ImagePlot, “vintage” 2010s tool for image visualization, is back, free

“Gramps, tell us the story again!” Well, young’n, before LLMs and generative AI, we were really excited about making big clouds of dots using statistical techniques for visualization. And actually, it’s still cool — and runs free, locally, in your browser. Lev Manovich and team have brought back ImagePlot, and in a moment, it transforms any folder of images into a visualization.

NEL Incline gets an Easter update with improved display, output quality — and echo

Your mission to investigate sonic anomalies could use a holiday boost. NeverEngine Labs’ Incline gets a significant update today, festively labeled as an “Easter egg.” Now you get internal echo in playback, high-fidelity audio output options and tweaks, and proper zoom.

Peter Kirn - April 5, 2026

OpenShot 3.5: faster, more stable, more creative open-source video editor

OpenShot, the free and open-source video editor for macOS, Windows, and Linux, got a major update in March with version 3.5. It runs faster, handles edits and audio better — 18 years into this project, OpenShot is looking like something pretty much everyone ought to at least try. And that’s especially true if you’re experimenting with AI or cloud-based video instances.

Peter Kirn - April 3, 2026

Incline, “toposonic corpus explorer,” transforms granular synthesis

Peter Kirn - March 30, 2026

Bandcamp is taking a stand against generative AI; will it work?

Peter Kirn - January 14, 2026

Apple now has one creative sub for iPad, Mac — but keeps Mac app purchases

Peter Kirn - January 13, 2026

Shae O. Omonijo’s free series on critical thinking, staying human, in the AI age

Peter Kirn - December 17, 2025

Absynth creator Brian Clevinger on synths, emotions, and “weird-ass ideas”

Peter Kirn - December 9, 2025

What happens when AI-synthesized vocals meet choral notation?

Peter Kirn - November 26, 2025