Hatsune Miku – Vocaloid

Hatsune Miku is computer software made in Japan that can produce singing by just typing in lyrics and a melody. Technically the backbone of the Hatsune Miku is Yamaha’s vocaloid software. Vocaloid even has released albums. The singer is known as Hatsune Miku and is an anime girl around the age of 16. Yeah, that is her in the image. Now what is interesting about “her” is the fact she goes on music tours. It is a computer singing and dancing live…as a 3d hologram. No joke here. The “band” actually has fully dancing and singing 3d holograms that put on shows in Japan. The computer sings and dances along with a live band in real time to a full crowd. Here are a pair of high definition music videos:

[flv]http://media.japanpowered.com/videos/music/vocaloid/world-is-mine-live.flv[/flv]

“World is Mine” was performed live in front of the audience. There is no post process work on this video. Everything you see is going on live. It is impressive.

[flv]http://media.japanpowered.com/videos/music/vocaloid/alice.flv[/flv]

“Alice” was also performed live by the computer and Hatsune Miku hologram.

What makes Vocaloid interesting is how the computer ranks high on Japanese music charts and record sales. Yes, the computer is actually singing on its own. Notice how the backlight shines through Hatsune Miku despite how solid she looks. He is dancing on a screen of sorts if you look closely, but the lighting and how she moves about the stage hides this cube of a screen. The animation quality is motion captured and scripted, but looks excellent. It is strange how a character so exaggerated in features can look alive. Japanese robotic technology and artificial intelligence is quite simply amazing. They have also developed touchable holograms. These holograms actually allow you to interact with them and provide pressure resistance as you press or bounce them, but this is rather old news (Reuters). Looks like the Star Trek ideas of a holodeck are not that far away in Japan.