Strung Out On A Lazer Harp: Q&A With Radium Audio

by Kevin Holmes
from http://www.thecreatorsproject.com/





Radium Audio are, an audio collective that plays around with sound. They create innovative sonic branding and audio design, always searching for that ever-elusive “sound that stirs emotion.” They have a sound lab in East London where they conduct their musical experiments, make instruments and create interactive designs. They recently notified us of their latest creation: a lazer harp that can control sound and stills. Seeing as how we’re big fans of lazers, the project naturally piqued our interest, so we emailed them to find out some more about this mystical new musical instrument.
The Creators Project: So, obvious question here… how come the lazer harp?

Radium Audio: It’s been on the table for quite a long time. We had often talked about building something beautiful and magical using two of our favorite things: lazers and sound. When we were invited to represent sound at the F5 motiongraphics event in NYC, we decided the time was right to finally get on and build one!
How does your lazer harp differ from other lazer harps?

We did an audit on existing lazer harps, from the first ones built in the 1970s by Geoff Rose and Tim Walsh, via Jean-Michelle Jarre and his followers, up to the modern ones described on internet DIY sites, and we found that all of them were basically showpieces and not designed as a serious musical instrument. They were all monophonic—ours is polyphonic with selectable scales. They were not ergonomically designed for smooth and fast playing, rather for stage show effects. Our design is based on ergonomics and how a player can move his hands in a comfortable way over the beams—like a guitar neck, actually. Our harp is also velocity-sensitive to allow the same dynamics as a traditional piano keyboard.

Can you briefly explain how you built it?

First we made a wood mock-up with strings as beams, testing out sizes and angles to get it right. Then we made a thorough list of features we wanted to put inside it and then the design evolved from that. We passed through a number of prototypes before we got to the design we’ve used.

You’ve said the lazer harp controls video and stills, how does this work?

The lazer harp is basically a MIDI keyboard. We are using the MIDI control signals to control graphics as well as sound. This is a feature of the performance software we have developed for internal use.

Radium Audio Lazer Harp from Kevin Holmes on Vimeo.

What other instruments are you building?

We are currently building a series of hand gesture controllers, some using lazer beams and some using invisible sensors like IR [infrared] and similar. We have also developed middleware that turns “nonartistic” devices—such as bar code readers for example—into controllers for sound and visuals. And we have a number of other solutions up our sleeve that we cannot talk about openly just yet :) Just wait and see.

How dramatically do you see musical instruments evolving over the next 5-10 years?

Imagine the time when humans started to understand how to use—shape and control—wood and the revolution coming from that in terms of instrument making, all the possibilities: guitars, drums, violins and more. Now, consider the fact that it took quite a while from that point in time until we were able to build things like the Stradivarius violins, although it was built from the same material.

We are now at the end of a period in time when electronics and micro-processors have emerged as a major tool in musical instrument design—samplers, synthesizers and much more are all around us. However, we are still waiting for the Stradivariuses. Honestly, there’s quite a lot of bad design going around in the musical instrument world, especially in software-based devices. So, we are moving into the next phase: developing really good designs. It probably means that there will be few new basic technologies but, hopefully, a lot of improvements on designs. We are still waiting for the electronic instruments that you can buy at the age of 17 and live with for a lifetime, still evolving and finding out new things when you are 75. You can do that with a violin, why not with an electronic instrument ?

All images courtesy of Radium Audio

Deadly 'Star Wars lightsabre' sold in UK

From: http://www.metro.co.uk/

A deadly 'Star Wars lightsabre' is being sold to UK consumers for just £135. The 'Star Wars' style device produces a laser that can burn skin and cause instant blindness.

Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan (Picture: Absolute Film Archive)

But junior Jedis hoping to recreate the clash between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader should think again, as the Spyder III Pro Arctic is not a toy and its force could prove deadly, according to the manufacturer.

The 1watt tool, said to be the world’s most powerful portable laser, features a blue ray that is 1,000 times stronger than sunlight on skin.

‘Extremely dangerous is an understatement to the power,’ says Hong Kong manufacturer Wicked Lasers.

‘It will blind permanently and instantly and set fire quickly to skin and other body parts – use with extreme caution and only when using the included eye protection.’

The powerful beam can be seen by aircraft pilots 72km (45miles) away and should not be pointed at vehicles, children or animals, Wicked adds.

But, even though it is a potentially lethal weapon, it seems anyone with a credit card can order one.

Britain is listed as one of 70 countries the laser will be shipped to and there do not appear to be age checks on buyers.

Customers must agree to a Class IV Laser Hazard acknowledgment form before ordering online and the document says ‘people have been arrested, fined and jailed for misuse’.

The Spyder III comes with safety goggles but even these cannot fully protect against the rays.

A post on a laser enthusiasts’ website reads: ‘I just ordered one. It will be stored in my gun safe because it is about as dangerous as a handgun.’

The $200 (£135) device was built by adapting blue lasers from home cinema projectors.

Untouched is impossible: the story of Star Wars in film

By Ben Kuchera
From http://arstechnica.com

Last week saw the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back, and along with it came discussions about the best way to watch the film and what we can expect from future re-releases. Michael Kaminski wrote the exhaustively researched and illuminating book The Secret History of Star Wars, so he knows damn near everything there is to know about the film stock used to shoot the film. George Lucas famously said that the original film "doesn't exist" anymore, but is that accurate?

How exactly does Star Wars exist now? What are the challenges and possibilities involved in re-releasing a perfected original cut? How do the bootlegs stack up? Let's find out.

Many prints exist

We asked Kaminksi about the master copy of the original Star Wars. What does it look like now? "The term 'master copy' is slightly vague, because there are various kinds of print masters of different generations," he told Ars. The original negative is conformed to the 1997 Special Edition, meaning the physical copy has been cut and edited with CGI "improvements." With sections of the film being too damaged to work with, parts of that print were taken from other sources. "You never throw away your original negative, so I must assume that any pieces or shots that were removed are in storage somewhere at Lucasfilm or Fox," he explained.

Kaminski points out that a duplication of the original negative—commonly printed for the sake of protection—doesn't seem to exist for Star Wars. Something better was created, though: separation masters. "These are special silver-based copies that do not fade, and in theory should be almost identical in quality to the original negative itself, so even if the negative was destroyed you still have a perfect copy (which is the point of making the separation master)." Duplicates from these prints were used to replace damaged sections of the negative during the restoration before the release of the Special Edition.

That's not all, however. "There are also Interpositives and master prints. Interpositives (and Internegatives) are the color-corrected masters that theatrical prints are duplicated from, and were used in the past to make the home video telecines from 1985-1995." Another common practice is keeping print masters, which are high-quality, fine-grain prints kept in the eventuality that no other higher-quality copies or masters are available.

What this tells us is that Lucas wasn't lying—the original copy of Star Wars is, in fact, gone. What exists in its place is a composite film that has been restored and spliced together with Special Edition scenes and sections from other, later prints. There exist enough film copies and back-ups to re-create the film, however, so nothing is impossible in terms of a more classical high definition re-release.

Why film? Shouldn't this all be digital?

It's unclear how the film exists digitally within Lucasfilm, but Kaminski does know one thing: the scanning done in the past has become obsolete. "The 1997 SE scans were done in 2K and the 2004 Special Edition was done in 1080p, but now the standard is 8K (4 times the 1997 SE and about 7 times the quality of the 2004 SE), and the color reproduction is better too," he says.

While it may seem counter-intuitive, the original film remains important as the most robust way to store this information. Hard drives fail, and data is vulnerable to time. "This may seem silly because everyone always talks about how fragile film is, but film is the most robust, durable image technology we have ever invented. There are reels of film that date back to the 1920s that still look pretty good." He claims that color Eastman Kodak film has a half-life of around 50 to 60 years. Oddly enough, the negative film used in the 1970s to shoot Star Wars is less stable than the film used before or after. We'll get to a point where all we have left are digital copies, but technology has only recently allowed digital copies to rival the original celluloid in quality and detail.

Time to talk bootlegs!

In 2006, an official re-release of the original trilogy was brought to DVD without the annoying CGI updates seen in the Special Editions. The quality was impressive, but the film is shown in non-anamorphic widescreen, a major annoyance for fans of cinema. This is where the fans have stepped up to improve upon Lucas' official releases with high-quality bootlegs.

"Any bootleg made before 2006 is lesser than the 2006 DVD because they were made from the Laserdisc, while the 2006 DVD was made from the master tape that the Laserdisc was derived from and thus is one generation higher in quality," Kaminski tells Ars. "For a 20-year-old analog tape, it does look pretty decent." Bootlegs created after 2006 have used the DVD transfer for better quality video.

"There is a new 2010 bootleg by a guy named Editdroid (who did two previous ones from 1999-2005) that hasn't yet leaked onto the Internet that is quite astounding, and another version called LFL PWNAGE edition; both use the 2006 master," he said. "These bootlegs reduce the amount of grain that came from the use of the duplicate film, smoothed out the aliasing issues, [and] used the original subtitle font from the theatrical release. The aspect ratio has been corrected for true anamorphic widescreen, and the sound mix has likewise been improved."

"Unfortunately, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are not yet available in any of these. Empire is available in a theatrical reconstruction that is mostly accurate and made by the guy who did A New Hope Revisited (it was just released this week) and uses a color-corrected 2004 master with original shots re-composited in to very good effect."

Is there hope for a definitive release of the original films?

Kaminski says that he's fairly sure Lucas is done with large, sweeping changes, but we should expect a CGI Yoda in Episode 1 instead of the physical effect shot on the set. The inevitable Blu-ray copy of the movies will likely be safe from further meddling.

The thing he stresses is that a perfect, uncut version is possible with the film left from the edits, and there is money to be made there. "It's certainly possible to do a new, high-quality transfer from original 35mm material. You could totally restore the original films from their original negatives for a few million dollars, and the 2004 release sold $100 million in a single day, so that pricetag is meaningless."

We're not asking for much, here. "Even films like Revenge of the Nerds have new transfers from 35mm prints. It costs nothing, and there are fine-grain masters and Interpositives that would only require mild clean-up to be presentable, even if the transfers were grainier and a bit damaged."

Kaminski is not convinced that we'll get a classic version of Star Wars on a high definition format, at least not for a while. "I've been trying to organize a letter writing campaign to Lucasfilm and get websites to promote the importance of having the original versions in high quality," he said. "I really don't have any need to pay money for another release of the films unless the originals are restored and available, and I don't want to sound like a disgruntled fanboy. I just don't think the 2004 master is something I would pay money for again; I would rather just watch the bootlegs of the original versions."

What George Lucas does love is money, however, and the hunger and enthusiasm for the non-fussed-over releases is going to be impossible to ignore. "Which is a great—but callous—business practice on their part, because you get people to buy the same thing over and over again."

Why is this important?

The story of Star Wars is the story of film, and of how we keep our past to share with the future. George Lucas does have the legal right to change and adjust his own work any way he'd like, but Star Wars existed in a very specific way for its original theatrical run. Those memories, and those scenes, have a very real value and meaning to fans. This isn't just a science fiction film anymore—it's an important piece of culture.

Star Wars is always going to be an ephemeral thing, changing and shifting as the film adapts to the technology of the time. As the film gets older, digital copies will become more important, but fans are always going to yearn for a version of the film that may exist mostly in their imaginations. Every time George Lucas or a fan takes another crack at the film, it's a new interpretation of the past, and as the film ages and our viewing technology changes, it will continue to look different from how each of us remembers it.

Janet Hansen: Giving Daft Punk, MIA and Kanye that Laser Look

Posted by Motherboard
From: http://www.motherboard.tv/

Janet Hansen lights artists for stage.

No, not like that. She actually lights the artists themselves. Their entire bodies.

The founder and Chief Fashion Engineer of Enlighted Designs, Inc, Janet’s sewn her lifelong passions for fashion, art, and technology together into spectacular lighted costumery that’s illuminated shows like Dancing with the Stars and laser-lined real-life Tron characters Daft Punk (like this and this). And yes, she gave Kanye his illuminated Kanye shades.

In this episode of Motherboard, Janet shows us her San Diego studio and explains her technique for coaxing the robot side out of some of the world’s biggest future-minded performers. After learning to sew at age 7, she began installing miniature lights in her own dollhouse, and as her costume-making hobby bloomed, she began to incorporate more electronics into her fashion. While developing her artistic skills — she’s also a multimedia painter and sculptor — Janet studied engineering, and picked up a PhD in biomechanics. Today, she is arguably the most prolific lighted clothing designer in the world.

Still, says Janet, lighted clothing won’t necessarily be the fashion statement of the future. It will, however, always be the best way to knock your socks off. Your plain, lame, non-LED-encrusted socks.

Learn more – and grab some of your own ready-to-wear or custom-made garments at Enlighted, and read a guide by Janet on how to make your own electroluminescent outfits at Instructables

Make Your Own Star Trek Phaser

By: Laura Hudson
From: http://www.comicsalliance.com

Countless Star Trek fans have dreamed about owning their own phaser, and while Wikipedia lists it as a "fictional weapon," one enterprising (rim shot) gentleman decided not to let anyone else tell him what can and cannot be real, and transformed a 1994 Playmates replica of the phaser from the classic "Star Trek" series into a 320mA – 465mW laser device, complete with appropriate sound effect.



He's even got a tutorial to help you build your own, and while this may not be as dangerous as the "real" thing -- e.g. able to burrow tunnels through solid rock and disintegrate hostile aliens -- there's a video of the guy popping balloons with the beam, so it's not a joke, particularly if you shoot it into someone's eyes. Remember: Once you add actual lasers to a toy, it's not a toy anymore, so don't point it at any living things, ok?

Two years in jail for pointing a laser at a plane

from: http://www.gadling.com/

by Scott Carmichael (RSS feed)

The "sport" of pointing a laser pointer at a plane is not new - many people have been arrested for the stupid stunt.

Last week was a first though - someone caught pointing their laser at two planes was arrested, and sentenced to two and a half years in jail.

His first target was a United Airlines plane carrying 180 passengers. When the beam hit the cockpit window, the pilot caught it right in the eye, causing "flash blindness". The second target was an Alaska Airlines jet, this time the pilot was able to duck below a glare shield, but did have to abort a critical turn.

There appears to be no shortage of stupidity in the world, and shining a laser pointer at a jet just reinforces that. I'm not even sure what is going through the mind of someone who thinks this is a fun game.

These planes are carrying a lot of people, and in many cases they are on their final approach, one of the most critical parts of the entire flight. To me, two and a half year is on the short side - but hopefully it'll still send a message to anyone else who was thinking of messing around with their laser pointer.

Gallery: Ten pilots you don't want in your cockpit

Kellogg's 'laser-etched' cornflakes

By staff writers

news.com.au

This is the image Kellogg's posted online as an example of laser-etched food. Picture: Kellogg's / TwitPic

• Cereal-maker's bizarre claim
• Plans to 'laser-etch corn flakes'
• Technology: Kellogg's confirms laser plan

IS this a marketing stunt, an elaborate hoax or a bizarre attempt by one of the world's biggest food producers to protect an iconic breakfast cereal from imitators?

The British PR office for Kellogg's claimed on its Twitter feed today that it has succeeded in etching its brand into individual corn flakes so they stand out against any copies.

UPDATE: Kellogg's confirms laser-etched cornflakes are real - but not in Australia »

"Now you'll always be able to tell your Corn Flakes from your corn fakes!" Kellogg's UK announced on Twitter, with a link to an image of branded cereal.

Incredulous

Kellogg's claims the image, which looks like a badly doctored photograph, shows the result of a laser process that directs a concentrated beam of light onto the flake, using mirrors to control the burn.

The UK's Daily Telegraph today quoted a food technologist named as Helen Lyons as saying: "We want shoppers to be under absolutely no illusion that Kellogg's does not make cereal for anyone else.

"We've established that it is possible to apply a logo or image onto food, now we need to see if there is a way of repeating it on large quantities of our cereal," Ms Lyons said.

"We're constantly looking at new ways to reaffirm this and giving our golden flakes of corn an official stamp of approval could be the answer."

Laser-etching has been used to customise gadgets, create artworks and – in one dangerous experiment – tattoo a teenager's arm.

In 2005, Time magazine recognised Greg Drouillard for his invention of fruit tattoos, which was being tested at the time.

Mr Drouillard, a researcher for Sunkist Growers, says the laser essentially cauterises the burn on the food to stop it from spoiling.

World’s Most Powerful Laser has the Energy of a Hydrogen Bomb

Posted by Samuel R. Avro

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) laser bay at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

At a cost of $3.5 billion and more than a decade of work, the 192 laser beams are billed as the most powerful in the world.

Scientists working at the National Ignition Facility of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, have built the most powerful laser in the world, capable of simulating the energy force of a hydrogen bomb and the sun itself.

“The system already has produced 25 times more energy than any other laser system,” said NIF Director Ed Moses.

The Energy Department is expected to announce Tuesday that it has officially certified the National Ignition Facility, which would clear the way for a series of experiments which scientists hope will eventually will mimic the heat and pressure found at the center of the sun.

The successful completion of the laser is the culmination of more than a decade of work at a cost of $3.5 billion.

“NIF is well on its way to achieving breakthroughs in science never imagined. Through our readiness testing we will see glimpses of what that future will bring,” said Moses.

This artist's rendering shows a NIF target pellet inside a hohlraum capsule with laser beams entering through openings on either end. The beams compress and heat the target to the necessary conditions for nuclear fusion to occur. Ignition experiments on NIF will be the culmination of more than 30 years of inertial confinement fusion research and development, opening the door to exploration of previously inaccessible physical regimes.

NIF’s 192 laser beams, housed in a ten-story building the size of three football fields, travel a long path, about 1,000 feet, from their birth at one of the two master oscillators to the center of the target chamber. As the beams move through NIF’s amplifiers, their energy increases exponentially. From beginning to end, the beams’ total energy grows from one-billionth of a joule (a joule is the energy needed to lift a small apple one meter against the Earth’s gravity) to four million joules, a factor of more than a quadrillion - and it all happens in less than 25 billionths of a second.

Each master oscillator generates a very small, low-energy laser pulse. The pulse may range from 100 trillionths to 25 billionths of a second long, and has a specific temporal shape as requested by NIF experimenters.

The laser is expected to be used for a wide range of high-energy and high-density physics experiments, but its primary purpose is to assist government physicists in ensuring the reliability of the nation’s nuclear weapons as they become older.

The Lawrence Livermore lab will be taking order of the world’s most powerful supercomputer –capable of performing at 20 petaflops (1 petaflop equals 1 thousand trillion floating-point operations per second), twenty times faster than the current record holder, and more powerful than all of the systems on the top 500 supercomputer list combined– currently being constructed by IBM under contract by the U.S. government, which will also be utilized to ensure the safety of the country’s nuclear weapons.

“We are well on our way to achieving what we set out to do – controlled, sustained nuclear fusion and energy gain for the first time ever in a laboratory setting,” said Director Moses.

The Laser and Target Area Building is the size of three football fields.

“This laser technology has the potential to revolutionize our energy future,” California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said during a tour last year of the stadium-sized NIF facility. “If successful, this new endeavor could generate thousands of megawatts of carbon-free nuclear power but without the drawbacks of conventional nuclear plants. This type of innovation is why we are a world leader in science, technology and clean energy, and I could not be prouder that this work is happening right here in California.”

The project is a national collaboration among government, industry and academia and many industrial partners throughout the nation.

The NIF’s 192 laser beams are 60 to 70 times more powerful than the world’s second strongest - a 60-beam system located at the University of Rochester.

Click here to take a complete 360° panoramic virtual tour of the entire NIF facility and their laser system.

The International Space Station Needs Laser Turrets

By Jesus Diaz

OK, let's cut the crap here, NASA: After today's near-evacuation, it's clear that you need weapons on the International Space Station. And don't forget to put web controls so we all can play.

Seriously now: This is seriously fraked up. The ISS is almost as big as a Corellian corvette and it's up there defenseless, floating peacefully, sitting like a dinosaur-sized duck, waiting for one of the 18,000 pieces of tracked space debris to crack it open and take it down in a fiery ball of junk.

Sure, they have a escape spaceship for astronauts. In case things go bad—like they almost did today—they can jump in there and fly away before the worst happens. However, after all the money and effort put in the only human post in space, do we want to send everything to hell for a piece of orbiting crap? Wouldn't it be better to install defense mechanisms against space debris—or, ah, hmmm, alien ships!—to preserve the ISS?

Technically, there are already weapon systems that may be altered to perform this task, but this is not an easy task. We know it is not as easy as firing a laser and taking down the incoming chunk of metal with a Star Wars explosion.

There's a lot of things to be taken into account. First, you will need to detect the threat and fire from a very long distance, so the resulting effect doesn't cause any harm to the ISS itself. Then, the method to take down the object will change depending on its nature. Is it a big satellite or just a big chunk of metal from a previous collision? Does the incoming object have explosive elements inside? If the object is too big and can't be obliterated in a single shot, perhaps it would be better to have some kind of rocket that may approach the object and change its orbit by exploding near it? Perhaps some kind of emergency tug that can attach to the object and take it down?

We don't know. Whatever NASA and its international partner can come up with, they need to do it as soon as possible. Things are getting complicated up there, and this doesn't conflict with the international protocols against the militarization of space—which, in any case, are being constantly violated by the US, Russia, and China.

This will be a defense mechanism against space threats, and that's exactly what the ISS needs. It is just too valuable to be left there with no protection. NASA, it's time to get some pew pew action going on up there.