Audio Video News

It’s impossible to escape headphones. New product announcements turn up in our inboxes every few days and some are even launched via crowdfunding campaigns—like Sharkk’s Bravo electrostatic headphone.

A new report from IBM and the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) Foundation—a public, national foundation with the mission to link seniors and people with disabilities with technologies to enhance their lives—reveals that meeting the needs of a growing aging population will require new technologies, partnerships, ideas, and business models. The report also discusses how technology such as cognitive computing will empower seniors to live longer, healthier, and more independently by preventing fraud and abuse, providing greater social connectivity, and improving access to vital information and services.

After a six-year hiatus, the venerable B&K audio brand will return this fall under new ownership.

Bowers & Wilkins has unveiled a refined version of its P7 wireless headphone.

The end of summer beckons and so do the 10 products we singled out for Top Pick status in August. From an unexpected speaker from Quad and a soundbar-based 5.1 system from Atlantic Technology to SVS’s crazy cheap subwoofer isolation system and Sony’s killer HDR-ready 4K TV, the mix is eclectic as usual but with an emphasis on speakers this time around. Appropriate, we think, considering speakers define the sonic character of any system. Let us know if you plan to make (or have already made) room for any of these gems in your home entertainment space.

Rovi has bought TiVo, everyone’s favorite DVR maker, and adopted its name. Why is this $1.1 billion deal so richly ironic? Rovi got its start in 1983 as Macrovision, a videocassette anti-copy system that caused strobing of images on playback of illegal tape-to-tape copies. As an unintended side effect, the system sometimes did the same even with authorized prerecorded tapes. So it’s quite an eyebrow raiser to see Macrovision’s successor absorbing a company devoted to personal video recording.

Yamaha today announced the addition of a MusicCast-enabled model to its line of two-channel network receivers, optimized for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth streaming and smart-device connectivity.