Google’s Nexus Q Is a Hassle-Free Streaming Media Player for Your Living Room

Google’s new Nexus Q may be the last stereo appliance you buy for your home entertainment system. It streams music from your Android phone to your speakers and video to your television, supports built-in streaming from YouTube or your Google account and any music you may have stored at Google Music, and can even let your friends in on the action by connecting to their devices and streaming their music and movies to your entertainment system.

The Nexus Q connects to your speakers and your television via HDMI (or Micro HDMI), and to your speakers through standard banana jack connectors (or Optical audio), and connects to your home network via Wi-Fi or 10/100 Ethernet. Once it’s all hooked up and connected, you can use your Android device as a remote control to stream media on your Android device or stored in the cloud to your entertainment center.

If you’re thinking this sounds a lot like a set-top box, you’re close. The Nexus Q is less of a set-top box and more a bridge between your Android phone or tablet (or both) and your home entertainment system. The wireless streaming features are a bit like Apple’s Airplay. You even control the volume and playback of your media from your Android device.

If you’re eager to get your hands on the little black sphere, the Nexus Q will set you back $299, ships in mid-July, and is available for pre-order now.

• Nexus Q | Google Play

ref: Alan Henry

Hound Lets You Search for Music with Your Voice -A Competitor for Shazam

 

iOS/Android: From the same team that brought you SoundHound, Hound is a music search app that lets you speak the name of a song or artist aloud to search for it in the SoundHound database. Once it’s found, you can read more about it, listen to a preview, or watch the video.

Unlike the previously mentioned SoundHound, which uses a song’s audio pattern to identify the track playing, Hound allows you to just speak the title or the artist to see songs that match your search. When the app finds the song you’re looking for, you can listen to an audio preview of the track, read more about the song or the artist, or hop over to YouTube to watch the music video.

If your voice search doesn’t work, you can always use the keyword search. Hound is meant to be a song search tool, not so much a music-on-demand app. It does, however, give you an easy way to learn more about any artist you hear about, and preview their music. Hound is free, and available in the iTunes App Store and the Android App Market.

SoundHound

Ref: Alan Henry

Monstro Helps You Find New Tunes Based on What Your Friends are Sharing

 

If you’re tired of algorithms helping you find music and you’re curious what other people you actually know are listening to, Monstro is a new service that uses your Twitter account to pull together mini-mixes based on the songs your friends enjoy enough to share with the world. You can “tune in” to mixes created by friends and other avid music-sharers, check out the service’s music charts to discover new bands, and fall in love with music all over again.

Monstro uses your Twitter account to see what music you’ve been sharing recently, and then builds a mix based on those songs. You can click on any of them to listen, download them from Amazon or iTunes, stream on Spotify, or check out a music video at YouTube. The “Friends Mix” page shows you songs that your friends have shared on various social networks so you can listen in and hopefully discover something new. You can even see which other Twitter users have shared the same song.

If you’re looking for something completely new, check out the Monstro Charts, which are a combination of popular artists overall, popular on Monstro, or popular on the social network or music service you prefer. With one click, you can see the songs and artists that users share the most at The Hype Machine, Spotify, Last.fm, Pandora, Soundtracking, and more.

Monstro isn’t really a music player or streaming radio service, although you could use it that way. What it really does—and does very well—is introduce you to new bands that your friends are listening to, and lets you explore new music you may not have otherwise found on your own. It’s completely free, and all you need is a Twitter account to sign up.

• Monstro

Ref:Alan Henry

TorChat Is an Easy to Use Anonymous and Encrypted Chat Client

 

Windows/Mac: TorChat is an instant messenger client that makes encrypted, anonymous chat and file sharing with your friends incredibly easy. Built on Tor’slocation hiding services nobody will be able to see what you’re doing or who you’re contacting.

While most of us won’t need TorChat too often, it’s bound to come in handy at some point when you need to transmit data or if you’d like to have a conversation with a friend without worrying about anyone sniffing your internet connection. When you sign into TorChat you’ll get an random .onion address that serves as your ID. Exchange this with your friends and you’ll be chatting privately right away. On top of the Windows version linked below you can get an OS X client, Pidgin plugin, and a Portable Java version.

• TorChat | via One Thing Well