CES Bluetooth Preview

Posted on January 4, 2011 by David English

MoGo Talk XD

CES Every year in early January, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) takes over Las Vegas. It’s the largest annual tradeshow in North America and the largest tradeshow anywhere devoted to consumer electronics. This year’s show should see the largest number—and widest range—of Bluetooth products ever assembled into one place.

As a member of the press, I’m inundated with CES-related emails and phone calls beginning in November. It reaches a fever pitch around the middle of December. Here are some of the Bluetooth products I’m looking forward to see at the upcoming CES, which runs January 6th through the 9th.

This is a small sampling because many of the manufacturers are waiting for the show to announce their products. That said, some are happy to provide a sneak peak, especially if it means they can quality for a 2011 CES Innovations Award. Two Bluetooth products won awards this year in the Wireless Handset Accessories category. The first is Jabra’s STONE2 headset, which has an unusual shape that wraps behind your ear. As a result, it doesn’t require the typical on-face microphone.

The second is ID8-Mobile’s MoGo Talk XD. It’s the first integrated Bluetooth headset and case that docks onto the back of an iPhone 4. Both products will be on display in the Grand Lobby of the Las Vegas Convention Center in a special section devoted to the Innovations Award winners.

I also plan to check out the Creative ZiiO tablet, which will be on display at the CSR (Cambridge Silicon Radio) booth in the North Hall. It’s the first tablet to feature CSR’s aptX codec for high-quality Bluetooth audio. At the same booth, I’ll be able to hear the Conran Audio Dock. It uses the aptX codec and can stream audio from Bluetooth A2DP-compatible media players, smartphones, laptops and tablets.

While in the North Hall, I’ll swing by the ZOMM booth to see the latest version of the ZOMM product. The company describes it as the first wireless leash for cell phones. Connected to your phone via Bluetooth, the keychain-sized ZOMM can flash, vibrate and even sound an alarm if you start to walk away from your phone. With the new version, you can adjust the ZOMM volume from your phone and select the distance at which the alarm will sound.

Other Bluetooth products I plan to check out at the show include Plantronics’ Voyager Pro UC headset. It uses capacitive sensors to know when you’re wearing it, so it can route your calls to the headset. iDevices will be showing iGrill, the first cooking thermometer you can control over Bluetooth using an iPhone or iPad app. IOGEAR will have solar-powered, hands-free Bluetooth car kits. And Orbotix will be rolling out the Sphero, a robotic ball you can control via Bluetooth using an iOS or Android device.

CES will have specialized TechZones throughout the various convention halls. I’m particularly interested in visiting the Digital Health TechZone, because I’m curious to see how many Low Energy Bluetooth health-related devices will be ready to ship in the first half of the year. The Bluetooth SIG will have a booth there. Continua Health Alliance will be there, as well. Continua Health Alliance helped develop some of the new Low Energy profiles.

I’ll have more to report once CES begins. It will be a long and hectic week, so I plan to bring comfortable shoes.

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Turn Here

Posted on May 31, 2010 by David English

CoPilot Live HD

If you own the 3G version of the iPad, you already have the hardware for a first-class GPS navigator. The large touchscreen, built-in GPS, and instant-on capability are just waiting for the ideal turn-by-turn navigation app.

ALK Technologies’ CoPilot Live HD North America comes pretty close to fitting the bill for anyone who doesn’t have to depend absolutely on GPS navigation, such as an ambulance driver or police officer. While CoPilot Live HD does have its limitations, you would be hard pressed to find a better value given its rich set of features.

You do need to have the 3G version of the iPad in order to run CoPilot Live HD. The program takes up a considerable amount of space (1.34 gigabytes) to store all the needed maps, street names, and points of interest for North America. So why can’t you use the Wi-Fi version if the maps are preloaded? Only the 3G version has the GPS chip, and without the GPS chip, the iPad wouldn’t know where to place you on the map.

Because the maps are stored locally, and not downloaded on the fly, the onscreen views update smoothly as you travel by car. When driving alone, and unable to look at the screen, I was able to use the program’s voice directions for a satisfactory experience. You’ll be prompted well ahead of time with clear and concise directions. Another option: Have a second person watch the screen to help direct the turns. Or you could purchase a dashboard mount for your iPad.

The app has a wealth of features and settings, including the ability to enter multiple stops within a single trip. You can manually enter a street address or pull the information from a contact in the iPad’s address book. There are single-view and dual-view options with either a 3D or 2D map. And the supported live services include local weather, traffic, and fuel prices.

All this costs just $29.99. That’s a one-time fee that provides you with monthly map improvements and quarterly full-map updates for the U.S. and Canada. So what’s the downside?

Because CoPilot Live HD offers so many features, it can be difficult to maneuver (you may need a copilot for your CoPilot). The interface doesn’t help, as it isn’t logically arranged. Case in point, I found a cool feature where you could demo a trial run through a programmed trip, but I haven’t used it since, because I couldn’t find it again.

That may be nitpicking for a turn-by-turn app that costs only $29.99. CoPilot Live HD is an incredible bargain that requires a little extra effort to figure out how to get from here to there. All in all, that’s not a bad trade-off.

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3D at CES

Posted on January 15, 2010 by David English

Glasses

CES You can read elsewhere about the specific 3D devices that will be available this year for watching 3D content in your home. I don’t want to duplicate that. What I would like to do is give a quick time-line and perhaps ramp back expectations a bit.

You can expect to see 3D-compatible televisions (both LCD- and plasma-based), as well as 3D-compatible Blu-ray disc players, starting to stream in from the top manufacturers around May and June. New 3D-cable and 3D-satellite TV channels will start up around the same time with an emphasis on sports (ESPN), nature documentaries (Discovery), and premium pay-per-view content (DirecTV). Blu-ray discs that are 3D-compatible will trickle in through the second half of the year, led by recent 3D theatrical releases such as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (slated for “summer”) and A Christmas Carol (fourth quarter).

How will the 3D home experience measure up with seeing Avatar in 3D at a movie theater? James Cameron has been pushing for theaters to adopt digital projection and 3D for almost a decade, and has been thinking about how to use the new medium creatively even longer, so expect the quality of other 3D content to be uneven at best. Sports, theatrical movies, and games will best show off the technology, but also expect a flood of quickly produced 3D material that may induce headaches and nausea, quite literally.

Samsung, Sony, and Toshiba will include a 2D-to-3D conversion feature with their 3D TVs. It provides real-time conversion of broadcasts, DVDs, home movies, or any other non-3D video you can route through the television. Samsung demoed this feature at CES with some sports video clips, and it wasn’t all that impressive. The company rep I spoke with didn’t know what criteria was being used (such as contrast and/or motion) to distinguish one focal plane from another.

How much more will the 3D TVs cost over traditional 2D TVs? The premium could be $200-$300 initially. Within a year or two, the gap will probably narrow to next to nothing, as all televisions above a moderate price point become 3D compatible.

Will 3D ever become popular enough that we would want to wear the funny glasses for the majority of programs? No one knows for sure. And glasses-free 3D TVs aren’t likely to be technologically or economically feasible anytime soon, though there are some promising prototypes.

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Call Routing

Posted on December 30, 2009 by David English

Google Voice

You may have three different phone numbers: a home number, an office number, and a mobile number. Wouldn’t it be great to have a single phone number that could ring all three phones at the same time? Or route your calls at certain hours to one of your phones? Or automatically route your calls to specific phones based on the caller ID?

You could route family member calls to your home and mobile, while sending business associate calls to your office and mobile. And while traveling, you might route all your calls to your mobile number. If that sounds ideal, but expensive and overly complicated, you haven’t tried Google Voice.

It’s free, though you currently have to request an invitation and wait (probably a few weeks) to be accepted. Once you receive your invitation, you can sign up for a new phone number or use one of your current numbers. In addition to routing your calls, Google Voice offers Web-based voice mail, along with the option to have the voice mail automatically transcribed and sent to you as e-mail messages. You can set up custom voice mail greetings based on caller ID and use your Google Voice number to make low-cost international calls. Despite all the options, I found the Web interface to be very easy to use.

There’s even a BlackBerry app that lets you access your Google voice mail directly from your phone. You can use the BlackBerry app to call out using your Google Voice phone number rather than the phone number that’s normally attached to the phone.

You can choose from a variety of phone numbers when selecting your new Google Voice number — and it doesn’t have to be in your area code. Choose carefully, though. While the phone number is free, there’s a $10 charge if you decide to swap it for another number.

Is there a downside to Google Voice? There could be privacy concerns. If you prefer that Google not have access to your phone messages or current phone numbers, then you may not want to use this service. Otherwise, it’s an incredibly powerful application that could dramatically change the way you interact with your phones.

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Refined Color

Posted on December 28, 2009 by David English

Viveza 2

Digital photos give us a great deal of control with our image processing. The problem for most of us? We don’t know how to make the color, contrast, detail, or shadow adjustments that can transform a lackluster snapshot into a professional-quality image. Even if we know how to access the tools in Photoshop, Lightroom, or Aperture, we’re not sure how to isolate the effects to a specific part of the image.

If that sounds all-too familiar, you might give Nik Software’s Viveza 2 a test drive. You can install it in Photoshop, Lightroom, or Aperture for simple, yet precise, color adjustments. The product began shipping last week, though I’ve been using a beta version for the past two months. Where similar plug-ins or standalone programs tend to give a unnatural look to your processed images, Vivena 2 can be subtle, as well as powerful.

You can use the built-in filter controls to apply the tools throughout the image. Or you can use the control point system to target the tools to a specific region or range of colors. Need to darken the blue sky, without darkening the green grass below? You can do that easily in just a few seconds. Need to brighten the bride’s face and add detail to her hair, without altering either the groom or the background? You can do that, too.

I now apply Viveza 2 to almost all my color photos. Sometimes I end up keeping the previous version, but more times than not, it’s the Viveza 2 enhanced version that ends up being the keeper.

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I Want My 3D TV

Posted on October 7, 2009 by David English

3D TV

Prototype 3D televisions were a big draw at this year’s CEATEC, with Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, and Mitsubishi pushing hard to build consumer acceptance. So far, there’s no broadcast or disc-based 3D standard, either internationally or domestically in Japan, so any 3D television by necessity would have to be a prototype.

The 3D televisions use a field sequential technology (alternating frames), and they require the viewer to wear 3D-enabling glasses that are synced to the video content. The depth effect on the displays was quite good, possibly even better than the 3D television Panasonic demonstrated earlier this year at CES.

With a growing number of motion pictures being released in 3D, there is certainly great potential. But just as no one is absolutely sure if 3D movies will endure theatrically beyond an initial fad, the same is true for 3D home theater. The Japanese manufacturers are forging ahead, assuming the demand will be there when the technology is ready and the standards are in place.

The success of 3D television will largely depend on the success of the theatrical 3D movies. If they fail, broadcasters and other media distributors aren’t likely to assume the risk based purely on specialized content.

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Solar Phone

Posted on October 7, 2009 by David English

solar phone

Though you don’t usually associate Sharp with mobile phones—at least in the U.S.—it turns out that Sharp is the largest mobile phone manufacturer for the Japanese market.

At CEATEC, Sharp demonstrated a hybrid mobile phone that uses solar cells to extend the life of the lithium-ion rechargeable battery. For every 10 minutes you expose the phone to sunlight, you gain an extra 1 minute of talk time.

That may not seem like a lot, but it could be handy if you need just a few more minutes at the end of a charge cycle. And it could be very useful if the power is out, and you need to make an emergency call—assuming it’s still daylight, and the sky isn’t overcast.

One interesting thing about attending CEATEC is discovering just how many innovative Japanese products never make it to American shores. In addition to this phone, manufacturers were showing televisions with built-in Blu-ray recorders.

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High-Tech Chandelier

Posted on October 7, 2009 by David English

high-tech chandelier

Along with the green products that have immediate appeal, CEATEC had its share of green products that had many scratching their heads. LED and OLED light bulbs save energy, and we’ll likely switch over to those technologies, once they become brighter and less expensive.

So I guess it was inevitable that someone would create an Organic EL chandelier. In theory, it seems like a good idea. Plus, there’s the benefit of it being the first of a kind. That said, this has to be one of the most unusual chandeliers ever produced. Utilitarian? Yes. Good for the planet? Two big thumbs up. A worthy design that will add a touch of elegance to any décor? That you’ll have to decide.

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Singing Robot

Posted on October 7, 2009 by David English

Leica M9

Yamaha introduced its Disklavier piano way back in 1986. The Disklavier is a Yamaha piano with a built-in playback and recording system. When playing back the recording, the keys are pressed down, much like a player piano, so you hear essentially the same performance that was recorded on the same or similar piano. Because the performance is stored as a MIDI file, you could play a tune on a Disklavier in one city and have it play back—live or delayed—on another Disclavier in another city.

Recently, Yamaha has touted the benefit of this system for parents, by referring to the recordings as a lifelog. You could capture every performance of your child from the very first piano lesson to however far your child might progress on the instrument. MIDI files are tiny, so you could easily store a lifetime of practice sessions, lessons learned, and accomplished performances onto a single disk drive.

At this year’s CEATEC tradeshow, Yamaha added yet another twist to the technology. The company showed a prototype HRP-4C humanoid robot that sings in sync with a Disklavier piano performance. It not only sings—it has realistic facial expressions that mimic quite persuasively the human face. I spoke with Masahiro Koyama, Ph. D., who works for the Center of Advanced Sound Technologies in Tokyo. He said the facial expressions are based on what a face and mouth would look like when those particular sounds are produced.

There are no immediate plans to commercialize the singing robot, which uses Yamaha’s proprietary Vocaloid vocal-processing technology to create the lifelike singing voice (here’s a YouTube link to the performance at the booth). Cover bands across the world can rest easy, at least for the time being.

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