If HAL 9000 made a guitar, it would probably look a lot like the Fusion. Freshly launched on Indiegogo, it might just be one of the smartest guitars we’ve ever encountered.
Sure, there are other smart guitar-like things out there that allow you to play music and connect to the Internet, but they aren’t all actual guitars with strings or a body and two humbucker pickups to match the Fusion.
Basically, the Fusion’s creators took the polymer composite body and decided to make it more than a just resonance chamber. Under the hood you’ll find a built-in Class-D 20W amp, two Peerless speakers, a quarter-inch guitar jack output, a 3.5 stereo line, and an iPhone dock that reads/charges your phone — yet somehow it’s still under nine pounds. It’s also completely cordless. A 3200mAh 11.1V Li-ion battery powers this beast for 12 hours, and recharges in just under an hour.
Those are just the features though – how you use them is up to you. With iPhone integration you can use one of the many iOS amp apps to alter the Fusion’s sound. Record a guitar track and lay out the rest later. Save up to eight tracks directly to your phone or the cloud. The app links easily to every service it should: SoundCloud, AirDrop, Dropbox, etc.
Since the phone dock is on the side of the body, it’s easy for right-handed players to use the Fusion for more than recording and sharing after they’ve stopped playing. The guitar was designed with iPhone integration in mind, and the way the dock is positioned makes it easy to see tutorial, sheet music, and guitar tab apps while you play.
It works with the iPhone 5 and 6, as well as their “S” counterparts, and the 5th-gen iPod Touch — but unfortunately, it doesn’t work with any flavor of Android. The dock, however, is designed to be swappable, so it can accommodate the growth (or shrinkage) of future iPhones.
The Fusion team sought $35,000 in their Indiegogo campaign and now has $85,000 with more than two weeks to go. They aim to deliver guitars to backers by March of next year. The Fusion comes with picks, an adjustable strap, a soft carry bag, and a set of 009 strings for beginners. All the “early bird” $400 guitars have been snatched up already, but there are still combo packs of two Fusions for $780. Or you can just reserve one for $100 and pay the $800 balance by end of the campaign.
San Francisco startup Dimensional advertised for people to walk robot dogs through city streets. The New York Times reported that the job could include carrying a roughly 33-pound robot back to the office if it overheated. A lift home is an awkward requirement for a labor-saving machine.
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