Monday, October 24, 2005

GOOGLER MUSIC

The flights on board of the Googler are spectacular, they are so appealing to the vision that they can create a new reality in itself. In this experience, only one thing is missing for better immersion: a sound of flight. Naturally, it's a sound of Googler's engine (not Google search engine, though, at least, not yet.) What can produce such sound? Right, the burning fuel can. Consequently, what does Googler run on? Packets, nothing else, TCP/IP packets, high-octane ones when in broadband. The Googler's dashboard can have something of a speedometer (imagine Bandwidth Meter graph by Wizard Software.) These samples, just like SETI samples, if thrown in thoughtlessly and indiscriminately, look and sound like white noise. Good enough if you're inclined to hear hiss, or OK, roar of your engine. However, for a discerning ear you may want to add some more features to plain quasi-random pitch variations (which is transfer rate, quite naturally.) Directions of packet transfer, use of UDP, ARP, ACK packets may determine group of musical instruments: say, you send in strings, and you receive in brass. Different ports may determine harmonies, my favorite here would be anxious C minor whine when downloading stream of spam emails. When diving and receiving a landscape detalizing stream, a variation on 'Walkürenritt' might be quite appropriate (just kidding; my favorite here would be 'Communication Breakdown' by Led Zeppelin.)

You don't have to be Arnold Schoenberg, or Krzysztof Penderecki to tackle this task, as there are some MIT guys who developed the software for kids named 'Hyperscore' (http://www.harmonylinemusic.com/hyperscore). This Hyperscore software produces a MIDI score out of basically graph drawn on the tape. Now we can input all our bandwidth graphs into that toy and see what happens.

Deaf people may get their perception by the Googler engine induced vibrations of their feedback-enabled joysticks.

Robert Plant may sing me '404' answer when it happens. Then it won't hurt so much.

Sunday, October 16, 2005

GOOGLER CONTINUES

The prototype of Googler is being built. Sort of. GeoURL to Google Earth transformation experiment by Patrick H. Lauke of http://www.splintered.co.uk fame is online and works just fine.

Thank you, Barry of http://www.nearby.org.uk/google.html, Wales, for the pointer.

As with any promising project, this one also got under loads of advertising, so it's not so easy to find your target among UK sightseeing distractions (just kidding, lads. It was fun.)