I’ve also got the HP Home Server from last week that I’d love to test out properly, but I’ve been hamstrung by faulty power cables and a lack of software included in the review kit’s box.

Anybody picked up anything cool and gadgety they’re going to be playing with over the weekend?

The example they gave was for people who happen to drive Porsches. What they foresee as the future of the technology is that a Porsche driver will be able to go to a dedicated portal and download the noise cancellation frequencies for his model of porsche. That way, whenever he (or she) is driving along, roof down on their fancy-pants car and Bluetooth headset sticking from their ear, the device will be able to almost pre-cancel out the car’s engine.

It’s an interesting idea, even if it’s one that will probably take a while to implement and has lots of question marks surrounding it. What do you think?

They come in a range of colours with incredibly bad puns for names, like “Drop me a Lime” (green), “Lilac you mean it” (purple), “Yello!” (yellow) and “Frankly Scarlet” (pink). There’s also black and silver. They’ll set you back $159 each, but they work a treat – the demo they showed us today demonstrated the military-grade noise-cancellation tech by pretty much silencing a blender right next to the guy using the Prime.

[Force Technology]

They say this means you will get the clear sound without any background noise, not that anyone else is trying to do something similar… Jawbone anyone?

In “stealth” mode the HX1 uses an ear sensor to to convert your vocal vibrations into speech rather than using the external microphone. Moto claim that because their sensor is on the ear rather than the side of the skull you get a better quality sound.

No details of a US release yet but the HX1 will be available in Asia in July [Motorola]

There are four fashion colours—red, yellow, orange and purple—for people who would rather accessorize than try to hide the fact that they’re using a Bluetooth headset. (Their names, “Frankly Scarlet”, “Yello!”, “Drop Me a Lime” and “LILAC You Mean It” are at the very least, clever.) Of course, there’s also the obligatory black, brown and platinum colours for people who take themselves seriously.

On the other hand, there’s the voice improvements. Their NoiseAssassin’s Voice Activity Sensor is still there, providing great noise elimination as long as it’s touching your face. But in the case that the little white nub slides off your cheek, their new Acoustic Voice Activity Detector supposedly provides as good a noise cancellation algorithm as other headsets on the market. Overall, the Jawbone Prime gives better noise suppression than the Jawbone 2 by about 3x (give or take, depending on the situation). Also, there’s redesigned wind noise suppression.

Rounding out the features, there’s Bluetooth 1.1, 1.2, 2.0 and 2.1 + EDR support, 10 meter range, 4.5 hours talk time, 8 days standby time, two simultaneous device connections and a price of $US130. We’ll let you know how it performs once we test it. [Jawbone]

The Price: It’s out today in black for US$130. Silver and gold models will be available soon.

The Verdict: The new Jawbone beats its predecessor from top to bottom in comfort and sound. While the original earpiece set the standard for Bluetooth sound quality, wearing it for an hour felt like exercise to my ear. The gen 2 is much lighter, sits in my ear comfortably and barely touches my face. The clip is slimmed down and covered in leather, a much better feeling than the rubber and metal monstrosity of yore.

The outgoing sound is better than gen 1’s too. Aliph ditched “Noise Shield” for “Noise Assassin” technology, and while that sounds like a bunch of marketing mumbo jumbo, people on the other end of the line while I was testing it could hear a difference. The new tech kept the outside noise to a minimum and my voice stayed clear.

Despite these improvements, the Jawbone still has flaws. Incoming sound isn’t much better than before; it’s loud enough, but the digital crunch found in all Bluetooth headsets is still there. Considering how long Bluetooth has been around, it’s a wonder why no one has been able to really improve on this. Also, the new Jawbone only has four hours of talk time compared to the old one’s six; the weird part is, it almost has twice the standby time, over 8 days.

Since the only worthy competition for the Jawbone is, well, the Jawbone, the gen 2 is a clear winner. Bluetooth headsets still have a way to go before they measure straight-up to using the phone, but this slimmed-down, enhanced Jawbone is another step in the right direction. [Jawbone]