Techno Teddy

jazzman writes "In an attempt to push technology into realms it had better never set a foot on, the guys from flugeldufel have modified some consumer hardware and created a unique musical instrument: it looks like a teddy bear, feels like a teddy bear, and transforms gestures into 44kHz breakbeats."

Comments

As a wise man once said

[Starship Trooper]

Programmers are so obsessed with the fact that they can, they don't stop to think that they should.

Re:As a wise man once said

[telstar]

Sadly most of the ones I work with don't even START to think if they can...

...off to monster.com.

Re:As a wise man once said

[FrostedWheat]

Inspiration comes in many forms. Doing something like this although seemingly pointless, will inspire others to do greater things! Many of these will be pointless, but some will not!

The Wrong Pill!

[nick_davison]

Have you seen the pictures? That's just not right!
Taking the wrong pill, the teddy remained connected to the matrix.

wow!

[SquierStrat]

I admit i only glanced at the page...but i didn't see a how-to section...come on details please! that's so frigen kewl i gotta do it myself!

Re:wow!

[Manitcor]

That's half the fun, he shows you how the hardware is hooked up and the hardware he uses. He even supplies you with the source code. He even goes through the trouble of supplying you with the actual GBA Compiled ROM itself.

If you need more detail than that do a little research on electronics and the structure of GBA hardware.

Gahh!

[sandidge]

To mangle a line from the Simpsons:

"Can't sleep, teddy bear will eat me. Can't sleep, teddy bear will eat me."

What does "unique" refer to?

[EvilNTUser]

If you mean unique as in "it's a teddy bear", then you're correct afaik, but using gestures to control instruments is not a unique idea.

With the right approach...

[ackthpt]

This could be the next huge Christmas toy. Then we'd have slashdot carrying articles on how you can

Install Linux on it

Program it with AI

Hold LAN parties for insecure programmers

I'm kinda surprised I haven't seen something like this yet, but with all the dumb toys which have been -HOT- it makes sense something which appeals to intelligent people would be a flop. Stands to reason when you look at everything these days. Thanks to those few capitalists who actually do give tech toys a fair shot (and don't sue people when they get inside them)

Teddy Bear appeal...

[Speare]

I wonder why so many people choose teddy bears for their projects.

teddy bear spy camera

teddy bear network switch

teddy bear terror bomb

Strange geek fetish?

Re:Teddy Bear appeal...

[Chris Mattern]

> teddy bear terror bomb

Whoa, Cowboy Bebop flashback.

"YOU! Teddy Bomber, serial bomber!"

Chris Mattern

Must resist... Can't hold out much longer.. Aagh!

[ackthpt]

Imagine a Bearwulf cluster of these...

Hangs head in shame for moment of weakness...

The extra ingredient is love.

[Burgundy Advocate]

Raver Teddy

1 Techno Teddy
4 Lightsticks, assorted colors
1 Sparkly Shirt, toddler size
30 Count extacy hits
2 Bottles water, trendy brand preferred
1 Roll duct tape

Dress bear in shirt. Break lightsticks and attach to bear with duct tape. Place extacy hits on convenient locations on bear, using duct tape. Tape water bottles to teddy. Let sit for ten minutes, toss into pit of e-tards and let the fun begin!

Politically incorrect

[iggly_iguana]

I read the headline, and immediately thought of girls in wearable computers......

It's hell being a geek...

Reminds me a lot of...

[twoshortplanks]

This guy's work with making music with ultrasonic sensors. I saw his stuff a London dorkbot meeting where he let us play with these things.

Waving your hands around in a analogue space above sensors to create music is a weird experience - quite unlike playing the keyboard or strumming a guitar.

Re:Reminds me a lot of...

[MartinB]

Waving hands to create music? Sounds a bit theraminish to me.

Re:Undocumented feature of this teddy bear...

[ross.w]

Some friends of mine had one of these. they also had a small fluffy dog. The scene went something like this:

Interior, a loungeroom. In the centre of the floor sits a Teddy Ruxpin, switched on. A small fluffy dog approaches

Small dog (tentatively, not sure what to make of this furry creature): Woof?

Teddy Ruxpin: Woof?

Small Dog( backing away in fear): Grrr! Woof! Woof! Woof!

Teddy Ruxpin: Grrr! Woof! Woof! Woof!

The dog flees under the settee and cowers in fright at the fearsome Teddy Ruxpin. Onlookers roll about on the floor laughing as the scene fades

Re:Good for babies

[jazzman'flugeldufel]

Believe it or not, but when we bought the teddy (some 15), it was already loaded with electronics. It had pressure sensors in different parts of the body, and would talk and teach you the names of its body parts ("Touch my tummy! Nooo... that's my right arm. Yes... that's my tummy! You're smart!"). The chip didn't look programmable though and sound quality was rather sub-par, so we ripped it all out and put in the Gameboy.

Re:weird insturments

[spoonboy42]

No. Theremins have two electronic sensors that, on two different axes, track position, with one hand controlling pitch and the other controlling volume. The theremin is a a very simple (but very cool) hand-position controlled synthesizer.

This device, on the other hand, is more of a sequencer. If you take a look at the webpage, you'll see that the software plays whatever is currently selected (breaks, basslines, ambient FX, etc.) on loop. When a recognized gesture is made, it switches one of the loops to another sample in memory.

In other words, it's a cute, cuddly MMT-8.

Microsoft already did this

[Animats]

Surely you remember Microsoft Barney for Windows.

• "The PC Pack includes a CD-ROM with ActiMates-compatible software activities and a transmitter that plugs into the MIDI/game port on your PC. Simply plug in the transmitter, install the software, and you're ready to go! The ActiMates character has no wires. It receives radio signals up to 15 feet away from the transmitter. Requires Microsoft Windows 95 or later or Windows NT Workstation version 4.0 or later with Service Pack 3."

Microsoft was, however, unable to achieve market dominance in the plush-toy sector.

Re:Good for babies

[arkanes]

God, that's amazingly disturbing. And yet, my poor caffeine addled brain is already thinking up various perverse uses for such a thing...

Microsoft Innovation

[bill_mcgonigle]

Whenever somebody says Microsoft never innovates, I always mention the Actimates line. It was really quite clever. They had Actimates commands encoded in the vertical blanking interval of the Barney TV show, so the bear would react to what was was being displayed on the TV.

Despite both Microsoft and Barney being reprehensible, the product was a neat idea.

Re:Microsoft Innovation

[Manitcor]

I always wondered how they would send the commands to the bear. Unless the Actimates had a very high res camera to actually SEE the picture on the screen I would imagine it would be something with bright flashes in single frames of the video.

I played with a pre-cursor to this type of tech (anyone remember Nintendo's ROB the robot).

The only thing I keep seeing though with tech like this is 4 year olds across the nation having seizures from the flashes used to execute such commands.

One moment little Timmy is enjoying his show with that strange bear of his, the next moment little Timmy looks like he's overdosing on ketamine and ends up spending the rest of his life in a wheel chair with half his brain not working. "Timmah!"