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A brief documentary about the sensorial wonders of field recording
Since the birth of audio recording in the 19th century, people have used the technology to capture the ambient sounds of our world for later playback. With the invention of high-quality, portable tape...
View ArticleFoley artists share how they make sex noises
A nasty comedy short depicting a foley artist fisting a jar of mayo to make sex noises for the movies was not far off the truth. Sometimes. Rebecca Pahle: “Stay away from gooey, wet sounds, because it...
View ArticleA free internet is a configurable internet
I appeared on the O'Reilly podcast this week to discuss my upcoming keynote at the O'Reilly Fluent Conference. I discuss the idea of "configurability" (which I first learned encountered in Aram...
View ArticleBubble, a new dystopian podcast sitcom!
The Maximum Fun podcast network (home to such shows as Judge John Hodgman (previously), Oh No Ross and Carrie (previously), and Sawbones) has just launched its most ambitious project to date: a...
View ArticleNeat audio illusion explained using that annoying Smashmouth song
Get your game on, go play. (AsapSCIENCE)
View ArticleHear the sounds of the Sun
NASA scientists listen to the low-frequency pulsing hum of the Sun to gain insight into the star's atmosphere over time. The raw data comes from the ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA’s Solar and...
View ArticleBundyville: a bingeable new podcast that delves into the apocalyptic cult of...
For many of us, the Cliven Bundy story started when a fringey rancher got a bunch of his militia pals to flex their white privilege by threatening to shoot federal law enforcement officers who'd...
View ArticleJBL reissues their classic 1970s speakers with the fantastic space-age grills
In 1970, JBL introduced the L-100 home hi-fi speakers based on the company's popular 4310 Pro Studio monitors. With their fantastic sound quality for the price, particularly for rock music, and their...
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I spoke with the CEO of Sennheiser about audio, virtual reality and the...
Working as a technology journalist is a privilege that allows me to play with hardware that I could never afford to own. Last week, while I was in Montreal for the opening of Sennheiser's new Canadian...
View ArticleWelcome to Hollow Falls - and Lethal Lit, a New Scripted Crime Podcast
It started with a phone call. Heather Einhorn and Adam Staffaroni, the masterminds behind the entertainment creative house known as Einhorn’s Epic Productions, wanted to chat. Cool, I thought. I’d...
View ArticleLast chance to back the Kickstarter for our interdisciplinary seminar series...
I have been collaborating with science fiction writer, singer, librettist and Renaissance scholar Ada Palmer and science historian and piracy expert Adrian Johns to put on a seminar series at the...
View ArticleGorgeous free mix of contemporary and archival "world music" and avant-garde...
Composer and producer Josiah Steinbrick -- who has worked with the likes of Devendra Banhart and Danger Mouse along with releasing his own music -- is also a rigorous record collector and curator of...
View ArticleTalking dystopia, utopia, science fiction and theories of change on the...
When I was in Berlin last month, I stopped into the offices of Netzpolitik (previously), the outstanding German digital rights activist group, where I recorded an interview for their podcast (MP3),...
View ArticleMy favorite end-of-year tradition: the Bullseye podcast standup comedy special
As is the case every year Maximum Fun's Jesse Thorn has posted a special episode (MP3) of the Bullseye podcast, anthologizing excerpts from the best comedy albums of the year. Here's this year's...
View ArticleVideo from the launch of the EFF/McSweeney's "End of Trust" project launch...
The End of Trust is the first-ever nonfiction issue of McSweeney's, co-edited by McSweeney's editors and the staff of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; on December 11, we held a sold-out launch...
View ArticleWoman with medical condition can't hear "male voices"
A woman in China reportedly suffering from a rare medical condition supposedly can't hear male voices. Most hearing loss occurs at higher frequencies when the delicate hair-like stereocilia of the...
View ArticleLasers can beam audible messages directly to people's ears
Researchers at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, a United States Department of Defense research facility, developed laser systems that can "transmit various tones, music and recorded speech at a...
View ArticleA free excerpt from UNAUTHORIZED BREAD, my latest audiobook
Unauthorized Bread is the first installment of my next science fiction book for adults, Radicalized, which comes out in just over a month; the audiobook is available DRM-free on Google Play and direct...
View ArticleThe amazing story behind the sounds of Star Wars: Episode IV
In this wonderful video, Ben Burtt, sound designer for Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, reveals the secrets behind the fantastic zaps, beeps, and growls in that first film in the series. His first...
View ArticleNew Ways of Seeing: James Bridle's BBC radio show about networked digital...
James "New Aesthetic" Bridle (previously) is several kinds of provocateur and artist (who can forget his autonomous vehicle trap, to say nothing of his groundbreaking research on the violent Youtube...
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