Good things about Microsoft: they’re the rich kid next door who can book Jefferson Starship for their Vista launch tour. Good news for PC users: DRM probably isn’t going to keep you from getting a shiny new OS after all. Whether you choose Mac OS X, Linux, Windows XP, or Windows Vista — or some […]

After the Macworld keynote glow wears off, the question is, will the iPhone be another closed box, shut off to brilliant third-party developers? It’s not as if we won’t have choices. Gizmodo points out the open-source OpenMoko alternative. But there’s still some hope Apple might let developers in — and even Flash would be fantastic. […]

Forget predictions. It’s hard enough just processing (or is that Processing) the powerful, new visual tools digital artists got in 2006. With that in mind, we, the Create Digital Motion co-editors Peter Kirn and Jaymis Loveday, take a fond look at our favorite tools and art for 2006. And you can bet that this list […]

I wrote today about the Critter Board DIY synth/controller board for CDMusic, but I’m even more excited about the Video Critter: Video Critter DIY, open-source audio/visual electronics platform US$74.95 buys you a fully customizable, programmable DIY board with video out. (There’s also a $45 “mini” board that looks equally tantalizing.) The video routines are already […]

Several of you have written to point to a new article by Peter Gutmann, who argues that content protection (known commonly as DRM, but arguably broader than that) will exact a major cost in Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Vista. These issues should be of special interest to Windows musicians: Gutmann predicts Vista’s new content protection features […]

Dorkbot is the geeky cultural phenomenon that somehow spread from the Computer Music Center at Columbia University all around the world. Normally, the presentations tend toward general electronics, but custom wind instruments, laptop orchestras, and open source audio rearrangers are all on tap for a special all-music Dorkbot coming up this week. If you’re here […]

pure:dyne is a new free, open source, Linux-based, bootable, low-latency, high-performance operating system with Pure Data (Pd) as its main emphasis. Pop a CD, USB key, or bootable hard drive into your PC or Intel Mac, and you’re ready to go. pure:dyne, the Art + Music Performance OS for PCs and Intel Macs [Create Digital […]

Can sound editing be as intuitive as graphics editing in Photoshop? That’s the question Soundbooth, the new Adobe sound app, poses. Waiter! There’s a lasso tool in my audio editor! I’ll give Adobe this: they know their audience. First, they woo audio fans with this sweet-sounding phrase: “A brand new audio application in the spirit […]

If you’re into hard-core patching of custom live visuals and music, you now have a dedicated Linux-based OS you can run with all the tools you need — free. Ever wish you could leave your general-purpose operating system behind and boot into a pristine, low-latency, high-performance OS built for playing visuals and sound live? That’s […]

I can’t take it any more. In one corner, we have PC pundits negatively reviewing Apple’s possibly-upcoming iPhone weeks before it’s announced — reviewing a product they know nothing about that may not even exist. (Incidentally, Microsoft’s new MadeUp Pro 2007 Edition — total crap. So is the new Imaginesoft NeverNeverLand iMadeUp Express.) And in […]