Let your phone fetch your ringtone
Want to name that tune you heard while out to dinner last night? Want to download a ringtone for the song you’re listening to at a concert? Record a few seconds of the song on a cellphone, and let it do the rest of the work for you.
Gracenote, an Emeryville, Calif.- based company, developed the technology, named TrackID, to power the recognition and search service. It currently is available on Sony Ericsson’s Walkman phones in Europe and “coming soon” to the U.S., according to the Sony Ericsson website.
“The new phones can take a snippet of music in a room and send it to Gracenote,” said CEO Craig Palmer during a conference in Vail this month. “You get information and the option to buy the song or ringtone.”
Gracenote may be better known for the software it provides to applications such as iTunes and Yahoo Music Player that allows you to see album information when you play or rip a CD.
Gracenote’s Mobile MusicID service is designed to search a database of more than 65 million songs.
You can take snippets from music being played through the phone’s FM Tuner or in a room.
TrackID will be available on more new phones in the coming months, the company said.
– Kimberly S. Johnson, The Denver Post
Hewlett-Packard TV with a brain
Hewlett-Packard’s latest high-definition TV – the MediaSmart – looks like a standard 37-inch liquid-crystal-display set but is actually a multimedia hub with wireless connectivity for streaming videos and photos from a PC.
This $2,700 set includes all the standard ports (HDMI, S-Video and component video) and a built-in tuner. It displays HDTV at 720p resolution, or 1,280 by 720 pixels. When connected to a Windows PC, the television is a picture viewer and multimedia playback device.
Compatible with Windows Media Connect and the Universal Plug and Play standard, the MediaSmart will search for any multimedia servers on a home network and allow browsing of movies, music and pictures using a remote control. Sold online at HP.com and at some retail stores, the MediaSmart LCD TV has more brains than your average flickering boob tube.
– John Biggs, The New York Times
