Synthesis Studios

Continuing on a previous post, we’re still tearing apart the Nike + iPod Sport Kit. By using one as a sacrificial device, we popped it open and took a look at the top and bottom — so much to learn! We’ll quickly review the turnaround Apple went through to get the devices out the door, we’ll take a look at the inside of the receiver, and then, finally, we’ll spy on the negotiation between the iPod and the Nike + iPod receiver.

What’s really fascinating to us, in product design terms, is that if you look at the date on the back, the date printed on the PCB is 20060624 — June 24, 2006 and we received the sport kit on July 17! That’s amazing: Apple is able to push out a final version of the PCB, assembled, and ready to go, to consumers in 23 days.

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I have the privilege of teaching at NYU’s ITP, their “Interactive Telecommunications Program”, as an Adjunct Assistant Professor — a job that I absolutely love (except for the trips up and down the NE corridor on Amtrak). I get to teach people who are absolutely passionate about technology and art, but come from it from such a different background than those from my previous academic life.

Last semester I taught a class entitled “Every Bit You Make” where we read and discussed the choices technologists make, and how those decisions have inadvertent effects on people’s lives. Next semester, however, I’m trying out a studio class:

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It should have been a simple task: given two MP3 files, concatenate them so that the first song blends smoothly into the next (crossfading). It seems basic enough that any decent audio mixer would have an easy way to do it, but not ecasound.

Ecasound is a very powerful commandline audio mixer for Linux, and despite it kicking my ass today I’m pretty impressed with it. But it could not do a simple crossfade out of the box. After an hour pouring over the documentation, examples, man page, and googling around I figured out how you’re supposed to do it:

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When the Nike + iPod Sport Kit was first announced, our collective minds raced with different things that we just had to know. To that end, we ordered two (one for destruction) and our friendly FedEx guy just delivered them to us. It’s going to be a fun weekend around the Synthesis office.

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