Our weekly roundup of the top news stories in the world of tech for the week beginning January 25th, 2016.
Apple’s new Music Memos app makes it easy capture your musical ideas
With apps like GarageBand and Logic Pro X, Apple’s established itself a master of music creation tools, but until now it’s only been able to join the creation process along the way, with the new Music Memos app for iOS it’s looking to be part of the moment of inception.
Previously musicians looked to the iOS’s Voice Memos app to record simple lyrical or melodic ideas, however Music Memos take the concept and bolsters its musical capabilities. Firstly the new app can decipher chords based on input and even automatically add drum and bass tracks to give greater weight to an idea. It also features an integrated guitar tuner and the ability to share directly to SoundCloud.
The Music Memos app is free to download from the App Store for devices running iOS 9.1 or later. Find out more here.
An idiot driver smashed his BMW M3 into a taxi at 64mph
If the internet can teach us anything about drivers, it’s that there are a lot of stupid ones. One such example was a Taiwanese man at the wheel of what looks and sounds like a souped-up BMW M3.
The man, who’s riding along with a lady friend in the passenger seat, powers down a major street in the port city of Kaosiung before turning around and going hell for leather at a major junction, quickly accelerating into the side of a taxi that was performing a U-turn.
Whether anyone was seriously injured following the crash is unclear and whilst some YouTube commenters have suggested that the taxi driver was potentially making an illegal U-turn, all agreed the M3 driver was the real idiot. Find out more here.
Senior Twitter executives depart en masse
Following rumblings from within the industry in recent weeks, Twitter founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey confirmed that a number of the company’s executives would be leaving to embark on new ventures elsewhere on Monday. The company’s VP of global media Katie Stanton, product head Kevin Weil, engineering head Alex Roetter and head of HR Brian Schipper were amongst the names mentioned in Dorsey’s open letter announcing the departures.
Was really hoping to talk to Twitter employees about this later this week, but want to set the record straight now: pic.twitter.com/PcpRyTzOlW
— Jack (@jack) January 25, 2016
This news follows on from a tweet posted over the weekend by Jason Toff who’s leaving his position heading up Twitter-owned video network Vine to rejoin Google to develop its virtual reality products.
This mass exodus is yet another stage in the downward spiral Twitter has found itself in of late, with significant staff layoffs and falling stock prices adding to the bleak picture. Find out more here.
Why Sky Q has 12 tuners: our hands-on
Our very own Tom Newton was able to go hands-on with Sky Q ahead of its official launch sometime in ‘early 2016’.
Naturally the most important thing was to understand why a box needs 12 tuners. The breakdown is as follows, one is dedicated to the live TV experience with a second supplying picture-in-picture services. Two others are partitioned for streaming to tablets while another two are set aside for streaming to Q Mini set-top boxes.
A further four are used for recordings – meaning you can record up to four shows at once – and the eleventh tuner is used for receiving UI data. As for the twelfth? Sky was only willing to go so far as to say ‘future services’ and whilst it wasn’t willing to discuss the probability of 4K, it did say that such content would broadcast at 50fps. Find out more here.
Periscope powers GoPro’s new live broadcasting abilities
Twitter-owned live streaming app Periscope and action-cam giant GoPro announced a partnership on Tuesday highlighting new functionality that brings the social video platform to GoPro’s HERO4 Black and Silver edition action cameras.
.@zbigy makes it look so easy #GoLIVE #GoPro https://t.co/0ccYnosAaK
— Periscope (@periscopeco) January 27, 2016
For the time being this new functionality is limited to devices running iOS 8.2 or newer, letting you broadcast from either your iPhone’s camera or your connected GoPro. Users can even record to their SD cards whilst broadcasting to the 10+ million user-strong network. It’s the first sign of Periscope moving beyond its mobile roots and also serves as a powerful new addition to GoPro’s established action camera brand, which of late has been struggling to innovate in meaningful ways. Find out more here.
Read next: Periscope and HTC’s RE camera are a match waiting to be made
Neil deGrasse Tyson lays down the scientific smack on rapper B.o.B
In case you’ve missed the weird and wonderful world of Twitter this week, not only did Kanye West go into meltdown following a misunderstanding with fellow artist Wiz Khalifa, but rapper B.o.B (real name Bobby Ray Simmons) started posting his beliefs in ‘earth flatism’.
16 miles equals how much earth curve ? pic.twitter.com/haLuERMuBa
— B.o.B (@bobatl) January 25, 2016
Despite numerous posts on the matter, some of which contained photos supposedly supporting his beliefs, famed Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson stepped in to try and outline just how scientifically incorrect Simmons was. Tyson didn’t spark a conventional internet altercation though; despite his efforts to steer B.o.B back onto a more scientifically sound path of understanding, he did also commend the rapper for his music.
Tyson also appeared on Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show, following a new B.o.B diss track referencing the scientist called Flat Line, where he spoke out about those in positions of power and influence spouting scientifically incorrect statements and the harmful effects they could have to their followers and fans, “Being wrong, becomes being harmful to the health, the wealth and security of our citizenry.”
To round out the whole affair thus far Tyson punctuated his speech with a demonstration of gravity, with a literal mic drop. Find out more here.
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