cnetjapanlive
Latest
Divemachine's 3D audio tech adds motion-tracking sound to VR headsets
You slave over trying to match the 3D visuals of the Oculus Rift with its audio equivalent, and then what do you do for a promotional image? Someone in an Oculus rift and earphones, and a pair of rendered speakers. Job done. Fortunately, Divemachine is making good progress with its immersive audio system. While VR headsets continue to get better at movement detection and the whole visual-realization-of-a-3D-space thing, audio's not had so much attention lavished on it. Genetec's Divemachine platform involves collaboration with environmental sound designers, and connects Oculus Rift headset movements to audio, creating what it's calling full 3D sound.
Ambient glasses put smartphone notifications right in front of your eyes
Still not sold on smartwatches, but want to know what's going on with your phone without taking it out of your pocket? Maybe Matilde's Fun-iki glasses, spotted at CNET Japan's Live 2014 event, will do the trick. Connecting to smartphones through WiFi, a trio of LEDs above each lens will glow (or pulse) when there's a notification, or simply to add a little, er, color to your complexion. The lights cycle through various shades of red, green and blue, and you're able to assign specific colors to specific notifications: these frames aren't limited to just phone calls and email pings and adding further third-party apps' notifications is apparently easy. There's speakers within the arms, while it charges through the micro-USB port on the left side -- we're told it'll typically blink and glow for around two days. It's a pretty simple pair of glasses: notifications are pretty much it -- there's no interactive component or camera within the hardware itself, but you can setup the notifications, color cycles and pulse rates through a companion app. There's also three different light-up modes: 'disco' and 'party' make the LEDs go a little crazy (just think of the Tinder applications), while 'relax' mode takes gentler hues and fades them in and out. Oh and there's a morse code mode, where you can flash out a specified message. Because anachronisms.
