Violin or viola? Music historians may struggle to tell which instruments are being played on vintage recordings just by listening to them, but 鈥渓ooking鈥� at the music may help. Jean-Jacques Slotine at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has identified characteristic hills and valleys in Fourier transforms of music 鈥� 3D plots describing variations in frequency and intensity 鈥� that can be matched to different instruments using image-recognition software (tinyurl.com/soundz).
In a video conference with many participants, it can be hard to identify who is speaking at any moment. Microsoft has filed a US patent for a solution: a device which everyone wears that senses when they are speaking. It then beams their ID to a computer via Wi-Fi, and the speaker鈥檚 name pops up on everybody鈥檚 screen.
