MIT News (09/10/10) Morgan Bettex

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab professor Tod Machover has spent more than a decade inventing the technology for a new opera premiering in September that could redefine the technological enhancement of live performance. Machover says he designed the technique of disembodied performance to complement the singers rather than overshadow them, which he sees as a problem in contemporary musical performances. Machover's opera, "Death and the Powers," features a character who is offstage most of the time, and who expresses himself through elements that include an animated set of bookcases and a chandelier that emits light and has Teflon strings that can channel the unseen character's presence when they are strummed. In addition, there are nine life-size singing robots that function as a chorus and frame the narrative. The disembodied performance is rendered through software that measures both conscious and unconscious aspects of the singer's performance, such as volume, pitch, muscle tension, and breathing patterns. | via technews

would like to hear and see

computing as science

"computing can't be viewed as a branch of science since it doesn't deal with with nature but with an artifact, namely the computer | simone santini, letter to acm on computing's paradigm

energy efficiency in today's discussions few are talking about energy savings, its more about shifting the problem to another domain, to other energy sources at best.

synchroton light facility en cataluña, opened 22nd of march 2010.

nature has an article about how to keep this big facilities and research infrastructure en europa alive and funded.

isa, still under construction but gaining alife behind historic bricks; received 10mill euro from the invicta foundation de austria. | isa.