[Tyler]

The Cybraphon Needs Friends
     


Pelpina Trip, Internet
addict, journalist, and social media lover,
writes to tell us about The
Cybraphon, a musical robot that spends more time online than you do:
I just produced an article/TV
segment about The Cybraphon: a music playing robot obsessed with
social media -- for The 33 News in Dallas/Fort Worth. I thought it might
be interesting. The Cybraphon has been making a lot of news lately
as can be seen by a visit to Cybraphon's
blog. And this makes the Cybraphon happy, as does each new friend it
gets on
facebook, each new contact
on flickr,
and every new follower on
Twitter; not to mention YouTube, Myspace, Vimeo. It's just designed that
way. When no one is tweeting about it, Cybraphon gets sad and plays
depressing music. But when it gets new friends or sees its name
mentioned in blogs and tweets, Cybraphon is happy and plays happy music.

Cybraphon is an interactive version of a mechanical band in
a box. Consisting of a series of robotic instruments housed in a large
display case, Cybraphon behaves like a real band. Image conscious and
emotional, the band’s performance is affected by online community
opinion as it searches the web for reviews and comments about itself 24
hours a day.

I guess the question we're meant to ask ourselves is, why waste time
on Facebook and Twitter when we can build a machine to do it for us?
   

http://robots.net/article/2896.html