The latest news of audio, video, and the environment. en paul@psaudio.com Copyright 2009 2009-10-17T22:15:42+00:00 http://www.psaudio.com/ps/news/multitouch-mouse-shown-off/ http://www.psaudio.com/ps/news/multitouch-mouse-shown-off/#When:21:15:42Z Rather odd timing, given some recent developments in the Apple camp, but Microsoft Research has just surfaced some of its incredibly wild multitouch mouse prototypes. Each one uses a different touch detection method, and at first glance all five seem to fly in the face of regular ergonomics. The craziest two are probably "Arty," which has two articulated arms to cradle your thumb and index finger, with each pad housing its own optical sensor for mission-critical pinching gestures, and "Side Mouse" which is button free and actually detects finger touches in the table immediately in front of the palm rest. Of course, there’s plenty of crazy in the FTIR, Orb Mouse and Cap Mouse (pictured), which rely on an internal camera, orb-housed IR camera and capacitive detection, respectively. Of course, there’s no word on when these might actually see the light of day, but it should be quite obvious that Apple’s not the only game in town thinking about this stuff. Check out the utterly enlightening video of these things in action 2009-10-17T21:15:42+00:00 http://www.psaudio.com/ps/news/wireless-speakers-getting-closer/ http://www.psaudio.com/ps/news/wireless-speakers-getting-closer/#When:14:14:13Z Last Thursday, Intel researchers demonstrated 45 research projects, ranging from ray-tracing algorithms for better animation to organic photovoltaics for flexible solar cells, at the Computer History Museum, in Mountain View, CA. But the project that received the most attention by far was the demo of a wirelessly charged iPod speaker. The speaker was attached to a copper coil with a 30-centimeter diameter, and it was powered by magnetic fields produced from a second coil, with double the diameter, nearly a meter away. Intel’s wireless power project, first announced at the company’s developer forum last August, bears a strong resemblance to a project announced by researchers at MIT in 2007 , which was featured as one of the TR10 top emerging technologies of 2008 . Similar to the MIT project led by Marin Soljacic and the prototypes developed by the spinoff startup WiTricity , the Intel project uses magnetic fields to transfer energy; the type of radiation shared between the two coils is nonradiative, which means that it’s confined to a short distance of less than two meters. The idea of wireless power transfer is, of course, not new. Physicist Nikola Tesla proposed it in the late 19th century. However, funding for his projects ran out at about the same time that the modern world decided to take a wired approach. And for more than a century, wires have done the job well enough. But with the advent of portable electronics that seem to need constant charging, wireless electricity is coming back in style, and researchers are exploring ways to make it practical. In addition, plug-in electric vehicles are another motivating factor, as plugging in a car (or forgetting to plug one in) is a burden that consumers may not want to bear. The modern approach that WiTricity and Intel are taking makes use of the phenomenon called resonant coupling, in which objects can exchange energy with each other only when they are tuned to, or resonate at, the same frequency. Specifically, both groups are using magnetic fields for sharing energy because such fields have little known impact on the environment and on people’s health, compared with electrical fields. For the Intel project, the large coil was hooked up to electronics that produced a current oscillating at seven megahertz. The receiving coil was tuned to the same frequency, and thus is able to accept an energy transfer with about 80 percent efficiency within a range of about a meter, says Josh Smith, the lead researcher on the project. Smith notes that the project is still in its early stages, but he and his team are interested in how the technology could be incorporated into Intel products, such as laptops or other portable devices. "We’re building on [what the MIT researchers] demonstrated in 2007 and extending it in different ways," he says. He adds that this team is working on a paper that will expound on the details later this year, and that Intel doesn’t have a timeline for products. 2009-06-22T14:14:13+00:00 http://www.psaudio.com/ps/news/stretchable-display-could-be-the-basis-of-the-next-remotes/ http://www.psaudio.com/ps/news/stretchable-display-could-be-the-basis-of-the-next-remotes/#When:21:58:38Z Researchers at the University of Tokyo have moved a step closer to displays and simple computers that you can wear on your sleeve or wrap around your couch. And they have opened up the possibility of printing such devices, which would make them cheap.  These could be the newest types of AV system remotes or even the display itself! Takao Someya, an electrical-engineering professor, and his colleagues make a stretchable display by connecting organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and organic transistors with a new rubbery conductor. The researchers can spread the display over a curved surface without affecting performance. The display can also be folded in half or crumpled up without incurring any damage. In a previous Science paper, the researchers used their elastic conductor—a mix of carbon nanotubes and rubber—to make a stretchy electronic circuit. The new version of the conductor, described online in Nature Materials, is significantly more conductive and can stretch to more than twice its original size. What’s more, it can be printed. Combined with printable transistors and OLEDs, this could pave the way for rolling out large, cheap, wearable displays and electronics. Bendy, flexible electronics that can be rolled up like paper are already available. But rubber-like stretchable electronics offer the additional advantage that they can cover complex three-dimensional objects. “With a sheet of paper, you can wrap a cylinder or a cone, but that’s pretty much it,” says John Rogers, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “You can’t wrap a body part, a sphere, or an airplane wing.” To make such materials, researchers have tried several approaches. Rogers uses ultrathin silicon sheets to make complex circuits on stretchy surfaces—he recently demonstrated a spherical camera sensor using the circuits. Others have made elastic conductors using graphene sheets or by combining gold and rubbery polymers. The new carbon nanotube conductor offers the advantage of being printable. “The main advance is that they’re able to print elastic conductors that are highly conductive and highly stretchable,” says Stephanie Lacour, who studies stretchable electronic skin at the University of Cambridge, in England. “Printing is cheap, and it allows you to cover large-area substrate.” 2009-05-20T21:58:38+00:00 http://www.psaudio.com/ps/news/100-dvd-on-a-single-disc/ http://www.psaudio.com/ps/news/100-dvd-on-a-single-disc/#When:01:06:19Z General Electric says it has achieved a breakthrough in digital storage technology that will allow standard-size discs to hold the equivalent of 100 DVDs. The storage advance, which G.E. is announcing on Monday, is just a laboratory success at this stage. The new technology must be made to work in products that can be mass-produced at affordable prices. But optical storage experts and industry analysts who were told of the development said it held the promise of being a big step forward in digital storage with a wide range of potential uses in commercial, scientific and consumer markets. “This could be the next generation of low-cost storage,” said Richard Doherty, an analyst at Envisioneering, a technology research firm. The promising work by the G.E. researchers is in the field of holographic storage. Holography is an optical process that stores not only three-dimensional images like the ones placed on many credit cards for security purposes, but the 1’s and 0’s of digital data as well. The data is encoded in light patterns that are stored in light-sensitive material. The holograms act like microscopic mirrors that refract light patterns when a laser shines on them, and so each hologram’s recorded data can then be retrieved and deciphered. Holographic storage has the potential to pack data far more densely than conventional optical technology, used in DVDs and the newer, high-capacity Blu-ray discs, in which information is stored as a pattern of marks across the surface of a disc. The potential of holographic technology has long been known. The first research papers were published in the early 1960s. Many advances have been made over the years in the materials science, optics and applied physics needed to make holographic storage a practical, cost-effective technology. And this year, InPhase Technologies, a spinoff of Bell Labs of Alcatel-Lucent, plans to introduce a holographic storage system, using $18,000 machines and expensive discs, for specialized markets like video production and storing medical images. To date, holographic storage has not been on a path to mainstream use. The G.E. development, however, could be that pioneering step, according to analysts and experts. The G.E. researchers have used a different approach than past efforts. It relies on smaller, less complex holograms - a technique called microholographic storage. A crucial challenge for the team, which has been working on this project since 2003, has been to find the materials and techniques so that smaller holograms reflect enough light for their data patterns to be detected and retrieved. The recent breakthrough by the team, working at the G.E. lab in Niskayuna, N.Y., north of Albany, was a 200-fold increase in the reflective power of their holograms, putting them at the bottom range of light reflections readable by current Blu-ray machines. “We’re in the ballpark,” said Brian Lawrence, the scientist who leads G.E.‘s holographic storage program. “We’ve crossed the threshold so we’re readable.” In G.E.‘s approach, the holograms are scattered across a disc in a way that is similar to the formats used in today’s CDs, conventional DVDs and Blu-ray discs. So a player that could read microholographic storage discs could also read CD, DVD and Blu-ray discs. But holographic discs, with the technology G.E. has attained, could hold 500 gigabytes of data. Blu-ray is available in 25-gigabyte and 50-gigabyte discs, and a standard DVD holds 5 gigabytes. “If this can really be done, then G.E.‘s work promises to be a huge advantage in commercializing holographic storage technology,” said Bert Hesselink, a professor at Stanford and an expert in the field. The G.E. team plans to present its research data and lab results at an optical data storage conference in Orlando next month. Yet, analysts say, the feasibility of G.E.‘s technology remains unproved and the economics uncertain. “It’s always well to remember that the most important technical specification in any storage device, however impressive the science behind it, is price,” said James N. Porter, an independent analyst of the storage market. When Blu-ray was introduced in late 2006, a 25-gigabyte disc cost nearly $1 a gigabyte, though it is about half that now. G.E. expects that when they are introduced, perhaps in 2011 or 2012, holographic discs using its technology will be less than 10 cents a gigabyte - and fall in the future. “The price of storage per gigabyte is going to drop precipitously,” Mr. Lawrence said. G.E. will first focus on selling the technology to commercial markets like movie studios, television networks, medical researchers and hospitals for holding data-intensive images like Hollywood films and brain scans. But selling to the broader corporate and consumer market is the larger goal. To do that, G.E. will have to work with partners to license its holographic storage technology and expertise, and the company is already talking with major electronics and optical storage producers, said Bill Kernick, who leads G.E.‘s technology sales unit. The holographic research was originally related to G.E.‘s plastics business, which it sold two years ago to the Saudi Basic Industries Corporation for $11.6 billion.   2009-04-28T01:06:19+00:00 http://www.psaudio.com/ps/news/end-of-the-mouse-for-av-and-computer-interface/ http://www.psaudio.com/ps/news/end-of-the-mouse-for-av-and-computer-interface/#When:12:26:02Z Computer scientists from around the world will gather in Boston this week at Computer-Human Interaction 2009 to discuss the latest developments in computer interfaces. These interfaces are important to AV users because they become the way we interact with our AV equipment.  The pattern of development is clear: first the computer industry creates the technology and later it morphs down to consumer suadio products and we all enjoy a new way to interact with our audio and video systems. To help you understand how user interfaces are developed and what the future might hold for us, we present a roundup of the coolest  interfaces past, present, and future. The Command LineThe granddaddy of all interfaces is the command line, which surfaced as a more effective way to control computers in the 1950s. Previously, commands had to be fed into a computer in batches, usually via a punch card or paper tape. Teletype machines, which were normally used for telegraph transmissions, were adapted as a way for users to change commands partway through a process, and receive feedback from a computer in near real time. Video display units allowed command line information to be displayed more rapidly. The VT100, a video terminal released by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1978, is still emulated by some modern operating systems as a way to display the command line. Graphical user interfaces, which emerged commercially in the 1980s, made computers much easier for most people to use, but the command line still offers substantial power and flexibility for expert users. The MouseNowadays, it’s hard to imagine a desktop computer without its iconic sidekick: the mouse. Developed 41 years ago by Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute, in California, the mouse is inextricably linked to the development of the modern computer and also played a crucial role in the rise of the graphic user interface. Engelbart demonstrated the mouse, along with several other key innovations, including hypertext and shared-screen collaboration, at an event in San Francisco in 1968. Early computer mouses came in a variety of shapes and forms, many of which would be almost unrecognizable today. However, by the time mouses became commercially available in the 1980s, the mold was set. Three decades on and despite a few modifications (including the loss of its tail), the mouse remains relatively unchanged. That’s not to say that companies haven’t tried adding all manner of enhancements, including a mini joystick and an air ventilator to keep your hand sweat-free and cool. Logitech alone has now sold more than a billion of these devices, but some believe that the mouse is on its last legs. The rise of other, more intuitive interfaces may finally loosen the mouse’s grip on us. The TouchpadDespite stiff competition from track balls and button joysticks, the touchpad has emerged as the most popular interface for laptop computers. With most touchpads, a user’s finger is sensed by detecting disruptions to an electric field caused by the finger’s natural capacitance. It’s a principle that was employed as far back as 1953 by Canadian pioneer of electronic music Hugh Le Caine, to control the timbre of the sounds produced by his early synthesizer, dubbed the Sackbut. The touchpad is also important as a precursor to the touch-screen interface. And many touchpads now feature multitouch capabilities, expanding the range of possible uses. The first multitouch touchpad for a computer was demonstrated back in 1984, by Bill Buxton, then a professor of computer design and interaction at the University of Toronto and now also principle researcher at Microsoft. The Multitouch ScreenMention touch screen computers, and most people will think of Apple’s iPhone or Microsoft’s Surface. In truth, the technology is already a quarter of a century old, having debuted in the HP-150 computer in 1983. Long before desktop computers became common, basic touch screens were used in ATMs to allow customers, who were largely computer illiterate, to use computers without much training. However, it’s fair to say that Apple’s iPhone has helped revive the potential of the approach with its multitouch screen. Several cell-phone manufacturers now offer multitouch devices, and both Windows 7 and future versions of Apple’s Macbook are expected to do the same. Various techniques can enable multitouch screens: capacitive sensing, infrared, surface acoustic waves, and, more recently, pressure sensing. With this renaissance, we can expect a whole new lexicon of gestures designed to make it easier to manipulate data and call up commands. In fact, one challenge may be finding means to reproduce existing commands in an intuitive way, says August de los Reyes, a user-experience researcher who works on Microsoft’s Surface. Gesture SensingCompact magnetometers, accelerometers, and gyroscopes make it possible to track the movement of a device. Using both Nintendo’s Wii controller and the iPhone, users can control games and applications by physically maneuvering each device through the air. Similarly, it’s possible to pause and play music on Nokia’s 6600 cell phone simply by tapping the device twice. New mobile applications are also starting to tap into this trend. Shut Up, for example, lets Nokia users silence their phone by simply turning it face down. Another app, called nAlertMe, uses a 3-D gestural passcode to prevent the device from being stolen. The handset will sound a shrill alarm if the user doesn’t move the device in a predefined pattern in midair to switch it on. The next step in gesture recognition is to enable computers to better recognize hand and body movements visually. Sony’s Eye showed that simple movements can be recognized relatively easily. Tracking more complicated 3-D movements in irregular lighting is more difficult, however. Startups, including Xtr3D, based in Israel, and Soft Kinetic, based in Belgium, are developing computer vision software that uses infrared for whole-body-sensing gaming applications. Oblong, a startup based in Los Angeles, has developed a “spatial operating system” that recognizes gestural commands, provided the user wears a pair of special gloves. Force FeedbackA field of research called haptics explores ways that technology can manipulate our sense of touch. Some game controllers already vibrate with an on-screen impact, and similarly, some cell phones shake when switched to silent. More specialized haptic controllers include the PHANTOM, made by SensAble, based in Woburn, MA. These devices are already used for 3-D design and medical training—for example, allowing a surgeon to practice a complex procedure using a simulation that not only looks, but also feels, realistic. Haptics could soon add another dimension to touch screens too: by better simulating the feeling of clicking a button when an icon is touched. Vincent Hayward, a leading expert in the field, at McGill University, in Montreal, Canada, has demonstrated how to generate different sensations associated with different icons on a “haptic button”. In the long term, Hayward believes that it will even be possible to use haptics to simulate the sensation of textures on a screen. Voice RecognitionSpeech recognition has always struggled to shake off a reputation for being sluggish, awkward, and, all too often, inaccurate. The technology has only really taken off in specialist areas where a constrained and narrow subset of language is employed or where users are willing to invest the time needed to train a system to recognize their voice. This is now changing. As computers become more powerful and parsing algorithms smarter, speech recognition will continue to improve, says Robert Weidmen, VP of marketing for Nuance, the firm that makes Dragon Naturally Speaking. Last year, Google launched a voice search app for the iPhone, allowing users to search without pressing any buttons. Another iPhone application, called Vlingo, can be used to control the device in other ways: in addition to searching, a user can dictate text messages and e-mails, or update his or her status on Facebook with a few simple commands. In the past, the challenge has been adding enough processing power for a cell phone. Now, however, faster data-transfer speeds mean that it’s possible to use remote servers to seamlessly handle the number crunching required. Augmented RealityAn exciting emerging interface is augmented reality, an approach that fuses virtual information with the real world. The earliest augmented-reality interfaces required complex and bulky motion-sensing and computer-graphics equipment. More recently, cell phones featuring powerful processing chips and sensors have to bring the technology within the reach of ordinary users. Examples of mobile augmented reality include Nokia’s Mobile Augmented Reality Application (MARA) and Wikitude, an application developed for Google’s Android phone operating system. Both allow a user to view the real world through a camera screen with virtual annotations and tags overlaid on top. With MARA, this virtual data is harvested from the points of interest stored in the NavTeq satellite navigation application. Wikitude, as the name implies, gleans its data from Wikipedia. These applications work by monitoring data from an arsenal of sensors: GPS receivers provide precise positioning information, digital compasses determine which way the device is pointing, and magnetometers or accelerometers calculate its orientation. A project called Nokia Image Space takes this a step further by allowing people to store experiences—images, video, sounds—in a particular place so that other people can retrieve them at the same spot. Spatial InterfacesIn addition to enabling augmented reality, the GPS receivers now found in many phones can track people geographically. This is spawning a range of new games and applications that let you use your location as a form of input. Google’s Latitude, for example, lets users show their position on a map by installing software on a GPS-enabled cell phone. As of October 2008, some 3,000 iPhone apps were already location aware. One such iPhone application is iNap, which is designed to monitor a person’s position and wake her up before she misses her train or bus stop. The idea for it came after Jelle Prins, of Dutch software development company Moop, was worried about missing his stop on the way to the airport. The app can connect to a popular train-scheduling program used in the Netherlands and automatically identify your stops based on your previous travel routines. SafetyNet, a location-aware application developed for Google’s Android platform, lets user define parts of town that they deem to be generally unsafe. If they accidentally wander into one of these no-go areas, the program becomes active and will sound an alarm and automatically call 911 on speakerphone in response to a quick shake. Brain-Computer InterfacesPerhaps the ultimate computer interface, and one that remains some way off, is mind control. Surgical implants or electroencephalogram (EEG) sensors can be used to monitor the brain activity of people with severe forms of paralysis. With training, this technology can allow “locked in” patients to control a computer cursor to spell out messages or steer a wheelchair. Some companies hope to bring the same kind of brain-computer interface (BCI) technology to the mainstream. Last month, Neurosky, based in San Jose, CA, announced the launch of its Bluetooth gaming headset designed to monitor simple EEG activity. The idea is that gamers can gain extra powers depending on how calm they are. Beyond gaming, BCI technology could perhaps be used to help relieve stress and information overload. A BCI project called the Cognitive Cockpit (CogPit) uses EEG information in an attempt to reduce the information overload experienced by jet pilots. The project, which was formerly funded by the U.S. government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is designed to discern when the pilot is being overloaded and manage the way that information is fed to him. For example, if he is already verbally communicating with base, it may be more appropriate to warn him of an incoming threat using visual means rather than through an audible alert. “By estimating their cognitive state from one moment to the next, we should be able to optimize the flow of information to them,” says Blair Dickson, a researcher on the project with U.K. defense-technology company Qinetiq. 2009-04-05T12:26:02+00:00 http://www.psaudio.com/ps/news/new-emotion-jacket-adds-realism-to-movies/ http://www.psaudio.com/ps/news/new-emotion-jacket-adds-realism-to-movies/#When:00:01:46Z This week, researchers from Philips Electronics plan to describe a jacket they have lined with vibration motors to study the effects of touch on a movie viewer’s emotional response to what the characters are experiencing. “People don’t realize how sensitive we are to touch, although it is the first sense that fetuses develop in the womb,” says Paul Lemmens, a Philips senior scientist who will be presenting research done using the jacket at the IEEE-sponsored 2009 World Haptics Conference 2009, in Salt Lake City. The jacket contains 64 independently controlled actuators distributed across the arms and torso. The actuators are arrayed in 16 groups of four and linked along a serial bus; each group shares a microprocessor. The actuators draw so little current that the jacket could operate for an hour on its two AA batteries even if the system was continuously driving 20 of the motors simultaneously. So what can the jacket make you feel? Can it cause a viewer to feel a blow to the ribs as he watches Bruce Lee take on a dozen thugs? No, says Lemmens. Although the garment can simulate outside forces, translating kicks and punches is not what the actuators are meant to do. The aim, he says, is investigating emotional immersion. “We want people to feel Bruce Lee’s anxiety about whether he will get out alive,” says the Philips researcher. The jacket, responding to signals encoded in the DVD or to a program designed to control the jacket on the fly, can do a host of things, such as “causing a shiver to go up the viewer’s spine and creating the feeling of tension in the limbs.” During the fight scene, says Lemmens, the jacket will even create a pulsing on the wearer’s chest to simulate the kung fu master’s elevated heartbeat. The actuators are capable of cycling on and off 100 times per second-more than enough to outpace the refresh rate of a computer screen or a TV set. But how are the researchers able to stimulate the entire upper body using only 64 actuators? Lemmens explains that the skin’s neural wiring and the way the brain perceives touch make that number sufficient. Though the jacket has only eight actuators along the length of each sleeve (four in front and four in back) spaced about 15 centimeters apart, those actuators can create the sensation that the arm is being tapped in several spots between the motors (a phenomenon called the cutaneous rabbit illusion). Asked if he and his colleagues have any plans to make a matching set of pants, Lemmens says no, but that the possible applications of this technology are limitless and that the emotion-inducing actuators could go anywhere. This is not Philips’s first foray into heightening sensation. In October 2008, amBX, in Surrey, England, spun off from Philips to make gaming peripherals, including lighting-effects devices and wind machines that together can simulate the sensation of a gentle breeze or a bomb blast. 2009-03-20T00:01:46+00:00 http://www.psaudio.com/ps/news/nanoball-batteries-are-the-future/ http://www.psaudio.com/ps/news/nanoball-batteries-are-the-future/#When:23:12:12Z THE next generation of plug-in hybrid cars could recharge in minutes, thanks to a new type of battery. Lithium ion cells are used in portable gadgets and the latest hybrid cars as they are light and can be repeatedly charged and discharged with little degradation. But as with all batteries, charging takes some time. That’s because it involves detaching lithium ions from the cathode at one end of the battery and absorbing them at the anode; pulling the ions from the cathode is normally a slow process. Now Byoungwoo Kang and Gerbrand Ceder at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have revealed an experimental battery that charges about 100 times as fast as normal lithium ion batteries. Their battery contains a cathode made up of tiny balls of lithium iron phosphate, each just 50 nanometres across. The balls quickly release lithium ions as the battery charges, which travel across an electrolyte towards the anode. As the battery discharges, the lithium ions move back across the cell to be re-absorbed by the nanoballs. Previous studies have shown that batteries containing similar balls of lithium iron phosphate can release and absorb lithium ions more quickly than the cathodes in conventional lithium ion batteries. Now Kang and Ceder have found that coating each ball with a thin layer of lithium phosphate accelerates this process even further, perhaps because the coating is an excellent conductor of lithium ions, swiftly transporting them to and from the surface of the nanoballs. If cellphone batteries can be made using the material, they could charge in 10 seconds flat, the researchers calculate (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature07853). Bigger batteries for plug-in hybrid electric cars could charge in just 5 minutes - compared with about 8 hours for existing batteries - though this would require a very high-powered charger. Cellphones, portable music players and any portable device could charge in 10 seconds flat, while plug-in hybrid cars could charge in just 5 minutes Such batteries could be very bulky, as the lithium iron phosphate balls were mixed with a lot of carbon to help conduct the electric current from the electrodes, says Stanley Whittingham of Binghamton University in New York state, whose research led to the first commercial lithium ion batteries. But he adds that coating each ball with carbon could reduce the cell’s size.   2009-03-13T23:12:12+00:00 http://www.psaudio.com/ps/news/early-music-training-increases-emotional-response-to-music/ http://www.psaudio.com/ps/news/early-music-training-increases-emotional-response-to-music/#When:15:50:36Z Music has always been an emotional experience to some degree for most of us, but why does it effect some more than others? In a study in the latest issue of European Journal of Neuroscience, an interdisciplinary Northwestern research team for the first time provides biological evidence that musical training enhances an individual’s ability to recognize emotion in sound. “Quickly and accurately identifying emotion in sound is a skill that translates across all arenas, whether in the predator-infested jungle or in the classroom, boardroom or bedroom,” says Dana Strait, primary author of the study. A doctoral student in the Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music, Strait does research in the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory directed by neuroscientist Nina Kraus. The laboratory has done pioneering work on the neurobiology underlying speech and music perception and learning-associated brain plasticity. Kraus, Northwestern’s Hugh Knowles Professor of Communication Sciences and Neurobiology; Richard Ashley, associate professor of music cognition; and Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory manager Erika Skoe co-authored the study titled “Musical Experience and Neural Efficiency: Effects of Training on Subcortical Processing of Vocal Expressions in Emotion.” The study, funded by the National Science Foundation, found that the more years of musical experience musicians possessed and the earlier the age they began their music studies also increased their nervous systems’ abilities to process emotion in sound. “Scientists already know that emotion is carried less by the linguistic meaning of a word than by the way in which the sound is communicated,” says Strait. A child’s cry of “Mommy!”—or even his or her wordless utterance—can mean very different things depending on the acoustic properties of the sound. The Northwestern researchers measured brainstem processing of three acoustic correlates (pitch, timing and timbre) in musicians and non-musicians to a scientifically validated emotion sound. The musicians, who learn to use all their senses to practice and perform a musical piece, were found to have “finely tuned” auditory systems. This fine-tuning appears to lend broad perceptual advantages to musicians. “Previous research has indicated that musicians demonstrate greater sensitivity to the nuances of emotion in speech,” says Ashley, who explores the link between emotion perception and musical experience. One of his recent studies indicated that musicians might even be able to sense emotion in sounds after hearing them for only 50 milliseconds. 2009-03-04T15:50:36+00:00 http://www.psaudio.com/ps/news/our-connected-world-is-getting-smaller/ http://www.psaudio.com/ps/news/our-connected-world-is-getting-smaller/#When:15:14:30Z To be able to store and access music anywhere in the world is where we believe the future of our AV industry lies.  To make this dream a reality, it will be necessary to interconnect the world together.  The two most obvious interconnection schemes are wireless and wired.  Cell phones are the most recognizable use of wireless technology, while internet access in the home is typically wired.  Both technologies are capable of accessing music and radio on the fly.  How connected are we?  Internet use has more than doubled to 23% in 2008 up from 11% in 2002. Only 1 in 20 people in the same poor countries have Internet access, however in rich countries the fixed broadband services increased to almost 20% market penetration, while on average only 1 in 20 worldwide have high speed Internet. Mobile broadband has also shown its fastest increase, with 3% of people worldwide having it on average, compared to 14% in rich countries. Fixed line subscriptions (home phones) have increased at a slower rate, from 1 billion in 2002 to 1.27 billion in 2009, meaning cellular phones outnumber direct-wired phones in excess of 3:1. The 106-page U.N. report also ranked countries by how advanced their information and communications technology (ICT) is. The order went as follows: 1) Sweden 2) South Korea (getting nation-wide Gigabit broadband by 2012) 3) Denmark 4) Netherlands 5) Iceland 6) Norway The United States came in at #17, with Hong Kong at #11, China at #73 and India at #118, both of which have a high technology base but whose ranking was affected by their large populations and poor, rural areas. Myanmar’s militaristic government gave that country the only cited decline over the same period, with Internet bandwidth dropping 90%. This came following the Internet being shut down at times, along with several bloggers being jailed for published content.   2009-03-03T15:14:30+00:00 http://www.psaudio.com/ps/news/movies-for-mobile-phones/ http://www.psaudio.com/ps/news/movies-for-mobile-phones/#When:18:00:11Z Mainstream movies get their recognition at awards ceremonies such as the Baftas and Oscars and movies for phones are getting their turn at MoFilm - the first mobile film festival. The awards highlight the increasing impact that mobile phones are making in the entertainment industry. The first ever mobile film awards got a touch of Hollywood glamour as it was hosted by multiple Oscar winner Kevin Spacey. Describing his involvement, he said: “When I started to hear about MoFilm, I started to hear about what they were trying to do with respect to short films and content being able to go on to people’s phones. “And in some cases realising that, in some countries, this might be the first time they ever see a movie,” he said. “They won’t see it on that big screen, they’ll see it on a small one.” New platforms Many aspiring filmmakers are frustrated by the lack of opportunities to screen their work but mobile phones are increasingly being seen as a new platform for these short works. “Just the notion that yet there is another place - a further journey for artists, film-makers, documentarians - anyone who wants to express themselves and find a way to have that expression be seen by a wide audience,” said Mr Spacey. “When you think about how many people have mobile phones in the world, it’s pretty ridiculous,” he added. The MoFilm competition received 250 entries from more than 100 countries. Entries were restricted to films that were five minutes or less in length - ideal for viewing and sharing on mobile phones. An independent jury then selected a shortlist of five film-makers from which a winner was chosen by an audience voting using their phones at the Mobile World Congress. “English as a Second Language” produced by Frank Chnindamo and directed by Jocelyn Stemat, won the MoFilm grand prize. “This is about giving people in other countries a platform, and an ability to show their work, I’m here to support an idea that’s about other people,” said Mr Spacey. “Purists may hate this but guess what guys, this is what our kids are looking at, they are engaged in this, they want this device. “This is about people who are inspired and kids want this, they are more informed, they get it,” he added. The majority of films made for mobiles are short in length, taking into account the screen size, however this could be overcome as technology advances. “I’m not sure that something could be longer than ten minutes and be able to sustain itself on that kind of screen,” said Mr Spacey. “Although, I know that one of the things we are learning here is that there are mobile companies that are creating phones that have the ability to watch stuff at higher quality.” MoFilm is pioneering content for mobile and online services that Mr Spacey feels is a world away from Hollywood. “I am the only person from the film industry here, I see its potential, I get it,” he said. “It doesn’t seem to me that other people are aware of it yet but I can see where it’s going to be in five or ten years time. “It is an incredible opportunity, particularly for young emerging film makers.” Start hereAs screen sizes get larger, films for mobiles may get longer Mr Spacey’s involvement with grass roots movie makers does not begin and end with hosting the MoFilm ceremony. Mr Spacey co-founded the Triggerstreet website that allows budding film-makers to showcase their work. “I started the website about six years ago, and we now have close to 400,000 members around the world,” he said. “We started out with short films and we’ve done a whole series of short film festivals on the site. “There are screen plays, plays, there’s novels and now comic books which we just started - it’s become a platform for independent film makers. “One of the things we’ve learned at Triggerstreet, cause when we started, we didn’t quite frankly know whether we were going to get wedding videos and porno. “The quality of work and the simple ability at story telling, the thing that ignites someone and inspires them to tell a story, can really come from anywhere,” he added.   2009-03-02T18:00:11+00:00