Song Networks

According to iTunes, I have 22,880 items in my music collection. That adds up to 70.9 days worth of music, taking up 145.26 GB of hard drive space. And thank God for it. More

You’ve read the news – it’s Windows Phone 7 Time, for real real. Chris and Nilay go after the innards of the new news in a variety of dimensions. It’s all in the MIX , y’all. Hosts: Chris Ziegler, Nilay Patel Producer: Trent Wolbe Music: Daestro – Light Powered ( Ghostly International ) Hear the podcast Subscribe to the podcast [ iTunes ] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes [ RSS MP3 ] Add the Engadget Mobile Podcast feed (in MP3) to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically [ RSS AAC ] Add the Engadget Mobile Podcast feed (in enhanced AAC) to your RSS aggregator [ Zune ] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in the Zune Marketplace Download the podcast LISTEN (MP3) LISTEN (AAC) Contact the podcast podcast (at) engadgetmobile (dot) com. Filed under: Podcasts Engadget Mobile Podcast 039: MIX Edition – 03.16.2010 originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

How many SDK’s does it take to screw in a light bulb? You won’t find the answer in this week’s leaky edition of the Engadget Podcast Show, but you will get an exclusive chance to peer into the future of Paul Miller’s voiceover career. Hosts: Josh Topolsky, Nilay Patel, Paul Miller Producer: Trent Wolbe Music: MPC2059 – The Beyonce Error Hear the podcast 00:01:40 – iPad pre-order is go — will you buy one? 00:08:37 – iPad mute switch magicked into a ’screen rotation lock’ overnight, a flurry of other tidbits emerge 00:14:18 – Leaked Dell Streak flyer shows multitude of color options, confirmed specifications 00:14:35 – Microsoft’s Courier ‘digital journal’: exclusive pictures and details (update: video!) 00:16:35 – Leak: Microsoft Pink phones coming to Verizon, on shelves April 20th? 00:24:42 – JooJoo revamps interface ahead of launch, adds local video playback — and changes color 00:32:02 – JooJoo hits the FCC, reveals NVIDIA Ion, 3G card 00:35:17 – HP Slate makes an appearance to show off Flash, stays for a rock concert 00:50:24 – Palm’s webOS PDK beta adds Pixi native development, PDK’d apps will hit the Catalog mid year 00:51:07 – Android NDK hits Release 3, brings OpenGL ES 2.0 access to devs 00:51:30 – Microsoft shows off XNA games running on Windows Phone, full 3D is a go 01:04:38 – PlayStation Move: everything you ever wanted to know 01:11:45 – Joystiq and Sony VP Scott Rohde talk PlayStation Move 01:17:20 – Caption Contest: 3D is a mind blow, everyone can agree on that Subscribe to the podcast [ iTunes ] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes (enhanced AAC). [ RSS MP3 ] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in MP3) to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically. [ RSS AAC ] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in enhanced AAC) to your RSS aggregator. [ Zune ] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in the Zune Marketplace Download the podcast LISTEN (MP3) LISTEN (AAC) LISTEN (OGG) Contact the podcast 1-888-ENGADGET or podcast (at) engadget (dot) com. Twitter: @joshuatopolsky @futurepaul @reckless @ohnorosco @engadget Filed under: Podcasts Engadget Podcast 187 – 03.13.2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Mar 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

A Chinese artist named PixieTea both recorded this song and shot the accompanying video almost entirely on an iPhone 3GS . The surprise? It’s actually pretty decent! See for yourself: More

A Chinese artist named PixieTea both recorded this song and shot the accompanying video almost entirely on an iPhone 3GS . The surprise? It’s actually pretty decent! See for yourself: More

A Chinese artist named PixieTea both recorded this song and shot the accompanying video almost entirely on an iPhone 3GS . The surprise? It’s actually pretty decent! See for yourself: More

A Chinese artist named PixieTea both recorded this song and shot the accompanying video almost entirely on an iPhone 3GS . The surprise? It’s actually pretty decent! See for yourself: More

A Chinese artist named PixieTea both recorded this song and shot the accompanying video almost entirely on an iPhone 3GS . The surprise? It’s actually pretty decent! See for yourself: More

A Chinese artist named PixieTea both recorded this song and shot the accompanying video almost entirely on an iPhone 3GS . The surprise? It’s actually pretty decent! See for yourself: More

The world-renown MIT Media Lab is a place where every project is an amazing, unbelievable glimpse into humanity’s technological future. Now, thanks to a massive $90 million extension, the architecture can match the wondrous excitement created within. In case you haven’t had the opportunity to swing by this particular block in Cambridge, Massachusetts, here’s what the old Media Lab looks like. It’s still there. In fact, you can see the extension under construction, and marvel at the stark contrast in design. Mensa Tetris The six-level, interconnected extension, the work of the famed, award-winning architectural firm Fumihiko Maki and Associates, is like an immense Tetris puzzle. Every piece represents a functional element that is tightly connected to others, giving anyone inside the feeling of being inside a finished puzzle. Maki, himself the winner of a Pritzker Prize, was on hand over the weekend to officially open the MIT Media Lab. (It’s technically been in operation since December.) As he described it, each piece of this six-level building connects to the next. Balcony offices overlook open air labs and work spaces. Colorful stairways bisect the central atrium, their red, blue and yellow coloring inspired by Piet Mondrian’s Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red . Color aside, the trait hitting visitors in the face before they even walk through the door is glass . Cambridge building codes prevented a 100% glass exterior, so Maki came up with a loophole: bamboo. Inspired by translucent Japanese bamboo screens, Maki covered the remaining exterior with a mix of glass and aluminum tubes. The result is at the same time beautiful and energy efficient, but also functional . We’re constantly reminded that this is one incredibly open, collaborative working environment. From the street, especially at night, passers-by can literally see lab work happening within. Maki called this “filtered views,” inspired by the work of the pointillist artist George Seurat (lots of dots!). MIT played a part too, having provided Maki with an image of the Visible Man to further drive home the point that this lab space be open. But enough architecture? What kind of world-changing stuff can we expect this multimillion dollar, 163,000-sq. ft. incubator to pump out in the future? Well, if the past is any indication, plenty. The place that saw the beginnings of Guitar Hero, e-ink displays, OLPC and Lego Mindstorms is still driving much of the stuff that gets the Gizmodo editors, at least, sweating profusely in their blogging sweatpants. The Media Lab will help “plumb the depths of how technology can have a greater impact on industry, society and business,” said Media Lab director Frank Moss. To net denizens and geeks like you and me, that boils down to robotics, prosthetic limbs, AI and the obligatory Minority Report UI reference that any article mentioning 3D interfaces must include. Fluid Media As part of the opening, I was lucky enough to get a tour or some, but not all of the departments at the Media Lab. Departments like Biomechatronics, Cognitive Machines, Fluid Interfaces, Molecular Machines, Personal Robots, Smart Cities, Synthetic Neurobiology. It reads like Stephen Hawkings’ shopping list. In any event, Fluid Media was one of the labs I got to tour first. If you know Arduino , you’d be at home here, alongside the luminescent wallpaper, smart fabrics, “sewable computing” and inexpensive 3D fabricators that had me waxing nostalgic about Cory Doctorow’s Makers . Above: No, not coasters or doilies. Sewable computers. If you aren’t wearing your mp3 player now, you will be soon. Kindergarten Kids, Forever The sense of play felt throughout the Media Lab’s open spaces owes itself to the students, of course, but it’s certainly assisted by the design. Moss called the atmosphere “serious fun,” in a building where bright minds “design by serendipity.” It’s pretty spot on. One lab leads into the other, encouraging social and professional interaction. Artists huddle with biomechanical engineers. Sometimes the union is short-lived, and sometimes it’s Guitar Hero. But it’s serious fun: There’s a mission here, one that’s produced limbs for soldiers maimed in war; helped children learn robotics with crazy new Lego software; and created a paint brush, simply called I/O, that captures the essence of whatever you point it at —visual, musical or otherwise. Even so, the fun, relaxed environment is apparent in this lab that director Moss says will change our futures. He and others, like Lifelong Kindergarten Department grad student Karen Brennan, were genuinely having fun while working with these high concepts and brain-bending experiments. The future, wild as it will be, looks pretty fun. Seriously. Image credits: The Visible Man is a well-known see-through anatomy model from Craft House Corp. Composition in Yellow, Blue and Red from Wikipedia .

Mama always said that some folks just never learn , and we reckon there’s plenty of wisdom to be had from that very statement. Year after year , German police are called in to raid select booths at CeBIT ( and IFA , to be fair), and yet again we’ve seen a booth cleared out at the request of powerful lawyers from a few companies you may have heard of. Word on the street has it that Apple, Siemens and Sisvel were all kvetching over patent infringements made by an unnamed company exhibiting at last week’s show, and within an hour or so of the fuzz showing up, the whole thing was stripped and a hefty fine (€10,000) was levied. Unfortunately, the exact details of who was violating what remains clouded in mystery, but for whatever reason, we get the feeling that something extremely similar will be going down in Hannover next year. We blame KIRFers determination. [Thanks, TheLostSwede] Apple, Siemens and Sisvel patent infringement leads to CeBIT booth raid originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 07 Mar 2010 14:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink