Reading list

• New research at MIT using computational models maps out how our brains react to sound frequencies and converts them into so-called pitch. The research also suggests how such pitch perception derives from natural sounds.
  
• The pandemic has been a blooming period for digital collaborative software. Nvidia, the company behind GeForce RTX, revealed this week that their Omniverse platform is available for free download for any of their current users. This would enable content creation and collaboration through virtual worlds: "Omniverse is the platform that will allow you to connect to all the leading 3D design apps and collaborate with other artists," says Vice President of the Omniverse platform Richard Kerris.
• The market on the future of online events is becoming increasingly competitive, and Zoom just unleashed that they expand their offerings by acquiring a new software from Liminal Assets, which will bring Zoom even further in race for the best event applications.
• Cloudfare's year in review of the most popular domains in 2021 is out, and points out to the (perhaps not so) surprising rise of TikTok, which ranks now as #1, above Google and Facebook. This year in review is also provides comprehensive graphs and explanation as to the evolvement of certain trends throughout the year that passed.
• Ever tried to explain cryptocurrency to your friends? Ever felt that there is something interesting Web3, but you're not quite grasping it? This summary will provide you with all the explanations and tools to see clearer in the fog of cryptotermatic buzzwords. You can also refer back to our Web3 special in the previous Weekly from December 17th, if you need even more insight into this subject.

Design of the week

• Have a look at this collection of 25 browser based experiments for image editing and manipulation, such as pushing and pulling blocks to distort an image, recombining images using a grid of viewports or selectively pixelate an image using a compression algorithm.
• This plug in to Figma might leave you speechless: it can magically automatically generate components from various frame. Simply select the frames and watch the components appear on the sidebar. It can also swap out all matching frames for instances of it.
• Here's a shout out to a great digital fashion look book site with a dreamy art direction and storytelling. The French fashion house Maison Margiela's website mixes impressive video production and smooth scroll presentation of the collection where Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream meets Punk.

Tech of the week

• In recent years, there has been a buzz around how quantum computers might become useful tools after all, not only understandable to only a few. This article suggests that 2022 might be the year for the biggest leap of quantum computing so far, and explains how and why this might be the case. We'll probably hear more about quantum computers in the near future, so we will be watching out for more updates on the topic.

That's it for this week. 2022 has begun for real!