Robot Guitar

by David English on January 16th, 2008

There were all kinds of electronic devices at this year’s CES, including devices you wouldn’t normally think of as being electronic.

At the Cherry Picks event on press day (Sunday), Gibson showed its Robot Guitar. The name is a bit misleading, as it conjures up images of a self-playing guitar. That isn’t the case. The Robot Guitar is a self-tuning guitar, which is still impressive. You strum the strings. It analyzes the degree to which each string is out of tune. And it mechanically adjusts the strings to the correct tuning.

Six factory presets are provided. You can also manually tune the guitar to any other tuning and save that tuning by overwriting one of the presets. The owner’s manual provides instructions for restoring the factory defaults in case you want to go back.

Color LEDs provide user feedback during tuning operations. A solid red indicates a string is not tuned. A flashing yellow indicates the Powerheads are tuning the strings. A solid green indicates an individual string is in tune. And all LEDS flashing blue three times indicates all the strings are in tune.

Based on the demo I saw at CES, the process appears to be easy, fast, and accurate. For guitar players who like to switch back and forth among various tunings, the Robot Guitar should prove especially valuable. The retail price is $2,499. Even with that high price, there’s a waiting list of eager buyers.

Currently, there’s only one body style, though we were told at Cherry Picks that — once they catch up with the orders — Gibson will introduce different designs with the same technology.

Electronic Copilot

by David English on January 16th, 2008

I had a chance to try out HP’s iPAQ 310 Travel Companion at CES. It’s a first-rate GPS device with excellent graphics and a fast processor. The bright 4.3-inch LCD touch screen has an 800×480 pixel resolution with a 16-bit color depth. In addition, this is the first GPS product to use the SiRF Titan 600MHz ARM11 dual-core processor. As a result, the maps are detailed and shift quickly to stay in sync with your car’s movements. The text-to-speech directions worked well with a minimum of oddly funny pronunciations.

Unlike with some competing GPS products, you won’t be stuck with out-of-date maps and points of interest. Connect the 310 to your PC via a supplied USB cable to update the on-board data via the Internet. You can use the touch screen to explore areas outside your field of view. Use the side-mounted dial to incrementally change from a close-up 3D perspective to a bird-eye 2D perspective. Currently, 40 cities have low-resolution 3D buildings that look very cool as you drive by them. Otherwise, the streets are limited to a ground-level 3D perspective that’s still effective for providing a sense of scale and direction.

Other features include an SDHC-compatible SD-card slot for playing video and audio files, several games, and Bluetooth for using the 310 as a hands-free answering system for your cell phone. The 800×480 resolution screen is great for video, though it’s fairly picky about which types of AVI files it can play. Even with the fast processor, it became bogged down with video saved at a high bit rate. Those limitations aren’t a deal breaker, mostly because the media player is an add-on, not the main attraction. It’s the GPS capabilities that make the 310 really shine.

Ultimate Keyboard

by David English on January 15th, 2008

It may sound like name of a Roman General or twist-toy Transformer, but Optimus Maximus is actually a high-tech computer keyboard. There’s a tiny OLED screen embedded into each of the 113 programmable keys.

A software utility lets you associate each key with a 48×48 pixel image, so you might use a logo for a corporate website, desktop icon for a popular application, or friend’s photo for an instant messaging program.

The keyboard is ideal for switching among unusual character sets, such as Cyrillic, Ancient Greek, Georgian, Arabic, or Quenya. Musicians might use musical notes, mathematicians could embed math functions, and programmers may favor HTML codes.

Before you rush out to buy one, you should know the price. It’s roughly $1,500, depending on the exchange rate between Russia and the U.S. Check out the website of Art.Lebedev Studio, the designer of the keyboard, for other interesting products — most with more down-to-earth prices.

Is There a Doc in the House?

by David English on January 11th, 2008

You could hardly turn a corner at CES without seeing some sort of iPod docking station. One model stood out from the others for its practical design.

The Philips DCP951 Docking Entertainment System is a portable DVD player that can also play video from your iPod. It features a docking shelf that slides in and out from the unit. When slid in, it houses an iPod-sized remote control that works with both the player and iPod. When slid out, you remove the remote control and put the iPod in its place. The shelf functions as an iPod battery charger, in addition to routing the iPod’s audio and video to the player.

You can also use the DCP951 as a digital picture frame, bringing in photos from the iPod, a photo CD, or the built-in SD slot. The SD slot works with video, as well as photos. Compatible video formats include DVD, DVD+/-R, DVD+/-RW, SVCD, VCD, DivX, and MPEG4. The 9-inch LCD screen has a 16:9 aspect ratio, and battery life is rated at 2.5 hours. An AC adapter, car adapter, and AV cable are included.

The DCP951 has a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $199.99 and should be available sometime this month.

The Dancing Rolly

by David English on January 10th, 2008

One of the coolest gadgets at this year’s CES was the Sony Rolly. It’s a robotic MP3 player that moves its six moving parts — arms, shoulders, and wheels — in time with the music. It also has two light-rings that pulse to the music through a range of 700 colors. The built-in stereo speakers are designed for 180-degree coverage.

The best part about the Rolly is the software that ships with it. A timeline-based editor will let you sync the movements and light pulsing to specific points in the music. The Sony rep I spoke with at the booth said the script is then saved with the music file, so you could create as many choreographed songs as you like.

It has 2GB of memory for music storage and supports the MP3 and non-secure AAC formats. It also has Bluetooth with the A2DP profile, so you could stream music to the Rolly from a Bluetooth-compatible cell phone or laptop.

Sony hasn’t announced a price for the Rolly. It should be available this Spring.