First iPad reviews hit the web

With the iPad a few days away, now begins one of the great rituals of the release of a new Apple product: the posting of the reviews from the lucky few journalists who were given a week to play with the product. [read reviews at MacWorld.com]

The Bird and the Bee: Interpreting the Masters Volume 1: A Tribute to Daryl Hall and John Oates

And now, a note from John Oates

Anytime an artist covers a song by Daryl and myself, I am usually flattered and always curious. This is the first time that a band has dedicated an entire album to the music of Hall & Oates. In regard to their interpretation of our songs, what can I say? Inara George has a sensual, smooth delivery, and hearing these songs performed from a female point of view is both surprising and engaging.

Greg Kurstin’s production is very downtown noir; it’s sonically coherent with a nod of respect to the retro, but more of a vision toward the future. This record is the aural VIP room where the musical genius of The Bird and the Bee hang out with the lounge lizards and create a cool new cocktail. Whatever they’re mixing, I want some.

Words with Friends coming to iPad

This is my favorite iPhone game. The insanely popular turn-based, multiplayer, Scrabulous-like word game for the iPhone and iPod Touch is being enhanced for iPad and released as an “HD” version this coming weekend.

Though there have been many Scrabble copies on the iPhone, few have resonated as well as NewToy’s excellent turn-based Words with Friends. If you were a fan of the spectacular time-waster Scrabulous on Facebook (now Lexulous) this is basically the same kind of thing, optimized for an iDevice. You can search for opponents from your contacts list, start multiple games at once and chat with buddies while you play. It’s a beautifully streamlined experience, and there’s an optimized iPad version coming this weekend in the shape of Words with Friends HD, and it should be in the App Store as soon as the iPad stuff is live. Here’s a screen shot of it in its “HD” glory. [via GamePro]

The 7 Most Motivational Quotes Ever Spoken

The word “EVER” might be a stretch, but there is some quality to these quotes.

Today I want to talk about the seven most motivational quotes ever spoken (or written). Why? Because motivation is the key to success! I like what Zig Ziglar said about motivation, he said, “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”

Motivation is something you need everyday. It’s motivation that pushes you forward when you want to collapse; it’s motivation that lights the end of the tunnel. If life is a road trip, then motivation is the engine that will take you to your destination. Nothing happens without motivation. Have you been motivated today?

Here are the seven most motivational quotes ever written or spoken, I’ve subtitled them, and given them some commentary, I hope you enjoy. [read: Dumb Little Man]

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”–Helen Keller

Pentax K-x : Muscling in on Nikon and Canon [review]

First Impressions ::
The test camera wasn’t a nice red one as I’d imagined (yes, it comes in white and navy blue as well), but a dull black unit. The K-x is a fraction bigger than my old Nikon D40, which I’ll use as a benchmark since it was entry-level DSLR champ 3 years ago. The Pentax is a bit heavier with 4 standard NMH rechargeable batteries in its handgrip. The second dull note comes from the ordinary viewfinder and the vital shooting data on the bottom row, which is hard to read in bright light. By contrast, the screen on the back is bright and the info pretty clear. The autofocus is snappy if noisy, and response to the trigger is immediate. No complaints about the handling.

Take some test shots in the evening light, I struck another dull note as Aperture Priority mode seemed to worked to a dark priority of its own. Switching to manual turned off auto ISO, which I didn’t realise at the time, so I still wasn’t hearing music. I couldn’t read the tiny exposure number in the viewfinder either and ended up using the shoot-and-check-the-screen method.

At home in front of my PC, I discovered that the standard USB cable I use for my Nikon and Canon cameras didn’t fit the Pentax – a real discord as I’d lent my SD-to USB-gizmo to a friend and had no way to pull any photos out of this camera. [read]

Teach Design: The Importance of Failure

I won’t pretend to know a lot about Samuel Beckett or his writing, but the notion of “failing better” resonates very strongly with me. Design is all about failure. It’s about taking an initial swag at something and seeing how it works. Does your design solve the problem? Does it create a delightful, intuitive experience? Not quite? Well, then tweak it. Rev it. Iterate it. The more you experiment, the more you iterate, the better.

Why is that? Well, when doing design work, you’re drawing up plans. But plans are just that—mental thoughts that you project on a subject matter. In the words of the architect Louis Kahn, you’re trying to create “meaningful order.” Order is pretty easy: Just pick and organizing principle or a pattern and you’ve got order. But meaningful? That’s the tricky part. What is meaningful? To whom is it meaningful? Is it universally meaningful or is it just meaningful to a particular audience? [read]

DIY Digital Synth with Vintage Filter

For all the hype around mobile music creation, here’s a story with an ending in the opposite direction. Independent developer Olivier Gillet is the reason a lot of people see handheld gadgets as potential music making devices; he’s the creator of the brilliant Bhajis Loops for Palm. But, as if to prove that hardware can be a digital platform, too, his latest creation, while it will fit in your palm, isn’t for a device like the overcrowded iPhone.

And as we take up the issue of platforms for sonic tech, Olivier’s timing is perfect. Amidst gloom and doom predictions of the sunset of tinkering, the tinkerers soldier on. [read]

A Complete Mobile Platform For Audio Engineers: The iPhone OS

There was a time not long ago when a cell phone performed no function other than what its name implied; it placed phone calls.

Today, however, using a cell phone is less about the act of placing a phone call and more about using its other capabilities.

Whether you carry a Windows Mobile, RIM Blackberry, Google Android, or Palm webOS device, you’re carrying more raw functionality and processing power into the field than was once available in even the most powerful computer.

Thus, it’s not terribly surprising that software developers found the right development platform to leverage to create some amazing tools for Audio Engineers; enter the iPhone OS.

First announced by Apple, Inc. on January 7th of 2007, the mobile phone and computing industries were thrown into a tailspin from which they are only now beginning to recover.

Featuring an App Store, hardware accessories, and multiple hardware tiers, the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and the imminent iPad have made available to the masses an amazing set of tools which are bound to make any engineers life easier. [read]

The iPad Is Perfect for Sheet Music

Think about it! Easy or even automatic page turns, an endless library saved as PDF, visual and audio metronomes: The iPad, with an app like ForScore, is kind of the ultimate sheet music machine, no?

When people talk about what the iPad’s going to be good for, most people jump to the obvious choices: It’s going to revolutionize newspapers! And magazines! (It might.) It’ll be great for watching videos! (It probably won’t.) But really, it’s the little markets, mostly untouched by the often too-small iPhone. I’m talking about comics. Drum machines. Sheet music.

It’s these little nooks that make the prospect of what amounts to a medium-sized piece of touchable glass most exciting, not the obvious—and hyperbolic—predictions about stuff that already has a digital presence. Bring on the niche, iPad devs. [via Gizmodo via ForScore]

Mumford & Sons: Sigh No More [review]

Sigh No More flutters to life with an apology. In an ethereal four-part harmony, the British foursome intones Benedict’s line to Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing: “Serve God, love me and mend,” and then the voices swell in unison: “And I’m sorry.” It’s one of the only pastoral moments on the band’s hour-long debut LP, but the sentiment lingers.

More than anything else, this much-hyped collection is an album chock full of gorgeous remorse—and it’s bursting at the seams. The tired snivels of the spindly-armed strummer have no place here; it’s an amped-up, bass-heavy, banjo-picking pity party made of the same violent stuff that once inspired a lusty 17th-century cleric to demand of his deity: “Batter my heart.” From that first flowery track to “Little Lion Man,” where frontman Marcus Mumford croaks: “It was not your fault but mine, but it was your heart on the line,” to “Timshel,” where he laments “Death … will steal your innocence,” it’s wide-eyed, giddy yawp of an almost saccharine nature. Lyrical subtlety is not Mumford & Sons’ strong suit, and it doesn’t matter at all. [read]