Roqbot Is A Jukebox On Your iPhone
Something unusual happened last Friday night at Bar Basic here in San Francisco. When I walked in, the entire room was fixated on on a screen above the bar, which displayed what looked like a musical game but wasn’t karaoke. The game? Roqbot, a unique iPhone app that allows you to yes, pick the music playing at a bar. Like a combination Pandora and traditional jukebox, Roqbot allows you to contro
Guitar Hero Gone: What Went Wrong?
The premiere plastic guitar game just flamed out. Activision, beset by falling sales, has decided to shutter the division that created Guitar Hero and its sequels. It’s an ignominious exit for a title that was once touted as the first great game franchise of the 21st century. Guitar Hero was created in 2005 by indie studio RedOctane, in collaboration with Harmonix, which had previously found su
Khush Lands Funding To Help Wannabe Singers Create Music On The Go
Khush, a startup that develops music applications, has raised a new round of funding from Dave McClure’s 500 Startups, angel investor Yee Lee, and Georgia Tech ATDC VentureLab. The startup declined to reveal how much money was raised in the round. Co-founded by Prerna Gupta (you can read her recent TechCrunch guest post here), Khush develops an artificial intelligence technology that helps people
Next-Level Karaoke Bar Has Kinect, Microsoft Surfaces and a 103-Inch TV
I love karaoke, but it amuses me how many joints don't even have a digital songlist, instead favoring a cheapskate telephone book of songs. Hong Kong's completely pimped the karaoke bar, with Panasonic's 103-inch TV, Kinect and Microsoft Surface. More »
8 Musical iPad Apps for the Digital Maestro
Peter Meyers is a digital book producer and the author of Best iPad Apps (O’Reilly Media). He’s covered the intersection of writing and technology for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired and blogs at anewkindofbook.com.Early iPad critics were sure about one thing: This gadget was going to be for consuming, not creating. iPadders, the argument went, will spend all their time feas
Microsoft lands its largest ever Surface order... from a karaoke bar
There's not much to see right now, but it appears that Red MR is well on its way to becoming one of the most advanced (and probably the most amusing) karaoke bars in the world. Ahead of its Hong Kong debut this Saturday, said company has already installed six Surfaces in its two bars, and is aiming to fit more to fill up all 80 rooms -- and that number could go up to 300 in the near future -- onc
This Is the ABBA Karaoke iPhone Game the World Was Waiting For
ABBA Singbox: An iPhone game that lets you sing ABBA songs alongside Frida and Agnetha, while Björn and Benny do their thing. The only way life could get any better than this is if actual Swedes were singing besides you. More »
Magic Fiddle Turns Your iPad Into a Violin, and It Rocks
Smule, makers of the musical iOS titles like Ocarina, I Am T-Pain, Glee Karaoke and Magic Piano, has just released its newest creation: Magic Fiddle for iPad [iTunes link].What is Magic Fiddle, you might ask? It’s pure, unadulterated musical awesome. It turns your iPad into a string instrument — with a twist. The $2.99 app was just released in the App Store, but we got to spend some time speaking
“Def Jam Rapstar” Raises the Roof Just Short of Greatness
SingStar or Guitar Hero for hip hop and rap is an obvious idea, but nobody’s done it right — or really at all — before today. Now PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii gamers have Def Jam Rapstar, an intriguing mash of hip hop sensibilities and social media savvy.Def Jam Rapstar is better than 2004’s Get On Da Mic (the only other release in the category) and leaves little to be desired for rap
Glee Karaoke for iOS Keeps It Rocking in the Free World
video Just in time for the second season of the hit TV show Glee, Smule has updated its über-successful iOS app. The app, now known as Glee Karaoke [iTunes link], brings back all the same features of the original and adds a layer of competition to the mix.We were big fans of the original app, and we’re happy to report that version 2.0 is just as much fun. The big, new feature is that users can compete w
Better Know The Words: TuneWiki Game Combines Song Lyrics With Tap Tap Revenge
Earlier this year, mobile developer TuneWiki raised over $7 million to expand beyond the namesake lyric-centric music player that put it on the map. Today sees the company’s first major expansion with the launch of a new iPhone game called Lyric Legend, which combines lyrics with the rhythmic gameplay that made Tapulous’s Tap Tap Revenge a massive hit. Playing Lyric Legend is pretty straightforw
Sony Walkman NWZ-E450 does karaoke, we go hands-on
If you need any sort of self-confidence therapy, then consider this the poor man's portable solution. Sony's new NWZ-E450 entry-level Walkman may look rather ordinary on the outside, but it's got something unique wrapped underneath -- karaoke mode. Here's how it works: not only can you throw in .lrc files to get auto-scrolling lyrics for your songs, but the device can also automagically reduce th
The Most Social Music Game Yet: “Def Jam Rapstar”
The new game Def Jam Rapstar from Konami and 4mm Games isn’t just a hip hop karaoke game or a challenging performance simulator like Rock Band 3. It’s a social media platform for building connections, promoting yourself, speaking your mind and maybe (just maybe) becoming an actual rap star.We were given a behind-close-doors tour of the game by representatives from Konami, 4mm Games and Def Jam Ent
“Glee” Gets an Addictive iPhone and iPad App
video Calling all Gleeks! Fox Interactive has partnered with Smule – the team that brought us Magic Piano and I Am T-Pain – to bring the Glee experience to the iPhone and iPad.The app [iTunes link], priced at $2.99 and available in the App Store, takes the best elements of Glee, I Am T-Pain, Rock Band Karaoke and Chatroulette and rolls it into one awesome experience.This is how it works: You download t
“Glee” Holds Online Casting Call on MySpace
video Today, MySpace announced that it is officially hosting the casting call for the hit TV show and is accepting submissions from now through April 26. Would-be Gleeks between the ages of 16 and 26 can submit their audition video either by uploading their own pre-recorded video or choosing from a selection of MySpace Karaoke Glee hits on the Glee Auditions Official MySpace Profile. The songs that us
For all your digital guitar playing cheat sheet needs, there's i-Tab
Admit it, you're not really working remotely from home on a Friday. We know, you're sitting at home with your six strings of seduction jamming out to Ryan Adams albums. Well, just in case you need to clear some of that monitor space for actual work -- or a memory jolt during that gig you booked at the local cabana -- i-Tab's got you covered with what it's calling "the world's first electronic son
The 40 Best Branded iPhone Music Apps of 2009
Music apps are a huge category of apps, and 2009 was a huge year for music apps. Music Ally sums up the year's biggest music apps for us here. 2009 was the year of the App Store, as Apple passed the two-billion downloads milestone for its store. The year also saw labels and artists jumping onto the bandwagon with their own branded iPhone apps. The most successful, like Smule's I Am T-Pain (picture
YouTube Caroling: YouTube Launches $5,000 Singing Contest
video Who doesn’t love carolers? They show up at your door, sing a holiday favorite, and leave, imparting you with Christmas cheer. If caroling is your thing, but you’re not brave enough to bear the winter weather and go door-to-door, YouTube has a rewarding incentive for you to take your tunes to the Web and carol online instead. YouTube Caroling, a new channel from the video site sponsored by Marshall
Like Karaoke? You’ll Go (Lady) Gaga Over iOKi’s iPhone App
video Karaoke fans will soon get the chance to turn their iPhones into full-fledged karaoke machines, thanks to an upcoming new application called iOKi. This is no wannabe karaoke app either — music sensation Lady Gaga has partnered with iOKi to launch her own fully Gaga-ized version of the app featuring some of her most popular songs, which will make its debut alongside the upcoming release of her ne
Lightning Review: The Ultimate Karaoke Experience Kit
We've all seen Karaoke kits, but few have beheld the sheer awesomeness of The Ultimate Karaoke Experience Kit, an online Karaoke service for Mac and PC. The Pitch: It's web karaoke with access to 5,300 songs online, complete with YouTube-esque song recording and sharing. The Price: A $40 kit includes 2 mics and a base unit (free with a year's subscription to 5,000 songs) and $10/month for the ser
The Karaoke Kit: everything you need to be a singer, save for courage
Eager to add a little spice to your weekly "family night?" No, we're not talking about forcing your kids to hack your DS into a MIDI controller while you and the spouse race to see who can eat the most frankfurters in ten minutes, we're talking about karaoke. The KARAOKE Channel ONLINE has just branched out by introducing its first hardware kit, which includes a pair of microphones, a vocal mixer
Wii Peripheral to Make Karaoke Even More Awkward
In case you found drunkenly singing famous songs off-key in front of friends, co-workers and strangers alike to be a positive experience, maybe you could try singing into this new Wii toilet plunger. Karaoke Joysound Wii, a new game by Hudson, comes packaged with the "Not Noisy Kara OK!" peripheral—essentially a USB microphone with one of those female pee funnels on top. It's all availabl
'Funny Band' Combines Keyboards, Drums and Guitar Into One Unusable Controller
Sick of all those fake instruments cluttering up your living room? Try Korean-made Funny Band, which takes a guitar and shoves drums on the back and a keyboard on the front for some insane reason. Yeah, I'm not quire sure how you're supposed to use this Rock Band ripoff, but it sure is ambitious. Oh, and you really owe it to yourself to read the press release, which is a masterclass in the art of
Lips Karaoke Game For Xbox 360: Hardware and Media Import Review
Xbox 360's Lips karaoke game is notable for two reasons. One is the Vegas loungy motion-sensitive wireless microphones that trigger bonus scoring opportunities for you as part of the game. The second is the feature that lets you use any DRM-free song from your iTunes/Zune/Amazon library as a base for singing. So what the hell went wrong? A number of things. Head to Kotaku if you want to see how th
Sega's Disco Karaoke Machine Twirls Its Disco Ball, Connects to Cellphones
Two things set this Sega Hitokara karaoke machine apart from the rest: it's connected to a cloud-based database of 43,000 songs via cellphone and it's got a whirling, light-up mirrored disco ball. Ohboyyes. Granted you'd have to be a fan of both karaoke (you strange person) and cheezy disco lighting, but what the heck—it's a neat gizmo, with built-in mic and speakers. But it only c
The Karaoke Channel Launches Online Hub
The Karaoke Channel, a video on demand karaoke service that is available through cable in 30 million households, is launching its own online karaoke hub. The site offers a catalog of over 5000 popular karaoke songs, including songs available in a number of foreign languages. If you’d like to try out The Karaoke Channel, the first 500 TechCrunch readers who follow these instructions will be able
SonicSwap Puts Your iTunes Library On The Web For Streaming And Sharing
Since the launch of YouTube’s API and the release of Seeqpod, we’ve seen many sites emerge that allow users to create playlists of their favorite songs that can be streamed free of charge. Unfortunately, this can be a tedious task - oftentimes users are forced to recreate the playlists they already have in iTunes because the sites lack an upload function. SonicSwap, a startup that launched this