The smartphone-enabled, one-foot-tall robot, called Shimi, is billed as an interactive &ldquo;musical buddy.&rdquo; <img alt="" src="/imagedata/2012/jun/robot.jpg" style="width: 500px; height: 366px; " /> Representational picture &ldquo;Shimi is designed to change the way that people enjoy and think about their music,&rdquo; Professor Gil Weinberg, director of Georgia Tech&rsquo;s Center for Music Technology and the robot&rsquo;s creator, said. Shimi is essentially a docking station with a &ldquo;brain&rdquo; powered by an Android phone. Once docked, the robot gains the sensing and musical generation capabilities of the user&rsquo;s mobile device. In other words, if there&rsquo;s an &ldquo;app for that,&rdquo; Shimi is ready. For instance, by using the phone&rsquo;s camera and face-detecting software, the bot can follow a listener around the room and position its &ldquo;ears,&rdquo; or speakers, for optimal sound. Another recognition feature is based on rhythm and tempo. If the user taps or claps a beat, Shimi analyzes it, scans the phone&rsquo;s musical library and immediately plays the song that best matches the suggestion. Once the music starts, Shimi dances to the rhythm. &ldquo;Many people think that robots are limited by their programming instructions,&rdquo; Mason Bretan, Music Technology Ph.D. candidate, said. &ldquo;Shimi shows us that robots can be creative and interactive,&rdquo; he said. Future apps in the works will allow the user to shake their head in disagreement or wave a hand in the air to alert Shimi to skip to the next song or increase-decrease the volume. The robot will also have the capability to recommend new music based on the user&rsquo;s song choices and provide feedback on the music play list. The robot will be unveiled at Wednesday&rsquo;s Google IO conference in San Francisco, where a band of three Shimi robots will strut its stuff for guests, dancing in sync to music created in the lab and composed according to its movements.

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Dancing music robot could soon make DJs history

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Dancing music robot could soon make DJs history

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