We’ve seen blow-hard electronic music makers in the past (one particular didgeridoo hack comes to mind) but still, when one makes us take note we feel like we just have to pass it along. Onyx Ashanti is an American living in Berlin and a one-man band to boot. His instrument of choice is a Yamaha MIDI wind controller for triggering audio and the TouchOSC app for iPod touch for controlling PureData audio processing. And the music he makes from the two is pretty, pretty wild… see for yourself after the break.

How do we know we’re years away from a final resolution to the Nokia / Apple patent lawsuit? It’s been six months since Nokia first filed its complaint , and the two parties are just now starting to argue about which specific substantive claims they’re eventually going to argue about. Let’s do a quick refresh: at the heart of the lawsuit is a conflict over Nokia’s wireless patents , some of which are almost certainly essential to how cell data and WiFi operate. As a member of the ETSI and the IEEE licensing groups which oversee GSM and WiFi, Nokia’s required to license its patents to anyone who asks on fair terms, but those terms aren’t set in stone — Nokia can negotiate separate licenses as it sees fit, and it apparently wanted Apple to cross-license its touchscreen patents as part of the deal. Apple said no, and now we’re all in court, with both sides alleging patent infringement in three different lawsuits (one of which is on hold ) and Apple claiming that Nokia is also liable for breach of contract, because it promised fair licensing terms and didn’t deliver. Got all that?

Ready to graduate from DJ Hero ? Got a house payment handy? Then Pioneer would like to show you the way to the pros. Say hello to the DJM-2000, a four-channel digital mixer built around a 5.8-inch multitouch screen and sporting enough knobs, buttons and sliders for a NASA launch sequence.

Would you believe that Acer is working on a frameless laptop with touchscreen keyboard? As far-fetched as the idea might be, it’s certainly plausible, expected even. The idea, as rumored by DigiTimes , involves doing away with the display’s frame by printing colors directly onto the back of the display’s reinforced glass substrate from Corning (a la Gorilla Glass presumably). Coupled with a touchscreen keyboard, the rumored device should be impossibly thin by traditional laptop comparisons. Keep in mind that we’ve already seen this Frame Zero concept pictured above from Fujitsu and Acer’s arch-rival ASUS has been showing off its dual-display laptop prototype with touchscreen keyboard for months

We’re going to assume that Mary Lou’s bravado-filled “It’s only slightly more difficult than changing a lightbulb” is in reference to working with OLPC. In fact, in Mary Lou Jepsen’s most recent Pixel Qi blog post she makes quick reference of the fact that there will be DIY kits for replacing your own laptop screen (most likely a 10-inch module) with the sunlight-friendly, switchable magic of Pixel Qi, but she spends the rest of the post talking about how in Nigeria some schoolgirls started up a laptop hospital where they’d repair their XOs by swapping out parts or reseating cables. We doubt most of our laptops will be so resilient when it comes to ripping off the bezel and swapping in the Pixel Qi part, but we’re dying to void our warranty and find out. Pixel Qi DIY kits will be out in Q2, ’slightly more difficult than changing a lightbulb’ originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 07 Mar 2010 08:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

Got a hankering for Pine Trail? We attest to a certain weakness ourselves, and now MSI’s Wind U160 netbook is on sale for $380 to fulfill your Atom N450 snacking needs. We were intrigued by the little laptop when we played with it back at CES, particularly if its standard 6-cell battery hump can really produce the quoted 14 hours of life. For whatever reason Newegg and Buy.com are showing now-shipping right now, while Amazon’s lagging with pre-orders only at this point, but we’re sure you’ll make the right retail choice, whatever happens. MSI’s Wind U160 netbook up for grabs in the US originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:26:00 EST.

Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla : The most powerful of minds, and the best of friends . Here, a captivated Sam Clemens tests Tesla’s inductively powered incandescent lamp. The mad scientist lurks in the background, like, well, a mad scientist. It’s not terribly surprising that the two men were friends, since they were both revered figures in Gilded Age New York City, but it’s endlessly fascinating to read about how these two men came to be friends—essentially, as mutual fanboys . There’s also a lesson to modern day science and tech luminaries: spend your famous friend currency wisely.

You know what happens when we see a video pop on Nokia Conversations (Nokia’s official blog) featuring a senior VP from Nokia’s smartphone division? Everything stops — who knows what might be revealed during an informal, semi-scripted chat. When asked about Nokia’s future smartphone technologies and experiences, Jo Harlow, SVP of Smartphones dives right into a discussion of augmented reality as a means to enhance existing Nokia services like the Ovi Maps experience. She then shifts to an entertainment perspective since “everyone’s talking about 3D.” As she sees it, there’s an opportunity for mobile to be earlier to 3D than typical television development to mobile. That means content, specifically 3D games, which Jo says “could be very, very interesting in terms of enhancing that experience.” One can only imagine that what interests Nokia’s Senior VP of smartphones will ultimately interest manufacturers on the way to retail.

Apple’s had ambitious TV plans. Standing in the way, industry execs. Apple supposedly wants to offer subscriptions to packages for $30 a month, and to sell shows for a buck. Funny then, what CBS’s CEO said during an earnings call.

iiView’s already shown that it’s not one to avoid a trend , and it’s now hopped on the biggest one going with its new 10.2-inch Vpad tablet. Unfortunately, it seems that the company isn’t as quick to update the specs as the form factor, as this one only packs some of the most basic, netbook-like internals, including an Atom N270 processor, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and Windows 7 Starter Edition for an OS. That will set you back $499, while $699 will buy you a slightly upgraded model with built-in 3G, an extra gig of RAM, and a 320GB hard drive. A bit of a tough sell in today’s tablet market, to be sure, but you can place your order for one right now if it happens to strike your fancy. [Thanks, Ryan] iiView Vpad enters today’s tablet fray with yesterday’s netbook specs originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:41:00 EST.