Twitter buys “deep learning” company Madbits

Does Twitter know everything? It soon might thanks to its acquisition of intelligence technology firm Madbits. Twitter users often joke about asking the "hive-mind" questions, but could Twitter soon have an actual hive-mind? (Umm, probably not). The company has built software that will analyse tweets to extract meaning and detail - meaning that Twitter will…

Learn to play guitar with LASERS

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I’m afraid, before you get too excited, that this is a concept product. It’s an awesome idea, though – using lasers to teach people songs, highlighting the appropriate frets to press down.

Of course there’s the small issue of your fingers blocking the light, and it’d have to be clamped onto the guitar very tightly indeed to prevent the lasers going astray, but with those caveats aside, this could be a great way to nail those tricky solos.

(via Dvice)

More laser action: Raygun testing begins – 100kW electro-laser nearly ready for battlefield use | Do a Jean Michel Jarre with your very own Laser Harp

PureSolo is Karaoke 2.0, and great for learning instruments, too

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PureSolo is a new application designed for people to sing, or play, along with backing tracks. It’s great for drunken Karaoke after lunch on Christmas day, but it’s also good for any aspiring musicians – classical or rock & pop – to play along as if they were in a real band.

Each song offered by the service is missing a particular track, be that vocals, guitar, or even oboe or alto sax. When you join you get one free download, but beyond that, each track costs £1 to £2. You can record your efforts with a microphone, and use headphones, too.

Learn, or teach, a language online with Myngle

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It’s tough learning a language. It’s easy to start, but it takes a loooong time to become proficient, and if you’re not using it every day it’s difficult to keep it in your head. If you need to learn a language, for work or just for fun, then Myngle might be for you.

The language-learning service has just hit 100,000 unique users a month, and left beta status. It allows anyone to learn or teach a language from their computer. The latest stats say that students from 152 countries are learning a language from teachers in 62 countries. Languages offered right now include Arabic, Kazakh, Finnish, Sanskrit and Cebuano. If you know where Cebuano is spoken, then give yourself a pat on the back.

If you want to find out more then there’s a delightfully cheesy infomercial style video here, or just click over to the website and look around.

Myngle

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