How Blue used its microphone know-how to design headphones

Blue’s USB microphones have been a podcasting staple since the Snowball was introduced in the mid 2000s. Before then, the company had years of experience crafting professional-grade studio mics that became go-to options for producers and engineers. It’s a reputation that Blue maintains to this day. In 2014, the company decided to tackle headphones with Mo-Fi — a wired model with a unique hinged design and a built-in audiophile-grade amplifier. Then, at CES this week, Blue took the wraps off three new models. Soon after, I sat down with CEO John Maier to find out how the company put its microphone expertise to use in a range of headphones.

Unless you have a recording habit, the name Blue may be somewhat unfamiliar to you. The company was founded in the mid ’90s as an outfit that refurbished pro-level studio mics. Around 2000, it decided it was time to make its own products, so it introduced the $1,000 Bottle microphone that’s still around today. In the years that followed, Blue continually moved toward more accessible, consumer friendly products. It started with a more affordable pro mic, the Blueberry, before using a similar setup to what’s in the 8 Ball condenser unit for the extremely popular $50 Snowball USB model.

How does a company that’s focused on collecting sound decide to move into beaming it out to your ears? As Blue tells it, the transition was natural. “We definitely knew the world didn’t need another headphone, especially after Beats had done an amazing job creating a whole new segment,” Maier told Engadget. “Everyone else in the world tried to copy them and come into that market.”

The company decided to stay on the bench for a while until it could develop something unique. “We knew that the technology is basically the same; it’s just going in the opposite direction from an audio standpoint,” Maier said. “We knew that we could offer some novel ideas, both in design and taking some of our pro audio know-how and bringing it to a larger audience.” Maier says that as the quality of streaming music started to improve over what we all listened to in the age of the MP3, there was a need for new headphones that offered better sound to match.

Blue’s Sadie headphones

“We said ‘what if we offered an audiophile product that worked well on a mobile device?’ and that’s where we landed on our approach,” Maier continued. He said the company started with a blank slate and focused first on the product design. Blue ended up with a unique hinged design that looks something similar to the suspension on a Formula 1 race car. It flexes in multiple places to better fit the user’s head. I’ve tested those first cans, the Mo-Fi, and the design does offer a somewhat custom fit, sitting securely on your head to help improve the overall sound.

Maier explained that the main idea for developing Mo-Fi was getting that audiophile power amp inside of the headphone and give the user control over whether it’s turned on and if they want to use bass boost. “It takes all of the pressure off of your mobile device so you can turn the volume down and let the headphone do the work,” he said.

At first, Blue partnered with popular headphone amp company Fiio on the tech for Mo-Fi. Since that first model, Blue has been working on its own amplifier components and those debuted this week. “Now that we’ve had a few years of experience, we’re actually developing our own amps,” Maier said. “In fact, Ella has a power amp we think is an improvement over the original Mo-Fi amp.”

It makes sense for Blue to begin making headphones, but there are challenges that the audio accessories create that don’t pop up when you’re making microphones. “One of the challenges we had was putting the power amp in that’s more than just a chip,” Maier explained. “It takes some juice and we had some early glitches with Mo-Fi where you couldn’t listen and power it at the same time.” The company worked those out, of course, achieving well over a full work day’s worth of battery life for the wired headphones.

Satellite, Blue’s first wireless headphones

As with most first-gen products, Blue learned some lessons from Mo-Fi, mostly in terms of overall design. Those headphones featured a tension control on the headband that allows the user to adjust how tight they fit. “We found out no one really cared about that, so it was a feature that we really didn’t need, but we really wanted it in there,” Maier admitted. He said that the company ultimately decided that the extra weight and cost gave them room to improve. There’s also the fact that users were confusing it for a volume switch. Blue nixed the tension adjuster for Lola, further reducing heft and increasing comfort for those headphones that came out in 2015.

“We were so concerned about sound on the first go-round that we made sure the clamping pressure was solid,” Maier continued. “That ended up being a negative for some folks because it felt like too much.” He’s right. The clamping pressure on the Mo-Fi was pretty intense. While a tight fit helps maintain sound quality, the headphones began to feel like they were pinching in on my head during long listening sessions.

Mo-Fi and Lola debuted in 2014 and 2015, respectively. This year Blue plans to ship all three of the new models, significantly expanding its headphone lineup in a short amount of time. “We knew that we were going to do a wired ‘no compromises’ first product and that was Mo-Fi before becoming Sadie, Ella and Lola,” Maier said. “We also knew we were going to do a product for more of the true consumer applications — someone who’s traveling or wants to be more mobile.” That more mobile option is the new wireless Satellite. Maier explained that even though headphone jacks are increasingly scarce, Blue wasn’t worried about the products it had in the works.

“We had to stick to our strategy of introducing ourselves to the world as a headphone brand,” Maier said. “We weren’t going to be the first mover on some high technology stuff like a Lightning version.” Maier noted that there are still a ton of devices that have the 3.5mm jack and Apple decided to include an adapter with the new iPhones, so Blue wasn’t too stressed during the development process. Audiophiles are going to want a wired connection anyway. Plus, the company had a wireless option in the works as well, which certainly eased any remaining doubts.

Blue’s Ella headphones

The new models include Ella, a high-end planar magnetic headphone with a built-in amp, and Sadie, an update to Mo-Fi. Then there’s my personal favorite: Satellite. Blue’s first wireless headphone has an all-new design that differs from the hinged form factor used on the other models. It keeps the on-board amp and adds in active noise cancellation (ANC) to keep the sound quality top notch. Unlike most noise-cancelling headphones, Satellite has dedicated drivers for both audio and the ANC so that the sound doesn’t suffer from a lack of power. All of that translates to a depth of sound I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced on a set of wireless headphones.

In terms of those wireless Satellite headphones, Blue was able to take all the lessons it learned from Mo-Fi, Sadie and Ella and apply them to a new model that didn’t require a cord. The company naturally focused on the sound first, and once they were satisfied with that, they moved on to see what they could accomplish with noise cancellation and Bluetooth.

“The audiophile power amp was key to make sure we still offered the same audio quality,” Maier said. “The next thing we wanted to do was see what noise cancelling would do. That’s why we broke it off into two drivers.” Blue says it’s the first company to offer dedicated custom drivers for sound and noise cancellation individually in a wireless headphone that also packs a built-in amp. There was a lot of work that went into how the two sets of components interacted with each other inside the earcups. It was also important that Satellite features the latest version of Bluetooth to make sure sound was as good as it possibly could be.

Blue’s microphones obviously influenced its headphone line, but the reverse is true as well. There’s an upcoming product that takes design cues from the headphones and offers an aesthetic blend of the two. “We’re working on a product now that will probably come out later this year that some of the design elements we learned on the headphones we’re actually bringing over to this mic,” Maier divulged.

Looking ahead, Maier said Blue will continue to make the work of what it calls “the modern-day broadcaster” easier. Whether it’s a gamer streaming over the internet or a podcaster at home, the company wants to make how they make content less of a chore. Blue has already debuted a number of products that work with mobile devices, the latest being the Raspberry mic that came out in 2016. Maier explained that Blue will also keep working on products that enhance mobility.

“The ability to be more untethered and more mobile is where we’re going to go,” he said.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2017.

Amazon’s Echo attempted a TV-fueled shopping spree

It’s nothing new for voice-activated devices to behave badly when they misinterpret dialogue — just ask anyone watching a Microsoft gaming event with a Kinect-equipped Xbox One nearby. However, Amazon’s Echo devices is causing more of that chaos than usual. It started when a 6-year-old Dallas girl inadvertently ordered cookies and a dollhouse from Amazon by saying what she wanted. It was a costly goof ($170), but nothing too special by itself. However, the response to that story sent things over the top. When San Diego’s CW6 discussed the snafu on a morning TV show, one of the hosts made the mistake of saying that he liked when the girl said “Alexa ordered me a dollhouse.” You can probably guess what happened next.

Sure enough, the channel received multiple reports from viewers whose Echo devices tried to order dollhouses when they heard the TV broadcast. It’s not clear that any of the purchases went through, but it no doubt caused some panic among people who weren’t planning to buy toys that day.

It’s easy to avoid this if you’re worried: you can require a PIN code to make purchases through the Echo or turn off ordering altogether. You can also change the wake word so that TV personalities won’t set off your speaker in the first place. However, this comedy of errors also suggests that there’s a lot of work to be done on smart speakers before they’re truly trustworthy. They may need to disable purchases by default, for example, and learn to recognize individual voices so that they won’t respond to everyone who says the magic words. Until then, you may see repeats in the future.

Via: The Verge

Source: CW6 News, Fox News

An enormous iceberg is breaking away from the Antarctic

A vast slice of the Antarctic’s Larsen C ice shelf is poised to break off in the next few months and form one of 10 biggest icebergs we’ve ever seen. If the iceberg does cleave, and it looks like it will, it’ll be the result of a rift on the ice shelf that’s been growing steadily over the past few decades. The rift suddenly grew by about 11 miles in December and is now 50 miles long with only 12.5 miles to go before it completely breaks away. The warmer water below and warmer air above the ice shelf could have contributed to the rift’s sudden growth, but scientists have no direct proof at this point in time.

Swansea University professor and leader of the team monitoring the rift, Adrian Luckman, told BBC that if the iceberg doesn’t “go in the next few months,” he’ll be amazed. “There hasn’t been enough cloud-free Landsat images but we’ve managed to combine a pair of Esa Sentinel-1 radar images to notice this extension, and it’s so close to calving that I think it’s inevitable,” he added.

The real problem with the iceberg breaking off is that it could affect the rest of Larsen C. Its neighboring ice shelf called Larsen B shattered into thousands of pieces back in 2002, after all. If Larsen C suffers the same fate, global waters would rise by around 8 inches and could damage coastal habitats.

Source: Reuters, BBC

Nikkei: Nintendo Switch will sell for less than $250 in Japan

It’s almost a tradition: Nintendo teases a new product and Nikkei reports a key detail just before its official reveal. The Japanese paper successfully called the Nintendo DSi, key details of the 3DS and got pretty close to the Wii U’s launch price. Now, the paper is back with a ballpark price for the Nintendo Switch. According to Nikkei, Nintendo’s next device will sell for ¥25,000 in Japan — about $215 at today’s exchange rate.

It’s an attractive price prediction for the Nintendo Switch, but take it with a grain of salt: Nikki has a good track of scooping Nintendo announcements, but international pricing can be tricky. even if it’s true, international pricing probably won’t directly correlate to the exchange rate. The Wii U, for instance, sold for $299 at US launch, compared to ¥26,250 — which actually cost significantly more than US models due to a strong Yen. It’s better to take the rumored Japanese price as a ballpark figure: the Nintendo Switch will probably sell at or less than $250 in the US.

Nintendo is expected to officially announce additional details about the console, including price, on January 13th. Hopefully, the prediction holds true. After all, the Switch will have to compete with falling Xbox One and PlayStation 4 prices. That’s no small challenge.

Source: Nikkei

Aisha Tyler on technology’s power to enable filmmakers

Actor, author, comedian, talk show host, filmmaker. Aisha Tyler is all of these things. She’s also the 2017 CES Ambassador, which is why we had to have her on the Engadget stage to discuss the role technology plays in professional career and its impact on her ability to do the projects she wants to. Watch. Learn. Enjoy.

RZA’s advice for starting out in music production

After a performance with electronic music duo Parisi here at CES, we sat down with RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan to chat about Roli Blocks. The modular touch-sensitive pieces of tech snap together to create a user-friendly way to start making music in minutes. They’re a fun option for beginners and pros alike, and the hip hop producer offered advice for people looking to dive into music for the first time, what makes Blocks unique and the types of sounds you can expect from the gear.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2017.

Twitter suspends Martin Shrkeli for harassment

Martin Shkreli is, to put it mildly, one of the most loathed people on the Internet. He’s primarily known for jacking up HIV drug prices purely out of greed, but he also ducked fraud questions and drew the ire of music fans for buying Wu-Tang Clan’s ultra-rare album. However, he hasn’t done much that would get him kicked from social services… until now. Twitter has suspended Shkreli after he conducted a short but sustained harassment campaign against freelance reporter Lauren Duca in retaliation for criticizing Donald Trump in a Teen Vogue piece.

Shkreli’s strategy was to be exceptionally creepy. He started by sending Duca a mock invitation to Trump’s inauguration, and followed up by changing his profile pictures to include altered images putting him and Duca together. He even registered a marrymelauren.com web domain. Shkreli told The Verge that he didn’t believe this was harassment, in part because Duca didn’t explicitly tell him to stop, but that’s simply a lie. There’s no question that she objected, and you don’t have to directly insult or threaten someone to harass them — if this wasn’t obvious trolling, it would be considered stalking.

The ban is only temporary, but it shows that Twitter is taking slightly swifter action against harassers. It took the social network ages to ban Milo Yiannopoulos despite him frequently whipping trolls into a frenzy — this took just a few days after the campaign began. The concern, as usual, is that Twitter’s response might have been prompted as much by the status of those involved (and the prospect of bad press) as the actual incident. Duca notably asked Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey about Shrkeli’s behavior roughly 2 hours before the suspension. Would the response have been so speedy if she weren’t a verified user reaching out to management? It’s hard to say for sure, but the turnaround would ideally be this quick for every harassment case, not just the high-profile examples.

How is this allowed @jack pic.twitter.com/Wof8MlYHTL

— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) January 8, 2017

Via: The Verge

Source: Lauren Duca (Twitter)

Your original NVIDIA Shield Android TV isn’t being left behind

NVIDIA is keeping the first Shield Android TV in tip-top shape for the foreseeable future.

With a ton of attention being paid to the new Shield Android TV, some of the biggest questions surrounded how the new model compares to the original. More importantly, everyone wants to know how many of the features of the new model can come back to the old Shield Android TV, and where all of the new peripherals stand in terms of backwards compatibility.

Thankfully we have good news: all is well on the original Shield Android TV front, and you won’t be left behind as the new model hits store shelves. Here’s what’s happening with the original box.

You aren’t missing out on hardware

The first thing to realize from the get-go is that internally the new Shield Android TV is identical to the model you have right now. Though the outside has shrunk down to take out unused space, the internals of your current box are still great and still top of the line. In fact, you have one benefit over the new model in that you still have an SD card slot for expanding your storage.

Sure the new Shield Android TV is dramatically smaller than the original making it easier to stash away in your entertainment center, but that’s hardly a reason to buy it as a replacement for an original. Stick with the current box knowing you have the latest specs still.

All of the new software is coming

Now that you know your hardware isn’t out of date, it’s important to know that NVIDIA is continuing to support the original Shield Android TV with software updates. The company has committed to releasing the new Android 7.0 Nougat software unveiled at CES 2017 to the original box. And here’s a bit of good news: the update is coming the day that the new box begins shipping. While NVIDIA doesn’t want ot put a date on it, Amazon listings show that release date is January 16 — so you can expect the software to start hitting then as well.

When the software lands on your Shield Android TV you’ll get the new interface tweaks, improvements to the gaming system and better performance. You’ll also be right in line to get the next software update that’ll bring you Google Assistant.

The new peripherals will work

NVIDIA has completely redesigned its Shield controller to be smaller, more comfortable and particularly more feature-packed. Its new TV remote also has dramatically better battery life and an IR blaster. Even though you already have a controller and probably a remote with your current box, you can buy the new accessories and they’ll work just fine with the current Shield Android TV.

You can turn your original box into the new one with fresh accessories.

You may consider buying the new controller as a new primary gaming pad while using your current one as a backup or for multiplayer, but also keep in mind that the new controller enables always-listening microphones for Google Assistant when it comes later this year. NVIDIA has yet to make the new remote available (in fact it’s still selling the old model) but when it goes on sale you’ll be able to pick it up and get year-long battery life for those times when you don’t want to pick up a full controller to navigate.

The new NVIDIA Spot microphone peripheral is also compatible with the old Shield Android TV as soon as it receives its Nougat software update. If you don’t want to pick up a new controller to enable always-listening for Google Assistant the new Spot will also do the trick, and it gives you more options in terms of being able to place it somewhere else around the house.

NVIDIA Shield Android TV

• Read our Shield Android TV review
• The latest Shield Android TV news
• Join the forum discussion
• Complete Shield Android TV specs

Amazon

SpaceX delays its comeback launch to January 14th

SpaceX’s much-vaunted return to flight just hit a snag. Iridium has revealed that the Falcon 9 rocket launch has been pushed pack several days to January 14th, at 12:54PM Eastern. Why the long postponement when most delays tend to be a day or two at most? Simply put, the weather at Vandenberg Air Force Base will just be that terrible — there are “high winds and rain” in the forecast for the next several days.

Not that SpaceX or Iridium will necessarily mind. The two want to know that the first Falcon 9 launch since the September explosion will go off without a hitch, both to protect the valuable payload (an Iridium Next satellite) and to show that Elon Musk’s private spaceflight plans are back on track. It also gives some extra opportunity to verify the helium loading changes intended to prevent another disaster. Waiting several days will be worthwhile if it sets minds at ease in the long run.

High winds and rain in forecast at VAFB. First launch of #IridiumNEXT now planned for January 14th at 9:54:34 am PST. #NEXTevolution.

— Iridium Corporate (@IridiumComm) January 8, 2017

Via: The Verge

Source: Iridium (Twitter)

CES 2017 by the numbers

As CES 2017 slowly winds to a close, we look back on the week that was. This year’s show saw a number of new devices and technologies make their debut. Razer debuted a triptych laptop display, Griffin brought out its smart toaster, Ford announced a 300-mile electric SUV and Dr. Samsung will see us now. Numbers, because how else will we determine the Best of CES winners?