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Posts with tag songs

Filed under: Audio, Fun, Internet

Text to voice is old school - Let them sing it for you

let them sing it for youThere's no shortage of applications that will convert text into Stephen Hawking-esque speech. Rarely do the results sound human, or even good.

Let them sing it for you takes a different approach. Instead of text to speech, the site converts text into music. Or rather, it finds each word you've typed into a box as a snippet from a song. Then it plays those snippets back to back. If you input a word that it doesn't know, you can enter a song in which that word appears and eventually someone will get around to programming your word. It's all done by hand, so don't expect instant results.

The end product doesn't really make for much more pleasant listening than the robotic voices on an automated tech support line. But somehow it's a lot funnier. Now, does anybody know a song that uses the words "download," and "squad?"

[via Neatorama]

Filed under: Audio, Business, Internet, Kids, News, Web services

Teens wonder where their songs should come from

Dude where's my songsLegally old enough teens cannot buy songs from online services legitimately, because they all require a credit card, which not many teens have. Not only is this helping to drive the piracy rate among teens, it also illustrates another critical piece of information on why piracy is so rampant. The original problem of piracy is one of the service providers not giving consumers what they want. Let me explain. If someone made a way for teens (the biggest pirates out there according to studies) a way to legitimately get music, many would do it. Teens get sucked in by friends when there is no other alternative. As with drugs, clothes, electronics, and other stuff, teens will go where they have to to get what they want, and not just teens but people in general. People in general however (meaning adults) have a means with credit cards in their name to buy music. It is the same conundrum as the music to the mass deal before when Napster was being sued. Give the people what they want and they will come running, especially the younger generation. Why do you think MySpace is so popular?

Filed under: Audio, Business, Web services, Apple

Sony Ericsson's music download service

sony ericsson music downloadsSony Ericsson is ramping up to launch its music download service. Details of the new service were released Tuesday, and spoke about allowing full music downloading of up-and-coming artists though its mobile phones, with mainstream artists being integrated at a later date. I would imagine that it could be possible to transfer these music downloads to your PC, so you could enjoy music outside of your mobile phone. The new service is called M-BUZZ, and Sony sees this as a giant step at increasing the units sold, and making the M-BUZZ world a strong differentiating feature. It seems like this could also be a move to step up to the competition of the iPod. There were no reports as to when the service will exactly be launched, only talk about late in the second half of 2006.

Filed under: Audio, Utilities, Macintosh, Shareware

Making WMA files Mac-friendly

How many times have you wanted to save a WMA audio file into your iTunes library on your Mac, only to realize that the only tool you can use to play the file is the Mac version of Windows Media Player?  Not a happy situation. Thankfully, the good folks at TUAW pointed out a tool that makes rapid-fire conversion of WMA files into iTunes-friendly MP3 a snap.  Called EasyWMA, this piece of $10 shareware lets you queue up a batch of WMAs to convert while you pour yourself a cup of coffee or play World of Warcraft.  One small bit of caution, though--the program might not support the latest WMA 10 format. Check it out here.

Featured Time Waster

Forumwarz - a potentially offensive time waster

I pwn UAfter spending the better part of an hour on Forumwarz I still can't decide if it's just sick or if it's kind of fun. It's a bit like a car wreck on the highway. I know I shouldn't be looking but I can't quite turn away.

It's sick, it's twisted, it's the internet on it's worst level and darn it, it's kind of fun. At least for a little while.

Forumwarz is a parody role-playing game that takes place on the internet - or at least the Forumwarz version of it. Your goal is to complete missions that are given to you through a mock up of GoogleTalk called Sentrillion.

Your first "friend" is ShallowEsophagus who begins giving you missions to pwn various forums by being a troll. Depending on the character type you are assigned at start up, you have tools like drooling on the keyboard or bashing your head on the keyboard that you can use to destroy forum threads and eventually, pwn a forum.

Future missions involve buying illegal software from the Russians, pwning more difficult forums and other internet oddness.

Completing missions gives you cash, called Flezz in game, and items that you can pawn or use in other missions. The game is NOT for those easily offended. It's crass, coarse and there are frequent f-bombs in the fake chat sessions.

This is also a game for a more mature audience as it requires you to shop at the Drugs R Fun store to get various concoctions to improve your playing, engage in certain cyber activities to get more Flezz and just generally use a more adult perspective.

If you can get past that, here are the more enjoyable and time-wasting aspects.

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