Biking or walking in urban environments with headphones on or earplugs in can be dangerous, while open speaker systems drain batteries and lack sound quality, making these hybrid bone conduction headphones better than the best of both worlds.

The AfterShokz’s Bluez 2S bypasses your eardrum, delivering sound to your inner ear through bone vibrations. Lightweight and worn around rather than over your ears, they provide a distraction-free way to listen to audio while moving through busy city streets.

Designed to be robust and resist the effects of dust, sweat, heat and cold, they are made to be a year-round solution for audiophiles who need music or podcasts to keep them company through daily commutes. They also have soft, cheek-friendly pads to keep from becoming irritating over long walks or rides. As they are not headphones, they also skirt laws in some cities which prohibit ear-occupying devices for reasons of public and personal safety.

Author Jon Turi provides some feedback on the differences in sound to be expected from this alternative audio delivery mechanism: “So how do they sound? First, you need to understand that this is an entirely different experience than regular headphones, with its own set of trade-offs. Music will sound a bit different with this type of technology. The overall sound may be a bit duller compared to your standard cans, but you’ll also get a pleasantly spacious head-feel when listening, which is hard to convey. Speech comes across clearly, but the low-end will be lacking in comparison. I frequently have the volume near maximum when I’m hustling on bustling city streets and feeling the music. In quieter environments, however, there’s more headroom in volume flexibility. The claim is that PremiumPitch+ helps increase bass, while dampening vibration and reducing sound leakage. The Bluez 2S may not be the loudest pair I’ve listened too — Damson’s Headbones still hold that title — but they provide plenty of kick without going overboard on the vibration.”

The post Bone Conduction Headphones: Walk & Cycle Safely in Cities first appeared on Gajitz.

Technological advances mean finding new ways to interact with our world, and Royal College of Art graduate Yen Chen Chang has accomplished that with a project called analogRead (Knitted Sensors). The project consists of three objects that are activated by interacting with knitted conductive yarns.

The Squeezy Juicer, pictured at top, is a citrus juicer that comes to life when a huge orange knitted ball is rubbed or squeezed. The yarn used to knit the ball is made of 80 percent polyester and 20 percent stainless steel; when it is stretched, moved, rubbed, squeezed, petted, other otherwise interacted with, it creates a small electrical charge.

Harnessing those electrical charges can translate into providing small amounts of power to objects like the juicer, or like the fan pictured above. The Touch of a Breeze is a small fan that is powered by petting a small patch of green carpet. The carpet is meant to evoke the image of a patch of grass, and when you play with the grass a gentle breeze blows. The harder you rub the “grass,” the harder the “wind” blows.

Finally, the Tension Lamp utilizes conductive yarn to power a light bulb. The harder the dangling knitted rope is pulled, the brighter the light bulb shines. According to the designer, these prototypes were developed to demonstrate how our interactions with electronic objects can be altered by re-imagining the roles of household items in our lives.

The post Squish to Activate: Knitted Sensors Power Household Items first appeared on Gajitz.

When you see someone with their finger in their ear, you tend to think they look dumb. But they could be using conceptual technology that allows them to listen to audio through their finger. A researcher for Disney has developed a whimsical way to transmit sound.

Ivan Poupyrev’s idea is called Ishin-Den-Shin (Japanese for “what the mind thinks, the heart transmits.”) It uses the human body to transmit sound from a handheld microphone. The mic immediately begins recording when the user speaks, converting the audio into a high-voltage but low-current signal. When the person touches someone’s ear, the recorded audio is heard.

Poupyrev was inspired by two previous projects: a functional touchscreen that you can feel and a device that allows you to feel texture on ordinary objects. It’s not surprising that the idea of transforming normal objects into interactive sound devices comes from Disney.

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