen were first called "twisted" by their brother in the 1960s.

The 1960s came before 1973, the year when the band … Read more

Earbuds, freight train a fatal mix for pedestrian, police say

Electronics give people the opportunity to live in a world of their own.

Sometimes, though, this may not end well.

A train struck a man who was walking on the railway tracks in Joppa, Md., Thursday.

Police say the freight train approached him from behind. Its conductor said he sounded the horn.

That seems to have had no effect on 37-year-old Kevin Scott Street. For, police say, he was wearing earbuds.

According to CBS Baltimore, Street was struck by the 20-car freight train just after noon.

Edward Hopkins, a spokesman for the Hartford County Sheriff's Office explained to The Baltimore Sun: &… Read more