Native Instruments’ Maschine hardware/software bundle has become a staple in the beat-production market since its debut two years ago. Now at version 1.7, its performative and production capacities have grown to the point where dance pioneers like Underworld rely on it as a standard instrument much the way an electric guitar might be used by a rock band. Maschine Mikro is the first major hardware shift for the production platform: the newly-downsized controller easily fits into a backpack and comes in at 0 less than its bigger brother. What compromises come with the smaller footprint, and what will the price tag mean for people just getting starting in the groove production game? Read on, Lil’ Dre, for our macro view of the Mikro.

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Maschine Mikro review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Have you been to Google’s home page recently? Do it, you’ve got less than 24 hours to check out its guitar-inspired doodle celebrating the birthday of Les Paul. The “Google” script is highly interactive thanks to a combination of JavaScript, HMTL5, CSS, and even Flash (providing the audio). Click the compose button at the base of the second “g” and begin recording your own 30 second tribute to one of music’s most innovative pioneers using your keyboard to play specific notes or mouse for virtual strumming. Impressive stuff from a typically impressive company.

Google doodle lets you play a recordable guitar ditty in honor of Les Paul originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Jun 2011 01:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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2010 was the year of Android when it comes to smartphones. That’s according to research firm Canalys which reports Google’s operating system eclipsed Symbian in the fourth quarter to become the top smartphone OS in the world by shipments. Android’s share of the smartphone market jumped from 8.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 to 32.9 percent in the fourth quarter last year, nudging past Symbian, which slipped from 44.4 percent to 30.6 percent over the same period.

The numbers confirm Android’s ascendency and are somewhat predictable considering the fast growth of Android, which we’ve followed since last year. But overall, the entire smartphone market grew by 89 percent year over year, with all the major players except Microsoft growing their shipment numbers. The explosion of smartphones — Canalys said just under 300 million units were shipped last year — means opportunities across the industry and potentially more shifts to come. Still, the latest Canalys numbers represent a major milestone for the Android platform, which only launched in October of 2008. Since that time, it has bested pioneers and stalwarts such as Symbian, BlackBerry OS, Windows Phone 7 and iOS.

This doesn’t mean the game is over. Apple is now ramping up production of CDMA iPhones, which should goose sales, especially in the U.S. with Verizon. Microsoft recently got underway with its mobile reinvention by launching Windows Phone 7, which should command more sales in the future. HP is poised to unleash a new slate of webOS phones and tablets and could become a player. RIM, meanwhile, has struggled but is migrating its platform to its QNX-based OS, which looked promising in our PlayBook hands-on video and could give the company new life. Nokia is also pinning its hopes on newer versions of Symbian along with MeeGo, both of which will be tied together through the cross-platform Qt framework. And with smartphones still less than half of all cell phone sales, it means there’s still time for jockeying and growth among the existing players.

But at this moment, Android’s trajectory seems the most promising. With so many form factors and so many carriers and manufacturers supporting it, the platform shows no sign of let up. Android was the top OS in the U.S. with 12.1 million units shipped. But its growth in Asia shows why Android has been such a fast riser. Android shipments in Japan topped 1.4 million over the past year while Android growth in China, particularly from handsets by Samsung and Huawei, has chipped away Nokia’s marketshare there from 76 percent down to 56 percent. With cheap Android phones expected to flood the market, it will only drive more units of Android phones. That may be why Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop is considering a new strategy that may mean using Android or possibly Windows Phone 7 on upcoming phones, something my colleague Kevin suggested back in July of last year.

All the focus on operating systems obscures the fact that Nokia still remains the largest manufacturer of smartphones. IDC also confirms that Nokia remains the largest cell phone manufacturer overall, with a 30.8 percent marketshare in the fourth quarter. But as smartphones account for a larger piece of the cell phone pie, manufacturers using Android appear to be benefiting. IDC said Samsung grew its shipments by 17.3 percent in the fourth quarter while low cost Chinese manufacturer ZTE, which sells cheap Android phones in its lineup, grew shipments by 76.8 percent. ZTE also jumped into the world’s top five manufacturers, dropping RIM out of the top five.

Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub. req’d):

• Why RIM’s Future (Unfortunately) Hinges on BlackBerry OS 6
• Why Google Launched App Inventor
• Is Amazon the New Self-Publish Kingpin?

GigaOMTech

You can’t imagine horror punk rock without the complete collection of Misfits albums. This particular genre may seem unusual to you and this may partly be because it isn’t a very widespread sub genre. The Misfits are regarded as the pioneers in it and hardly any other group excels in what they do.

The story of the band is rooted in the life and work of Glenn Danzig. It was Danzig who gave the original inspiration both for the band identity and its musical style. The first line up in 1977 consisted of Manny Martinez, Jimmy Battle and Diane DiPiazza. This initial roster didn’t even last a year as Battle and DiPiazza took off only after a month. Jerry Caiafa, now known as Jerry Only, was recruited to fill in. Together with Danzig, Only became the member that stayed the longest in the band. Others have been joining and leaving at such short notice that the band now has a list of 17 members to date.

After its formation, band members immediately started work on Static Age. This was supposed to have been their first album but no label wanted it. This prompted the group to settle for just releasing singles. It would be a good two decades more before Static Age could be released.

By 1978, the band began to move in a direction that would firmly establish their horror punk reputation. At first Danzig merely added the horror themes in songs. Eventually though, the appearance of band members transitioned to the horror genre as well. Danzig in particular took to wearing goth clothing with skeleton prints while Only was the first to adopt the devilock hairstyle. Other members soon began sporting it too. It was then that Misfits albums became strongly linked to horror.

For four years, the band saw more recording and performance action. But it was only really in 1982, five years after they started as a group, that Walk Among Us came out. This was to be their first real full album release since Static Age did not materialize yet at this time. A year after this development though, things
started to take an ugly turn. Danzig, who, up to this point was the prime mover, no longer wanted to continue. He went off tangent and founded Samhain. Band member Only eventually also founded his own group, Kryst the Conqueror.

Strangely, even the group’s breakup didn’t put the final nail on the coffin. After members pursued their own projects, word got out that listeners and other bands appreciated the group’s music more than the members realized. Only decided then that perhaps a reunion was in order. This fueled a legal battle pitting him against Danzig. An out of court settlement was signed, allowing Only and another member to carry the Misfits name and use its logo. All rights to Misfits merch however were to be shared with its founder, Danzig even if he no longer wished to perform with the group.

The band was officially reborn under the leadership of Only but it went through more line up issues. By 2001, Only was the only member left with no prospect for a new Misfit album. Presently however, the official line up listed for the band also includes Dez Cadena and Julio “Robo” Valencia. Their most recent work together is the single Land of the Dead released in 2009.

If you’re a collector of heavy metal music tracks, you should consider getting Machine Head albums. The band behind these is widely credited as the pioneers of new wave heavy metal that has swept the US by storm. Unlike other forms of heavy metal, this one espoused by the group seemingly carries extreme brutality. Surprisingly, it took some time for the group to become popular in America.

The group’s founder is Robb Flynn. The musician was first affiliated with the group Vio-lence but left after he was denied the opportunity to start his own projects. Flynn felt the need to move on because he was not fulfilled with his first band. Flynn touched base with Adam Duce who became another member. Tony Constanza and Logan Mader came in to complete the line up in 1992.

The group signed up under Roadrunner Records. Before they could finish work on their first release, Constanza quit and was replaced by Chris Kontos. The group released their first work, Burn My Eyes in 1994. This proved to be a bestseller for Roadrunner, selling hundreds of thousands of albums internationally. Strangely, it was well accepted in Europe but fewer Americans went crazy over it.

Following the commercial success of the first Machine Head album, they pushed out their second album, The More Things Change… in 1997. It was a little after this development and during the Ozzfest tour that line up problems started to come in anew. Mader quit while still touring and Ahrue Luster took over.

Taking a new member onboard coincided with a seeming direction change for the group. This became apparent in their third release, The Burning Red. The work featured elements of rap which came as a surprise to metal and goth clothing traditionalists. The change was not met positively mainly because critics thought the group was trying to improve their popularity by sounding more like other popular mainstream bands. The official word though is that the changes were more a result of a natural evolution that signified fewer style restrictions.

In 2001, Supercharged became the fourth release. It is the lowest selling of all the band’s albums. This may have been because of the continued use of rap. Others guess however that the terrorist actions of September 11 may also have been factors that affected sales. It was only a few weeks after the attack that the band released a video of their single Crashing Around You which was lifted from the album. It showed images of burning buildings. Understandably, this was an upsetting idea to present at this time. Luster left a few months after this and Phil Demmel was tapped to take his slot.

The bad video release timing is probably the worst that has happened to the group. Considering what has happened to other bands, this was not too devastating. The band was able to get back on its feet with the 2003 release of Through the Ashes of Empires and the 2007 release of The Blackening. This last one was so well received that it came in at the 53rd spot of the Billboard 200.

Undoubtedly, The Blackening proved to be a lucky charm of sorts. This Machine Head album finally earned for the band a Grammy nomination and more Machine Head merch sales.

Ever since the race car was invented, people have wanted to race each other. In almost all of the world it was on ash felt roads, but in places like Denmark it was on the pebbly paths which make up majority of their roads. The professional motorsport like rallying and F1 owe their origins to these pioneers of ash felt and gravel motor racing. In places like Canada and the Alpine districts of France the automobile racings were not possible because of the icy weather which covered any road in snow, so they begun racing on the icy lakes and rivers and the sport of ice racing was born. The reason why, in these districts of the world, why they did not start racing on the roads was because they were too dangerous, as racing on ice is tricky. When you get it wrong you are going to hit something and when that something is a immovable tree it’s going to hurt a lot. So by moving their racing onto icy lakes, where the wind tends to sweep the snow off the lake and pile it up round the sides, this means that when a mistake is made, the race cars tend to slide off and hit a pile of snow which is a lot softer than a tree.

Ice racing has mainly remained an novice motorsport, but there is a warm professional championship called the Andros Trophy in France. In this professional championship they use custom built ice racing vehicles, but in the world of novice racing this luxury can rarely be afforded. There are some rules of the motorsport to try and make sure everyone is competing on an level playing field. They are four classes of motors, and they are all limited to a maximum engine size of 3000cc. Class1 is for all rear wheel drive and short wheelbase motors, class2 is for front engine motors with front wheel drive and short wheelbase, class3 is for front engine motors with front wheel drive and a long wheelbase, and class4 is for four-wheel-drive motors. There are two types of races that these kinds of vehicles can run in. There are rubber to ice races and metal to ice races. Rubber to ice tyres are rubber road tyres with no stance, and metal to ice tyres are rubber tyres with tungsten steel studs in them that seriously increase grip on the ice.

Any type of vehicle from saloon to small 4×4′s are allowed to race in these ice races, they can have a manual or automatic gearboxes. They do need to be slightly adapted for safety reasons and for the rubber to ice races all that needs to be done is any plastic fittings around the outside of the vehicle need to be removed, and the bumpers converted so they will not hook together. Also, the back of the vehicle is painted with patches of high visibility paint, as visibility can be extremely low when ice racing. With the exception of a race helmet, these are the only modifications required to take part in rubber to ice races. To race in the metal to ice races your vehicle must be fitted with a roll cage and a 4 point harness, this is because the studded tyres produce a lot more grip and therefore speeds are much higher.

Although not a requirement, it is urged that you fit a good quality wiper blade. There are many types of replacement wiper blades on the market that would meet this requirement. The best replacement wiper blades to attach are flat wiper blades made from silicone, and this is because silicon wiper blades will work in temperatures as low as -60° C, whilst regular rubber wiper blades will not work at that temperature when ice racing takes place. The flat wiper blades are urgedbecause of their frameless design; this means that ice and snow cannot build up on the frame stopping it from following the contours of the windscreen.