5 THINGS I’VE LEARNED ABOUT Getting Better Gigs

I’VE BEEN PLAYING IN BANDS SINCE I WAS IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL. AND whether I’m playing to ten people or ten thousand, for me the goal has always been the same: to get better musically and to get better gigs! Here are five things I’ve learned along the way. 1. Believing Is Step One I started out as a philosophy major at Harvard, but switched to a major in electronic music when I decided to follow my heart. Soon I was work¬ing with tape loops and Buchla synthesizers and having the time of my life. Believing that I could realize my musical dreams...

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Let's Get Vertical

In a world increasingly populaied by horizontal sound bars, Artisan has taken a different approach with the high-performance Masterpiece LCR DualMono MK2 speaker system,which produces three front channels from two cabinets flanking the TV The brainchild of renowned speaker designer, Cary Christie—who...

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The Chips of iPhone 5(S)

A7 Chip The new A7 chip has a 64-bit processor that’s twice as fast as that on the iPhone 5. The iPhone 5S is the first phone world­wide to use 64-bit processing, which renders graphics 56 times faster than the original iPhone. Apple wowed the audience with a demo of Infinity Blade III, which showed...

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lqua Beat: Brather clever

    Heart rate monitors are great for tracking your training, but they do usually have one drawback: the chest strap. If you're a chap, wearing an HRM on a chest strap feels like you're wearing a bra. If you're a girl, wearing an HRM on a chest strap feels like you're wearing two bras....

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Yamaha Restio ISX-800: A hi-fi less ordinary

You pride yourself on breaking convention. You drive a Citroen GS and have a Symbian smartphone because you like that its roots can be traced to the EPOC OS of your old Psion organiser. You write in fountain pen, but not into a Moleskine notebook. In the bedroom of your converted prison block East...

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Oregon Scientific ATC Chameleon: 'Khana 'khana 'khana chameleon

No doubt you've watched Ken Block's latest rally car gymkhana video, where he bezzes around San Francisco doing jumps and drifts, exhibiting the kind of extreme vehicular control that belies the fact that he has yet to make any impression on the WRC whatsoever. You'll have also noticed that he filmed...

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NOKIA LUMIA 900

    We were charmed by the Lumia 900's bold polycarbonate design and its bright 4 3in AMOLED screen, but the news that it won't be getting an update to Windows Phone 8 means it's a dead phone calling. And with lust a single-core chip and 480x800 screen, it's now more of a collectable than...

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Four things added to your Google Nexus 7

Google Nexus Q Alright, so you can't add this yet if you're UK-based, but when it does arrive Google's 'home hub' will send content from the Nexus 7 to your TV. It's beautifully built and should come furnished with a few neat apps too. US$300, google.com/nexus Wrapper case The official case is a...

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PERSONAL RAPID TRANSPORT

WHAT IS IT? In cities and congested areas, Personal Rapid Transport, or PRT, is the transport of the future —think of it as a system of buses or individual train carriages that you can summon when needed. There's already a PRT system in place at London's Heathrow Terminal 5: Urban Light Transit (ULTra)...

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3 steps to surfing supremacy

1. Floats some and gets 'em: Circle One Bamboo Mini Mal Once you level-up past the massive foam rubber planks you'll use if you get surfing lessons (which, by the way, are a good idea), pick up a mini mal. They're floaty enough to get going in smaller surf, yet also manouverable enough that you can...

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Point Grey FIea3: Tiny d

    Sometimes a gadget comes along that you're definitely not going to buy, but that gives a little glimpse into the future. The Flea3 is one such device: it's a video camera in a tiny 3cm3 cube. You could fit two of them in a wine glass, without lenses attached. And it shoots 4K video. Not...

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Clang: be a Major Clanger

    Neal Stephenson is a bearded history geek and one of the world's greatest sci-fi authors. The protagonist of his novel Snow Crash spends much of his free time fighting samurai in cyberspace. That's pretty much what Stephenson has planned for his first foray into games: a motion-controlled...

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Seiko Astron GPS Solar: Clever new watch

    You can spend tens of thousands on a tourbillon¬toting masterpiece of the watchmaker's art, but as expensive watches go, this Seiko is something special. It doesn't need some kind of exquisite mechanism to keep itself wound or stay accurate: it charges using solar panels, and keeps time...

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Braun BN0076: Clever old watch

    Do you want to pay £900 for a 35-year-old digital watch? Because you certainly can. In fact, for an original Braun DW 30, the watch from German designer (and Jony Ive-inspirer) Dieter Rams, you'll be lucky to get away with stumping up under a grand. Or you could get one of these reissues,...

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GameDock: nPad

In development, iosgamedock.com A soldier in the growing army of devices designed to battle smeary touchscreen gaming. There's an obvious NES theme, but while its controllers look the same, it can output a rather-higher-than-NES 1080p via HDMI. Or you can play on your iThing... including two-player...

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lumaHelm: use your head

In development, exertiongameslab.org By covering a standard cycling helmet with thin strips of LEDs (104 in total) and fitting it with a tiny Arduino controller, the cycleboffins at the Exertion Games lab have a new way for cyclists to indicate. Rather than sticking your arm out, simply nod to one...

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Philips SB7200 Shoqbox: Twisted campfirestarter

    Music in the wilderness is a divisive issue. If you're Ray Mears, you whittle a violin from a beech spring and play it quietly, so as not to wake the badgers. If you're Bear Grylls, you take one of these hard-as-fraits-B10-elodth speakers, play somegabba, and then use it to hunt badgers....

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Focal Locus Workstation: Stand up for your writers

    Standing up is quite a thing at the moment. Apparently, working standing up can make you more productive - Hemingway wrote standing up, and he knocked out the odd word or two - and generally help you be less of a slouching, squid-eyed desk fiend. Most standing desks are still in Segwayterritory...

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BurritobOt: All hail the chimichanga—tron

    What would you rather have: a small plastic toy, or a delicious, cheesy cylinder of spicy meat and beans? Because 3D printers may well be the future, but BurritobOt is the only one thinking about what we'll actually be wanting in the future: hot sauce, guacamole and slow-cooked Mexican...

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Jake Dyson CSYS Tall: Telling tall tales

    According to scientists from the University of Stuff the Daily Mail Immediately Reports as Irrefutable Fact, tall people live longer. And despite the hallowed university's excellent reputation, we disagree. One look at Jake Dyson's new floorstanding CSYS lamp, for example, reveals that...

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Stream TV at home: View21

    Going on appearances, you probably think this is just another Freeview PVR with a 500GB hard drive and two digital tuners. Well, look again. Yep, still a PVR. But what if we told you it has a remote control app that can also stream live TV or recorded telly to your iPad over WI-Fi?...

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Belkin @TV Plus: stream TV, wish you were at home

    Sigh. You fork out for cable so you can spend your time watching NesTV, the UK's premier dedicated birdwatching channel, and suddenly everyone's making demands — go to work, go for a walk, please please spend time with your family... Don't they know Looking at Pigeons is on? Do they want...

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Nikon 1 J2: Hot HD Digital Camera

    Once the CSC market was a lazy pond — these days it's a packed public pool. Barely a year after then, Nikon's back with the J2. New Creative Modes such as night shooting and easy panoramas and an upgrade to a 921k-dot rear LCD are relatively small changes for the same price — this is...

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Klipsch Image S41 Rugged In-Ear Headphones: (Un)break(able)beats

    Oh, for goodness sake. You've only been out on your bike for a couple of hours and here you are, covered in blood, rain, sweat and spit. Again. Why must we live next to a quarry? And you've broken your headphones? Well, I don't think they're designed for that kind of abuse. Although,...

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Sonic Screwdriver Universal remote: TV Timelord

    You know how it is. You're sat watching TV with Amy Pond, Dr Who's flame-haired heroine, when suddenly the remote goes missing. Oh, very funny, Amy. No, we're not going to wrestle you for it. No, we're not going to chase you. Because, actually, we have a backup: a hand-finished metal...

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Zippo 4-in-1 Woodsman: seeking a friend for the end of the wood

    The end is nigh, by some means or another. Whether it's atomic weapons, an accidental black hole at CERN or disgruntled Martians rudely awoken by the univited ramblings of NASA's Curiosity, we're all doomed. But should we find ourselves plonked into a situation more dystopian than apocalyptic,...

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Mercier Jones Hovercraft: pull the hover one

What is it? It's freaking amazing, is what it is. It's a sports hovercraft — not like the hovercraft you take to the Isle of Wight, more like a two-seater sports car that has a cushion of air where Its wheels should be. Will It work? Do not question the sports hovercraft! Instead, run around with...

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AIAIAI Capital: cans of whoop-ass

    You exist alongside millions of others, but that doesn't mean you want to listen to their stupid opinions. Most headphones will keep you in a sonic bubble until rain starts bucketing down — but then they have to come off and you're back to hearing about the weather. These new cans from AIAIAI,...

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