The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: November 19, 2006

Official News - page 10

REAL LIFE NEWS: MAKE A NOISE WITH AIR GUITAR T-SHIRT

by Hazed

Australian scientists have come up with a t-shirt that allows air guitarists to play real music just by moving their arms. Yes, that's right - no real guitars are required, the pretend ones will make the noises so you can really sound like AC-DC's Angus Young or Slash from Guns n Roses.

The t-shirt has motion sensors built into its elbows that pick up movements and relay them wirelessly to a computer which interprets them as guitar riffs. One arm is interpreted as picking chords while the other strums. The shirt can be adapted for both right and left-handed wanna-be rock guitar gods.

Now, ok, this might be fun - it'll allow you to jump around and move your arms to make pretty music, just like the various dance machines do, but how can it possibly interpret the delicate finger movements air guitarists use to simulate the solos of their fave guitarists? I can't see those who take their air guitar seriously being impressed by this.

Still, there is a serious side to this "wearable instrument shirt". Dr Richard Helmer from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Belmont, Australia, said that similar sensors could be used in the future to reproduce a person in a virtual world so they could get feedback on their actions and improve their sporting techniques. Well, maybe...


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