Wearhaus Arc: Is the world ready for ‘social headphones’?

Almost exactly a year ago, I received an email about “the world’s first social headphones.” The main feature of the Wearhaus Arc was their ability to wirelessly connect with other Arcs nearby, letting users broadcast (or listen in to) each other’s tunes. Owners of the Arc would be able to create impromptu silent discos, or hyper-local radio stations with just one media player. At a romantic level, I liked the idea. I imagined all the conversations they could start, or connections they might spark, so I wrote about them, suggesting the technology might be better as a “feature” that other brands could license. Despite my reservations, Wearhaus went on to run not one, but two successful rounds of crowdfunding for its bespoke headphones. That product is finally here, and about to go on sale. I’ve at last had a chance to try it. Has it changed my mind?

First, a bit of history. Arc is the brainchild of two ex-Berkeley engineering “dropouts”: Richie Zeng and Nelson Zhang. The duo had never developed a commercial product before, let alone designed a pair of headphones. But, unperturbed by such details, they went ahead anyway, under the brand name “Wearhaus.” In another bold move, the duo didn’t take to Kickstarter or Indiegogo to fund their project; they did it themselves via their own website. Despite the lack of experience, and the unconventional (and untrusted?) crowdfunding platform, the duo reached their $75,000 goal, and development of Arc began.

Fast-forward to today, and on my desk are two final production units: one black, one white. The finished product looks much better than the prototype. The materials and build quality seem improved. The fit is more comfortable, and gesture-based playback controls have been added. More importantly, the never-before-demoed social features are here (hence the two pairs, to test them).

That’s the first thing I do. I connect the black pair to my phone via Bluetooth; the white set I just switch on. I play music through the first pair, and then double-tap on the earcup of the second. A short moment later, and the music plays through both, in near-perfect sync, and at apparently the same quality. Zeng tells me it works by daisy-chaining the Bluetooth connection, with up to six sets theoretically being able to connect, and with no degradation in audio from the host set.

A future software update will increase the number of possible connections to 63. The delay between headsets is about 100ms, but could go as low as 10 or 20. To be fair, exact synchronization isn’t essential, unlike with video applications. I have to admit, it’s kinda fun, and it’s not hard to imagine how, with enough users, it could be a great music-discovery tool, or at the very least, an enabler for random social encounters.

The whole process is also refreshingly simple. The “broadcaster” sets up their “station” via the Wearhaus Arc app, and the listener just needs to double-tap the right side of their headphones. If you were in a room full of broadcasters, you can use the app to browse them all, and settle on whatever strikes your fancy. It’s whether you’re likely to find yourself near even one other set that’s the question.

As a standalone product, Arc’s audio quality is typical of other $200 headphones. There’s a slight EQ bump on the lower end, but it’s barely noticeable. Higher frequencies are perhaps a teensy bit less clear than they could be, but are certainly livelier than much of the competition at this cost. There’s also a good amount of dynamic range (drums and vocals punch through as they should) for an on-ear headphone. For the price point, the Arc is a pleasing set to listen through, even if you don’t care about the social features.

If I have any gripes, it’s with the rigid design. The Arc doesn’t fold, and while the earcups adjust, the whole set is fairly rigid. This isn’t uncommon, but the Arc definitely feels a little stiffer than most when putting them on or off, compared to something lighter, like AIAIAI’s TMA-2. There’s no indication the plastic would crack, but it feels possible, if given enough abuse. I also have a love/hate relationship with the multicolor LED trim detail. In the app, you can set the LED to any color you like (or a combo of three), and it looks pretty fancy. The flip side of that, and this might be just me, is that I ended up turning it off a lot of the time, especially at night, as I felt a little self-conscious.

Now that I’ve seen the Arc in all its social glory, what’s changed? In some ways, not a lot. I still find something whimsical about the idea of a “social” headphone. It’s an idea I really want to catch on. I also still think it’d be much better as a platform, a technology other manufacturers could implement into their products so that buyers could choose the headphones they want. The concept is cool, but for it to achieve any level of public adoption, being stuck with one brand probably isn’t enough. Fortunately, the Wearhaus Arc headphones are good enough that if you like how they look, it’s a decent product for the price anyway. Wearhaus has shipped the Arc to all the early backers, which means about 3,000 pairs exist in the wild, but the team tells me it’s in talks with retailers right now to help boost that number.

If you’re interested in spreading the social vibe, you can pre-order a pair through the Wearhaus website.

Filed under: Home Entertainment

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Source: Wearhaus

Android and adult content: from skirting the Play Store, to VR and double standards

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If you’re interested in a spot of sex and violence, which mobile platform should you choose? Does it actually make much of a difference? Is there more adult content in the Play Store than there is in the App Store? What about violent games or other kinds of content that might be considered adult? What’s the most moral platform of them all? Let’s dive in and see what we can find.

“You know, there’s a porn store for Android. You can download nothing but porn. You can download porn, your kids can download porn. That’s a place we don’t want to go – so we’re not going to go there.”

You can probably guess who said that back in 2010. According to TechCrunch he followed it up with an email to a customer which said, “…we do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy and Android phone.”

Those comments were partly prompted by the revelation that Apple had rejected an app from a cartoonist, who went on to win a Pulitzer Prize, because it ridiculed public figures. A decision Jobs tried to reverse after it came to public attention and raised questions about Apple’s policies.

Is the Play Store rife with adult content?

Looking beyond his hyperbole, there’s no doubt that Apple was much heavier-handed in rejecting apps from the App Store for a wide range of offenses against morality than Google was back in 2010. But that has definitely changed. Google did some Play Store spring cleaning last year and changed the Developer Content Policy. Sexually explicit material now tops the list of no-no’s, with violence in second place.

Rife with porn? Not really.

Do a search for porn in the Play Store today and you get Dailymotion, Hola, Firefox, uTorrent, and Netflix in the top row of results. The only vaguely pornographic-looking apps are some 3D virtual bikini model simulator and an app that scrapes “fitness” videos from YouTube. You’re still not going to find porn in the App Store either. You’ll find plenty of pseudo porn, like bikini model apps in both, but Google definitely appears more relaxed on the whole than Apple does.

In the interests of being thorough we searched the Windows Store and BlackBerry App World too. There’s no porn on Microsoft’s beat, and BlackBerry just highlights apps to hide your photos and browsing alongside the surprising Sex Fantasies for Women, but there’s nothing you’d describe as porn.

Who uses apps for porn anyway?

The whole point is surely rendered moot by the fact that everybody uses the browser for porn. If Jobs was serious about keeping porn off the iPhone, he’d have had to block porn sites in Safari. According to Pornhub’s insights for 2014, most traffic came from Android devices (49.9%), compared to 40.5% from iOS, 2.6% from Windows, and 1.4% from BlackBerry.

Pornhub

Considering that Android’s market share was up nearer 80% for the year, IDC says 81.5%. That actually means iOS users are watching proportionally a lot more porn. But, those results are skewed because iPhone ownership is higher in the States and that’s where Pornhub gets most of its traffic.

What about violence and other adult content?

You can find marijuana related apps on both platforms, although Eaze, which actually allows you to order medical marijuana in California, seems to have been rejected on iOS.

There are plenty of violent games on Android and iOS. Play Carmageddon on your phone today and it’s hard to imagine it was ever banned. Back in the day the morally outraged brigade got all hot and bothered about the fact you score points for mowing down pedestrians. It doesn’t really get much more morally questionable than GTA, but you’ll find near enough the complete series in both stores.

Postal has been heavily criticized for its violence

It was a safe bet that Postal was never going to be released on iOS, but some people were surprised when Google rejected it due to “gratuitous violence”. Particularly when the Amazon Appstore allowed it. That brings us neatly to a major difference between Android and iOS.

Venturing outside the Play Store

If you’re really looking for adult apps, you can find them much easier on Android devices, you just have to look outside the Play Store. Tap that box to install from “Unknown sources” and you can sideload as much filth as you want. Mikandi [NSFW link] is bidding to be “The World’s Largest Adult App Store” and it’s packed with adult Android apps and games. It made a point of welcoming developers rejected by Google or Apple.

Mikandi promises an app store that treats you like an adult.

Safety and security, and even legality, should always be a concern when browsing the seedier side, so you can imagine there’s a real business opportunity here if someone can develop a safe-to-use adult app store that’s not packed with malware.

What about virtual reality?

It’s not what it looks like.

You’ll also find VR porn pioneers on Android. Head to BaDoink [NSFW link] and you can access porn videos made for Gear VR, Cardboard, and Oculus Rift headsets. They are so keen to get people onboard that they’re giving away free cardboard VR headsets. If virtual reality is set to kick off a porn revolution, Google might not approve, but it looks like it’s going to be easier to get your VR porn fix on Android than on any other platform.

Google’s Cardboard does work with the iPhone now, but you aren’t going to find any easily accessible VR porn. Will people be willing to jailbreak to get it, assuming someone does develop an iOS app? Or will it be enticing enough to persuade them to jump ship to Android?

Oh, the hypocrisy

It’s still not really clear why Apple or Google feel the need to censor apps and games in the way that they do, when you can find tons of sexually explicit and incredibly violent movies, books, and music in the Play Store or iTunes. Why be moral police about apps, but not other content? Maybe it has something to do with interactivity, or the lack of an official body handing out age ratings. There’s no precedent for them to follow with apps, so they’re making it up as they go along, hence the bizarrely mixed results.

In any case, if adult content is important to you, Android is still the best choice, and it looks set to remain so for the foreseeable future.

Welcome to Talk Android Deals

We have an announcement of our own to make today. Our operations will no longer consist solely of news, guides, and reviews that aim to expand your intake of everything Android. The arrival of Talk Android Deals, a new online store, will bring the best offers on gadgets, gear, accessories, and software directly to you.

The amount of products offered is vast. External battery packs, drones, wireless speakers, and software packages are just some of the products offered at a discount. But it totals much more than that. Each week, select products from Talk Android Deals will make their way to the main site. This is to highlight a few of the great deals that caught the eye of a writer at Talk Android. The store’s lineup will be changing consistently, as new deals arrive, remaining fresh at all times. The layout of the store is so simple that you will know exactly which deals are hot, which deals are new, and which deals are expiring.

I encourage you to leave comments on this post and any future posts dedicated to a savory deal from our new store. What kinds of products do you want offered? Are the active discounts appealing? Is there a specific product that should be available? Those questions are merely three of the many we would like answered by you. Talk Android Deals is your store. And it can only be tailored with feedback.

So how are we celebrating the launch of Talk Android Deals? By taking 10% off your order with coupon code TALKAND10! This promotion will be active until August 5 at 11:59PM PT, allowing you plenty of time to give Talk Android Deals a look and decide which products you want to save on. After that, you will still be saving money on every product purchased from Talk Android Deals. The benefits from buying a product through Talk Android Deals starts now and has no end.

[Talk Android Deals]

Come comment on this article: Welcome to Talk Android Deals

ICYMI: VR to improve London’s tube, lego arm and more

Today on In Case You Missed It: A London transportation think tank is using an Oculus Rift DK2 and a round treadmill to test transportation solutions before building expensive prototypes. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are sharing some of their 4K videos and they are simply gorgeous. And a designer who worked out of Lego’s Future Lab designed a prosthetic arm prototype that kids can swap out with lego creations. Fun and adorable, ftw!

Today’s bonus comes to us from the Evel Knievel tribute festival in Montana, where a semi truck set a new record for a jump at 166 feet and nearly gave me a heart attack on behalf of the people who own property beside the roadway.

If you come across any interesting videos, we’d love to see them. Just tweet us with the #ICYMI hashtag @engadget or @mskerryd.

Filed under: Misc, Peripherals, Robots, Transportation, Science, Internet

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Afineur’s first batch of fermented coffee is available through Kickstarter

Back in October, we told you about Afineur’s goal of replicating the process of civet coffee without all the pooping. To create a flavor profile similar to the pricey Kopi Luwak beans, and bypass the bowel movements, the company uses fermentation to create coffees with low bitterness and astringency so that fruit and other flavors shine. Well, now’s your chance to try it as Afineur’s first batch is up for grabs via a Kickstarter campaign. The so-called cultured coffee not only leverages science to create its flavors, but it makes the brew easier on your stomach while leaving those cute little animals out of the equation. The coffee is made in Brooklyn (where the company is based) with the help of Pulley Collective’s roasting facility. In terms of origin, the beans are currently sourced from Guatemala, but the folks behind Afineur are “open to new collaborations.”

Looking to give it a shot? You’ll need to pledge $29 to the crowdfunding effort to nab a 5-ounce taster bag of the beans, and you can do just that via the source link below. Should you be after more, $45 secures a 10-ounce bag. While the prices may seem steep, they’re still cheaper than the Kopi Luwak beans. And more animal-friendly, too.

Filed under: Misc, Science

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Source: Kickstarter