The Lotus by Seam is a small button with a microphone, a speaker, and a bluetooth connection. Lotus can be attached to a person's clothing, a necklace, a backpack, or whatever else the user might consider handy. The button works with the user's smartphone and an app called Seam Personal Security. This app connects the user to up to 5 contacts with which GPS, video, and audio information can be shared at a tap.
Everything old is new again. Despite the popularity of digital photos posted on social media, printed photos are still a thing. In fact, they’ve become an even bigger thing for a younger generation that didn’t grow up with traditional photos. This has caused an explosion of portable printers whose sole purpose is to print such photos, sometimes in old Polaroid style even, and the Canon Zoemini is easily the smallest of them yet.
The market is teeming with recreations of famous props and items from fiction but few of those are accurate, sanctioned, or actually useful beyond being decorations. This HAL 9000 product line is all three. With Warner Bros’ blessing, the Master Replicas Group have recreated 2001: A Space Odyssey’s famous computer into a functional Bluetooth speaker. It is, in fact, so faithful that you might even think twice about letting it connect to your home network.
We’ve been using communication technologies like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, SMS, and MMS for so long that we almost take their security for granted. But recent new use cases, like IoT devices, two-factor authentication, and wearables that are exposing weaknesses of these technologies that are apparently years old. One such discovery involves hijacking the Bluetooth pairing process in order to eavesdrop on the communication between two devices. And as it turns out, this vulnerability has been in the Bluetooth standard for almost a decade.
Yes, that title sounds equal parts confusing and equal parts ironic. Features for an unreleased smartphone found in software for an unreleased tablet. And yet that is the wonderful discovery that was unearthed from the firmware of the Galaxy Tab S4, which may launch after the Galaxy Note 9 at least. And although the pieces of new information don’t drastically change anything we have heard so far, it at least gives us a better picture of what this new Bluetooth-enabled S Pen will be able to do.
Tempow TV has introduced a new Bluetooth audio protocol it calls Tempow Audio Profile (TAP) TV. This new protocol is available to any manufacturer that wants to integrate it into Bluetooth-enabled TVs, streaming sticks, or set-top boxes. Among other things, TAP TV makes it possible to create a wireless surround sound system using any Bluetooth speakers, including the ones you may already have scattered around at home.
8BitDo is famous for its wide range of Bluetooth game controllers sporting various designs. But what if you already have an old, beloved controller lying around just begging for a second chance at being useful again in today’s modern, wireless gaming market? Fortunately, 8BitDo knows your controller’s pain and dreams and has the perfect solution. Meet the 8BitDo, which turns NES, SNES, and even Mega Drive controllers into useful Bluetooth controllers for today’s gamers.
Although Bluetooth speakers aren’t exactly new or novel, the rise of smart assistants and the depreciation of the venerable headphone jack have put them under a sometimes harsh spotlight. No longer was it enough for them to “just work”, they needed to sound great, look great, and still be affordable to the masses. Often, two or even three of these pillars go missing for the sake of the others. Studio19 has attempted to offer that trifecta of qualities in the Solo E500X-EQ. We give it a closer look and listen to find out if it is truly that balanced or if it falls short on one of its legs.
If you presumed, like many of us, that the Galaxy Note 9 might be as “boring” as an incremental upgrade as the Galaxy S9 was earlier this year, then Samsung might have just turned the tide. Its official invite teaser for its August Unpacked event hints at a focus on the S Pen, specifically its button. And, according to leaks, that’s because the Galaxy Note 9’s stylus might be the most functional one that the company has ever made, thanks to that button.
Oppo has a new Apple AirPods rival, the Oppo O-Free, fully wireless Bluetooth headphones that it'll be offering alongside its unusual Find X Android smartphone. The new headphones cut the cables completely, with no wires between the lozenge-shaped left and right earbuds.
First the headphone jack disappeared, next the headphone cables altogether: at least, if Qualcomm has its way with a new Bluetooth audio chip. Announced today, the Qualcomm QCC3026 may not have a name that's music to the ears, but it promises to make wireless headphones cheaper and more reliable - to the point where they're likely to supplant the bundled wired headphones most new smartphones include in the box.
The most unique feature of the Galaxy Note smartphone series is getting an upgrade according to the latest leaked info on the subject. The S Pen for the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 will, at long last, see a substantial set of differences vs the last several years of releases. Not that Samsung needs it, as the Galaxy Note series hasn't had any substantial competition for the Note since inception - strange, isn't it?