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Tech Know How: 16 July 13

2013-07-16T09:10:55+00:00

Stuff.TV’s Lucy is back from her holidays and is here to give you her techno picks of the week.

Gadget of the Week – Beats by Dre Pill Bluetooth Speaker, £170

This is a portable speaker with effortless connectivity and is impressively loud for its size, better than average sound. It handles bass and low frequencies.

App of the Week – Seenth.is, iOS, Free

It’s an easy app that lets you stay up to date with your favourite artists and events. It aggregates posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and SoundCloud from musicians and fans, separating them into feeds for the latest news, updates and fan content for each artist/event.

Website of the Week – Daytrotter.com

This website records live sessions with musicians at it’s Horseshack studios in Rock Island, Illinois and makes them available for listening. Listen to and view archived concert videos and queue up music to stream, listen to varied playlists from readers and artists and listen live.

Tech Know How: 11 June 13

2013-06-11T09:16:20+00:00

Lucy Hedges from Stuff.tv pops in every week to give us all the latest in tech news, gadgets and apps – listen back after the show to hear her talking about Apple’s new iOS7 and discussing the below: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02tqljh

Gadget of the Week - Projecteo

This is a miniature LED-powered Instagram slide Projector. The projector is about the size of a matchbox and has a slot wheel in which you can view images with a flick of your finger.

Website of the week – www.historykitchen.com

This website explores the fascinating history of food: culinary history and heritage, culture, vintage recipes, historical dishes and origins of different ingredients and recipes. You'll be able to discover the stories behind your favourite foods and recipes from the influence of food and drink on the literature of Charles Dickens to making the cocktails of Mad Men and everything in between.

App of the Week - Official Glastonbury app, Free

This year’s Glasto music festival app includes features perfect for those who are attending and those who want to enjoy the event at home . It currently provides news in the run up to the festival, but later in the month it will get full line-up details and a customizable schedule, interactive maps including pin drops, real-time news, you'll be able to set meeting points and share social media. Alternatively, the BBC iPlayer Radio app will have dedicated Glastonbury button for audio and video on the go.

PLANET OF THE APPS: 11TH SEPTEMBER 2012

2012-09-11T10:00:00+00:00

App know-it-all Stuart Dredge returns to talk you through some of the best bits out this week:

Habu Music

Habu Music is the latest smartphone and tablet app promising to help you discover new, amazing music. Its twist: the music is presented by mood, with playlists based on things like 'sensual', 'peaceful', 'cool' and 'rowdy'.

Indie Shuffle

This is another 'smart playlists' app that aims to serve up new music, but this time based on the popular Indie Shuffle website. Choose a song in genres like indie rock, hip-hop and electronic, hit play, and enjoy (in theory) a stream of goodness.

John Cage Piano

Celebrate the 100th birthday of composer John Cage by playing a virtual version of his 'prepared' piano - basically this involved putting a load of old metal bits and bobs under his piano's strings to "create an entirely new instrument". And now you can do it on an iPad with no nails or bolts required.

PLANET OF THE APPS: 28TH AUGUST 2012

2012-08-28T10:00:37+00:00

App expert Stuart Dredge returns with more apps for your consideration...

Broadcast for Friends (iPhone - free)

This is an app to broadcast live video from your iPhone to all your friends on Facebook - possible uses for gigs/festivals, as well as parties, sports and amazing things you see in the street. But is it legal?

A Story of a Band (Android - Â£1.56)

Ever fancied yourself as a budding Malcolm McLaren? A Story Of A Band puts you in the shoes of a music manager trying to guide your hapless band to the top, touring, recording and cultivating a fanbase of hipsters. It's a roleplaying game about music, and it's fab.

PLANET OF THE APPS: 21ST AUGUST 2012

2012-08-21T10:00:01+00:00

He's had a week off, but now Stuart Dredge is back refreshed, and talkin' apps...

Bloc Party (iPhone / Android)

Just in time for their new album Four, Bloc Party have released their own app. Besides the usual features (news, videos, tweets etc) there's a daily weather forecast (or 'FourCast') which checks the real weather for your town, then gives you the forecast in a pre-recorded video from the band themselves. Lots of other treats for fans are promised.

Pinterest (Android)

Image-focused social network Pinterest has a brand new Android app, helping you share pictures on virtual walls and browse those of friends. It's a good time to talk about what Pinterest is, and its reputation as being a service mainly for women. What is it for, and how does music fit in?

CityBeats (iPhone / iPad)

Football! Not content with winning the Premier League last season, now Manchester City have designs on music fans' smartphones. CityBeats is a remix app: "showcasing the great up and coming bands from around the UK". You can tap on simple buttons to mess around with their songs, then share the results with friends.

PLANET OF THE APPS: 7TH AUGUST 2012

2012-08-07T10:00:09+00:00

Resident techexpert Stuart Dredge returns to talk about these things...

AutoRap (iPhone / Android - free)

Want to rap like Snoop Dogg? AutoRap lets you try, and share the embarrassing results with your friends. "It turns speech into rap, and corrects bad rapping," claims its blurb. Beats and samples from Snoop, the Beastie Boys, Outkast etc are provided, although you have to pay for them.

Tap Tap Revenge Tour (iPhone - free)

Tap Tap Revenge was the first big music game for mobile phones, and now it's back with its biggest version yet. Tap, slice and shake your phone to the sounds of more than 300 songs - some are free and some you pay for - with Coldplay, The Prodigy, Justice and LCD Soundsystem all featuring.

Rumpus (Android - free)

Rumpus is rare - a music discovery app that's launching on Android first. It's for Android tablets, and let's you type in band names to find out more about them, buy their music and see similar artists.

PLANET OF THE APPS: 24TH JULY 2012

2012-07-24T09:56:48+00:00

Tech expert Stuart Dredge highlights some of this week's best apps...

The Blur App (iPhone / iPad)

To celebrate Blur's latest reunion and gigs, EMI has launched an iPhone and iPad app celebrating the band's 21-year career. It's not just marketing bumph though - there is lots of exclusive music, remixes and interviews, along with a big gigography (including setlists) from the early days to now.

Passion Pit: Gossamer (iPhone / iPad)

The man who worked with Bjork on her Biophilia apps, Scott Snibbe, has a new collaboration with Passion Pit. It's more interactive music videos, this time for two songs off their new album Gossamer, as well as fun remix tools to make your own versions of the songs.

Tom Hanks' Electric City (Android / iPhone / iPad)

Tom Hanks' latest project isn't in the cinema: it's online and on smartphones and tablets. Electric City is an animated web series which is being distributed entirely digitally. The apps came out last week, and include additional stuff as well as the basic episodes.

PLANET OF THE APPS: 17TH JULY 2012

2012-07-17T10:00:25+00:00

Tech wizard Stuart Dredge runs you through a few apps new to the market...

Mixcloud (Android - Free)

Mixcloud is a popular website and iPhone app that streams DJ mix sets, podcasts and radio shows. Now it's available on Android too, so worth another look. You can browse for shows to listen to, mark your favourites and follow the DJs / podcasters that you most like.

Amazing Alex (Android / iPhone / iPad - 69p - Â£1.99)

Finnish developer Rovio is famous for its Angry Birds games, which 900 million people have downloaded so far. Amazing Alex is its first NON-Angry Birds game since that series became a monster hit, and is more about solving physics-based puzzles.

Recce - London (iPhone / iPad - Free)

Recce is a beautiful 3D mapping application, initially about London to let you zoom over the capital's landmarks and find places to go.

PLANET OF THE APPS: 10TH JULY 2012

2012-07-10T10:00:53+00:00

Stuart Dredge is back with a couple of app recommendations for your smart phone/tablet.

Sonarflow (iPhone/iPad - Free)

This brand new app aims to help you find new music to listen to on Spotify. It's like a Venn diagram of artists and songs, showing you your Top Songs, your Starred songs and Spotify's chart, then a little spyglass to find similar music that you might like.

Word Lens (Android - Â£2.99)

Simple but genius: Word Lens gets you to point your smartphone at printed materials (signs, menus etc) and instantly translates them into English for you. It works with French, Spanish and Italian, and has just come out on Android following an iPhone version last year. The most useful tourism app yet, as well as being the most useful example of augmented reality.

London - A City Through Time (iPad - Â£9.99)

This is marvellous - a beautiful interactive encyclopedia of London through the last 2,000 tears, with text, images, maps, spinny objects, audio tours and anecdotes from famous Londoners. A real treat.

PLANET OF THE APPS: 3RD JULY 2012

2012-07-03T08:55:24+00:00

Mr Stuart Dredge returns with more app reviews, mainly...

Musicians releasing music as apps

Adam Jansch (son of Bert!) released his Futures EP for iPhone, and claims each track will sound different every time you listen to it (1,418,633,882,621,706,240 possible outcomes for one of them).

The Sonnets by William Shakespeare (iPad)

This is from the same people who did The Waste Land (Faber and Touch Press) - every one of Shakespeare's sonnets read by famous actors (David Tennant, Sir Patrick Stewart, Fiona Shaw etc) along with notes, expert interviews and so on. Have MP3 to play too, if useful.

Podcasts (iPhone / iPad)

Podcasts might not get hyped as much as a few years ago, but they're still really popular. Now Apple has launched a standalone Podcasts app for iPhone and iPad, to help you find podcasts to listen to, and subscribe to your favourites.

PLANET OF THE APPS: 19TH JUNE 2012

2012-06-19T10:00:37+00:00

Tech-head Stuart Dredge takes another run at this week's apps, and reviews the following...

Slash gets appy. Twice!

Former Guns'n'Roses guitarist Slash has a new album on the way, and a pair of new apps to promote it. One is a performance in the studio filmEd with whizzy cameras so you can swoop around in 360 degrees while watching. And the other is an AmpliTube app that, when you connect a real guitar to your iPhone, lets you play with Slash's own amps and pedal settings.

Vjay (iPad)

Last year, an iPad app called djay took the App Store by storm, letting people DJ with two virtual decks. This does the same thing for music videos, letting you mix and mash videos and sound - as good for playing with at home as for VJ sets at parties.

WhoSampled (iPhone)

This app is based on the popular British website which identifies which songs sampled which other songs, with a database of more than 150,000 tracks. It scans your iPhone music collection, then tells you which tracks have samples, lets you play the originals from YouTube, or buy them from iTunes.