Wherever I Lay My Phone (That's My Home)
I promise I won't keep spamming the blog about a consumer product that only 1/4 of non-Goldsmith writers currently own, but there are a couple of impressive applications that have emerged from the SDK that warrant a mention.
Midomi: At some point we have all had a song stuck in our head that we couldn't identify. I remember calling up 107.5 The End to finally put a name to Howard Jones's "Things Can Only Get Better" after AltaVista [remember those halcyon pre-Google days?] searches of the lyrics "whoa whoa whoa" failed to produce any results.
With little precedence, Midomi comes along and solves all of our musical conundrums.
Play any song and within 10 seconds Midomi, more often than not, will correctly identify it. That's it. A simple trick -- but people are consistently amazed by the application. You can even try humming or singing the song and Midomi will make a noble effort in naming the song. Except for Mark's rendition of "Let The Bodies Hit The Floor" which would have barely netted him a single star in Rock Band.
In the future there will a growing nostalgia for days when we didn't completely outsource our brains to the internet, but for now Midomi is a neat little parlor trick that should help you identify the Three Dog Night cover in the trailer for that terrible looking Ricky Gervais movie.
Simplify Media: It seems too good to be true. Simply Media facilitates the dream of audiophiles everywhere -- the ability to stream your audio content from your computer to any other compatible device. All of your music. If that wasn't enough, they are working on a script that would also enable you to stream your video content as well. The arms race for portable flash based memory is over before it even began.
Simply Media is not perfect. The interface is a bit clunky and it is an independent application so there is no easy two button solution to change your music settings. And while this would be an amazing application for a road trip, the ability to only stream one song at a time (no download queue) means you might hit a nasty silent patch as you travel through the glorious dead zone that is the Oklahoma Turnpike. Still it is an important step and I think it points the way to a future of decentralized streaming media content. [After all you don't even "own" the music you purchase -- you are just licensing it. Unless you are Michael Jackson.]
One more thing. Did I mention that you can share you library with up to 20 friends? As soon as I get an independent media server, my entire collection will be up for streaming.
Midomi: At some point we have all had a song stuck in our head that we couldn't identify. I remember calling up 107.5 The End to finally put a name to Howard Jones's "Things Can Only Get Better" after AltaVista [remember those halcyon pre-Google days?] searches of the lyrics "whoa whoa whoa" failed to produce any results.
With little precedence, Midomi comes along and solves all of our musical conundrums.
Play any song and within 10 seconds Midomi, more often than not, will correctly identify it. That's it. A simple trick -- but people are consistently amazed by the application. You can even try humming or singing the song and Midomi will make a noble effort in naming the song. Except for Mark's rendition of "Let The Bodies Hit The Floor" which would have barely netted him a single star in Rock Band.
In the future there will a growing nostalgia for days when we didn't completely outsource our brains to the internet, but for now Midomi is a neat little parlor trick that should help you identify the Three Dog Night cover in the trailer for that terrible looking Ricky Gervais movie.
Simplify Media: It seems too good to be true. Simply Media facilitates the dream of audiophiles everywhere -- the ability to stream your audio content from your computer to any other compatible device. All of your music. If that wasn't enough, they are working on a script that would also enable you to stream your video content as well. The arms race for portable flash based memory is over before it even began.
Simply Media is not perfect. The interface is a bit clunky and it is an independent application so there is no easy two button solution to change your music settings. And while this would be an amazing application for a road trip, the ability to only stream one song at a time (no download queue) means you might hit a nasty silent patch as you travel through the glorious dead zone that is the Oklahoma Turnpike. Still it is an important step and I think it points the way to a future of decentralized streaming media content. [After all you don't even "own" the music you purchase -- you are just licensing it. Unless you are Michael Jackson.]
One more thing. Did I mention that you can share you library with up to 20 friends? As soon as I get an independent media server, my entire collection will be up for streaming.
posted by d l wright at 9/04/2008 04:08:00 PM
2 Comments:
I actually have a program on my 13-month old Sony phone that does the same thing as Midomi. Course it costs money.
Also, I was singing "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor" on expert.
Finally, "pre-Goggle?"
3g isnt fast enough. and why can't my phone do video and why does the camera suck and why cant i text message photos and why cant i get an application that turns my phone into one of ben's fancy knifes? and also a breathalyzer application please. and why does maps sometimes locate with gps and other times do it the old way?
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