The 2011 Nissan Leaf: It’s going to be the first “mass-market” pure-electric car. It’s not the first electric-car period, but the “mass-market” qualifier makes it OK. I guess. And the 160km range. And it’ll be about $30,000 before a $7500 tax break, so you can afford it. And we love Nissans. [Popsci]

The Sikorsky X2 Helicopter: It’s going to be the fastest chopper in existence based on the fact that there are counter-rotating rotors and a backwards-facing propeller that pushes the whole thing forward. It may not look like a helicopter you’re familiar with, but it’s pure sweetness. [Popsci]

Diamond Interchange: This new traffic intersection type can “reduce clogging by as much as 60 per cent”, which bodes well for drivers everywhere. You don’t need to know how it works, you just need to know that it does, and convince your local MP to change over to this style. [Popsci]

Powergenix Rechargeable AA Batteries: These are supposed to be, thanks to better Nickel-Zinc technology, as good as disposables — but can last up to 1000 charges. They’re not too expensive either, comparatively, at $US15 for four. [Popsci]

Sennheiser HD800 headphones: Sennheiser’s HD series are expensive (boldly expensive), but very much worth it. The 800 is just another reason why you should be taking night classes in order to get a better job to pay for these. $US1400 isn’t something you throw down casually, but if you’re talking sound quality AND comfort (others can do one or the other), you’ll have a hard time beating Sennheiser. [Popsci]

X-Flex Blast Protection Wallpaper: These sticky, rollable, self-adhesive sheets can be applied to any wall that you think will be the subject of explosions. In turn, the walls stay vertical and the occupants inside the building say alive. Popsci says these things kept a wrecking ball from going through pure brick, so it’ll definitely keep your angry teenage kid from putting his fist through your drywall. [Popsci]

Filigent Limited BioMask: A face mask — like the kind everyone wears in Japan when they’re sick — that kills 99.9 per cent of flu viruses in less than a minute. And 100 per cent after 10. A regular mask still holds 50,000 bugs (on average). If you want one of these you’ll have to import it from Hong Kong or Europe, where it’s more acceptable to wear one of these on the street. I should really stock up on these for CES next year; not because it’s going to be a mass of diseased bodies in a confined space, but because Adam Frucci is really disgusting. [Popsci]

Xela Innovations Purleve Hygienic Door Handle: The door handle is actually a sleeve dispenser, so instead of touching poopy metal, you touch a removable plastic sleeve whenever you have to get out from the can. It’s genius, even if it is slightly wasteful to refill sleeves all the time. But if we have no problem protecting our arses from public toilets with disposable toilet rings, this should sell just as well. [Popsci]

Microsoft’s Project Natal: If there’s one game development we’re looking forward to, it’s Natal. Imagine combining the fun of being at home with the fun of moving around in your living room and having a machine know exactly what you’re doing. Perhaps we should phrase it another way: Whenever Mark and I play any game, he says “imagine how great this would be with NATAL!!!!” He actually pronounces those exclamation points out loud over Xbox Live so I get how serious he is. [Popsci]

Bosch Full Force Technology Nail Gun: You might not use nail guns every day, but when you do, you really want to savour the experience. In this case, Bosch uses a secondary air blast that follows the first nail-ejection one in order to return the piston into firing position. So the nail gun literally goes pew-pew with each shot. As a result, the gun is 20 per cent smaller and 10 per cent more powerful than anything else. With one of these, everything you own becomes a board. [Popsci]

Although they launched back in April in the US, they’ve just hit Australian shores for the asking price of $165. They performed fairly well in the A2DP Battlemodo back in September, so if you’re after a pair of reasonably priced, funky looking Bluetooth headphones, these might be a good option for you.

[Jabra]

The headphones themselves have a 40mm speaker driver, a closed design and a 24k gold plated plug. But the point of difference about these cans is the design element – they come with four different designs from Philips, but you can literally create your own, print it out and stick it on the cans. Whether that’s worth the $130 RRP is totally up to you…

[Philips]

The bass is “highly addictive” and its “resolution of fine detail is extraordinary”, with isolation so solid it’ll block screeching train cars. Of course, any headphones this high end require custom moulds from an audiologist, which adds another $US150 to the price. Steve says they’re worth $US1100, not just because they’re hand-built and designed Jerry Harvey, who founded Ultimate Ears, but because you’ll get 10 years of use out of them — which, looked at from that angle, isn’t so bad. Check out the full review here: [CNET]

The PXC310BT are Sennheiser’s first pair of Bluetooth headphones on the Australian market. They use the A2DP Bluetooth profile to deliver stereo music wirelessly from your Bluetooth device to the headphones. For long-time gadget aficionados, this is nothing new. Similarly, active noise cancellation in a pair of headphones is nothing new either. But Sennheiser have combined the two technologies into one pair of headphones, and like the best fusion restaurants, have created something incredibly new and exciting.

The Design
These headphones from Sennheiser look a lot like every other pair of Sennheiser on the ear noise-cancelling headphones, except without the inline noise cancellation unit. Instead, there’s a small battery unit in the left earphone — it looks replaceable, but I couldn’t get it out. The battery charges via an included USB cable, either plugged into your PC or a power socket. On the right earphone are the controls: up and down buttons for volume, left and right buttons for track control and a centre button to do almost everything else. On the underside of the right headphone are two more buttons: one that controls Bluetooth and one that controls the noise cancellation.

Like previous Sennheiser cans, the PXC310BT are black with silver trims, and fold up for storage. There’s soft padding on the earphones themselves, plus two convenient locations on the top to make wearing them comfortable. And they are comfortable — I happily wore them for most of the day without any real discomfort.

The Controls
Learning the controls for these headphones takes a bit of getting used to. The central button on the side, for example, not only starts and stops your music, but also turns the unit on or off and puts them in Bluetooth search mode as well, depending how long you hold the button. Similarly the NoiseGard button on the bottom will switch noise cancelling on or off if you hold it for a couple of seconds, or activate a speak through function so you can hear what people are saying to you when you have the music cranking if you just press it once. Despite the relatively steep learning curve though, once you’ve mastered the controls, all the buttons are located conveniently enough to make the entire process of controlling your music simple…

Unless you happen to own an iPhone, that is. I personally rejoiced when Apple updated their firmware to include A2DP Bluetooth, but it turns out they didn’t include the profile required to let you skip and rewind tracks using the Sennheiser (and other) Bluetooth headphones. As such, while you can control volume and play and pause the music, you can’t rewind or fast forward. Hardly Sennheiser’s fault there — they’ve got the profile support. But worth mentioning seeing as how I was testing on an iPhone, as I’m sure many potential buyers would be as well.

The Sound Quality
As a general rule, I’ve always loved Sennheiser’s sound quality. That’s why I was a little disappointed when I first started listening to music from my iPhone over A2DP Bluetooth. It sounded like my music—which is encoded at 256kbps MP3—was ripped at something like 64kbps. It was distorted and tinny.

Then suddenly it changed, and sound quality was fine. It was good, even, with a nice range and performance on the bass end as well. Then it started cutting out every second or so, and I had to end the connection with my phone and reconnect, at which point it was all good again. I don’t know if this had something to do with other wireless signals messing up the Bluetooth connection, but it was erratic, to say the least.

Fortunately, Sennheiser did something very smart with these headphones and included a headphone cable jack (3.5mm to 2.5mm). When you plug in the cable, Bluetooth streaming is automatically switched off, although you can still use it to control your music. And with the cable plugged in, the sound quality was great. Which tells me that the problems regarding sound quality I was having were purely based around the limitations of A2DP Bluetooth technology, rather than the headphones themselves.

The Battery Life
These headphones have a tiny little battery in the left ear, which powers not only the Bluetooth mechanism but the noise cancellation as well. So I was impressed when I got a few days of moderate use out of a battery charge. Sure, if you listen to your music all day every day over Bluetooth, you’ll probably need to recharge every night, but if you only use it on the train to and from work, plus a little bit through the day, you’ll happily get 3-4 days. If that’s not enough for you, you should probably just stick with wired headphones and stop your bitching.

Other Things Worth Mentioning
Despite being able to pair with your phone, these headphones don’t do handsfree voice calling — you’ll still need to pull your phone out of your pocket and talk like a normal person. Sennheiser do have a pair coming with that functionality though (called the MM450 TRAVEL), although they’ll have a slight premium on the price.

Speaking of price, these puppies will set you back a cool $599. I know, that sounds expensive, but you’re paying for the convenience of wireless and the awesomeness of noise cancellation, so it’s not that bad a deal. Would I buy these? Probably not, but not because of performance — I think the convenience ultimately overcomes any quality issues with A2DP, and the inability to skip tracks on my iPhone is a limitation I can deal with. No, I wouldn’t buy these mostly because I’d prefer a pair that doubled (or should that be tripled) as a handsfree for my mobile phone, like the upcoming MM450 TRAVEL ‘phones from Sennheiser.

Still, these are the best pair of Bluetooth headphones I’ve tested yet, so if playing your music over Bluetooth is important to you, I’d definitely check them out.

[Sennheiser]

The 3-button remote can be used to easily control music and video playback, adjust volume, record voice memos and answer or end calls. The original Shure SE115 headset had a great reputation, so this should be a welcome upgrade for iPhone users. Expect to see the Shure SE115m+ headset on store shelves by the end of the month for $US120. [Pitch Engine]

I’ve also got the Dyson Air Multiplier here, and it’s a super sexy toy, although the novelty wears off after a few minutes. It is just a fan, after all. A very stylish fan, but a fan.

Finally, I’ve got a Flip Mino HD to play around with. I’m sure I’ll be taking lots of videos of my dog and baby, which I’ll refrain from posting here on Giz. Don’t want you guys thinking I’m a wus or anything…

What gadgets are you playing with this weekend?

We’re gonna be talking in-ear earbuds—canalphones, really, or in-ear monitors, if you’re snooty—since all the good stuff goes deep into your precious earholes. We aren’t talking about headphones because great headphones aren’t the most discrete things around — can’t defeat physics, children. Unless you derive some sick pleasure from jogging with a pair of giant cans bolted to your head, earbuds are the way to go.

It’s All About the Drivers — No, Not Those Kind

Whether you’re talking about headphones or earbuds, they work a lot like loudspeakers, just miniaturised. The key element in both are drivers, though earphone drivers are a lot smaller, and do a lot less work to make the same music.

There are two main types of drivers: The a dynamic driver works just like a traditional one in big ol’ speaker. The benefit of the dynamic driver is that it produces a nice bass response, though it can be hard to miniaturise.

A balanced armature driver is pretty common in serious in-ear monitors, since it’s easy to shrink down. Originally found in hearing aids, it houses a magnetic armature that moves when an electric current runs through the coil, putting pressure on the diaphragm, creating sound. It can be, and often is, paired with a dynamic driver.

Most earbuds just have the one driver, though more and more have multiple drivers. That costs more ’cause it’s harder to cram more than one into a tiny casing meant to rest gravity-free in your ear. With multiple drivers also comes a “crossover network”, circuitry meant to divide music into different frequencies and route them to the appropriate drivers, an additional payload to stuff into that tight space. Once all that is crammed in, however, multi-driver earbuds typically sound better than single-driver ones, because the woofer, tweeter and mid-range horn are more innately equipped to handle their own domains of sound — from boomy bass to sizzly treble.

Among the least expensive multiple-driver earbuds are Apple’s fancier AU$119 in-ear earbuds, which use two drivers, a tweeter for highs, and another for everything else. It gets more expensive as you creep up. Shure’s three-driver SE530 lists for $US500 (but can be found for much less). Ultimate Ears’ UE-11 Pro, which will run you a ridiculous $US1150, come with a correspondingly ridiculous four drivers. That’s one for mid-range and one for highs and two for bass.

Some companies opt for a single driver because they think it’s better, since there aren’t complications with crossover networks, trying to get all the drivers to work together to produce seamless sound. On the other hand, with a single driver, you’re asking one driver to do everything: highs, lows and mid-range, says Stereophile senior contributing editor Michael Fremer Fremer. (Yes, that Michael Fremer.) That’s why , FutureSonics, for instance, makers of pro monitoring gear, charges so much for their single-driver earbuds. “A really good single-driver can sound really good,” says Fremer.

What It’s Made Of, How It’s Made

Besides more drivers, what you get in pricier earbuds is (surprise, surprise) better materials, finer build quality and a more focused design. Michael Johns, headphones manager for Shure—known for earbuds with MSRP ranging from $US100 to $US500 but rarely double digits—told me that most of the really cheap ($US20) headphones on the market are basically rebranded crap from no-name factories, and that when you buy those with suggested retail pricing between $US50 and $US100, you’re mostly paying for style, not sound. The top-tier brands, of which there are many, tend to design and engineer their own headphones. The expense of that is, unfortunately, passed on to you.

The cost of raw ingredients is also passed to you — the cable material, the magnet behind the diaphragm, the diaphragm material itself, the overall quality of the driver, and the enclosure. (Again, all of the stuff that jacks up the price of higher quality loudspeakers too.) None of that stuff, when it’s well made, is cheap. Fremer says, for instance, that better headphones actually use stronger magnets than cheaper headphones. As you might guess, the more powerful the magnet, the higher the cost.

The Fit

With legit in-ear buds, fit matters a lot, because the seal is critical. Not only does a good seal mean less ambient noise infiltrates your ears—allowing you to keep your volume low while still catching the full dynamic range—but an airtight seal is how you get decent bass response. And you want something shoved deep down inside your ear to be comfortable, as well as fit, so there’s a lot of different kinds of tips earbud makers have come up with. Besides the standard rubber bulb, there’s squishy foam, and the Christmas tree-lookin’ triple-flange sleeves. What works best often comes down to your own ears and personal preference, which is why better earbuds come with a ton of tips.

What Do I Buy?

So, uh, what’s the sweet spot price for great headphones? If Shure and Fremer had their way, everybody would spend upwards of $US200 on their earbuds, but if you twist their arm, they’ll agree that $US100 is where buds start getting decent. The real trick, according to Fremer, is just getting people to “spend that first hundred bucks”.

The law of diminishing returns tends to kick in above that point: The difference between $US300 set of buds and a $US400 pair is nowhere near the jump from $US20 to $US100. Even smaller is the difference in models between generations. Although the best value on the market might be a previous-gen version of Shure’s 500 series buds at a cut rate ($290), but if you can find $US100 earbuds for $US70, it’s even better.

Whatever you do, for christ’s sake—and yours—ditch the iPod earbuds.

You don’t need to press any buttons, as the earphones use Sony Ericsson’s ‘SensMe’ technology to sense your body. They come in chrome and yellow/white, and will be available worldwide this week for about $US55. The one bummer: you’ll need a Sony Ericsson phone with a “Fast port” connector. You can check for compatibility here: [Sony Ericsson]

They’ll sell in October for $US30 and come with extra ear caps that tailor toward boys, girls or the Dutch. [Griffin Technology via Gadgenista via Coolest Gadgets]