How many times have you caught your husband or boyfriend making like a rock star in front of the bathroom mirror? You know, strumming an imaginary air guitar and mouthing the words to “Bang Your Head?” If you have lost count of the number of times a day the aforementioned scenario occurs, then you and your beloved will be overjoyed to know that scientists just announced today that they have developed a high-tech T-shirt that turns the strumming of an air guitar into music. (This could be a good or bad thing depending on how intense your spouse it about his air guitar.)
According to engineers, the T-shirt has “motion sensors built into its elbows that pick up the wearer’s arm motions and relay them wirelessly to a computer which interprets them as guitar riffs.” The innovation was the brainchild of a team of Australian scientists, who eagerly illustrated to a group of reporters how the “wearable instrument t-shirt” works: One arm is interpreted as picking chords while the other strums. And the best part… the shirt is adaptable to both right and left-handed would-be rock stars.
“It’s an easy-to-use, virtual instrument that allows real-time music making even by players without significant musical or computing skills,” the scientists told reporters.
Project engineers added that the “wearable instrument shirt allows you to jump around and the sound generated is just like an original MP3,” referring to the digital audio file format.
Personally, I still chuckle at the shirts (especially the holiday ones) that light up, twinkle and play Christmas carols via a tiny battery pack woven into the material. I can just imagine the thousands of teenage boys (and their fathers) who would go nuts if they could run around and “magically” make music with their “real” air guitars. And can you imagine the families that have multiple “wearable air t-shirt” members. You would either have a heck of a band or a heck of a reason to purchase some earplugs.
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