Alec Saunders SquawkBox

The Chicago Tribune has a two page review of "A Bigger Bang", including a lot of good commentary from other publications. 

The band’s new album, "A Bigger Bang" (which comes out Tuesday), also has been getting raves. Los Angeles Times rock critic Robert Hilburn called it "their strongest since ‘Tattoo You’ almost a quarter century ago." Morse wrote that "industry insiders have termed [it] their best since 1978’s ‘Some Girls’" and also that "comparisons have been made between the new album and the Stones’ classic ‘Exile on Main Street’ from 1972 . . .

What I’ve heard has been excellent.  I especially like the new blues number "Back of My Hand".  Jagger does an amazing job, evoking the old blues men of the southern USA like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson, and Son House.

The Stones played Magnetic Hill, in Moncton NB last night.  75,000 fans at an outdoor concert.  It’s New Brunswick’s own mini-Woodstock.  There’s some good coverage from the Halifax Herald as well, with some nice photos.

Some great stuff by Martin Geddes on advanced privacy features for voice networks.  He describes a compelling feature set for privacy enabling voice networks, and observes that Skype could do this.  Skype is almost there.  Their call forwarding feature has no automation capabilities at all, and no API for a third party to add them. 

It’s about more than privacy, however.  Advanced privacy features could easily be extended to decision making about the relevance of a call.  Relevance enabled voice systems would be able to answer questions like "Given the current circumstances, do I want to take this call, at this time?" and act accordingly.

Om writes about the experience of whittling down a collection of 25,000 songs to the most essential to have on your iPod Shuffle.  There is another way.  The folks at Predixis have built software that lets you create playlists of songs which have like mood, tempo, etc.  It’s called MusicMagic, and can be downloaded here. 

The Rolling Stones latest - A Bigger Bang - is now on the net.