Unlike most of the people of my generation, I don't really like modern music, and keep to classical music and original soundtracks from movies. Anyway, today I learned that David Cope had built an Artificial Intelligence software capable of composing classical music.

Sample music from Emily Howell

Emmy, from Experiments in Musical Intelligence, was born in 1981, when David Cope started research in computer music. Himself a composer, he wanted a software that could analyse his music, and tell him what should be the next note, or the next measure, or even all the notes to finish the music piece.

Now, after a few years of silence, Cope is back with Emily Howell, his new software whose aim is not too complete his work, but create her own compositions. The way Emily works is by conversing with David Cope, analyzing succession of notes and giving a rate.

Like many Algorists out there, David had to cope with people saying that computer generated music has no soul. But the same man (a chemistry professor) heard the same piece twice, the first time without knowing that it was composed by an artificial intelligence. The first time he heard it, he though this was the best piece of music ever, but the second time, when he knew it was computer generated, he simply said : You know, that’s pretty music, but I could tell absolutely, immediately that it was computer-composed. There’s no heart or soul or depth to the piece.

So I guess the problem is not the art made itself, but just the fact that it was not made by a human being. Anyway, Emily's music is the best computer generated music I've ever heard, with some kind of Philip Glass feeling (I think).

A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians.

Franck Zappa

Source : Korben

Nikki Graziano defines herself as both photographer and mathematician, and i must agree with her. When she take a photo of nature, she then draws a math functions to map (more or less) the shapes in the photo.

Here's an exemple of what she can do, more exemples being available on her website.

Found Functions - Nikki Graziano

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

Albert Einstein

Last week, I introduced Kodu, the new XBox game editor made by Microsoft. I used the PC version to test it and although it is a very good idea, it very quickly showed its limits.

First of all, the terrain editor system is not very easy to use, and sometimes doesn't work at all. Moreover, using 4 modes to edit the terrain makes it very counter productive, cause you need to go from one mode to another every ten seconds.

Then, about the behavior system in itself, each icon/block is very easy to understand, the names and images are quite self explanatory. But the system in itself is more obscure. Some elements can't work with one another, and you loose parallelism. I tried to make a tron/snake (kind of), so i needed my cycle to always go forward, and only turn when i turned the Joystick right/left. I created three instructions :

1. When joystick pressed towards left, turn object on the left;
2. When joystick pressed towards right, turn object on the right;
3. Always move object forward.

When I only had instructions 1 and 2, everything worked fine, the cycle turned left/right. As soon as I added the 3^rd instruction, the cycle only moved forward, ignoring the two other instructions. I had to change instruction 3 to : When joystick not pressed, move object forward. Then I got the problem of trying to detect a collision to make the game over. And still got no solution as the instruction is ignored...

Finally what's very sad is the limited number of behaviors available in Kodu, some games will be almost impossible to make

Apart from that, the rendering and global look and feel is very nice, although a little too Wii for me, and you can add some effects on objects.

I'm definitely not up-to-date on the high-tech videogame world.

Rachel Dratch

Here's the trailer for the next Lego Game : Lego Universe, a MMOG in which you'll be able to build the universe. Like Second Life, you'll have the ability to create houses, objects or avatars, but with the look and feel of the classic Lego bricks. When you want to build something, you can of course start with a predetermined shape, or create a custom object from scratch.

Then of course, you'll have all the social networking tools needed nowadays, and also some gameplay elements : smash the environment, go on a quest, PVE, PVP. About the environment, thanks to the wideness of all the Lego brands, you'll be able to go from Sci Fi to Fantasy.

The game should be released this year, and will be available on DVD and download for PC only. Meanwhile let's watch the trailer...

LEGO Universe - Trailer [Youtube]

Life is a gift, but it’s more than just that. Life is a challenge.

Ole Kirk Christiansen [Founder of Lego]

It's been a while since we've seen the first 2D games making use of physic engines, but here is the first one which I'd really like to play with. PixelJunk Shooter is a game available on PS3 Network, and is both a platform/action and a puzzle game (kind of). From what I've seen, you control a ship to rescue PNJ scattered in a 2D world.

According to the level, you're surrounded either by fire or ice, and need to use the available resources to make a way to the exit. You can drop water on the fire, or fire on the ice, each fluid being rendered with a smooth animation. An image being better than a thousand words, I'll let you enjoy the video.

PixelJunk™ Shooter E3 Trailer [Youtube]

Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?

George Carlin

So Facebook engineers are geeks too. Indeed, if you use the classic cheat code "Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Enter, Right Clic", a Lens Flare effect will appear in your Browser. Ok, it's useless, but hey, it's fun!

Oh and to remove the effect, simply close the page and open a new browser.

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