ipod recording with the Xtrememac!

XtremeMac Ipod Recorder

Finally, a portable recording solution that integrates into your everyday life without any extra gadgets or power supplies and cables! For the commuter, the public transit user, or the “quick…record it before I forget it” like me, the XtremeMac Ipod recorder is a welcomed innovation! Can you tell I love it? even before I’ve used it? Not at all obvious!

The recorder plugs into the bottom of the ipod (with video, and nano 2G)and seamlessly integrates with it. It has a built in speaker, as well as a standard 1/8” mini (3.5mm) stereo jack. Included is a flexible mini goose neck type microphone that can be detached from the unit. You may choose to use a line in signal from your computer sound card, or from any other low level input source. There is a line and mic input selector switch to handle the impedance and input levels. You may also purchase a lapel microphone, or use a different condenser microphone. I find it especially useful for recording a band, my lyrics or memo’s. The included mic can be easily propped up and ready to record anything.

The included microphone records in mono with two quality settings. The specs are here

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Sony increases holographic storage read/write speeds

After increasing the storage capacity of their holographic storage system, Sony’s only direction to go was to increase read and write speeds. Sony has managed to increase the holographic storage systems speed from crappy 3mpbs to 92mbps(read) and 107mbps(write). The hard to believe advancement in read and write speeds has been attributed to a new image stabilization technique, with an improved CMOS sensor. Sony isn’t finished yet, promising to increase rates to 1gbps.

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Free Energy For The Masses?

To physicists or engineers, anyone who can claim to have found a source of free, clean and constant energy is thought of as a god…. or a complete nutbar.  In essence, this would be like creating a perpetual motion machine; a physical impossibility according to the first law of thermodynamics. 

Over the years, many people have invested their time, money and energy (pardon the pun) attempting to develop perpetual motion.  Well a company in Ireland called Steorn Ltd. claims to have done this, and is challenging the scientific community to review it’s claim.  They claim to have developed a product, branded “Orbo” that uses yet-unspecified technology to produce “free, clean and constant” energy. 

An advertisement in The Economist read, “we have developed a technology that produces free, clean and constant energy. Our technology has been independently validated by engineers and scientists — always behind closed doors, always off the record, always proven to work.” 

According to CEO Sean McCarthy, Steorn is ”now seeking twelve of the most qualified and most cynical from the world’s scientific community to form an independent jury, test the technology in independent laboratories and publish their findings.”

They are so confident in their technology that they have promised a public demonstration in July 2007, in London.  As an engineer working in the electricity sector, I have to see this claim through very very dark glasses because it simply violates everything I learned during my studies.  I mean, how can you create energy out of nothing?  In my opinion (and that of 99.9% of academics around the world) it is impossible and I expect the independent verification to prove this.  I do, however, keep hope that I will be proved wrong and that this technology will revolutionize how the world works.  Until that point though, I am calling their bluff.

More information can be found at the Steorn website www.steorn.com, or at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steorn.  If nothing else, it’s still interesting and exciting to read about!

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Terapad In…WordPress out? A Short Interview with TP

Before you comment….YES we do realize that we use WordPress, This is an article to inform users that there are other options when starting a blog (or switching). Good ones too. In the end you be the judge.

So, how did Terapad get started?

Well, originally the Terapad engine was used by our developers to build corporate website for small businesses. As it’s a centralized framework, it allowed us to progressively add more and more features to our offering, such as online shop, forums, blog, image gallery, forums, etc. while keeping the cost very low for our customers.

Eventually we realized we had something very different on our hands and opened it up to the public, including both individuals and SMBs with ‘hands-on’ skills. So far the feedback has been fantastic and a lot of the features requested by the users have made it in the product.

Why did Terapad decide to venture into the blogging market when the
general public has access to many tried and tested applications?

Users see content as content, regardless if it’s a blog post, multimedia, or an item they want to sale. So far, the applications provided to manage an individual’s or small business online presence have been very fragmented: a WordPress blog, a Flickr gallery, a PhpBB forum, an Ebay shop and so on.

To reproduce what you could do with a single Terapad site, you would need 8 different applications, each with their own login, design, learning curve and of course inherent cost. Terapad integrates all these elements under one roof, for free, with one simple interface and the look and feel of your choice. Blogging is just one of the things you can do with Terapad, but you could disable that module entirely if you wanted to.

So, to answer your question directly, we did not ‘choose’ to venture in the blogging market, we just added a blogging module to our existing software platform. The bloggers did the rest. We’re happy to see so many bloggers choose our service, and we have recently added import features from WordPress and LiveJournal.

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Faster Than a Speeding Bullet (train)?

Everyone has heard of the “bullet trains” used by nations such as France and Japan to rocket passengers across the countryside at ridiculous speeds, but I never realized just how quick these bullets fly! 

On Tuesday, France’s V150 train attempted to set a new train speed world record, but fell only 6 km/h short.  The current 361.01 mph world record holder is Japan’s JR-Maglev MLX01 magnetic levitation train which floats gracefully above its track by a magnetic field.  Tuesday’s run did, however, set a world record for the fastest conventional rail type train at 574.9 km/h (357.2 mph), a record previously held by another French TGV train set in 1990.  TGV stands for Train a Grande Vitesse, basically translated as “insanely fast train”.What powers this two story, five-car bullet you ask?  Engineers have chosen a 25,000 horsepower engine driving larger and newly designed wheels to propel it to superman like speeds.  The new and more powerful engine also required bumping the electrical potential in the overhead cable from 25,000 to 31,000 volts.  Passengers have described the experience as comparable to an aircraft takeoff, and I am sure if you attached wings it would become virtually identical! 

France is showing off its technology in hopes of selling it to the Chinese government over rivals from Germany and Japan.  The anticipated Chinese contracts for high speed trains in the upcoming years are estimated at being worth between $250 billion and $300 billion, according to Chinese state media.  Also in attendance for the record setting attempt was a delegation from California that is interested in creating a line from San Diego to Sacramento, stopping in several cities along the way such as Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Will we ever see passenger trains reaching the 10,430 km/h (Mach 8.5) already achieved by unmanned rocket sleds?  Maybe one day.  Until then, I will stick with my Honda CBR1000RR.

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Remixology: Trent Reznor pushes fans to be creative with Garageband

Musicians are an intricate breed. Their population is comprised of many minds and many egos. From the days of Lars Ulrich hunting down Napster to Chuck D promoting online distribution of music, we will continue to see an evolution of music delivery for the next decade.

On April 2005, one of music’s technologically forward-thinking individuals revolutionized how a fan can interact with the music they listen to. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails released the single “The Hand That Feeds” in a multi-track Garageband format. Fans were able to download the 80mb dmg file to their Mac computers and remix the song as if they were at the helm of NIN’s studio console. All the tracks that were necessary to make a successful remix were provided: guitars, percussion, vocals, backup vocals, ambient sounds and synths.

A nice little letter comes enclosed with the files stating:
“Change the tempo. Add new loops. Chop up the vocals. Turn me into a woman. Replay the guitar. Anything you’d like. I gave this to my crew and band to test out and all work effectively stopped for a while – it’s fun to mess around with. I’ve now heard a country version of the track as well as an abstract Latin interpretation (thanks, Leo). There are some copyright issues involved, so read the notice that pops up. Giving this away is an experiment. I’m interested to see what comes of it, what issues are raised and what the results are.”

You can’t help but feel a part of the creative process as you work with the files and perform your own mash-up. You can’t help but think “holy shit this is cool stuff.” You can’t help but think this is a band who wants their fans to feel like they are a part of the music they listen to.

I’m not the worlds largest fan of NIN, but I definitely like a handful of their songs. I’ve really started to get into them as of late, appreciating the composition and technology that goes behind the music. This just took me one step deeper into their music as I loaded up the song within Logic Pro and started toying with it.

If you’re not a fan and you have some audio tools, download this and just see what you can come up with. Heck, if you don’t like NIN because you think Trent’s voice sucks, replace his with a new vox track – maybe your own!

Here’s to technology and becoming a part of what you listen to.

Update: Check www.nin.com to download the new single Survivalism in many different multitrack formats for your remix enjoyment!

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Web Mash-up? Explained for the layman

What is a web mash-up?

A mash-up is a hybrid Application built with Application Programming Interfaces or APIs. These APIs are taken from one or multiple third-party websites to create new and innovative applications. What you can do with these APIs is totally dependent on your knowledge of programming. Some APIs are simple and some are way more sophisticated.

For example: A website such as Google (Googol) releases their APIs to the web development public. What can you do with this? Well, you can create a “mash-up” where users on your website can tap into Google maps to sow them where the majority of users are located. Google even released a search API for web developers so that individual websites can “host” a search engine. Although, the website is limited to 1000 searches per day. It’s a start.

Are they here to stay?

Mash-ups are definitely here to stay! Everyday 2-10 mash-up websites are started using various APIs from multiple websites. This number can only go up. With the popularity rising, more and more companies will be inclined to release APIs.

The good, the bad, the evil!

The good – you don’t have to be an expert programmer to start your own mash-up

The bad – the more sophisticated the API (which means it’s harder to grasp) the more you will be able to do with it.

The evil – what you don’t think the owners of the APIs are watching every move you make and ever mash-up you start? The company that states “Don’t be evil” is probably data-mining everything, from your search patterns to your emails.

Go and start a mash-up! Everyone else is doing it and if Billy jumped off the bridge you wouldn’t you?

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