Toyota filed patents in 2022 for an electric vehicle with a manual transmission, and recent news articles suggest that Toyota has developed electric vehicles (EVs) that emit fake gear shifting and engine noises.
LISNR Lands Intel Capital and $10 Million in Series B Funding
A startup company LISNR has secured $10m in series B funding.
LISNR technology uses proprietary inaudible sound waves called SmartTones to connect devices. It works like existing technology protocol Bluetooth, except LISNR uses sound waves and does not require hardware or maintenance. Williams says LISNR technology has advantages over Bluetooth because it requires very little battery use and also boasts synchronization with a device in less than one-eighth of a second. Additionally, because the technology uses sound that you can’t hear, LISNR leverages existing hardware and network of audio that’s everywhere around us. This “speakernet” or “The Internet of Sound,” as Williams puts it, gives LISNR the ability to leverage a massive, existing network that’s all around us. “Anywhere there is a speaker or has the ability to broadcast audio, LISNR has the ability to turn that object or media into a data transmitting medium.”
Read the press release on the LISNR web site.
Scientific comparison of earphones
There are many online reviews of earphones that provide non-scientific opinions with comments such as “excellent bass response”, “clear mid-ranges”, and so on, without providing any measured results. As an engineer and a researcher, I find these unsubstantiated claims unsettling. We did a literature review on the internet to find articles that recommended low-price earphones and conducted instrumented testing.
Siemen’s easyTek hearing aids
Siemen’s showed off their easyTek hearing aid system at the CES 2015 show this month, where one can change the directivity of the hearing aid microphones using the easyTek smartphone app for Apple iphones or Android devices. The plastic disk shown in the image connects the hearing aid to a bluetooth device such as a phone, MP3 player, TV etc, and permits the audio from the media player to be fed directly to the hearing aid.
A cone of silence that works
You may remember the TV series Get Smart and the cone of silence that never worked. Well a company called Selentium demonstrated a new product called the Comfort-Shell at the CES 2015 show that uses active noise control to create a zone of quiet within a device that looks like one-quarter of sphere.
Read the press release on the Selentium web site, and images of the device are on theverge.com web site.
New Loudspeakers
The CES 2015 show starts this week and there is sure to be a bevy of new audio gadgets.
Samsung will be showing off their new WAM 6500 and WAM 7500 loudspeakers.
Samsung WAM 6500
Samsung WAM 7500
Some other new freaky-shaped loudspeakers that are on the market include the Om One and the Mars.
The Om One from Om Audio is a levitating loudspeaker is available for pre-order for $US 199. Apart from playing music from a bluetooth device, it can also be used as a speakerphone.
Om One from Om Audio
You can watch a promo video on the development of the Om One on youtube.
Another similar levitating speaker product is from Crazybaby in Hong Kong that has developed the Mars loudspeaker. The base station houses a sub-woofer, the floating disc that radiates sound is water-proof. The device has some nifty features that can be used for conference calls, and will automatically adjust the volume depending on the proximity of your bluetooth source from the base station. The loudspeaker is available for pre-order at $US 189 from the Crazybaby web site.
Mars levitating loudspeaker
Sony’s Vibration Headphones
Sony have released a pair of headphones, MDR-XB450BV , where presumably the -V means vibration. They have a suggested retail price of $A 130. What makes these headphones interesting is Sony’s claim of a frequency response from 5Hz-22,000Hz – note that humans are not good at detecting sounds below 20Hz, and it is difficult to hear above 16kHz.
Portable Electrostatic Loudspeakers
The Benq company has released a stylish portable electrostatic loudspeaker system called the treVolo. The name treVolo comes from “tre” is the sum of three Es: Electrostatic, Enjoyment and Everywhere and the Italian word “Volo”, which means flight.
The electrostatic panels radiate sound forwards and backwards behind the speaker, which creates a large “sound image”.
The BenQ’s Trevolo electrostatic speaker has a recommended retail price of $399.
[ If you are interested in other electrostatic loudspeakers see the In2uit Filo speakers. ]
Bose’s new QuietComfort 25 Active Noise Cancelling Headphones
Bose have released the successor to the QC15 noise cancellation headphones called the QuietComfort 25.
Ig Nobel Prize for Acoustic Speech Jammer
Kazutaka Kurihara and Koji Tsukada won a 2012 Ig Nobel prize in acoustics for creating a device that disrupts a person’s speech by playing back their their own spoken words with a slight delay.