Hasta La Gadget!

Given the one-size-fits-few nature of most audio products, it’s good to have choices, and Sony happens to have two new pairs of headphones designed for very particular segments of your life. If, say, you’re a traveling music lover who doesn’t happen to have the disposable income to obtain Sony’s premium $300 MDR-NC300D noise canceling buds (which the company claims filter out 99 percent of noise), you’ll find a cheaper alternative in the new $70 MDR-NC13, which only make a estimated 87.4 percent of background distractions go bye-bye. C’est la vie. If, on the other hand, you need to throw sound from one end of your mansion to the other for hours on end, the MDR-RF865RK wireless headphones might be the wide receiver you’ve been dreaming of — Sony claims they’ll play audio up to 100 meters away from their dock, which provides up to 25 hours of playtime after a 3.5 hour charge. No price or availability for the wireless cans, which were just announced in the UK, but you’ll find the NC-13 on sale at Sony’s online store right now. PR after the break.

Continue reading Sony’s NC-13 buds cancel noise, RF865 cans transmit across a football field

Sony’s NC-13 buds cancel noise, RF865 cans transmit across a football field originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 05:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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FCC chairman Julius Genachowski briefly mentioned data roaming at CTIA last week, but now he’s telling Congress that action is inbound, to ensure rural carriers don’t get left behind the rest of the cellular industry. You see, in 2007 the Commission mandated cheap roaming agreements for voice and messaging services to let regional carriers compete, but cellular data is the bee’s knees now (as those of you reading this on a smartphone can attest) and those agreements won’t protect the Tiny Tims of telecom in a world of VoLTE anyhow. So, as he explains in a letter sent to members of the Senate and House, the chairman has come up with a set of rules, which will “incent potential roaming partners to come to the bargaining table to negotiate private commercial deals.”

“The draft order under consideration eschews a common carriage approach and leaves mobile service providers free to negotiate and determine, on a customer-by-customer basis, the commercially reasonable terms of data roaming agreements,” reads another letter. Needless to say, we’re looking forward to hearing how the FCC will encourage competition while still letting the big boys negotiate from their multi-billion-dollar spectrum holding positions.

FCC proposing data roaming rules, not interested in commonizing carriers originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 26 Mar 2011 19:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Heads-up, Kindle owners — digging into your next audiobook just got a lot less troublesome. Audible has just announced that over 50,000 of its audiobooks are now available to download directly onto Kindles everywhere through WiFi. Granted, that’s still one step away (3G) from being as good as it could possibly get, but it’s still a tremendous improvement over the tried-and-true USB sideloading method. For those looking to get started for the first time, the outfit’s offering a 30-day free trial of AudibleListener Gold, detailed in the source link below. Happy listening, bookworms.

Audible audiobooks now flying onto Kindles via WiFi originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Mar 2011 20:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NeuroFocus’ Mynd headset is the first wireless EEG headset

Gadget Lab Notes is an eclectic roundup of gadget news briefs and intriguing products that catch our eye.

NeuroFocus Mynd Is a Wireless EEG Headset
Have you ever wanted to record exactly what you’re thinking? NeuroFocus’ Mynd is a sensor covered EEG headset that records your thoughts—it captures mental activity 2,000 times per second—and relays that information over Bluetooth. The Mynd’s mind-reading capabilities have applications in the medical field, as a product for people with neurological disabilities, as well as with tracking Internet surfing habits for advertisers and marketers. Compared to other brain-wave monitoring headsets, it doesn’t look too terrible… kind of like you’re wearing a spidery plastic and metal clamshell on your head.

NeuroFocus Makes First WIreless EEG Sensor Headset [Engadget]

FREEWAY Speakerphone Uses HD Voice Ready Technology and 3 Speakers
The Jabra FREEWAY claims to be the first Bluetooth speakerphone to be HD Voice compliant and use three speakers. It can be controlled using voice recognition for tasks like answering, dialing, ending, or rejecting phone calls, and an automatic power feature keeps it in standby mode when you’re in the car, and powered off once you get out. HD Voice should provide better quality audio during calls, as long as your phone is compatible. It’ll be available in the US in May for $129.

Jabra FREEWAY Intelligent Triple Speakerphone [Slashgear]

Tiny Thanko Micro Camera Weighs 14 Grams and Shoots HD Video
The size; 45 x 29 x 10 mm. It’s an 8-megapixel camera with both microSD and microSDHC card slots for storing up to 32 GB of data. It shoots HD video (1280 x 960) and can capture JPEG format pictures up to 3264×2448 resolution. And it’s so small you can wrap it in the palm of your hand.

Mame Cam 2 [Thanko via Akihabara News]

Water-Powered LED Color-Changing Shower Head Provides Mood Lighting While You Wash
For about $13, you can change your shower into a glowing, color-changing wonderland. OK, that’s a bit of an exaggeration; it’s a bit more practical than a bathroom discotheque. This particular LED color-changing shower head changes from green to blue to red depending on the temperature of the water, so you immediately know if it’s chilly (below 90 F), just right (91 to 105 F), or on the hot side (107 to 113 F). Any hotter than that, and it flashes red to let you know that you might scald your skin a bit if you don’t make it colder.

LED Color Changing Shower Head [China Vision via Oh Gizmo!]

The humble MiFi from Novatel has, in various guises for myriad carriers, saved our bacon on repeated occasions at press events, feeding up sweet connectivity when 3G USB modems were few or ineffective. Now it can make that bacon sizzle, too, receiving DLNA certification and becoming a little media streamer. Content loaded to the MiFi’s microSD card will now be served up to any compatible media player, receiver, or computer, which includes watching movies on iPads and Xboxes and PS3‘s. Oh, my! It remains to be seen whether existing 2372s will be upgradeable to support DLNA or whether it’ll be new devices only, but the company has said that AT&T will be the first carrier to offer the service. So, there’s something to look forward to, T-Mobile subscribers.

Continue reading Novatel’s 2372 MiFi gets DLNA certified, can serve up some beats with those bytes

Novatel’s 2372 MiFi gets DLNA certified, can serve up some beats with those bytes originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Mar 2011 15:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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