lifespaceux
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Sony's designer product series lands in the US, courtesy of MoMA
Sony is bringing its Life Space UX range of well-heeled audio and projector products to the US this May. The company has partnered with the MoMA store to sell its three of its debut devices. The LED Bulb speaker can play your music through Bluetooth (and be a bulb) at $239, followed by more light-and-sound options, the stylish Glass Sound Speaker ($799). This offers higher quality sound than a mere bulb and Sony says the organic glass cylinder vibrates in a similar way to human vocal chords to produce "uniquely lifelike sound" — it'll also run for four hours on batteries alone.
Sony's Life Space UX demo envisions projectors, screens everywhere
Among the announcements Sony dropped during Kaz Hirai's CES keynote, the Life Space UX project seemed to be most outrageous, pushing an entirely new vision for projectors. We checked out the company's CES demo booth and found out it actually goes even further than that. The prototype 4K Ultra Short Throw Projector shown on stage and in the demo is expected to cost between $30,000 - $40,000 when it launches later this year. Similar to the pricey Cinema Beam projector released by LG last year, it can sit very close to a wall even in high-brightness settings and beam a large, clearly visible image. The combination of zoom lenses, three separate SXRD microdisplays and a laser diode light source make it powerful and sharp enough to put out a 147-inch 4K image that's visible even with the lights on. Its low sleek design and modular setup (it splits apart to reveal speakers and cabinet space within) is made for flexibility and to be "harmonic" with the room when it's off. Other prototypes in the demo (check out the gallery for a better look) included a projector placed in the lamp over a regular kitchen table for Surface-style interaction, a mirror that turned into a high-res, touchable display and ceiling projectors that shot upwards.
Sony's $30k+ Life Space UX projector all-in-one puts a 147-inch 4K screen on any wall
You can tell the veterans from the young upstarts at CES simply by how they announce products. Simply putting a new device on stage and feeding you specs is pretty much amateur hour. (Though, it does make the lives of tech journalists much easier.) The big boys know that you've got to bury a product launch among piles of hyperbole and abstract concepts that will (supposedly) improve your entire state of being. Enter Life Space UX. Sony's concept for a world where your walls become virtual windows into the world around you. You could, for instance, project the sky at various points of the day across your living room walls. (Now, why you'd want to do that, is a different question.) At the heart of the concept is a new Ultra Short Throw Projector that can fill a wall with a bright moving image from an extremely close distance. Specifically it can fill 147 inches of wall space with a full 4K image. There's even a pair of built in speakers and a cabinet for hiding your various home theater components. But, as you'd expect from something like this, the price tag is not for mere mortals (or those with heart conditions). Sony is hoping to start shipping the short throw projector this summer for between $30,000 and $40,000.
