Smartphones: App-tacular Ubrain for Android and iPhone

Some people's lives are ruled by music - I am one such sufferer - and with Spotify and Last.fm around you would have thought we had enough music-related apps about, but, of course, you were wrong.

The idea behind Ubrain - other than having a name that sounds like a type of yo-yo - is that it creates sound to control you. The most blatant brain-washing idea (no pun intended...) since Simon Cowell's plan to put on a 24 hour X-Factor marathon is achieved through binaural waves.

If you don't know what they are then don't worry, though you are a little behind the times since they discovered them back in 1839, but the science is that binaural beats are based on broadcasting 2 different frequencies, one in each ear, resulting in a median 3^rd beat. This 3^rd beat becomes an attraction to your brain and encourages cerebral activity to stick to this virtual beat and carry the brain to this frequency.

Basically, it convinces your brain it is happy if you are feeling a bit down by combining sounds, and although the effect is only temporary, it could be enough to give you a bit of confidence before you take that final exam, or wake you up in time to get to work.

Apparently it does have genuine scientific basis, according to clinical psychologist Brigitte Forgeot, who said: "I'm looking forward to its release, and hope it will turn out to be a product which can be adapted for use in therapeutic treatments. Being able to combine music you enjoy with binaural sound waves is a very definite plus, which leaves room for a lot of creative freedom and different uses of this process."

There's also endorsement from Grammy nominated DJ Paul van Dyk: "That music effects your mood is something we all know – that binaural beats can boost these effects and increase your energy level, help to focus, or calm you down to relax was something I experienced using the Ubrain App."

The app is now available on Android market and for iPod, iPad and iPhone on iTunes, but before you part with £3.49 check out these fancy YouTube videos:

What it's all about

How it all works

James Michael Parry

Music: Why iTunes is the the rotten core of Apple

iPods are everywhere. Over 260million have been sold worldwide, whether they are the cigarette lighter-like Shuffle (pictured), the tiny-screened Nano, the app-filled Touch or the tried and tested Classic.

Even the mobile phone market has been infiltrated, with iPhone, and later the 3G and 3GS versions, collectively selling over 51million units, but with approximately 4.6billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide Apple still have some way to go to monopolise the market.

The one thing which connects all of these popular devices is the music organisation and player program iTunes, designed to bring the brand together and provide a one-stop-shop for all your music and televisual needs.

But despite Apple's popularity users are constantly faced with problems with the service such as computers crashing as soon as an iPod is plugged in, sluggish computer speed because of its high memory usage and refusing to burn CDs or freezing at any given moment, depending on the operating system you use.

Despite video iPods now being the norm, iTunes doesn't support video directly – you're forced to install Apple's Quicktime software, and you can't drag and drop songs from your computer to the player easily, instead you can only 'Sync' the iTunes library to your player – or do a 'Party Mix' in the case of a Shuffle.

Generally it seems like a company that made $42.91billion last year could do a better job, particularly when there are so many alternatives available, notably MusicIP Mixer, Songbird and MediaMonkey.

MediaMonkey in particular is good for MP3 player management, since it automatically tags songs from Amazon (with album art) effectively and carries that art and all the ID3 tag information to the player, even while playing something else.

Of course, MediaMonkey isn't exactly a household name – even a self-confessed geek like me has only barely come across it – which highlights Apple's greatest strength but also its greatest weakness. The company, in recent years in particular, has always focused on style over substance, products that look sleek and stylish but really do little to earn there hefty price tag compared to similar products from Creative or Sony.

One area where iTunes has had a real impact is music downloads, with the number of songs downloaded passing the 10 billion mark in February this year. Sadly the downloads themselves are in iTunes spacific .AAC file format, with a copyright protection system called FairPlay, meaning you can only play them on computers you've registered to your iTunes account or on your iPod.

If you wanted to be generous and give some music to a friend, you wouldn't be able to do it digitally and would be forced to burn it to CD, losing some of the audio's quality in the transfer – providing the music burns properly in the first place. While these measures were put in place to avoid unlawful sharing or transfer of songs, but with all the red tape and regulation you may want to dig out your old portable CD player and save yourself a whole lot of hassle.

James Michael Parry

Music digitalisation: Does CD stand for Certain Doom?

Compact discs have long been the symbol of the music industry. Since their commercial introduction in 1982 as a joint venture between Phillips and Sony, over 200 billion CDs have been sold across the world (according to the BBC). That's an average of one million discs every hour.

But CD sales have slumped in recent years and global sales in 2009 will be half the level of the peak of the CD boom according to a survey by Enders.

Download services, such as iTunes or HMV Music, now generate around 7.5% of album purchases in the UK, a figure which rose 36% in 2008. (Sources: Offcom Digital Britain Report and The Guardian)

Illegal downloading is also still on the rise, with some 40 billion tracks being shared on sites like Limewire and Bittorrent in 2008 across 16 countries. Efforts by the Government to curb the rise have been met with apathy by the 'internet generation' - 14 to 24 year-olds - who “know that file sharing is illegal but will exploit whatever technology is available to enable them to enlarge their music collections for free” according to The Times.

Unfortunately for the industry, these illegal downloads make up 95% of the music being exchanged across the internet, losing artists and record companies £180m every year. Many alternative artists have voiced that they don't mind how people get their music as long as they hear it, but you feel as though few record company executives would agree.

The silver lining is that in a study conducted by the University of Hertfordshire which says 85% of the age group in question said they would continue to buy CDs even if they were given access to an unlimited legal download service. This shows that people still put value in 'owning' things rather than just 'streaming' them from internet services such as Last.fm or Spotify.

The reason that many feel it's 'OK' to download music is “mainly because it’s free and they are not going to get caught”, according to Feargal Sharkey, the former Undertones singer and chief executive of UK Music, an umbrella organisation which represents the industry.

Despite best efforts, talks between the industry and the Government have been crawling along for the past few years, with the Government last year proposing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should use a 'three-strike' letter writing system to warn offenders, giving them the responsibility to directly tackle the problem, which was reiterated in the Digital Britain report.

Punishments range from having bandwidth curbed to their internet being permanently suspended, according to The Times. Unfortunately there is still no right answer, and the discussions continue. We wondered what people really thought about it all, so we asked you:

Sarah White, 19, from Woodham said “You should be allowed to download music for free depending how long it's been out for.”

Andy Hemphill, 22, from Ewell said “Illegal downloading isn't immoral because music companies make music too expensive and are too slow to pick up on digital sales. It may be illegal but it will continue until they lower the cost of music.”

Lis Symons, 19, from Sandhurst said “I only download from iTunes now, because the others are all too much hassle. I always got viruses when I used Limewire, it's like it's one big virus.”

Colin Miller, 29, from London said “Maybe I'm just old and bitter but the good music doesn't get the credit it deserves these days, as most of it gets swallowed up by the X-Factor money-making machine.”

Kirsty Watkinson, 21, from Darwen said “There's nothing more delightful than having something concrete that you can touch and put up on the wall to represent the music you like, that's why I love CDs so much, but having digital copies of songs from CD is safer because they can't get scratched.”

MP3 players, specifically Apple's revolutionary iPod, have been the driving force behind music digitalisation and now almost half the population (48%) of people own and actively use and MP3/4 or mobile phone music player. This percentage hasn't increased significantly in the last two years though, suggesting the market may be at saturation point.

The industry has tried to react to changing consumer demand, with companies investing millions in music subscription services , but according to industry critics Deloittle, it's not enough:

“Music services may need to merge consumer features and benefits, such as a subscription service that comes with other deliverables e.g. portability and CDs, for consumers to believe that a music service is worth paying for.”

CDs may be fading away in the industry but they're far from dying out altogether. There's no question they'll be lying around cluttering up our lofts for some time to come, and there's a certain charm to listening to an album all the way through while as the artist intended.

One thing's for sure though, downloads are here to stay, and without punishments for downloaders there's no reason for people to stop, and with the number of tracks available increasing by thousands a day, why would they want to go all the way down the shops?

James Michael Parry