Arc: New Music Controller in Video, Detailed Q+A with monome Creator Brian Crabtree.

Alexandra Lange: What Should Food Look Like?.

TUAW’s Daily App: Strange Rain.

Urban Archaeology: North Brother Island – Riverside Hospital.

The Ambiguity of “Open” and VP8 vs. H.264.

Stuxnet Worm Used Against Iran Was Tested in Israel.

Four Loko Recycled Into Eco-Friendly Fuel.

Plants affect ecology from the bottom up.

Raiding Eternity by Joel Johnson.

Michael Lewis writes about a handful of Wall Street outsiders who realized the subprime mortgage business was a house of cards and found a way to bet against it: Part 1, Part 2.

A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving.

Add MoviePeg to your iPhone, adjust the angle and like magic you’ll be in relaxed viewing heaven.

Phone numbers, shortcuts, tips, contact info, reviews, and customer service details for thousands of companies worldwide.

Unlocking the secrets of Jupiter’s Giant Red Spot.

For the first time, researchers harvest raw electric current directly from algae.

Planet Money on NPR tracks its very own toxic asset.

Get Lamp: The Text Adventure documentary looks interesting.

CB2′s new outdoor collection.

Slate ad critic Seth Stevenson tries out a Google service that allows you to run your own commercial on national TV for as little as $100.

MIDIPad turns your iPad into a multi-touch MIDI controller.

The reimagined iWork gives a hint of how apps can be optimized for both mobility and multitouch. It would be great to see Boxee develop something for streaming content, from both online channels and via UPnP devices. I’m sure our son would love watching YouTube on it as well.

Initially, I thought the 3G-capable models would appeal only to those who work and travel, but then it occurred to me maybe I wouldn’t need to shell out the big bucks for FiOS at home if we had such a wireless connection, esp. since it’s unlocked and pay-as-you-go. Just a thought.

What I’m most excited about, though, is using an iPad to make music: I can already imagine running iPad-enhanced versions of BeatMaker, 8Bitone, synthPond, technoBox and especially TouchOSC as a multitouch controller. And, dare we dream of a mobile Ableton Live? With the iPad’s larger surface and faster processor, a lite version with virtual instruments Impulse, Simpler, Analog, Tension and a handful of basic effects would make a great audio sketch pad.

How did a plastic water bottle, imported from a military dictatorship thousands of miles away, become the epitome of cool?.

Art of the arcade.

How to develop groove in your playing.

12 Greenest colleges and universities in the U.S.

Osmos has a sublime electronic soundtrack by Loscil, Gas/High Skies, Julien Neto, Biosphere, and more.

By refusing to comment on the work you show the work some respect; you allow the work to just be.

Watch, discover and discuss independent, foreign and classic films.

Fluxx is a card game with ever-changing rules.

Ready, Set, Green: Eight Weeks to Modern Eco-Living, from the experts at TreeHugger.com

Innovation is a result — not a process.

Images of Brian Eno’s recent 77 Million Paintings installation at the Sydney Opera House.

New Math, by Craig Damrauer.

WANT: Neuton CE 6 Rechargeable Lawn Mower.

David Lynch’s new Interview Project.

WANT: Bali 12-Bottle Wine Rack.

Neil Voss’s music generating iPhone puzzler, xgon.

100 Abandoned Houses.

Hulu Desktop beta for Mac OS X.

Use the Mac OS X app Self Control when you need to limit your online temptations.

• my wife, Emma
  
• our son, ‘Jack’
  
• Bugaboo Gecko stroller
• Canon Digital Rebel XT SLR camera
• Ceylon Sonata black tea from Adagio
• Bostonian shoes

TV:

• 30 Rock
• The Office

Film:

• The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
• Brick
• The Departed
• Marie Antoinette
• A Prairie Home Companion
  

Books:

• Massive Change by Bruce Mau and Jennifer Leonard
• Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins
• What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry by John Markoff
• A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong
• Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Susanna Clarke
  
• Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence by Andrew Juniper
• Cloud Atlas: A Novel by David Mitchell
• The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life) by John Maeda
• Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands by Marty Neumeier

Music:

• Broadcast – Future Crayon
• M. Ward – Post-War
• Daedelus – Denies the Days Demise
• Isobel Campbell And Mark Lanegan – Ballad of Broken Seas
• Xiu Xiu – Air Force
• Cat Power – The Greatest
• Erasure – Union Street
  
• Nouvelle Vague – Bande a Part
• Ochre – Lemodie
• Sufjan Stevens – The Avalanche: Outtakes & Extras from the Illinois Album
• The Album Leaf – Into the Blue Again
• Juana Molina – Son
• Loscil – Plume
• Max Richter – Songs from Before
• Robin Guthrie – Continental
• Thom Yorke – The Eraser
• Ellen Allien & Apparat – Orchestra of Bubbles
• CSS – Cansei de Ser Sexy
• Hot Chip – The Warning
• TV on the Radio – Return to Cookie Mountain
• The Black Keys – Magic Potion
• ISAN – Plans Drawn in Pencil
• Carbon Based Lifeforms – World of Sleep
• Herbert – Scale
• Bliss – They Made History
• Boards of Canada – Trans Canada Highway
• Isolèe – Western Shore
• Bonobo – Days to Come
• Biosphere – Dropsonde
• Maps and Diagrams – Antennas and Signals
• Bent – Intercept!
• Jolie Holland – Springtime Can Kill You
• Joanna Newsom – Ys
• Hem – Funnel Cloud
• William Orbit – Hello Waveforms
• Band of Horses – Everything All The Time
• The Be Good Tanyas – Hello Love
• Camera Obscura – Let’s Get Out of This Country

Games:

• Lego Star Wars II for PS2
• Quinn for Mac OS X

Software:

• Democracy Player
• Ableton Live
• Native Instruments Reaktor

Online:

• The Ricky Gervais Show podcast
• Google Reader and Gmail
• WordPress
• Netflix
• Flickr

* = I realize not all of these (the books for example) were released in 2006. But, it’s new if it’s new to me. Also, the list grew beyond a few. It was a good year.