MusicMovies

If you're like the majority of Americans, your cell phone is used for more than just phone calls. 65% of all Americans use cell phones to send messages, check e-mail, and catch up on the news. Now, Sprint and Nextel have joined forces with Fandango to provide easy access to movie showtimes and tickets through text messaging.

Fandango's process is simple, and available to all mobile phone users (regardless of provider) with enabled web access. Either type in mobile.fandano.com into a wireless browser, or text message your zip code (movie title optional) to FNDGO (36346) to get links to movie theatre information in your area. Read more

iTunes has it all. You can download your favorite songs, albums, TV shows, and podcasts. And if that wasn’t enough, the truly tuned in may notice a few extra perks along the way. Sometimes the extra savvy find the hidden treasures: for example, the premiere episode of NBC’s new show, “Conviction,” was released for free download on iTunes several days before the broadcast premiere. But now, thanks to a collaboration with Ticketmaster and Warner Music, Red Hot Chili Peppers fans have a special perk of their own: advance purchasing of concert tickets. Read more

Even if you can’t play an instrument or you know almost nothing about music, there’s a range of music software and sample resources (many free for the download) that can help you release your inner rock star. Here’s what you need to know to begin composing music your-way. Music can be anywhere, not just on CDs: Mood music for a business presentation, background tunes for a family website, a score for your vacation video. A lot of the music we hear everyday is created by taking music samples, creating loops and layering them to make a full, unique composition. Electronic-music programs allow someone with no instrumental training and no playing skills to create music with samples from other musicians’ instrumental and vocal recordings. Read more

No matter how hard we try, catching up with the latest technology is a daunting task. Cell phones get smaller, computers get faster, and the quality of digital cameras keeps on improving. But digital cameras aren’t the only genre where picture quality keeps on improving. With the new era of HDTV, a new era in movie watching has begun as well: the Blu-ray era. Named for the blue laser that reads the discs, Blu-ray Discs are the latest generation in information storage and film viewing. Using a blue laser provides greater precision, so picture quality and storage space vastly increase when compared to traditional red lasers used with CDs and DVDs. New Blu-ray Discs will be recordable, rewritable, and compatible with HDTV.Read more

Fashion Guru Karl Lagerfeld, who has been noted as one of the most influential fashion designers of the late 20th century, making his name as an independent creator who has collaborated with a variety of fashion labels such as Chloe, Fendi, and Chanel, is now re-designing the way we use technology. Following the close of the New York fashion Week he will debut his fall/winter 06' show via Podcast, marking it as the first fashion show to be made available on the iTunes Music Store. It will also be available on the designer's website www.karllagerfeld.com a few hours after the event.

2006 is all about music that uplifts, motivates, gets you moving and just plain makes you feel good! Each of the four albums below present you with another take on starting the New Year off on the right foot! Some have free downloads exclusively provided to you through this site. All earn the distinction BEST MUSIC!

Mobile music has changed with V CAST Music mobile music service from Verizon Wireless. V CAST Music lets you download music directly to your wireless phone, to your Windows XP PC, and also transfer new and existing digital music from the PC to your wireless phone and to compatible portable music players. To mark the launch of V CAST Music, exclusive new tracks from Yellowcard recorded live earlier this month at a concert at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas are available on the service, and five songs from top artists including The Fugees, Shakira, Yellowcard and OMD (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark) are available free for a limited time to V CAST Music customers.

The answer to every digital music fan's question - how to turn their entire CD collection into digital music files without wasting endless hours - is here. RipDigital simplifies the switch to digital music with a service that converts your CDs into digital music files for about a dollar a CD, in just a few days. Here's how it works: box up your CDs (RipDigital supplies the box, packing materials and pre-paid shipping label with insurance), send them to RipDigital, and a few days later you will receive data DVDs with your entire music collection in CD-quality sound organized by artist and album, along with your CDs. www.ripdigital.com.

The Yamaha EZ-EG teaching guitar features 12 lighted frets that show beginners the actual hand positions for all the chords they’ll need to know before they take off on their own, and six “strings” that emulate strumming or finger-picking. In addition to an onboard selection of 36 songs, songs can be downloaded in the guitar’s Flash ROM via MIDI IN/OUT connections and a quick connection to a computer. The EZ-EG will also reproduce nine realistic guitar sounds, eight bass guitar sounds and the timbres of a banjo and piano through its built-in speaker. Read more

November 10, 2005 --When Los Angeles-based Nocturne Productions needed to create the massive 50-screen video backdrop for the US Paul McCartney tour, they turned to Gefen for a little assistance.