I got 2 touchscreens and a microphone...

A long time ago in a DJ booth far, far away I used to spend my time mixing these odd black discs that contained a groove on each side. Looking back it sounds strange, but it seemed quite natural at the time and the warm sound of vinyl is far superior to this day imho.

When digital audio became the standard towards the end of the 1900's, most deejays I knew preferred the feel of mixing vinyl. The main thing that bugged me about mixing CDs was not being able to "read" the groove of the song and predict breaks and changes in the music. This was solved with software/turntable based systems like Serato Sratch Live which allow you to manipulate mp3s on a laptop using synced timecode LPs on turntables. I was skeptical at first, but it's the real deal. I would probably feel weird carrying a thumb-drive instead of milk-crates, but I am sure I could get over that quickly! I'm not sure how you get your friends into the club free by letting them help carry your thumb-drive tho.

If you are wondering, yes, there is a current point to all this. It appears someone has taken digital mixing a step further using some flat mounted touch panels.

They call it Attigo TT. Check out the video. It doesn't look like it would have the same feel as spinning records, but maybe I'm just old school. Or perhaps just old.

Vi-Vikki-Vikki-Video...aw yeah!

I remember seeing this commercial and thinking how cool it would be to manipulate a video by dragging the objects contained within it. Manipulating real-life objects like the commercial simulates by reaching into it and dragging cars and people around seemed unrealistic (however difficult it is to convince some clients of that!), but objects in a video?...hmmm... and that is where some other shiny object caught my eye....and...what were we talking about?

Oh ya...direct manipulation of video. So it appears someone infinitely more focused than I has figured out how to actually do it. They call it DimP: A Direct Manipulation Video Player. By evaluating the motion of a video and mapping the paths of moving objects they are able to enable those objects to be used much like the scrub-bar typically found in video players. Check it out.

2 Things You Will Never Hear Me Ask...

#1: "Hey Mom, what do you think of this new breakcore remix?"

and

#2: "Hey what does Forrester think of [ insert anything relevant here ]?".

In a stunning attempt to simultaneously top Gartner Reports on being accurate, Microsoft on being original, and "Alternative Music" on being an alternative to anything, Forrester has issued a mind-numbingly corny image of Apple circa 2013.

According to the visionaries at Forrester, 5 years from now the Cupertino posse will add to their string of revolutionary, market altering products like the iMac, the iPod & the iPhone with.... wait for it.... clock radios, universal remotes, and digital picture frames. Seriously?!? OK, date check... nope, it's not April 1st. So I guess the industrial design professionals at Apple are really going to have to push themselves if they want to become Spencer's Gifts in the next half-decade.

Even the Mac-player-haters I know would expect more from Apple.

I would give anything to have a video of Jonathan Ive reading this report.... 2 Researchers, 1 Cup.

(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)