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Big Mouth Billy Bass Videoconferencing
scubamage writes "Whilst browsing the net today, I found a link to a hardware hacking project by a well established Stanford graduate. His goal is to take those annoyingly popular Big Mouth Billy Bass singing fish, and not only allow users to interface it with their favorite linux box, but also to allow it to lipsync, and eventually be used as a videoconferencing peripheral. Quite an interesting read, complete with step-by-step instructions to make your own, and software source to be played with."
This is clearly a worthwhile contribution to world culture.
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Now, we have been using iChatAV to do remote collaboration from N. America to New Zealand rather successfully and the video presence is nice, but if I heard my bosses voice coming from a damn fish, I think all order would be lost in the lab. (not to mention respect). :-)
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Oh, and Geeky Thanksgiving, one and all.
If it wasn't annoying enough already, now there's a possibility that 10 year olds will start yelling "Boo, shithead" into the thing. Joy.
On the flipside, a talking fish, boss' office, you saying "WORSHIP ME FOR I AM YOUR OVERLORD" into a Mic...hmm...
I'm amazing. You aren't. SUCK IT
Excellent, Now it'll be as if the old trout is in the room with me while I'm providing free tech support.
I'll add that to the christmas list. I wonder if I can get one with a blue rinse???
While it's not the exact mirror, it's a very similar hack. Clix0r
When i worked at one of the big 3 computer oems doing support for laptops, a customer called in with one of those and one of our laptops.
:)
He was having a problem with the Billy Bass fish so he managed to rig one of our power supplies to connect to it and the fish started smoking so he called us to repair the fish because we didn't warn him not to connect the power supply to fish.
With the lack of a part number on the fish, we decided not to replace it.
The comes under the same heading as TCP/IP over bongo drums and Evil bob the builder toys - pointless, but exceptionally cool and well worth wasting your time on :)
An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of
The greatest minds of our generation are too busy trying to get animatronic fish to sing, "Livin' La Vida Loco!"
of those annoying things, someone goes and breaths new life into them. What's next, a practical use for Darl?
Celebrities are like ads, if we all ignore them, they'll just go away.
It's good to see that the wal-mart pcs will have plenty of accessories available for them. All they need now is a mouse made out of a stuffed animal head and a keyboard/gun rack combo.
"Ey Chaaaalie, yah gonna talk with tha fish"
"WHA? Ey, I been a good guy to youz, why youz doin' this to me?"
Regardless, this strikes me as a giant leap in technology. Yessir, no longer are we going to have to put up with low-res, blocky, 5-color, bad-mime-show video. That's right, you've now got a high definition, 3D image right in front of you! Fish smell in 2004...
Please help metamoderate.
I find it incredible that this site is not up. You would think that someone doing this type of hack would realize that it was going to be linked by just about every news service in the world .... well ok maybe just slashdot.
Stay tuned for new sig...
Yeah, I'm sure every corporate exec wants to be talking to a fish (with your voice) about important company issues...
"Just one more thing, Fish... Uh, I mean, Johnson."
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Oh my cod!
Blogzine.net
clifgriffin > blog
Do-It-Yourself Hacked Billy Bass
The Source
'Go for the eyes, Boo, go for the eyes, aaarrrrrrrr!' -- Minsc
Is there going to be localization for this project? We don't have bass where I live. I think I might be more comfortable talking into a carp.
I can think of only one real practical use for something like this. At least for the voice conferencing feature. When out of town guests come, it's customary to get them all nice an boozed up. Then, usually about 3am everyone goes to sleep, and guest is left to their own devices on the couch.
At this point, the guest is usually quite drunk, and doesn't have his wits correctly about him. This is when you turn on the billy bass. The host could retire to the other room, start up the laptop with a microphone attached, run his voice through some sort of modifier, and have a great deal of fun with the guest.
The fish would spring to life. "You! Yes, you! What the devil do you think your doing?" Wait to hear a response. "Yes, you, (insert name of guest here). Don't think I haven't been watching you. I know what you're doing."
At this point the host can opt for a number of fun pranks to play on his guest. Everything from a fake spiritual revelation "You know very well that that attractive girlfriend is not a good match for you. It's a sham. Introduce her to your host. It will be good for your soul", to just good hyjinks "It's finally happened, my friend. You've gone insane".
Ahh, what good times could be had.
The Internet is generally stupid
The parent post shows clearly why we now need a new category so that we can score posts "-1, Needs a sense of humour".