Ford and Microsoft have made a major announcement at the Detroit Auto Show with the premiere of a new Bluetooth enabled in-car entertainment device, 'Sync', that will work with your digital music player or phone in an effort to integrate communications and entertainment devices with Ford vehicles. As the video above shows Sync is designed to provide voice activated access to Bluetooth enabled devices whether you happen to be speeding down the freeway or stuck in urban traffic.

It's a nice idea that neatly integrates with Microsoft's wireless ambitions for it's recently released Zune digital music player, though the folks at Redmond better hope that Sync generates a bit more interest than Zune, otherwise it may share the recent fortunes of the rest of the US car industry. It will certainly be interesting to see how the Sync fares on the open road - there's a clear use for such a device, but whether Ford and MS can provide sufficient integration with the various brands of phones and digital music devices on the market will need a thorough road testing.

[Via our friends at Autoblog who are covering lots of other interesting announcements from the Detroit Auto Show here]

In between the time that I've spent over the past few days eating and drinking far too much I've been taking a little time out to think about the top musical moments of the past year and my first pick takes the form of the video above - the French artist Camille with this extraordinary beatboxing track. With an amazing mix of beatboxing, sampling and her fantastic voice this song and video are truly unique and definitely make my top list of musical moments for 2006

With the vibrant energy of a packed aerobics class, a whole lot of retro seventies cool and a sound that throws together the best of electro, indie and hip hop the Go! Team was one of the hottest acts to do the rounds on the European festival circuit this past Summer.

I caught their act at the V Festival on the outskirts of London and they made headline acts like Beck and Radiohead look like they were standing still. There is a stylish cool and wistful retro sound that makes their tunes the perfect sounds to groove along to on your iPod as you sit on the bus or cruise down the highway.

Summer is ancient history around about now - but check out this great mini doco about the Go! Team to hear more.

OK, you've got your board sorted and you're ready to hit the slopes this winter - but there's just one thing missing - a place to put your iPod Nano so that you can listen to Green Day and The Barenaked Ladies all day long while you rip up the slopes. Well, the folks at iSoundCap have already done your thinking for you and with their new iPod Nano holding beanie you'll never have to worry about being away from your new wave punk ever again.

The new cap has a spot to keep your iPod Nano and is designed to allow you to tuck away the headphones so they don't get in the way and seems to be designed to be as waterproof as possible - just don't go sticking your head in a snow drift. On the downside it is 100% acrylic fibre, so if you're concerned about your natural materials you may want to think again - but then again - Dude!

Grant's been wowing you recently with crazy Korean B Boys and their break dancing moves, but my favourite clip at the moment is a little more two dimensional. Three piece pyschedelic electronic crew from Sydney Australia, the Telemetry Orchestra, have long been known for their great animated video clips, due in a large part to band member and top international illustrator Steve Scott. For their latest release, the band has used new director Dael Oates (from Animal Logic, the Sydney FX Studio behind films like The Matrix and Happy Feet) to add visual impact to their latest single 'Under the Cherry Tree'. This clip has a fantastic look and feel with its dark moody lighting and faux two dimensional 3D animation (does that make any sense?).

Want more? Listen to Dael's commentary about the clip.

OK, so what have the folks at Microsoft been smoking recently? It feels a little like two rival gangs trash talking one another right about now as Microsoft baits Apple with the claim that it's going to ship 1 million Zunes by the middle of 2007. Now, one shouldn't ever underestimate our homies up in Seattle, but as far as the digital music gangbangers go right at the moment it's big Steve Jobs and his crew that are packing all the heat.

We here at TDMW want to believe in the Zune, it's got a bunch of cool features and despite the fact that it's really very ugly, it could have been a contender. Microsoft coming out with a cool gadget that allows you to share music and make the most of community features would have been a little like King Kong finally hooking up with Naomi Watts even despite all that carnage and mayhem he created when he destroyed most of New York.

As the Zune's market share slowly declines, we're left wondering if the so called 'Halo factor' will finally appear, it's hard to see right now, but if Microsoft give it a break and take some risks they might finally find that cloud does have a silver lining after all.

[via BBC]

We at TDMW have previously covered the questionable business model of BurnLounge - a Web service that uses a multi-level marketing scheme to extort large sums of money from new users on the premise that they will be able to open their own online music stores and recoup their investment. Yet for most users the only realistic way of recouping their investment is not through music sales but by subscribing other users to the scheme.

BurnLounge has made much of it's celebrity supporters in the past, such as Justin Timberlake, and now it appears that they now have had the ultimate endorsement from on high. Our previous stories covering BurnLounge have prompted an outpouring of comments from BurnLounge zealots supporters, and some of the most recent have pointed to a new avenue of recruitment for the pyramid scheme digital music service.

A recent comment on TDMW signaled the new recruitment drive for BurnLounge in the the Christian music scene:

My husband and I joined BurnLounge 4 weeks ago and have made $6000, with the help and blessing of God. This is a good Christian company.

A bit more digging reveals that a number of different companies are now marketing to the Christian community - Bruce Adolph of www.christianbxp.com sells BurnLounge in the following way:

Maybe you belong to a Church that has awesome Praise and Worship Groups and Individuals, then BurnLounge is the place to get you and them exposure. Maybe you are a Christian Artists who's been trying to find a way to get your Music out to the world to make a difference for Jesus, then BurnLounge is the place to get the exposure you need.

Of course they don't mention the huge sign-up fees, or monthly subscription charges to join BurnLounge and neither do other sites such as www.christianmusic.com or www.musichristian.com.

I certainly have nothing against Christian music and when a service such as BurnLounge, with its questionable business model, starts to exploit faith to make a quick buck then it feels like they're descending to another level altogether.

In the latest from the iPod world, it would appear that iPods increase musical awareness. This probably doesn't come as one of the most amazing of revelations for anyone who owns an iPod or any other digital player - after all, how easy has iTunes made it to make the twitch purchase? Who hasn't come home late at night from the pub and trawled iTunes for early eighties rave anthems, early Smiths tracks, rare albums from the Byrds or the latest R&B track that you heard on the radio on the way home? Well, maybe you haven't - but I guess you now know what passes for a social life in my world.

The digital culture eggheads at Jupiter Research have compiled a large report on the subject showing the digital music marketplace has increased adult consumption of digital music, though they conclude that traditional music promotion through radio and music videos are still important for musical awareness.

In other iPod related news, New Zealand has finally entered the digital age with Apple finally introducing iTunes to the land of the hobbits. I'm sure that Frodo must be very pleased - finally.

[Via Playlist]

There's something about being Scandinavian that immediately adds a bit of cachet to any musical career - and Norway's Datarock are no exception. These nu school tracksuit wearing BMX bike riding ravers are building a great reputation with their fresh new sound that fuses electro and indy influences. Norwegian acts such as Royksopp and Annie have already put their country on the musical map and Datarock are the next to watch out for.

Q Magazine has described them as 'disco electronica with a surprising treat', and if you want a taste Datarock have also been good enough to put up a top Web site featuring plenty of downloads, videos and even their own video game.

Download the video the new Datarock video 'Fa Fa Fa' here.

Download their funky video game for PC here.

OK, Grant recently told you about one of the latest hot musical sensations from Australia The Grates - but if you really want to keep track of the latest breaking musical sensations from down under you can't beat Sydney's Radio FBi.

FBi was the first station to break such internationally successful artists such as The Vines and has a musical mix that crosses genres between indy rock, dance and hip hop from Australia and around the world. As a community run station, FBi has lots of input from the music community in Sydney with top emerging international DJs such as Future Classic's DeepChild broadcasting on the station.

Of course if you're tuning in from outside of Australia, you may end up listending to the morning show in the mid afternoon, but the funky mix of sounds and arts based talks programming at any time of the day makes the experience well worth while.

Listen to Radio Fbi's live stream here

Check out FBi's podcasts here

LCD Soundsystem have been making a huge splash with their electro dance influenced indy sound - with tracks such as 'Daft Punk Is Playing In My House' and early next year they're going to be touring Europe, so readers there should stay on the lookout for tickets when they hit town in March.

If you're a fan you probably also are aware that they're on one of EMI's labels - a record company well known for its rubbish DRM on its CDs that makes it rather difficult to copy to your digital music player. But even despite their rubbish record company you can still listen to tracks from their self titled album and snippets from their recently released LP of remixes 'Introns' online at their Web site. So if you want to tune in to one of the hottest bands around nowdays and can't be bothered to actually shell out for the CD check the links below.

Click to listen to the LCD Soundsystem self titled debut here.

Click to listen to snippets from their new album 'Introns' here.

OK - so I may have recently trashed the latest rumors of an iPod phone, but if the latest Apple patent filings are anything to go by, there actually might be some value in the stories this time. Technology business Web site Red Herring has reported that Apple Computer has filed a patent for a device that incorporates a phone, portable computing device and media player.

Of course this is just one more in a long line of cynical patent registrations by IT companies of fundamentally basic concepts that lack any novelty whatsoever. Can anyone say Walkman phone? Or Windows Mobile? Exactly how long is the US Patent Office going to allow this charade to continue? These guys aren't patenting a cure for cancer - it's an obvious extension of existing technology.

That aside - this patent filing comes hard on the heels of even more chatter from technology consultants about Apple's plans for an iPhone. With Microsoft's, albeit lackluster, entry into the digital music player market Apple will have to be looking at the next step for the iPod. We'll keep you updated on the latest rumors - and one day maybe someday we will actually see some product.

[via Red Herring]

Here at TDMW we've told you a few times before about Sonific - the service that allows you to embed music in Web sites everywhere by using their unique 'SongSpots'. It's a neat service, that has the potential to turn otherwise music-free Web sites, blogs or community sites into an audiovisual experience. From what we've seen so far Sonific is slowly adding new features to increase the value of the service - with the latest update Sonific has turned on email connectivity, allowing users to send musical postcards.

In order to use the new features, you'll need to open a Sonific account, then login and search for a track which should now have an 'email this', all you do then is insert the email details of the individual you want to send the track to, and before you know it - they're grooving along with you.

The biggest drawback to Sonific to date had been the lack of musical choice, since the launch most of the music has been fairly obscure - however on my most recent visit I was happy to find that the choice has expanded with artists like the Buzzcocks and Echo and the Bunnymen now being featured.

Check out Sonific to find out more - or click on the SongSpot above to try it out for yourself.

Our friends over at Engadget have gotten to the bottom of the recently discovered Zune hack that allows users to turn their digital music player into a portable hard drive - a hard drive that's WiFi enabled to allow you to share all sorts of things with your other Zune buddies. Of course this wasn't something that Microsoft wanted you to do, but could prove to be one of the most compelling aspects of the Zune - allbeit without Redmond's blessing. The Zune's launch so far has proven to be a pretty uncompelling affair, but if features such as this become more widely available Microsoft might end up with a success on their hands, even if it's despite their best intentions.

So if you're trying to decide on Zune vs iPod for Christmas, check out the link below for at least one reason why buying a Zune might be a good idea (let's face it, you're going to need a few).

[via Engadget]

Fox News is well known for its unique fusion of right wing politics and occasionally questionable journalistic standards - so it comes as no surprise that the latest rumors of an iPod phone is coming from such a reputable source. The Yeti of the technology world, the iPod phone, has been rumored, rumored and then rumored again - and so far from Apple - nothing. But this time Fox is reporting not one - but two iPod phones are actually in production.

Fox's source is Shaw Wu an analyst with American Technology Research who has claimed that one of the new phones will incorporate both iTunes and Apple's iChat software and one may be known as an iChat mobile. Wu's analysis seems about as interesting as a crocheted hot water bottle cover - how much money exactly do you have to pay an analyst to point out the sort of technology that has already become common in the marketplace? This is one story we're going to definitely have to take with a pinch of salt.

[via FoxNews]