The high tech world’s largest annual gathering hasn’t even officially kicked off yet and already the noise factor is overwhelming. Not the sound of 140,000 plus people jammed into Las Vegas for this week’s CES (Consumer Electronics Show) which is noisy enough, but the growing trend to push more media-driven devices into the consumer space that will talk or broadcast to you literally around the clock.
Following up on the success of Siri for the iPhone, more companies are adding interactive features to even the most common household devices. Today, Interactive Voice (ivee) announced a new line of voice controlled devices called Flex. With simple voice commands, the Flex alarm clock can tell you the time, date and even the current temperature. The company claims their clock can handle over 40 different voice commands and strikes a conversational tone while doing so.
Blazing new trails in the merging worlds of phone calling and TV, Biscotti has introduced the world’s first high definition TV phone. Using HDTV and Wi-Fi, Biscotti makes calls to any computer, iPhone, iPad, or Android device supporting Google video chat. The device can also notify users of incoming calls with an on-screen pop-up message. So much for “quiet time” watching your favorite TV program.
Then there is Spreaker also known as “Twitter for audio.” Spreaker lets you broadcast live sound anywhere from your iPhone or Android device to Twitter and Facebook automatically using only the existing microphone in your phone. So instead of 140 character texts, you can now get unlimited sound, anywhere and anytime.
And as if conventional headphones to hear sound were not enough, AfterShokz is introducing this week what they call “ear-free headphones” which use “bone condition technology” to transmit the sound. The headphones sit in front of the user’s ears, and conduct the sound through cheekbones, thus allowing an audiophile to hear clear sound without blocking out everything else. After all the noise at CES this week, perhaps blocking it all out may not be such a bad idea after all.
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