Yesterday Sony unveiled a new lineup of car stereo receivers, eight in total, ranging from low-end, affordable entry level models to the most interesting and expensive DSX-S310BTX. From what I can tell it eschews a built-in CD player in favor of providing connectivity to MP3 players and smartphones. Instead of a disc slot the stereo’s faceplate hides a Tune Tray which allows you to connect and stash away your MP3 player so you don’t have to deal with unsightly wires. There’s also a USB port on the front which lets you connect a flash drive full of MP3s, but most users will probably be installing one for its Bluetooth support.
The wireless connection allows you to keep your internet-connected smartphone easily available when driving, while still letting you stream music from Pandora through your car’s stereo system. The Pandora controls are even accessible via the stereo’s faceplate buttons so you don’t need to operate or even unlock your smartphone to skip tracks. Whether that phone happens to be an Android device, Blackberry or iPhone. And while I don’t see any mention of it in the official press release, I’m hoping the DSX-S310BTX also lets you stream your regular music from your iPhone over BT, like with the ever growing collection of BT speakers out there. Available in September for $280, but if you’re an iPhone user wary of your phone’s battery life, there’s also the DSX-S210X iPhone-only version which ditches the Bluetooth for a more reasonable $200 price point.
Forget about alarm clocks that try to drive off and escape, shake your bed or even test your shooting accuracy in the morning. We’ve found what is certainly the most effective way to get someone to leap out of bed and kill their alarm. Instead of music or buzzing sounds, the My Wake Up Call alarm clock plays motivational messages from a wide range of overly-energetic type-A personality ‘gurus’ who I’m sure have all appeared on Oprah at one time or another.
You can order the alarm clock pictured above that plays something called ‘compact discs’ for $59.95, or an iPod-compatible version for $69.95 that both include a month’s worth of motivational wake up messages. You can also just order or download a month of messages by themselves, if you’ve already got the hardware, for $19.95. Including such titles as ‘My Wake Up Call to Love’, ‘My Powerthoughts Wake Up Call’ and ‘My Emotional Freedom Wake Up Call’… Uh-huh…
Now don’t get me wrong, I understand how important energy efficient lighting can be. But at the same time I find it difficult to get that excited over new innovations or related products. So kudos to Sharp for not only creating what they claim to be the world’s most energy efficient ceiling light, but also kind of making me want one. Their ELM or ‘Eco Lighting Management’ lights use the same type of highly efficient LEDs used in LCD TVs, along with direct illumination techniques which allows for a “luminous efficiency of 81.3 lumens per watt” making it the world’s most energy efficient… for the time being.
But that’s not what really interests me about these lights. What I like is that you can adjust the brightness and color tone using an included wireless remote, with a total of 103 variations between the two for creating the perfect ambiance. They can also be dimmed to serve as a subtle nightlight in a room, and even have sleep timer options via the remote which will gradually fade the light off as you fall asleep. The lights will be available as soon as August 27 in 3 different sizes. Ranging in price from ~$460 (¥35,000) for the smallest model, to ~$720 (¥55,000) for the largest.
I’m not sure if referring to your company’s new display technology as ‘magic’ is the best approach. It makes me envision Sony’s R&D department as a bunch of wizards in the basement of a castle, flailing their wands about, trying to conjure up new gear and technologies. But that’s exactly what the company has done with their new ‘WhiteMagic’ LCD display technology which in essence adds a white pixel to the standard red, blue and green mix. Resulting in a new RGBW TFT LCD display.
In the past, adding another neutral pixel to this mix would result in image quality being degraded. But the real innovation here is a new signal processing algorithm, developed by the company, which analyzes the image data and makes suitable adjustments to remedy the problem. What you’re left with is a 3-inch VGA res display which reduces the power consumption of the backlight by 50%, while keeping it as visibly bright as a standard RGB LCD. It also facilitates a display that’s twice as bright as today’s LCDs, while using the same amount of power, making them easier to see outdoors in bright sunlight.
While not necessarily designed exclusively for students, I’m filing this notebook/iPhone 4 case under ‘back to school’ gear since I think I would have found it really handy back when I still had classes to attend. The top half of the notebook features a foam mould designed to hold the iPhone 4 in landscape or portrait orientations, while a strategic cutout lets you still access the headphone port when it’s turned sideways. On the inside of the cover you’ll find slots for holding debit or credit cards, as well as business cards. And since the notebook will set you back about $29(30,000 WON) from design tag, the notebook portion is fortunately replaceable once you fill it up.
Sure, we occasionally like to point an accusing finger at China for producing knock-off goods, like electronics and even entire stores. But sometimes producing a device that skirts certain copyright and patent laws results in something that’s far more functional and useful than one that tows the legal line.
This hefty 9-inch portable DVD player might look like just a way to watch movies, but it actually houses a few surprises. First and foremost is that it can be used to rip MP3 files from an audio CD directly to a USB flash drive. And of course if you gave up on DVDs years ago, it can be used to play pretty much any kind of file format you can get your hands on off of a memory card or flash drive. Whether on its generously sized display, or on an external monitor thanks to its AV out connections.
Less emphasized, but just as important to gamers who cut their teeth in the ’80s, is its ability to play ROMs. I’m assuming that includes titles from older consoles like the NES and original SEGA Master System, and possibly even the SNES and Genesis given the shape of the included controller. The DVD player even appears to include a TV tuner allowing you to watch local broadcast content, though analog only so that aspect is useless if your country has already made the digital switchover.
What makes the whole package even more tempting is the fact that it’s available for ~$75 from Chinavasion, so even if it barely limps along in terms of usability, it’s still worthy of consideration as an entertaining travel companion.
It’s been a few years now since Monster (the company mainly known for their unnecessarily expensive HDMI and other cables) launched the Beats by Dr. Dre line of audio headphones, earphones et al. Through a decent product and excited marketing, they’ve become the “it” thing to own and most importantly, be seen owning. Whether that justifies their high prices is a discussion left for others, but it’s nice to know that deals can be had on them. Like today you can get $120 off on the Beats Pro, the latest generation of over-the-ears cans from the company. That leaves them at a still hefty $279, but much less so than the $399 originally sought.
Typically, the only way to get an accurate measurement of your pulse while exercising was to have a monitor strapped to your chest, which was then connected to some kind of display for monitoring your performance. But Scosche’s new myTREK does away with the chest strap, instead moving it to your forearm where it’s more comfortable to wear. It’s also completely wireless, connecting to your iPhone or iPod over Bluetooth (with a range of ~30 feet) feeding information about your pulse and motion to an accompanying free myTREK app.
And it’s that app that will probably make the myTREK system appealing to persons who are very serious about their physical fitness. Besides displaying your pulse, the app also tracks everything from calories burned, distance run, speed and pace (when used with a GPS-equipped iPhone) over time. So you can go back and compare your results and stats to previous workouts to see how you’ve improved. And while exercising, the app even lets you set specific workout goals, like a target heart rate, complete with voice prompts letting you know how close you are to reaching it. Available now for $129.99.
Unless you live in Japan, or have some means to procure one from that country, I wouldn’t get too excited about Panasonic’s new DY-PS10 compact wireless media server. Because thanks to wireless restrictions in other parts of the world, it can only be sold there. The svelte, black monolith of a device looks like a portable hard drive, but it’s got no storage of its own on board. Instead, there’s a slot for SD, SDHC or SDXC memory cards, built-in wifi and a rechargeable battery.
The idea is that you take the SDXC card out of your other Panasonic products, like cameras, camcorders, DVRs and then slap it in the DY-PS10 where it’s then streamed over wifi to portable devices your iPhone or iPad. A 64GB SDXC card can hold about 88 hours of standard def video on it, and the 1,400mAh battery runs for about 10 hours after a 4 hour charge. It will be available September 15, again, in Japan only, for ~$192 (¥14,800).
Related Tags: automotive, car-stereo
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