Engineering to inspire

Featured Video: Music Gadgets Festival

Hmmmm….. We know about the Tenori-on but the girl having an epileptic fit (1:59 mark) is actually making music? Well… it only happens in Japan.

Take the Create2011 engineering challenge and tell us your vision of Future Mobility to win the grand prize of: A Nokia Experiential Journey in Beijing and Singapore! Check out our Facebook fanpage for exciting contests & giveaways!

Featured Video: DIY percussion trigger

How to make a percussion trigger on the cheap. Recommended for drum players and tech-heads.

Featured Video: iPad Guitar

This turntable/guitar/mixer/whatever by Franz K is powered by the iPad. It leverages upon iPad’s apps to create gadget music. Might this be the beginning of a musical revolution that’s spearheaded by flashing lights, blinking dots, and mobile phones?

Who knows? But it’s a great time to jump onto the bandwagon yeah?

Art & Technology

What happened on UCreateChange.com (17-23 May 2010)

“Art imitates life; life imitates Art.”

The truthfulness of this palindrome is apparent now that technology has overlaid digital worlds upon our bricks-and-mortar realm.

For example, Augmented Reality lets us look through a mobile phone’s camera and see overlays (more in our Mobile apps for your life post). On the art front, the Japanese have create a live Twitter feed on an Augmented Reality building. By looking through your phone’s camera, you can see what its inhabitants are twittering about and shop advertisements.

That’s what we saw. But we heard…

…several German inventors modified a piano to speak text from the Proclamation of the European Environmental Criminal Court. This project was part of an art event in Palazzo Ducale (Venice). What they did was to map and match a child’s reading onto the piano scales to get this musical rendition of a very dry topic.

Sometimes art has purpose.

Like this project which aims to get people to use the stairs more. They turned a staircase into a piano that it tinkles whenever you step and riff on the keys. As the video shows, almost everyone used the staircase instead of the escalator. Now that’s success, ain’t it?

Why not sell art on E-bay?

That’s what Caleb Larsen’s art piece “A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter” does…automatically. The black block connects to the internet and asks for bids on E-bay. If there’s a successful bid, the block changes owners and re-bids itself after some time. The metaphysics are beyond us, but it’s a quirky way of using how art and technology can mesh and mingle.

Take the Create2011 engineering challenge and wow us with your vision of the Future. The Grand Prize: A Nokia Experiential Journey in Beijing and Singapore!

Just who is: Terence Swee of Muvee

This is a day in the life of Terence Swee: the “deal-seeking missile” (aka CEO) for Muvee.

“…getting on calls, preparing presentations, reading blogs/news, playing with our products, facebooking, talking with colleagues in the US office and customer meetings during the day. This could start as early as 7am as it will already be 10am in New York. I then try to hit the gym or cook dinner in the evenings to de-stress and get some thinking time in before getting online again at 8pm (which is noon in Singapore) where emails and calls from my Singapore headquarters will start pouring in. I typically stay online till about 2am (6pm in Singapore, 10am in Germany) with a little TV + wine + chocolate breaks in between.”

Whew!

Of course, he wasn’t always a businessman, Terence is actually an engineer cum jazz pianist dosed with curiosity. It all came together when he designed beat detection and emotional index algorithms to map the emotional strength of music. Those algorithms ultimately became Muvee in 2001.

But how does it all gel together for him? That’s what we’re here to find out…

FYI, the man took part in the Langkawi Ironman where he swam 3.8km, biked 180km and ran 42km. Why? “Cos I enjoy eating but still need to fit in an economy class seat…and also for lifetime bragging rights.”

Watcha got planned for the hols?

It’s the holidays!

It usually means time off to slack, watch TV, and head out to the movies. Bugger that… There’s plenty to do in sunny Singapore and in your void deck. So don’t waste your time vegging out infront of the goggle box. And besides your mind’s too good to waste on popcorn and Gummiberry juice (so sue me, I made that one up :P).

Here are our picks of things to do this March holidays…

Things we’d love to see at the IT Show

What happened on UCreateChange.com (8-14 Mar 2010)

To anyone from the IT Show,

We, the general public of UCreateChange.com, sincerely request that the organisers overhaul the show. In fact, you’re missing out on so much cool stuff out there that we’re utterly shocked into silence.

[silence]

We respectfully submit our list of missing things to you for your perusal. And sincerely hope that you would consider revamping next year’s IT Show to fit our vision for the future.

Thank you for your time.

First up…

Good vibrations: Concerts galore!

25-31 Jan 2010

What a month of concerts!

We had Green Day, Boys Like Girls, and A*Mei. And this week is all Muse at the Big Night Out. And they all sounded great! That’s why we paid tribute to Sound engineers last week. These hidden talents are responsible for syncing up the band’s sounds – from drummer to guitarist to Martin.

That’s no mean feat so give ‘em respect. Check out Tom Butcher’s blog on how music, software and electronics could come together (thanks for the tip, fourwallsofsound!).

Especially in other areas where they come up with new musical experiences such as the voice-controlled toy piano where the piano tinkles to your singing, or The Audiopad – a brand new console that mixes music with a flick and twist of bottle caps.

Early adopters will want these oh-so-cutting edge audio gadgets to stay ahead of the musical scene. Alternatively get decked out with The Dancepants Kinetic Music Player where music is powered by your running feet via your pants.

I’ve always wondered – what if Boys Like Girls had the Boom Bench for their concert? Now that would seriously rock the house down.

The Great Escape by Boys Like Girls at Resorts World Singapore (src: 9421700)

Let’s make good sounds: The art of sound engineering

Sound engineers deal with sound and make it sound good. They record, synchronize, mix, or reproduce music, voices or any other sound.

And sometimes they’re the music police for concerts.

Sound engineers make sure that the musicians are synced up with each other. So they might dim the clash of drums, tweak up guitar strings and let the lead singer’s voice wail through the concert hall for an Über musical experience. So if you got no satisfaction from the speakers at a gig – that’s the sound engineers’ fault.

Thus they are important folk in making music, acoustics, and even movies (remember THX sound system?) sound good.

There are courses out there (Nanyang Polytechnic’s AV technology course for instance) that will teach you the basics. But to be really good, you’d need a ear for it, and plenty of curiosity and desire to investigate the aural spectrum.

Like Diego Stocco, a master sound engineer who makes music from the unlikeliest sources such as “clothes drying rack, pipes with water running through them, a burning piano, light bulbs, a typing machine, a bass made from a bedside table, and a ‘sonic washer’”

Last week in UCreateChange: Food & music

11-17 Jan 2010

Mobile farming in New York City “What if we run out of food?”

That’s what a pair of New York City farmers (isn’t that an oxymoron?) hopes to raise awareness of with their farms on trucks, outfitted with “root barriers, erosion blankets, drainage mats and cups that are reserved for green roofs”, that canvass the streets of New York. On the other hand, if you like your vegetables less travelled, then live next to an urban underground farm in Tokyo.