Tod Machover, the guru of experimental music composition at the MIT Media Lab, stopped into our office this morning for a quick visit because he was in town for a client meeting already.

I'd seen his projects at sponsor events at the lab, but some of my co-workers were able to learn from him, and sample his over-the-top enthusiasm.

Hyperbow, Beatbugs, Toy Symphony, and Hyperscore, were projects he covered.

Hyperscore, his graphical music composition software for kids, has been productized as a software anyone can buy, and it was ported to the Fisher Price Pixter a couple years ago.

His latest project is a community site where Hyperscore loads in a web broswer so people can "paint" their own cell phone ringtones and then save them for downloading into a phone.

- mike lee - washington, dc