According to NRKbeta, the Norwegian Broadcasting Channel NRK has a company-internal award for innovation each year. Personally after studying tv and multimediaproduction I can relate to the need of several of these inventions. I will point out one of the nominated inventions that I found especially interesting based on a recent lecture.

When it comes to recording sound, especially dialogue for documentaries and film, the rule of closeness applies. You want to place the microphones as close to the source as possible. You therefore often put the microphone on a boom, a metallic rod, which the boom-operator can hold and direct towards the source. However this several meter long boom becomes heavier by the minute, and lecturers as well as guest speakers warn of the physiological risk. That is why I like the idea that this sound-guy developed together with a physiotherapist. See the original post and pictures here (NRKbeta).

Basically from what I understand they add a weight to create a balance and take the strain off ones shoulders with customized braces. The see-saw effect.

After a rather interesting lecture on sound, especially regarding modern pop-music our lecturer demonstrated the so-called Loudness War. My fellow student Thomas also wrote a post on the topic.
As a nice visual demonstration the below YouTube video was used by our lecturer.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Secondly whily I was looking up some more information on the topic matter I stumbled upon a very funny illustration, however how internal its humor may appear. Originating in a forum thread at PSW Recording Forums.

Original picture here.

For some more actual sound wave examples and illustrations I liked The Death of Dynamic Range. WikiPedia also has a section on the Loudness War.

Via del.icio.us I came across a guide on installing: JACK, Ardour & Hydrogen on a mac. I was not quite sure what each of the applications were but quickly found out at their respective websites; Jack Audio Connection kit, Hydrogen a Drum Machine and Ardour Digital Audio Workstation.
Jack basically lets you connect the programs Hydrogen and Ardour together.
The above guide seems slightly aged, so do checkout the individual application websites before trusting the guide blindly. (It seems like you can possibly download pre-compiled binaries.)

Above picture from Hydrogen (Source: LinuxAudio guide)

Above picture from Ardour (looks slightly similar to ProTools interface. Source: LinuxAudio guide)

These applications probably don’t compete aggressively with applications like ProTools, SoundTrack or other fast track professional apps. However when you take into account money, Jack Ardour and Hydrogen appear to be worthy candidates. For an online web application alternative there is JamGlue.

And JamGlue actually works surprisingly well. I briefly tried it out, after they publicly launched yesterday (Dec. 15th). This past year I have actually learned some of ProTools. In that sense I’m kind of spoiled, with my first introduction to sound mixing with this professional application. However it still costs a lot of money, and you’ll want to go all the way with some external sound-engine or similar if you are going to get it. So for most of you, just wanting to get your feet wet, without swimming, JamGlue seems like a really nice application. Best of all its online, and works smoothly in both Firefox and Safari.

Another great advantage with JamGlue is that it is also a networking community. This means you can share your mixes, beats or music with the rest of the community. All the material is protected by Creative Commons. According to TechCrunch a similar alternative to JamGlue is SpliceMusic, and for more Creative Common beats check out ccMixter. I’ll definitly be checking all those out next time I’m going to mix some music for one of my projects.

Semester exams are in progress, and you might be studying, retreating to place of peace and calmness. Noise in general is disturbing and for optimal studying you might even put ear muffles on, to block out disturbing noises.

In a Wired interview with Professor Bart Kosko from the University of Southern California, Kosko explains that noise could actually enhance learning.
To block out disturbances there is always pink noise, which masks out disturbing noises. But beware of lengthy use, as your hearing might get tired and worn by it.

It might be a little late for this semester exam, but it doesn’t hurt trying stu.dicio.us out. At a first glance it may look overwhelming. But it looks like a handy tool to keep track of notes and your class schedules. And best of all online, during classes. Stu.dicio.us integrates Wikipedia and Google to automatically link highlighted words. In addition you can compare notes with other students who attend the same school and classes. (Apparently an account at Facebook gives you even more possibilities.)