14 DAY TRIAL // Yamaha's Vocaloid keyboard is not yet ready for sale, and probably won't be until enough people express their desire for one.
Still, the idea has some merit, even though the number of potential customers isn't that huge.
Basically, the Volcaloid Keyboard, when paired with the already available Vocaloid software, can digitally "create" spoken words and then play them in whatever order people wish, based on vocal cues that are set up with a special set of keys.
Meanwhile, a second key set pushes the human voice out depending on the notes chosen.
In layman terms, the product and the software should be able to let people give live performances of songs using the Vocaloid library of digitized voices.
The left hand chooses the words, while the right hand changes the tone and note of the voice.
Just check the hands-on video above to see what this all means. It was made by DigInfo.tv and reached the web thanks to Akihabara News.
UPDATE: Turns out that, contrary to what we thought (and hoped), the keyboard doesn't actually convert human speech. Instead, it relies on a digitized library to produce the sounds.