Twist

We're certainly living in exciting times, with cat and mouse games being played across the technology industry. If you're ripping DVDs you surely have heard about on Lech Johansen (aka DVD Jon) who pioneered the first crack for the CSS (content scrambling system), the software which was intended to protect against this type of unauthorized use. Jon's latest project is a universal media application with social networking features: doubleTwist - which recently had a facelift.

A rather interesting justification for developing this project is available on the website and for the first time in a long time, I can actually relate to what they're talking about:

We feel that just like you don't use a different browser for every web site you visit (Firefox to read the NY Times, IE to stream Hulu, Chrome to browse YouTube, etc) you shouldn't have to use iTunes for Apple products, Nokia software for Nokia phones, Sony software for Sony products, etc. The typical household today has many such devices and there is a need for a simple and powerful software that connects them.

Indeed, everything these days comes with some sort of social networking features – but doubleTwist actually puts them to good use. After you invite friends to install doubleTwist on their computer, they will appear on the left side sidebar.

After that, sending files to them is just a click away. They instantly receive the file in their doubleTwist feed and it's downloaded to the computer.

doubleTwist plays all the major audio formats (AAC, MP3 and WMA) as long as the files aren't digitally protected by DRM (Digital Rights Management). If you have a large library of media files bought from iTunes Store using the old protected format, you're out of luck – the same goes for Rhapsody or Napster fans. (Thous you may try reading MakeUseOf article on how to remove DRM protcetion from music files.)

The music player is not as developed as iTunes – no EQ, no Sound Check, only two viewing modes. They will surely add more features like this in future releases – after all it's in beta.

It also plays videos – with upload support for Flickr and YouTube – as well as integrating a barebones photo viewer.

doubleTwists' strength isn't in the integrated playback functions, yet. It vastly compensates with the ability to sync with all the iPods, a large number of Blackberry devices, the Sony PSP, Nokia phones and the list goes on. They estimate that the application is compatible with hundreds of devices. I invite you to watch this short video explaining most of the functionality offered by doubleTwist, then grab the beta while it's fresh from here.

Don't forget to come back and post your comments and thoughts about the product. You can also check out some other posts related to music here.