The Podcast below looks at the history, development, art and technique behind putting ‘sound and music’ on video games. From the earliest games like Mario and Tetris, to some top secret EA Games behind the scenes action!

Often the music and sound fx contained within games are overshadowed by amazing graphics and ‘that’ track they feature in the advertising for the game….well not today! Stick your cans on and enjoy…

For the full playlist of Nokia Connects listening please head here. Let us know about any of the thoughts brought up above @Nokia_Connects or below in the comment jukebox.

From China, the group consists of “field recording/noise artist/poet Yan Jun, folk artist Xiao He, Guqin master Wu Na, multi-instrumentalistLi Daiguo and tea master Lao Gu,” according to the band’s website. If you listen to Ceremony, the group’s first album, it’s like a mix between a David Lynch film and a soothing (yes, soothing) walk on the beach. The group told The Beijinger that their sound is “homemade medicine for the mind.” And that’s not an overstatement.

Image via Cool Hunting

“We all love new music, different kinds of Chinese traditional music, improvisation, nature and each other,” said Li Daiguo (also known as Douglas Lee) when asked by Cool Hunting on how The Tea Rockers Quintet works together because of the variety of their musical backgrounds.

“Finding the right blend is a matter of mutual listening and enjoying each others’ sounds. Musicians are often regularly getting new ideas or developing new skills and techniques, so it’s really important to improvise together to listen to who a person is and what they are saying at that moment and not be stuck in some image you have of their identity or who they should be based on your past experiences with them.”

The Tea Rockers Quintet evokes a sound that’s both still and delirious. Either way, it’s music that you probably wouldn’t have imagined yourself, and even more especially because of the mere unknown factor. Traditional Chinese tea ceremonies are often compared to art because of the intricacies of preparation and consumption so it’s no surprise that this musical group is along the same vein.

Image via Cool Hunting

Over the last ten or so years, as music has become increasingly more accessible because of the Internet and the ability to download a song (or an album—or an entire discography) at the tip of your fingers, those with a taste for music can search for practically anything and satisfy their desire for the most obscure music out there.

And increasingly, innovative images and video are available so even though you know you may not make the concert, you can still get some sort of feel for the aesthetics behind the band. So brew a cup of your favorite flavor and sit back and relax. But as The Beijinger says regarding The Tea Rockers Quintet, “Be careful not to overdose.”

Image via Cool Hunting

When Bob Dylan released Bringing It All Back Home in 1965, director John Hughes announced, ‘Thursday I was one person and Friday I was another.’ Now, although we’re sure that equally epochal albums are being produced today – after all, more music is being produced than ever and album sales are on the rise – it’ll take a while to identify which new albums will change music forever. In the meantime, in celebration of Music Week here on Nokia Connects, let’s look at seven albums that did just that.

Robert Johnson, King of The Delta Blues Singers (1961)

Johnson reckoned he sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads for his guitar-picking skills, and if that’s true, it wasn’t a bad deal, with this album as the result. Dylan and Clapton were obsessed with it, and no wonder; this old-school twelve-bar blues album helped shape sixties’ rock and all that came after.

John Coltrane, A Love Supreme (1964)

Recorded in a single session, this four-part suite riffed on a four-note theme to change the face of jazz. It’s routinely performed during services in the Church of St. John Coltrane in San Francisco (really!) and inspired one journalist to say, ‘This album is to Coltrane what a speech on the Washington Mall was to Martin Luther King, Jr., what a mountaintop sermon was to Jesus Christ.’

Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath (1970)

Half an hour of pseudo-Satanics and Ozzie’s shrieking, Black Sabbath might have been critically panned (Lester Bangs dismissed it as ‘discordant jams with bass and guitar reeling like velocitised speedfreaks all over each other’s musical perimeters’), but it still went platinum and defined heavy metal.

Kraftwerk, Trans-Europe Express (1977)

This epic paean to technology and travel was the album that punched a hole right through the punk revolution and brought electro to the masses. With its melodic, hypnotic beats, Kraftwerk’s synthetic masterpiece cleared a high-speed railway line for the rise of the techno albums that would power our nightclubs through the following decades.

Dead Kennedys, Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables (1980)

Apologies to the Sex Pistols, but our money for Most Influential Punk Album is riding on San Francisco’s finest. Fresh Fruitrevived the punk movement just when the UK scene had started to flag. All paranoid rants and spit-in-your-face satire, it’s still the perfect soundtrack to political revolution.

N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton (1989)

This wasn’t the first gansta-rap album (that honour goes to Ice-T’s 6 In The Mornin), but it was the one that launched the genre onto the radar of the previously-oblivious East Coast audience. And, in grand gansta-rap tradition, it wasn’t controversy-free: FBI Assistant Director Milt Ahlerich complained the lyrics on F*** Tha Cops, saying it ‘encourages violence against and disrespect for the law-enforcement officer.’ Well, indeed.

Radiohead, OK Computer (1997)

All about rampant consumerism, social disconnection and political malaise, OK Computer was not only a locus for the anti-capitalist concerns of Radiohead’s band-members and fans, but it also eerily anticipated the paranoid post-911 world that was soon to follow. Plus, it slammed the door on Britpop.

So there you have it, our seven albums (eight if you include Bob’s masterpiece) that rocked the world. We love them all, but do you? Let us know here or at Nokia_Connects.

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As a tribute to the late MCA, aka Adam Yauch, of the pioneering hip-hop group, The Beastie Boys, a father has created a home movie with his kids and nephew, paying homage with a shot-for-shot recreation of their iconic music video for “Sabotage.” Is there anything cuter than little kids in moustaches and wigs shooting toy guns? We think not.

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Remember how embarrassed you used to get when you were a teenager and you went on vacation with your family? And Dad was always the worst offender; walking around with a giant camera slung around his neck, taking the most mortifying pictures. Well now there’s a new tumblr that will help you relive those glory days; a hilarious collection of photographs of various, well, Dads on vacation! As adults ourselves now, we look back fondly on those moments and we think it’s high time we cut Dad some slack and remember how much he loved those vacations.

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Sometimes we think that the Internet can be a cold, dark place. But then sometimes a story like this occurs: Sean O’Connor is a Redditor, whose uncle, Scott Widak, is afflicted with Down Syndrome and a terminal liver disease. Sean took to Reddit and posted this: “My uncle is currently bedridden and living out his last days at home with my 85-year-old grandmother. One of his favorite things to do is open mail… anyone feel like sending him a letter or card?” And that’s exactly what happened. Thousands of other Redditors from around the world, from Sweden, Finland, Japan, Australia, sent Scott handmade cards, DVDs, and messages of hope. A truly inspiring story.

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Jon Hamm has won our hearts on Mad Men, on Saturday Night Live, and well… pretty much everywhere. And now there’s one more thing to love him for: his advice. This week Jon Hamm took to the Internet in a video called “Ask a Grown Man,” to answer questions posed by teenage girls, meting out solid advice with a charm and wit nonpareil, giving us yet another reason to love Jon Hamm.

That’s all for now! Be sure to check back in with us every Thursday, as I’m sure we’ll have plenty more for you next week!

The picture is by James Morgan and was submitted to the National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest. It is amazing how far cameras have come that this shot could be achieved without a ton of equipment and staging, it seems as natural as a family photo.

Ama Wheelies is a registered not-for-profit organisation that helps Quadriplegics and Paralplegics in South Africa’s poorest province Mpumalanga. The aim was to empower severly disabled quadriplegic and paraplegic’s in the province.  The hard working Ama Wheelies team are pioneers in this field and are working hard to bring the benefits of mobile communication and mobile work opportunities to the disabled people of Mpumalanga.

To this end, a series of communication training workshops were arranged throughout the province. These workshops provided free training to teach disabled individuals not only how to use high end mobile devices but more importantly how to save on communication costs by using free services and social media sites available from the Nokia Store.

Nokia Connects liked the idea and happily teamed up with Ama Wheelies. We supplied 32 refurbished media review units which could be used to benefit the disabled members of Ama Wheelies. Then plans were made to host training events so that users could make full use of the devices.

The refurbished units were sold locally and 23 brand new Nokia C5-03 units and two Nokia 5800′s were purchased for the training. These units all have TFT resistive touchscreens which are easily and cheaply adapted for quadriplegic use (without needing expensive stylus’s).

The local Spar crossings in Nelspruit donated snacks and the Nelspruit office of the National Youth Development Agency made a conference facility available freely to make group training easier. Without all these dedicated people and sponsors the training would never have been possible.

Getting everyone together in one place was a mission and very expensive and so smaller training workshops were planned for Johannesburg, Witbank, Lydenburg, Nelspruit, Barberton, Whiteriver, Sabie, Ermelo and Tzaneen. To make sure that as many people as possible benefited from the training events, members who were sick or could not make the group events received free home visits.

Sadly sometimes even when you go well beyond the line of duty not everyone can benefit due to various circumstances and a few members where unreachable due to technical issues and lack of good cell reception in certain area’s.

The good news though, is that the following Quadriplegics and Paraplegics benefited from free communication training during the first workshops held in the province.

Quadriplegics: Barry, Cillie, Shane, Bennie, Moses & Patrick

Paraplegics: Veronica, Colin, Bethuel, Moosa & Amos

A few care givers also benefited from free training and handsets. A huge thank you goes out to all the dedicated team members and sponsors who made this training a huge success. Check this out for more details or head to Nokia_Connects to let us know what you thought of the activity.

via Wired Enterprise

We should all know his name, and thanks him daily, for Steve Crocker wrote the instructions that make the internet work. The crucial packet of code was called Request for Comments, and essentially it’s still used today (but on a massively bigger scale – there’s a heap more details about how it came about, but that’s the nub of the matter). So each day from now on I will invoke the name of Steve Crocker as I sit down to begin my daily work. Thanks Steve.

As a kick off to this, today’s MMSM is packed with musical whimsies, melodious mirth-makers and heartfelt harmonic (chest) heaves.

via Huffington Post

The King of Pop is going on one final World Tour. Well…his costumes are, anyway. In your last chance to see a piece of Jacko history, his clothes and artifacts will travel the world from Europe to Asia and South America before being auctioned off (and presumably disappearing into some private collector’s vault). This made me smile in a wistful, ‘He was great once, then went a bit crazy’ way.

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‘Show me the horse playing the guitar, Tom!’ I hear you cry. Always one to pander to the masses…

Found at The Awesomer

Pretty clever stuff. Must have cost the kid his entire allowance in sugar lumps. Made me smile – not because it’s a tuneless bit of silly, but because the horse is playing the guitar with his lips.

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Ever seen one of those ‘Before They Were Famous’-style TV shows? Well there’s an exhibition in Dublin that’s starting soon that celebrates the life and times of the band U2 before they hit the big time. And the pictures are awesome. The hats! The glasses! The hair!

via Patrick Brocklebank/Little Museum of Dublin

This made me smile, because I have been listening to U2 since I was about 12 (thanks, Dad) and it’s great to see them in the very early days.

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The latest in the long line of ‘kids doing cute things in the car while a parent records them’ videos is Grace. Eyes closed, head wobbling, hands out – she looks like she’s channeling the music.

Made me smile to see one so young who is so into music. Watch out for her on dancing competition TV shows in the future.

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And finally, how about finding a new use for those old vinyl records (remember them? Ah, vinyl). Well these guys have grabbed a bunch of old records, a turntable, a video camera (and presumably a lot of patience) and made some pretty slick moves, even if it was some clever ‘viral’ marketing campaign.

Makes me smile due to the serious amount of time and effort must have gone into this video (just like all those basketball shots).

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That’s your musical lot for this week. If you found something that might make me smile that has a musical flavour, let me know in the comments (to be included in next week’s Your Grins section) or send me an amusing message on Twitter (#MakeMeSmileMonday, of course).

via srqpix

Technology is always on the move. So it’s no surprise that there are some pretty stunning new camera tricks coming our way in the near future. Here’s five we think you’ll be enjoying, or not, in the next five years.

1.Compact Evolution

Compact camera sales dropped by 30% in 2011. And it will come as no surprise that this is a direct result of increasingly smart smartphones. In order to stay competitive, the camera manufacturers are having to add more and more tricks to their little point-and-shoots. Touch screen controls, inbuilt WiFi, direct uploads to social media, slow-motion movie functions, timers triggered by winking, vast amounts of new scene modes. It’s going to be a case of evolve or die for the compact.

2. In-Camera HDR

Love it or hate it? Trendy fad or giant leap forward? Whichever side of the coin you fall, it seems High Dynamic Range (HDR) is here for a while yet. Whilst it was previously a case of post-shoot processing, the new generation of cameras and smartphones have the capability to shoot HDR in camera. Is this really going to make our photos seem more like the real world? Or will we end up with a sickly, ‘Disney on acid’ view of reality?

3. Three Dimensions

In the past few years, 3D cameras have begun to make a notable impact on the high street. Staggeringly, 3D films have actually been around since the 1920s and have seen various resurgences over the years, (Does anyone else remember Jaws 3-D in 1983? No? Probably best….). But, like most technologies, where they were once cumbersome and expensive, they are now becoming smaller and affordable.

4. Shoot now, focus later

Without question one of the biggest jumps has come from the US company Lytro and their ‘light field’ technology. Unlike conventional cameras which aim to capture single planes of light, these unconventional looking devices are capable of capturing all of the information about where that light is. So what does that actually mean? Well, it means you can capture both 3D and 2D images as well as shift the perspective of a picture you’ve already taken. But, most astonishingly, it means that you can focus and re-focus the picture afterwards. So the image you capture is no longer a single finite moment, stagnated in time. Rather it is a movable, adaptable, shifting record which the viewer is able to perpetually modify. Initial reviews haven’t been 100% convincing, but as the technology improves expect to see more promising results.

5. Remove

Although removing people and cloning out undesirables has always been possible in post-shoot programmes, you may shortly be able to do this on the spot, within in the camera itself. By automatically shooting extra images the camera will enable you to blend the desired parts of each photo into one composite ‘perfect’ image. Say goodbye to ‘photo-bombers’! (Which is a bit of a shame really…).

What we lose

Many of the changes that are coming our way are set to entirely shift our concept of photography. Everything from aesthetic elements, such as light and shade, technical restrictions like depth of field or theoretical concepts such as freezing a moments in history, will be thrown out of the window. It could even generate the need for new terminology; just simply calling something a ‘photograph’ might no longer be sufficient.

Lots of changes on the cards, but which do you think will have the biggest impact on photography as we know it. As ever, we’d love to hear your thoughts, here or at Nokia_Connects.