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'Lost Tapes of the 27 Club' used Google AI to 'write' a new Nirvana song
While we'll never know what kind of music Kurt Cobain would write if he were still alive today, an AI may provide a glimpse.
Google Magenta’s Lo-Fi Player is an AI-based virtual music studio
Google Magenta's Lo-Fi Player lets you create your own lo-fi hip hop tracks by clicking around in a pixelated, 2D room.
T-Mobile family plans will include Quibi free for one year
Just yesterday, T-Mobile finally completed its Sprint merger. Today, it has more big news. When Quibi launches on April 6th, T-Mobile customers on the Magenta family plan will get a free year of the mobile-first video service. After a year of both free Netflix and free Quibi, those customers will be able to choose one service or the other.
AI brought a 60-year old music-making machine to life
If you've seen Looney Tunes or The Simpsons, you've probably heard Raymond Scott's music -- which was adapted for those and other cartoons. But there's a good chance you haven't heard of Scott himself. A musician and inventor, Scott was ahead of his time. As early as the 1950s, he began working on the Electronium, a kind of music synthesizer that he hoped would perform and compose music simultaneously. While Scott invested $1 million and more than a decade in Electronium, he died before it was complete. Now, Fast Company reports, Pentagram partner and sound artist Yuri Suzuki has picked up where Scott left off.
Google’s Piano Genie lets anyone improvise classical music
Google has taken the idea of Rock Band and Guitar Hero and pushed it one step further, creating an intelligent controller that lets you improvise on the piano and makes it sound like you actually know what you're doing, no matter how unskilled you are. The controller is called Piano Genie, and it comes from Google's Magenta research project. Powered by a neural network trained on classical piano music, Piano Genie translates what you tap out on eight buttons into music that uses all 88 piano keys.
Google built a hardware interface for its AI music maker
Music and technology go together hand in hand; drum machines and modular synths are just some of the more recent music technologies to emerge. Last year, a Google Brain project called Magenta created NSynth (Neural Synthesizer), a set of AI and machine learning tools that learn the characteristics of sound and create entirely new sounds from those attributes. Now, in collaboration with Google Creative Lab, the team has built NSynth Super, hardware to interface with NSynth using up to four source sounds at once to algorithmically create new sounds.
Play a piano duet with Google's AI partner
When Google tries to educate public about its AI research, it often releases tools that playfully explain the grittier, technical corners of artificial intelligence. Like, say, neural network software that looks at objects through your device's camera and spits rhymes about everyday objects. But they also launch fun tools, like AI Duet, an interactive web-based app that accompanies your piano plinking.
Google's new tools let anyone create art using AI
Google doesn't just want to dabble in using AI to create art -- it wants you to make that art yourself. As promised, the search giant has launched its Magenta project to give artists tools for bringing machine learning to their creations. The initial effort focuses around an open source infrastructure for producing audio and video that, ideally, heads off in unexpected directions while maintaining the better traits of human-made art.
Google's 'Magenta' project will see if AIs can truly make art
Google's next foray into the burgeoning world of artificial intelligence will be a creative one. The company has previewed a new effort to teach AI systems to generate music and art called Magenta. It'll launch officially on June 1st, but Google gave attendees at the annual Moogfest music and tech festival a preview of what's in store. As Quartz reports, Magenta comes from Google's Brain AI group -- which is responsible for many uses of AI in Google products like Translate, Photos and Inbox. It builds on previous efforts in the space, using TensorFlow -- Google's open-source library for machine learning -- to train computers to create art. The goal is to answer the questions: "Can machines make music and art? If so, how? If not, why not?"
T-Mobile sues AT&T over Aio Wireless' logo, goes magenta with rage
It's no secret that T-Mobile feels very strongly about a specific shade of magenta. Long time readers will remember when Deutsche Telekom famously came after your favorite tech site (spoiler alert: that would be Engadget) over the particular hue we'd chosen for our mobile section. T-Mo has evidently been jonesing for another chromatically inspired legal battle, as it just sued AT&T over the color of Aio Wireless' logo. While DT does technically have a German trademark on a single shade of magenta (RAL 4010), to anyone with eyes, it's evident that T-Mobile and Aio employ two completely different colors. Big Magenta's CEO John Legere weighed in on Twitter when he said, "Here is the Crayon box that @ATT must have been using :)," alongside a picture of RAL 4010-hued crayons (available at the source link below). Nobody wants to show up to prom in the same dress as someone else, but T-Mo appears to be grasping at straws. Magenta straws.
T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy Note II firmware update appears, points to Jelly Bean and HSPA+
Samsung's new full-fat smartphone has hinted at appearances on both Verizon and AT&T, and now an update spotted at SAM Mobile suggests that -- just under two months since the original appeared -- there will be a Magenta-branded version of the Galaxy Note II... too. Going under the SGH-T889 model number, firmware from September 15th is now available to try -- if you have a phone that's not yet out on any official channels. The site's sources have said that the device runs closer to a global iteration, lacking any true LTE capabilities, but it's more than happy to substitute that for HSPA+ support. If you're part of Samsung's secretive cabal of handset testers you can seek out the new build at the source below.
Prototype color e-paper skips on filter, cranks up vividness
Fuji Xerox has showcased its latest e-paper model at SID in Boston. The 5-inch 600 x 800 display adjusts the electric field for each color, swinging them between the two layers of the screen. Instead of a typical color filter, an extra layer of white-colored particles between the visible and invisible layer, offering a blank surface when needed, while magenta and cyan particles are in charge of colors on the prototype. The company's already working on CMY arrangement to provide the full range of colors on the finished e-paper model and promise a color gamut wider than a newspaper. Hopefully, it will also involve a much thinner bezel.
Nokia Lumia 900 blushes, new magenta version revealed at Finnish e-tailer
Aside from a very desirable white edition, Nokia's Lumia 900 hasn't quite caught up with the color explosion that characterized the Lumia 800's launch. It looks like it's getting there, with a magenta variant spotted at Finnish retailer, Gigantti. At the moment, availability is posited for the vague area of May -- matching those mid-month dates we've been hearing -- but the site is still taking pre-orders ahead of any concrete launch day. You can volunteer your details at the source below.
T-Mobile G2x Gingerbread update running through employee trials, "coming soon" just got closer
You didn't think T-Mobile forgot all about you G2x users out there, did ya? The phone, foreordained to become the carrier's poster child, didn't have the best launch ever; when you release a device plagued with glitches and a nearly-immediate inventory shortage, you're not really starting off on the right foot. Don't let those "out of stock" signs fool you into thinking the mystical handset has been completely wiped from existence, however. It's still around -- in fact, the "Get More" network is hard at work to give more, prepping the phone's update to Gingerbread that'll likely include much-needed fixes. We reached out to a T-Mobile spokesperson, who briefed us on the progress of this elusive refresh: T-Mobile is working with LG to deliver a software update to Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) for the G2x, which we expect will deliver some performance enhancements. We are currently trialing this update with a pilot group of T-Mobile employees. As it appears, we're another step closer to one of the most-anticipated software updates of the summer. There's no telling how long this testing phase will last, nor what steps lay between now and "this summer." Regardless, Android 2.3 is still on track to show up "sooner than we'd expect," which is accurate... if you expected it to take four months.
T-Mobile starts up 4G ad campaign by poking a stiletto into AT&T's network (video)
We suspected T-Mobile's new advertising campaign would ruffle some feathers, but we weren't ready for quite such brazen trash-talking right off the bat. Of course, it's trash talk dressed up in a pretty white and Magenta dress and delivered in the most angelic of voices, but T-Mobile makes its point to AT&T subscribers loud and clear: we got 4G, you don't. Whether you consider the network's current 21Mbps theoretical max a true representation of 4G or not, we'll leave up to you; just make sure to join us past the break for the Apple-scented commercial, which also teases the myTouch 4G, a HSPA+ handset that T-Mobile happens to be launching today. Update: AT&T isn't taking this one lying down. It countered with the following statement this afternoon: "T-Mobile's claims about 4G are based on the same HSPA+ technology we have deployed to 180 million people today, more than T-Mobile's reported 140 million, and we'll have it rolled out to 250 million people by the end of this month, substantially more than the 200 million T-Mobile says it will have by year-end."
Canon EOS 7D firmware kills the magenta phenomenon
We thought the vast majority of our EOS 7D's image problems were over, fixed in November's firmware, but just to nip any final nuances in the bud, Canon's released another update for the DSLR that fixes, among other things, "a phenomenon in which vertical magenta-colored banding appears in still images taken in movie-shooting mode." And here you thought your MGMT concert footage was just naturally that stylish. Download via the source link. [Thanks, Daniel]
Nikon D90 torn down, rebuilt in pink (video)
Words... what good are words when you're trying to describe the horrific visage of a growling, rugged, heavyweight camera coated in the frilly tutu of the color spectrum, magenta? We shan't try to describe the peculiar mix of revolt, disgust and subtle desire that this whole thing incites in us, and will just point you after the break for the video. There's plenty of good clean fun to be had while exploring the dismantled D90 (though there's one instance of foul language when the modder gets an electric shock, understandable) and if you're of a nervous disposition you can always skip the shockingly pink finale.
Zune HD getting magenta and purple flavors on December 1st
Not enough variety in your Zune HD color palette? How about a friendly dab of magenta and purple to mix up the proceedings? Microsoft's Zune Store is now showing some grayed out selectors for purple and magenta color options for the player, which will apparently be available on December 1st -- just in time for something or other. No word on whether these will be available for both 16GB and 32GB versions, but pink already representing on the 32 gigger, we'd really hope Microsoft would spread the love down to the cash strapped. [Thanks, Jerel]
New Zune HD colors found in source files: pink, magenta, purple, and atomic
Well, here's something interesting. According to tipster Josh S, a perusal through the Zune Software source files will net you pictures of four as of yet unknown Zune HD palettes. From left to right, we've got pink, magenta, purple, and "atomic." We're still looking through the source code ourselves to confirm. It's not like early adopters wanted anything other than platinum and black anyway, right?Update: We've finally come up from digging through source code and, sure enough, those images are all in there.
Sharp adds cyan and yellow to its RGB displays, laughs scornfully at magenta
Sharp is taking some cues from the nearly dearly departed print publishing world for its next line of LCDs, adding two colors to the typical RGB gamut. Cyan and yellow, half of the CMYK spread that makes your Sunday Garfield sketch pop, are going to be added to the company's displays to make up what it's dubbing "Multi-Primary-Color Technology." The tech is said to be able to reproduce 99 percent of all colors able to be perceived by the human eye -- because apparently 1.7 billion colors from a traditional LCD wasn't enough. The displays will be on display at the Society for Information Display Symposium in San Antonio starting next week. So, lucky Texans, prepare to get your cone cells massaged.
