Thursday, May 20, 2004

Is a Moog Renaissance Nigh?. Fans gather at a Moogfest to celebrate the 40th birthday of the Moog synthesizer. Surprisingly, the analog Moog sound -- created by a tub of knobs and wires -- is making a comeback. Noah Shachtman reports from New York. [Wired News] I love hearing about the history of the Moog Synthesizer. Robert Moog is one of those once in a grat while geniuses like Ray Kurzweil who can apply his talents to a diverse range of engineering problems and always come up with stunning new solutions. I have admired this ability to span different areas of expertise and excel in each one. I'm also amazed at the enterprising spirit of Keith Emerson who felt so moved to take the Moog synthesizer out on the road and perform on it. Wendy Carlos broke new ground when she produced the "Switched On Bach" album. It really was a whole new world. We were landing on the moon, hearts were being transplanted. 9:15:41 PM    comment []

Director uses iMovie to create suprise hit at Cannes. The surprise hit of the Cannes film festival is a movie made by a first-time director using Apple's ... [MacNN | The Macintosh News Network] Articles like this always give me just a little bit of hope. Nothing beats a good story, and iMovie lowers the threshold considerably for telling that story in an "acceptable" format. Which leads me to this quote from Francis Ford Coppola, "My hope is one day a fat 8yr. old girl in Ohio can some day win an award that she made from an 8mm camcorder." Making movies is far too complex as it stands today. Simpler tools like MiniDV and Apple Computers and iMovie put things in a totally different light. 8:08:22 PM    comment []

Samsung unveils supersized OLED display [CNET News.com] I've been following OLED's very closely ever since I first heard about them from EETimes. I always felt the logical successor to backlit LCD's. It's just a matter of perfecting the manufacturing process to the point where it's price competitive with current LCD production techniques. That's the key to making them cost the same amount as LCD. The upside is there's no need for a backlight so the ultimate cost of a finished panel in a monitor will be less. I'm just as interested in the lower power characteristics for OLED's anything that consumes less electricity that's turned on all the time is a good thing. 8:01:46 PM    comment []

XXXchurch Wants No More XXX. Two young Christian ministers set up the XXXchurch to stop people from watching porn and engaging in self-gratification. Their edgy approach has won a lot of attention, but no love from fellow Christians. By Julia Scheeres. [Wired News] This was a very funny and light article on some very open-minded but very motivated pastors from California trying to do their part to end Pornography. The smartest thing anyone can do is try to stop the source of demand, not the supply. That's probably the biggest problem the War on Drugs has had. If there's no demand, no one will engage in drug manufacture and distribution. It's that simple, and these two guys recognize it and are pursuing it. Unfortunately the Moral Majority dunderheads thing this approach is wrong-headed and not what Jesus would do. How narrow-minded! 7:08:02 PM    comment []

SMaL 3-Megapixel Ultra-Pocket 5 Rapid Development Kit. SMaL Camera Technologies has today announced its new Ultra-Pocket(R) 5 rapid development kit for 3-megapixel credit card cameras with color TFT display. The Ultra-Pocket 5 kit enables manufacturers and brands to rapidly enter the heart of the mass consumer market [^] 3-megapixel [^] with unparalleled thinness, style, wide dynamic range, and worry-free battery life, in the sub-$129 retail price range. [Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)] I had to include this today. The camera I have now is from the #3 Development kit. The battery is even more robust than the very first kit they put on the market. I bought a Logitech Pocket Digital and Pocket Digital 130. The first one broke after I dropped it in some snow back in January. It's replacement is a little bigger, but works like a charm. And now this announcement proves that SmalCamera is still doing research and development. I just hope they can still keep on making small cameras for the forseeable future. Nothing is cooler than dropping $129 on the world's thinnest camera, and taking great pictures with it. 7:04:57 PM    comment []