Back on April 1st (that would be, April Fool’s Day) we posted about a Personal Soundtrack Shirt from Thinkgeek.com. The shirt had a speaker embedded in the front, and would play music and sound effects as you went about your daily business, making your boring life that much more exciting.
It was, of course, a joke.
Or maybe not.
Thinkgeek got such a crazy response to the joke that they’ve decided to make an actual product out of it, and it’ll be on sale in limited quantities starting on Friday. Just like the April Fool’s Day prank, the shirt has a big speaker embedded in the front. A wired remote control allows you to choose the appropriate soundtrack or sound effect to play. If you don’t like the included sounds, you can add your own on an SD card, or even wire an MP3 player directly into the speaker. The electronics are removable so you can wash the shirt if you’re into that sort of thing.
The Personal Soundtrack Shirt is only $40 and is guaranteed to make you awesome forever. Or as long as you’re wearing it, anyway. Video after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Everyone is familiar with the common kitchen kettle, right? Fill it up with water, set it on the stove and it will whistle when the water begins to boil. It’s really not a complicated piece of kitchenware, that is until someone decides to change the tune of that whistle.
This Harmonica Kettle is, as you might imagine, a kettle with a built-in harmonica in place of the whistle. Rather than hearing a high-pitched scream, you’ll be greeted with a soft melody from your kettle. Is that worth $265? Not to me, but then again I don’t even own a kettle, so what do I know?
This post is syndicated with permission from GamerFront.net
If I stop to think about some of the most influential musicians and bands in the history of Rock, The Beatles are certainly high on the list. Unfortunately the British musicians have been slow to license their music in the digital age. I believe they are one of only 3 bands in the entire world that don’t have their work for sale on iTunes. Despite their apparent fear of modern music distribution, they have decided to allow Harmonix to develop their own music game.
One would be quick to think that this was a Rock Band title, however, this is not the case. It is apparently a completely unique game, though it does draw on the Rock Band platform in some ways. Very little is known about the project at this point, though we do have a few tidbits. One, it will follow the Beatles career from their first album all the way up to their last release. It will also feature a lot of “visual imagery”, though specifics weren’t mention. One good piece of news is that it will be compatible with current Rock Band instruments.
If you’ve spent much time around drummers (and I’ve had way, way, WAY more than my share), you might take a look at this drum kit shirt and ask yourself why on Earth anyone would want to go and give a drummer yet another way to make noise. Please, Thinkgeek, have mercy on the rest of us. Yes, it’s cool that your shirt has integrated touch panels and a speaker that can loudly reproduce seven different sounds. It’s also cool that all of the electronic components removable so that the shirt can be washed. But why did you have to put drums on it? Why not something a bit gentler, with less potential for public abuse… Something like, I dunno, bagpipes? Yeah, bagpipes. Now THAT would be awesome.
The electronic drum kit shirt takes 4 AA batteries and will run you about $30 from ThinkGeek. Migraine medication sold separately.
You may remember the Power Glove and it’s 90 minute commercial/movie called The Wizard. In it, badass villain Lucas shows off the Power Glove and all it’s magical game winning abilities. The movie was OK, the glove was crap. And now this finger keyboard comes along and I already think it’s crap before reading up on it.
The Finger Keyboard Gloves are USB powered gloves that can create music by tapping your fingers on any surface. Each finger creates a different musical note. There are multiple instrument voices that can be replicated and learning modes to help teach you how to use the gloves. The battery for the gloves can be charged via any USB port.
The price is $70 but I really don’t think these will be that big of a thing. For a hundred dollars more you can buy yourself or your kid a decent musical keyboard that would allow you to really learn how to play. Fame and rockstar status will then only be months(or decades or eons) away.
I come from a family of musicians. Both my dad and brother are excellent guitar players and have been recording their own music for some time. I can’t tell you how many times one of them would remark on a particularly excellent piece of music they came up with, only to forget it. This excellent little gadget would be a great way to make sure you never forgot the music you created during a late night jam session.
The BackTrack is a simple recorder for your guitar. Just plug in your quarter-inch cord and go about your rocking. The device is always on, but only starts recording when a signal is detected. If you lay down a really great piece that you want to remember for later, just hit the “Mark” button so you know exactly where to look when you download it.
The audio is recorded as 24-bit, 48KHz .WAV files. The 1GB of internal memory should be enough for around 12 hours of recording. The battery can last anywhere up to 12 hours, but will vary depending on the sample rate and bit depth you choose to record at. You’ll both download your audio files and charge it via USB. Line 6 also makes a “+ Mic” version which features a mic and double the storage capacity.
Depending on how the audio turns out, this could be a very useful tool for a musician working on new material. The basic BackTrack will run you $140, while the + Mic version will set you back $210.
There are times that I wonder whether George Lucas even cares what kind of products bear the Star Wars name. Take this Darth Vader Radio and CD Player for example. It’s not the worst gadget to bear a resemblance to a Star Wars character, but is there any real reason someone would want a radio/CD player shaped like Darth Vader? I might understand if it were an R2-D2 radio since he’s actually a droid.
My favorite part of this product is the wonderfully Photoshopped image that the manufacturer used. I’m really itching to know what the actual product looks like, and if it bears any resemblance to the depicted helmet. If you simply must have another Darth Vader helmet, then this is all yours for $44.
Yesterday I wrote about the unfortunate demise of Muxtape, and while the site might be dead (I doubt it will ever return in its previous form) the idea isn’t. It looks like a similar site called 8tracks could possibly be a suitable alternative to Muxtape for those of us in withdrawal. While Muxtape allowed users to upload 12 different tracks for their playlist, 8tracks seems to be limited to… wait for it… 8 tracks, just like the old cart format. Of course in the ‘end days’ of Muxtape there were thousands of playlists to choose from, which was a big part of its appeal, so hopefully 8tracks will enjoy similar growth and popularity before the day ‘you-know-who’ comes knocking. And as the The Red Ferret Journal points out, after 8tracks there will inevitably be another, and another, and another…
I’ve always been fascinated by the vinyl record. Since I was born in the 80’s, I grew up in the era of the cassette and CD, so those strange black discs were interesting. They somehow played music by having a needle run over them, how strange. Of course I’m older and understand the logic behind how they work, and yet somehow I still find them interesting. This Sound Chaser makes them even cooler.
Essentially what you see are several strips of a record that has been cut up and put back together to form a small track. The little yellow box on wheels contains a needle and speaker which allows it to play music as it follows the track. How cool is that? Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any plan to release these commercially. It’s probably best, since we really don’t want people to go out and cut up all of their old vinyls.
Related Tags: 
Permalink
