Month: November 2016

SO you’re walking down the street and suddenly the music kicks in, you drop to the ground and pull your earphones out of your ears! “what just happened” you think, then you realise the un-pause on the mp3 has just kicked in and you forgot to turn it down. Well people this will be a problem of the past with these earphones, Now all I need them to do is make coffee. VERY IMPORTAN You can find the original article here

What’s been your favorite set this weekend? Or the best new track you’ve shared with all of your friends? Well take that track and imagine listening to it in exactly the way your ears want you to.

Meet the Even earphones, who tune themselves to each person’s particular hearing. At just under $100, they customize the sounds they play to suit your own audio needs. They use their own EarPrint technology that measures how you hear different frequencies, then sets the earphones to play back sound specifically for each ear. As a result, the headphones give you a profile tuned to your own ear (each ear with its own profile).

One of the biggest things that originally drew me to the earphones was the fact that they are not a pre-order campaign – they have physical earbuds available now. The company, who launched in in June, has sold out batches twice thus far and are continuing to take orders on their website. Luckily, I was able to get my hands on a pair to try out as well.

I’m pretty picky about the gadgets I use for audio, as I’m constantly listening to music – digging for new sets on Soundcloud, reviewing new tracks, jamming out in my own world. Being able to plug in and listen to my own music is what allows me to focus and, as a result, I’m very specific about the type of earphones or headphones I use. That being said, I was overly ecstatic when I was handed a pair of Even earphones to try out.

First, their appearance: the cords are a high-quality string that have a smooth look and feel. The buds look sleek, with a simple black-and-white color scheme – one black, one white, with the EarPrint device hanging at the middle of the cord, meant to dangle at your chest. They don’t tangle easily, which makes them easier to carry without having to worry about dealing with knots. They’re the type of earphones I wouldn’t mind wearing out in public.

Next: the sound test. This is where we meet “Sarah,” the soothing female voice that guides you through a number of sounds to test where your hearing level is at. This test was very straightforward – Sarah literally starts by saying “Hi, this is really easy” – and felt very conversational as she talked you through each noise. Five pieces of music are played for each ear, and you’re required to hit the button once you hear the sound. Though the process takes a little bit longer than I’d like, it’s seamless.

Overall quality of the listening experience was great. I switched between my Bose over-ear headphones and the Even earphones to test the difference in sound quality and worked to try a few subgenres of electronic music to see how each would sound between both pairs. I started off by listening to Louis The Child’s set from Lollapalooza this year and instantly found that the vocals were much more emphasized than in my Bose headphones. Next, I moved on to Mikey Lion’s live set from Desert Hearts 2016 and loved the emphasis on the bass I was hearing – the Even earphones made it much more of an all-around experience. I then switched over to Troyboi’s tracks Do You? and O.G. to continue to test this bass theory and, again, Even delivered.

As my hearing is likely damaged based on the amount of festivals and shows I’ve attended over my lifetime, it was much appreciated that the earphones were able to pick up on the frequencies I have more trouble hearing to create the full experience tracks deserve. Interestingly enough, every time I switched back to my Bose headphones to compare, I had to turn the volume down because it came at full blast and was overwhelming – and, when I did, the clarity between vocals and bass was lost. All in all, these babies pack a punch with their sound quality when it comes to electronic music.

It’s refreshing that these earphones don’t require using an app, since that seems so commonplace nowadays. All of the information that goes into your profile is saved in the little box hanging onto the string, so you can plug them into any device – phone, laptop, iPod, whatever you want – and still have your own profile saved. I found this extremely helpful, as it meant that I don’t have to re-adjust my volume based on what device I’m using. Beyond that, it’s a refreshing change from listening to sets with friends and having to change the volume based on everyone’s sensitivities. It makes listening much simpler and, quite frankly, electronic music better. How could you say no to a custom-made, surround-sound system in your own ears?

To get you started, here a few sets, old and new, you may enjoy listening to in the earphones (ok, to be fair, these are sets that I would want to hear in them):

The good old walkie talkie will still have a place in most businesses, but Motorola being a technology company they are always innovating, they are underpinning their future communications on data, currently date networks cannot cope with this but as the technology grows, Motorola will be able to produce handsets, motorola accessories and communications that will seamlessly use this without any problem, we look forward to the future. 

Motorola Solutions CTO Paul Steinberg explains how data and enhanced communications can make cities safer – even if they’re not smart just yet

As CTO of Motorola Solutions (MSI), Paul Steinberg says he has three broad remits.

The first is to advance the company’s technology with his team of engineers and data scientists, the second is to drive its patent strategy (“What patents we get and what we do with them”) and the third is to invest in startups so MSI can get access to something it doesn’t have.

“It keeps you humble because there’s always someone else doing things faster and better than you,” he tells TechWeekEurope.

Public safety

Motorola Solutions now only deals with public safety communications systems. It was spun off from the Motorola Mobility handset business that was sold to Google (and later Lenovo) in 2011 and sold its handheld computing division to Zebra Technologies in 2014.

This might seem like a very narrow focus but it’s a market in which the present day Motorola senses a great opportunity as emergency services update their infrastructure to improve service and cut cost.

In the UK, MSI is working with EE to help deliver the £1 billion Emergency Services Network (ESN) – a 4G platform that will allow for data-enabled services alongside critical communications – and save the government £1 million a day

These upgrades will power what MSI sees as the big trend in public safety: the coupling of communications with data analytics, a vision it recently outlined at Critical Communications World (CCW) in Amsterdam.

“[Mission critical communications are] every bit as important as they have been and we expect [them] to be tomorrow,” explains Steinberg.

“Mission critical intelligence brings in connecting things – data. It becomes more about context and situational awareness. The investments we’re making are more in that direction.

“One of the things we’ve been working on is the connected first responder. What we did was we built a context engine that’s at the heart.”

Context engine

The ‘context engine’ built by MSI brings together various different inputs. For example, Bluetooth connectivity can unite weapons, body sensors and imaging equipment to give a police force a greater overview of a situation.

Steinberg explains a scenario where if the context engine detects a weapon has been fired and a policeman is not at a station or at a firing range, their video camera will automatically switch on. Other situations could give a paramedic of firefighter additional information, possibly through wearable technology.

“Why did we do the Context engine? ‘Eyes open, hands free’: keep focussed on what you’re doing and keep your hands available to do what you need to do,” said Steinberg.

“We envisage this working as an ecosystem with well-designed interfaces around the core context engine. We see ecosystem partners offering applications and hardware. And some pieces of those we will offer as Motorola. We see it increasingly as a software problem.”

Connected platform

image: http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Motorola-Solutions-public-safety-3-1024×768.jpg

Steinberg favours acquisitions as a way of advancing his goals and MSI has venture capital operations to fund the third part of his remit. MSI monitors the development of numerous early stage companies with a view to boosting its own business.

“[Takeovers] give us technology or a skillset that we can’t do properly [ourselves],” he explains. “If the concept looks like it has legs, that’s when we make the decision. In some cases we don’t proceed.”

Sometimes the target is more established. MSI has bought Airwave for £817 million, a move which it is believed will help accelerate the transition to next generation systems. Airwave currently powers the pre-ESN communications capability of the UK emergency services and Steinberg sees the acquisition as a method to migrate customers rather than innovate.

“It brings us another data point but it doesn’t really change how my team works,” he says. “It’s a company that helps us ensure we have an orderly migration.”

Smart cities and smart vehicles

MSI says the Context Engine and its vision of data-supported communications will be strengthened by the parallel development of smart cities; even if it’s too early to have any impact right now. Steinberg describes ‘shotspotter’ technology capable of detecting when and where a gunshot is fired, aiding emergency services, and believes smart cars will also play a role.

“I think as the city becomes smarter, we can benefit from the environment,” he predicts. “We can fuse that together and help facilitate real time decision making. The next mobile platform is the vehicle. I think that will create some interesting opportunities for us.”

But the very nature of emergency services means technological jumps are not to be taken lightly. A technical hiccup can mean the matter between life and death and although political reasons might have delayed the transition to LTE, concerns about reliability will have played a role too.

Steinberg agrees and is adamant that no matter what advances are made, MSI will not jeopardise the basics.

“The foundation of our business is communications and it always will be,” he states. “Making sure our platform is resilient, usable and mission critical in harsh environments while layering on this intelligence.”

Read more at http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/networks/broadband/motorola-solutions-public-safety-data-197830/2