World’s fastest genome sequencer diagnoses genetic disease in hours

Genome sequencing can be used to determine whether a patient’s illness is genetic, but it usually takes weeks to get results. A new ultra-rapid technique can sequence a person’s genome and diagnose genetic diseases in just a few hours, earning it a Gui… Continue reading World’s fastest genome sequencer diagnoses genetic disease in hours

“Living fossil” genome sequence reveals clues to evolution of life on land

Genome sequencing can teach us a huge amount about a species, and now scientists have completed the sequence for one of the weirdest and most intriguing animals in the world. The Australian lungfish is a “living fossil” from the time our ancestors firs… Continue reading “Living fossil” genome sequence reveals clues to evolution of life on land

Homebrew Relay Computer Looks Like it Could Be a Commercial Product

You may not have noticed, but we here at Hackaday really love our clicky stuff. Clicky mechanical keyboards, unnecessarily noisy flip-dot displays, and pretty much anything made with a lot of relays — they all grab our attention, in more …read more

Continue reading Homebrew Relay Computer Looks Like it Could Be a Commercial Product

Mini Marble-Powered Synth Pays Homage to Its Bigger Cousins

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, what then are we to make of something that shares only a few of the original’s design elements, operates in a completely different way, and has been scaled down to a fifth its size? Still seems like flattery to us.

Despite the …read more

Continue reading Mini Marble-Powered Synth Pays Homage to Its Bigger Cousins

Polyend brings retro software to life with powerful hardware tracker

After a brief online teaser campaign, Poland’s Polyend – the same firm responsible for the mesmerizing Perc percussion system from 2016 – has revealed a new music production machine called the Tracker.Continue ReadingCategory: Music, TechnologyTags: Di… Continue reading Polyend brings retro software to life with powerful hardware tracker

Sequence Your Beats With The Magic Of Magnets

Typically, when we think of a music sequencer, we envisage LEDs and boards covered in buttons. Of course, there are naturally other ways to build such a device. MesoTune takes a different tack entirely, relying on magnets and rotating mechanisms to get the job done.

MesoTune acts as a MIDI …read more

Continue reading Sequence Your Beats With The Magic Of Magnets

Never Mind The Sheet Music, Here’s Spreadsheet Music

Nothing says Rockstar Musician Lifestyle like spreadsheet software. Okay, we might have mixed up the word order a bit in that sentence, but there’s always Python to add some truth to it. After all, if we look at the basic concept of MIDI sequencers, we essentially have a row of time-interval steps, and depending on the user interface, either virtual or actual columns of pitches or individual instruments. From a purely technical point of view, spreadsheets and the like would do just fine here.

Amused by that idea, [Maxime] wrote a Python sequencer that processes CSV files that works with …read more

Continue reading Never Mind The Sheet Music, Here’s Spreadsheet Music

Turning LEGO Blocks into Music with OpenCV

We’re not sure what it is, but something about LEGO and music go together like milk and cookies when it comes to DIY musical projects. [Paul Wallace]’s Lego Music project is a sequencer that uses the colorful plastic pieces to build and control sound, but there’s a twist. The blocks aren’t snapped onto anything; the system is entirely visual. A computer running OpenCV uses a webcam to watch the arrangement of blocks, and overlays them onto a virtual grid where the positions of the pieces are used as inputs for the sequencer. The Y axis represents pitch, and the X …read more

Continue reading Turning LEGO Blocks into Music with OpenCV