As many of you have probably noticed, clouds are all the rage these days in the tech world, Apple’s new iCloud being the most recent push up into the air by a major tech corporation.  You may also remember Microsoft’s “To the Cloud” commercials. Well, Amazon also has a cloud of its own–it is called the Cloud Drive Service, which allows users to store music files on remote servers and stream them over the Internet to their computer or smartphone.  It has served as Amazon’s latest attempt to grab users away from iTunes. Amazon often offers one-day promotions on albums, selling them for $4 or $5 dollars. This time, in a deliberate marketing attempt to promote the Cloud Drive Service, Amazon put Lady Gaga’s album, “Born This Way”, on sale for just $0.99. For those of you counting at home, that is a full $ fewer than the price of the album on iTunes. However, not everything went as planned for Amazon. The fine folks at Amazon must have underestimated the thriftiness/craziness of Gaga fans, and, by every afternoon, the number of requests to download the album stalled the company’s servers. Many were unable to listen to the entire album or even download the album at all. As unhappy internet users always seem to do, they took to the comments section and other online outlets to complain about and, for the most part, bash Amazon. So, overall, it seems like this promotion failed, right? Well, depends on how you look at it. Yes, the server stalled; yes, people were furious at Amazon and praised iTunes; yes, Amazon lost a total of 3.2 million dollars due to this 99 cent promotion. On the other hand, though, Amazon sold about 440,000 downloads of the album. And, as a promotional device, the sale did wonders to get the word out about Amazon’s music service. Did you know that Amazon has had this music service since 2007? Probably not. In fact, I am sure many of you are hearing about this new, cheap music service for the first (or second…) time. The importance of this promotion was the increased traffic to the site and the awareness of the site. In a world with more and more technological clouds (especially music-based ones), Amazon needed to get its name out there. It did. I must say though, I will stick to iTunes.

Swan dive (commercial reference!) into the videos below.

If you have watched the World Cup on TV or even saw clips of it or even stay current on the news, you have probably heard about the Vuvuzelas. YouTube always has had a way with pranks. Some time in the last few weeks, the world’s largest video portal activated a new button on some videos that looks like a tiny soccer ball. Clicking it will activate an endless, incredibly annoying sound that sounds vaguely like a swarm of insects. So, if you want to have some nice Vuvuzela sounds while you watch your YouTube videos, go ahead and hit the soccer ball button. If you aren’t a fan of incredibly annoying sounds then just watch your videos and you normally would. Be sure to check out GadgetHigh’s YouTube channel for the latest GadgetHigh videos and unboxings.

On Wednesday July 7th, my friend and I went to a OneRepublic concert at the club Terminal 5 in New York. With two opening bands and (of course) OneRepublic playing, the show was bound to be awesome. Read on for videos (taken on an iPhone 4!) and a review.

After arriving at about 6:30PM and getting our hands drawn on to show that we were under 21, my friend and and I took our spot in the middle of a mosh pit on the first  Wednesday July 7th, my friend and I went to a OneRepublic concert at the club Terminal 5 in New York. With two opening bands and (of course) OneRepublic playing, the show was bound to be awesome. Read ofloor of Terminal 5. The first band to perform was Alpha Rev, a band I had previously never heard of. Formed in 2005 in Austin, TX, Alpha Rev came together as the brainchild of singer/songwriter Casey McPherson after the breakup of his previous band, Endochine. They were, surprisingly, very good. There music had a similar sound and feel as OneRepublic, the lead singer had an amazing voice, and  the electric violin player was excellent. If you like OneRepublic, definitely check them out on iTunes here.

GadgetHigh Report Card: A-

Next up was Sara Bareilles. To be honest, I was never the biggest fan of Sara Bareilles and the only song of hers I really knew was her hit single “Love Song.” She was pretty good, but nothing great. I was surprised by how many people in the crowd were fans of hers. She played her new single “King of Anything” and played a lot of music from her upcoming album “Kaleidoscope Heart.” She was also very social with the crowd, telling stories and even talking about the whiskey she was apparently drinking. Overall, a pretty good performance for a Sara Bareilles fan.Check her out on iTunes here.

GadgetHigh Report Card: B+

Finally, at about 9:30PM, OneRepublic took the stage and immediately performed “Everybody Loves Me.” After a little bit of schmoozing and crowd pleasing, they continued to play hits from their new album. After “Secrets” and “Good Life” (A video of Good Life is posted below!) and other songs, lead singer, Ryan Tedder, announced that they were going to play a song they decided to play about 5 minutes before walking on stage. They proceeded to perform an excellent cover of Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out.” A video of that performance is posted below. After playing many more songs from the new and old albums, throwing water on the crowd, jumping into the crowd,  and even giving champagne to the crowd, OneRepublic was done for the night. Or so we thought. They returned a few minutes later for an encore in which they started out by covering “Stand By Me” (video below!) and “Seven Nation Army” (video below!). At the point of the guitar solo in “Seven Nation Army,” Tedder decided to sing a little bit of “SexyBack.” They ended the performance by playing “Waking Up.” Overall, the performance was fantastic. The music was great and the band members were great performers. Ryan Tedder had an amazing voice and played the piano (keyboards) beautifully. Brent Kutzle, the electric chello player (and guitar, and bass, and keyboards) never ceases to amaze me, and Wednesday night was no exception. Check out the videos below and check on OneRepublic on iTunes here. GadgetHigh Report Card: A

I also just learned that OneRepublic and Sara Bareilles did a duet recording of OneRepublic’s hit song “Come Home”. You can check that out here and buy it on iTunes if you’d like.

All video below was recorded in amazing 720p on my iPhone 4.

Enjoy:

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

The video is awesome. Not much to say, but it is surprising how HUGE facebook is and how widespread social networking has become. Enjoy these cool statistics about the internet that you and I use all the time.

GadgetGuy

The issue that Hulu had on the iPad for Apple is that it would very likely cannibalize sales from Apple’s own homegrown iTunes store.  That right there is an issue that would stop me from putting Hulu on the iPad if I were working in Cupertino.  Fortunately for those who crave free TV at all times, there is hope after all.  Unlike Youtube who’s videos all had to be reworked for the iPhone before launch, all of Hulu’s videos can be made into a quicktime format with the exception of the interactive advertisements.  I’m sure that a company that runs a website as popular as Hulu can figure out a workaround without any issue.  This way they could bypass the App Store and still reach out to their mobile users.

Personally, Hulu on the iPad would be an advantage for which I’d buy the iPad hands down.  That being said I expect a 64 gb iPad 3g to be in my hands April 27th regardless.  What do you think, let us know how you feel about Hulu or any other last minute surprises in the comments…

Voice band, in concept, is one of the coolest apps I have come around in a while — at least in concept…. Read on to find out if it can live up to its potential.

When I first came upon Voice Band, it was in a video demonstration in which one of the developers flawlessly recreated Fly Away by Lenny Kravitz. It was one of the coolest and seemingly easy apps I had ever seen on the iPhone. For $2.99, you get basic recording software that requires little to no musical talent in order to create your own music or recreate songs you like. In the video, the man singing is able to create a song with such ease. As somebody who has virtually no singing experience, I found the app more difficult then I was led to believe. The instruments can be really sensitive at times and if your voice isn’t trained to sustain a note without wavering, the sounds that are produced can be very pitchy. After a good 20 minutes of working with the app, this problem became slightly more manageable but was still an issue. Something that is also unsolvable is that it is very difficult to record in noisy environments. This is obviously not the apps fault, but it can be annoying at times. Especially if a song occurs to you on the spot while you are on a bus or crowded city street.

In terms of functionality, for practicing musicians, this app could be very helpful in laying out demos for potential songs on the spot. The software can be a bit limiting in terms of instrumentation (it comes with 2 guitars, 2 synthesizers, a saxophone, bass, and drums) and its editing ability. But for laying out something very basic, I can understand how this app could be useful.

In its current state, the app feels more gimmicky then productive or professional. This can easily be seen in its layout and design and the app is obviously not made for professional use. Although often hard to use, the app can be a source of a good amount of fun. At its current price, it also isn’t too expensive.

My verdict: If creating is something you like, this app should easily be worth the $2.99. If you see it as something to play around with for fun, wait for an update to hopefully fix the instrument sensitivity in order to make it easier.

iTunes link

With my extra time, due to the snow day, I was able to record a few tracks.

The first song is a demo of a song by Broken Bells called “The High Road.” I cheated a bit on this one by recording the acoustic guitar with the microphone function and then adding drums using the built in instruments.

The High Road (Noah Landesberg)

This is an instrumental cover of the song “Kids” by MGMT. This one is entirely Voice Band turning me saying (Bah-bah-bah-bah-beeh-behbeh-

Read on to hear how and maybe find out your odds….

All you have to do is buy the 10 billionth song on iTunes. According to the official contest rules, participants may make up to 25 entries per day either by purchasing/downloading songs from the iTunes Store or by filling out an entry form on Apple’s web site. Apple used a similar tactic with its One Billionth Song prize in 2006 and its One Billionth App prize in 2009. Read what Apple has to say:

“The prize will be awarded for the entry (either through a song download or through the non-purchase online entry) sent immediately following the download of the 9,999,999,999th song. The potential winner will be determined by the order of the entries received. In the event that more than one entrant would be a winner based on the simultaneous timing of entries, one entrant will be randomly selected from those entrants as the winner. Each entrant’s chances of winning are dependent upon the number of eligible entries received.”

So do you think you will win? Well, in all likelihood you won’t. You might as well go to a near newsstand with the money you would use to buy a new song and buy yourself a lottery ticket because you have a better chance there. Realistically it is something like 1 in 200 billion chance or something crazy like that.

Right now, the countdown is at around 9.9 billion. So get prepared to be angry at some 13-year-old girl in the midwest who bought taylor swift’s new song as the 10 billionth song or some elderly man who buys a Barry Manilow song as the 10 billionth song.

But hey, who knows? Maybe you can buy that Ke$ha or Lady Gaga or Black Eyed Peas or some other song that has been stuck in your head. Why not? If you time it JUST RIGHT you could just win  $10,000 on iTunes.

Not that you would be able to use all of it in a reasonable way.

Leave comments, questions, or anything else below!