Author: Duncan Geere
Timewasting website of the day: Tonematrix
Tonematrix is a site that generates sinewaves in a pattern that you determine. If that sounds complex, then go ahead and click here, then draw something on the grid. It’s far easier to understand if you just give it a try. Far easier than understanding the developer, who says:
“The sound generation is basically a polyphone synthesizer with a simple delay with a variing read-offset to make the tones vibrating in the end.”
Despite the fact that the first thing everyone will do is draw a penis, there’s actually quite a sophisticated synth running in the background. It’s possible to make loops that sound pretty awesome. What would be even more awesome is if you could adjust the BPM on the fly. Or use it to play Battleships with a friend. Either would do.
Tonematrix (via @scdsoundsystem)
VIDEO: Steampunk Segway ditches motor
At the Gadget Show Live last weekend, I got as close to a Segway as I’ve ever been, which made me ridiculously excited. I want one. But if I can’t get one, then this is probably the next best thing – it’s a Steampunk Segway, powered by pedalling.
The best thing, though, is that the creator has taken the time to document the entire creation process on Instructables. Make your own, but don’t come crying to us if it falls apart on the hard shoulder of the M4.
Instructables (via Engadget)
Ask.com brings back Jeeves
After a few years of being Jeeve-less, search engine Ask.com has brought back its iconic butler following, the company claims, “public demand”. The company told Tech Digest that research has shown that users “missed his friendly, human, touch”.
Jeeves will be returning in 3D, given a makeover by Framestore – a company that worked on The Golden Compass and Chronicles of Narnia. He’s also got some new threads, courtesy of Savile Row tailors Gieves and Hawkes. They do rather make him look more like a banker or a politician, though.
Jeeves was originally inspired by the butler to PG Wodehouse’s “Wooster” character, which has come to represent the stereotypical English butler. He left Ask.com in 2006, but Ask.com’s traffic hasn’t exactly skyrocketed since, which is presumably the reason behind his resurrection.
Excess datacentre energy used to heat homes
Telehouse is a company based in London’s Docklands that runs massive datacentres providing servers and other network gear to major companies.
It’s building a new one – Telehouse West – that’s costing $180 million, but the carbon footprint for such a facility is absolutely massive. Tonnes of heat is generated and the cooling systems involved have to work extremely hard. The company realized that the heat could be reappropriated for use in local homes.
As a result, the company’s been able to generate up to nine megawatts of power for local homes – the equivalent of boiling 3,000 kettles continuously. It’s the first major UK datacentre to implement such a strategy, and the first datacentre to gain planning permission in London since strict sustainability rules were introduced.
(via DataCentreKnowledge)
Tech Digest Podcast #3
Normal service has resumed after the lovely and disruptive Easter break and, with Tech Digest going up to the Gadget Show Live this afternoon, you’re getting your dose of the TD podcast a whole day early. We wouldn’t forget about you for two weeks in a row.
In Episode 3 Duncan dribbles over the new Zune HD, we discuss the tricky legal ins and outs of how one girl’s blog post on MySpace got her family driven out of Coalinga, CA, and we discover that Amazon aren’t actually the bad guys that they seemed after a small case of internet homophobia.
In the middle section, which has no title because “hard and soft” just sounds a bit wrong, Duncan once again successfully persuades me to try out a piece of free imaging software called Paint.net and I just about convince him to part with £169.99 for the Flip MinoHD camcorder.
Download the podcast directly here, or subscribe via the RSS feed.
If you’re getting annoyed by the slight buzzing then the good news is that we should have some high end mics to use very soon. Send all your comments, topics that you’d like us to talk about and general abuse to me at [email protected] or throw us a tweet at @techdigest.
Skyla Memoir – digital photo frame that incorporates a scanner
How’s this for a smart idea? A digital photo frame that also includes a built-in high-resolution photo scanner. Traditional photos can be scanned into the device and then instantly displayed on the screen.
It’s a perfect, neat, solution for the technophobes in your family. If your grandma can’t cope with digitising all her old pics, then just give her this and show her how it works, and she’ll be sorted.
There’s 1GB of internal storage, which will hold 2-400 scans. It’s also got a light sensor, so it can adjust brightness based on its environment and an 8″, 800 x 600 display. They’ve also chucked in a card reader, for grandparents who’ve progressed to digital cameras, and two USB ports so you can get the data back onto a PC if you need to.
I’m a big fan of simple concepts that make sense, and this is exactly that. So long as the interface is good, this seems like a great product. Perhaps a little overpriced at £178, but all digital photo frames are overpriced – let’s hope that competition drives down those costs a bit over the next year or so.
Ridiculously impressive and tiny landscape generation
The demoscene is a subculture of computer art that specialises in creating non-interactive audiovisual content to certain set limits. This bit of art, called ‘Elevated’, is an example of the ‘intros’ subcategory, which limits programmers to either 64kb or 4kb file sizes. The above example is 4k.
Watch that video again, and consider that everything – music, landscape and lighting – fits into 4,000 bytes – the equivalent of 800 average english words. That’s *nothing*. That’s less than nothing!
But it’d be difficult for this tech to be integrated into games because it’s so compressed – although file sizes would get smaller, load times would increase massively. In tech, processor speeds are considerably more limited than storage, so for the moment expect this to stay a tiny subculture.
If you want to check it out for yourself, then you can download the file from Pouet, but you’ll need a pretty impressive graphics card to do it justice – it probably won’t work too well on your office PC. Expect to see a black screen for a few mins while it loads, too.
Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle shoes!
Squeeeee! I want these more than life itself. Some enterprising Spanish Lucasarts fan has copied scenes from Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle onto Converse sneakers.
They’re both one-of-a-kind and on sale on eBay for €250. Go get them, get them now. Once they’re in your inventory, USE them with FEET and GOTO the post office. Then weep as no-one recognises them. That’s okay. We’re an exclusive club.
(via RPS)
Activision accused of sabotaging development of DJ Hero competitor
The world of big-budget game development is got particularly murky today as Activision, who will be releasing the forthcoming DJ Hero title, was accused of interfering with a contract and misappropriating trade secrets relating to the development of a competing title.
“Scratch: The Ultimate DJ” is the game in question, which is being developed by a company called 7Studios and published by lawsuit-filer Genius Products. The latter alleges that Activision approached it to buy Scratch, but when the company turned down the offer, Activision bought the developers (7Studios) instead. Now, Genius claims, Activision and 7Studios have been withholding code, controllers and other products so that the launch of Scratch will be delayed.
Whether the lawsuit succeeds will depend very much on what the contract between 7Studios and Genius says. If 7Studios has indeed been sharing proprietary technology with Activision and withholding code then there might be trouble. For the moment, 7Studios are continuing work on the game, but given the legal situation the whole thing has got into, I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole project ends up eventually cancelled.
Full text of lawsuit (via Variety)
Nokia planning insane cricket match on top of Everest
File this one under ‘WTF’. Finnish phone manufacturer is planning the world’s highest cricket match, on the slopes of Everest. Two teams will trek nine days up the slopes of the world’s highest mountain to play a game of Twenty20 cricket.
Team ‘Hillary’ and team ‘Tenzig’ will converge on Gorakshep, a frozen lakebed at an altitude of 17,000ft, on the Queen’s birthday – 21st April. They’ll all be carrying Nokia N85s and N79s, which will track their location, heart rate and let them blog.
The whole endeavor is in aid of charities The Himalayan Trust UK and The Lord’s Taverners, and the teams hope to raise more than £250,000. On their way down again, they’ll be teaching cricket to kids in a village called Khumjung, and donating their kit. It’s unclear if sweaty jockstraps will be included in that donation. If you’d like to find out more, donate, or follow the team’s progress, then hit up www.theeveresttest.com.
