HOW TO: Get Your Fans To Use Their Phone for Good During Concerts

Usually, the dude standing in the front row during a show, cellphone in hand, is considered a musician’s arch enemy. Even if he’s taking snaps, he’s not actively listening to the music, which is the whole point of attending a show. Not so with the fans of Chicago-based band Umphrey’s McGee, which will soon be holding its second, hyper-interactive UMBowl.

The first UMBowl was held last April, at Lincoln Hall in Chicago. The five-hour show comprised four quarters — like its namesake, the Super Bowl — all of which harnessed the power of tech to interact with the audience, letting it text to decide everything from the songs the band would play to how the songs were arranged.

The idea itself by was inspired by the band’s Stew Art (or S2) series, which launched in 2009. S2 is basically a series of 50-person shows during which fans can submit ideas for songs by texting words, phrases, etc. to a screen on stage, after which the band improvises a new jam.

“We wanted to take that concept and turn it into a full-fledged event where the entire night was based on music played by the band based on fan-driven choices,” says Kevin Browning, the band’s soundman.

Hence, UMBowl was born. Browning tells us that this first experiment (which sold out in a matter of minutes) was a huge success, with 98% of those surveyed following the show saying that they would attend again.

“Going into last year’s event, I was actually a little nervous about it because there was a lot of technology that was being used and we had to make sure that things would go well and work right,” says Joel Cummins, keyboardist for the band. “But as the event went along, and everyone was loving it, it dawned on me: ‘This should make sense, because we’re taking all the things they really want to hear and we’re playing them. They’re going to be excited because of that.’”

This year, the band and Browning took feedback from fans to create a new conglomeration of quarters. “Each theme is different enough that it’s a show in its own,” says Browning. “So there’s something for everyone.” The event takes place on April 2 at Chicago’s Park West.

The first quarter puts the fan in the role of the quarterback, allowing him or her to choose which song will open the show. The choices will appear on a series of screens throughout the venue, and fans can vote via text (using text platform Mozes). Votes will be tallied in real time. Fans can then decide from an array of songs to finish out the set.

The second quarter brings the band’s S2 series into the mix, allowing the fans to choose themes, ideas and more for the band to riff on. The third quarter brings a new element (lacking from last year’s show) into the mix, letting the audience decide what instrument each band member will play. Finally, the show concludes with the fourth quarter, during which attendees can request any song they want — from hits, to rare tracks, to new arrangements.

Currently, the event is sold out, but fans can catch a live stream from iClips (they can’t participate couch-side, however).

Umphrey’s McGee is just one of a growing group of musicians tapping into tech to make their live shows a more engaging experience. Last year, singer-songwriter Ben Folds busted out Chatroulette during a show and improvised songs dictated by the people he saw (after being compared to mysterious Chatroulette piano player,Merton). And then there was the Arcade Fire’s stunning “The Wilderness Downtown” video, which prompted viewers to write postcards to their younger selves, which were then integrated into the band’s live shows.

“The technology itself isn’t the game changer,” Cummins says. “If you’re a good band, you’re a good band. If you’re a lousy band, you’re a lousy band. The technology only allows you to communicate more efficiently about how good or how terrible you are. But it gives us a whole new set tools to interact and communicate and to play with the audience in a way we have never been able to before.”

Microsoft Shares WP7 Stats, Takes a Few Jabs at Other Platforms

One year after the initial launch of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft decided to share some stats about the platform on its Windows Phone Developer Blog.

Looking at the cold, hard numbers only, the stats look like this: 11,500 apps for the platform (7,500 are paid apps) and 36,000 developers (with 1,200 newly registered developers every week).

Windows Phone customers download an average of 12 apps each month. It takes 1.8 days, on average, for Microsoft to certify an app, and 62% of apps submitted are certified on their first attempt.

These figures sound solid but are still far behind Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS – for example, there are more than 300,000 apps for the iOS platform as of January 2011, and more than 100,000 apps on the Androidmarket as of October 2010.

Even if you count in the fact that the WP7 is younger than these two platforms, it’s still lagging behind. For example, iOS reached 100,000 apps in 15 months.

However, Microsoft’s Brandon Watson doesn’t really like the methodology used by some other platforms when counting apps.

“We recognize the importance of getting great apps on our platform and not artificially inflating the number of actual apps available to customer by listing “wallpapers” as a category, or perhaps allowing competitor’s apps to run on the platform to increase “tonnage.” We also don’t believe in the practice of counting “lite” apps as unique quality content. (…) Finally, we don’t double and triple count apps which are submitted in multiple languages.,” he explains.

Dell: iPad is Too Expensive, Will Fail in the Enterprise

A senior Dell executive says Apple’s iPad is not fit for enterprise customers because of its high price (when you account for peripherals), and will eventually be outpaced by Android tablets.

“Apple is great if you’ve got a lot of money and live on an island. It’s not so great if you have to exist in a diverse, open, connected enterprise; simple things become quite complex,” Andy Lark, Dell’s global head of marketing for large enterprises and public organisations, said to CIO Australia.

As a company that plans to build tablets based on Android and WP7, it’s understandable that Dell is bearish on Apple’s iPad. Unfortunately, Lark chooses to back his claims with an example that simply doesn’t add up.

“An iPad with a keyboard, a mouse and a case [means] you’ll be at $1,500 or $1,600; that’s double of what you’re paying. That’s not feasible,” says Lark.

The cheapest iPad 2 model costs $499. A dock is $29, and a wireless keyboard is $69. Case options abound and range from $20 to $100, with Apple’s Smart Cover starting at $39. The iPad doesn’t natively support a mouse (you can use a hack on a jailbroken iPad to use a Bluetooth mouse with a device, though), but even if it did, you can get a decent wireless mouse for $20.

Add all that up, and you’re nowhere near Lark’s figures, even if you go with the most expensive iPad model which costs $829. It’s fine to believe in the success of Android, but if you’re going to dismiss the iPad, using bogus numbers simply won’t convince anyone.

Popular Science Sells 10,000 iPad Subscriptions in First 5 Weeks

Popular Science magazine has garnered more than 10,000 subscriptions for its iPad app, Bonnier Technology Group publisher Gregg Hano confirmed to Mashable Wednesday.

That might be only a sliver of the 1.2 million print subscriptionsPopular Science has maintained to date, but it’s a promising start.

Since its launch in April 2010, the magazine has been selling an average of 10,000 to 12,000 single issues per month at $4.99 apiece, the same as its basic newsstand cover price. Although the app itself has received largely positive reviews from press and consumers, the latter were frustrated by the price.

“The problem was that readers could subscribe to the print version ofPopular Science and get a discount, but they couldn’t on tablets,” Hano explains. “When Apple decided to offer up a subscription model, we [finally] found a way to give consumers what they want,” he adds.

Popular Science began offering subscriptions on February 16, just one day after Apple enabled publishers to do so. Subscriptions are priced at $14.99 per year, $2.00 more than the price of an annual print subscription. (Not incidentally, the extra $2.00 covers about half of Apple’s standard 30% cut.) Single copy iPad sales have since declined to a steady 2,500 per month, a spokesperson says.

It’s not yet clear, however, if iPad subscriptions are cannibalizing print sales, or if most of the 10,000 iPad readers are first-time subscribers to the magazine. To the chagrin of many publishers, Apple does not share subscriber data. However, Popular Science does give iPad subscribers the opportunity to share their information if they so choose, and will begin collecting subscriber data when it starts selling bundled print and digital subscriptions on its site in the near future.

Hano suggests that the bundles could include not only subscriptions to both the magazine’s print and iPad versions, but also to archival and breaking news content.

Apple iPad craze might not last, say Microsoft and Dell

Dell backs Android for enterprise while Microsoft questions long-term future of tablet devices.

Apple’s iPad tablet computer, widely credited with sparking a global trend and creating a new category of device, has been criticised by senior figures at Dell and Microsoft.

Speaking to CIO Australia, Sydney, Dell’s global head of marketing for large enterprises and public organisations, Andy Lark, said that Google’s Android would beat the iPad in the lucrative business market.

“I couldn’t be happier that Apple has created a market and built up enthusiasm but longer term, open, capable and affordable will win, not closed, high price and proprietary,” Lark said. “[Apple has] done a really nice job, they’ve got a great product, but the challenge they’ve got is that already Android is outpacing them.

“Apple is great if you’ve got a lot of money and live on an island. It’s not so great if you have to exist in a diverse, open, connected enterprise; simple things become quite complex.”

Meanwhile, Microsoft's global chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie told a lunch held in Sydney by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA), that he did not know whether tablets such as the iPad would "remain with us or not"

Mundie said he believed the smartphone would become more crucial, and that computing would be more comprehensively integrated into the living environment.

Although Windows-based tablets have been released, the devices have not met with widespread success because the operating system is not designed to touchscreen interaction.

Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows 8 operating system, however, along with the company’s ‘Surface’ technology, indicates that they are looking to emulate the technologies popularised by Apple.

Robert Bunsen's birthday marked with Google Doodle

Robert Bunsen, the German scientist who developed the Bunsen burner, has been honoured on what would have been his 200th birthday with a Google Doodle.

The distinctive laboratory gas burner used by generations of schoolchildren in science lessons takes centre stage in an animated graphic on Google's home page.
It shows a flame changing colour from blue to purple as a multicoloured chemicals bubble in a series of pots and test tubes while steam flies out of a coffee pot.
Born in Gottingen, Germany, on March 31 1811, Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen was a prominent chemist in his day who discovered the elements caesium and rubidium and developed the Bunsen cell battery.
But he is best remembered for the distinctive gas burner he developed with his laboratory assistant Peter Desaga in 1854 and 1855 to study the colour spectrum of different heated elements.
It was during the construction of new lab facilities at Heidelberg University that he came up with the idea.
The city had just begun to install gas street lighting and has agreed for the new building to be connected directly to the supply for the first time.
Bunsen realised that the direct gas supply would allow him to fit his labs with better and simpler heating devices for experiments than in the past. He needed to get the highest possible temperature with the minium amount of light.
He listed the design principles for a new cylinder-shaped burner to Mr Desaga who soon came up with a prototype.
Their design has been in use in labs around the world for more than 150 years.
But he missed the chance to grow rich on the innovation, never seeking a patent on the invention.

Simple Trick to Lock Your Computer Using Mouse

 

lets see a simple trick on how to lock your PC using mouse click.We normally use Alt+Ctrl+Del or Windows+L to lock our PCs.Instead of trying those windows keyboard shortcut keys to lock Pc, lets now tryout something new  .Some might have already know this trick already…
1. Just Right click on the desktop, point to New and click Shortcut.
2. In the Create Shortcut dialog box, copy the following into the ‘Type the location’ of the item text box:
“rundll32 user32.dll,LockWorkStation” remove quotes while typing.
3. Click Next.
4. In “Type a name for this shortcut”, type LOCK MY PC and Click Finish
5. Now just double click on the icon, your desktop will be locked.
Though this is a age old trick.It makes some difference to newbies 

what is ping Function

Ping Function

In a previous tip, it was revealed how to continuously ping a host until stopped. Here are all of the ping options:

example .. In DOS .. c:>ping 192.168.0.1 -t

-t Ping the specifed host until interrupted

-a Resolve addresses to hostnames

-n count Number of echo requests to send

-l size Send buffer size

-f Set Don't Fragment flag in packet

-i TTL Time To Live

 -v TOS Type Of Service

-r count Record route for count hops

-s count Timestamp for count hops

-j host-list Loose source route along host-list

-k host-list Strict source route along host-list

-w timeout Timeout in milliseconds to wait for each reply

Experiment to see how helpful these can be!

Madurai – The Athens of the East!

Madurai – The Athens of the East!

Madurai is one of the important cities in South India. The seventh largest city in Tamil Nadu, it is situated in the banks of river Vaigai. Endowed with a rich cultural heritage and glorious tradition, Madurai is grouped among the antique cities of the India. The history of Madurai dates back to 6th century B.C. During that period, the city was the much-acclaimed capital of the Pandya kings. Then, it functioned as an important commercial center of South India. It held sway over many small towns in the South.

Temples, monuments and ancient cultural wonders abound in Madurai. It is even called ‘The Athens of the East’. Madurai’s Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple is one of the greatest architectural marvels of India. Built by Pandya King 'Kulasekara' and reconstructed later by Ruler Thirumalai Nayak, the temple has patronized literature, art, music and dance ever since its inception. The entire city is built around the Meenakshi Amman temple.  Madurai Meenakshi temple attracts six thousand visitors a day and gets an annual revenue of rupees sixty million. It attained 26th place in the list of top nominees for the new Seven Wonders of the World.

Madurai is firmly anchored in Tamil literature and tradition. It is home to many poets and artisans and houses an abundance of literary wealth of both classical and modern Tamil. It was the seat of the Tamil Academy in the past. The city has been a centre for learning and pilgrimage for centuries. The three Tamil Sangams evolved and flourished here. The city’s ancient Tamil kings were great warriors, poets and connoisseurs of art. Tamil literature flourished because of their generosity and literary fervor.