We’ve been thinking a lot about how speakers are evolving from things that simply turn electricity into sound into smart, networked objects, sometimes with interfaces. This week saw the release of another interesting next-level speaker, the Aether Cone. It’s rechargeable and wireless, but it really shines in the “Internet of Things” sense of having screenless controls that…
When Ryan Spahn and his friends watched the viral video “The Harlem Shake,” they had a thought: What if a bunch of people dancing together could just whip out their smartphones and get them all to play the same song at the same time? They built the answer to that question: SpeakerBlast, a simple web app…
One can actually lay eyes on the Clearview Clio, a $350 transparent curved Bluetooth speaker that snatched Engadget’s award for Best Audio Product of CES 2014, after Brian Heater spied it on the CES show floor. ClearView calls its Clio “the first invisible speaker,” which is patently absurd, and not just because some speakers are built…
It’s notoriously impossible to keep track of everything at CES, so I’ve been keeping tabs on coverage from people I’ve worked with personally covering the show. It takes a certain kind of person not to be overwhelmed. Wayne Cunningham scored pictures and a description of the Audi Android tablet, and now another former colleague, Wil…
The biggest on-demand music subscription in the world, Spotify, has thrown down a gauntlet against the leading protocol for playing music from apps in the home, Apple AirPlay. For many, Apple AirPlay has become the default method for sending music from an app to speakers in your house, wirelessly. Even Android people are doing it…
Just over a thousand days ago, Jawbone, which makes those earpieces that some people wear to look important and others apparently actually really need for some reason, announced (.pdf) the most transformative product portable audio in years: the Jambox. This little brick of a Bluetooth speaker has its own battery, so you can connect to…
Do you ride a fixie? Does it have three gears? We might have found the speakers for you. We’re not poking fun at Joey Roth’s Ceramic Speaker System, Version 3, pictured above, because they are beautiful. But there is something about their combination of handmade construction, “honest” materials, and sleek design that make us think of…
Spacemen 3 released an album in 1994 called Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To, which you can hear on YouTube, if you use it like a music service. In similarly recursive fashion, a new iOS app called Crossfader Move & Mix (free for now) lets you dance to remix music to dance to….
Attendees of today’s Google I/O afterparty in San Francisco will get a sneak preview of Shimi, an interactive, smartphone-powered “robotic musical companion” that combines many of our favorite music-related app capabilities. Developed by Georgia Tech’s Center for Music Technology, and introduced by the new start-up company Tovbot, the music-loving bot acts as a personal DJ…
Yes, you can stream any iOS app – and even certain Android apps – to Apple AirPlay speakers wirelessly, in order to fill your domicile with the sweet sound of digital music from a variety of services. However, a few drawbacks to that scenario might drive you into the arms of Sonos’ competing speaker systems anyway: If…
Conventional wisdom dictates that people, especially the younger ones, have ruined their appreciation for the deep, rich, crisp sound that previous generations of music fans saw as the holy grail. However, conventional wisdom isn’t always wise. A new study indicates that the kids’ ears are alright, in that they prefer the sound of lossless music…
Once upon a time, there was this scary idea that computer manufacturers would lock down our machines with a purely-digital, “protected,” end-to-end music delivery system. The fear driving this shift, which did not happen: the so-called “analog hole.” The analog hole can allow someone to record otherwise “protected” audio on its way to speakers. The…
Apple’s Airplay, a proprietary method for zapping music all through your house without running wires everywhere, is expanding beyond the realm of iOS devices. Could it be on its way to becoming an industry standard — one that would allow Apple to charge the same sort of licensing fees for wireless music connections that it…
As Apple goes, so goes Google, where smartphones are concerned. The company has made great strides with its Android operating system by taking an Apple invention, the iPhone, and putting something like it within the grasp of a variety of hardware and cellphone carrier partners. Apple’s most significant move this month — its rollout of…
It’s Apple AirPlay month here at Evolver.fm. By November’s end, Steve Jobs has pledged to release Apple AirPlay for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, allowing those devices to send audio and video from their mobile apps directly to the large television screen and nice speakers in the living room over Apple’s proprietary AirPlay wireless media…
