Crave

(Credit: Ghostly International)

Mood-based music playlists have been a holy grail for audio entrepreneurs since the dawn of the MP3. There's just something unshakable about the idea that your iPod might sense your mood and play music to fit your precoffee grogginess or sun-filled Saturday frolic. Unfortunately, everyone from MIT to Memorex has experienced mixed success trying to crack the music mood algorithm.

The problem with automatic playlists based on mood is that the scope of music can often be overwhelming (what's more energetic, Techno or Oompah Polka?) and the technology used to analyze and assign mood attributes to music files is imperfect.

But just when all hope seemed lost that a mood-based jukebox would ever see the light of day, independent music label Ghostly International ripped the curtain off an iPhone app that takes a new approach.

Ghostly Discovery is a free application for the iPhone and iPod Touch that allows you to stream music from Ghostly's eclectic catalog of electronic, pop, hip-hop, and ambient artists. The streaming audio app serves up recommended songs based on your mood input (based around a mood ring-style color gradient) and settings for music style (digital/organic) and tempo (faster/slower). Once a song is playing, you can play, pause, and skip songs, read artist information, or choose to purchase the song through iTunes.

Ghostly Discovery from Ghostly International on Vimeo.

The brilliant part of all this is that it solves three problems in one shot. First off, it cracks the long-standing mood jukebox problem by offering a selection of songs small enough for the developer to tag individually and accurately (like a label-specific Music Genome Project). Second, it gives fans of the Ghostly's tightly curated roster of artists a way to hear songs free of charge. And finally, the app boosts the profile of the label, maintaining its relevance as a taste-maker, promoting its artists, and giving fans a cool app to show off to friends.

Let's hope other labels follow suit. I'd love to see indie rock labels like Sub Pop try its hand at this, or maybe a jazz label like Vanguard with an intimidatingly large catalog. Thoughts?

(via ISO50)

So this flashback episode isn't necessarily a propos (of) nothing. Gifts are gifts, and these gifts might still be a good idea...?

Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 68

A phone strap that gives a charge

Desk that travels with you

Discovery alarm clock: Galileo would love this one

HP's A826 Home Photo Center Printer

Heated keyboard

Natural Wave requires radiator, hot beverage, various pastries

Make anything looked like brushed steel coated with Steel paint!

Personalized pop art

In what is perhaps Slacker's first step in offering its music service on third-party devices, the company has partnered with RIM to bring a mobile Slacker application to RIM's line of BlackBerry smartphones. The app, which will be available in October for free, will essentially turn the mobile device into a Slacker Portable Player--it works in largely the same way as the firmware on the player. More details after the jump.

(Credit: RIM/Slacker)

The first step is to log onto the Slacker Personal Radio Web site and create a list of favorite stations from more than 100 professionally programmed options, which range from dance and hip-hop to gospel and comedy. You can also save any of the more than 10,000 artist-based stations as well as create your own custom stations using a blend of artists. You can then select up to 40 of your saved stations for transferring to the BlackBerry (the number of stations/songs depends on the device's memory card). Then, you'll need to connect the device to sync your favorites over USB. However, that could be the only time you ever need a hardwire connection to Slacker, depending on how often you want to swap out the actual channels.

Once your stations are saved on the device, getting new music is a completely wireless process. If you get sick of any channel's rotation, a few easy clicks will allow you to refresh the station over Wi-Fi or your cellular network. The new songs are then cached in the BlackBerry's memory so you can listen to the new music without keeping an open connection--and without having to reconnect to your computer. There is also an option to stream stations that are not saved on the device; again, either Wi-Fi or the cell network will suffice for this feature, though Wi-Fi will likely offer a more hiccup-free streaming experience.

As with the Slacker Web service and device, the BlackBerry app will feature Heart and Ban buttons (in the form of onscreen soft keys). Users will have the option to pause playback and skip tracks, but will not be able to reverse through the playlist. Best of all, the service continues to be completely free--paid for by a reasonably limited smattering of audio and visual ads--unless you elect to pay $7.50 for the Premium service, which does away with the ads and skip limits, and adds the ability to save songs in your library. Hopefully, this announcement is just a glimpse of things to come from Slacker.

We swear, there's no reading required to expand your musical horizons these days. Well...aside from this article, at least.

(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET Networks)

When you're young, new music is everywhere: radio, Facebook profiles, borrowed iPods, or even burned CDs. It's not hard to find tunes you love. The music appetites of 13- to 21-year-olds are voracious and the consequences of being musically unhip can be punishing.

Then something happens: you get older; work a full-time job; get married; have a mortgage; have children; adopt a particularly demanding parrot; and so on. You wake up one day and realize your taste in music hasn't budged since your early '20s and the prospect of discovering good, new music now seems like an overwhelming chore, fraught with disappointment. I know, I'm living proof.

We're all familiar with the long, depressing list of activities that seemed easy in youth that now take effort. Fortunately, finding good music isn't as tough as working off that middle-age gut. Since its inception, the Internet has helped us--mostly illegally--discover new music. Finally, tools for legal and efficient online music discovery are hitting their stride.

To help you help yourself, we've collected our favorite techniques to help the lazy, hurried, or unhip (or, face it, aging) connect with good, new music.

For music lovers, the Pandora internet radio application for the iPhone and iPod Touch is a welcome addition.

(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET Networks)

Apple publicly unveiled the Pandora Internet radio iPhone and iPod Touch application during the unveiling of the iTunes App store on Thursday, July 10. Tim Westergren, CEO for Pandora, was kind enough to give me a personal tour of the new application. The following is a synopsis of just about every question I had for Tim. Editors' note: This is not an interview transcript, but a roundup of information on the Pandora iPhone application presented in a FAQ format.

An option key allows you to bookmark artsist or songs, or purchase the current song directly from iTunes.

(Credit: Pandora)

How much will iTunes charge for the Pandora application?

It's free.

Will the iPhone version of the Pandora application stream music over the new 3G cellular connection?

Yes. New iPhones can use the Pandora app to stream music over 3G or Wi-Fi. Updated first-gen iPhones can stream over Wi-Fi or Edge, and the iPod Touch will obviously only stream over its Wi-Fi connection

What's the audio quality like?

Pandora's serves its iPod Touch and iPhone audio streams as 64Kbps stereo MP3 files; however, the quality and file format may be retooled once Pandora's tech team has some time to work with the new iPhone's hardware.

How will Pandora make money off a free application?

Pandora may eventually consider placing short audio advertisements in its streams, but, Pandora's first priority is to grow its user base.

Will Pandora stations I've already created using the Web service be available on the iPhone application?

Yes. Any stations, artist bookmarks, and song like/dislike preferences will be identical between the Pandora Web service and the Pandora application.

You can create and save custom stations directly from the Pandora app.

(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET Networks)

What can I do with the Pandora application for the iPhone and iPod Touch?

Most of the features of Pandora's Internet radio Web service will be available on its iPhone application as well. People can create radio stations based around artists or songs, bookmark favorite artists or songs, pause and skip tracks, vote on songs, and view descriptions of why a currently playing song was included in your stream. You also have the option to purchase the currently playing song directly over the iTunes Wi-Fi store.

Pandora's intelligent recommendation engine explains song choices.

(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET Networks)

Can I stream Pandora wirelessly from my iPhone over Bluetooth?

The iPhone does not currently support streaming stereo audio over its built-in Bluetooth; however, third-party Bluetooth audio adapters are available that fit any minijack audio output.

If I can connect my iPhone to my car stereo and stream Pandora over 3G, why would I listen to music on commercial or satellite radio?

Keep in mind that Pandora is a music-only service, so you'll need to get your talk radio, sports, and traffic reports elsewhere. That said, so long as you have decent 3G reception in your area, streaming Pandora internet radio to your car stereo via your iPhone should work fine.

Pandora's song voting system has made it to its iPhone app as well. Voting on songs helps fine-tune Pandora's personalized song recommendations. People can also pause and skip tracks.

(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET Networks)

Can I wake up to Pandora radio if I dock my iPhone or iPod Touch into an iPod alarm clock?

Not likely, since most alarm clock docks trigger song playback from your music library. Some iPod alarm clock docks include an auxiliary input, however, so if you kept music streaming from Pandora all night (and somehow managed not to run down your battery), then it's possible. Seems like a pain though.

Will Pandora music streams display album art?

Yes, although some music in Pandora's catalog is still without cover art.

The Pandora playback screen looks much like the standard iPod playback screen, complete with cover art.

(Credit: Pandora)

Does the Pandora iPhone/iPod Touch application have the same limitations on track skipping as the Web version of the Internet radio station?

Yes. Because of legal restrictions, users cannot skip tracks on Pandora more than six times per hour. Fortunately, Pandora's Music Genome Project is pretty good at coming up with song selections.

Will using the Pandora iPhone application run down my battery quickly?

Yes. Reports so far suggest that the new iPhone's battery performance is at its worst when using its 3G connection. Streaming Pandora content over the iPhone's Wi-Fi connection should produce better battery performance than using 3G.

NASA and Disney are teaming up to put a figurine of 'Toy Story' space ranger Buzz Lightyear on the Space Shuttle Discovery when it launches on Saturday. The toy will be taken to the International Space Station, the destination for the shuttle.

(Credit: Disney)

Talk about cross-promotion.

One of the closest things to Disney World's Orlando, Fla., home, is NASA's Kennedy Space Center. This is relevant because on Friday, it was announced that among the objects expected to be blasted into the sky with the planned Saturday launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery is a figurine of Toy Story space ranger Buzz Lightyear.

Disney World, of course, is where the new Toy Story Mania ride has just opened.

The idea behind putting Buzz Lightyear aboard the Space Shuttle has to do with the "Toys in Space" initiative NASA and Disney are starting. This is an educational program designed to inspire children's interest in space and celestial discovery.

This is all also relevant to me because on June 10, I'll be hitting the highways for Road Trip 2008. I'll start in Orlando, and before I visit many of the South's most interesting destinations, I'll be stopping by both Disney World and the Kennedy Space Center.

At the theme park, I expect to visit and do a story on the Toy Story ride, and at the NASA facility I hope to be able to see the Space Shuttle land.

If the latter happens, however, I won't be seeing Buzz Lightyear, as the toy will have stayed behind on the space station.

Stay tuned to the Road Trip, and be sure to keep up, both now and during the trip, with what I'm doing on Twitter.

(Credit: Discovery)

NEW YORK--On Tuesday night, the Discovery Channel hosted a few hundred guests at the American Museum of Natural History's Hayden Planetarium for a preview of When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions, filling the audience up with cocktails called "The Liftoff" (a tequila sunrise in a rocket-like champagne glass) and then packing us all into the planetarium's theater to watch some cool retro space visuals.

The miniseries got its start when Discovery embarked upon a project to archive old NASA footage in a high-definition format as a commemoration of the agency's 50th anniversary. It evolved, following in the footsteps of last year's successful Planet Earth, into an ambitious, high-profile HD miniseries. When We Left Earth is very watchable, especially for space junkies who will dig the never-before-seen clips of astronauts. But it's less visually impressive than its terrestrial predecessor. The problem with turning grainy 1960s-era footage into high-definition is that it's still grainy 1960s-era footage.

That said, in an age when space travel only seems to make headlines when Sir Richard Branson is talking about his lofty plans to jet millionaires around among the satellites, it was pretty cool to peek into an era when NASA wasn't always brought up in the same sentence as "budget cuts." The national enthusiasm over the quest to put humans on the moon is something that we could all learn from when it comes to current scientific challenges--alternative energy, I'm looking at you.

When We Left Earth is a six-part series; Tuesday night's screening featured episode two, about the Gemini missions of the mid-1960s. It was an apt pick for the big screen, because Project Gemini was the first U.S. spaceflight initiative to feature space walks, which are always good eye candy. It was also an upbeat chapter to screen, considering Project Gemini went relatively smoothly and disaster-free, minus a (SPOILER ALERT!) moderate nail-biter when Gemini VI initially failed to launch.

It'll premiere on the evening of June 8. "Liftoff" cocktails aren't included, but you can easily make your own with some orange juice, grenadine, and Cuervo.

Plantronics Discovery 925

(Credit: Plantronics)

Even though Plantronics unveiled the Discovery 925 in New York Fashion Week a month ago, it wasn't really officially announced until today. Thanks to its unique diamond hair-clip shape, the Plantronics Discovery 925 is touted as Plantronics's first foray into the luxury headset market, targeting it especially for the fashion-forward. The company says it's like a piece of jewelry, and its leather carrying case certainly adds to the luxury factor. We had the opportunity to test it out for the past couple of weeks, and we have to say, we really do like its fit and audio quality. That said, it does look a little odd, and it's a bit on the pricey side at $149.95. Check out our review for the full details. The Plantronics Discovery 925 is available now in black, gold, and cerise (magenta).

Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage, stars of 'MythBusters,' discuss experiments they're working on in front of a lathe in their workshop's machine room in San Francisco.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)

This is a fish story--complete with attacking sharks, high-velocity steak, and ninjas with poison darts, no less.

This is the story of my Wednesday spent hanging out with the MythBusters-- Jamie Hyneman, Adam Savage, Kari Byron, Grant Imahara, and Tory Belleci--at their workshops in San Francisco.

MythBusters, for those who aren't aware, is a hit Discovery Channel show in which the five stars tackle famous myths--such as that frozen chickens pose a greater danger to airplanes than thawed poultry, or that a single postage stamp on a helicopter's rotors can cause it to crash and burn--and attempt to prove or disprove them. Often, these experiments mean explosions, broken glass, odd chemical reactions, and much more--just so long as it's interesting to the MythBusters crew and looks good on TV.

Immediately upon arriving, I was sucked straight into the strange, frenetic, hilarious world of the MythBusters. After a quick tour of a big warehouse space at the bottom of Potrero Hill known as M5 and a short autobiography by Hyneman, I was told I had the run of the place and that everyone was going back to work.

This, of course, is a reporter's dream--and a scary proposition. If you can do anything and talk to anybody, it's hard to know how to focus.

But focusing turned out to be easy. Before long, Hyneman sat down and explained to me one of the shark-related experiments he and Savage are working on for a Shark Week episode to be aired in July. They are trying to determine whether magnets are really shark-repellent--that is, to discover whether it is possible to control a shark's directional movement with electromagnets placed on its nose.

Luckily, Hyneman had to make a drawing of his planned project for the Bahamian marine biologist who would be overseeing the experiment, and he let me watch as he drew. Minutes later, he'd produced a pretty simple schematic that even I could understand. Essentially, he explained, he planned to attach two electromagnets to a shark's nose and then connect them to a controller he'd have up above the surface. If he triggered the magnet on the shark's left nose, it should turn right and vice versa, he explained--if the myth is true, that is.

One thing that is true, and which the MythBusters stars are very proud of, is that while they have a small crew of assistants, they do most of their own building, cutting, and fabricating themselves. These are not just smooth Hollywood types who get in front of the camera after everyone else has done all the real work.

And I can attest to that because during the course of the day, I saw Hyneman and Savage both make very quick work of building conundrums requiring all manner of tools and machines--things no fake builders could do themselves.

"There's a lot of shows where you can see that the hosts show up, and it's all been set up for them," said Hyneman. "What you see here, we do it ourselves."

Indeed. It turns out, as the show itself makes a point of explaining, that Savage and Hyneman have 30 years of special-effects work experience between them. Hyneman alone has owned a couple of effects companies and worked on several feature films and endless numbers of commercials. Artifacts from those projects are everywhere around M5.

Downstairs, in one workroom that is adjacent to the large warehouse space so familiar to fans of the show, I smelled the distinct aroma of steak. And the reason, it turned out, is that the MythBusters crew had spent the previous day--and were planning to spend more time on Wednesday--is diving into the world of extreme meat tenderizing.

On Tuesday, I was told, they'd tried to tenderize steak with dynamite and by shooting the meat out of an air cannon at 400 miles an hour. They'd also put some beef under heavy pressure, essentially giving it the bends.

This project was testament to their playful sides.

"These are the kinds of thing that have nothing to do with a myth," Hyneman told me. "But these are the fun things for us. We're just having a blast. We're very curious about everything. For us, this kind of experimentation is just play."

After putting the meat through its paces, they'd then used a narrow piece of metal tubing to take core samples from the meat to measure--using scientific instruments that I admit I didn't understand--exactly how tender the steak was.

Savage is an extreme multi-tasker. Even as some meat was sizzling away on a grill, he and Hyneman were hard at work on their main project of the day: designing and building what they call the "fish flapper."

This is a contraption built to examine the myth that sharks are attracted to movement and therefore are more likely to attack a fish that's flopping around than one that is dead in the water.

And on the very same table where Savage was building his fish flapper, he was also cooking his steaks.

"So many of our builds end up looking like this," Savage said. "There's a lot more complicated ways to do things, but I really like it like this."

Over the course of the day, the fish flapper proved to be a perfect example of how the MythBusters team works.

That's because their concept for the project--two dead fish hanging into the water, one from a specially built contraption that could automatically flap it around--would change several times throughout the day. But it dominated their day, with both of them spending a significant amount of time thinking about the right way to attack the problem.

After Hyneman drilled through one of the fish he and Savage were using to experiment with as part of their fish flapper project, the drill bit Hyneman used is filled with fish bits.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

In addition, they seemed to decide to abandon the mechanical side of the project in favor of someone--probably Hyneman--dangling the fish or fish-like object himself because it would be a better way of achieving the motion they wanted.

Finally, toward the end of the day, it seemed they'd settled on a system in which they would dangle two lines about 20 feet below the surface into cones surrounded by some dark material, and would string rubber fish-shape objects on those lines. By flapping one a lot, they would be able to determine, they believed, if simple movement in the water and the disturbance to the flow of the water, could attract sharks.

Working underwater--as they will likely do in at least some of their shark myths--around such dangerous marine animals is not something for the faint of heart.

But after completing more than 120 episodes--including specials and working on more than 500 myths that have demanded more than 2,000 explosions--Hyneman seems to suggest that not much frightens him.

Still, he is aware of the boundaries he and Savage have pushed over the years the show has been on.

"Both Adam and I feel that our number is up," Hyneman said, "because of the stuff we're playing with."

I asked him if that made him feel he should walk away, and he shook his head.

"No, it means we should be more careful," Hyneman said. "I don't think we've ever asked ourselves that question."

One thing both men do agree on is that they enjoy the building process and the way they almost unconsciously work together to simplify things as they go.

"We start out with some complex pile of details," Hyneman said, "and the longer we work, the more of those details we eliminate."

Another playground is M7, the satellite MythBusters workshop a few blocks away where I go for a little while in the middle of the afternoon. There, the younger three MythBusters members--Byron, Imahara, and Belleci--are working on a myth for another episode of the show.

This one deals with ninjas.

The idea is to look into whether it's realistic that a ninja really could sit underwater, breathing through a bamboo reed, lying in wait for hours for a target, and then shoot a poison dart through the reed at the target.

Grant Imahara blows a dart through his bamboo reed dart shooter. He, Kari Byron, and Tory Belleci are working on an experiment to see how long a ninja could stay underwater, breathing through one of the reeds, lying in wait to attack an enemy with a poison dart.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

When I arrive, the three are hard at work cutting a series of reeds into various length tubes, making custom darts, and then shooting them at various targets around their warehouse.

Each has chosen different width and length tubes, and the three are having variable results. Byron seems to be getting the most accuracy with her shots, while Belleci seems to be getting the most distance. And Imahara is having problems just getting his dart to even shoot.

But all three appear to be having a blast. And while they most likely won't be hitting anyone anytime soon with poison darts, soon they will most likely know more about what it would take to do so than almost anyone else still living.

Back at M5 a little later, I'm struck again by how much fun the MythBusters stars are having with their work and that, while they take what they're doing very seriously, they're also some of the luckiest people on Earth, given that they're getting paid to blow things up, to go to the Bahamas to play with sharks, and to cook and eat a lot of extreme-tenderized steak in the name of science.

"We've always said that MythBusters is a little bit of Mr. Wizard meets Jackass," said Savage. "It's not, 'Why you shouldn't jump in an elevator.' It's, 'Here's what would happen if you did.'"