Apropos some dinner conversation last night, Gibson launched the "Robot Guitar" today. The name implies a guitar that plays itself -- instead its much simpler and more useful: a guitar that tunes itself. It should help you get up and running from a broken string much quicker, or keep you from having to change guitars between songs with different tunings.
A glowing LED knob lets you set the desired tuning and also illuminates the current setting. Some advanced perks include changing your fundamental frequency, custom tunings -- you store it by strumming the guitar in the desired tuning -- and string winding/unwinding for when you want to change your set of strings. You do have to charge the guitar every 200 tunings or so, but that can be done over your normal guitar cord with a special adapter.
The Web site features a countdown to the 12/7/2007 release of the limited edition first run -- a general release won't be until 2008.
Gibson has previously innovated with an ethernet-capable guitar.
