Not many people would enjoy the idea of having to take out their smartphone while working out to change music. There’s a level of focus necessary to really get the most out of a workout, and doing that will definitely make sure it’s never achieved.
Swiss inventor Yves Steinmann’s Skin wearable hopes to make that small but annoying situation an afterthought. It’s a simple black wristband that uses Bluetooth to connect to a device in order to control music without an app.
Augmented reality is one of the hottest emerging technologies right now. But it remains to be seen if the category will attract mass consumer appeal because AR devices tend to be bulky headsets that are specifically designed to exploit the technology.
ORA-X, on the other hand, are over-the-ear audio headphones equipped with a Google Glass-like retractable, see-through projection display. Virtual video content is overlaid on the display, but doesn’t block out the outside world like AR devices such as the Oculus Rift or SEER.
The modern age has gotten rid of that communal feeling inherent in the jukebox, a cultural relic rarely experienced and as a result underappreciated. Nowadays, music lives on smart devices which can make the act of listening to music a singular one.
The team behind the Electric Jukebox is eager to tap into the spirit of yesteryear with their plug-and-play music streaming device. By requiring only an HDMI-enabled television and broadband connection, Electric Jukebox is hoping to make the idea of accessing absolutely any song at a moment’s notice a reality — no smartphone or laptop necessary.
The OBD (On-Board Diagnostics) II port in all cars produced since 1996 has been tapped for the wide array of information it can yield about a car’s status and performance . Much of this information has been transferred to an app or a clunky tablet-like device on the dashboard.
Exploride, though, ties together input from the OBD II connector, your smartphone and even the good old car stereo (via Bluetooth) to create an ambitious and holistic smart car retrofit solution. The basic functionality includes tasks we’ve seen in many other in-vehicle systems, including control over phone calls, navigation and music. What really sets the product apart is its 6″ fold-down transparent display that also features a dash cam for good measure. While companies such as Garmin have experimented with heads-up displays, the car computer from the Maryland-based company has a much slicker, sleeker and colorful experience.
After failing to reach its Kickstarter goal of raising $40,000 AUD last year, the Australia-based maker of the mBox multi-room music system is now giving Indiegogo a try with a new campaign for the product. But he’s opted for an even more ambitious goal of raising $50,000 by Aug. 27 this time.
MBox can send music wirelessly throughout a home to any Bluetooth, Airplay or Universal Plug and Play/Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA)-compatible speaker. The chief selling point remains that users aren’t locked into a proprietary technology and can create a multi-room audio system with speakers they already own. Included with each mBox system are two devices: an mBox hub that can be used to connect any wireless speakers and an mBox mini that will connect any wired speakers to the wireless mBox network.
The original Xkey keyboard by The CME Group is a MIDI-compliant keyboard that boasts a slim profile and strong aluminum finish, with its only issue being its reliance on a USB connection. Although its design has received positive reviews from both amateur and pro musicians alike, the questions remained: when would a wireless version be created?
For those who were waiting, the wait is now over: the Xkey Air is the Bluetooth LE-compatible version of the Xkey. The Xkey Air retains all the features that made the original so appreciated, and as such users can still expect either 25 or 37 real-sized keys that are velocity sensitive along with a suite of programmable buttons that control characteristics such as octave, modulation, pitch, and sustain. Wireless instruments have always had to contend with problems of latency and battery life and the Xkey Air does its best to address these through just a 7 ms latency and an advertised minimum of 10 hours of battery life.
For many, the idea of learning a musical instrument inspires fear and dread. As such, many make attempts at smoothing the learning curve associated with it by using technology to rethink everything instruments can do. The Oval digital music instrument continues that trend in an effort to empower anyone to both learn and play music.
The Oval is inspired by the Hang, a percussion instrument based on the physical principals as the steelpan. The instrument sits on the lap, and is covered in a circular ring of seven multi-sensing, pressure-sensitive pads, with a single pad in the middle. Its MIDI-compliant design gives users the choice to use Oval with its iOS/Android app, or any other music creation software like Ableton. No matter the choice, a user can change the type of instrument being played, change scales, add effects, loop sounds live, and even upload their own sounds.
The ubiquity of computers, smartphones, and tablets have all led to a distinctly digital personality when it comes to music creation. Instead of it being regulated to those who spend years mastering a particular instrument, devices have made it so that anyone with a tune in their head can express it with whatever instrument, sound effect, or voice they can find on the internet. Unfortunately, this has made current methods of music creation look more like coding and less like playing.
With their CRD and DVC series of digital instruments, the Omnipresent World of Wizkids (OWOW) is looking to reinject a bit of fun and actual playing to music creation. The series consists of five compact, plug-and-play instruments played with both touch and gesture controls: waving their hands lets users manipulate sounds with the Wob instrument, rotations of the Wiggle instrument will produce different versions of previously assigned effects while users can air drum above the Drums instrument to create percussion. The Pads instrument is a physical miniature drum pad while the Scan is the most experimental of the bunch; with it, users draw dots or lines beforehand that are interpreted as sounds as the Scan is passed over the design.
Riding a bike through any environment is already somewhat dangerous depending on the amount of pedestrian traffic and cars present. What makes it even more dangerous is the use of headphones while riding, something many people do that significantly increases the risk of serious, or even fatal, injury.
People love their music, though, and aren’t so easily persuaded away from it. BikeMic makes the choice easy by providing a mic that connects headphones with its music device to funnel in ambient noises. This way, those noises are mixed in with the music to give riders the best of both worlds. With BikeMic, riders can still hear the cars, people, and conversations around them, all without having to take their headphones off.
What makes for great audio? Readers of different headphone reviews may often find that experts disagree because what one person considers great audio quality may differ from another.
That is due in part because everyone’s ears are different, in fact, as unique as fingerprints according to the team behind Aumeo, a small slim square device that takes Bluetooth audio from any device and sends it to the wearer’s choice of wired headphone. Six years in development, the Aumeo adapter works with an app to figure out the optimal hearing profile of each ear via a one-time use app and then from there processes all subsequent sound to the user’s benefit.