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Posts Tagged ‘music’

With its own theme song to boot

Several of them have been chronicled in these pages — click here for a clip of BigDog scrambling to regain its balance after slipping on a patch of ice, for instance. But the below video has the added bonus of a new bluesy theme song, with a beat seemingly written to match BigDog’s jaunty gait.

BigDog uses a system of hyper-responsive hydraulic joints, sensors, accelerometers and gyroscopes to keep it on its four legs. Boston Dynamics says the creature can run at 4 mph, climb slopes up to 35 degrees, walk across a wide range of terrain, and carry 340 pounds. It’s designed to go wherever humans would go, carrying their load without complaint or the urge to sniff the ground every six inches. It’s funded by DARPA, naturally.

In pup mode, it performs a doglike “let’s-play” stretch; later in its life, it gets down to business, leaping like a greyhound and tromping through the snow like an AT-AT walker. Turn up the sound and check it out.

Can eliminating any cost at all give subscription music services a leg up in the U.S.?

As a quick brief, Spotify, Rdio, and MOG are subscription music services--it might be easiest to think about them as Netflix for music. You pay a very low flat monthly fee, and then you get access to all the music you can stream. There are some differences in the catalogs of these services, but they all have millions upon millions of songs, so it tends to be a rarity when you want to listen to something they don't have. All offer some kind of mobile app, usually with a download option so you can listen even when you don't have service (like on the subway). Of course, as soon as you stop paying, you lose your access, but we really love these services; that instant when you realize you can listen to anything, absolutely anything, on any device, completely legally, gives you that "whoosh" feeling of "whoa, this is the future."

Spotify's free version, which they refer to as "freemium" but we will not because that is not a word (according to the Scrabble dictionary, which is the only dictionary anyone needs), is necessarily crippled: It's ad-supported, but there still need to be a few big limits to encourage heavy users to eventually make the leap to the paid versions. The tiers have become pretty standard: A free version, ad-supported in some way, which limits you to a web-only interface and likely some kind of capped amount of music you can listen to, sits at the bottom tier. Above that is a $5-per-month tier, which gives you unlimited access and no ads. And above that is the $10-per-month tier, which everyone should really get because seriously, $10 is not a lot of money, which adds offline downloading and, most importantly, access to the smartphone app.

Rdio and MOG both have strengths Spotify doesn't. Rdio's interface is easily the nicest of the three, and its "collection" idea (in which you build a music collection within Rdio, rather than relying on playlists) makes much more sense than Spotify's starred playlists concept. MOG has great editorial features and a catalog that leans towards more independent tastes. And now they've both announced they'll have free versions as well.

MOG's is a little bit convoluted. The free version will be ad-supported, though not for the first 60 days. There will be a limit on how much you can listen to, but only sort of: you get a "tank" that shows how much listening you can still do each month, but you can also refill that tank in almost a game-like way, by sharing music via Facebook, listening to ever more music, interacting with ads, that kind of thing. It sounds like the kind of idea advertising executives love ("this way, they'll want to click on the ads!") and the kind of idea that users tend to dislike and/or ignore, but it does give a way of getting more free music, which we like. MOG's free service will launch today.

Rdio's is much simpler, almost feeling rushed. Rdio will now have a free version, without ads, though it's not yet clear whether there will be any sort of limit on how much you can listen to (we would assume so, otherwise there's no reason to jump to the $5-per-month tier). Rdio's free service will launch "soon."

Will these free versions encourage more users to jump into the subscription well? I certainly hope so; these are great services, all of them, and definitely have the potential to, for example, curb illegal pirating, even if they don't earn much for artists. All of these services, especially MOG and Spotify, lean on Facebook integration, which is a great idea: you can see what your friends are listening to, share or recommend music, all without having to worry about actually getting the music itself, since you already have access to it. We just hope enough people sign up for the paid versions to keep these services afloat.

The idea with these subscription services is that there must be a way to make a legal service that's more desirable for consumers than piracy. iTunes is not; it's legal, but in its actual mechanics, it works essentially the same way as less legal options like BitTorrent. The service itself isn't better; it's just legal. Subscription services have a totally different philosophy, one closer to streaming video sites like Netflix and Hulu than iTunes. You pay a small amount, usually $5 or $10, for unlimited access to the catalog. You don't download everything; you can download, of course, for listening while you don't have access to the internet, but mostly, you'll be streaming. Your collection becomes even more ethereal than a digital collection, because you're not even in possession of the hard drives on which your music is stored. It's a fundamental shift. iTunes is a store; Spotify and its ilk are a service.

Using one of these services gives music fans the same almost visceral "this is the future!" feel that gadget nerds got when they played with the Kinect or iPad. The good ones, like Rdio, create a "collection" from your iTunes library. That means you can access your entire music collection from anywhere--any computer, any web browser, any smartphone. We used to worry about carrying our music with us, having enough cassettes, enough CDs, enough storage on our iPods, enough space on our smartphones to be able to listen to what we want to listen to. Not anymore. Getting new music becomes incredibly casual--a friend mentions a band, and if you've got a smartphone and a subscription, you can add that band's entire discography to your music collection in seconds. For no extra charge. It's freeing in the best way.

But, like I said, subscription music services have mostly not been successful here in the States. Not that they aren't good--I am a huge fan and excessive user of Rdio--but they are underused. Spotify has the buzz and the clout, and possibly the right features, to actually make a go of it here. So what's different about Spotify?

To be honest, Spotify is not leaps and bounds ahead of, say, Rdio. Both boast coherent and easy-to-use mobile apps and software, along with an extensive catalog and some nice social sharing features--you can see what your friends listen to, make collaborative playlists and share them, that kind of thing. What Spotify does have are two new ideas, the first of which may be the thing that gets them in the door: a free version. No American subscription service offers a free version; many, including Rdio, offer a cheaper $5-per-month option that gives access to the web app but not to a mobile app, but none have a free version. Spotify comes in three tiers. There's a free, ad-supported version, limited to the web; a $5 ad-free version; and a $10 full version that allows downloading for offline listening and use of the mobile app (available for iOS, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Palm WebOS, almost certainly with more to come--Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry versions would not be unexpected).

The other unique feature, one we really like, is a cloud uploading service. Not every song is in the Spotify catalog--the Beatles, for example, but any serious music fan will also have a whole mess of niche or unsigned or otherwise unusual music that Spotify doesn't have. With other services, that forces you to use two separate music apps, one for your subscription stuff and one for everything else, which is kind of confusing and awkward. But Spotify also allows you to upload your own music, which it integrates seamlessly into your collection. It's a great idea, and one that almost certainly involved a lot of fighting with the record labels, but we're glad they won that fight.

In my quick tests with Spotify today, I found it at least as good as Rdio. The PC/Mac app is fairly easy to use, as is the iPhone app (I haven't tested it on Android or any other platform). The selection is about on par with Rdio or MOG, which means overall pretty good--some artists will have a whole bunch of rarities and singles and EPs, while some will be curiously lacking major sections of their discographies. But almost all the time, you'll find what you're looking for. The search function is not that great, oddly; it doesn't autofill or make suggestions as you search, so your results tend to be very raw. A search for, say, "The Books" will give you any song, artist, or album that has the word "book" in it, when all you wanted was the artist actually called The Books. There's a way to jump right into the artist page, but an autofill would be much cleaner. Once you do find the artist page, it's very cleanly laid out and sound quality is fine, if not amazing (it typically streams at 160kbps Ogg Vorbis, which is adequate, though premium users can bump that to 320kbps Ogg, which is very nice for a compressed file).

The only other major flaw I found was the lack of a web app. Rdio (sorry to keep comparing it to Rdio but it is my favorite of the existing subscription services) has a sleek and full-featured web app that you can (and will) access from any web browser without installing anything. Over at a friend's house and want to play a song? Log into the web app and play it. Easy! Spotify doesn't have anything of the sort--it only has software for your computer or smartphone. Very lame.

But what was most apparent about my time with Spotify was speed. Good God, Spotify is fast. I'm used to Rdio, which never quite lets you forget that you're streaming from the cloud--each song takes a couple of seconds to load, as do search results and browsing through new releases. But not Spotify: Every click is instantaneous, every song starts playing instantly. I have no idea how they did it, but it's amazing.

I'm convinced that this kind of subscription music service is the future of music acquisition and collection. The idea of a conventional music "store" should have gone away when Tower Records did, and subscriptions are just the kind of forward-thinking replacement I've been hoping for. Is Spotify really that much better than the existing U.S. equivalents? Well, no, not really, though it's definitely not worse. But that free, ad-supported option is an absolutely killer teaser for those who aren't sure about these services--because lots of people will try it, and I think an awful lot of those people will decide to sign up.

Spotify is available now in its premium (either $5 web-only or $10 full) versions. The free version is invite-only for now, and invites are hard to come by.

Play the guitar without having to learn the guitar

The PossessedHand uses an Arduino microcontroller, the low-cost tool of choice for DIYers, and 28 electrode pads that are applied externally. There have been other devices that do this sort of thing, but they've often been pretty clumsy, needing electrodes to be inserted into the skin (ouch!). The PossessedHand is entirely external and painless, and, according to PhysOrg, "is said to feel more like a gentle hand massage." The signals are also not unpleasantly strong, apparently feeling more like a nudge to move rather than a forceful automatic movement of the fingers and wrist.

The uses for such a device are pretty clear, especially as you can preprogram strings of signals. It could be used in music education, to teach the proper finger movements and placings, or it could translate spoken language into sign language, which your hand performs automatically. There are potential medical uses as well; teaching stroke victims how to use their hands again, that kind of thing. It's not a prosthesis, really, but it could prove useful to a totally new set of people. And it's definitely more useful than Daito Manabe's face-electroshocking hobby. Here's a video of it in action from New Scientist:

[PhysOrg]

This fork, demonstrated at Interaction 2011 and profiled by DigInfo, has an embedded theremin that begins making its unique and oddly unpleasant screeching noises once it touches a person, completing a circuit. But the pitch of the theremin changes based on the feedback from the fork's tines: The more resistance it encounters, as when you're gnawing on something particularly tough or chewy, the lower the tone. Oh, and it has a cute name: the EaTheremin.

According to the video's narrator, "Flexible items like chicken skin can generate vibrato effects as they stretch," so theoretically you could put together a dish that produces a melody, based on the textures you choose. The video above is worth watching if only for the uncomfortably close shots of the spokesperson gnawing sausages and fried chicken. We just hope she made it through the day without feeling too ill.

[DigInfo via The Hairpin]

Users must teach themselves how to associate brain signals with specific tasks, causing neuronal activity that the brain scanners can pick up. Then they can make music.

It’s a pretty unique use of brain-computer interfaces, which are already being used to do things like drive cars, control robots and play video games. The device was developed by Eduardo Miranda, a composer and computer-music specialist at the University of Plymouth, UK. A composer by trade, Miranda said he was captivated by the idea of using a musical brain-controlled interface for therapeutic purposes. “Now I can't separate this work from my activities as a composer,” he told Nature News.

Patients with neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s can use music to walk to a rhythm or even to trigger memories or emotions. But stroke patients or those with locked-in syndrome can’t interact with music beyond just listening to it. With this system, patients with physical limitations might be able to use music for therapy, too — truly making music the medicine of the mind.

Like other brain-computer interfaces, a user calibrates the system — and his or her brain — by learning to associate certain brain signals with a stimulus. While wearing an EEG cap, patients focus their attention on four small buttons on a computer screen, each of which triggers a series of musical notes. The user must direct his or her gaze at the target corresponding to the action he or she would like to perform, Miranda and colleagues explain.

Miranda and computer scientists at the University of Essex tested the system on a patient with locked-in syndrome, who learned the system in about two hours and was soon playing notes along with a backup track.

By varying levels of concentration, she learned to vary the amplitude of the EEG, which allowed her to choose among the different notes, like striking piano keys.

A future version of the system would not require calibration, relying on advanced algorithms to sense a user’s neuronal response to each button, the researchers say.

The work is reported in the journal Music and Medicine.

[Nature News]

The flute was created on an Objet Connex500 rapid prototyper, a 3-D printer that can print in multiple materials at the same time. The flute was constructed from a few different materials – a rigid material for the body, a softer one for the mouthpiece, another for sealing the air in at the proper places – during a print run of about 15 hours, during which time the materials were added on one thin layer at a time.

The finished product was in four pieces, which simply had to be rinsed of supporting materials and assembled by hand (the springs were the only element added after printing). It’s not a perfect flute just yet – as you’ll see in the video below, there is still some fine tuning to be done – but it does produce good acoustic sounds. Moreover, it heralds just how far 3-D printing technology has come over the last couple of decades.

[Engadget]