Now, a new guitar cell phone

NEW YORK: Global cell phone giant Motorola is patenting a cell phone that it claims could not only be used as a phone but also as a musical instrument.

The cell phone displays the layout of a guitar neck on its screen and allows its keypad to be ‘plucked’ or ‘strummed’ by a user, reported the online edition of New Scientist.

The resulting guitar sounds can be played through the phone’s speaker or sent to a friend at the other end of the line, it said.

The phone has the usual four rows of keys, but switching to music mode turns the keys into a set of virtual strings that respond to pressing.

Turning a control knob shifts the scale of the selected chord up or down — like a guitar capo — or switches between different types of chord, like major and minor. The guitar phone can be played live, to adoring fans, or a melody can be composed in private and stored in memory for use as a ring tone or meeting reminder.

Motorola says the phone could even be converted into a banjo or violin at the flick of a switch.