These are the speakers Star Wars fans are looking for!

AC Worldwide is launching fully-licensed Star Wars bluetooth speakers in the shape of fussy protocol droid C-3PO and an Imperial Stormtrooper from the original trilogy.



Each speaker has been crafted with meticulous attention to detail. Not only do they look amazing. But, they boast high-end sound quality for the discerning Star Wars fan as they listen to John Williams' soundtracks.

Key features:

• Full 2.1 system audio, with two tweeters behind the eye and a powerful bottom-facing subwoofer
• Sync your speakers to your phone with Bluetooth or NFC
• Hands-free answering - talk to the character when taking a call
• Touch-sensitive buttons
• When paired each speaker emits an iconic phrase "I do believe they think I'm some sort of god" and "Move along"
• Both mains and rechargeable, and totally portable at 28 cm tall
• £129 / $196

The force is strong with these speakers and I hope to post a hands-on review soon!

UK fans can pre-order from Amazon today: C-3PO and Stormtrooper.

If you have a licensed Star Wars product and are seeking coverage in the lead-up to the theatrical release of The Force Awakens. Please get in contact. Look forward to hearing from you.

THX inventor to join Apple

Leo Laporte tweeted that Tomlinson Holman (inventor of the THX sound system) is purportedly joining Apple to head up the Cupertino-based company's audio division.

This is amazing news!

BBC iPlayer on iMac soon

BBC new media boss confirms Mac support for BBC online plans "a priority".

A sustained voting campaign by Mac users, demanding that the BBC support the platform by ensuring its online iPlayer broadcasts support the Mac may, has achieved modest success, the BBC reports.

The BBC has been developing its yet-to-launch iPlayer service, an online service offering UK license-payers catch-up TV via the web and cable TV. It's expected to launch later this year and competes with Sky Anytime (currently only available to PC users).

While the BBC has always claimed a "platform-agnostic" agenda, the service, as is, has only offered support for Windows systems – but this seems set to change.

"The BBC's proposed iPlayer service, offering catch-up TV via the web and cable TV, would be re-engineered to work with Apple Macs and would eventually roll out to digital terrestrial TV (DTT) and set-top boxes," said BBC Head of Futures Ashley Highfield at an industry event in Cannes.

He slammed Apple's "proprietary and closed framework for DRM", but stressed: "It's one of our top priorities to re-engineer our proposed BBC iPlayer service to work on Macs."

The BBC also plans to open up its vast archive of video and audio in an on-demand trial involving over 20,000 people in the UK, Highfield said.

The aim and objective is that any viewer will be able to access any BBC show ever broadcast using their TV or online service. This can only be achieved within an open and transparent content delivery paradigm.

Dark Matter

Clym Dodds, a friend whom I met as an undergraduate at Bournemouth University and worked on December Duet (1996), wrote to me to announce that Darker Projects' latest audio drama, in association with Infected Books, is now available online!

Autumn, by David Moody, is a vision of apocalyptic horror.

Autumn Trailer (MP3)

A Word from the Composer

I have been a tremendous fan of Zombie "culture" ever since experiencing Romero's Dead series. I can remember a friend's reaction of horror when he learned I had not seen Dawn of the Dead – at the time I was a little cynical and naive about the whole thing – I didn't understand what the big deal was. "You have to f***ing see it!" he exclaimed violently. That night we put on the film and around the point of the Monroeville Mall and that line "This was an important place in their lives. " I was laughing with delight, but I also felt the abject horror creeping up on me. This WAS a delicious sort of existential nightmare emerging. There were (perhaps obvious in retrospect) wonderful societal commentaries as well – the idea of a consumer culture, gobbling up everything and everyone in it's path; our collective fear in discussing or really dealing with the idea of our own mortality, and unprepared and unable to let go of the ones we lose (you're going to have to let go, or they're going come and eat you!); I realized after the film that Dawn of the Dead was not a film for gore hounds, it was a film for intellectuals. Intellectuals unafraid of facing a slightly more morbid subject matter. And, of course, intellectuals with a dark sense of humor.

David Moody's 'Autumn' feels born from the same womb. It hearkens back to the intellectual horror old school - his book had me imagining in black and white movies (pictures like Night Tide, Carnival of Souls, and of course Night of the Living...) with atmosphere and subtext, less gore and more subtly building sensations of isolation and that skin-crawling, existential type of fear. I attempted to convey these qualities in the musical score, along with a few healthy doses of schlock horror music fun!

I must also mention the level of freedom and support provided by Paul Mannering and his Darker Projects team. It's lovely to be involved in something so close to the (now virtually obsolete) genre of Radio Drama - Bernard Herrmann's work for Orson Welles' Mercury Theater productions are personal favorites of mine. And I just love hearing people being operatic and theatrical without any distracting images or CGI effects to get in the way.

Devin Anderson
March, 2007

You can listen to the full episode over at Darker Projects and download the free eBook at Infected Books. Darker Projects audio dramas compare favourably with Dirk Maggs' productions and I can't recommend them highly enough! But, then again I'm biased!