Violinist interrupted by Nokia ringtone, plays the ringtone

According to Cnet, Slovakian violinist Lukas Kmit was giving his viola full rein at a Jewish Orthodox Synagogue in Presov when a Nokia ringtone interrupted his flow. Instead of rending his garments and screaming to the heavens, he improvised. He played the ringtone, expressing cool beyond reason. [via News.com]

Composer Jonathan Mann sings "Duet With Siri"

Jonathan Mann, who is 29 and lives in Berkeley, Calif., has drawn public attention before by composing a song a day -- on everything from last year's iPhone 4 to the economist Paul Krugman. He said when he first saw Siri demonstrated, the idea for a duet immediately came to him.

Watch and listen to him sing on YouTube.

[via ABC News]

Musical Balloons: Luke Jerram’s Sky Orchestra

Music, specially composed by Dan Jones for Luke Jerram’s Sky Orchestra, poured from the dawn skies as the seven balloons passed over south-east London.

Watch video on The Londonist.

Will.i.am Forgets His Own Lyrics During Performance, Reads Them from Cellphone

Spotted on Gawker, Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am resorting to reading the words to his own song from a cellphone during a recent performance of "Don't Stop the Party" on French TV. Or not. maybe he's reading a text message while performing.

KFI Hosts Whip Up Charlie Sheen Ringtones

For the last week it's been impossible not to run into Charlie Sheen's rants raves and interviews conveyed repeatedly and ridiculed on the Internet. So the next obvious thing twas a ringtone. So here it is. Mediabistro reports.

Burbank based KFI 640 AM's Tim Conway Jr. and his newsreader partner-in-crime Aron Bender have ingeniously manipulated some of Sheen’s signature mantras and turned them into cell phone ringtones.

The first offering elongates the words “bring it” into a very convincing sounding Sheen-powered rotary phone. Listen-download here. More coming.

One-person barbershop quartet sings "I Wanna Be Like You"

Multitrack barbershop singer DanWright32 has a stirring rendition of the Jungle Book's best song, I Wanna Be Like You on YouTube. Wonderful!

[via boingboing]

King Juan Carlos ringtone? giggling children

King Juan Carlos of Spain has the sound of giggling children set as his ringtone. How do we kow? Because it went off during a meeting with a Honduran ambassador and was of course posted on YouTube.

[El Pais via Gizmodo]

King Juan Carlos made ringtone headlines before, in 2007, after losing his temper at Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, at a summit of Latin American and Iberian leaders in Chile.

“Por qué no te callas!” become a popular ring-tone for mobile phones in Spain as well as a rallying cry for Mr Chávez’s opponents in Venezuela."

A song for every country in the world

At longestalbum.com, click on the country to play it's song. There is pop song written by the band Army Defense for every country in the world....it's all free....

Link submitted by Sailer on boingboing's new Submitterator page (Fab!).

iPhone app calls out callers name

On many phones you can set a particular ringtone for a particular person, but one iPhone app company decided to take caller recognition a step further. With app 9999 ringtones you can customise the ring tone to say the caller's name. [via ShinyShiny]

It's been done before. See related ringtones:

-- Wake-up Tones Call out your Name - Australia.mobilecontentworld.net have launched their range of wake-up name tones. Available in English, French, Germand and Norwegian.

-- Have your phone sing your first name as a ringtone - Spanish Olemovil offers TONO NOMBRES, a very personalized ringtone service, enabling your phone to sing out a little song calling your name, whenever it rings.

-- Sprint PCS gets name ringers - Sprint PCS is offering “name ringers”, a collection of ringtones made just for people with common names. (It only works for common names as they have to make the ringtones, it's not a voice synth).

UAE issues fatwa against 'haram' vuvuzelas

A fatwa has been issued against vuvuzelas in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), saying that the plastic horns will not be permitted in the Gulf country if they exceed 100 decibels. Sify reports.

UAE's General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowments has issued the fatwa.

According to reports, the ruling came after thousands of vuvuzelas were imported to the UAE for World Cup fans.

Read full article.

Links to related cell phone/ringtone fatwas

No wonder Switzerland won! Have you seen their vuvuzelas?

No wonder Switzerland won their match against Spain at the World Cup! Have you seen their vuvuzelas? @MrsStephenFry.

Most annoying ringtone ever

Most annoying ringtone ever. Crazy Frog doesn't even come close.

Your ringtone can tell people more about you than you think

Another "you are your ringtone" article. Always entertaining. By CountNews2.

Good or bad, ringtone are a way to express ourselves.

Dr. Gerald A. Shiener, Psychiatrist - “Love. Disappointment. Frustration. Anger. And the ringtone you choose says a lot about the feelings you’re experiencing and what you want to say about yourself.“

For instance:

Prefer classic rock? That means you’re showing your age.

If you change ringtone all the time, your telling others you’re flighty and unreliable.

If your phone is on vibrate,it means you are considerate and respectful.

Related articles:

-- Cellphone Psychology: You Are Your Ring Tone

-- On ringtones, What melody did you pick?

-- What Does Your Ringtone Say About You?

-- Are ringtones an extension of your negative side?

-- What kind of person sets their phone solely on vibrate mode?

-- What your ringtone says about you

-- Ringtones can reveal more about yourself that you might think

-- Ringtones: The new currency of cool

Nike Music Shoe

Bending, flexing, stomping nike shoes to make music. From Japan of all places.

[via engadget]

'Therapeutic ringtones' for mobile phones create a buzz in Japan

The Times Online on “therapeutic ringtones” — a genre of melodies that promises to ease a range of day-to-day gripes, from chronic insomnia to a rotten hangover - popular in Japan.

Related:

-- Ringtones to clear a stuffy nose

-- Ringtones that calm crying babies

-- Mozart Ringtones to relieve Hayfever and Stiff shoulders

-- Therapeutic ringtones

-- Pherotones

-- Samsung launched Phone which generated alpha waves

-- The Breast Enlarging ringtone

-- Mosquitotone: The teenage repellent ringtones

Ringtones to clear a stuffy nose

Asiajin, Japan Ringing Tone Laboratory (JRTL) has come up with special ringtones that clear a stuffy nose.

According to Toms Guide:

The collection, called "Haba Sukkiri Melody," will make the nose resonate at the same frequency with pollens adherent inside your nasal cavity. Eventually the ringtones-- using 27 variations of frequency from 420 Hz to 1070 Hz-- will force the pollens to fall right out of your nose.

Related:

-- Ringtones that calm crying babies

-- Mozart Ringtones to relieve Hayfever and Stiff shoulders

-- Therapeutic ringtones -muPass ringtone has eveloped in collaboration with the Japan Acoustic Lab and the Japan Ringtone Lab, ringtones with a calming effect.

-- Pherotones are ringtones with names like Testeroni or El Cuddlero that claim to make you irresistible to the opposite sex.

-- Samsung launched Phone which generated alpha waves that are supposed to enhance memory and concentration .

-- The Breast Enlarging ringtone - A member of the Aum Shinrikyo cult launched (very successfully) a ringtone which claimed to make a women's breasts grow larger - just by listening to it

-- Mosquitotone - The teenage repellent ringtones

Mobile mobile plays Christmas music

Experience Mobile Mobile from James Théophane Jnr on Vimeo.

Spotted on Cnet, a "mobile mobile" playing Christmas music.

Accoustic Listening Devices

Spotted on SwissMiss, accoustic listening devices.

Music Score of birds on a wire

Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

A Brazilian musician has just completed a collaboration with an unusual partner: a large group of birds sitting on telephone wires. News.com reports.

According to the Daily Mail, Jarbas Agnelli saw a newspaper photo of a large flock of black birds sitting on the wires and recognized that their configuration looked very much like a musical score.

Starting from there, he arranged and recorded a composition, using xylophone, bassoon, oboe and clarinet and, of course, the notes laid out by the birds.

Phone Booth Cell Phone comes with God Save the Queen ringtone

Spotted on engadget via Pocket-Lint, The London Calling Mobile Phone, a fully-functional handset, packing a color LCD, SMS and MMS functionality, tri-band GSM connectivity and pre-programmed ringtones that include "Rule Britannia" and "God Save the Queen."

President Interrupted By 'Duck Ringtone' During Speech

Obama to the press corps: "Where do you guys get these ringtones by the way?

[via Wonkette]

The Breast Englargement Ringtone in the News again

boingboing has dug up an all time Ringtone favorite. The breast enlargement ringtone. Scientifically explained on the Discovery Channel via YouTube by Dr Tomobechi.

Such a ringtone made headlines in September 2004 - when a member of the Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan (that unleashed deadly sarin gas on the Tokyo subway system nearly 14 years ago) started selling a ringtone that should make your breasts grow larger just by listening to it.

Doonesbury on Ringtones

This week's Doonesbury cartoons feature a fictional ringtone composer, see the strips for 1/19, 1/201/20, 1/21 and maybe more the rest of the week.

Giant iPhones for Discos

Spotted on Trendhunter, a giant iPhone for Discos.

The iBoxer is a coin-operated amusement machine with an iPhone-style design intended for use in modern discos and pubs. It has a little punching bag where you can vent all your beer-induced anger. The machine looks like a really large iPhone with a bitten logo, obviously based on Apple’s design.

Ringtone inspired musical condoms

U.S. patent holder of the Force-Sensitive, Sound-Playing Condom, Paul Lyons of Southbridge, Mass., has found a way to combine tried and true prophylactic technology—your basic condom—with piezoelectric sound transducers—think old-school cell phone ringtones—to create the first musical condom. The Kansan reports.

Though it would look and function just like a regular condom, this invention would also allow the user to record a song, message or sound effect to the tiny chip contained in the base of the condom. This sound would then be played on a loop when the contacts of the circuit are closed during use, and the transducer is “activated by forceful movements.”

The recorded sound could be anything from a romantic message, a clip of your partner’s favorite love song, or the dirty talk you’ve been thinking to yourself but hadn’t yet got up the nerve to say out loud. If it doesn’t go over well, you can just blame it on the condom.

iPhone ringtone snobbery

The iPhone 3G has been selling here in Switzerland for a couple of months, and until the Apple store opened a few weeks ago, you had to put your name on a waiting list at the partner networks (Swisscom and Orange) - because for some unfathomable and annoying reason, they ran out of stock half way through launch day.

So having an iPhone in Geneva is still very special and you can identify someone with an iPhone before he or she even pulls it out because of it's "old phone" ringtone, which seems to be the ringtone of choice from the small selection offered.

So we have gone from being cell phone users who loved to change our ringtones, making whatever a mild a statement that was, giving a glimpse of our personality or just making it easier to identify our own phone, to wanting the same ringtone as everyone else - everyone else who has an iPhone that is. And this from the same people who wouldn't have been caught dead using a default ringtone from their Nokia.

Nokia Music Almighty (monsters)

As part of the Nokia Music Almighty campaign, visitors can pick their favourite music genre and then transform themselves in one of 5 weird characters. Adverblog reports welcome to optimism.

"You can upload your own photo, play with the control levers and... become someone (or something weird).

Once you've created your avatar you can also rap a song and upload it as well, to finish the creation of your virtual singing Frankenstein. "

Stephen Colbert shows off Sex and the City ringtone.

Stephen Colbert shows off his Sex and the City ringtone on Colbert Nation.

[Switched via Geeksugar]

Ringtones for dogs coming to Japanese cellphones

After the Mosquitotone, a ringtone heard only by the under 20 crowd, now a Tokyo-based content provider Dwango has announced that it would start selling specialized ringtones which can be heard only by dogs.

It's not clear why this is a good idea. Hmm, Maybe Japanese dogs answer cell phones?

[via engadget:mobile]

Street-smart MP3 Music T-Shirts

Spotted on Popgadget, The MP3 Music T-Shirt by Music and Sons, ingeniously designed for you and your music player.

The Farting (Home) Phone

Fashion Funky has dug up a Farting home Phone.

Equally as refined ringtones have been available for cell phones for ever.

Sarkozy's SMS made into a song

This year's most talked about SMS, purportedly send by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to his ex-wife Cecila eight days before his marriage to singer Carla Bruni saying: "If you come back, I'll cancel everything" - has been made into a song by Jeanne Cherhal and posted on her MySpace page.

So far it's been viewed 66,000 times.

Source: Libération

Silent CD tops charts

A song that is only audible to dogs and inaudible to humans has become a top-selling hit in New Zealand is set to be released worldwide, reports Ananova.

"A Very Silent Night, said to be recorded at a frequency that can be heard only by dogs, was issued as a charity CD by the Royal New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

To widespread surprise, it rocketed to the top of the charts.

Some remain unconvinced, however. Since the video appeared on YouTube, several viewers cast doubt on whether there is actually any sound at all.

But another countered: "That's amazing! I cranked my speakers up full volume and played this, and the dog across the road went ballistic!"

Watch on video on YouTube.

"Scoregasm" brings musical climax to movie trailers

Not related to cell phone, just uh, interesting.

Film score producer and mix engineer Alan Meyerson is teaming with Sony/ATV Music Publishing's Extreme Music to produce "Scoregasm," a series of neo-orchestral music designed for use in movie trailers

"Scoregasm" features a 100-piece orchestra and 80-voice choir recorded in Lyndhurst Hall at Beatles producer George Martin's AIR Studios in London.

The first release, "Climactic Euphonic Ecstasy," contains 37 tracks, each featuring a choral and instrumental mix, and is scheduled for release during the first quarter of 2008.

[via Reuters[

Personal locator could make Your Car Moan Like Jenna

Not related to cell phones, just fun. Chevy just invented a device that would help you locate your car in a parking lot, bringing a new level of personalization. You can add your own sound, whatever that may be. "Even Jenna moantones", suggests Auto Moto & Gadgets.

Polly-Phonic

A Huddersfield man says he's had to change his ringtone five times - because his parrot keeps copying them.

Stuart McNae says Billy waits until he leaves the room, then mimics the sound of a call - and laughs when he dashes back to answer.

Every time Stuart, 54, changes his ringtone the cheeky blue-fronted Amazon picks up the new one, reports The Sun via Ananova.

Related:

-- Birds mimic ring tones

-- Mockingbird sings ringtones

-- Dog sings ringtones

Ringboxx for your home phone

Ringboxx hooks up to your home phone so that you can have the same ringtone as your cellphone, or choose from thousands of other songs to accompany an incoming call.

[via Ubergizmo]

Your Mother's voice (ringtone)

From Jeremy Wagstaff for Loose Wire. Precious!

"There has to be a better way for ringtones to be less intrusive and yet audible enough to the user so they actually hear it. My solution is simple. I read somewhere that the US Air Force in the 1950s was experimenting with early versions of synethesized voices delivering cockpit warnings. What they found was that a pilot was much more likely to hear an important instruction if the voice used was the pilot’s mother .

So this is what I propose. When I buy my phone, I hand it over to my mother and have her call out my name at a reasonable volume. That recording becomes my ringtone. Trust me, I’m always going to recognise her voice, across the room, across town, across continents. Mothers’ voices have that kind of quality. "

Illustration left, the cover of My Mother's Voice by Joanne Ryder, Peter Catalanotto - Harpercollins.

Gobble gobble ringtone

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

I'm not sure why anyone would want to, but well it's out there. Turkey Gobble sound tones can be downloaded from The popular NFU turkey website.

[via politics.co.uk]

November 21 is No Music Day

Next Wednesday is No Music Day. Times Online reports.

"Two years ago the maverick pop musician Bill Drummond had a quirky idea. Irritated by the “nonstop soundtrack” of music that invades almost every aspect of our lives, from ringtones to bus shelters. So he decided to set up No Music Day – symbolically on November 21, so it would form a kind of Hallowe’en to November 22, feast-day of Cecilia, music’s patron saint.

The idea has caught on. Last year thousands attempted to avoid music on November 21. This year the whole of BBC Radio Scotland will be a music-free zone."

Spock-style ears hear (cell phone) music better

File under fun. A Dr. Lajos Nagy claims that his cosmetic surgery technique of pointing ears Spock-style can actually "improve the experience of listening to music."

[via boingboing]

Courtroom interrupted by 'orgasmic' ringtone

The sombre atmosphere of a packed courtroom was shattered when an embarrassing ringtone of a woman moaning "Oh, yeah ... yeah ... oh, yeah ... do it to me" sounded out. Metro reports.

"Lawyers and people in the public gallery struggled to contain their laughter as the voice of a woman experiencing heightened sexual pleasure rang for up to 20 seconds.

The owner of the mobile phone was lucky not to find himself facing contempt charges as the gallery had been asked to turn off their cell phones while in court.

Related links:

-- Moan Tones

-- Orgasm Tones

Ford in ‘Sync’ with wired world

No longer the domain of expensive cars, new technology is working its way into the vehicles everyone could soon be driving -- transforming vehicles into "offices on wheels."

Nowhere was that innovation more evident than at the 2007 North American International Auto Show, where automakers yesterday unveiled such advances as the ability to receive text messages through the speakers of a car, as well as voice-activated access to MP3s.

Partnering with Microsoft, Ford announced that starting this fall, it is making available on many of its models a factory-installed "Sync" system, a voice-activated in-car communications and entertainment system for cellphones, digital music players such as the iPod, and other media-storage devices.

Sync will give drivers the ability to make hands-free calls, receive and reply to messages, use advanced calling features such as caller ID, select their favourite music -- by genre, album, artist or song title -- simply by saying it out loud, or by using the vehicle's steering wheel or radio controls.

Names and numbers in a cellphone's address book can be wirelessly transferred to the vehicle. Ringtones can be selected. Incoming messages will play over the car's speakers and the system will even recognize commonly used text-messaging expressions as LOL, cyberspeak for "laughing out loud."

... Sync will be available in 12 Ford models beginning this year, starting with the new Focus, unveiled yesterday at the show, now in its 100th year."

[via Driving.ca]

YouNeverCall offers $100 for the first Crazy Frog ring call from the moon

File under fun. YouNeverCall, the popular online cell phone superstore, today announced a $10,000 prize award for the first cell phone call placed from the moon.

This announcement follows on the coattails of Google's announcement of $20M in prize money for landing a craft on the moon by Dec. 31, 2014.

... In order to claim the $10,000 prize a cell phone call must be placed by a device or person present on the Moon's surface. This call must pass through a commercially available cellular phone to YouNeverCall's corporate headquarters in Los Angeles, CA.

Furthermore, the company is offering a $100 bounty to the first party who receives a cell phone call on the Moon that rings using the infamous Crazy Frog Ringtone.

[Press release via SMS Text News]

Crazy Frog Racer Video Game

Crazy Frog gets a videogame and as always, some bad press: "Yet another cash-in on this unreasonably popular marketing icon and much like the Annoying Thing himself, Crazy Frog Racer is a stupid and shallow racer that is never entertaining and not worth your time."

[via Thunderbolt Games]