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Circa 2016


90% of people who try to learn guitar quit in the first year. So when Brian Fan wanted to start strumming out lullabies for his baby daughter, he reinvented the instrument itself. Suddenly, a single finger on a button could replace four on different strings, and anyone could learn to play popular songs in a few minutes.

Meet the Magic Instruments Rhythm guitar. It might look like a toy video game controller from Guitar Hero, but it can play real music through its built-in speaker. And with the accompanying app, you’ll get instructions for how play tons of popular songs by big name artists from The Beatles to Bob Marley.

Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto has completed a museum dedicated to music topped with an undulating roof punctuated by trees in Budapest’s City Park.

Named House of Music, the 9,000-square-metre museum is dedicated to telling the history of music over the past 2,000 years.

The museum, which was built on the site of the Hungexpo Offices, is surrounded by trees within Budapest’s City Park.

Beyond that, the ECoG technology could be developed for use in the emerging field of brain-computer interfaces, which have a huge range of potential applications – from controlling a computer just by thinking, to streaming music directly to your brain.

By uncovering new knowledge about how the brain works, for example, the device could be used to interpret hand motions in new ways utilising brain wave patterns.

Musicians have been experimenting with artificial intelligence for a few years now. For example, in 2019, an AI trained on Schubert’s music completed his Unfinished Symphony and last October the Beethoven Orchestra in Bonn performed an AI-generated version of Beethoven’s last symphony.

But what are the limits of AI music? Can an AI really be considered creative? And is it possible for an AI to improvise with musicians live on stage?

To find out, researchers from France, the USA and Japan are collaborating on a study to explore the role of AI in creativity, using a combination of machine learning and social science research. The project recently received funding from the European Research Council.

One part of the study involves teaching AI how to improvise, and find out if it can be used for example in live performance with (human) musicians.

Circa 2019


On February 28, at “New National Theater” in Tokyo, Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University announced the new model of the android “Alter” 「オルタ3」. The robot performed a fragment of the “Scary Beauty” android opera by Keiichiro Shibuya.

Alter 3 is part of a new Artificial Life (Alife) research project. The goal is to explore the future of human communication, and new forms of entertainment. Mixi Corporation, Tokyo National University, Osaka University, and Warner Music Japan Co. Ltd are behind the project.

An evolution of its 2018 ‘Valkyrie’ hypersonic airliner concept.

If you work out of an office, you know that the coffee machine is the favorite spot in the office to hang out or have conversations at. From giving us the first cup of the day to keeping us awake for late-night meetings, that machine is a lifesaver. But just for a day, try not getting your coffee from the coffee machine. Don’t skip coffee entirely, but instead, go out to your local coffee shop that doesn’t use coffee machines or make yourself a flask at home. You will realize that hand-made coffee is inherently better than the one that is made from a machine. Not just making coffee, but highly creative jobs–like designing an outfit or writing a book–are considered best left to human creators. Many do not think that machines could emulate them. But with the takeover of artificial intelligence, this belief is steadily being challenged. Creativity and AI are together transforming many spaces that were traditionally reserved for the “artists.” In this article, we’ll be exploring these spaces and how AI is making a significant impact on them.

Creativity and AI Are Literally Changing the World When you think “creative,” the first things that come to mind are music, poetry and novels. The best works in these three areas of art have been the results of human imagination and innovation. Every significant progress in these fields has challenged traditional ways of creating art and presented a new side to human creativity. For example, there was a time when classical music was considered to be the peak of musical art, but today, we see hip-hop and K-pop taking over the world, their styles and structures very different from classical music.

Full Story:

By Sieglinde Pfaendler, Omar Costa Hamido, Eduardo Reck Miranda

Science and the arts have increasingly inspired each other. In the 20th century, this has led to new innovations in music composition, new musical instruments, and changes to the way that the music industry does business to day. In turn, art has helped scientists think in new ways, and make advances of their own.

An emerging community leveraging quantum computing in music and the music industry has inspired us to organize the “1st International Symposium on Quantum Computing and Musical Creativity.” This symposium will bring together pioneering individuals from academia, industry, and music. They will present research, new works, share ideas, and learn new tools for incorporating quantum computation into music and the music industry. This symposium was made possible through the funding of the QuTune Project kindly provided by the United Kingdom National Quantum Technologies Programme’s Quantum Computing and Simulation Hub (QCS Hub).

Real holograms?


Science fiction has repeatedly promised a future filled with holographic 3D displays, but that fantasy has always eluded reality — until now. A startup says it has created a new “solid light” display that renders photos and videos in three dimensions.

Photography and filmmaking have historically only existed in two dimensions without the aid of specialized headwear and viewing angles, but a new technology developed by Silicon Valley startup Light Field Lab wants to change that. The company has developed what appears to be the first successful 3D holographic display that can provide a true sense of depth to content from a variety of angles and free of glasses.

Part 2


In this video Dr. Lustgarten goes into more detail on what he tracks and how he does the analysis of the results. He emphasizes the importance of running your own tests, to not only look at one biomarker but to then combine that marker with other biomarkers, looking for what is optimal for you.

Dr. Michael Lustgarten is a scientist at the Tufts University Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging in Boston, Massachusetts. His research currently focuses on the role of the gut microbiome and serum metabolome on muscle mass and function in older adults.