Tunatic -the little big thing

It's been sometime that I have been thinking of properly naming the n number of 'Untitled' tracks performed by 'Artist' from the album 'Album',you know what I mean. I had a plethora of such artists and albums in my itunes playlists and it had been bugging me for quite some time. I first embarked on googling the lyrics of the track to find out the real name of the song. But that turned out to be a bit more difficult than I had anticipated. So I gave up, shut my laptop and tucked it away.

A few weeks ago I had a chance to toy around with my cousin's swanky Sony Ericsson phone. It had this application called TrackID, which automatically recognizes the song and provides info like the artist album etc.. In my short rendezvous with the phone this application had me completely blown away. It could tell you who is singing the song you are hearing right now on the radio, which album it was taken from and even give links to its lyrics. For me that was power. This Track ID aint a completely new thing, Sony Ericsson phones have had this feature for more than an year now. And I wasnt completely new to the feature either, I had heard about it but never knew it had this much potential.

As soon as the phone went back to its rightful owner I quickly got into research mode trying to uncover the technology and possible applications that would do the same trick on my computer. Apparently the technology is called Audio fingerprinting and just as I hoped I found 'Tunatic'. Tunatic is the computer equivalent of TrackID and I was finally all upbeat about sorting out my itunes playlist. What impressed me the most about Tunatic was its simplicity, the application had just one button! One button!! The button to find the song. And it did just that and how! Simply play the song and click recognize on Tunatic and waaalaah the info you need is right on the screen. You can play any portion of the file and tunatic will give you the result in about 30 seconds!! What more it will also give you the lyrics and other information about the artist and album if you click the small arrow in the software!

The software is extremely light and most of all free! The download file just weighs around 500kb, installs in 3 clicks and is as simple to operate as a light bulb . It recongnized 99% of my tracks, including instrumentals and even hindi songs (I never even dreamt that would be possible)


I am sure most of us will have lots of unnamed tracks or tracks with missing information, then Tunatic is the one for you. And because it is simple and light I am positive it would work like a breeze even with slower dial-up connections.

In the picture notice the sheer simplicity of Tunatic, ( the purple coloured block) also appreciate its size.

You can comment on any of my posts as anonymous, so please pen down your criticisms on the comments page. Remember an author is always fueled by ideas and criticisms. See you tomorrow

Here is the link to the Tunatic website, you can download the smart application from here:
http://www.wildbits.com/tunatic/

The Vegetarian Chicken

I came across this at supermarket. The picture is a packet of frozen Chicken burgers, which as you can see reads "100% Vegetarian Fed chicken"

Ha! like you really care if the chicken you are about to munch grew up eating meat or vegetables. Interesting piece of information when you are planning to hog the chicken.

Miss Misery

Miss Misery

During one of my late night chats, my friend very much in desperation asked me to suggest him a song for the night. He had been going through pretty tough times after losing his lady and then his job, so I probingly asked him what mood are you looking forward to. ‘Any freaking song man’ came the frustrated reply, It should be different and unlike anything my ears drums are used to, he added.

I quickly skimmed through my modest collection of music and came up with Angeles of Elliott Smith. I was positive that my friend who had his tastes in conventional music would appreciate the Angeles. My thoughts turned true when, after a while, his words appeared on my computer screen, ‘Wowwww what a song’. And before I could respond he added ‘It’s got a mystery in it’. ‘Mystery’ I thought, to me the Angeles was a simple song with a catchy guitar note. He went on describing the song’s mystery melody and this turned me on.
I wanted to end my uninspiring day on a high and this late night chat was the perfect stage. I did all I could to add fuel to this fire by eerily describing about Elliott Smith’s troubled career, personal life and his addictions. With creativity at the disposal of my fingertips I graphically described Elliott’s murder which took place in his girlfriend’s apartment on that fateful night. The singer’s death which is still to this day a mystery was my masterpiece. It turned out my friend had a good night and so did I.

To those of you who might still be wondering about Elliott Smith allow me to save a Wikipedia search for you. Elliott Smith was an American born singer who rose to prominence with his Oscar nominated performance of the song ‘Miss Misery’ from the award winning movie Good Will Hunting. Smith sung six songs for the movie including the ‘eerie’ Angeles. Smith’s voice had a distinctive vocal style characterized by his "whispery, spiderweb-thin delivery" which probably explained my friend’s feelings. In his rather short and sweet career Smith suffered from depression, alcoholism, and drug addiction. These topics often appeared in his lyrics, one of the reasons why he was and is popular among the youth. Smith released approximately five albums but his addictions towards the later part of his life, didn’t do much good to his career and also made him unpopular with the music companies. However his distinctive vocals and simple compositions, usually with just one or two instruments elevated him to fame, before his dreadful death while recording the sixth album.

The murder of Elliott may forever remain unexplained, but how a beautiful song like the Angeles was labelled eerie by my well-read mate appeared even more unexplainable to me. Or rather it remained unexplainable until I got to his place. It seems my well-read friend had downloaded the Angeles from some phoney file hosting website who tricked him to believe that it was the original. The file he downloaded was a digitally manipulated track of Smith’s Angeles.

At least something about Smith is sloved!

Indica Vista with ABS and Airbags

It is now official, with the first batch of spy pictures now online. Tata is bringing out a new variany of its hatch- The Indica Vista. The new indica Vista variant, apparently dubbed as IGNIS will get an all new interior with a completely new infotainment system and steering mounted controls. More importantly the new variant will sport safety features like ABS and Airbags (We knew it was long coming)

The infotainment system will get mobile phone connectivity, in all likelihood via bluetooth . The new steering looks neat and the metallic accents on it give it a premium feel. The car will also sport a new engine in its bay , the 1.4 litre safire petrol engine. Now currently available on the Grande Punto

This will be the fourth variant of the indica vista after Terra, aura and aqua. We are not sure why tata has opted to name it as ignis! (Wagon R is certain markets are called Ingis)

Citroen and Peugeot drive to INDIA

The PSA group confirm their entry into the Indian market with Citroen and Peugeot brands. The company will be launching the Citroen C5 and the Peugeot 308 to begin their Indian entry.

Whether the company will begin with CBU imports or CKD kits is yet to be known.

PSA group is famed for their diesel engines and expect both the C5 and 308 to be turbo charged diesels. The engines will be made by Ford and is likely to be the Ford Duratorq units first seen in the Fiesta Diesel. ( PSA group already has a JV with Ford for diesel engines)

I believe the company will assemble their cars in India. There are also rumours that the company is looking to setup a plant in South India.