Technabob » learn

Pocketstrings Helps You Learn Guitar by Putting the Frets in Your Pocket

Conner Flynn — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:42 +0000

Learning to play the guitar can be very challenging. It may have just six strings, but there are hundreds of positions and fingering combinations as well as different strumming patterns that you have to remember. That’s probably why I don’t play guitar.

The PocketStrings device can help those learning to play guitar through muscle memory. It is about the size of a remote control, with a tiny four fret board that lets you practice chords and riffs. You normally can’t practice without the actual instrument on hand, so this is the next best thing.

The problem is that you still can’t strum and hear the notes, so who knows how much this would actually help you play. At $30(USD) it might be worth a look, though you are bound to look odd playing with this in public.

[via Redferret]

Robot Learns to Clean Whiteboard, Still Won’t Help If You Used a Sharpie

Technabob — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 01:36:30 +0000

After teaching a robot to flip pancakes and shoot arrows, Dr. Petar Kormushev decided to instruct his robot in a new skill that could come in handy at your next meeting – cleaning whiteboards.

Dr. Kormushev, working with a team from the Italian Institute of Technology and Tokyo City University used a technique called “upper-body kinesthetic teaching,” to help this Fujitsu HOAP-2 humanoid robot learn the approppriate maneuvers to clean the marker-covered whiteboard surface.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

On the surface (pun intended), the idea of a whiteboard-cleaning robot seems a bit silly. However, the process could someday be used to instruct robots to deal with tasks better left to ‘bots than humans – like window washing, painting walls or hanging wallpaper.

Art Academy: Learn to Paint on Your Nintendo Dsi

Technabob — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 13:53:46 +0000

Ever wanted to learn how to draw and paint, but don’t have the time or money to deal with real world art supplies? Well if you happen to own a Nintendo DSi, you can sign up for the Art Academy without so much as buying a tube of paint.

Art Academy: First Semester (do I smell a sequel already?) is a complete art training course in the form of a DSiWare app. Just download Art Academy from the DSi Shop, and you’ll be a junior Rembrandt in no time. The program teaches you the basics of pencils, paints, blending colors, basic light and shadow techniques and more. Plus, you can either start with a blank canvas or embellish photos from your DSi’s camera album. Here’s a video showing off what you can expect in the Academy:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

While it’s not as sophisticated as natural media PC apps like ArtRage (one of my personal favorites), Art Academy looks like a nifty way to express your creativity on the DSi.

Robot Can Predict New Surroundings

Technabob — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 00:26:57 +0000

A team of researchers at Purdue University have devised a method to teach robots to navigate foreign environments by themselves. Using some very complex artificial intelligence, this robot can make educated “guesses” about what it might next encounter in its surroundings.

Rather than trying to just deal with differences in surfaces and obstacles as the robot approaches an area, the ‘bot can actually take data from its recent surroundings to predict what might be next and store that information in its internal map. By doing this, the robot can better prepare to navigate ahead of time, reducing the likelihood of getting stuck or slow progress through challenging obstacles.

Currently, the algorithm does add a bit of processing overhead to the robot’s software, meaning that it can’t cover as much ground as less intelligent robots. In future, the researchers plan to link up multiple robots to share their knowledge and to improve prediction capabilities.

[via softpedia via robotster]

Electronic Dog Speaks, Follows Commands, Does Karaoke

Technabob — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 21:25:24 +0000

Looking for a canine companion, but don’t have the patience for all the shedding and pooping? If you’re willing to learn a little Japanese, these electronic furry friends might fill the bill.

The Tomy Dacky Healing Partner Dog has six internal sensors which can react to human touch and praise. While they start out only able to bark, if you give them enough positive reinforcement, they’ll be asking you how your day was and singing you a birthday song in no time flat. Once fully trained, Dacky dogs will be able to speak up to 650 words (all in Japanese). Heck, they can even do Karaoke.

Gadget importer AudioCubes has gotten their hands on these cute little furballs from Japan, and is selling them for $99 a pup.