instruments

GarageBand already had a long history on the Mac, letting people use intuitive controls and a huge library of instruments and prerecorded loops to create songs. But with the iOS version, Apple needed to come up with creative ways to record music using only a touch-screen interface, and we think the company did an amazing job. In the latest version, GarageBand now supports Audiobus, letting you use sounds and effects from other music apps and then recording them to GarageBand tracks.

As a general overview, the GarageBand app offers several Touch Instruments, guitar amps and effects, eight-track recording and mixing, … Read more

With the flick of a switch and a flash of green light, a network of veins springs to the fore, mapped out just below the surface of the skin. This is no medical lab -- it's a darkened suite inside San Francisco's designer Clift Hotel -- but I already see how the recent sting of a donation nurse thumping the inside of both elbows in search of a vein could, and should, be a nervy, time-consuming thing of the past.

The VeinViewer Flex isn't new. In fact, the first generation of VeinViewer debuted in 2006. But its use of infrared light to illuminate a hidden network within the body is seldom appreciated outside of medical circles.

Light, it turns out, and the projectors that channel it, can do quite a bit.… Read more

Nostalgia for vintage PCs knows no bounds. I still have my Apple IIc in storage, and God knows why. But I don't think I'd spend thousands on a 30-year-old machine like one eBay buyer did.

A bidding war for the rare Texas Instruments TI-99/8 has turned heads among fans of these early PCs. The winning bid of $3,240 was also unusually high for a computer of that era that's sold on eBay.

The machine is an engineering prototype designed to bolster TI's precarious position in the brutal home computer wars of the early 1980s. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--The LCD touch screen has become commonplace in cars, but the technology suffers from limited shaping. Texas Instruments used its Digital Light Processor (DLP) technology to come up with a display that could take a wide variety of shapes in the car, and allow touch control for people wearing gloves.

In its exhibition area at CES 2013, Texas Instruments had a car dashboard mounted on a stand to show off the concept. A very large screen followed the curves of the dashboard down the center stack, capable of showing car functions such as navigation, phone, and audio. Just like … Read more

LAS VEGAS -- Microsoft's newest operating system that runs on cell phone chips is off to a slow start, but it's only a matter of time before it gains more traction, the chief executive of chip technology designer ARM Holdings said.

Warren East, speaking today in an interview with CNET at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, said that for that to happen, Microsoft needs to make its software, dubbed Windows RT, work with more ARM-based processors. He said it eventually will do so, but it's unclear when that will be.

LAS VEGAS--For kids who aren't into fairy tales printed on paper, Texas Instruments is showing off a gorgeously designed pico projector for videos at bedtime.

At CES 2013, TI demonstrated the Rubik's Cube-style pico projector that works with DLP Pico technology.

Made by Innoio for Korea's SK Telecom, the colorful cube can project kids' shows or movies on a nearby wall or on the ceiling.

It apparently has a small speaker system, but TI staff on the floor of CES could not confirm that.

It's available in South Korea but could come to the U.S. … Read more

The company was about to introduce one of its biggest operating system releases, and it needed its hardware partners to develop products that could genuinely rival the iPad and Android tablets.

Microsoft took control of partners working with the new Windows RT software that ran on low-power chips normally used for cell phones. It held regular meetings with the small group of companies in its development program and dictated to a large extent what the devices looked like. Details were everything. Microsoft even told one company to move the location of its Windows home key, … Read more

As a skier, I've often wondered how fast I'm skiing when I'm skiing really fast.

Turns out it's 44.7 miles per hour.

I got my answer from Zeal Optics's Z3 goggles during a December trip to Whistler Blackcomb mountain in British Columbia. The Z3s are a new, and very expensive, breed of goggles that capture data using GPS technology and flash it on a tiny heads-up display unit at the bottom of the field of vision on the right side of lens. Zipping down Springboard, a wide-open, groomed intermediate run, the tiny display ticked off my speed as the slope steepened and the wind whistled past me.

Zeal is one of a handful of ski goggle makers selling devices that include the heads-up display technology from Recon Instruments, a Vancouver, B.C., company that's trying to bring hands-free, real-time performance statistics to skiers. The devices include tiny GPS receivers and a set of sensors to provide speed, distance, vertical descent data, and more. I also brought along goggles from Oakley and Smith Optics that use Recon's heads-up displays to test during my ski trip as well.… Read more

Chipmakers are preparing for the second-generation iPad Mini and Samsung is on track for a phone with a bendable display and possibly an early intro of the Galaxy S4, according to a research note from RBC Capital Markets.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Doug Freedman -- who is in China visiting chip companies this week -- offered this ambiguous Apple note: "iPad Mini Gen-2: Apple's gen-2 iPad mini is getting pulled-in, and is likely to have several new suppliers, with TXN gaining content."

"Pulled in" would seem to imply that Apple is moving up introduction of … Read more