#ncircle

• 02/22/2022 - Adventures of the Sonic the Hedgehog: The Complete Series (SD on BD, Discotek Media)

• 03/08/2022 - Sonic Boom: The Complete Series (Blu-Ray Steebook, NCircle)

• 04/08/2022 - Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Paramount Pictures)

• Holiday 2022 - Sonic Frontiers (Video Game, SEGA) [Likely November or December]

• TBA 2022 - Sonic Origins (Video Game Collection, SEGA)

Fall NCircle Entertainment Children’s DVD Giveaway

NCircle Entertainment is known as a great place to find entertaining children’s DVDs. This fall, they have two brand new DVDs for your kids enjoyment – Houdini & ABC Monsters! Every day little man likes to grab a DVD and go snuggle in mommys’ bed and watch it. I like to keep entertaining children’s DVDs on hand…and seriously we probably have more of them than we do our own videos.  It is nice to…

Spring into Science with Sid the Science Kid & More!

Spring is here, and summer is on the horizon! NCircle Entertainment is helping kids connect with Science with some of their popular DVD’s: Sid the Science Kid, The Cat in the Hat, Dino Dan, and Octonauts! My boys love watching movies. With summer nearing, these will be great for keeping them entertained, while learning. My lil guy couldn’t wait to check out one of these new movies. His first pic…

NCIRCLE, a Los Angeles based R&B/Soul band, has released their newest single, “Old School Groove”

NCIRCLE, a Los Angeles based R&B/Soul band, has released their newest single, “Old School Groove.” The track itself is a heartfelt, earnest return to the days of R&B and Soul music when it was not possible to form a band without obvious talent on the part of each musician involved. NCIRCLE is a return to the glory days of Motown, a time before such stage magic as autotune and believable synthesized bass, when good music also meant good style, good taste, and even good intentions.

If anyone can show modern music fans what it means to make truly excellent music – if anyone can remind the R&B industry what Rhythm-and-Blues used to mean to people – it's NCIRCLE. “Old School Groove” is a fine single with which to introduce them, too.

Their sound is part Neville Brothers, part Isley Brothers, part Parliament Funkadelic, part Al Green. Their guitar (Michael McDonald) plays clean-channel cool jazz leads that never intrude, while their bass (John Haynes) effortlessly leads the melody way out front. They have a flawless sax crooning leads (Andre Delano), and a keyboard making a velvet curtain of sound in the background (Ed Roth). The drums are led by Kenny "Blanket" Williams, who lays back like an old pro and keeps time like an atomic clock. The vocals, however, are really what make NCIRCLE stand out. Led by the outstanding T.C. Moses, the band features disco-quality harmonies and falsettos that would make the Bee Gees proud. T.C. himself is never misses a note, never sounds “pitchy,” and is never guilty of the showboating, over-souling runs up and down the musical scale that plague R&B radio stations all across America. NCIRCLE's lyrics, too, are worth noting.

In fact, the band is perhaps best represented by their own words from this particular single, when they sing, “Hey, DJ, I'm not tryin' to bring down your pop and rap. I just want to let you know, soul music is where it's at. Before you know it, it's gonna be toppin' the charts because it's the kind of music that touches everybody's heart.”

Of their intentions, drummer Blanket has said, “With the world saturated with fabrication, we focus on the real, bringing real music that touches the heart and soul, and lyrics that enlighten and inspire.” Without a doubt, NCIRCLE has done this with their new single, “Old School Groove.” Their music is indeed made for“dancin', party-enhancin',” and every music fan deserves to give it a spin.

-Sean McCauley

MondoTunes Staff Writer

The Single “Old School Groove” is distributed globally by MondoTunes (www.MondoTunes.com) and is available at iTunes for convenient purchase and download

MondoTunes (www.mondotunes.com) supplies the largest music distribution in the world and provides upstream services for many major labels in search of breakout artists. While most independent distributors reach only 45-50 retailers despite charging needless monthly and yearly fees, MondoTunes reaches over 750 retailers and mobile partners in over 100 world regions without any monthly or yearly fees.

ARTIST CONTACT INFO:

eMail [email protected]

At least two Interior Department offices are testing out iPads in an effort to increase productivity, and a third office is looking to acquire the coveted tablets. But iPads have proven vulnerabilities -- only two weeks ago, a duo was arrested for hacking into AT&T records and exposing 120,000 iPad accounts, including top government officials.

The department is still interested. "They're being used as replacements for laptops and blackberries," said Drew Malcomb, the Interior Department's chief of public affairs. "We see them as filling that need. They have a larger screen, the attachments are onboard and they have most of the capabilities of a laptop."

The iPads are also significantly cheaper than laptops, he said, with a starting cost of $499.

Currently, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Interior Secretary's office are testing out the devices. Last week, the Bureau of Land Management submitted a solicitation for Apple products, with iPads chief among the request.

There's a limited number of the iPads in use by the agencies. In the secretary's office, there's just "a couple dozen," mostly assigned to senior staff, said Malcomb. The USGS has about 1,000 iPads in use that employees have been testing since last summer.

But the use of iPads raises issues of whether the devices provide enough security for federal data.

"There's always worry about security, so we take special steps to deal with that," said Malcomb.

He said that iPads offer one thing most laptops don't provide.

"The one benefit is is that they can be wiped clean remotely," said Malcomb. "If one gets stolen or lost, they can be wiped clean from here. That's unlike a laptop of a Blackberry."

And, he added, iPad use can be monitored the same way laptop use was -- so the departments will know if employees are playing Angry Birds.

Some security analysts nonetheless have concerns. "You are the mercy of Apple with regards to security and the applications one can install," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations for nCircle, which provides security solutions to businesses and government agencies. "If you compare that to a laptop running Windows, there's a marketplace for security tools and applications."

Storms said iPads must be treated more like laptops to increase security.

"The biggest problem with iPads is that people don't treat them like they are laptops," he said. "The agencies are looking at the iPad as a different device entirely. They are hitting problems because it's a closed system."

He said Apple needs to take steps to address some of the security needs.