The SoundBall is an interactive wireless toy for creating music and sound through motion. A motion sensor keeps track of whether the ball is being hit, thrown or spun and then sends this information via Bluetooth to a computer, where it controls sound and music.
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Neat idea. Totally disappointed with the application. Could you not come up with better sounds than a “whirr” and a 1980’s synthesizer “boop”?
Matthew
Why do it wirelessly with a signal from the soccer ball to a computer? Then you’ve always got to have a computer around with bluetooth capablity, speakers, etc? Why not just make the ball produce the sounds? If you got real clever about it you could make the soccer ball battery get re-charged magnetially and it could be embedded deep the core of the ball so it otherwise behaves like a normal soccer ball.
Just the whole wireless part of it seems unnecessary, requries more hardward, and make where you can play with the ball more limited.
But other than that it seems like a fun toy.
Errr… what’s so “amazing” about it?
Nice idea.
Well that got irritating after the first 30 seconds.
Notice the fast cuts in the video… that’s probably as long as those people stayed amused for.
#3 – presumably the price tag
OK. I’ve been annoyed by it. Seen that. Heard that. Don’t need anymore of that. It coulda been a contenda!
Turn it into a remote for the TV…
Finally – perhaps soccer might be interesting to watch. Beats the hell out of “tracer hockey pucks”.
It would be hilarious if they used that ball in a soccer match. They could hook it up to the PA system.
#9
Better yet, have each soccer player wear a Bluetooth ankle bracelet (or maybe implanted in the shoes?), and use a computer to track the interaction between the ball and the players, to assist the referee. It could even be used to replay the game later virtually for training purposes, to give some 3D data to the 2D cameras recording the game for the same purpose.
Include pressure sensors and some directionality tracking, and the coaches can even tell which players are overpowering the ball or whatever.
Of course, tracking the players with technology like this would lead to less violence on the field because you could tell unequivocally when players foul or do “illegal” things to each other that the ref’s don’t catch. For parents, that sounds like a great thing… for players and fans, it’d be devastating to the game since, like Nascar and hockey, the only reason to watch soccer is for the carnage.
Oh! And I can just see the CSI episode now where some soccer player murders another and it’s the Bluetooth tracking technology that proves it. LOL
Boop… booop.. whirrr… boop…
I was expecting someone to at least get it to play the first few notes of “Happy Birthday”..
all in all… not that exciting…
I loved the way they were throwing, kicking and playing with the ball indoors, around what looked to be a bunch of expensive crap…
Wonder if it would make the “wah wah wah” of pacman’s death when it breaks those expensive glass looking things…