ForbesOnTech

Midomi Mobile, Perfect Harmony in Music Search-- Right Place Right Time With an iPhone App

Apple opened it’s iPhone online applications store concurrently with the public release of its new 3G iPhone this week. I guess we can all relax now, the sun is coming up in the post-launch world and there appears to be an initial strong flood tide of applications for Apple’s mobile platform.

            There are few surprises in the first round of iPhone applications; location-centric, business, entertainment and personal productivity applications are a;; represented.

            But initially I wanted to focus on an iPhone version of an application category I’ve watched since the 1990’s—music. High on my list of “hot iPhone apps” is  a music search application called Midomi Mobile. What this application does that’s heretofore been missing in music search, is allow its users to hum, sing, and use multiple modes of inputting rough data to find individual or groups of songs.

            Midomi Mobile is from a Sunnyvale startup called Melodis Corp, whose sound recognition-based search technology is something that’s been missing in Internet –based music services until very recently. Midomi Mobile works even if you can’t carry a tune, or if your singing voice sounds like a bullfrog being castrated. Melodis claims it’s musical search technology is extremely accurate.

            In my continuing quest to fill out my 1970’s music catalogue, I’d love to try and hum a few bars from Little Feet’s “song “Red Streamliner” or the Allman’s Brothers “Les Bres in A Minor” to see if this service delivers on its promises. Or, I just might get up around 3 AM and record birdsongs in my orchard to see I it understands I’m trying to identify and locate the Beatles song “Blackbird (singing in the dead of night)”

            The online video demonstration of Midomi is one of the most compelling consumer technology pitches I’ve ever viewed. It’s exactly the sort of pitch that I would respond to when picking companies for Demo, before my retirement several years ago. Besides its apparent accuracy in returning results to difficult queries entered by off-key singing, humming or haphazard lyrics entry, Midomi also has features that let you annotate and share query results and in some cases music, with friends or readers of personal blogs. The new iPhone application also provides simple one-click links to music and related content from sites such as iTunes.

            But what really makes my heart sing about Midomi Mobile is that it’s a perfect match for two key Apple business strategies; iPhone and iTunes. It’s dificul;t to imagine this three-year–old start up not being pitched heavily by Apple when it needs to demonstrate technologies that bolster its key business units.

            Other music search services have come and gone-- but I suspect Melodis’ Midomi Mobile will set a new gold standard in this category. The technology is tightly linked to Apple and this developer is fosued sharply on an application category that show almost no signs of slowing its hockey stick growth.—Jim Forbes—07/11/2008.

Americana Singer/Song Writer Passes Away: Good bye John Stewart

California lost one if it’s best balladeers this weekend when folk rock icon John Stewart, 68, passed away here in San Diego.

            Stewart was a prolific songwriter. He may have been best known outside of folk music for two songs, “Daydream Believer” made famous by the Monkees, and “Gold,” which was recorded with Fleetwood Mac members Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham (whose guitar riffs often sound a lot like those of John Stewart).

Stewart’s contributions to folk rock go back to his days with the Kingston Trio and carried through to the mid-Sixties after he left that group and helped his brother Michael Stewart with California band called the We Five, whose one big hit was “You Are On My Mind.” Michael Stewart left the music industry after producing two albums for Billy Joel and later worked for Adobe Systems before he passed away in 2002.

            Recently John Stewart’s music has been classified as “Americana”; a fitting category for a singer songwriter whose music often celebrated, big red horses, race tracks and our collective inner outlaws.

            His seminal album was “California Bloodlines.” Most recently his music framed Route 66, the little towns and people who populate America’s mother road.

            Stewart was the son of a horse trainer. If you listen to his music you'll hear his admiration of good horseflesh and the men who train thoroughbreds.

            Coming up as a reporter in Southern California I interviewed John Stewart on several occasions. His love of and connections to an earlier age often came through in his speech and metaphors.

            If you read my blog you may notice my use of John Stewart song titles in my headlines and posts. His music my favorite road entertainment. On road trips up and down California I  load my load my car’s CD player with John Stewart music and unashamedly sing my way through the California.  His lyrics are  Rand McNally connections to my beloved home state.

            His wife, singer Buffy Ford, and children survive Stewart.  Services are pending. He may be gone but his final chords linger on, a singer songwriter whose musical canvas was all things American and many things Californian.

So Good Bye John Stewart, your music pulled the covers off my love of big thundering horses, the hills of Placerville, rejoicing in my inner outlaw and my unabashed love of Americana music.—Jim Forbes 1/20/2008

When Technology Runs in Front of Common Sense

SAN FRANCISCO--A start-up called UltraCell is showing a 2.2-pound fuel cell prototype at the Intel Developer Forum that can power a laptop computer for 14 hours.

Production models will be available in 2007 and cost less than $500, William Hill, vice president of marketing at the 50-person Livermore, Calif.-based company, said in an interview Wednesday at the chipmaker's twice-annual show here.

Fuel cells convert hydrogen and oxygen into water and electrical power, but technology and expense have kept them away from most markets. However, many researchers are working to adapt the technology for cars, mobile phones and numerous other markets.

UltraCell's systems are fueled by methanol, and included technology called a reformer converts it into hydrogen the fuel cell itself can use, Hill said. But customers shouldn't expect to just be able to buy a few liters of methanol and fill up their fuel cells whenever they run low.

http://news.com.com/Fuel+cell+offers+14+hours+of+laptop+power/2100-1041_3-6047966.html

Sometimes technology outpaces common sense. Take for example advances in how portable computers can be powered.

While you, I and our friends are getting down to our foundation garments as we glumly trot through airpot screening, some idiots out there are working on and trying to promote notebook power cells that will be based on hydrogen, methanol or propane.

Great! Here are technologies that VCs and Al Qaeda will both adore, and something that the  Airlines and Transportation Safety Administration will all hate and ban from being carried in any form on an airliner and which if adopted by by notebook makers could be turned into a book titled "Portable Computers-- the Final Solution"

Let's see, propane or hydogen powered portable computers. What's next, miniature atomic reactors  in a MacBook Pro?  Hell, done right, the glow from the itty bitty reactor could be used to back light the keyboard.

Good God Almighty, some technologies are better left for other times.--Jim Forbes, a wry curmudgeon tucked away down here in the Southwest corner of 'Merika, pounding away on a reliable notebook wih about three hours of battery life remaining. Jim, 3; Yellowtail, 25 yards of 20 pound test tournament monofilament and two $3 anchovie patterned yellow tail jigs. (08/23/2006)