Iqua Snake 2: Hands-Free Bluetooth Weirdness

While I’m on the subject of companies at the Sands during CES, check out this device from mobile-communications manufacturer Iqua (the company’ll be at the Sands if you’re Vegas bound). With an MSRP of $179, the Snake 2 hands-free Bluetooth headset attaches to the headrest of a car seat (almost all car makes and models according to Iqua) and lets you talk for up to eight hours on your Bluetooth-enabled device.

Speakers are located on each side of your head and the neck is flexible, so you can adjust it according to the height of the user. However, if you were to use it in a convertible as the photo suggests, I doubt you could hear a damn thing. Looks like call-answer and -end buttons are on top of the mouthpiece making them easy to acccess without taking your eyes off the road.

What would be fun is pretending no one else is in the car with you and getting the person on the other end of the call to say something completely horrible. But maybe that’s just me.

(c) www.crunchgear.com

Gibson HD 6X Pro Digital Guitar

by Andrew Liszewski

Since I don’t know of a professional studio out there that doesn’t rely on digital technology these days for the recording and mastering processes it seems odd to me that analog pickups and mics are still a common means for recording instruments. Now I realize that most instruments are analog in nature but the sooner you can get that sound converted to a digital signal the cleaner it’s going to be in the end.

Gibson seems to be heading in the right direction with their new HD 6X Pro electric guitar. First off the most important aspect is that the guitar is a traditional Les Paul design so that the musician doesn’t have to compromise by playing on some weird digital hybrid. The pickups on the HD 6X are a new ‘Hex’ system designed by Gibson that uses 6 small humbuckers positioned under each string at the bridge that send 6 individual signals to studio-grade preamps allowing them to be immediately digitized.

These digital signals are then sent to a BoB (break out box) via a special ethernet port designed by Gibson called ‘MaGIC’ that can carry up to 32 bi-directional channels of audio over a single cable. The BoB can then be connected to a multi-channel sound card where the guitar can be recorded with a piece of professional software such as Cakewalk SONAR which is included with the instrument.

The Gibson HD 6X is available now and retails for about $5,000.

(c) www.ohgizmo.com

Plug & Enjoy

This is a small electronic device that receives an FM signal from your music player, i.e. ipod, cell phone, cd player or any device equipped with an FM transmitter. At a party it is always hard to control the music you play, the sound of volume is not playing evenly throughout the place and you always have to have a big and bulky stereo system. Just plug this simple device into your power outlets; it will receive songs from your music player, even from your tiny ipod shuffle throughout entire place. It has a simple mechanism, speaker, led, and FM receiver. At first you plug in to a power outlet, the front indicator light will flash. Then turn the front part to locate the signal from your music player, when it finds the signal the color of the light will change to solid green. If that is right signal, you wait for 3 seconds and the light will change to red for volume adjustment. Turn the knob to the volume you like. If you like to pump up the volume you plug more in. You can use power extension cords to make louder and move around.

(c) www.yankodesign.com