Tronby freres-hueon   Want to learn how to pull off graphics? Make it work with optical and real for real first. Tron may have been a pioneering moment in computer graphics, but a lot of its unique look came from unique optical effects on a scale not seen before or after. The glowing screen was […]

One curious note about the first-ever recording I mentioned today: you’re among the first to hear it, because at the time, the inventor had worked out how to record, but not how to play anything back. (No speakers — no sound.) It did make awfully nice pictures of sound, though, which in turn suggests an […]

For those of you who haven’t already discovered this, yes, the server with samples from the OLPC project is in fact struggling under the load. (It was already in trouble just from the attention of the Csound list, let alone CDM and Boing Boing!) We’re in touch with that team, and hope to have news […]

We’ve seen visual vinyl, via the video stylings of Serato’s VIDEO-SL plug-in. But here’s a more literal approach: stick the camera on the turntable. Via a multi-camera setup, Cut Chemist and DJ Shadow are doing that with their honest-to-goodness, scratching turntablist sets. I especially like the camera up close on the turntable itself — something […]

Sorry, Edison. It seems the famed “Mary Had a Little Lamb” recording by Thomas Edison — thought to be the first-ever audio recording — was actually late to the party. A recording on April 9, 1860 by a typesetter and inventor (Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville) was apparently first, according to a discovery by audio historians […]

It’s still early in development (read: it often crashes), but The Bean Machine applies nodal, patch-based development to Java. The interface is mysteriously close to Quartz Composer, down to capabilities, UI, and even the 3D cube tutorial. Personally, I use Java because it can do things Quartz Composer can’t, but it’s interesting nonetheless — and […]

Minimal techno pioneer, digital vinyl advocate, DJ superstar, and subject of a surrealist Internet parody and very popular joke t-shirt line Richie Hawtin is now evidently using Traktor and Traktor Scratch. So is Magda (of “make the tea” fame). So is Troy Pierce. Gentle hint to NI’s DJ marketing: embrace it. Give us a special […]

Image: cigarboxguitar, from Etsy. Trust me, it makes sense — real, physical, handmade instruments and music distribution is the perfect antidote to a lot of blogger hot air. I apparently had better things to do this weekend than hear the latest self-righteous, all music is free, the Web changes the fabric of reality post about […]

While mentioning the OLPC XO laptop, I have to point, as well, to Asus’ Eee. Sure, it’s not necessarily designed for being in the middle of a sub-Saharan desert, but it has some of the other hallmarks of OLPC — low power use, light weight, extremely low cost, and open-source, Linux-based software. These little machines […]