CDM got some early exclusives on the future of Microsoft’s media plan and PlaysForSure, including an explanation of why Zune isn’t part of the PlaysForSure program, thanks to Dave McLauchlan of the Windows Media Group: Microsoft Not Turning Back on PlaysForSure with Zune Player MTP, Portable Player Standard? Microsoft’s McLauchlan Sets Us Straight At the […]

The mighty Ars Technica regularly takes on technically-intense reviews of processors and operating systems, but this time they’ve turned their attentions to something else altogether: DJ software. Dave Girard helms the review, with an exhaustive look at both basic DJ virtual decks (Disco, FutureDecks Lite, DJ1800) and full-featured software (VirtualDJ, Traktor DJ Studio from Native […]

You’re tired of using your mouse to grab on-screen controls. You want something physical to control, a motorized fader that will automatically pop to the right position. But you aren’t quite ready to surrender a bunch of workspace to a hulking full-sized control surface. You want something as compact and easy to grab as the […]

As I have a plotter which only speaks vectors, and Peter has motion tracking on the brain we’ve been thinking about visualisations involving vector graphics a lot recently. Someone else who has visualisation on the brain is Martin Wattenberg. I’ve encountered his work before, but hadn’t connected the projects together. Shape of Mary Had A […]

Mashup/files/media/music maven Moldover checks in in comments with another tip for surviving the desert of Burning Man (or, you know, your next gig in Yemen): I’ve been bringing my laptop to the playa for several years now. My solution this year was a modified briefcase. I made a mount for my MIDI controller to sit […]

Light Emitting Textiles is a technological theme which keeps reappearing year after year. In fact, a year ago for the Internationale Funkaustellung (IFA) Phillips announced their Photonic Textile Prototypes – rather blocky but undeniably cool flexible LED arrays. For this year’s IFA, Phillips have upped the ante with: better resolution? Cliched example loops? Come on […]

Today’s Apple announcement was mostly as-expected, and ho-hum for music listeners. Wait, what’s that? John Lennon on iTunes! Fantasti— uh, sorry. That’s John Legend. Never mind. (One of these artists is not like the other.) Apple did offer improved iPods, long-awaited movie service and high-resolution TV shows, an upcoming video and audio streaming device for […]

Vocoding is capable of a broad range of sounds, from the traditional “robot talking” effects to unique, organic-sounding synth and drum effects. Like many commonly-used techniques for synthesis and processing (and qualifying as both), vocoder effects can be cliched — but they can also be used to great effect. Before today’s vocoders, there was the […]

You go offline for a couple of days and what happens? Only the deluge of RED camera information since it was announced. The Red Digital Cinema website has been updated, and Mike of HD4Indies has been working Red’s booth at IBC and has been furiously blogging his experiences. Red show their footage for the first […]