Tech Loop

Using Apple's new "Find My iPhone" feature which lets iPhone users pinpoint the exact location of a lost or stolen iPhone from a computer, Kevin and two friends, equipped with a Macbook Pro connected to a Sprint 3G USB dongle, embarked on a digital adventure on the streets of Chicago:

Last night, after seeing Second City improv, we ate at a pleasantly sketchy dive bar in uptown Chicago, where the food was mediocre and the characters were questionable. I definitely had my iPhone while at our table, and I definitely did NOT have it (whoops!) when we were 100 feet down the street.

Us three skinny white guys walked at a rapid pace in the direction of the circle. We moved past the birthday party, curious if one of the participants might be culpable, but the circle again shifted farther south. I was ready to break for our car if the phone started moving away faster than we could catch it, but it hovered at the very end of the street, at the corner of Washtenaw and Milwaukee...

Congrats, Chicago. You've made it to D-Day and have slaughtered the 70-year-old beast that is analog television. Now that 0s and 1s are being pumped into your digital converter boxes or new digital-ready TVs, what do you do with your analog leftovers?

Option 1: Make a few bucks and sell the old TV on Craigslist. Fellow Chicagoans can still put them to good use as long as they have a converter box.

Option 2: Save it in case Skynet becomes self-aware.

Option 3: Make sure they don't end up in a landfill and recycle them! TVs are made up of a myriad of materials that can be salvaged, processed and reused. Some of those components are harmful to the environment if not correctly disposed of.

"In 2007, Americans had accumulated 99 million TVs in storage and discarded nearly 27 million TVs," according to the EPA. "Of the TVs discarded, approximately 18 percent were recycled. Between 2004 and 2007, the number of TVs that entered the waste stream increased by 14 percent."

Here's where you can drop off your TV for recycling in the Chicagoland area:

(Blue = Samsung TVs; Green = Sony TVs; and Red = Panasonic, Toshiba and Sharp TVs)

AirTran just announced it will outfit every single one of its planes with GoGo in-flight Wi-Fi by midsummer. In other words, Facebook stalking will be taken to a whole new level, literally. 

Chicagoans traveling to Boston, Atlanta, and a few Florida cities can get there in full Wi-Fi glory without a stopover. Those setting off to other AirTran destinations will have to fly through Atlanta.

The service will set you back $12.95 for flights over three hours, or $9.95 for flights less than three hours. Travelers with handheld devices get access for just $7.95.

We can see the status messages already: "[Insert random Twitter or Facebook friend] is 34,985 feet above [insert U.S. landmark]!"

AirTran destinations from Chicago:

We here at Tech Loop would agree that it is more than acceptable to be a cool, hip, startup trying to appeal to a younger generation. But, sometimes, people just try just a little too hard. Take the psuedo-hip jokesters over at Cushy CMS, for example.

I was surfing around the Twitterrific iPhone app the other day as I normally do, trying to ignore all of the blatently placed and annoying ads found in the free version when this Cushy CMS ad caught my eye. The first thing I thought was that it was a joke, and that there was absolutely no way a company would ever make an advertisement dissing my mother, but quickly realized that this was, in fact, a real ad. Last time I checked, being provocative in adverstising was fine, but being downright offensive was NOT okay. I've screencapped the offending ad below, which you can see in the top right corner:

For the record, Cushy, my mom is NOT easy. Thanks.

Blow out your cartridges, plug in your controllers, and hit the power button…Chicago’s own NES-Rock band I Fight Dragons wants to put you into a warp zone..straight into 8-bit rock heaven. We think that the Nester nerds from I Fight Dragons are actually carving out a mostly-untapped music styling that, quite possibly, could become its own genre. 8-bit NES sounds have been used before (listen: Game Over by “Lil Flip”), but merely as gimmicky side-noise to what would be considered a normal song. I Fight Dragons uses Nintendo-style synths, bleeps, blips, and crashes as part of the musical landscape and arrangement throughout their entire debut EP titled “Cool is Just a Number”. Heck, even the album cover looks like an old-school Nintendo Entertainment System cover.

Not even Trent Reznor would use a video game controller to call upon the many sounds in his arsenal, but these guys just don’t care, and we respect that. The band’s “Mad Scientist” Bill Prokopow uses Power Pads, SNES Controllers, the Power Glove, the NES Advantage, and even a Guitar Hero controller, just to name a few of the peripherals. And they do so in style – each band member wears a signature shirt with a logo of their choosing emblazoned across the front. Singer and front man Brian Mazzaferri wears a shirt with a Superman logo on the front, and bass player Harry Rao rocks a Batmans tee – in fact, they look more like a mish-mash of superheros on stage rather than a rock band. Don’t let their campy NES theme or 8-bit avatars throw you off though, these guys are the real deal and ready to take Chicago by storm, as evidenced by the live video below. It's definitely a live show you don't want to miss.

IFD’s debut album starts out with the audio instrumental “Power Up” which is basically just the sounds of someone inserting an NES cartridge, closing the flap, and firing up a game with cheesy yet all too familiar NES intro music starting soon after. (you can even hear the clacking of the controller’s A and B buttons). We prefer to call this type of intro “Geek Chic”. It is a fitting prelude to an album full of quirky, yet tastefully inserted, NES tinks and twangs. If you’ve played any of the Mario Brothers series, you’ll recognize sounds from the game throughout the album, but we are also sure there are sounds from numerous other games included as well (Double Dragon?). One example of in-song usage is “Heads Up, Hearts Down” – you can plainly hear the trill sound from Mario Brothers 3 when you make Mario Run to charge up his “P Meter” in the background. Other times, it isn’t just noise. For example, at the end of “Money” there is a full-on symphony of NES sounds and synths creating the bridge composition of the song. Come to think of it, it sounds a lot like run-of-the-mill background music of any Nintendo boss fight.

Aside from the artistic use of NES sound effects, the group is effective in putting together well thought out songs, with catchy melodies and smart lyrics. On that merit alone, they are worth a look…you won’t be sorry.

This weekend, Tech Loop is going to sit down with the men and women of I Fight Dragons to discuss exactly how they create their trademark sound using programming and peripherals, and maybe also challenge them to a SMB2 time attack. Check back here next week to see exactly how they do it! In the meantime, check them out on the iTunes Music Store, or head over to their website for full details and upcoming shows (PSSST: we hear they’re currently giving away their debut EP for free). They’ve also got a merch store with some geek-friendly band schwag you might want to check out.

 All images are courtesy of IFD's website.