Signals

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Signals
The Case of the Unlikely Loudspeaker
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Sep 10, 2018  |  0 comments
I was mystified, confused, and perplexed. The low-slung vehicle cruising in the lane beside me sure looked the business, and sounded the business too. As it briskly accelerated away from me, its low throaty roar was decidedly delicious. Something was amiss. Very amiss.

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The Cat-and-Mouse Game of Predatory Pricing
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Aug 10, 2020  |  5 comments
So a woman walks into a store to buy a smart speaker. She sees that the speakers are selling for 20 bucks. “Wow,” she exclaims, and asks the store owner, “How can you sell these for such a low price?” The store owner responds, “Well, actually, each speaker costs us 30 bucks.” The woman says, “Then how do you make a profit?” The owner responds, “We make up for it on volume.” The woman says, “That's illegal!”
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The Cheesiest Video Projector Ever
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Jun 23, 2015  |  2 comments
Without a doubt, it is a cheesy idea. On the other hand, at least it doesn't cost a lot of dough. Pizza Hut Hong Kong is selling pizza in a specially designed Blockbuster Box. Figuring that movies and pizzas go together like, well, mushrooms and pepperoni, the cardboard box can be rigged to project movies played on your phone. Yes—you read it right—a pizza box that projects movies.

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The Coming Boom in Home Theater
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Jul 30, 2019  |  1 comments
I have a theory. Well, it’s not really a theory. It’s more of a hunch. Actually, it’s not even a hunch. Just a tingling. But sometimes my tinglings are surprisingly prescient. Here’s my tingle: Thanks to societal shifts, in the coming years there will be a huge resurgence — a boom — in the popularity of home theater.
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The Cone of Silence, Eavesdropping Speakers, Raspberry Pi, and You
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Jan 22, 2019  |  0 comments
If you are a certain age, you'll surely remember the Get Smart TV series, debuting in 1965 on NBC. You'll also remember how Maxwell Smart always insisted on using the Cone of Silence — plastic domes over him and the Chief that supposedly prevented anyone from overhearing their conversations. Now, 54 years later, in the age of Alexa, the Cone is back, new and improved. And you can build one yourself.

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The Curious Case of "TV Man"
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Apr 03, 2023  |  4 comments
Here are the facts, which are not in dispute. Furthermore, I am not making this up. In a suburb of Richmond, Virginia, a man wearing a television on his head was leaving televisions on front porches.

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The Dimming Future of AMOLED
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Dec 18, 2012  |  0 comments

It is the job of engineers to push the envelope and design the products of the future, not the products of today. When the first Compact Disc players were on the drawing board, 780-nm lasers were extremely expensive, but engineers anticipated that low-cost versions would soon become available. They bet right: cheap laser modules were perfected just before the CD format’s launch.

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The Dirt Nap
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Aug 12, 2014  |  2 comments
You probably read about it in the news. Some filmmakers were making a documentary on the history of Atari, and they became intrigued by an urban legend of lost video games. To solve the mystery, they brought in heavy equipment and dug into a concrete-covered grave.
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The End of Another Era?
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Mar 20, 2023  |  1 comments
The year is 1964. Under a starry night sky, you are cruising down Route 66 in a new Mustang, listening to St Louis Cardinal baseball on KMOX-AM, the immortal Bob Gibson on the mound, throwing against the Cubs.

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The End of the iPod
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  May 23, 2022  |  1 comments
One minute you are the Shiny Object that everyone is clamoring for. Then the next minute you are Yesterday's News, thrown onto the trash heap of history, in favor of the next Shiny Object. Alas, the iPod.

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The Fastest Car Stereo Ever [UPDATED]
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Feb 06, 2018  |  0 comments
Today is the big day. Or rather, today is the heavy day. The day that the Falcon Heavy is (finally) scheduled for blast-off. Yes, it might be scrubbed. Or it might just blow up. If it launches, it will be an important day in the history of car stereo.

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The Fox in Samsung's Henhouse
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Jan 31, 2017  |  0 comments
Suppose that you are the world's largest TV manufacturer. Everyone wants to buy your TVs. In fact, you can hardly make them fast enough. To ensure a steady supply, you contract with other companies to make LCD panels for you. Now suppose those suppliers suddenly cancel the contract. What do you do? You haul their asses into court, that's what you do.

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The Future Belongs to Those Who Stream
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Apr 21, 2015  |  1 comments
A quick look at the pie chart suggests that the music industry exists in a nice state of equilibrium. Sales appear to be evenly split among downloads, streaming, and physical media. If you were a financial planner, and your client's portfolio was as neatly balanced as that, you could sleep soundly. But of course, that equilibrium is only a snapshot of a very dynamic situation. In reality, the way we listen to music is changing fast.

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The Future Is Here! A Toast to Tesla In the New Year
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Jan 06, 2020  |  1 comments
Well, it's official. The year is 2020. And that means we are actually living in The Future. Frankly I wasn't sure we'd make it, but here we are. And things are pretty sweet. All of the fabulous things that technology magazines were predicting in the 50's are finally here. Well, some of them. If you are driving a Tesla.

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The Future of Audio Is.... the Walkman?
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Aug 05, 2014  |  3 comments
Although MP3 files may not entirely deserve all the scorn heaped on them, it is widely accepted that it was the proliferation of those files that put the whammy on high-end audio. Despite the availability of higher quality formats like CD, SACD and DVD-Audio, conventional wisdom says the convenience of MP3 led consumers to dumb down their audio expectations. Now, is it possible that an old-school audio company and a brand name largely associated with cassettes could lead the way back to high audio quality?

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