Hasta La Gadget!

A few years and too many serious incidents later, cyber security is the Achilles’ heel in the Information Technology industry. The
communication sector is aggressively looking to evolve and use smarter
means to safeguard data and prevent security threats and breaches. A significant amount of R&D is being directed towards next generation models of cyber security and quantum key distribution systems offers critical advances.

If you’re in the market for some high quality headphones, and also want something with a cool, modern style, you might want to check out the KEF M500 headphones. I recently had the opportunity to put these to the test, and would like to share my experiences.

For starters, the M500 headphones are quite good looking. In fact, they won a 2013 RedDot Design Award. They offer a modern, minimal design, with oval-shaped ear cups which aren’t too big or too small. The ear cups are covered with a soft, perforated leatherette material and offer comfortable memory foam padding underneath. Both cups have swivel hinges for optimal positioning on your ears, and so they can fold for storage. The headband and frame of the earcups are made from sandblasted aluminum alloy, making them lightweight and durable, and adding to their good looks.

The headphones ship with a nice padded case that has enough space for the headphones when folded up, along with accessories, including a standard audio-only cable and a stylish phone control cable with a built-in microphone, both detachable, of course.

One thing to note is that the cables are flat ribbon-style variety, which means they don’t tangle easily, though they take up a little more space than skinny cords. A right-angle, gold-plated connector on the end of each cable fits neatly in just about every gadget with a 3.5mm audio jack.

In my audio tests, I could clearly distinguish sounds from 20Hz all the way up to 20 kHz, thanks to their 40mm neodymium drivers. KEF also claims their copper-clad aluminum wire voice coils help improve clarity and detail. Audio fidelity is very clean and pleasing to the ear, without overly shrill highs or boomy bass.

This makes them great for audio junkies looking for natural sound – not artificially accentuated like many other headphones. I threw a wide variety of music and sound styles at them, and found them to work well with most types of audio. They deftly handled everything from the tight electronic beats and claps of Atoms for Peace’s Judge Jury and Executioner to the bright horns and wispy flute of Quincy Jones’ Soul Bossa Nova to the clacky cowbell of Donald Fagen’s New Frontier, to the soul-stirring, fragile vocals of Sia’s Breathe Me. Yes, I have a diverse audio collection. So?

I did find that I had to drive the M500s at a slightly higher volume level than other headphones for some reason, but I was still able to get more than enough volume at the high end of the volume range, and without distortion. I found the M500s to be extremely comfortable, even after long periods of wear, and while they do a good job blocking out external sounds, they don’t overly exert pressure on your head while wearing them.

My overall take on the KEF M500 headphones is very positive. With their modern minimal style and comfort, they’re a welcome change from some of the more over-the-top designs found in today’s high-end headphones. They produce clean and natural sound and do a good job exposing the subtleties in a wide variety of musical genres.

KEF M500 headphones are available from the KEF Direct Store for $299.99(USD).

…. Portable TENS gadgets have been produced for home use, but they still
require dealing with the wires and pads that attach to your skin and
that is an even bigger pain than the one in your back. So a smart
company in Chattanooga, TN, Hollywog, has invented the first wireless TENS
machine: the WiTouch.   

I really love having Philips Hue lights in my house. If I could, I’d do the whole house, but for now, I’ve only got my media room/arcade/mancave and my foyer done up with the colorful remote-controlled LED bulbs. However, one thing that has always been a bit lacking with Hue is the standard control app. It’s pretty limiting – it doesn’t do light animations or even acknowledge the concept of different rooms in your house. A little app has recently surfaced which adds both of these capabilities to Hue bulbs.

Goldee is a third-party app which has been made possible by Philips release of an SDK and API for Hue. The application’s primary purpose is to add dynamic looks to Hue which go beyond the static scenes enabled by other applications.

To use Goldee, simply add your bulbs and rooms to the app the first time you start up, then tap on the room and the scene you want to run. With the app’s built-in scenes, you can gradually watch the colors in your room shift to set one of ten moods. Each scene has been composed by a professional lighting designer and it shows.

My personal favorites are the pinky/orange hues of Night in Paris and the blue and green tones Aurora Glow. When you first fire up the app, you get the first eight scenes for free.

Sharing Goldee on social media opens up the ninth scene, while providing a review gets you the tenth. This is a clever take on downloadable content – instead of charging money for these unlockables.

As you can see from the video below, Goldee’s color sequences change very gradually – this isn’t a disco app. Goldee provides soothing and relaxing scenes which you can live with while you sit in a room and read a book, listen to music or throw a dinner party.

Goldee also offers a wake mode which can wake you up to its Sunrise scene, though without any Hue bulbs in my bedroom, I didn’t test this feature. You can apply scenes to multiple rooms simultaneously, a pretty slick trick that no other Hue control app does as far as I know. While the initial 10 scenes are all pretty good looking if you’ve got enough bulbs, Goldee promises a library of additional scenes you can run in the not-too-distant future.

A couple of quick notes about Goldee you should be aware of: 1) the app needs to be running – and in the foreground – to work; 2) there’s no way at this time to make your own custom scenes. I’m hoping that these are addressed in future releases – especially now that iOS7 allows true background applications.

You can download Goldee from the iTunes App Store for free.

Self-driving cars could cut crash and road injury rates by 90-percent and save the US economy by around $450bn each year, a new thinktank report suggests, though the technology risks being hamstrung by expensive components and a “disparate patchwork” of regulations. The independent research by the Eno Center for Transportation into autonomous vehicles such as […]