The Open Music initiative. Free music for a free world. ‘The basic idea of the OpenMusic philosophy is the free spreading of music…The ideas of this philosophy are very similar to that of the Free Software, however, special features of the music area were adapted…’

Fed up with the colour of your tech device? Fancy a makeover? Then check out the Colorware coloring service and ‘transform your favourite products into your color of choice.’ Prices range from $49.00 for an iPod, $99.00 for a PS2 or Xbox to $399.00 for an Apple Powerbook. (Ferrari red Powerbook anyone?)

Disk Doctor Hands [Babel] looks like a little kit for restoring and repairing scratched CD disks. Not sure how well it works, of course, and from the looks of it the site offers no guarantees at all.

Pixology has announced a deal with Texas Instruments to embed automatic red-eye removal inside digital cameras via a chip containing Pixology’s IRISS software. This goes way beyond using the conventional red-eye setting on an inbuilt digicam flash unit, since it actually detects any red eyes on the image in the camera and then removes them automagically on the fly. It looks like a really cool solution to a naff problem and all I’ve got to say is…and about time too,…

World of Ends – What the Internet Is and How to Stop Mistaking It for Something Else. ‘Fortunately, the true nature of the Internet isn�t hard to understand. In fact, just a fistful of statements stands between Repetitive Mistake Syndrome and Enlightenment�’

Alex Terrazas has designed a geek torture system called the Wireless Walden that lets you reward exercise time with play time. ‘…uses wire-free technology to connect a timepiece to exercise or sports equipment and then, finally, with a TV. Basically, it works like this: Climb the stair machine or play basketball for 20 minutes, and the device programs your television to let you watch, say, a half-hour sitcom. It also can regulate time spent on video games, personal computers and…

Israeli company CrossID claims to have developed a form of liquid RFID radio tag, for marking and identifying anything from bank notes to clothing and groceries. The product is not yet in production, but the makers are hoping that it will only cost a fraction of existing smart tags. More here. ‘The system uses “nanometric” materials�tiny particles of chemicals with varying degrees of magnetism�that resonate when bombarded with electromagnetic waves from a reader. Each chemical emits its own distinct radio…

Numbers Station – ‘radio stations of uncertain origin that broadcast streams of numbers, words, or phonetic sounds. No one knows for sure where their signals originate or what purpose they serve.’ Huh?

Moodmixer is another MP3 playlist creator which plays stuff according to your mood. It’s not free ($12.00) and works as a Winamp plugin based around Flash. Worth a browse. Interestingly the German developers are also touting it as a business tool, to play various moods of music to suit your shop, hotel, bar, hair salon etc, and even quote Susan Hallam’s Power of Music article and research.

Wow, classic 80’s arcade games like Space Invaders, Donkey Kong and Pacman, redone in Flash for free online fun. Excellent stuff.

Now off ferreting for cool stuff. Normal service resumed in a couple of days or so. Stay happy.

One more reason to sell those camcorder company shares. Canon’s new PowerShot S1 IS ‘offers 10x zoom, optical Image Stabilization technology, and the ability to capture 640 x 480 high-res movies at up to 30 frames per second for an estimated selling price of $499.’

The Mentor/PAL system developed by Sandia National Labs is designed to help teams collaborate more effectively. It will be able to advise people if they are not being effective, are talking too much or are too tired to be useful etc. Hmmm….. ‘The research project, known as Mentor/Pal, is in two parts – the Personal Assistance Link (Pal) made up of tiny sensors and transmitters monitoring each team member, and the Mentor computer program which will process information from each…

Electronics giant Samsung has developed a new chipset which will receive and process pay per view DMB satellite video transmissions on mobile phones. And why not?

The VascoTrack V502 – ‘the smallest and most power efficient tracking device in the world, the V502. It operates over all GSM / GPRS networks using the GPS global positioning satellite system.’ Watch your backs!