Joel Scilley creates unusual wood-based audio components.

What would a picture of the 2000s look like? The Economist asks contemporary designers and curators to identify icons of the past decade.

The Wall of Sound brings a strong physical presence back to the act of listening to music.

In his fist speech since major surgery, Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs has announced that his company wants to get into the digicam market.

While online music distribution avenues like Apple’s iTunes have had moderate success in keeping the music industry alive in the wake of the disintegration of CD sales, the new music consumer still prefers downloading the best or most popular tracks off the album, leaving the rest behind. Some music traditionalists and certainly record labels bemoan the death of the physical album as a complete, physical package, and not just for the fatter sales tapes, CDs, and LPs procured for the latter. Beyond the simple fact that stores and labels could charge more for albums, the sentiment persists that there was [...]

A couple of weeks ago I suggested in a post that the application market could grow to be as large as the web and that we shouldn’t be wondering when the ‘boom’ was going to end. Now, commentators on a panel at the VentureBeat’s MobileBeat conference have suggested that the number of apps will grow by 100,000 a year and that in ten years we may see 10 billion mobile applications. The BBC reports:
“Apps will be as big if not bigger than the internet,” according to Ilja Laurs, chief executive of GetJar, a leading independent application store. They will peak [...]

Wired UK carries gossip that the next iteration of the iPod Touch will carry a camera and microphone. As I read it I notice the cordless phone on my table an old iPod connected to the kitchen radio. These older iPods are becoming [...]

A year after the launch of Apple’s application store, some 56,000 applications are now available for users of the iPhone and iPod Touch. While several commentators wonder when this boom will end, the PSFK team thinks that asking that type of question is a little like asking when the number of websites would stop growing back in 1994. Apps are the new website, no? Some apps are going to be tremendously popular and others will potter along with a few downloads but still keeping their makers’ happy.
Application Store

To observe the thirtieth birthday of the Sony Walkman, BBC News Magazine persuaded a thirteen year old iPod user—reared with the coddling comforts of touchscreens and 10,000 song playlists—to trade his player in for its stark ancestor. The piece is an interesting examination of not simply the obvious changes in industrial design and device function since the late 70s, but the ease with which we’ve taken these changes for granted.

As the teen revisits (or more properly, visits for the first time) the dinosaur Walkman, his digital naïvety—the horror that the tape player would be without a shuffle function—is matched by [...]

Two recent cover-stories in the weekly news magazines have counter arguments about innovation in the US. Business Week suggests that innovation is declining while Time says it’s booming…

British designer Kyle Bean has created this impressive set of cardboard sculptures as a statement on the environmental impact of constantly upgrading to the newest tech gear.
[ via Design Crave ]

Members of the Reware project have hacked older-model iPods into video game style music sequencers, bringing a new life to the “obsolete” technology. See them in action below.

[via MAKE]

A project from Geekmyride.org gives new meaning to the term “remote controlled car”. Using a web server connected to an Arduino setup, an Australian man has turned his iPod Touch into a remote control for his Mazda RX-8. With a simple touch interface, he can now turn the engine on and off, lock and unlock all doors, display engine parameters and show the car’s current location on Google Maps. This tricked out car also acts as a mobile 3G broadband hub where authorized users can access the Internet. And if the owner ever forgets his iPod (or keys), it’s not [...]

This is a simple idea that can really work if you do it right and do it with guts and authenticity. The idea is simple to demonstrate in an art gallery but can be applied elsewhere.
As you know, art galleries provide little headphone cases for us folks who are a little too busy to read up – and we potter around dialing numbers to listen to a musty curator providing some background to each work of art. Now imagine the impact your brand could have, if you provided an alternative audio tour….