The column before last, I wrote about vinyl records and how amazing the technology for analog sound really is—because you’re fighting the obstinacy of the physical universe throughout the whole signal path.  

During the seventies and well into the eighties, I invested quite a bit of time and money into my own sound system and I remember fondly playing with all kinds of electronic devices designed to remove clicks and pops, minimize tape hiss, expand musical peaks for more dynamic impact, and even add an extra octave of bass at the bottom.  I also added an equalizer to compensate for sonic peaks and valleys in my living room.  

Bob Carver’s Sonic Hologram did a kind of electronic signal-cancelling, so you wouldn’t hear the left speaker at your right ear, nor the right speaker at your left ear.  That was a pretty astonishing effect, which has since evolved into all kinds of digital ‘spatializer’ enhancements.  You could also add two speakers at the back of your listening room to extract out-of-phase information from the stereo signal and give yourself a quadraphonic experience.  

A lot of the various equalizers and signal-processors were extraordinary devices for the time, genuinely pushing the envelope of sonic manipulation and enhancement.  And remember, all of this was done in the analog domain.  Occasionally, I still see some of these devices showing up as techno-props on crime-investigation TV episodes where some nerdy-genius forensic expert is magically extracting a remarkably clear audio signal from an overwhelming (Read more...)

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By News Tom's Hardware US
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Google's just announced Google Instant! They say it's going to transform search forever—making it faster, better, stronger. But what is it, exactly?

It's predictive search...

Should you activate Google Instant Search, you'll start seeing search results as soon as you start typing. You'll also be shown a range of possible queries in grey to refine your options, all before you ever hit the "Search" button.

...that saves you time...

Google estimates that Google Instant will save people an average of 2-5 seconds per search. The reason? We read faster than we type, and predictive search pretty much takes typing out of the equation. If every Google user around the world switched to Instant, we'd save 3.5 billion seconds a day, or 11 hours per second.

...(unless you're looking for porn)...

While the normal SafeSearch filters—like those used in Image searches—apply, Google Instant draws the line at "pornography, violence and hate speech." Which means that when you try to autocomplete a generic "porn" search, you're stuck with this:

...that's already here for some users...

There's a good chance you've already got Google Instant up and running, but if not, don't feel too left out; it's going to take a couple of days for the service to hit all Google users. And a bit longer than that to hit mobile—Google says that it's not available in the immediate future for phones, but that it should be coming "soon." In any case, if you don't like it you're not forced to use (Read more...)

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By TechSpot
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