Well I’ve taken a break from traveling to the depths of the Internet to take a look at the few positive affects the Internet has had. No Chat Roulette is not a good thing, unless you consider watching men do the deed then I suppose it would be a good thing. Today I take a look at SimplyNoise.com. First we must understand what white noise is, (and not the crappy movie starting Michael Keaton) take it away HowStuffWorks: “white noise is a combination of all of the different frequencies of sound. You can think of white noise as 20,000 tones all playing at the same time.” You can also imagine two people having a conversation, your hearing is able to distinguish the two separate voices. If those two people are joined by a 1,000 of their closest friends your hearing can no longer tell who is who and it ends up sounding like white noise!

Over at SimplyNoise.com you can chose the volume level of constant stream of white noise you wish to listen to, plug in some headphones and be on your way to chillaxing (don’t say that). SimplyNoise’s instructions are a bit more corny telling you to “slide the volume orb…find your comfort zone…enjoy auditory Zen.” SimplyNoise claims on their website white noise can aid sleep, increase focus, enhance privacy, block distractions, mask tinnitus (ringing in your ears thanks Wikipedia), melt away stress, soothe migraines, pacify children and pets and (the most important) configure audio equipment.

For those not into white noise SimplyNoise also offers a selection of red noise, brown noise, and tucked into the “download audio files” section a 60 minute recording of a thunder storm!

I sampled the white noise with the “volume orb” set to 10 and I was hooked. I eliminated distractions while increasing my focus of enhancing privacy, masked my tinnitus, melted away my stress, soothed my migraine, pacified my pets, and configured my audio equipment! All of that aside I was able to concentrate more deeply while writing a paper; and it cured my eye strain headache. I found SimplyNoise to be such a positive experience I decided to share it all with you!

If you’re tired of background noise distracting your work, or have headaches you’re tired of overmedicating give SimplyNoise.com a try, it can only help!

Cam how did you listen?

I listened through Technics RP-DH1200 headphones.

Cam what are you currently listening to?

The thunderstorm on SimplyNoise.com

First up to bat is Midomi:

Midomi is powered by your own voice. The webste claims you simply have to “sing, hum, or whistle to instantly find your favorite music and connect with a community that shares your musical interests.” When you travel over to Midomi.com click on the “Click and Sing or Hum” button on the top. I gave it a try with “Don’t Stop Believing.” After singing a few lines of the song and clicking search it matched my lackluster singing to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.” Midomi also offers a preview of what song(s) your singing or humming has returned.

For the classic music lovers:

Musipedia claims on their site not to be affiliated with Wikipedia. Although they are inspired by Wikipedia in that they are a community that is building a searchable, editable, and expandable collection of tunes, melodies, and musical themes. Musipedia is unique in that it offers a music search by playing on a Flash or JavaScript based piano, clicking with your mouse, humming or whistling into your microphone, or by creating the rhythm. It has classical music matching down to a science but it’s not a fan of most things modern.

Now the winner:

Shazam has really covered their bases for the mobile music finding application with versions available for the iPhone, Nokia, BlackBerry, Android, and Windows based smart phones. For our testing purposes I downloaded Shazam for the iPhone in the App Store. The free version of Shazam allows you to “tag” five songs a month. A “tag” is Shazam’s way of naming the songs you have identified. If you find yourself needing to identify more than five songs a month you will need to unload the $4.99 a month which allows for unlimited “tags.” Once the download of Shazam is done you can go ahead and click tag while your music mystery is playing close by. After a recording period passes Shazam attempts to find the song it was listening to. Shazam was two for two in identifying “Love Song” by Sara Bareilles and “Baba O’Riley” by The Who in my testing. Shazam also allows incorporates Twitter and Facebook intergration, tour info, album reviews, lyrics, and more. Cross platform capability, and a lot of extra handy features make Shazam our winner of the Forget the Lyrics challenge.

Explore the catalog! Then travel over to WXUTSTORE.com to pick up some goodies!

Managing our online content is no easy task. Online streaming takes a heavy toll on University servers. Our previous stream was sent through Windows Media Encoder (WME) then a Microsoft Media Server (MMS) streaming protocol was created. MMS requires Windows Media Player or other plug-ins to view/listen. Due to bandwidth and software restrictions the former MMS stream only allowed 50 computers to view the stream at a time, turning others away.

With our new stream in place we now have the capability for unlimited viewers, better quality audio and video, along with text overlay, “social stream,” and chat abilities. Bandwidth while using Ustream is considerably less, our stream is fed to Ustream severs which distribute the stream out to the viewers. Our Ustream channel is embedded in a pop-up player on our website (Listen Now button), our Facebook Fan Page (my Ustream Tab), and on Ustream.tv (search WXUT). We also maintain WXUT 2 a special Ustream channel used for special events, including meetings.

Our WXUT stream is also available on iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android devices. The Ustream Mobile Viewer Application is available in the Apple App Store and the Android marketplace. To find our stream search “88.3″ in the Viewer App.

Improvements for the future include integration of Ustream Producer Pro, giving HD, multi-camera capabilities along with enhanced on screen options, and higher quality audio. The usage of Producer Pro will be assessed when a computer upgrade occurs in the following months.

So enjoy the new stream without having anything installed on your computer besides Adobe Flash Player, and a high speed Internet connection.

Cam
Online Content Director