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Online music is one of the biggest sources of entertainment these days. Most of the music enthusiasts prefer streaming music rather than moving around with CDs and MP3s. They not only wish to enjoy online music albums and videos but also tend to download their favourite track for free. The web is full of such music streaming software but no one is as good as the new music streamer and downloader named Muziic.

Muziic is a freeware developed by a 15 year old guy (with the help of his dad). You can feel this in the first glance as the player does not look professional but is much more functional than other complex players on the Internet. You can download Muziic for free, just like you download iTunes or any other virtual player from the web. Of course, unlike iTunes Muziic will not sync your music with your Apple iPod nano portable media player. At any rate, once downloaded, installed and initiated, it will offer you on demand access to millions of streaming songs in no time. This is in contrast to other music players as they most often fail to search the particular track you are interested in. The Muziic does not have any problem in searching for any album or title. You can even search and listen to tracks that any music label has uploaded on YouTube and those one too that have been illegally uploaded by the users.

Just type the name of the song or artist and the Muziic will search for it and return the most relevant results. The player has got easy to use controls and features all the commonly used functions such as volume control, playback control, playlist manager and skins.

Do you like to make music of your own? If yes then the Magix Music Maker 15 is the best option for you. It’s a professional music making software programme that can serve anybody. From pro music editors to those who don’t have any degree in acoustic science can use this awesome software to get the nerves of the different beats. The Magix Music Maker 15 offers performance, ease of use and great functionality, all in one package.

Despite the fact that this software lacks some advanced music editing options such as tempo changes and automated mixer settings it can be used to create impressive CD quality music. It not only allows creating a new track but can also be used to cut the blocks from existing tracks and club them together to make a grand non-stop remix album. The programme has got a new sound library of 1269 music samples and 516 short MIDI phrases. With this amount of MIDI phrases it is practically as effective as a real MIDI controller like the M-AUDIO Keystation Pro 88. You can also play the MIDI phrases with the Vita software synthesizer programme bundled with the Music Maker 15.

Apart from this you will also get five more synthesizers including BeatBox 2 that offers a great collection of drum samples. The Music Maker 15 has got an easy to use interface. In fact that’s the best feature of this software because most of the other music making programs are well equipped but feature a confusing UI. The Music Maker 15 graduates the user from a basic level to the advanced one. Once you are familiar with all the functions you can use them at various levels to create professional music.

Solid State Drives or SSDs are one of the most advanced secondary storage technologies available nowadays. It’s completely based on NAND flash storage and does not equip any mechanical parts. As a result there are no more chances of drive crashes due to shocks, sudden drops and bumps. The drives also have the same Serial ATA interface as the legacy hard drives, in addition to offering speedy data read/write operations.

All these benefits certainly attract lots of people, but till now the SSD usage is limited to portable computers only, with computer only models like the OCZ Vertex SATA II SSD 30GB. However according to market research and expert’s opinions the SSDs will enjoy a much larger market share by 2012. This is because the popular portable media player makers like Apple and Microsoft are considering these enhanced drives to offer storage solutions for their music players like the Microsoft Zune. This will not only give the companies all the associated benefits but will also allow them to further shrink the size and weight of the PMPs.

The existing non-SSD Flash storage technology will not be totally replaced because of the low-cost benefit associated with it but will loose some portion of the market once the NAND flash (SSD storage) is finds a place in the music player’s casing.

The only problem that has been bugging the music industry is illegal downloads. Would you believe that almost 95% of music was downloaded on the internet illegally? However the digital music industry saw an increase in its sales by over 25% with sales touching $3.7 billion across nations.

Online piracy has always been a case of concern for those in the music industry with figures touching new highs according to the department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform or BERR, which is a regulatory body that fights illegal file sharing among peers. Apparently, efforts by the recording industry, and government, such as DRM protected files, have not been enough to thwart digital pirates. Moreover, popular music download service iTunes, used for managing music on your Apple iPod nano, classic, touch etc, has decided to do away with DRM protection. Clearly, new and innovate steps must be taken to deal with online music piracy.

The government has come out with a new set of regulations that are formulated to replace existing laws to restrict internet service providers. Internet service providers are bound by legal codes of practice that ensure internet users are restrained from flouting laws.

Claims by the BPI, a voice of the British music industry claims a loss of over 180 million pounds in revenue from illegal downloads in 2008 alone. Last July saw a memorandum of understanding being signed that ensured that ISP mail out to 1000 subscribers every week over a three-month period. These subscribers have been found to engage in illegal file sharing on the internet. Though the ISP’s have sent out warning letters, they are opposed to any plans of disconnecting their customers. Internet Service providers feel that a workable business solution to tackle illegal music downloads needs to be worked out so that users stay clear of piracy and music rights owners slapping legal action against them. P2P file sharing of copyright material, which is strictly unauthorized, is an important issue that requires immediate action.

You’d think a company with the name ‘Green House’ would produce environmentally friendly products with little social messages on them or something. Well, I’m not too sure about the environmentally friendly bit, but Green House’s range of Kana Micro MP3 players save tons of space for you.

These tiny little MP3 players are so small, that stacking up a few of these would result in the size of a normal MP3 player available in today’s market. They are about the size of pen drives, like the Busbi USB flash drive, and connect to the computer the same way. That’s how they sync and charge up. On a full charge, you can listen to up to 2 hours of music on the Kana Micros.

The Kana Micro, however, doesn’t come with in built memory to store songs. That’s right. The concept is quite new for Mp3 players. You’ll have to purchase a micro SD card separately, and put in all your songs on them. This can be quite convenient if you have different genre of music on different cards. You can just hot swap them.

You’ll find the Green House Kana Micro MP3 player in a whole spectrum of colors including yellow, pink, white, blue, purple, green and orange. However, like many other unique Japanese gadgets, you’ll find them only in Japan as of now. They’re available at an astounding price of $16. It’s doubtful if the Kana micro will ever be seen in markets outside Japan, but with it’s features and price, it’s sure to become popular very fast. It defines what an mp3 player should ideally be: Sleek, Small and extremely portable.

The popular BBC iPlayer has been upgraded a week ago. The BBC has unveiled the new version of its iPlayer so that the users can experience the company’s online TV service in a better way. The main attraction of the new release is that apart from the Windows users, the users of Mac and Linux can also download it to integrate their computers with the online entertainment hub seamlessly. Earlier, the iPlayer was available for Microsoft Windows Operating Systems only.

The revamped iPlayer has been designed using Adobe’s AIR software. This is worth mentioning as the Adobe’s cross-platform software is the only key that has made the iPlayer compatible with multiple operating systems. The way the player gets initiated is also improved a lot. Earlier, the iPlayer used to load as a flash application in the web browser but now it loads in a very convenient way, just like any other executables. The new version of iPlayer is however is not completely free from limitations. The BBC itself has pointed out that the new iPlayer seriously affects the broadband networks, making it still not the best player for use with mobile phones like the Nokia N96. To rectify the broadband problems, the company is working with Velocix and creating cache servers that the ISPs can use to bolster the player’s operations without jamming the broadband networks.

The new iPlayer will be launched next month, i.e. February 2009. You can also test it for yourself before its official launch by signing up for an account as the iPlayer Labs Tester on the iPlayer website.

Do you think that buying a pair of sophisticated, high-end headphones is a waste? You are actually wrong because if you are still using the headphones that you got with the music player, then you are actually missing a lot. So let me introduce you to these new headphones that come from Atomic Floyd. Yeah, it’s the same old brand known for its vinyl albums.

The first thing that you notice (or should notice) about the Atomic Floyd AirJax headphones is their cord. Different from the usual ones, this cord gives you a fibrous feel and is also quite stiff. Another outstanding feature is its metallic wings that not enhance the appearance but also improves the grip. Although you may feel heavy when putting on the wings for the first time but believe me, you will feel more comfortable the second time. Even if the “angel wings” don’t feel that great, the amazing sound quality, which completely puts to shame the experience offered by the generic Apple iPod earphones or any other standard pair, is worth enough to convince you for sacrificing the comfort. The sound delivery is so good that you are likely to ignore all other factors.

The small accessory kit that you get with the headphones will include a converter, a hex tool and an extender lead. Designed to increase the flexibility of wearing these headphones, these accessories are quite useful. Especially the tiny hex tool is just right for tightening the ear loops whenever required. Use it to adjust the size that you like the most.

You may consider buying these headphones if you don’t mind paying a high price for a worthy product.

The DJ Control Steel is the latest professional DJ mixer developed and launched as part of the Hercules product portfolio. It has got powerful functions that can be used to customise the sound output. Loaded with a variety of options, the DJ Control Steel is perfect for use in parties where the crowd demands something new and refreshing filled with high quality beats and unprecedented effects. The main attraction of the DJ Control Steel is its customisable and removable centre steel plate.

With the DJ Control Steel you can easily manage your tracks and invoke creativity in it. This professional Hercules DJ Control Steel sound mixer hosts a wide array of options that let the DJs gain complete control over the tracks. Below are some of the main attractions of this stupendous music machine.

DJ Control Steel features:

• Dual deck DJ controller
• Jog wheels, effects and pitch controllers
• Cross-fader, volume faders and kill control
• 3 volume faders, 2 pitch faders and 1 cross-fader
• 6 equalizer knobs, 2 gain knobs, 2 effects knob, 2 preview knobs and 1 balance knob.
• 46 push buttons in all, including effect buttons, kill button, cue control, pitch bend, menu control, forward/rewind/play/pause, track loading controls, sync buttons and scratch control.
• Supported file formats include MP3, AIFF, WAV, WMA, OGG and audio CDs.
• Compatible with both Mac and PC.
• Comes with Virtual DJ 5 DJC Edition software.

One of the latest trends to have struck the MP3 market is the fad that people seem to have towards so-called fashion headphones. The market is expanding at such a rapid pace that more and more companies are taking discerning steps to exploit it. One of the latest products exclusively aimed at this very segment is the WeSC Bongo Art Marok pair of Headphones, and it is to be seen whether it manages to earn the type of popularity and acceptance enjoyed by Skull Candy.

The product has a solid build quality, and is made of chunky metal headband and earcup brackets, while the omnipresent nature of enduring plastic is also easily visible. However, the WESC Marok Bongo headphones’ padding on the earcups may not be to your liking as it is neither very deep or for that matter luxurious, and is plastic coated instead of leather. Then, you will also rue the fact that the headband is left unprotected which may cause you some discomfort.

The headphone is bereft of any adapters or converters, but it is not much of an issue considering that headphones like the one in question are frequently used with MP3 players, and as such the standard stereo 3.5mm jack plug decked with the unit is more than enough to provide you the necessary compatibility. The good thing about the plug is that it is 1st gen iPhone compatible and consequently you have few worries about it becoming outdated.

The comfort level of the device, barring a few glitches, can be considered satisfactory. The same though cannot be said about the unit’s sound quality which for the major part is matter of scrutiny. Finally, the WESC Marok Bongo headphones are in no way a substitute for class products from high-end manufacturers like Grado, Sennheiser, Shure, and AKG, among others. But given its cheap price there is not much that you can complain as well!

Are you addicted to music? Are you among those people who carry a portable music player for enjoying quality music anytime, anywhere you want? Most importantly, like all other people do you have a habit of listening to music at high volume continuously for long hours? If yes, then it’s time to have a look at the iHearSafe headphones that not only perform well but also take care of the listener’s ear’s health.

As per the research, the sound louder than 85 decibels is harmful for the ears. Normally, the music players operate around 100 decibels at their full volume. Therefore, more and more portable music player owners are suffering from deafness now a days. Listening to music at high volume also gives birth to other serious illness like hypertension, stress and insomnia, and the chances of such mental imbalances are more among old age and children. Thus it is necessary to keep a check on the music volume. Apple has already recognised the importance of volume control and has implemented Automatic Volume Adjuster in its iPods. Now you cannot operate the iPods at a volume beyond 70 decibels.

But what if you use any other music player, like the Sandisk Sansa Clip, instead of iPod? In that case the iHearSafe headphones, earbuds and earcups can assure maximum safety for your listening senses. The iHearSafe headphones are formatted to cease the volume level at 80 decibels. You can use them with any music player. Even children can use the iHearSafe headphones for appropriate music listening.