ocarina

Ocarina by Smule was first introduced very early to the App Store. It was a shining example of what apps could do and why the App Store, itself, was so exciting. Fast forward nearly five years and it is still one of the more innovative apps available and a heck of a lot of fun to play with, whether you're 8-years-old or 80.

The basic concept of Ocarina is very simple. Onscreen there are four glowing purple dots. Place your fingers over these dots and you simulate the holes on an Ocarina. Blow into the microphone at the bottom … Read more

Emulating a wind instrument on your smartphone can be loads of fun. Emulating a wind instrument that was used in the popular video game Zelda is even better. With Ocarina you're able to convincingly and beautifully play many different songs on your device. In addition to being fun, this app is very addictive, too.

Ocarina installs quickly and is ready to use with no additional setup. The main screen is in a brilliant blue color, and there are five keys displayed. When pressed, these five keys emit different sounds and in conjunction with one another the key changes. It … Read more

Ge Wang is sitting in his Stanford University office, a couple of small speakers strapped to his hands, performing "Music of the Night," from "Phantom of the Opera."

He's not playing a flute or a violin: He's blowing gently into his iPhone, playing with a pre-release version of Ocarina 2, the new version of one of the most successful iPhone (and Android) apps of all time.

Wang is the co-founder and chief creative officer of Smule, Ocarina's developer, and also an assistant professor at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. … Read more

At the company's E3 2011 press conference, Nintendo was overjoyed in celebrating 25 years of Zelda. About half that time ago along came a game called The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which is now widely regarded as the best game in the Zelda franchise.

Though the 3DS is still a relatively new platform, a 3D version of the classic title has been developed for redistribution, enabling a whole new generation of gamers to experience the legendary title.

We've been playing Ocarina of Time 3D for well over a week now and here are our final thoughts.

Jeff: The 3D remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is a somewhat bittersweet example of Nintendo's almost stubborn attitude toward the development of new titles. Yes, Ocarina of Time is arguably the best Zelda game ever, but we really wish Nintendo could give the 3DS the brand-new 3D Zelda adventure it deserves. Sure, Ocarina of Time is almost 13 years old and we'd imagine a healthy chunk of 3DS owners did not get to experience the game when it was first released on the Nintendo 64.

I experienced something totally unique when jumping back into Ocarina of Time 13 years since playing the N64 version. It's been so long that I'd forgotten some of the reasons why I fell in love with the original. For one, the gameplay and controls are ultraprecise and the sense of accomplishment in defeating bosses, solving puzzles, and understanding what to do next is as satisfying as ever.… Read more

Last year, Dell went on a storage buying spree. Dell took in Exanet for clustered, multiplatform NAS, Ocarina Networks for extensible, cross platform data compression and deduplication, capped-off with an announced agreement to acquire Compellent's virtualized storage arrays and Fluid Data technology, which closed last month. All tallied, I estimate Dell spent nearly $1 billion last year to flesh-out its storage portfolio, which also includes its EqualLogic virtualized storage arrays and PowerVault systems.

Dell storage executives now believe they have the goods to compete head-on with the major storage players (including EMC) in the following market segments:

Virtualized disk … Read more

Dell is acquiring Ocarina Networks, a storage optimization technology company, as part of its greater competitive push into the data management game.

Terms of the deal, announced Monday, were not released. Dell, which has already beefed up its storage offerings with EqualLogic, is entering a business that is similar to that of long-time partner EMC. EMC last year beat out NetApp to acquire data dedupe company Data Domain.

Particularly, Dell highlighted its interest in Ocarina's deduplication capability to complement the EqualLogic offering. Using tools like compression and deduplication, the company help customers reduce their storage needs by shrinking the … Read more

If you've ever petitioned Facebook to add a "Dislike" button to the site, you might get a kick out of a new antisocial networking site that lets your friends anonymously rag on you from the privacy of their homes. Failin.gs is currently in beta, but soon you'll be able to hit your friends up for anonymous comments about your mundane status updates. No, it doesn't integrate with Facebook itself (thankfully), but hopefully it'll force you to think twice about telling everyone what you had for dinner last night.

After 30 years of the same boring design, Heinz finally wised up and redesigned its ketchup packets. Fans of fast food will be treated to a new packet that opens up on BOTH ends: the top features the same tear-off perforation, but the new bottom opens to reveal a section for dunking your fries, which happens to be one of the most popular applications for the condiment! Check out this video on CBSNews.com for more details and look for the new packets coming to fast food joints near you!

Last week's viral "Post your doppelganger to Facebook" meme might violate Facebook's terms of service, but we're featuring our own celebrity photos on today's episode anyway...with a twist. Check out our cartoon doppelgangers above and let us know what you think: does Wilson really look like the Asian kid from "Up?" Does Jeff turn into a green-faced ogre at night? And should I seriously consider growing a goatee? Sound off by leaving us a voice mail at 1-866-404-CNET or send an e-mail to the404(at)cnet{dot}com.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

With the release of "2012," the iPhone app tied to the forthcoming Sony Pictures film of the same name, a group of developers may have kicked off the future of games on the hit smartphone.

While the game itself is fairly simple and lasts just minutes, it incorporates features that may never have been tried before, and as such, could be among the small number of titles that are showcasing what will soon be considered par for the course.

In the minds of many industry observers, thanks to its integration of a functional operating system, an accelerometer, GPS … Read more

If you've ever been driving down the highway and looked at the Google Maps application on an iPhone to see what traffic is like ahead, you may have wondered where the data behind the green, yellow, and red lines indicating real-time vehicle flow come from.

In fact, the data are coming from people just like you: users of smartphones with GPS who, by the very act of driving down the highway, are feeding back information about how fast they're going to Google, which in turn is sending it back to users of its mobile map apps.

Which means, … Read more