By Leander Kahney

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Now, a university student from Israel has written a piece of software that goes a step further. Ofer Springer has created a "virtual gramophone" that plays LPs using an ordinary flatbed scanner.

Springer's Digital Needle uses a high-resolution image of an LP captured by a flatbed scanner. (Because 12-inch LPs are bigger than the image glass on most scanners, Springer first takes four pictures and stitches them together into a single image.)

Then, like a needle on a record player, his software follows the image of the groove as it spirals around the record, generating sounds based on the wavelike patterns of the groove.

The results are barely recognizable as the original music, but strangely affecting. Springer has posted samples on the project's Web page.

Wired News: Press 'Scan' to Play Old Albums?

] Witness to centuries of bloodshed, the ancient walls of
] Jerusalem's Old City saw only white Tuesday as
] Palestinians and Israelis traded snowballs instead of
] stones and bullets.

Yahoo! News - Snowballs Replace Bullets as Snow Hits Holy Land

Here's how you can play music with your wireless network card.

Poor Man's Theremin

Though you didn't do the crime, yer gonna do the time!

Hackers do it with longer sentences!

] The US Air Force is examining the feasibility of a
] nuclear-powered version of an unmanned aircraft. The USAF
] hopes that such a vehicle will be able to "loiter" in the
] air for months without refuelling, striking at will when
] a target comes into its sights.
]
]
] With a nuclear drive a Global Hawk could fly for months
] without landing (Image: GETTY NEWSERVICE)]
] But the idea is bound to raise serious concerns about the
] wisdom of flying radioactive material in a combat
] aircraft. If shot down, for instance, would an
] anti-aircraft gunner in effect be detonating a dirty bomb

New Scientist