Hasta La Gadget!

Music has definitely come a long way, especially in the format or media in which it is presented. Back in the days of our grandparents, they had this thing called vinyl records, and along the way, cassette tapes came and made a difference. Of course, we have sinced moved on to digital audio thanks to the introduction of CDs, and MP3s saw the explosion of mobile music regardless of the country that you reside in. Record companies claim that their industry is in a decline, and right now they have the intention of tempting fans away from the MP3 format through the release of albums in a crystal-clear Blu-Ray format.

Among the first few records to be released in this Blu-Ray format will be songs sung by those who have already passed on, including Nirvana’s Nevermind and Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black albums as they debut in the UK later this month. Needless to say, you will need a Blu-Ray player as well as a stereo system (a PS3 will do nicely for the former) in order to play the discs, where there has been a promise attached to deliver “the sound as it was intended by the artist”. Do you think that Blu-Ray music albums will be able to arrest the slide in the physical media aspect of the music industry?

Music Albums To Arrive In Blu-Ray Format Soon original content from Ubergizmo.

Singing Machine has just introduced something rather interesting which you might want to take note of – the Home, which has been touted to be the first smart Bluetooth speaker in the world which is capable of turning into a karaoke machine. Specially designed in a way to look pleasing in just about any house, the Home is said to deliver soulful, room-filling sound during the day, but as the sun goes down, you can start to have plenty of fun with it by using it as a karaoke machine – or rather, a Singing Machine, where it will offer instant access to over 8,000 songs.

The Singing Machine Home will be able to connect wirelessly to any Bluetooth-enabled device, where among them include smartphones, tablets, and laptops among others. It will also connect to your TV via HDMI with the ability to connect to the cloud sans any wires. Accompanying the Singing Machine Home would be a hybrid Mic-Remote which makes it a snap to navigate the Play platform on your TV in order to queue up a playlist, while you can choose avatars for you and your friends, allowing you to know just when is it your turn to take the mike. There is no word on pricing just yet, but the Singing Machine Home will roll out sometime later this month.

Home Smart Bluetooth Speaker Does Karaoke As Well original content from Ubergizmo.

We did mention earlier this year on how Beats Electronics are working on launching a new music streaming service later in the year, and now that we are already into the final quarter of the year, I suppose that it is valid for some folks to start feeling impatient. On the bright side, you need not wait that long any more, since Beats Music, which is Beats Electronics’ streaming service, will soon be made available over the Web, in addition to iOS and Android apps, of course.

In due course of time, we consumers should also see a Windows Phone 8 app up for order. To say that this eagerly awaited music streamer has been a long time in coming would be an understatement. President and COO of Beats Electronics, Luke Wood, did mention that Beats Music ought to launch “within the next few months” in the United States first. Hmm, this will definitely carry the possibility that we could even be looking at a 2014 release date, which would be a bummer. Are you highly anticipating the Beats Music streaming service, and wished that the clock would tick a whole lot faster so that it will finally be able to hit the market up and running?

Beats Music To Debut In The US Soon original content from Ubergizmo.

There are huge number of headphones available on the market today running the gamut from dirt cheap to incredibly expensive. There are headphones aimed at everyone from users who don’t really care what the music sounds like all the way up to audiophiles who will pay huge money to hear every little nuance in their favorite tracks. One thing all of those headphones have in common is that the speaker drivers use moving parts.

A group of researchers have created a new type of headphone that uses a driver with no moving parts, based on carbon nanotubes. The headphones are able to create sound using thermoacoustic effect. That means that sound is created relying on the expansion and contraction of air.

It’s unclear at this point how high the quality of music these carbon nanotube speakers will be able to create. We don’t know if it will be an everyman headset or capable of creating audiophile grade sound.

We also don’t know how much headphones using carbon nanotubes will cost or when they might be available. However, early indications are that headphones using this technology could be reasonably priced, since they could be produced using techniques similar to those used to create computer chips.

[via Chemical and Engineering News via HotHardware]

At first glance, Split might look like a pair of handy dandy wireless earphones, but they’re more than that. They’re actually self-contained MP3 players that you can control without a display or buttons.

Greenwing Audio definitely succeeded in making the most compact music players I’ve ever seen. The earbuds are magnetic, which is a handy feature since you’re less likely to lose one of them if they’re stuck together when you’re not using them. Either that, or you lose them both at the same time.

Without a display, how do you control these things? By biting down. Apparently, one bite skips a track while two bites toggles the volume. And no, you don’t need to put them in your mouth. This feature is triggered thanks to a three-axis accelerometer installed in the ear buds.

Split is charged via USB cable, with each charge lasting about four hours. Songs are also transferred to the system via USB. Unfortunately, given its size, storage is limited to 256 MB or roughly 24 songs.

It’s definitely an interesting concept, but I’m thinking this is something you definitely can’t use while you’re eating or if you have a habit of biting down randomly throughout the day. Split is up for funding on Kickstarter through 10/31/13, where a minimum pledge of $155(USD) will get you one pair.

[via Dvice]