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Shimon

Eric Schmidt: World Wide Web has yet to live up to its name

Google's Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt spoke about the haves and the have-nots during a speech today at an annual Israeli conference sponsored by President Shimon Peres, according to the Associated Press.

His message focused on the fact that most people on earth aren't benefiting from technology's enormous advances over the past few years. According to the Associated Press, Schmidt referenced to data that shows less than one third of the world's population (2 billion people) has Internet access.

"The World Wide Web has yet to live up to its name," he said. "Technology … Read more

iPhone + robot marimba player = instant band

Tired of Guitar Hero? Try jamming with your iPhone or iPod Touch and Shimon, an autonomous, marimba-playing, octopus-armed hipster robot.

Gil Weinberg, director of music technology at Georgia Tech, is developing Shimon as a socially dynamic band mate. He says the robot "listens like a human and improvises like a machine" thanks to complex algorithms that allow it to perceive and improvise a groove.

Weinberg is also behind ZOOZBeat, an app that turns your iPhone into an instrument and sequencer, letting you remix and loop your own music by shaking, tilting, and otherwise getting down with it. Beats come bundled with the app, but you can also download packs with vocals, hooks, and instruments.

If there aren't iPhone-only bands out there already, ZOOZBeat will probably start a trend. But as I mentioned in an earlier post about the exciting new Eigenharp, electronic music concerts can benefit from a more dynamic physical performance, and that's where Shimon, with its bobbing cyclops head, comes in.

As the vid after the jump shows, Shimon can take your ZOOZ loop with a Wi-Fi flick and run with it. Here, it repeats and improvises on a jazzy loop, playing in a variety of styles resembling jazz greats like John Coltrane or Thelonius Monk. … Read more