Songs and Photos from South by Southwest (SXSW)

Every year music artists, filmmakers and techies descend on Austin, Texas for the massive showcase event: South by Southwest (SXSW). This year is no different with over 700 participating musicians. If you’re a music buff, it’s a rare opportunity to see all these great bands in one place, but it’s impossible to personally catch them all. You’re likely to miss what could be your next favorite band, while listening to something you’ll probably never like. Luckily in this new age of Internet file sharing, a Bit Torrent file has been posted that features a song from each of the 764 bands at SXSW. This must be illegal, right? No worries. All of these tracks are digital rights management (DRM) free, so they’re just a click away. Once you find a couple of songs you like, you can make your own ringtone for free from any of these tracks.

If you found yourself wishing that you were in Austin, but couldn’t quite justify the time or cost, then check out the SXSW stream of candid shots on, a new mobile photo sharing community. Some people at SXSW are snapping photos using their mobile phones and immediately posting them, so it’ll give you a flavor of what’s happening in real-time. Check out SnapMyLife from time to time to see what you can look forward to next year when you actually get there yourself.

The Grammy Winners Are In!

This year’s Grammy Awards offered some big surprises and a huge night for Amy Winehouse. Get ringtones from the night’s big winners:

Amy Winehouse: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best New Artist
Alicia Keys: Best R&B Song
Rihanna: Rap/Sung Collaboration
Kanye West: Best Rap Album
Foo Fighters: Best Rock Album
Herbie Hancock: Album of the Year
Justin Timberlake: Best Male Pop Vocal Performance
Carrie Underwood: Best Country Song

 

The Year of the Rat

For those of you looking to celebrate a different kind of new year, today’s your day. It’s Chinese New Year, and February 7 marks the start of the Year of the Rat.

The animal signs in Chinese culture are similar to the monthly horoscopes the West has developed for the different moon signs. The Rat is associated with aggression, wealth, charm, and order, yet also associated with death, war, the occult, pestilence, and atrocities.

For fun, take a look at the Chinese Zodiac chart to see the 2008 Year of the Rat horoscope, baby gender predictions, or advice on partner compatibility. If you are a believer (or at all curious), check out Handango’s Chinese Zodiac application on our site, or add some entertainment to your day by checking out plenty of other horoscope text services/applications.

New Cell Phone On Your Christmas Wish List?

This holiday season there are lots of great options. LG’s new Voyager and Venus are getting a fair amount of attention; as are the iPhone, Sidekick Slide, and Blackberry Curve.

There will be millions of cell phones purchased in the month of December, with many of them being activated on December 25th.

If you are one of the many looking to upgrade or are thinking of surprising a loved one at the last minute with a new phone, check out the LetsTalk site for some advice. You carry your phone almost everywhere, so it’s important that you find the model that’s right for you and works with your carrier.

And keep in mind as you shop… US carriers have now changed their policies on termination fees making it less expensive to upgrade in many cases. So if you really want that iPhone, it may be worth it to terminate and move to AT&T.

Happy Shopping!

Come on Amazon, You Can Do Better!

Can you believe that Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader sold out last week? Reportedly, within 5 ½ hours of hitting the shelves they were gone. Amazon hasn’t revealed how many it had in stock at launch, so maybe they didn’t have very many in the first place.

Does anyone else think the Kindle is a joke? This is 2007 – the year of the iPhone. Whatever you say about the iPhone it is a product that screams “Buy Me”. Its industrial design is second to none; it is an object of desire. The pictures of the Kindle (where did that name come from) remind us of something out of a 1980’s low budget science fiction TV show. And could some please explain why you need a tacky-looking QWERTY keyboard to read a book? The sad thing is that the e-ink display is very cool, and that Amazon has the distribution power to be able to make a product like this a huge success (but really guys, forget charging for blogs that you can read on the internet for free).

In short, despite the fact that the concept is appealing, we have never wanted a new technology product less in our lives. We would be embarrassed to show our friends, which isn’t quite the point of the supposedly latest technology marvel!

Speaking of iPhones and e-books, the Mobicious site has a large number of iPhone web sites and applications, as well as more than a few e-books available for your lowly mobile phone (could be a lot less expensive than the Kindle, especially if you have a high end phone with a great screen).