The pocketable DJ tool Pacemaker is now available here in the US at $499. That price is considerably more realistic than expected pricing earlier on, though it still fits in a funny sort of slot: it’s not quite the equivalent of pro DJ gear, which costs much more, but it’s still pricier than your run-of-the-mill DJ player. For those with the pocket change (cough), I could imagine it’ll be fun.

And you do have to admire the Pacemaker for being a really unique hardware gadget idea. It’s a glimpse of what music technology could be like in the very near future. Generically, you might describe it as:

• a specialized embedded mobile gadget with sonic-manipulation capabilities
• a connection between a mobile device and a computer-based editor
• a cloud-based, online community for sharing work

Take that as the template, and I think you’ll agree there’s a lot of potential in the basic concept. The specific idea here may be a tougher sell. It’s actually like the DJ-centric “Pro iPod” I remember Jason O’Grady of PowerPage.org and I once imagined in the first months of Apple’s iPod release. Whether DJs actually want that is another question – particularly with the iPhone and other mobile devices adding this functionality in software. But in the specific, as in the generalized view, the Pacemaker is nothing if not intriguing:

David Merrill, working with Jeevan Kalanithi and (for the audio engine) Josh Kopin, wowed audiences at the TED conference with his Siftables interactive blocks. These strike me as what the Audiocubes have tried, sometimes unsuccessfully, to be — physical objects that react to the proximity of other objects, allowing you to manipulate music and media by moving around tangible blocks. Siftables are gifted with multiple expressive controls (tilt helping them break the plane of the surface), and intelligent screens that make them more adaptable and provide more visual feedback.

The music sequencer is very cool, though I think it’s actually the Scrabble-like game that may be the winner among the demos. But while TED celebrates all things cool and futuristic for their easily-digestible novelty, sometimes I think the most important design achievements are as significant in their shortcomings as their successes. Siftables raises some important questions. Sure, you can now use two hands, as opposed to the single mouse pointer. But do those same tangible blocks actually limit the kinds of interactions you can have, even compared to a traditional UI? Does it sound any different/ And note that — a little bit of tilting aside — the interface is still essentially two-dimensional. I’m personally really stumped by the question of how you can make a successful three-dimensional controller. Yet three dimensions is how all of us interact with space and movement daily. Maybe it’s the fact that we do so much of this, comprehend movement so richly, and take it for granted, that makes mapping those gestures so challenging.

That’s not a criticism of the project – or a claim that I can do any better. On the contrary, I think it’s important to do this sort of work because it can raise those kinds of questions. We’re gifted as a generation to try out and test these ideas with flexibility that was never before possible — and the intelligence built into these objects shows the potential of that power.

More of Siftables after the jump. And it’s well worth checking out David’s other projects, too – when I last ran into him, he was showing off the totable, Linux-powered Audiopint sound-processing box. Oh, yeah — and he’s the face control for guitar guy!

For mobile work, your choices have traditionally come down to one of two choices: either lug your laptop and audio interface, or get dedicated recording hardware with far fewer capabilities. We’ve been following the evolution of the Linux-powered Trinity mobile recorder for over a year now because we’re interested in what could happen between those two extremes.

Prototype Trinity recorders initially failed to impress on the software side: the bundled software focused on Audacity 2.0, a fairly basic waveform editor. That already allows far more than what’s possible with dedicated hardware recorders, but maybe not quite enough to warrant leaving your laptop at home. Since we last saw it, though, the Trinity has gotten two major improvements. First, it’s not naked any more; it’s got a lovely, brushed aluminum case. More importantly, though, it’s got an application worth writing home about: a new, mobile/embedded edition of the powerful, free DAW Ardour called Ardourino.