“A new smartpen could change the way people practice mobile computing by bringing processing power to traditional pen and paper. Made by Livescribe, of Oakland, CA, the smartpen is designed to digitize the words and drawings that a user puts down on paper and bring them to life.

So long as the user writes on paper printed with a special pattern, the smartpen transforms what is written into interactive text. For example, the pen has a recording function, called paper replay, that can record sound and connect it to what the user writes while the sounds are being recorded. Later, the user can tap the pen over what she wrote and replay the associated sounds. “We’re starting to make the whole world of printable surfaces accessible and functional,” says Livescribe CEO Jim Marggraff.” Continue reading Computing on Paper - Livescribe’s smartpen turns a sheet of paper into a computer by Erica Naone, Technology Review.

World’s smallest radio fits in the palm of the hand…of an ant - Harnessing the electrical and mechanical properties of the carbon nanotube, a team of researchers has crafted a working radio from a single fiber of that material, according to Eurekalert, the news service of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Fixed between two electrodes, the vibrating tube successfully performed the four critical roles of a radio–antenna, tunable filter, amplifier and demodulator–to tune in a radio signal generated in the room and play it back through an attached speaker. Functional across a bandwidth widely used for commercial radio, the tiny device could have applications far beyond novelty, from radio- controlled devices that could flow in the human bloodstream to highly efficient, miniscule, cell phone devices. Continue reading

A forerunner of Radar, acoustic mirrors or ‘listening ears’ were built on the south and northeast coasts of England (1916 - 1930s) to detect approaching enemy aircraft at a distance of 8 to 15 miles. With the development of faster aircraft the sound mirrors became less useful, as an aircraft would be within sight by the time it had been located; radar finally rendered the mirrors obsolete. [via]

Lise Autogena’s Sound Mirrors was inspired by the derelict acousic mirrors at Denge, England. It aims to create two new sound mirrors on the coasts of England and France to enable people on either side of the English Channel to speak to each other. Continue reading

Audiohyperspace is featuring as September’s audio link, Chaosradio.

Are tracking systems like for example GPS dangerous for our society? How will the development of biometry influence civil rights? Who is why interested in collecting data of patients within the health system? These and other questions, which reflect the relationship between computer technology and society are discussed by the monthly program Chaosradio. This broadcast has existed since 1995 and has become a real classic. It is one of Germany’s oldest radio programs on new technologies and communication. Continue reading

Surround sound is one of the biggest advances to have been made in audio reproduction for quite some time, Scott Wilkinson writes in 2 will get you 7.1 in Electronic Musician. But what about all the existing 2-channel content? Is there a way to expand it to fill a multichannel surround-sound system? Many have tried to devise algorithms that derive center and surround channels from a 2-channel source, but most of those algorithms produce less than satisfying results. Sonic Focus is taking a different approach to the problem. Instead of manipulating the signal’s phase and delay in various ways to simulate the extra channels, the company has developed an algorithm called Extrapolator that uses physical modeling to synthesize a multichannel sound field.”

Read on about Extrapolator and how the new algorithms could usher in a whole new era of high-quality multichannel audio from low-cost tools — a trend a great many of us heartily applaud.

For my inaugural post to this blog, I’d like to write about something I’ve been thinking about lately, and hopefully begin a discussion on it. Namely, what to make of geotagged audio samples and recordings. In case you’re not familiar with the term, geotagging is the practice of assigning geographic coordinates to a piece of media like a recording or photo as a form of metadata. In one incarnation, such as on the Freesound project, geotagged samples are layered over Google maps, allowing one to zoom in on any spot on the planet and potentially find samples tagged to specific geographic locations. As numerous startups and one very large corporation (beginning with a ‘G’ and ending with ‘oogle’) have realized, the commercial potential of geotagging is huge. But we hear less about its scientific potential and, of importance here, its aesthetic potential. Continue reading

Folly Summer School of Sound: Explore Digital Sound Production, Guided by the Masters :: June 27-29, 2007; 10am-4pm :: St Martins College, Lancaster :: Performance on June 28 by goto10 artists de Valk and Mansoux, as well as Dave Griffiths and Chun Lee. Deadline for applications: May 31, 2007.

This year’s Summer School of Sound will be led by internationally-acclaimed sound artist collective goto10. Marloes de Valk and Aymeric Mansoux will lead a three-day course, exploring free open-source software available for home-studio purposes, such as audio and midi sequencers, sound editors and virtual effect-racks, as well as the creative possibilities of puredata in an audio-workstation setup. Continue reading

TRACEPLACESPACE: seven audio works .mp3 - Cary Peppermint 2007 :: The audio works of TRACEPLACESPACE were formed loosely in response to ever-accelerating technological developments, passing time, urgent ecological issues, and remarkable events of our globally connected system in process long before but brought to the forefront since the latter part of the year 2001. The works of TRACEPLACESPACE are components of a digital, multi-media, network-infused performance of the same title.

I like to perform this work in small community venues, outdoor gatherings, art-spaces, and galleries where everyone is welcome and can sit on the floor, talk to one another, and drink green tea. However I will perform TRACEPLACESPACE approximately anywhere. Continue reading