Hasta La Gadget!

While the Olasonic TW-S7 speakers have some sound limitations, they have an eye-catching design, sound decent enough at close range, and offer the convenience of USB power from your notebook or desktop computer.

HP ruins the tablet party for everyone else, Stormtroopers ride in style, and Eric weaves in Geek Pop segment on comic movie news.

Lately, Apple’s become synonymous with a flurry of hotly-contested patent disputes, but in a nice change of events, the company’s actually been granted a bunch by the USPTO. The recently awarded patents range from the mundane to the utilitarian, covering designs for a customizable docking peripheral, in addition to a solar-powered solution for charging those iDevices. But the real additions to Cupertino’s legal arsenal are its patents for what appears to be cover flow-like navigation for video, and display rotation for images captured via iOS cameras. Alright so none of these patents are particularly revolutionary, and they certainly aren’t tipping us off to the next iteration of the iPhone, but think of the lawyers, will you? This is the stuff their litigious dreams are made of.

Apple granted patents for solar-powered charging, method of video navigation originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Aug 2011 19:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Patently Apple  |  Patent 8,004,113, Patent RE42,639, Patent 8,006,185, Patent 8,006,002  | Email this | Comments

Nodal helps visualize the musical structure of Beethoven's Für Elise. Photo Michele Travierso/Wired.com

It’s the quintessential image of a classical composer: the gifted musician sitting with a thousand-yard stare at his piano, quill and paper ready to be inked with a new concerto or symphony. Today’s equivalent could just as likely be a musician staring at a computer screen.

Nodal, a new program designed to create and visualize music, aims to have the same sweeping impact on music composition that the Information Age has had on other creative domains.

Developed by researchers and musicians at the at Monash University in Clayton, Australia, Nodal allows you to visualize the musical structure (i.e. intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-outro for the most basic pop song to more complex structures of symphonies) of any composition in a new visual form (i.e. a series of “nodes,” or singular musical events). Essentially doing away with sheet music, Nodal makes it easier for you to change or improvise compositions as they play in real time.

I gave it a test run, and readily concede I am devoid of musical talent. I launched one of the examples Nodal comes with (Fur Elise). It plays fine enough, if not automated and lacking soul. With a few clicks of my mouse, I incorporated a piano loop that I didn’t hate. All further attempts at producing anything decent were unsuccessful.

Ultimately, my one melodic success was less a feat of musical prowess than a stroke of luck. While Nodal may be of interest to professional composers, it’s no tool for the masses.

Nodal has a built-in synthesizer and works with MIDI compatible hardware and software. You can download a 30-day trial version of Nodal or buy it for $30.

The foldable F.O. Clock concept is inspired by two Japanese art forms. Furoshiki (literally “cloth wrapping”) was popularized by cartoons in the eighties and nineties. The other stems from the Japanese art of folding paper, or Origami.

When folded, the F.O. clock is sleek, shiny and could fit right in at a modern art exhibit. When unfolded, the F.O. shows off its carefully crafted rib structure.

Straight from the brain of New Zealand designer Shiping Toohey, the F.O clock is composed of 18 tessellated pieces and a digital clock unit whose LEDs are readable from a shiny, semi transparent covering.

(Via Yanko Design)