Bluetooth headsets are pretty much just one big bag of yawn, but the Endeavor HX1 actually looks pretty cool. It uses both noise cancellation and bone conduction to make sure you get the clearest possible voice signal. And Motorola have just announced pricing for Australia. More »
Motorola is rolling out the Endeavor HX1 Bluetooth headset which combines bone conduction and noise cancellation. More »
When most people sit on the train next to somebody blaring their iPod so loudly that the rest of the carriage can hear, they have three options. They can run the risk of getting stabbed by asking them to turn it down; they can get up and move to another location in the train; or they can just try and ignore it. Australian design student Leonard Kanas brings a fourth option to the table, in the shape of the Aura Bone Conduction Headset.
His concept is for a headset that works off bone conduction technology. That means that rather than blasting out sound from a couple of speakers, the headset resonates the user’s skull, which is picked up by the cochlea and interpreted as sound. It also keeps your ears free, so not only will you be able to hear external sounds (like traffic, for example), but you also won’t be doing any damage to your hearing by having your earphones up too loud.
The Aura would use Bluetooth technology to transmit sound into your skull, and includes four speakers so you can really crank up that vibration. It’s also powered by infrared solar power, so charging it should be cheap if it ever comes makes it to market.
Although bone conduction is nothing new in headphones and Bluetooth headsets, not very many cellphones incorporate it into their feature sets. Pantech’s KDDI A1407PT in Japan does have this bone conduction loudspeaker, and channels sound through your bones from your ear (or just behind your ear), which helps you hear in noisy environments. Other than the boning factor, this $165 phone is pretty plain, with a 2.4-inch screen and a 1.3-megapixel camera. Put the bone technology into a great phone and we’ll start getting excited. [Digital World Tokyo via Uber Gizmo] More »
