As ActionScript has gotten more powerful, some simple animation operations in Flash have gradually required more code, as opposed to the “shorthand” of earlier versions. Meanwhile, the open source Processing project has built a simple, elegant language based on Java that’s powerful, yet surprisingly accessible to non-programmers — and free. Brevity is sort of “Flash […]

Steve Jarvis sets a new speed record for providing impressions of new software. Here’s how Ableton Live 6 is working for him on his Macbook (pictured): A few impressions from about an hour of playing around with the Live6 beta last night: It’s BETA. Still lots of bugs (mostly small) and missing features (e.g., no […]

There’s nothing quite like the razor-sharp, analog vector graphics in games like Asteroids, Tempest, Battle Zone, and (my personal fave) Star Wars. They’re difficult to emulate using standard computer software. Our friend James Grahame notes that these fantastic graphics have now made their way into the PCI slot of your computer: ZVG Vector Arcade Interface […]

Pierre Pinard points us to new Logitech hardware that could work well with music software (and other multimedia, graphics, and creative software): NuLOOQ Professional [Logitech.com]

Raymond Scott’s Electronium is one of the great, odd sound inventions of all time. Scott developed the machine as an automatic performance and composing machine, a great, mechanical algorithmic music creation device. For an official source of information, be sure to read up at the Raymond Scott site, which has this fantastic music demo: Electronium […]

Manchester’s Futuresonic conference featured some of our favorite people. Fortunately, while none of Team CDM could be there, we do get to live vicariously through others: Toshio Iwai traced his work from childhood to present-day in a talk. Our friend Chris O’Shea has copious notes and images on the talk at Pixelsumo, and Régine Debatty […]

Ableton Live 6 is now out in beta, but now that you’re reading this, you’re too late: the beta rosters are already full. As with previous upgrades to Live, Ableton is rolling out the beta in waves, and the first wave is the smallest. If you missed the boat, though, previous experience suggests you won’t […]

Numark’s new VJ product looks like it could be the missing link DJ controller hardware a lot of us wanted. The Behringer BCD2000 is inexpensive, but availability has been scarce and it doesn’t yet support the Mac, on top of some MIDI implementation oddities. (See shipping and driver complaints, full review on PC.) The US$300 […]

The One Laptop Per Child initiative, aka “that $100 laptop” though it will initially cost more like $140, just got its first leg up. Nigeria has ordered one million of the custom Linux laptops. Now the big challenge will be whether the OLPC developers can deliver the machines on-budget and on time, given its wildly […]

(Update: I bought one of these controllers soon after they became available in Australia, and found that it had some compatibility issues with various VJ software. Definitely try before you buy. Jaymis.) Numark launched their NuVJ VJ product, a combination of a DJ-style MIDI controller with software from Arkaos, back at Musikmesse in April. The […]