mix

Minimash is a DJ app that automatically matches beats from songs in your iTunes library, but it doesn't always produce great results. Immediately upon launching Minimash, you'll notice a unique artistic style to the interface. The hand-drawn-looking controls and bright colors are easy on the eyes, but it's difficult to know immediately what each control does. Fortunately, you can touch an information button that explains how to use each control and get your music up and running quickly.

The app has you start by "Preparing" your tracks--Minimash runs an analysis algorithm to scan each track'… Read more

Back in 2009, we reviewed the $300 Mix iMT800, a modern iPod/iPhone speaker dock with the look and feel of an old-school, crank-it-till-your-ears-bleed boom box. Now Altec's updated that portable speaker system with some small tweaks--the new model is known as the Mix BoomBox iMT810. Since the two systems are so similar, a lot of this review will sound the same as the review for the older model. But let's start with the differences. Here's what the new iMT810 has versus the previous system.… Read more

Sony Ericsson took to Facebook today to announce two new feature phones, the Mix Walkman and Txt pro.

Features phones, if you remember, have become a new class of handsets that aren't quite smartphones, but aren't basic models, either. Indeed, the Mix Walkman and Txt Pro fit right into this category. They do much more than make calls even if they lack the fanciest features available on a mobile device. The handsets also run Sony Ericsson's OS (so no Android here, folks), but they offer elements of the Xperia Mini's interface including the touch controls resting … Read more

Android increased its lead over Apple's iOS in April as the top mobile platform tracked by ad network Millennial Media.

Releasing its April MobileMix report today, Millennial Media found that Android accounted for 53 percent of all ad impressions on its network last month, a gain of 10 percent from March. That marked the fifth consecutive month in which Google's mobile OS was the leader.

Android's growth in April came at the expense of both iOS and Research In Motion's BlackBerry OS.

For the month, the share of ad impressions for iOS fell to 28 percent … Read more

Djay for iPhone and iPod Touch brings two turntables to your touch screen so you can beat match, scratch, and record mixes of music from your library. A unique interface lets you hold your iPhone sideways to view the turntables side by side, or you can switch to vertical and view a single turntable to adjust the EQ and BPM and get more screen area in which to work with your mixes.

Djay boasts a "hyper-realistic low-latency touch-screen interface," and we found that it definitely feels more precise than similar DJ apps in the category. As an added … Read more

The big news this week from the world of Apple was the discovery that iPhones have been tracking users' locations as they go about their daily lives. Apparently, whenever you use Google Maps, or take a picture, or do anything that consults the GPS, your location and a time stamp are recorded in a log file on your iPhone. Apple is not using this information for anything, but it's not surprising many people find this particular previously unknown feature pretty unsettling.

Like probably anyone who heard this news, I had a lot of questions about what was being recorded, why it's being recorded, and what Apple has to say about it. Fortunately, our very own Josh Lowensohn and Elinor Mills put together an extensive FAQ to help you get all the info about the iPhone location-tracking function. Apple has not yet commented, but it will be interesting to see what happens in the coming weeks and whether the company will strip this functionality from later versions of the iOS.

This week's apps are a DJ app that lets you mix music on the go and an artistic adventure game that is both challenging and very engrossing.… Read more

LAS VEGAS--Just weeks after launching Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft previewed an early version of Internet Explorer 10 at its Mix11 developer conference here today.

Microsoft went to great lengths to illustrate how deep its commitment is to HTML5 in IE9--the Web standard is pushed hard the new browser. That allows developers to create programs more simply so that they can be used on a variety of devices.

"It's just closer to what people expect from apps," said Dean Hachamovitch, corporate vice president of Internet Explorer, in a keynote address.

By putting its considerable weight behind the HTML5 … Read more

Back in the good old days, Microsoft's Silverlight merely had to take on the mighty Flash Player.

Now Microsoft's browser plug-in has a very different challenge than Adobe Systems' rival technology: Web standards. And Microsoft, through the release of IE9 and presumably its successors, is helping to bring those standards to the real world.

Nevertheless, Redmond's engineers believe Silverlight has a future as a browser plug-in, and at Microsoft's Mix conference next week, the company will be trying to advance that future.

At Mix11, Microsoft plans to release a beta version of Silverlight 5, and augmenting … Read more

MixPad Audio Mixer from NCH Software is a digital multitrack mixing suite that is easy to use yet capable of producing professional-quality mixes. It can mix and process more than 100 tracks at once in most audio formats, and it can also extract audio from video files as well as rip CDs. It works as a standalone app but integrates seamlessly with NCH's other media production and editing tools via the Toolbox utility.

Media-player-like buttons and time indicators give MixPad's interface a familiar feel. The main window displays each track horizontally, each with its own control console. The … Read more