Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Download Free Computer-Generated Christmas MP3s [Featured Download]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/Jz7sUGiKLYg/download-free-computer+generated-christmas-mp3s

Load up your iTunes playlist with some holiday cheer but save a few bucks in the process with almost 20 classic holiday recordings that are available as a free download from the Garritan music community.

The Garritan Community Christmas album includes tunes from O Holy Night to Auld Lang Syne. What's most interesting is how they were recorded:

A community of musicians from all over the world met on the Garritan community forum and agreed to submit their own recordings of holiday music, to be freely distributed. Each of these orchestral recordings were made not with large live orchestras in vast recording studios at huge expense, but rather were created by a single person working on their own desktop or laptop computer. What they have in common is the use of Garritan libraries representing software musical instruments based on samples of real instruments.

Preview the tunes on-site before you download, then grab the entire album (with art) to add to your collection for free.

Garritan Christmas Music Player [via Pogue's Posts]

Auto Bailout Won't Mean More Ad Buys

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AdvertisingAge/LatestNews/~3/Tc95ZMc4DFc/article.php

DETROIT (AdAge.com) -- General Motors Corp. may finally be getting its loan from the federal government, but that doesn't mean it's going to resume its former marketing-spending levels.

Nano-Sized Semiconductor Dots Could Fix Your Terrible Vision [Nanotech]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/yotZwOH8QIQ/nano+sized-semiconductor-dots-could-fix-your-terrible-vision

New Scientist reports that researchers at the University of Colorado came up with this crazy idea that if they inject semiconductor nanoparticles in your retinas, photons will make them glow, thus improving your vision.

These quantum dots, as they're referred to, would theoretically fluoresce when hit by light packets, and serve as a light amplifier for retinal images. The patent says early tests on rats have been successful, as they showed improved vision over the control group. The upside is that this solution requires no power source, and can target specific areas of the retina, making it more of a reality than bionic eyes or begging for an eye cam. [Patent via New Scientist via Oh Gizmo!]

Eyeglasses With Fluid-Filled Sac for World's Poor Are Instantly Adjustable [Glasses]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/y_x0iRn5RcU/eyeglasses-with-fluid+filled-sac-for-worlds-poor-are-instantly-adjustable

British Inventor Josh Silver has developer a pair of eyeglasses that are instantly adjustable. They've got a liquid-filled sac in the middle—add more fluid to make the glasses stronger, deflate to weaken them.

The no-optician-required glasses rely on the principle that the fatter a lens is, the more powerful it comes, so by pumping in or sucking out fluid, the glasses can be instantly tailored to the right strength. They're so simple to adjust that practically anyone can do it. So far the only complaint with the glasses is that they're kind of ginormous—which kind of goes with having specs that operate on the coke-bottle glasses principle and have a fluid-filled membrane sitting in the middle of the lens.

Silver is planning a trial in India that will distribute over 1 million of the glasses, which he hopes to have strapped to the heads over a billion of the world's poorest people—at a cost of $1 per pair—by the poetic date of 2020. Luckily for him, giant glasses are ironically cool again, so he could probably launch a Get 1, Give 10 style program funded entirely by hipsters . [Guardian via MAKE]

Boxee Media Center Open to Everyone on Jan. 8 [Boxee]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/mhpt4xU_-wA/boxee-media-center-open-to-everyone-on-jan-8

Boxee, which is our favorite way to unleash the true power of Apple TV is going from invite-only to totally open on Jan. 8, as it chugs along from alpha to beta. [boxee via Engadget]