Smart Pen!

Wow.
I first read about this in an issue of Wired back in about 2001. Finally, this thing is available and appears to be pretty amazing.

Basically, it's a normal pen that you write on paper with, but everything you write or draw is captured and you can upload it into your PC or Mac. You can also record audio at the same time, so you can associate audio commentary with your doodles - then play them back on the PC.
Text you write is OCR'd so you can search for words too!

Check out the videos here: Livescribe Pulse Smart Pen

Hopefully if LOTS of people visit this page, the nice people at Livescribe will give me a pen ;-)
(wishful thinking)

DJ scratchy

I'm not really into DJ mixing decks and that whole thing, but I do like gadgets, so when a friend told me there was a DJ deck that you could fit in your pocket, I had to have a look:



The Stanton System3 is made up of two little bits of kit, the SCS.3d and the SCS.3m.
One is like a little mixing desk with crossfaders and the other is like a virtual turntable. You can hook them up together or use them individually. A funky multitouch-sensitive surface lets you use 'gestures' to do all kinds of actions like operating virtual sliders and scratching virtual decks.

There seem to be a few of these kinds of gadgets on the market now, so I think multi-touch surfaces are the new black when it comes to UI design

Zen and the art of HTML maintenance

This is amazing... for anyone who writes HTML or CSS, you just learn a few keystrokes and
Bob's your uncle - fully formed code. (Even if Bob isn't actually in any way related to you)

Total Kaoss!

I've really had my eye on one of these lately:

The Korg Kaossilator!

It's kindof like a baby brother of the Kaoss pad and has the advantage that it runs on batteries.

All you need is a pair of headphones and you can compose the next dance anthem while on the train to work :-)


Not sure why they didn't include either MIDI or USB on this thing though: my cynical view is that they don't want you to be able to include it in your set-up - they want you to buy the Kaoss pad instead. Hmmm. I still want one though. I'm hoping Santa will remember me...


The Yellow Album - 100% Kaossilator




Lately I have been tinkering with Arturia's virtual Prophet 5 classic analogue synth... excellent fun. OMD and Ultravox type noises have been reverbing round the house. I've been having problems with latency though, so I think I need to run them on a more powerful laptop... Santa again? I may need to get a Mac. :-)
Also, there are some preset patches that use an arpeggiator, but I can't figure out how to work the arp... it's an analogue synth, so it can't be rocket-science! There must be a knob or something...



I'd rather have the real thing mind.


There must be loads of these things (and similar vintage gear) knocking around in peoples garages and in the back of cupboards in recording studios... the prices on eBay are crazy!

I wish I hadn't given away my Yamaha DX7 :-( I think it qualfies as 'vintage' these days. Ah well.

Rise of the robots...

In the last few years, the run up to christmas has heralded a raft of new gadgets, and i've always got a keen eye on the state of robot development.
Since the realtive failure of the Sony Aibo dog robot, the focus seems to have been to create dummed-down robot toys that are cheap enough to actually buy.

The Robosapien is one of these which I imagine would be quite disappointing after the initial interest. I mean, come on, it's not really a robot is it? it's just a RC car with legs. When we think of a home robot, what we really want is something like the teddy bear in the film "A.I.", or at least the Honda Asimo or Sony Qrio - but unless you can afford to spend the price of a luxury car, you won't get one.

A couple of robots have appeared recently that seem to be bridging the gap between toys and real programmable robots: The MechRC is around £400 and is in the 'expensive toy' category. It appears to be incredibly mobile, and includes some nice PC programming software that allows you to create complex movements on a virtual 3D robot, before transferring them across to the real thing via USB.

Dig deeper into your pockets (around £800) and maybe you can afford to buy the Robonova-1. This little guy is truly amazing and has some really fluid movements. You can buy it pre-assembled or in kit form to save a few quid. The real advantage seems to be the fact that all the components can be sourced separately, plus you can buy some add-ons like motion sensors, sound sensors, gripping hands etc. I can see this approach being the way the market moves, as inevitably your robot is at some point going to tumble down the stairs and break a limb. It's a lot cheaper to replace a part than a whole unit.

I think we are at the point with robots that we were with home computers in the late 1970's. Back then, only real enthusiasts bought computers, and there was no perceived useful purpose other than entertainment. Fast-forward 20 years or so and every household had a PC.

We need these enthusiastic early-adopters to get out there and buy these early robots, as that is the only way this technology will evolve and become affordable. Plus, if you buy one of these guys and keep it in good condition, it may well be highly collectable in years to come...