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Sing while you Swim; Finis’ SwiMP3

TechChunks — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:23:22 +0000

Ever wished if you could listen to your favorite songs during your swimming lessons or while you are bathing in your pool? Instead of the monotonous splashing noise of water, to listen to the soothing sound of music? Well, now you can listen to your tunes while swimming and that at a very high quality thanks to the new SwiMP3. Without a doubt, Finis’s SwiMP3 (128MB, $249.99) is the most unusual MP3 player we’ve ever seen. What struck me when I first learned about the SwiMP3 was that the unit used bone conduction audio technology to deliver music to the listener’s brain. Well-known by audiologists, bone conduction is a technique where sound is transmitted to the listener by resonating vibrations through the cheekbones. Vibrations passed this way directly trigger the movement of the fluid in our inner ear, transmitting sound and bypassing the air conduction mechanism of our middle ear.

Unlike other MP3 players, the bone conduction audio technology of SwiMP3 sends the vibrations that generate the sound through your cheekbones, thus giving it a perfect clarity. Thus SwiMP3 is revolutionary in that it relies on bone conduction of sound. When the device is placed on any bones of the skull (i.e. the cheek bones or the mastoid tip) it leads to vibration of the fluid in the inner ear. Thus swimmers can enjoy clarity of sound with the SwiMP3 device that was never before possible. Bone conduction is a safe, well-established hearing mechanism in humans that the SwiMP3 player leverages to enhance aquatic activity. FINIS’ application of the technology brings an entirely new level of experience to swimmers of all abilities.

SwiMP3 Product Features

Attaches easily to any swim goggle or snorkeling mask
Built in MP3 control panel
On/Off button
Next / Previous track
Volume control
Pause & Shuffle functions
8-hour rechargeable battery
Plays both MP3 & WMA files
Easily Drag & Drop playlists

SwiMP3 System Requirements:

Windows 98SE, 2000, ME, XP, Mac OS 9, OS X
Intel Pentium II 233MHz or equivalent
128 Mb RAM, 35Mb available hard drive space
USB port, CD-ROM drive
Internet connection recommended

MSRP: $249.99

It has been proven that while listening to songs, swimmers have enhanced their abilities giving them a whole new swimming experience. The SwiMP3 is compatible with Mac and PC and supports both MP3 and WMA. It is equipped with a rechargeable battery. Your swimming agility will not be harmed in any way, as the device weighs only 2 ounces.

On the flip side, this product does have some challenges to face. Turbulence is generated as you swim through the water and the end result is sound. With each stroke arms and legs are thrashing about, breaking above and below the water line and introducing a cacophony of splashes and churning bubbles. Furthermore, the exhaling and inhaling of air throughout the course of the workout is more pronounced than a runner’s because gulps can only be taken at specific intervals when the swimmer turns their head sufficiently out of the water. This moving the head in and out of the waterline in itself presents challenges as sound waves travel at different intensities under different mediums. Swimming makes a lot of noise and it is not necessarily something that an in-pool music device can completely overcome. Moreover, SwiMP3 can potentially result in nausea in some swimmers inner ear imbalance.

SwiMP3 is not something designed to isolate you from the world around you, it is just a device that should play music well enough that it entertains and distracts you lap after lap after lap. It makes no sense for expectations to be unrealistic (like comparing S/N ratios with that of land-based portables) as this unit was designed for a practical purpose. So put your wet suit on and plug yourself to the swimming experience of your life!

World’s First Motion Sensitive Headphones from Sony Ericsson – MH907

TechChunks — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 06:16:02 +0000

Escape the ordinary – listen to your favorite music and receive calls without touching a button with the Motion Activated Headphones MH907. Sony Ericsson have unveiled their MH907 Headphones, these are the world’s first ever motion activated headphones. This means that the headphones can sense the user, if you place both earphones in your ears, the music will start playing. If you then remove one ear bud, then the music will pause. The music will then continue once you replace the ear bud in your ear.

While this is far from revolutionary, the MH907 headphones certainly offer some extraordinary convenience and may well turn out to be very intuitive. We’ll have to find out more when we get our hands on a unit. The MH907 Headphones uses Sony Ericsson’s SensMe™ Control technology. The headphones are not all about gimmicks, they also produce a superior sound so you can enjoy your music while on the move.

Sony Eric apparently achieves this via capacitive sensing technology — it makes use of your skin (your ears in this case) as an electrical conduit. Aside from music playback, you can perform the same actions for answering and ending calls. The MH907 works with most Sony Ericsson mobiles with a Fast Port connector and comes in yellow, white,and ‘Titan Chrome’ shades. No word yet on when they’ll go on sale.

Specs:

Colours: Yellow/White and Titan Chrome
Size: 164cm long
Weight: 25.32g

Download the product fact sheet from here (pdf)

So if you’re listening to your favorite album and someone interrupts you – darn them! Removing your ear bud will temporarily stop music playback. You no more need to press the pause button on your Sony Ericsson phone or the headphones’ in-line control. Listen to music normally with one bud in each ear, but pull one side out and music automatically pauses. Calls are received/ended in the same way. Isn’t that really cool?

World’s Smallest Bluetooth Headset Concept – Pillete

TechChunks — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 05:56:30 +0000

Wanna go crazy? Wanna talk to yourself? Here is what you exactly need. The smallest Bluetooth headset; Pillete. Pillete, Matthias Lange’s newest concept of Bluetooth headset is so tiny; it’s almost invisible to the untrained eye when you are wearing it. This tiny pill-sized headset rocks a high-performance microphone and twistable design for awesome voice-quality in a super-cool and unique form factor. So you don’t have to worry anymore about looking like Transformers when walking down the street with it, but you may have to consider the possibility of people starting to think you’ve lost your mind and you’re talking to yourself.

It is really an unbelievably amazing concept, when headsets shrink down to the size of a pill! Pillete boasts to be the world’s smallest Bluetooth headset so far. Capsulated in a form factor that is almost the size of a pill, featuring high performance microphone and at the same time maintaining optimal voice quality with a twistable design, Pillete is certainly one of those gadgets capable of making heads turn (ohh well, even if the eyes on those heads may not be able to see Pillete). This almost invisible Bluetooth headset is turned on when folded in to an ‘L’ shaped ear-bud and returns to the off mode when made straight. Would it be imprudent if I call it “pure genius”?

The downside, of course, is the fact that people have different sized ears and the device might be too small and slip out or too big and not fit. People who often use earphones will tell you I’m right. But once they’ll figure out a way to make the Pillete adjustable, this design will be the future of all headsets, as I would imagine. The other imaginable problem is having a super-tiny headset and making sure that you don’t lose track of it – which is actually a pretty cool problem to have.

Though in terms of design and technology it has a long way to go and do a lot of improvements before it attains mass production, Pillete is certainly one of those technology marvels that make you say Wow!