Editors
Tickets are on release for concerts to see the post-punk/indie band, Editors perform across the UK at venues in cities including Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle, Belfast and London.
Hailed as “The second biggest British band of the decade after the Arctic Monkeys,” by The Mail on Sunday, the Editors have carved a niche for themselves in the musical scene and look set to stay there for the foreseeable future.
With songs that are defined by dark, indie guitar rock, influenced by bands like The Strokes and Joy Division, their two studio albums have sold over a million copies worldwide. The runaway success of the platinum debut album The Back Room, with its overriding atmosphere of menace, was followed up by the equally successful An End Has a Start that went straight to number one in the UK charts, and focuses on themes of death but also on the positive power of redemption.
But don’t be misled; all is not doom and gloom at an Editors concert. The menace is still there but catchy guitar riffs are supplemented by a new textured sound like the choir added in the massively successful single; Smokers Outside Hospital Doors. In other songs, multiple sounds create a layered effect. Anthemic melodies intertwine with lean and raw riffs as the multi-talented Tom Smith, with his deep and immediately identifiable vocals, alternates between piano, vocals and guitar. The more bouncy and infectious songs like Bones will have the audience erupting while a dark, underlying tension only adds to the overall atmosphere of excitement. You’ve got to be there to see it happen.
A band commentating on our times, the Editors are compelling and essential listening and must be seen live to appreciate their enormous depth and subtlety.
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Sony Ericsson W995
Sony Ericsson’s new Walkman phone leads the way in market technology. Small and slim, its slider mechanism makes it easy to use and in a stylish, brushed black metal casing, it looks good too.
It more than satisfies all your media requirements but also has an 8.1 megapixel camera which delivers crisp, top quality photos with image LED flash, stabiliser, auto focus and face and smile detection. Other functions include geo-tagging which allows you to tag your photos with descriptions of where they were taken and live photo blogging so you can upload your pictures or videos straight onto social network sites or update your status any time you want.
With built in HSDPA and Wi-Fi, speeds are pretty impressive and other features include Bluetooth and an M2 memory card slot that’ll let you store up to 16 GB of stuff. Instant access to YouTube can be gained with up to 69 films available from PlayNow™ arena movies, with a 256K TFT colour screen, the quality of viewing is excellent and three free film downloads are available per month. There’s even a stand available that lets you watch the movie at a 45 degree angle.
Also incorporating latest version of the Walkman® 4.0 player, you can save and play hundreds of tracks with the musical quality for which Sony Ericcson is renowned. It’s possible to create playlists according to genre, tempo and mood. Don’t know what a song is? Simply ask TrickID and you can find out. As you can turn the radio function off, it’s also possible to use it on flights and in hospital and there’s also a docking station for the attachment of a speaker.
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Olive Opus No 4
This good-looking music server, the Olive Opus No 4, is something of a musical masterpiece.
With a sleek, matte black finish, fine quality aluminium exterior and some imaginative lettering across the top listing cool genres of music, it should appeal to the urban chic.
With an unprecedented 2TB of storage for up to 6,000 CDS, the Opus has colour-coded touch-screen display and a USB socket, an Ethernet and Wi-Fi adapter and is compatible with internet radio so it’s possible to connect with traditional stereo systems.
Music is delivered with audio quality matching that of your CDs, enhanced by a high resolution digital- to-analog converter and optimised circuit design. Navigation is speedy via a touch-screen menu or conventional buttons and music management is simple with a drag and drop playlist facility, metadata suggestions and album artwork customization.
Detailed genre specific information is available covering categories like Conductor, Composer, Instrument, Voice and even Original Recording Date. With easy set up and facility to play in other locations with the Melody Hi-Fi Multi-Room Player, your favourite songs should be blasting through your home in no time at all.
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PES 2010 release dates
Konami Digital Entertainment GmbH has provided a tantalising foretaste of the amazing graphics to be featured in the up and coming PES 2010 title due for release on October 23rd on PS3, Xbox 360, mobile phone and PC.
A series of incredibly realistic images of members of several national football teams has to be seen to be believed with lifelike representations of the likes of Rio Ferdinand, John Terry and Steven Gerrard portrayed in all their glory – even down to blemishes, hairs on arms and weave of kit.
Gameplay will be all about real football simulation with more versatile goalkeepers and intuitive zonal defending with players constantly needing to look out for new ways to attack. The referees have also been revamped. Crowd reaction will be more realistic too with rumours that the Tokyo-based development team has tried to differentiate between crowds at home and away fixtures. Gamers can also now move several players at once and the individual talents of each player will be reflected in the way they play and will affect the way in which the other players react.
Taking the world of virtual football to another level, the development team has added a further degree of realism in the new lighting system where real-time shadows and weather conditions influence the game – in fact – all the realities of a UK football match replicated in grim detail – never mind, it could be worse – you could actually be there!
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nik + iPod sports trainers
Question: What happens when the sports giant Nike and computer giant Apple get together? Answer: A computerised sports kit that tells you exactly how fast you’re running and how many calories you’ve used up.
It’s achieved by a tiny sensor that is fitted into a pocket under the sole of the trainers and information is transmitted via a small receiver that plugs into your iPod nano. Then with a blast of your motivational running song and with the help of your magic Nike sports shoes, your legs will be pumping up and down faster than a piston engine. As you run, your iPod will give you feedback about your performance and when your run is finished, you can access information of distance covered, calories burned, time, distance and pace.
Once home, you can upload the info onto your PC or Mac and compare your progress on nikeplus.com with other runners from all over the world. This should be an incentive to do better next time if ever there was one or maybe you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you’re a world class performer.
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Vexia Econav 435 release dates
This Sat Nav, previously only available in Europe is now ready for its UK launch in September 2009.
The Vexia Econav 435 purports to reduce your energy consumption by sending you on the most fuel saving route as well as advising on efficient driving techniques. It will be available with just UK maps or with UK and European data combined.
Makers claim that the Econav can save you up to £400 on your fuel bill and up to 30% on carbon emissions. Theoretically, it should pay for itself in the first six months of use, depending on how many miles you do a day and should ultimately lead to safer and more eco-friendly driving.
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Mini Spy Camera
Billed as the “World’s Smallest Camcorder,” this mini-sized camera is the smallest high resolution video, audio digital camcorder ever made, yet offers an incredible 100 hours of video and audio storage on a 4GB internal memory. In fact it’s so small the makers claim that it can comfortably fit into a pack of chewing gum.
Useful for discreet applications, the camera records via its internal pinhole camera. With 300,000 pixels, a 60 degrees wide angle 3.6 mm lens and a video format of 175×144, it creates good quality footage.
The entire unit which measures 2 3/4” x 3/4“x 3/8”, can record for up to two hours on a single charge. Batteries can be recharged via the USB connection. Recordings are activated by pressing an easy, one touch record button and are stored on a tiny removable micro SD card. The mini spy camera comes with a micro DVR spy cam, audio video recorder with built-in microphone and rechargeable battery, user manual and adaptor charging cable.
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Backstreet Boys Release Date
This is Us is the US boy band, Backstreet Boys, seventh studio album and the first album released since the departure of Kevin Richardson in 2006.
The band reportedly wanted to make an album that would match the success of their 1999 album, Millenium and they have brought in a host of talented artists and producers to work alongside them such as Ryan Tedder, Dr. Luke, Claude Kelly, Jim Jonsin and T-Pain.
They have also worked with award-winning producer/songwriter RedOne, who was behind the number one singles “Just Dance” and “Poker Face” by Lady Gaga and who produced the album’s lead single “Straight Through My Heart”.
The title of the album reflects the band’s promise to fans, to go back to what they do best. Band member AJ said, “It’s got an updated sound, but the one thing that we were very adamant about, after hearing feedback from fans, was that we wanted to go back to being us.”
This is Us is released in the UK on 6th October.
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David Gray Release Date
David Gray releases his eighth studio album Draw the Line this coming September.
David has described the album as having a “political edge” and being less introspective than of late. The first single off the album “Fugitive” has had it’s first play on the Ken Bruce show on BBC Radio 2 and is available to download. David says of the single: ” It’s about hiding from life, from yourself.”
Draw the Line is composed of eleven new songs, with a new musicians supporting David – Neill MacColl on guitars, Robbie Malone on bass, and Keith Pryor on drums. Featured artists include Annie Lennox in “Full Steam Ahead” and Jolie Holland, a Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter on “Kathleen”.
Draw the Line is released through EastWest on 14th September.
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ZOTAC ION ITX-F- Release dates
ZOTAC International has now launched its new high-end ION ITX-F series, expanding on its acclaimed ION ITX series motherboards.
The award-winning ION ITX series has always been popular because of its user-friendly characteristics and according to marketing manager of ZOTAC International, Carsten Berger, the new ION ITX-F series incorporates all of the features of the awarding-winning ION ITX and more: “ZOTAC always listens to user requests for features,” says Mr Berger. “End users loved our ION ITX series motherboards but some requested PCI Express expansion. We listened and thus the ZOTAC ION ITX F series was born.”
With integrated PCI Expressx16 expansion, the ZOTAC ION ITX-F series ensures the smooth delivery of all your daily computing requirements, plus high-definition video playback powered by a powerful NVIDIA® ION™ graphics processor and energy saving dual-core Intel® Atom®330 processor.
Blu-ray movies can be watched in vivid and enhanced detail courtesy of the NVIDIA® Pure Video® and NVIDIA® CUDA™ technology allows the ION graphics processor to edit and enhance videos with minimum energy consumption.
The high-performance graphics processor and dual-core processor means that the ION ITX-F series is as suited to home-theatre PCs as it is to the desktop and can be connected to multiple display units including analog or digital monitors and high-definition televisions with HDCP ready HDMI, DVI and VGA outputs.
The Onboard PCI Express 802.11n WiFi gives swift network connection without wires and with wires, onboard Gigabit Ethernet ensures speeds of up to 1000Mbps. It’s time to come out and play with the mother of all motherboards!
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