All Hail McBlare!
McBlare, the robotic bagpipe developed at Carnegie Mellon University, has been getting a lot of coverage lately (see here and here).
McBlare brings us that much closer to total subjugation by our machine overlords. Hear it belt out “Highland Laddie“. Cool! But can it play “Andy Renwick’s Ferret”? Question: If McBlare were to play out on the streets, would he be as ignored as your average kilted busker?
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June 21st, 2008 15:49
[...] Roger’s main research, of course, is in computer music. Recently, his robotic bagpiper, McBlare, was exhibited at the National Academies. An accomplished jazz trumpeter, Roger has developed a range of novel music understanding, improvisation, and authoring systems and algorithms, in some cases going on national performance tours. While Roger has been doing this type of research at Carnegie Mellon for about 20 years, in the past few years I’ve detected a surge of interest in the intersection of computing and the arts. There has always been a tradition of technology and the arts in the School of Computer Science, not only in the work of Roger but also in the Robotics Institute. (For a recent example, see Keepon.) But there are now a large number of very interesting and highly technical artists in the School of Art, School of Music, and School of Architecture. See, for example, the work of people like Golan Levin (Professor of Interactive Media), Noel Zahler (new Head of School of Music), and Mark Gross (Professor of Architecture). At least two new art+technology faculty are being recruited (one in HCI and one in Art). The local community of “hybrids” between computer science and the fine arts is vibrant and growing, albeit still a bit disorganized. I expect this community to gel into a more recognizable entity within the next year or two. [...]