Suck at Guitar Hero? Buy this Robot

Robots playing Guitar Hero are not new; one playing the game with up to 98 percent precision is, however. Wired found the Cythbot, a creation of southern California engineering firm Cyth Systems, at this week's Robo developers conference in Santa Clara. It's not actually for sale. Nor is it much more than an aluminum cage with pneumatic "fingers" to hit the frets, while a camera tells it what's coming. Cythbot can play in both solo and compete modes, getting as high as 98 percent, but usually on average around 75 to 80 percent. This is disquieting news, as Isaac Asimov and Stephen Hawking predicted that 100 percent on "Through the Fire and the Flames" is when Skynet becomes self-aware. Cythbot "sees" the pucks coming via a camera hooked to a doohickey that measures light intensity, and once it crosses some threshold it instructs the mechanical parts to activate the strum bar, with the corresponding pneumatic finger playing its fret. This one will actually play the whammy bar notes, unlike the earlier mod by a dad who set up an optics device to play Guitar Hero and finally defeat his son. Lots more technical discussion at the link. Guitar Hero Robot Plays Video Game With Electronic Precision [Wired]