Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Sat, 23 Mar 2013 09:00:00 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20130322/18275622424/awesome-stuff-life-never-sounded-so-good-go.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20130322/18275622424/awesome-stuff-life-never-sounded-so-good-go.shtml awesome stuff. I really did not intend for each week to have a theme, but that's sort of how it's worked out for the past few weeks, and why stop now? This week, let's talk about speakers.

• First up, there's the Yaba Portable Speaker & Guitar Amp by PLX Devices. We've seen tiny speakers (that use whatever surface they're on) to create bigger sounds before, but the Yaba at least appears to have a pretty cool design that seems quite small for the level of sound they seem to suggest they're able to get out of it. It's tough to tell how well it really works in action unless you can see it in person, but conceptually, it looks cool. The fact that there's a version that can double as an absolutely tiny guitar amp seems quite cool for guitarists as well. Could definitely see plenty of uses for a device like this. It only just launched, but seems well on its way to hitting the goal. Early bird pricing at $39 sounds like a great deal, though they (not surprisingly) sold out quickly.
• But what if you've got some big old speakers around? How about easily turning them into portable speakers that play off of your mobile phone via Bluetooth (or regular line-in jack)? That's the plan for The Vamp, a tiny stylish box that can connect to any old speaker magnetically, providing both the connection and power. Even if you don't have old speakers around, the project's creator Paul Cocksedge notes that you can pick up old speakers for just a few bucks these days, since they've become somewhat obsolete. And yet here's a neat way to bring new life to old speakers. Cool idea. This one is still decently below its target, but it seems likely that it will get there in time.
• Of course, who uses speakers any more? These days, it's all about the earbuds. And that's why the last "awesome stuff" item this week is The Elroy. I'll admit, it took me a little while to understand exactly what this was, but basically it tries to combine the wireless flexibility of bluetooth with the general convenience of typical earbuds. That is, uptop, it's like a normal earbud setup (in fact, it sounds like you can use your own earbuds if you'd like), but about 1/3 of the way down a normal cord length, they just connect to a little bluetooth gadget which wirelessly communicates with whatever devices you want. So... no long cords getting in the way. Plus, it acts as a magnetic holder for the earbuds, which means no more dealing with tangled wires. And the phone features will even pick up / hang up as you detach / attach the earbuds to the unit. The thing that I can't fully get past is that the device itself still looks a little dorky -- not unlike bluetooth headsets, but now clipped to your shirt somewhere. The project describes it as "a piece of electronic jewelry" which sounds like a stretch. Also, it seems a bit on the pricey side for the benefit it provides -- but clearly lots of people disagree with that assessment, as it's quickly shot way past its target goal.

Well, that should give you plenty to listen to for a while. We'll be back next week, with more crowdfunded awesome stuff...

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]]> speakers,-speakers-and-headphones http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130322/18275622424 Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:15:00 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090424/1217564638.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090424/1217564638.shtml The Free Summit that I'll be emceeing next month. We've lined up most of the speakers, so check out the agenda. As already mentioned, Chris Anderson will be doing the keynote, talking about some of the concepts from his new book on "Free" (I'm reading it now -- and it's great). There will also be two panels that should be quite interesting. One of the things that we wanted to ensure was that the panels we put together didn't just involve people who all agreed with each other (or with me, certainly), so that the discussion would remain quite interesting. So, on the panel about music, we're having Jim Griffin (who I've certainly clashed with in the past) from Choruss, the major record label-backed attempt to come up with a new business model for licensing music, Gigi Sohn from Public Knowledge, the public advocacy group that has taken a strong pro-consumer position on copyright issues, and Dave Allen from the seminal band Gang of Four, a big advocate of "free," and who now helps plenty of other bands learn how to embrace and profit from "free." It should be an exciting discussion.

We've also got a panel on the news business, involving Kara Swisher from AllthingsD/Dow Jones, Dan Gillmor, the director of the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship as well as one of the first "old school" reporters to jump on the participatory media bandwagon, Alan Mutter, a journalism professor/investor/entrepreneur/former reporter who's been a vocal critic of newspapers' decision to go free online (calling it "the original sin") and Marshall Van Alstyne, an economics professor from Boston University and MIT who has studied information economics and who recently debated with Mutter and others on the Freakonomics blog about news organization business models. There will also be a session from Alex Iskold (another person I've disagreed with in the past) who will be presenting on "the dangers of free."

What's great about this is that it really is a mix of folks with (sometimes starkly) different opinions -- but who all believe quite strongly in their positions and are willing to discuss and defend them. I'm hopeful that what comes out of all of this will be some great new insights from all sides about what "free" means in terms of business models and economics today.

Finally, we're excited to announce that, as a part of this, we'll be including a mini-Techdirt Greenhouse at the beginning of the event. For those who have followed Techdirt for a while, you may recall we ran a series of "idea workshops" called the Techdirt Greenhouse, where individuals would do short, 5-minute presentations not as a "demo," but to discuss a challenge they were facing -- and then we broke up the audience into workgroups to take on those challenges and come up with ideas/plans/suggestions. Those events were a lot of fun, and we received a ton of great feedback. We've been meaning to start them up again (and we still get emails from attendees demanding we do so), but have been too busy to focus on them -- so this is a good way to sneak in a mini-Greenhouse, and also get us geared up to do a full Greenhouse again in the near future. In this mini-Greenhouse, we'll be focusing on the challenges associated with using "free" in a business model. It should be a lot of fun...

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]]> update http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090424/1217564638 Tue, 16 Oct 2007 12:59:00 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071016/013708.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071016/013708.shtml challenge, offering $1 million to someone who could show that it was possible to hear the difference between $7250 speaker cables and $80 speaker cables. That set off a long discussion in our comments (and elsewhere) -- and eventually got the attention of at least one audiophile who has signed up to take the challenge. While it sounds like the details are still being worked out (in between the insults flying back and forth), assuming this actually moves forward, it should be fun to watch. In the meantime, about the only thing I'll note is that prior to this story, I don't think I ever would have considered $80 speaker cables "cheap," and yet, now I feel like my mental scale for such things has been reset. That's not necessarily a good thing.

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