funk
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Portal co-creator unveils OUYA-exclusive game Soul Fjord (video)
It's no secret that Portal co-creator Kim Swift has been developing an OUYA-exclusive game, but details regarding it had been kept under wraps until today. Dubbed Soul Fjord, the Airtight Games-developed title fuses Norse mythology with '70s Funk and Soul, and charges its main character Magnus Jones with climbing the World Tree to demand an invitation to Ragnarok, "the party that will end the world." Gameplay hasn't been shown quite yet, but the experience is described as a dungeon-crawler with rhythm-based combat that'll see players battle their way through randomly generated areas. Do the hustle past the break to catch the game's first trailer and a developer video diary.
Book review: How To Wreck A Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop
How To Wreck A Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop by Dave Tompkins (Stop Smiling Books; $35) World War II increased the rate of human innovation to a pace unseen in any other period of history. New technology from the era includes everything from synthetic rubber to the atomic bomb to magnetic audio tape, which the Germans successfully kept secret until the war's end. After the Nazis fell, Lt. Jack Mullin of the US Army Signal Corps shot footage outside of Hitler's home, grabbed one of the Fuhrer's piano strings for a souvenir, and brought two AEG Magnetophons (along with fifty reels of Farben recording tape) back with him to the states. He then sold a recorder to Bing Crosby, revolutionizing broadcasting and music-making in the process. Another device that made its debut in World War II only to be later adopted by the entertainment industry is the Vocoder. Speech synthesis was the brainchild of a Bell Labs employee named Homer Dudley. Dudley surmised that human speech consisted of two things: the carrier (the noise that your vocal cords makes) and the formant (the sound formed from the carrier by your mouth, throat, and sinuses). Dudley went on to develop something called the Voder (Voice Operator DEmonstratoR), which used a carrier tone generated by a radio valve and a formant created by hissing air to create artificial speech. Hear a demonstration (and learn about how the Vocoder was used to defeat the Axis powers) after the break.
How to turn an 8-track into a speaker dock
I'm a fan of both silly iPod docks and re-purposing old tech gear, so this how-to at Unpluggd hit me in just the right spot. It's really more of a hack than a how-to -- the guy fixed his 8-track player just by replacing a corroded belt, and then used a cassette adapter to connect the 8-track to his iPod's audio output. But it does sound like a fun Saturday project, taking apart an old player, and the retro design of the thing is probably worth keeping around anyway. The sound quality, as he says, is "interesting," too. But there are probably benefits -- disco just doesn't sound the same through a crystal clear set of speakers playing a digital file as it does going through the dusty old 8-track wires. The funkiness works, in this case. [Via Cult of Mac]
Preparing for BlizzCon: There will be funk
BlizzCon approaches! Preparing for BlizzCon is your regular source for tips on how best to prepare for Blizzard's gaming extravaganza. These helpful hints are particularly suited for convention rookies. But if you are a con veteran, we'd love to hear your advice and wisdom in the comments as well.In almost every one of this series, someone has requested in the comments that we all practice good grooming before attending BlizzCon this year. But it doesn't matter if we post odor preventing techniques here, broadcast them on The WoW Insider Show and it gets picked up by international news -- there is still going to be funk at the con. Not even Anna Torv being photographed wearing a "Well-groomed Geeks are HOT" t-shirt is going to prevent the offending smells coming from some of the attendees. In the interest of promoting tolerance, I'm going to give explanations for some of the odors you will be smelling.
