Monday, April 30, 2012

Jonas Brothers' Secret Boy-Band Weapon: Instruments

'It's a rare thing for a boy band. ... I don't know of a whole lot of boy bands that do that,' Nick Jonas tells MTV News.
By John Mitchell


Nick and Joe Jonas
Photo: Todd Williamson/ WireImage

The Jonas Brothers rode easily into the second round of our Battle of the Boy Bands, demolishing Menudo by taking 80 percent of the vote. But they are facing stiff competition from another group of three real-life brothers in round two: Hanson.

With the JoBros back in the studio working on a comeback album, and with each brother (Joe, Nick and Kevin) pursuing his own solo effort, they remain one of the most active bands in the competition. So why vote Jonas? Read on.

Strongest Chart Achievement
Well, it certainly doesn't get much better than having the #1 album in the country, and the Jo Bros have had two: 2008's A Little Bit Longer and 2009's Lines, Vines and Trying Times. Longer is the real jewel in the Brothers' crown, though, shifting an impressive 525,402 copies in its debut frame. On the strength of the hit single "Burnin' Up," the album held on to the #1 spot in its second week of release and continued to sell briskly on its way to going double platinum in the U.S.

A Little Bit Longer remains the band's best-selling album and even earned a spot on Rolling Stone's list of the best albums of 2008.

Standout Video
Since they didn't make much of an impression on mainstream audiences with their debut (see below), the brothers started anew when they joined Hollywood Records and amped up their pop sound for their self-titled sophomore album. The album's first single, "Year 3000," brought them plenty of mainstream attention, but its second single, "S.O.S.," kicked things up even further.

The song became the group's first top 20 hit, buoyed by its video, which was filmed on the RMS Queen Mary superliner in the summer of 2007. With well over 93 million views, the "S.O.S." video is easily the band's most-viewed clip.

Defining Tune
For its sheer crossover appeal, it's gotta be "Burnin' Up." The song is the JoBros biggest hit by far, debuting to strong enough digital sales to spur a #5 opening on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making it their highest charting song to date. This single was a sales smash, moving more than 2 million digital downloads to become the band's second platinum-selling song after "S.O.S.," and it became a bona fide radio hit over the summer of 2008.

As much as we love our boy bands, they aren't often embraced by critics. However, this song, like its mothership album A Little Bit Longer, was. The acclaim Longer and "Burnin' Up" earned helped the JoBros along to their lone Grammy nomination (for Best New Artist) in 2009.

Debut Album
The Jonas Brothers' first album as a group — Nick released a solo album before he, Joe and Kevin united to create the band — was 2006's It's About Time. The record was pretty low-profile (to say the least), though it managed to make an impression in the Christian market and sell 62,000 copies in the U.S. The lack of interest the album generated for the band led to them being dropped from Columbia Records, though they were snapped up by Hollywood Records almost immediately.

While it didn't generate much heat for the boys in 2006, the album has become something of a collector's item for fans in the years since, and because it is currently out of print, copies are rare and expensive on online auction sites like eBay.

Biggest Competition
The Jonas Brothers are currently embroiled in a tough showdown with Hanson, another brotherly threesome with an affinity for playing guitars and penning their own tunes (both boy-band rarities). Hanson is decidedly '90s and the Bros are very of the aughts, meaning its unlikely they share a fanbase, but Hanson has one thing going for them that the JoBros don't: nostalgia. People have a way of romanticizing their fond recollections of the recent past, so the Jonases have a real battle here.

When we asked Nick Jonas why fans should vote for his group above all other boy bands in our bracket, he went straight for the very thing that sets the Jonas Brothers and their main competition, Hanson, apart. "I think that we are a good one to vote for because we play our own instruments," Nick said. "It's a rare thing for a boy band. ... I don't know of a whole lot of boy bands that do that."

Is that good enough to keep them in the competition? Only time will tell.

Voting in round two of MTV's Battle of the Boy Bands runs until noon ET on Monday, April 30. Winners are determined by fan votes, so if your favorite band made the cut, make sure you keep voting. Tune in to AMTV and MTV Hits for their boy-band video takeovers each day and make sure to spread the word on Twitter using the hashtag #BBB and like us on Facebook for updates!

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Saturday, April 28, 2012

TheWhoot Co-Founders On Taking The Flakiness Out Of Social Planning

Screen shot 2012-04-27 at 11.07.40 AMBack in the day, before the cell phone, people had to be where they said they'd be. There was no such thing as flaking out, and if you did, you were just a bad person. But these days, even when we make a firm commitment, the convenience of cell phones makes it really easy to flake out at the last second. But co-founders Ryan Coyne and Will Quartner think that going out and having fun with your friends shouldn't have to be so difficult, and thus was born TheWhoot.

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A MicroReview Of The Fantastic $9.99 MicroStylus

microstylus-3This just might be the best stylus ever made. I'm completely serious. The problem with most styli is that there is never one around when needed. Besides that, the pen form factor is often not conducive for use on a small screen. But the MicroStylus, well, it's so tiny yet functional that it's perfect for the task. Plus it's only $9.99 and stores neatly in a 3.5mm headphone jack.

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Friday, April 27, 2012

Shape Security: Kleiner Perkins & Eric Schmidt Lead $6M Round In Stealth Security Startup

Screen shot 2012-04-26 at 3.57.21 AMBig corporations have been riddled by security attacks over the past year, and hackers seem to be growing even bolder and more resolute. As a result, market research firm The Radicati Group said that it expects the corporate web security market to grow to $2.5 billion over the next four years. It's in this climate that a young, stealth startup is trying to put companies back on the offensive, and some notable Silicon Valley investors are buying in. Mountain View-based Shape Security is announcing this morning that it has raised $6 million in series A financing, led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt's TomorrowVentures. Accel Partner Peter Wagner, Sequoia Limited Partner Guarav Garg, Baseline Ventures, and unnamed executives at LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook also participated in the round.

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House passes bill that would call for a single website tracking federal spending

ImageThe last time a proposed law captured our attention it was so widely loathed it was never even put to a vote, but today we bring you the kind of no-brainer legislation that seems to have strong support on both sides of the aisle. The US House of Representatives has passed the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA), a bill that calls for the creation of an independent board to log all federal spending on a single, centralized website. What's more, these expenses need to be recorded with identifiers and markup languages that make them more easily searchable. As Computerworld notes, the vote happens to come on the heels of a recent dust-up involving the US General Services Administration spending $823,000 on a conference in Vegas -- precisely the sort of excess this proposed website would be designed to expose. The next step, of course, is for the bill to win Senate approval, though for now it seems the legislation has garnered strong bi-partisan support: in a rare showing, all of the lawmakers who discussed the DATA Act on the House floor argued in favor of it.

House passes bill that would call for a single website tracking federal spending originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New at HuffPost: Puppycide, the Slide Show (Theagitator)

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10 Tech Stupidity Taxes You Should Never Pay [Tips]

People are lazy—that's why we love technology! But not everything's as good a deal as it seems. Here's a list of tech products and services you shouldn't ever blow your money on from our friends at Laptop Magazine. More »


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Thursday, April 26, 2012

Gingrich's billionaire backer moves on (CNN)

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Scalado Album launches for Android, we go hands-on (video)

Scalado Album launches for Android, we go hands-on (video)

Scalado just released Album, its first ever Android app to land in Google's Play store. The company -- which is best known for imaging technologies such as zero shutter lag, Rewind and Remove -- usually provides software to device manufacturers instead of end users directly. Album is billed as "a simple to use, high performance, photo/video viewer with a clean and smooth user interface" that handles pictures up to 200 (!) megapixels in size. The app costs $0.99 and is available for both smartphones and tablets. It features some interesting touches, like the ability to browse geotagged images using a map view.

We had the opportunity to take Album for a spin before launch and the app offers an intuitive and responsive user experience. Beyond organizing photos into the usual bins -- like the camera roll and the folders on your device -- the main screen lets you browse content by time (monthly) and location (including nearby). You can delete, share, rotate (in place) and crop pictures, plus display the file info and turn images into wallpaper. The grid view uses animated thumbnails for the videos and supports multiple selection. While not groundbreaking, Album is a solid app and the aforementioned map view is definitely worth checking out.

Take a peek at our gallery of screenshots below (from our HTC One X) and hit the break for Scalado's demo video and PR.

Continue reading Scalado Album launches for Android, we go hands-on (video)

Scalado Album launches for Android, we go hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Apr 2012 06:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceGoogle Play store  | Email this | Comments

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