SingingKeyboard
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Yamaha's singing keyboard makes X Factor even more redundant (video)
Tired of singers over pro-ho-ho-ho-nouncing every vowel? Perhaps the solution is to just remove their ilk from the equation altogether. That's the idea behind Yamaha's new Vocaloid Keyboard, which transforms the Vocaloid software into a ready-to-play device. 16 keys represent consonants, vowels and the types of voicing marks used in Japanese, while at the same time selecting a tone on the keyboard. An LED display prints out each letter as its plays, ensuring that you aren't making any playing errors (or should that be "typing errors?"). Experienced musicians who have used the device found that they were able to produce nursery rhymes after three hours of practice, but sadly the company isn't planning to press it into production. Instead, as the chip inside is "removable," it might contemplate licensing it to another interested party, Simon Cowell, perhaps.
The Singing Keyboard prank
This hack isn't really rocket science, and it's not really a showstopper either, but it does provide the opportunity to cause a mild amount of annoyance to a coworker for relatively low cost and hassle -- how do you beat that? It's all explained over at The Mozmonkey Blog, who prefaces his hack as a potentially "career-limiting move," and then goes on to show how to use the musical part from a musical greeting card to rig a keyboard to make loud annoying music whenever the caps lock is in use. We're told that hijinks ensue, but really, unless we decide to keep slogging through "The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" this weekend, what else are we supposed to do this afternoon?[Via Make]
