KISS has big gaming plans in mind, and IndustryGamers brings you first word. Gene Simmons knows business as well as he knows rock n roll. In addition to selling over 100 million records and DVDs, he’s turned KISS into a licensing behemoth that includes over 3,000 items ranging from condoms to coffins. Now the star of the hit reality TV series, “Gene Simmons Family Jewels”, has entered the technology space with Ortsbo (Ortsbo.com). The rock legend has joined the digital language translation company, in part, because he speaks five languages (English, Hebrew, Hungarian, German, and some Japanese) and is learning Mandarin.
Via www.industrygamers.com

In my keynote interview with Rovio CEO Mikael Hed yesterday, we covered a wide range of topics — everything from how the company deals with piracy and counterfeiting, how the company grew from 12 people in 2009 to over 250 today, and what the music industry can glean from the company’s success, and during the course of the interview, Hed casually mentioned that his developers are also building some sort of music app.Hed didn’t offer much in the way of detail, but he did drop a hint. When I asked him whether he thought interactive music apps that let fans remix and manipulate songs in real time by tapping on their smartphones and tablets would enter the mainstream instead of appealing primarily to music geeks, he said he thought that indeed, interactive music apps would appeal to the mainstream.That’s all we have on this for now, but suffice it to say that we can’t wait to see Rovio’s take on music apps and we wouldn’t be surprised if it came out before the end of the year.
Via evolver.fm

Social music gaming company MXP4 has launched Bopler Tap Tour which tasks players with touring the world by playing music games city by city on Facebook…
Via www.brand-m.biz

With API launches and hack days now becoming commonplace, the music industry finally seems to get the Internet. That means that this year’s Midem conference in Cannes, France, where people from across the business get together to share ideas and discuss the future, should be very interesting indeed.The Next Web will be reporting from Midem, which takes place from 28-31 January 2012. Here’s what’s lined up on the tech side of things to keep us busy.1- The likes of Microsoft, Google, Spotify, YouTube, Vevo, Orange, Deezer, Facebook, Rovio and Vivendi will be in attendance. Amazon and Google will take part in a panel discussion with UMG’s Rob Wells and Charles Caldas, head of indie collective Merlin. Google Music’s Tim Quirk will also be taking part in a panel.
2- The streaming music market is set to expand this year, and Spotify, Simfy, Deezer and Rdio will all be at Midem.
3- Established music startups attending will include The Echo Nest, Shazam, Simfy, Gracenote, SoundCloud, Mspot, MXP4/bopler games, Thinglink and Songkick.
4- Those startups will be joined by the fresh faces taking part in the Midemlab startup competition, such as Flowd, Webdoc and Tunerights. See the full list in our previous coverage.
5- There’s a Music Tech Meetup planned for the evening of Sunday Jan 29th. We’ll be there to meet all the startups.
6- The Innovation Factory is set to offer a complete, tailor-made learning programme for startups. This includes The Basics of Startup Operations, run by Microsoft BizSpark, How to Raise Funds for Your Own Startup, from LD&A, and How to Pitch to the Media, run by… The Next Web!
7- Midem’s Music Hack Day, as our previous coverage explained, will see innovative music apps and services built in just 48 hours.
If all that has whet your appetite and you want to come to Cannes to witness it all first-hand, startups and app developers can take advantage of a special ticket price. The details can be found at www.midem.com/tech.
Via thenextweb.com