Spotify Player is the work of Jordi Parra and his degree project: a device to listen to Spotify at home.

In a nutshell the objects consists of Processing sketch, Arduino and an RFID reader. Each RFID tag can be assigned to a Spotify link, album, artist or search. When the tag is placed on the reader, an ID-12, it sends a trigger to Processing and triggers an AppleScript that will take over Spotify and play whatever is linked to that tag. The processing sketch can also retrieve the information about the track that is being played. For doing so, a packet sniffer is checking all the internet packets sent from the computer and whenever it finds something being sent to Last.fm, it grabs it and parses the track information (artist, album, title and length).

The two small buttons on the bottom left of the device skip to the previous and next track in the queue. The big know is the volume, and the magnets are place on top of it. The knob has a magnet so the RFID tags stick to it.

The object also includes three LED matrices, a total of 192 LED’s, to display information under the pattern of the speaker. In the video below you can see the LED’s turning on individually. It is just testing them to see if everything is working, but eventually they will be used to display battery levels, internet connection problems, premium subscription days left and other information.

The project is now 99% complete. Read more about the detailed making process on Jordi’s blog.

(thanks Emilio)

Created by Daniel Feles, refreq is a customisable music player. You can load music files into refreq, but also images (bitmaps, imgs, pngs). When you load a song, first the program analyzes the track, then it draws its frequency spectrum. After tracking, you can generate the spectral image / bitmap back into music. Likewise, if you load an image, according to pixel value to application scans the image based on the line you can position anywhere on the screen. Simultaneously you can move the line while the content is being played producing some quite interesting variations.

I was listening to music, when I fell asleep. When the track was over, I woke up and just realized, this music would be really cool for a documentation video, but we have to rotate it 90 degree. At this point, it’s getting really interesting. After you have the image of the track, how you want to play it depends on you, You can play with the timeline, to play the sound from another aspect.

Daniel is also looking for collaborators for this opensource project, to bring windows and linux versions of the software. You can download the source here and get in touch with Daniel via his site.

Project Page

Created with openFrameworks

Created for Music Hack Day, Speakatron is a Mac application by Marek Bereza which allows you to play sounds using your mouth only. Made with openFrameworks the app uses your webcam to look to see if your mouth is open and then plays a sound if it is.

Download the app or source here.

To get it to work you may have to press spacebar to enable the GUI, then adjust the threshold slider until it starts working. You will also need to adjust the “threshold” slider, probably needs to be between 3 and 20. If you close your mouth and then slide it so it just stops triggering until you open your mouth – see movie below.

Press 1, 2, 3 or 4 to try different sounds – I got a cat, a synth, birdsong and buddhist monks. Open the data/patches folder to reveal the pd patches that drive the audio.

Created with openframeworks, opencv and libzengarden for the audio. libzengarden is a complete re-write of puredata in C++ so you can integrate it into your own apps without the whole giant leviathan of Pd running in the background.

Radiobones is the first visual radio created by guppies in the dark. Instead of looking away once you press play, Radiobones includes a skeleton which dances a routine between ballroom dance and pogo which you set in the settings panel. The app allows you to add your own radio stations, flick between them and set a routine for the skeleton. My only comment would be to include no sleep function and it is somewhat unfortunate that not many stations offer a URL stream of their shows. Other than this, Radiobones is now officially my favorite radio player!

RadioBones is a highly sophisticated piece of software but completely useless. (Except for those who have nothing else to do but staring at their radio) It does take full advantage of the iPhone and iPod Touch. The accelerometer, multi touch and high-res screen. Now it is fun to look at your favorite radio station. Download stand start playing.

Radiobones uses the physical engine “chipmunk” which was written by Scott Lembcke.

Guppies in the Dark is a young company founded by Victor Bergen Henegouwen. Together with Monique, Niels, Mirko and Arjen they form a strange but oh so innovative mix of people creating their own playground. We reject reality and substitute it by our own.

Platform: iPhone
Version: 1.0
Cost: $0.99
Developer: guppies in the dark

MultiVid is a multi-screen synchronization playback solution for the iPhone and the iPodTouch. Instead of using a centralized video processor, MultiVid allows you to play videos simultaneously on a number of iPhones/iPod Touches.

Using a desktop application for both Mac and Windows you can transfer videos to the devices via WiFi and play them simultaneously. Devices are also aware of other devices running MultiVid so you can launch videos using one of the many devices. The desktop application also informs you which devices are online and which are playing what video.

Any number of MultiVid units can be synchronized. Sync accuracy is currently around 500 milliseconds and might be further improved in future versions of the software.

Currently under review at Apple, MultiVid should be available in the AppStore soon as a free download.

See videos below for more information.

MultiVid was created by Marco Tempest, magician and illusionist who uses computer-generated imagery in his performances. More about Marco..

Continue reading.... Yooouuutuuube [Flash]

Continue reading.... Flickr Clock [Flash]