music

Japan's Tomy is making little plastic replicas of American birds that, in an interesting cultural twist, will sing with an American accent. Northern Cardinal, American Goldfinch, you name it. Tokyomango says they're "touch sensory," meaning that the song begins as soon as the bird is handled. (I still like Tomy for the corny basketball-suspended-in-water games it made eons ago.)

Before you invest in one of these plastic twerps, you'll want to select the proper birdsong to match your mood or decor. Check out real calls at Whatbird.com or the best American bird sound library … Read more

In the past, Sonos has offered two configurations of its multiple-room Digital Music System--the original ZonePlayer 100 Bundle, and the more recent ZonePlayer 80 Bundle. The built-in amplifier on the ZP100 meant that you needed only to add speakers, while the ampless ZP80 was designed to plug into a nearby stereo system, AV receiver, or boom box. As of today, the company is splitting the difference. The new BU130 bundle includes one ZP100, one ZP80, and--the key ingredient--the company's unique CR100 wireless remote, which offers complete control of the two-room system with its iPod-like scroll wheel and color LCD … Read more

Bugatti is a name that would never be associated with "ordinary," so it makes perfect sense that the music system for its "Veyron" uber-car would be something special. And they certainly didn't disappoint anyone with the German-made Burmester system that was created specifically to meet the unique needs and design of the Veyron, one of the world's fastest street-legal cars.

Here's why an off-the-shelf stereo from Best Buy wouldn't have done the trick: The Burmeister CD player alone is constructed to operate without a single skip at 250 miles per hour. Sybarites … Read more

Critics of digital rights management have long insisted that record labels could boost sagging sales by offering music unencumbered by copy-protection schemes.

Apple's iTunes and e-tailer Amazon.com are in position to test this hypothesis in the coming months. On Wednesday, Amazon announced that it plans to sell DRM-free digital songs from the record label EMI Group. Amazon's unprotected music, which will be sold from the retailer's upcoming download store, can be played on a wide variety of portable music players, including Apple's iPod and Microsoft's Zune. Amazon's news follows a similar announcement last … Read more

Some rockin' San Francisco geeks have taken Guitar Hero, and heroically programmed the system to produce live, concert-ready music. With due humility the quartet calls themselves "The Guitar Zeros." Take a listen, we think they're at least a seven on a scale of one to ten.

As programmers, these guys are definitely a ten.

An eon ago, when Sony was at the top of the world, it attempted a strategy to lock up entertainment by owning the source--Hollywood studios, for example--and making all the products that played their movies and records. We all know what happened to that brilliant plan, but Sony's failed history apparently hasn't deterred another company from trying its own version of that studio-to-store strategy: 154-year-old Steinway & Sons.

In this case, the origin isn't the content itself but the instrument that's used to produce it, the legendary Steinway piano. On the other end of the chain … Read more

Amazon.com plans to launch a digital music store later this year, featuring music downloads without copyright restrictions.

The e-commerce giant announced Wednesday that it would offer songs from more than 12,000 record labels in the MP3 format, without the controversial digital rights management (DRM) software. Record labels are beginning to warming up to the concept of offering music downloads without DRM, after waging war with peer-to-peer companies over distributing their copyrighted music and over piracy issues.

"Our MP3-only strategy means all the music that customers buy on Amazon is always … Read more

Last week, I had an opportunity to sit down with the developers of MXPlay, beta jukebox software that lets you mash up your music with streaming movies, letting you create your own virtual music videos.

More interesting than the mashup features, however, is MXPlay's unique playback interface. A graphical interface lets you control the location of the listening audience and the position and direction of your speakers. Letting you tweak your own "room" does create better-sounding tunes. The MXPlay folks were very happy to compare its playback sound to that of iTunes, and I must admit I … Read more

Countless apparel items on the market claim to play music, or at least play wearable iPods and such. But this dress tops them all.

The "Yuga," a conceptual frock from designer Teresa Almeida, has a speaker apparently woven right into what's called a detachable "belt," though it looks more like a saddlebag to us. But fear not, fashion mavens: Balance is everything, and this accessory can be offset nicely by a matching handbag for full stereo output. (Remember to carry it on the opposite side for proper acoustics.)

Perhaps a pair of speaker shoes will … Read more