Emo’s ribbon of sound licks laptop audio woes
Prototype
Waltham-based Emo Labs Inc. (www.emolabs.com/) says it has overcome the horrible sound that is a byproduct of having tiny cellphones and skinny laptops.
Organic and inorganic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs and ILEDs), as you’ve read here, will help bring super-sharp and rich images to smaller, even flexible, screens. But for years, engineers have made few breakthroughs in how they make speakers. Look inside your kid’s toys and your laptop computer, and you will see the same arrangement of coils and cones that you had in your stereo speakers in college.
But the ever-shrinking speakers that manufacturers are jamming into their devices might have you wondering why they bothered to put them in the first place. (The cheapo Acer screen I scooped up at Cambridge Micro Center over the summer is a perfect example of an OK LCD monitor with useless speakers.)
Emo recently demonstrated at a trade show a prototype computer screen made with its “invisible’’ ultra-thin sound system. Called Edge Motion, it produces full stereo sound, while adding nothing to the thickness of the device.
Edge Motion replaces cone speakers with a thin, transparent membrane wrapped around the screen.
The result, according to Emo: no more of that tinny sound from built-in laptop speakers, and no need to schlep separate speakers to the office or school, or to have them crowding your desk at home.
Emo says some computer screens will feature Edge Motion as early as 2010.
Digital cameras
DualView has a built-in photographer
If you want to take a picture of you and your partner in front of the Frog Pond without recruiting a stranger to be your photographer, nothing beats having a camera with a timer - and a Gorillapod (http://joby.com).The timer-and-tripod combo is also great for taking a Facebook profile pic that does not include your outstretched arms - a telltale sign you lack friends in the real world.
Samsung’s new DualView cameras, the TL225 and TL220, take these tricky solo enterprises up a notch.
The 12.2-megapixel cameras are loaded with sensors and processors that translate your tilts as commands (flick your wrist for faster scrolling through shots). The DualViews also recognize your smiles as cues to snap pictures, automatically, while in self-portrait mode.
The cameras get their name from the two screens they have - one on each side. The front LCDs are tiny (1.5 inches). But they will help you better frame your pictures.
The front LCD on a DualView can also play animations to keep the attention of easily distracted kids long enough to take their pictures.
The screens also serve as touch-sensitive input devices for the cameras’ myriad face, smile, blink, and scene-recognition settings. (The cameras recognize up to 16 scenes.)
The DualViews, priced at $300 to $350, can do HD video, too, at 720p. The TL225 also works with an optional HDMI adapter.
