MySpace Adds Karaoke To Its Features

MySpace – never a website to shy away from trying new things – is launching a MySpace karaoke service. The new site, released on Tuesday and found at ksolo.myspace.com enables users to sing along to any of their favourite hits. This move comes in light of the recent purchase, by MySpace’s parent company News Corp of the karaoke website ksolo.com.

The unique blend of the karaoke feature and MySpace music uploading means that registered users will also have the chance, should they desire that chance, to upload their efforts to the MySpace site where it can be viewed and laughed at by the community members.

MySpace is one of the largest social networking or social media sites on the Internet. It is largely geared around a community that listens to, creates, and shares music. With many an unsigned band using MySpace to highlight their own flavour of tunes, the site isn’t a stranger to bad music.

You might be surprised to learn (at least I was) that kSolo is only one of a large number of karaoke sites on the Internet. Electronic Arts owns SingShot and Yahoo! Owns Bix. However, this amalgamation of kSolo and MySpace will be the first time that avid sing-alongers will be able to upload their efforts directly to the site.

Is it really something we should applaud them for?

Home Networking Using Phone, Aerial, And Electrical Wires

Home networks aren’t exactly renowned for being intuitive to set up. In fact success can come at the price of family relationship breakdowns and years of trauma counselling. No matter how plug and play a new bit of kit claims to be, this is rarely the case unless you have the exact computer running the precise software on the appropriate platform with the necessary hardware.

Then, of course, there’s the wireless or ethernet debate. The fact is that wireless networks are more convenient unless you have one of those peculiar homes that uses walls as a form of partition between rooms.

In all honesty, the ways of wireless home networks have improved markedly in recent years and they look set to improve a little bit more. Four major manufacturers (Panasonic, Intel, Texas Instruments, and Infineon to be exact) have waged war on the current wireless networking setup.

The aim is to create a simple and enjoyable experience for everybody that wishes to network their home appliances. They want to do this by introducing a standard that uses the existing wires already installed in your home. Your aerial coaxial cables, electric wiring, and phone wires could take the place of precariously balanced wireless routers that are positioned in the optimal position away from electrical items, bluetooth devices, and elevated at a suitable height.

The new super group predict that the first items using this standard will be available for purchase some time next year.

Speak2 Offers A Unique Way To Reduce Call Costs

Speak2 is an innovative telephone company that not only offers reduced rates against typical landline and cable calls, but also includes a system that determines the cheapest way to make a call. Users pay a one time installation fee (currently £59.95 or £99.95 depending on the package) and then enter details of their landline, sky, and mobile call packages. The software then selects the best available option whenever a call is made.

You only need leave your computer and broadband connection running and you can take advantage of this system wherever you are when you make a call. This greatly reduces mobile call costs and enables you to truly take advantage of your free calls without having to wait until 2 o’clock in the morning to get off-peak rates.

For heavy callers and for those that regularly use their mobile phones, it could save a fortune. A number of call packages can also be added, starting from £5 per month, as well as some useful add-ons.

While businesses have benefited from cheap call routers for some time now, Speak2 brings a similar system to home users – it will prove especially beneficial for those that make regular overseas calls too. Whether it will change the way we make calls remains to be seen but it could save you a few quid every month.

Apple Announces iMac Upgrades

Everything is looking pretty rosy for Apple at the moment. The iPod is probably still one of the biggest gadget crazes to have hit the world since the Sony Walkman was first introduced. The iPhone has been one of the most sought after mobile phones ever and the iMac is growing in popularity at an alarmingly impressive rate.

Clearly, Apple is not going to rest on its laurels either. The iPhone is rumoured to have an upgrade in the pipeline already, and today sees the release of details regarding the upgraded iMac. And, I have to say, it looks very nice indeed. Not only does it look impressive, but the spec is jaw droppingly good too.

20” and 24” monitors offer incredible resolution and crystal clear images, while Intel Core 2 Duo processors offer an excellent 3.06GHz with all the trimmings. ATI Radeon graphics are standard but consumers also have the option to upgrade to Nvidia Geforce 8800GS graphics with a whopping 512MB of video memory.

The upgrades don’t stop there, either, with more memory being included as standard. Standard memory will range from 1GB to 2GB with the option to double up and get twice as much storage for your money. All in all, it looks like this upgrade news will help Apple continue with their impressive rate of growth.

Microsoft Openness Argument Wages On

Microsoft and their policies on openness are always a hot topic. A recent announcement declared that the software behemoth would be releasing a web platform known as Live Mesh.

Live Mesh aims to connect a user’s online and offline activities enabling them to work on any project regardless of where they are or what PC they are at.

Live Mesh is a genuinely bold bid that not only aims to bring together all of our computing activities, but also integrate every web enabled device in the same manner. Currently, many consumers complain that buying and using a new web enabled device as part of their daily lives makes things more difficult, at least in the short term.

As is often the case with any new product announcement, many are questioning the openness of the new Mesh system. While Microsoft has stated that it will run on open standards, some remain skeptical – based on a lifetime of Microsoft attempting to tie users down to using Microsoft products for virtually everything they do.

One thing that the new release does show is that Microsoft is taking the Internet much more seriously and intends to develop more products for what they now see as being their most important avenue of development.

Mac Clones Gain Popularity And Fire

With Apple having switched to Intel processors, a new generation of affordable and easy to make Mac clones has been steadily gaining popularity. OSX86Project.org even has a running wiki of tested component parts that are compatible with various builds of Apple’s OS. The open-source community, never short of free time, has been working to efficiently run emulators and create low cost LeopardOS based computers.

But in recent weeks, a new company called Psystar began offering their “OpenMac,” which is a Leopard-compatible computer starting at $399. Here’s a brief of everything that has happened in the past couple weeks:

Legal disuptes began immediately. Tech bloggers blew up Psystar with publicity. Reports came around that the claimed CEO didn’t even exist, and that there was no Psystar (Woah, Neo). Everyone and their lawyers had a comment to make about the End User License Agreement of Apple’s Leopard and its use on third party systems. Then Miami nerds drove out to Psystar’s address and photographed the building while shouting, “IT EXISTS!” And after many people who spent money on a two-week old company started having doubts about its authenticity, Psystar today announced its first shipment pickup is this afternoon.

Of course, if you aren’t like me, you’ll probably be curious to see if these things actually get there. I’ll stick to my Pentium 4 and Windows XP.

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