Music

Recycled Orchestra turns garbage into beautiful music

Cateura, in the Santa Ana neighborhood of Paraguay's capital Asuncion, is a slum. The residents live on a massive landfill, picking through the refuse for items to recycle and sell. A place where a violin would be worth more than a house, is, perhaps, the last place you'd expect to find an orchestra.

But that changed the day that garbage collector (now luthier) Nicolas "Cola" Gomez picked up the shell of what looked to him like a violin.

He took it to Favio Chavez, who was working on a recycling program and had opened up a music school for local kids, and together, they started creating musical instruments: violins and cellos from oil drums, flutes from water pipes and spoons, guitars from packing crates. … Read more

Spotify set to expand in Asia, Latin America

Spotify's quest for world domination is continuing.

The top on-demand, streaming-music service is set to launch in eight new markets, including Mexico, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, the Baltics, and Iceland, according to a person familiar with the situation. The rollouts could come as soon as tomorrow.

Adding territories has been a top priority for Spotify, which is racing to boost its user base. Spotify, which launched in the U.S. just over a year and a half ago, now has 24 million active users, 6 million of whom are paying subscribers. It's become the fastest-growing digital music company ever, … Read more

'The Matrix' is back (in your hospital)

So you're in the hospital. You want a reassuring environment. You want everything to go well.

But who's that man in the dark suit? The one with the shades. The one with the very suspicious face and accent.

Why, it's Agent Smith. The very same Agent Smith who contributed to making "The Matrix" something of a cult classic.

The very same Agent Smith who can occupy your body, or a version of it. How might this affect your surgery?

Please try not to worry. For the moment, this is just an ad for GE software. … Read more

Psy's 'Gangnam Style' sequel, 'Gentleman M/V,' hits YouTube

Psy's follow-up vid to the hyper-uber-gigantic "Gangnam Style" landed on YouTube today, and as of this writing it's garnered only a paltry 7 million viewings or so, with about 350,000 thumbs up and 38,000 thumbs down.

It's tough being an international sensation.

Of course, it's impossible to know if "Gentleman M/V" will top its predecessor's more than 1.5 billion views -- the most ever on YouTube -- but something tells us the preadolescent crowd will find one or two things to love here (things we're too … Read more

T-Mobile's iPhone 5 ad is a low-budget revolution

It takes a revolution to effect a revolution.

This is the modest hope of T-Mobile, as it attempts to wean the American public off two-year plans.

In order to introduce the iPhone 5 to its mold-breaking community, the company has decided to keep it fairly simple.

Yes, it's co-opting the revolution for its own purposes.… Read more

Things to think about when buying speakers

The No. 1 question I get from readers is something along the lines of "What's the best speaker?" Some readers include a price range, which is a huge help, but there are a lot of factors that should be considered when selecting a speaker. Or to be more precise, a speaker system.

Speakers "play" the room, so room size and acoustics should be taken into consideration when buying speakers. The pair of 8-inch tall speakers that might sound great in a 10-by-12-foot bedroom probably won't cut it in a 25-by-40-foot living room, where you … Read more

Is HTC One launch ad funny or mortifying?

Finding true love is as difficult as finding an original needle in a sewing establishment.

No art form has ever made that more poignant than "The Bachelor" and its sister show "The Bachelorette."

For weeks and weeks, potential partners are examined, touched, whispered to, held and discarded, until, somehow, a lasting happiness emerges. Oddly, so many of these couples break up around four minutes after the show is over.

Still, the wise people behind the apparently rather fine HTC One thought it would be a good idea to compare choosing a phone to choosing one's … Read more

Twitter's music site goes live, kinda

Twitter's new music site went live this morning.

Well, almost. Users can currently log in with their usual Twitter credentials, but there are no features as of yet.

According to AllThingsD, only a select few will get access to the service over the coming days, with Twitter planning a more extensive rollout after that.

Reports that the service was set to go live began circulating last night, and were fueled earlier in the week by celebrity Ryan Seacrest, who bragged about having access to it in a series of tweets.

Twitter yesterday confirmed that it had purchased music discovery … Read more

Amazon's Bezos defends heavy investments in Prime, Kindle

Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos today defended the company's stance on heavy investments in certain areas, saying it's focused on its customers, not its rivals, and that it believes its strategy is the best for the long term.

For years, Bezos has demonstrated a preference for plowing resources into initiatives to build market share but take years to generate profits. That seeming indifference to near-term profits worries Wall Street, with many expressing reservations over the years about the impact on margins. Amazon is believed to make little, if any, money on its gadgets, instead relying on customers to … Read more