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One of the criticisms I’ve heard about Guitar Hero and the like is that you’re not actually learning to play an instrument, so you’re spending a lot of time and effort which is essentially wasted if you ever want to learn the real thing.
The idea of using a computer for assisted learning has obviously caught on though. Roland are doing it with drums and now US Music are collaborating with Disney to bring out a range of instrument / software packages.
The instrument part of the package will be a keyboard or electric guitar which looks pretty standard apart from some minor customisation (colour coding on the keys/strings, Disney branding etc). There’s a custom electronic module to connect the instrument to the PC via USB.
The software is what makes it stand out though and it looks really good – starting from first principles giving a “guitar hero” style layout it moves the player in stages through to actually reading and playing sheet music.
You can control the speed and complexity to learn at your own pace but the end goal is the same - once you master the high levels you’re playing the instrument for real.
A prototype of the keyboard is pictured, there’ll also be a guitar version and the end product will ship with a selection of Disney licensed tunes from popular TV shows and films. Look for it in the shops later this year.
The only downside from this bloggers’ perspective is that I’ll feel every so slightly foolish learning to play the keyboard to the sounds of Hannah Montana… so guys, get a grown-up branded version together and you’ve got a sale!
edit: Video of the guitar version here at Gizmodo, via Wired
Panasonic DMP-BD70V, Plays Blu-ray and VHS
The DMP-BD70V is another new Blu-ray player from Panasonic that is designed to playback the majority of media formats found in the home.
Like any other Blu-Ray player it is capable to up scaling standard DVDs to 1080 but it is the first to have a built-in VHS player (remember them) and will up scale any VHS recording to 1080 HD, which just seems wrong. VHS does not hold the same detail as DVD never mind a that of HD, so I’m expecting the upscaling to be somewhat lacking usual HD quality, unfortunately there was no demo of this (the Panasonic representatives hadn’t seen it either). Along with the VHS player the DMP-BD70V has a card reader for for playback from various memory cards.
You’ll be able to buy the DMP-BD70V for $449 from March 09.
Dlink DCS-1130 motorised network camera
Not a new product category, but as usual time and technology brings products that were once the domain of big business down to a more consumer friendly level.
The DLink DCS-1130 security / web camera is motorised for pan/tilt adjustment, wireless and can be controlled via a web browser. It can store the video on a PC or send it out to the web but I like the third option of viewing it on a 3G phone so you can monitor the builders / burglers / cheating spouses live in realtime.
(Photo courtesy of Engadget)
XLink BT - Use your cell phone like a landline
The XLink BT allows you to make and receive calls from your usual land-line phone over your mobile network. Once set-up you simply need to leave your cell phone within Bluetooth range of the XLink box and then any calls to your cell will ring and be answerable around the house and calls made from your regular phone will be redirected over your cell.
One of the advantages of the XLink is it allows you to ditch your land-line and make the most of the free calls that you get with most cellphone contracts. It can be used with 3 cellphones simultaneously, with each cell generating a different ring tone on the other phones (when calling out you specify which cell to use by a numeric prefix).
XLink retails for $80 and is available from My XLink though you may want to wait for the next version as that willinclude Skype functionality.
Shapeways 3D printing
3D printers are coming down in price but everything’s relative – you’re still looking at $$$ for even the “cheap” versions. Or you could just upload your design to Shapeways. With a few limitations, pretty much anything you can create in a 3D modelling package can be created (it still feels weird to say “printed”) and delivered direct to your door.
If you don’t want to start from scratch they have a range of template designs on the website which you can personalise with your own text but for complete flexibility you can upload designs created in modelling packages like Google Sketchup.
You have a choice of materials and pricing is directly related to the type and amount of material needed to create your design (but not the complexity; it’s the same amount of work to produce a straight cube or a complicated mechanism). The small models start down in the $10 range going up to $100+ for larger objects.
EMTEC Gdium - a netbook with a G-Key
There’s a multitude of netbooks on the market at the moment, so I nearly walked straight past the new one from EMTREC, the Gdium mobile netbook. The unique selling point of the Gdium is that it has no storage and must be booted from a USB drive, known as the G-Key.
The G-Key contains the OS (Linux), applications and user data and slots undeneath the front of the machine. The idea behind it is that each user will have their own G-Key so one Gdium netbook could be shared between multiple users with no risk at all to others’ data. It’s an interesting idea, though with the relative cheap price of netbooks I’m not sure if sharing one is really needed though if you could also use the G-Key in other machines it would make carrying a PC in your pocket a something of a reality.
Further info and machine specs can be found on the Emtec site.
TruPhone update brings phone, IM to iPod touch
The latest update to the TruPhone VOIP/IM software brings the iPod touch into the community of supported devices and adds Skype compatibility.
Similar to Skype, Truphone allows users to contact other Truphone users for free and landlines around the world for not a lot.
Unlike Skype, Truphone also allows you to talk or chat to your contacts on other services including gTalk and Skype making it a complete communications solution. Plus it works on the touch (you’ll need a separate headset to provide the mic though).
Put your data in the cloud with Pogoplug
I like simple. Strange thing to say for a geek but to paraphrase Honda, sometimes it’s nice when things just work.
That’s what I find appealing about the Pogoplug. Plug a USB hard drive in to it. Plug it into your router. See your hard drive on the internet. That’s it – no config, no networking to set up, no monthly fee. It just… works!
Or at least that’s the promise. To be fair we’ll need to get our paws on one before we can confirm the claim (it’s in preproduction at the moment) but it looks easy enough.
You can access your data through a web interface but they’ve also created drivers for Windows and OSX that make the Pogoplug appear as a drive letter so you can just use the drive without worrying about where it is.
(And yes, all the transfers between you and your hard drive are encrypted.)
