Made in the MIT Media Lab, Hyperscore uses a visual approach to creating songs. You create little riffs, called "motives" in separate windows, then blend those together in a larger composition window. What's brilliant (and here's that MIT magic): the app can build good harmonies, progressions, and other auditory delights into those basic compositions. Hyperscore will be bundled with MIT's $100 laptop.

Another twist involves using Hyperscore to create ringtones. To promote the software, and music in general, WIRED has the story of the MIT Ringtone Competition. Not content to pitch Hyperscore to 10 year-olds, MIT has an entire site, H-Lounge, dedicated to older users. Classic quote from the Edge regarding this emerging form of music entertainment: "Ringtones are a legitimate branch of pop music..."