[Digital Content/Software]
Densan System Co.,Ltd./YAMAHA Corporation - Finger Piano Share

At first glance, Finger Piano Share is much like a typical 'Rock Band'-style music game for the iPhone, providing onscreen signals indicating when users should depress an onscreen key to play a piece of music. But this iPhone app can do so much more, since it lets up to 10 people remotely play a real piano from their iPhones (the piano must be of the MIDI-enabled or Disklavier variety, of course). FInger Piano Share also lets users record pieces of music they play on a real piano and send them to other users, who can then replay them on their iPhones or MIDI-enabled pianos.

But there's more. Working in conjunction with the GPS-enabled, augmented reality Sekai Camera iPhone app, Finger Piano Share lets users 'tag' a particular performance of a piece they might have played on a specific piano or on the iPhone in a specific place. When the Sekai Camera app is turned on, these tags appear on the iPhone camera screen whenever its lens focuses on a geo-tagged musical performance location. Users can click on these tags and instantly play the piece of music that was recorded in that spot.

It's not often that an old-school technology like a piano and a cutting-edge technology like augmented reality meet, but that's exactly what Yamaha's innovative Finger Piano Share app, in conjunction with the Sekai Camera, does. In addition, the app manages to smoothly integrate aspects of social networking, geotagging, and music games in a truly unique package. For this reason, we picked it as our top piece of software at this year's CEATEC.

Tom SamiJian