Monday 30 May 2011

ASUS launch unique competition for UK video makers

ASUS UK, with partner Intel, have announced the launch of the ‘Visibly Smart’ short video competition; a celebration of the creative strength in British filmmaking and a chance for talented teams to win a video commission from ASUS UK as well as their own N Series notebooks.

The Visibly Smart video competition invites moving-image makers from across the UK to create a 2 minute piece of work that commends being Visibly Smart, reflects the ASUS global ethos (Inspiring Innovation, Persistent Perfection) and cleverly incorporates an innovative feature of the N Series range of notebooks.

All entries will be uploaded onto the ASUS consumer portal from 20th June 2011 at http://techinstyle.tv/visibly-smart-films, where the public will be invited to engage through comments and voting.

Everyone that votes or comments on the videos will be entered into a prize draw to win an N Series laptop for themselves. The visionary team behind the winning video will each receive an N Series laptop (up to 4). What’s more, the talented filmmakers will be profiled on ASUS’ global website and commissioned to create a video for ASUS UK later in 2011/2012.

For a more detailed brief about the campaign please visit:
http://techinstyle.tv/visibly-smart-brief

For FAQs about the campaign and for details on how to upload your own video please visit: http://techinstyle.tv/visibly-smart-filminfo

Thursday 26 May 2011

Military dating agency backs Forces Festival

Forcespenpals.co.uk has agreed to be the official sponsor of the 2011 Forces Festival – the UK’s only outdoor music festival dedicated to celebrating and supporting our soldiers, sailors and air crews.

forcespenpals.co.uk is the UK’s leading forces dating and penpal service – and brings together thousands of members the military services and civilian walks of life.

Bruno Mustone, Managing Director of Forcespenpals.co.uk said they were perfect partners for the Forces Festival (www.forcesfestival.com) which takes place this Sunday, May 29, at Bulford in Wiltshire.

He added: “Forcespenpals.co.uk is proud to be different from other dating sites in that we actively support the armed forces as do the many thousands of our civilian members.

“The Forces Festival is a great way for military personnel and civilian supporters to come together and have a great day out, so we’re very pleased to be able to show our support and take part.”

The Forces Festival is created by forces charity Project 65 to celebrate and support military veterans. It is held at the end of the five day 133 mile Forces March from Ilfracombe in Devon to Bulford Army Camp.

Project 65 Director Danny Greeno said: “We are delighted Forcespenpals.co.uk has become our main sponsor this year. Their generous support is helping us make sure the Forces Festival is even bigger and better.

“Our over-riding aim is to provide support for military veterans, whether still serving or not, and Forcespenpals.co.uk has shown that it has the same values so it’s a perfect fit. I also hope they know how to enjoy themselves!”

A significant number of www.Forcespenpal.co.uk members will be joining the crowd of up to 5,000 people expected to attend the Forces Festival, which starts at noon on Sunday and ends with a dramatic firework display at 11pm.

There will be live music all day on the festival stage, stunt displays, an air display and a fun fair. Military support groups will also have the chance to publicise their work. There is plenty of free onsite parking.

Tickets are £8 for civilian adults, £5 for children, £20 for a family ticket (2 adults and 2 children or 1 adult and 3 children) and £5 for members of armed forces.

Tickets can be pre-booked or are available on the day. For more information,
go to www.forcesfestival.com

Burn studios partners with industry leaders to launch innovative electronic music platform

Burn studios has announced the launch of an innovative electronic music portal for the cloud generation, enabling music creation, discovery and sharing. Rooted in electronic music, burn studios is set to democratise music production by bringing together music makers within an open creative network and state of the art cloud recording studio.

Partnering with electronic music platform Beatport and audio production education leader SAE Institute, burn studios will offer opportunities for breaking music talents from producers to DJs, to take part in exiting contests, exclusive educational and mentoring programmes and get a chance to showcase their music to the world.

Brought to life by Burn energy drink, the Burn Studios platform was unveiled at this year’s International Music Summit in Ibiza in a press conference at the Gran Hotel by Richie Hawtin accompanied by Beatport CEO Matt Adell, Erik Hofstadter from Burn and SAE’s Carlos Lozano.

Richie Hawtin launches public version of burn studios’ Audiotool and becomes creative director

Legendary DJ and technology buff Richie Hawtin was announced as Burn Studios Audiotool Creative Director and will lead the development of the music creation platform. Since launching the open beta version of the burn studios Audiotool in late 2010 and asking the music community to feedback and participate in the development of the platform, over 80,000 members have signed up.

With over 300,000 visits a month and growing, its popularity is spreading throughout the world. Using the overwhelming user feedback from the development forum,Burn Studios has been able to fine-tune the platform and add a wealth of new features, including midi-compatibility, sample upload and many more exciting functions. All of these great features are now available on the highly anticipated public version launched today.

The cutting-edge music studio will capture the excitement and imagination of the global electronic music community, building a social creative community that will nurture raw musical passions and provide the tools to provoke a sensational change in the shape of electronic music production, as we know it.

Burn Studios announces pan-European producer contest with Sasha and Beatport

This summer Burn Studios is teaming up with DJ and producer Sasha and electronic music portal Beatport to search for the most exiting and promising music producers from across Europe. Fourteen promising electronic music stars of the future will win the chance to take part in an exclusive production bootcamp at the Burn Studios Hacienda in Ibiza.

To be in with the chance of winning this money-can’t-buy opportunity entrants must remix this year’s IMS anthem, a track created by Pioneering DJ and producer Sasha, using Burn Studios Audiotool or Beatport’s Sound to Sample site to download remix parts. Entries must be uploaded to the cloud before 4th July 2011 when fourteen remixes will be hand selected by Sasha.

The winning producers will be flown to the Burn Studios Hacienda in Ibiza. a state of the art equipped villa where burn studioss will relocate for the summer. They will then take part in a 5-day intensive production bootcamp from 26th July to 30th July developed by SAE Institute, which includes mentoring sessions and master classes from some of the biggest names in the industry. Then, at then end of the Hacienda programme, the student with the most overall votes and support for their remix will go on to be crowned winner and be awarded the incredible opportunity to collaborate with Sasha on his next release! Go to burn-studios.com or beatport.com for more info on how to get involved in the contest.

But there's even more! For Burn Studios has also announced their collaboration with W Hotels. The two international brands will together develop the W Hotels and burn studios DJ Lab, a powerful program for up-and-coming DJs.

This partnership will kick off in August 2011 at the Burn Studios Hacienda in Ibiza, where DJs, selected by Michaelangelo L’Acqua and burn studios Ambassadors, will polish their skills in preparation for a global DJ tour. The W Hotels and Burn Studios DJ Lab global tour dates will be announced later this summer, while exclusive DJ mixes created at the Burn Hacienda will be accessible through the W Hotels iPhone app and burn-studios.com

Richie Hawtin said of the platform: "The use of cloud technologies will revolutionise the way we think and do things, especially how we approach music making in the future... the future is now"

Dan White, Global Head of Burn, comments, “Burn Studios is the epitome of Burn’s personality, it captures the essence of the brand and blasts it into a real life dimension of energy filled passion and fearless creativity. I’m proud that we are able to ignite creative passion and bring the community together with this pioneering studio concept.”

Official partners of burn studios:

Beatport: www.beatport.com
Resident Advisor: www.residentadvisor.net
SAE Institute: www.sae.edu
SoundCloud: www.soundcloud.com
For more information visit: www.burn-studios.com

Tuesday 17 May 2011

Citizen journalism changes the way news is reported

Blottr.com logo
On Monday 15 May 2011 Blottr.com proved how powerful citizen journalism can be, as the online user generated news service broke the day's biggest story.

Blottr.com reported at 10:09am an area surrounding Trafalgar Square was closed off following a terrorist alert. It became apparent a bomb threat had been made and the authorities undertook a controlled explosion on a suspicious suitcase.

Over the next two hours, users of the citizen journalism news website updated the story, as it unfolded.

It wasn't until 12:30pm that the first news network other than www.Blottr.com covered the story.

Blottr.com Founder Adam Baker said "Blottr was the only full story available of the incident for two hours, until Sky News put it as their "breaking" news, followed by the BBC. By this time, everyone discussing the story, especially on Twitter, were linking to our story, as the main source."

Baker went on to say: "We often break news stories well before traditional mainstream news services. This demonstrates how powerful enabling people on the street to capture and report incidents they're witnessing can be".

"We hope this is the catalyst for people to realise they can report and break their own news stories on Blottr, which is often the best place to find breaking news before anyone else".

The emergence of social media and sites like Blottr have changed the way news is gathered and reported, reaffirmed by instances like this.

Whilst respected mainstream news services like the BBC still command the share of an authoritative voice when it comes to breaking news, habits are shifting, with people realising a crowd-sourced news service is often just as credible and nearly always quicker to circulate.

Blottr is a user generated news service enabling anyone to capture, report, collaborate and discover news happening around them as they see it unfold they can share it with others.

Monday 16 May 2011

Garsington Opera has new home on Getty family estate

Garsington Opera has moved to the glorious estate of Wormsley in the Chiltern Hills, home of the Getty family, and opens its short summer season with Mozart's much-loved opera, The Magic Flute on 2 June 2011 in its beautiful, specially designed seasonal Opera Pavilion.

The highlight of the season will be the British premiere of Vivaldi’s La verità in cimento, a rare treasure, by the composer best known for his violin concerto, The Four Seasons. Rossini’s delightful Il Turco in Italia completes the season that runs from 2 June – 5 July. All the coming season’s conductors and directors will be working with both established and emerging young singers, two of whom are making their British debuts.

Garsington Opera’s new home is around an hour’s drive from London. Its elegant and intimate pavilion seats 600 and audiences look out over the landscape whilst enjoying some of opera’s finest music. Architect Robin Snell has designed with best possible comfort, acoustics and sightlines in mind. Its covered verandas and terraces with bars and places to linger will enable patrons to enjoy the spectacular views. Performances start in the early evening and there is a long dinner interval when patrons can picnic in the deer park, by the lake or overlooking the famous cricket pitch, or dine in the marquees catered by Jamie Olivers’ Fabulous Feasts.

Box Office telephone number 01865 361636 httpl://www.garsingtonopera.org

Saturday 14 May 2011

Eurovision Betting Doubles! Bets on for Jedward?

Jedward mania is sweeping across Europe and Irish bookmaker Boylesports can confirm this, as betting on the Eurovision has doubled for this year. This massive interest isn’t exactly good news for the bookies, as Boylesports are set to lose a massive €1 million should the Dublin twins win on Saturday night.

If the boys qualify tonight, the Irish firm are predicting Jedward’s odds to win the contest will be dramatically slashed, making them odds on favourites and possibly the shortest price in Eurovision history.

Jedward’s chances of not qualifying are very slim but if it came to that, Boylesports reckon the cheeky twins will still be big in Europe. They have been installed at 5/1 to have a No.1 single in both the UK and Ireland while it’s 4/1 that they top the charts in Germany.

“In previous year’s Irish acts have always received home support but never like this. Jedward fever is the new Bieber fever in Europe and punters just can’t get enough!”, commented Nicola McGeady, Boylesports PR Spokesperson.

“We are going to be on the edge of seats on Saturday night because if Jedward manage to bring home the bacon, we will be out an absolute fortune”, she continued.

Jedward Specials

1/2 To feature on a reality TV show in 2011
4/1 To have a German No.1 single in 2011
5/1 To have a UK and Irish No.1 single in 2011
6/1 To star in a film in 2011
8/1 To audition on the US X Factor

FACTFILE:
Boylesports.com is reputedly Ireland's largest independent bookmakers and online betting company.

For more information, visit www.boylesports.com and follow Boyle Sports on Twitter at Twitter: http://twitter.com/BoylesportsNMG