Evening in a Procedural City, Built in OpenGL

Shamus Young’s “Pixel City” feels like flying in a helicopter into the art from Ghost in the Shell, or discovering a metropolis inside your computer. The latest work from an undiscovered YouTube talent, the software itself will be released under an open source license. I don’t need to tell you this could inspire other experiments […]

YouDisco: Stream 8 YouTube Videos onto a Virtual Disco Ball

Squarely in the “because you can” category: YouDisco is a research project at New York’s Eyebeam that simultaneously streams up to eight YouTube videos onto a rotating virtual disco ball. Frame rate is … well, impressive given what it’s doing. The project is the work of Jennifer Jacobs at Eyebeam “with the help of Jeff […]

Record it Live to the Internet: Indaba Reveals JavaFX-Powered Online Recording Studio

Indaba Music, a community and suite of online tools for musicians, announced today they’ve revamped their online recording and production tool using Java and JavaFX. The result: a platform-agnostic, online interface that allows you to record music “directly to the Internet.” And the band Weezer is excited enough about it that they’re giving their official […]

Live 8 Videos: New Warping Explained, APC + ReMOTE SL Integration

With Live 8 in the hands of Ableton fans, two big questions remain for a lot of aficionados: first, how the heck do you deal with this new warp marker interface, and second, how can you make controller mappings for hardware more effective? Thanks to some enterprising, expert users, we’ve got video solutions to each […]

Ohm64 Controller is Here, Looks Fabulous, $599

Ohm64 Backlight Control from Livid Instruments on Vimeo. It’s been a long time since I touched Livid’s VJ software. But when it comes to hardware, they’ve been doing unbelievable work that could have Resolume and VDMX and Processing and vvvv and Max users turning their heads. The Ohm64 looks simply fantastic. It’s got an ideal […]

Augmented Reality, Coming to the iPhone Platform (And Other Mobiles?)

Kamel Makhloufi posts this appetite-whetting image of the “augmented reality” ARToolKit working on the iPhone platform. Sure, Microsoft and Sony may be hard at work on computer vision applications that don’t require tags, but for mobile applications, tags seem perfect. This is just a preview, but it already suggests some interesting art applications, as well […]

Free Cubase Control from iPhone; iTouchMIDI MCU for Everything Else

Steinberg announced today that their Cubase iC controller app for iPhone and iPod touch is now available. If you’re a Cubase 5 user, this app gives you loads of control over your set wirelessly. It looks great, even if you have an existing controller – it’s just like having an extra, more pocket-able remote control. […]

PhiLia 01: Beautiful Audiovisual Art App for iPhone, Made with Open Source OpenFrameworks

Philia 01 Support Video from Lia on Vimeo. Artist Lia has created her first piece of art for the iPhone and iPod touch, something called PhiLia 01. It’s a quirky, gorgeous generative sound and visual app activated by movement, one that encourages users to save their own artwork. http://www.iphoneart.org/philia01 On the iTunes Store Composer Morton […]

More on Project Natal: Latency Concerns, Johnny Chung Lee, Freaky Interactions with a Fake Kid

Microsoft’s Project Natal unveiling for Xbox 360 was no question a blockbuster of technology presentations, nothing short of sheer magic in a games industry that has lately looked somewhat backward-looking. The combination of a 3D-capable camera with facial and object recognition and vocal recognition and mic interaction takes already-smart elements and puts them together into […]

Full Body, No-Controller, No-Tag 3D Motion Tracking: Microsoft’s Project Natal for Xbox 360

Anyone for a game of Harmonix Mime Hero, with the Marcel Marceau expansion pack? We’ve seen simple computer vision applications, “augmented reality” systems and object tracking schemes that use specially-printed tags, 3D tracking using IR emitters, and specialized motion detection sensors (most notably Nintendo’s Wii). But the holy grail, of course, is getting tracking without […]