News tagged ‘microphone’

Best Buy has decided to carry out a survey related to the rumored Apple’s HDTV powered by iOS that, noteworthy to say, has not been released yet. The questionnaire notes that the 42-inch Apple HDTV "finally reinvents what a TV can do," with a 1080p LED flat panel display, connectivity with iCloud, and the ability to use an iPhone or an iPad as a remote control, and "iSight" camera. Such details, however, look like speculations on the part of Best Buy. Since introducing FaceTime video chat, Apple has referred to its forward-facing cameras as FaceTime cameras, not iSight.

The full details from the survey follow:

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Businessweek suggests that in the coming year TV industry will move towards voice-activated TV remotes, because of Apple's plans to enter the TV market in the near future. Many analysts believe that Apple’s TV will have Siri voice recognition system to simplify user interaction with the TV and provide users to control their TVs with voice.

Whether the rumors are true that Apple is planning to release a TV set by 2013, Siri-like voice recognition is headed for the living room. Microsoft (MSFT) is already there, via its Xbox 360 game console, and Comcast (CMCSA), Samsung Electronics (SHCAY), LG, and Sharp are working on voice-enabled features for TV sets, set-top boxes, and related products.

Businessweek believes that simple voice command as "Record the next episode of Modern Family" are much needed to improve user experience. Jakob Nielsen of Nielsen Norman Group goes on to say "Anything would be better than what we have now."

The remotes for such voice-controlled TV are said to look more like iPhones than traditional remotes, with possibly a single physical button to activate the microphone. Nuance suggests that 5% of TVs could be voice controlled by Christmas 2012.

We have recently been able to test NoiseHush NX80 headphones from WirelessGround.com and compare them with Apple headphones.

Just by looking at NoiseHush NX80 headphones one can say they are very well made. In the package you will find headphones with tangle-free red cables, a small pouch and a selection of ear gels (small, medium and large). NoiseHush NX80 headphones have a microphone and a switch button, so users can easily answer calls or switch between the tracks just like when using Apple earphones.

We have found that NoiseHush NX80 3.9 feet cable is more suitable for everyday use, since they indeed tangle less than original Apple Earphones that come with every iPhone and iPod. The red color also looks nice and attractive. The selection of ear gels is very important. They not just make headphones stay in ears, we have also found that the sound quality is much better when appropriate ear gels are used.

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Nuance has dropped a new Dragon dictation app called Dragon Express in Mac App Store. This is a cheaper (introductory price $49), scaled-back version of Nuance’s Dragon Dictate program. The new version can be accessed from the Lion’s menubar and will not require a network connection. You can open the Dragon Express window with a mouse click or keyboard shortcut and instantly begin dictate into the window via USB headset microphone or internal Mac microphone. The transcribed text will immediately appear in the dictate window and from there you can copy, email the text, start a web search with it or share it with your social networking contacts.

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As far as we know, Siri is a voice recognition service that is available only for the iPhone 4S users. There were various attempts to port Siri to the iPod Touch and iPhone 4, but the early versions of these hacks simply got the user interface working on the iPhone 4. They were unable to actually use the voice recognition.

But tonight developers @stroughtonsmith and @chpwn have finally managed to port Siri on previous generation hardware so that the service works properly. That proves that Siri might be run by other processor, not only by A5 chip.

We've since spoken to @stroughtonsmith who told us that despite it working on the iPod Touch, it doesn't work entirely well due to the relatively poor performance of the microphone. "You have to be loud and close to it", he said. However, it does perform quite well on the iPhone 4 and works "just as fast as the 4S".

The developers are not going to release the hack in order to avoid legal issues that may be filled due to repackaging Apple’s code and distributing it.

Yesterday during the expected media event Apple announced the new iPhone 4S, an upgrade to the existing iPhone 4 with improved A5 processor, new 8 MP camera with better optics, faster download speed on 3G, Bluetooth 4.0, and more. Media members who attended Apple's iPhone 4S event had the opportunity to spend some time with the new hardware following the presentation, and immediately started posting their first impressions about the iPhone 4S.

Engadget highlights the improved internal specifications of the new iPhone 4S, noting that it is faster than the previous model, with faster navigating between pages and opening the camera application. Engadget was also able to test the new voice assistant, Siri:

The most impressive part was the demo of Siri, the new assistant that lets you do just about anything you can do on your phone — but with your voice. We tried to psych it out with a bunch of random requests... Siri never faltered, never missed a beat… There’s nothing better to say than that. We even sent ourselves a few text messages, which Siri transcribed to a T. Of course, the lady on the other end still sounds eerily robotic, but we’re hoping for smoother responses from the alien within in a future update.

Jim Dalrymple at The Loop covers the differences in antenna design:

The current model has three bands — one on each side on the bottom, and one on the top. The iPhone 4S has four bands — two on the top and two on the bottom. The bands are where Apple houses the antennas for the device. The Wi-Fi, wireless and Bluetooth technologies use these areas. It’s not clear at this point if Apple moved any antennas or what they added the extra band.

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Apple's new Thunderbolt display was torn down by iFixit.  Surprisingly, but this time it was very easy to disassemble the new display. iFixit found inside plethora of hardware to support normal work of display and docking station functions, which the display performs. iFixit told that both sides of the logic board were packed with different chips so that it was hard to believe that there was no computer inside the display.

The new display includes:

• Pericom PI7C9X440SL PCIe-to-USB 2.0 host controller
• L129NB11 EFL, which looks to be the Thunderbolt port controller
• Analog Devices ADAV4601 audio processor
• NXP LPC2144 USB 2.0 microcontroller
• Delta LFE9249 10/100/1000 Base-T LAN filter
• SMSC USB2517-JZX USB 2.0 hub controller
• Maxim MAX9736B Mono/Stereo high-power Class D amplifier
• LSI L-FW643E-2 open host controller interface
• Broadcom BCM57761 Gigabit ethernet controller
• Supertex HV9982 3-channel switch-mode LED driver IC

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In July Nuance released iPhone app Dragon Go! that has nicely combined voice recognition technology with intelligent search functionality. Today the company released updated version of this app (free download) with a number of new features added. Specifically, the update includes support for media content on Netflix, Google+ public posts and search engines Wolfram|Alpha and Ask.com. Besides, the Yelp support was improved and now you can see a map view directly within the Yelp tab.

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AllThingsD reported on an interesting app from Disney that uses iPad’s capabilities in unusual way. So-called Appmates are toy cars that interact with the app via the iPad’s display. Writer of the publication Tricia Duryee explains:

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Voice input in Android

9to5Mac has reported that Apple seeded some mobile carriers with a “near-final” build of iOS 5 with the enabling of Nuance's Speech to Text as a system-wide service:

According to a source testing the feature, it works almost identically (video above) to the Android operating system’s speech-to-text feature. It’s also very polished, quick, and accurate said the source – which is obvious for being an Apple product but also is indicative of the product being nearly complete.

The special microphone button was already noticed in iOS 5. This allows users to dictate rather than type. It seems that Apple plans to release its Nuance speech recognition system alongside the public release of iOS 5 set for launch in this fall.

The Makayama Movie Mount is a case for iPad 2 that can significantly improve video capture by clipping to the device a number of accessories related to professional photography. These peripherals include third-party tele-lenses and wide angle lenses, lights, microphones and a tripod providing pan and tilt camera movements, and stable shots.

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After visiting a webinar of Neal Augenstein, who is a well-known radio reporter for WTOP in Washington D.C, the IJNet described his most useful advices on editing and recording audio and video using your iPhone.

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iPad 2 microphones: 3G (top) vs. Wi-Fi (bottom)

iLounge found out that the microphones on Wi-Fi and 3G models of iPad 2 have differences in quality of sound.  The best sound quality was demonstrated by the Wi-Fi model.  It might be caused by the fact that the mic on the Wi-Fi model is on an aluminum surface while on 3G is on the black plastic. The differences are most noticeable when the iPad is held facing the user, for example, when using FaceTime or other video applications.

Perhaps due to this change in materials, the Wi-Fi model offers markedly cleaner audio than that of the 3G, which sounds slightly muffled and echo-prone as a result. Curiously, we found the GSM 3G model's audio to be slightly preferable to that of the CDMA model, which seemed to suffer the issues more severely.

In the previous model of iPad the microphone located next to the headphone jack on the top edge but in iPad 2 Apple decided to place it in the center. Though, it seems that such change does Apple more harm than good.

Models
Size and Weight1	Height: 9.50 inches (241.2 mm) Width: 7.31 inches (185.7 mm) Depth: 0.34 inch (8.8 mm) Weight: 1.33 pounds (601 g)			Height: 9.50 inches (241.2 mm) Width: 7.31 inches (185.7 mm) Depth: 0.34 inch (8.8 mm) Weight: 1.35 pounds (613 g) Weight: 1.34 pounds (607 g) (Verizon)
Storage2	16GB 32GB 64GB			16GB 32GB 64GB

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