Plantronics Voyager PRO

Remember when Bluetooth first hit the cell phone industry and everybody and their grandmother (literally) had one of those hands-free thingies strapped to the side of their head? I tried to forget those days but they just keep coming back to haunt me. The Voyager Pro (from Plantronics) is hoping that it can bring a little of the sexy back to Bluetooth headsets with its sleek design and non-intrusive footprint. Does it work? Maybe...

One of the cool features of this thing is the auto answer. When you have an incoming call, all you have to do is put the headset on your ear and the phone picks up. You don’t have to tap any buttons, talk to the thing, or even do the hokey pokey. As a sort of adjunct to that feature, the Smart Call Transfer feature will automatically send calls to your phone instead of your headset if the headset is off or away from the phone.

All this automation is kind of a cool innovation in Bluetooth headset but with a $200 price tag it’s kind of hard to justify the purchase when you can get a cheaper (though much dumber) Bluetooth headset for under $50.

For more info, availability, and the full spec’s hit up the PLANTRONICS WEBSITE.

Bluetrek's 1st Carbon Fiber Bluetooth Heads

Bluetooth headsets are a necessity—no matter how you feel about them. So why not make the most of it and go for broke? That’s the idea behind Blutrek’s latest device: the Carbon carbon fiber headset.

Carbon fiber is a lightweight, high tech material that’s being used in more and more applications where strength is needed but weight isn’t. The Carbon headset weighs a quarter of an ounce and can be used continuously for up to 4.5 hours (and five days on stand-by mode). It sports minimalistic good looks and Bluetooth 3.0 so it can sync quickly and effortlessly with even the newest gadgets around.

Best of all, there are no blinking lights to draw attention to the thing strapped to the side of your head—just a single function button.

The headset also comes with four interchangeable earbuds to fit just about anyone’s lobes. While the Carbon Bluetooth headset isn’t cheap, it isn’t exactly expensive either. Retailing for $70, the headset falls right in the middle of the pack.

Hit up the OFFICIAL BLUETREK WEBSITE for all the specifications or to order your Carbon headset today.

TV Streamer for iOS Devices

Hauppauge has announced a new live TV streamer for the Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Called "Broadway", this new stand alone "box" from Hauppauge's PCTV Systems division allows live TV to be watched on an Apple device in the home through a WiFi connection, or anywhere in the world via an Internet connection.

Broadway can be used in the home, for example, to watch a football game or a news program on your iPad. Your iPad will display a list of Broadway provided TV channels from your cable TV network, and once you have chosen a TV channel, touching the iPad screen with your finger will prompt the live TV program to fill the entire screen.
If you travel and have an Internet connection on your iPhone or iPad, you can watch live TV from your home anywhere in the world. Broadway connects to your home network router and transmits the TV signal through your network router over the Internet to your Apple device.

One of the key technologies within Broadway is a high-quality, high definition H.264 video compressor, which can take TV programs from clear QAM digital cable TV or ATSC over-the-air TV and "shrink" these programs into a form which can be displayed on an Apple device. Broadway also has a built-in multi-format TV receiver which can tune to digital cable TV channels and ATSC over-the-air broadcast TV channels, and then compress those TV channels and rebroadcast them over both WiFi and the Internet so that the TV programs can be watched on an Apple device. In addition to HD TV, Broadway can also receive and convert analog TV into a form which can be watched on Apple devices.

Broadway will have a suggested retail price of $199 and will be available in North America in about six weeks.

Paul Smith's Own ATH-A50

British fashion designer Paul Smith has released a pait of limited edition Audio Technica headphones, which are based on a pair of Audio Technica ATH-A50 headphones.

The Paul Smith Audio Technica Headphones come with a fabric travel pouch, and the headphones feature a gold and aluminum housing as well as 3.5mm gold plated connectors.

These limited edition Paul Smith headphones are part of a collaboration between Audio-Technica and the British designer Paul Smith. Based on the Audio-Technica ATH-A50, these stereo headphones features a gold aluminum facing and a travel pouch made of Smith’s suiting fabric. These headphones are also inscribed with the Paul Smith logo/signature.

If you want a set of these Paul Smith Limited Edition Audio Technica Headphones, they are available exclusively at the Paul Smith website for $235.

World's First Dual-Core Smart Phone

That's right, it's official. Needless to say, that LG Star we recently got our paws on is very real, though it won't go by that name at retail -- just as LG's own release materials had suggested, this monster has picked up the Optimus 2X name as it morphs from a prototype into brutally fast, overpowered reality. At the phone's heart beats a dual-core Tegra 2 processor running at 1GHz, the first such configuration to be officially announced by any smartphone manufacturer (though we're expecting others any day now). In case you're wondering how such power might be used, well, for starters, you've got both full 1080p TV-out via HDMI and video capture through an 8 megapixel primary camera paired with a 1.3 megapixel cam up front for face-to-face calling.

A 4-inch WVGA display is along for the ride along with 8GB of on-board storage (expandable with up to 32GB of microSD) and a 1,500mAh battery -- no larger than most single-core smartphones these days, so it'll be interesting to see if the final retail units hold up through a day of typical use. Unfortunately, the Optimus 2X is launching out of the gate with Android 2.2, but LG's already committing to releasing Gingerbread updates "in due course."

Apple CEO Steve Jobs Demonstrates FaceTime On A Mac Computer

Apple CEO Steve Jobs Demonstrates FaceTime on a Mac and spoke with Phil Schiller using the company's FaceTime software, which is available in beta for Macs with OS X 10.6.