You may not be familiar with the company Tronical but you will know their work because they are responsible for Gibson’s Robot Guitar tuning systems. Well judging by this video it appears that Tronical are about to launch some standalone systems that can be retrofit to pretty much any guitar be it a Les Paul [...]
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A tribute to Bob Moog, sonic doodler
A tribute to Bob Moog, sonic doodler: “In the mid-1960s, Dr. Robert Moog unleashed a new universe of sounds into musicdom with his invention of the electronic analog Moog Synthesizer. The timbre and tones of these keyboard instruments (true works of art in and of themselves) would come to define a generation of music, featuring heavily in songs by The Beatles, The Doors, Stevie Wonder, Kraftwerk and many others.
When people hear the word ‘synthesizer’ they often think ‘synthetic’—fake, manufactured, unnatural. In contrast, Bob Moog’s synthesizers produce beautiful, organic and rich sounds that are, nearly 50 years later, regarded by many professional musicians as the epitome of an electronic instrument. ‘Synthesizer,’ it turns out, refers to the synthesis embedded in Moog’s instruments: a network of electronic components working together to create a whole greater than the sum of the parts.
With his passion for high-tech toolmaking in the service of creativity, Bob Moog is something of a patron saint of the nerdy arts and a hero to many of us here. So for the next 24 hours on our homepage, you’ll find an interactive, playable logo inspired by the instruments with which Moog brought musical performance into the electronic age. You can use your mouse or computer keyboard to control the mini-synthesizer’s keys and knobs to make nearly limitless sounds. Keeping with the theme of 1960s music technology, we’ve patched the keyboard into a 4-track tape recorder so you can record, play back and share songs via short links or Google+.
Much like the musical machines Bob Moog created, this doodle was synthesized from a number of smaller components to form a unique instrument. When experienced with Google Chrome, sound is generated natively using the Web Audio API—a doodle first (for other browsers the Flash plugin is used). This doodle also takes advantage of JavaScript, Closure libraries, CSS3 and tools like Google Web Fonts, the Google+ API, the Google URL Shortener and App Engine.
Special thanks to engineers Reinaldo Aguiar and Rui Lopes and doodle team lead Ryan Germick for their work, as well as the Bob Moog Foundation and Moog Music for their blessing. Now give those knobs a spin and compose a tune that would make Dr. Moog smile!
(Via The Official Google Blog.)
5 Awesome Things You Can Do With Google Voice
Blog from your phone, call for free or use your computer to make free phone calls. Google Voice isn’t the easiest Google service to explain to non-techies, partially because it can be used for so many different things. Find a short list of those things below.
Using only a phone to manage voicemail is old fashioned: Google Voice does a much better job. Manage your voicemail on your computer or phone, and enjoy unlimited free texting within the US and Canada. It’s a service no human should be without, but which is sadly (still) limited to humans who reside in the United States of America. Google, remedy this!
Find below just a few advanced Google Voice tricks. Know some more? Leave them in the comments below the article and share them with the world.
Blog From Your Phone
Imagine being able to blog by phone, from anywhere. It’s not farfetched: our very own Ryan devised a method of voice blogging. It’s not perfect, but it’s a great way to get in a quick blog post from the road.
Free Calls and Texts To Canada
Cell phone has no concept of long distance, provided I’m calling or texting a US number. It’s another matter when you call or text Canada: that costs extra. Good thing I have Google Voice: it allows you to call or text Canada for free.
You can do this one of two ways. The first is to call Google Voice number from my cell phone, then call Canada from that. It’s easy, but requires some extra dialing.
The second way requires some setup, but works very well: have your Canadian friend send a text message to your Google Voice number. Assuming you’ve set up Google Voice to forward texts to your phone, you will now have an American number you can use to reach your Canadian friend. Save this new number and you can call your friend as though it were a domestic call, anytime.
Free Calls From Your Browser
This isn’t exactly a secret, but many people don’t seem to realize it: you can make free phone calls from within Gmail, provided you’re calling a number inside the US or Canada.
Even cooler: if your Google Voice number is your primary phone number, you can pick up your phone calls in Gmail. You just need to turn on chat and install the Google video chat browser extension.
Another related but also lesser-known trick: you can add any phone number to a Google Plus Hangout, allowing you to include people without Internet access in your conversations.
Combine Google Voice and Skype
Skype is a very affordable way to make long distance phone calls, but there is one problem with it: unless you set up a call display number you appear as ‘unknown caller’ on the phone of the person you’re trying to reach. Many people will, assuming you’re a scam artist, and refuse to pick up.
You can buy a phone number from Skype to avoid this. Or, if you don’t want to spend money on a subscription, you can set up your Skype account to display your Google Voice number for call display. That way people you call will see a real phone number.
You might consider doing this even if you’ve paid Skype for an incoming number: people will call you back at your Google Voice number instead of your Skype number, meaning you’ll get the call on all of your phones instead of just Skype.
Add a Voicemail Feature To Your Blog
Want to hear from the people who read your blog? Add a voicemail button to it. This allows people to leave you a voicemail without telling the world your phone number. People who visit your site can enter their phone number and, in one click, connect their phone to your voicemail inbox.
Read the full instructions for setting up a voicemail feature on your blog here.
Other Cool Tricks
Of course, there are many more cool things you can do with Google Voice. Ryan outlined several of them in 2010, and his tricks still work very well. They are:
- Integrating Google Voice for all mobile calls
- Listening in to your voicemail in real time
- Automatic transcriptions of all voicemails
- Recording phone calls
- Custom greetings for different groups of people
(Via MakeUseOf.com.)
ZX Spectrum is 30
Sinclair’s ZX Spectrum, the astoundingly successful sub-£100 personal computer, is 30 years old today.
Protect Mac from Flashback Trojan attack
Magican AntiTrojan is a free antivirus app designed for protect Mac from Flashback Trojan attack. Besides helping users check the Flashback Trojan, it still could help delete the Flashback Trojan and all the infected files in your Mac. Still Magican AntiTrojan has an easy to use interface; users could only click a button to easily detect Trojan and a Delete button could helps delete all infected files.
Besides checking the complicated solutions on net, we strongly recommend to use Magican AntiTrojan easily protect your Mac.
Emergency Hood While Wearing This Backpack
You probably won’t always remember to bring an umbrella when the weather is gloomy, but as long you’re wearing thisPuma Urban Mobility Backpack from designer Hussein Chalayan, you’ll always have a quick way to keep your head dry.
As an added bonus, when the backpack is particularly full and heavy-laden, you can put the hood up for some extra support. After all, haven’t doctors been telling us to lift with our necks all these years? There’s no word on pricing for the pack just yet, but it will be available as part of Puma’s upcoming Spring/Summer line. [Puma via Hypebeast]
Musicians use Skype to perform for fans
Besides using Skype for instant messaging and video chats, a musician has found a way to use the service to his advantage – by giving his fans personal one on one concerts over the internet. Denison Witmer, a singer/songwriter, had to turn down a tour to spend time with his wife and newborn child but he still wanted to keep performing for other people. Fortunately with the technology available today – he managed to make it happen.
(Via Ubergizmo.)
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