This wireless speaker system by Japanese design studio Nendo is shaped like a bird cage and plays music via Bluetooth from any computer or cell phone. It can hang from a ceiling or sit on a table. Nendo’s main page [via Dezeen ]

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Bluetooth speaker shaped like a bird cage

First, an admission of bias: I love Shure. I had a pair of Shure’s E3c noise-isolating headphones for two years, and boy did I adore them. Great loud or soft, comfortable, able to make a transcontinental jet flight whisper-quiet while listening to jazz one tick above mute–bliss. I think I blew out one of the drivers before running them over with my bike, but I didn’t mind. Bygones. So I was ripe with anticipation when Shure shared their SE310 headphones (as well as their top-line model, which I have not reviewed yet). Could these be the replacement I’d been seeking? My heart got heavy when I discovered the truth: I don’t love the SE310s. What’s wrong with me? I want to love the Shures. I want to recapture my lost joy. The difference, I think, is in the level of headphones. The SE310s are $299 headphones, and are playing in a different arena in many ways than my old E3cs, which, if memory serves, retailed for $199 and cost significantly less. At this price range–which I’ve experienced with several brands–headphones start becoming reference-grade, where the focus of the output is on re-creating the original sound more than just making stuff sound great. (I unearthed this trend on the Etymotic hf2 when I began this review series.) When I plugged the headphones into my home stereo, I heard Shure’s solid headphone output: separation of instruments, a focus on high-end clarity, strength across the audible range. Tonal separation holds its own against the hf2. But my typical listening scenario–out of the home, at low levels–turned out to be less than ideal for these headphones. In that environment, the midrange lacks warmth and depth, and the acoustics flatten significantly. I was startled, but a bit of research revealed similar complaints on old reviews of Shure’s E4c headphones elsewhere online. Unlike my old E3cs, richness and bass reproduction aren’t Shure’s strong suit at this level. That’s a shame, because the SE310s are fantastic noise isolators. On the commute to work, I had a consistently quiet ride, making it easy to listen to music safely. The Shures by far have the best scores I’ve given for noise reduction. They’re an inverse of the Klipsch Image X5, which had midrange and low-end richness but weak noise isolation (if you’ll recall, I stuck some Shure foam ear cushions on the X5s as part of my testing). So I guess the SE310s aren’t for me. I still have every expectation of loving Shure’s SE530s, which are in the queue (and at $549 the most expensive headphones I’ve ever encountered). In the meantime, I’ve learned something: my audiophile nature has its limits.

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Review: I don’t love the Shure SE310s

Wired’s Dylan Tweney got to play with Microsoft’s inexorably excellent Zune HD. It’s compact, lightweight, good-looking and has a very slick interface. Microsoft’s newest media player has a bright, crisp OLED display that the dark lighting of the nightclub showed off to very good effect. It’s fast and responsive: Video looked great on it. Its 480 x 272 pixels are a far cry from HD, but they present a 16:9 aspect ration and they’re bright and contrasty, with deep, rich blacks, so you won’t mind much. Also, we could zoom and swipe between photos with great speed… Read the rest at Gadget Lab .

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Zune HD looks like a winner

Ever wondered what the wave on Peter Saville’s iconic cover for Unknown Pleasures actually SOUNDS like? Well, here ya go . Better yet: The code’s available here , if you want to play with it yourself. [ veer via knick/knack via Jay Parkinson ] Previously: Jah Division - Boing Boing Some douche steals Ian Curtis' (of Joy Division) headstone - Boing … New biopic on Joy Division, Ian Curtis: Control - Boing Boing Hey, it's another Joy Division movie! - Boing Boing Rumor says new iTunes visualizer will be gorgeous Magnetosphere …

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Famous Joy Division LP Cover Visualized

Audio-Technica’s ATH-ANC3 headphones, the third in our review series (after the Etymotic hf2 and Ultimate Ears super.fi5 ), were the first I encountered with active noise canceling. Active noise canceling (ANC) headphones produce an inverted sound wave based on exterior sounds. While the hf2 and super.fi5 create a seal around the audio canal to tone down the outside world, the ATH-ANC3 attacks the situation head-on. It has a little unit on its cord, with a power switch for the noise canceling, and a monitor button that turns the ANC off. The noise-canceling sound wave results in hiss when no music is playing. Audio is amplified, so that sounds are more powerful at low levels. The ATH-ANC3’s noise canceling is terrific. On a commuter jet, these headphones were much more assertive at shutting out the plane’s 87 db white noise than several noise isolating models. I’m typing this three feet from an in-window air conditioner, and I can barely hear the compressor or fan, while my music is powerful and clear. The headphones also did a pretty good job in the office, where conversations and abrupt noises were more prevalent. Coupled with the audio amplification, they were almost universally effective. The same can be said for the ATH-ANC3’s overall sound: they’re wonderfully balanced, satisfying headphones for a wide spectrum of music. Sounds across the spectrum were crisp and clean, with a good balance of low-end oomph and general richness. I didn’t find a single song that didn’t sound good through them, even a 56 kbps mp3 recorded off an old vinyl 45. Performance is equally good at low and high volumes. Wind is the ATH-ANC3’s Achilles’ heel. I found it next to impossible to wear these headphones on my bicycle. As best I could tell, the microphone that processes the external noise had trouble understanding the variable wind and ended up amplifying rather than canceling it. I couldn’t hear my low-volume music, and the wind noise actually felt louder than if my ears were bare. With the ANC turned off, the headphones lost a lot of their dynamic range, diminishing their performance. They’re best used with the ANC on. The Audio-Technica ATH-ANC3 active noise canceling headphones come with an extra cord segment, rubber earbuds in three sizes, an airplane seat adapter jack, and a large, four-pocketed hard case. They’re very comfortable and don’t create fatigue over time. Which is an extra perk, since they’re perfect for long-haul flights. Highly recommended for travelers, and anyone who likes to get great sound that overcomes noisy environments.

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Review: three weeks with Audio-Technica’s ATH-ANC3 noise-canceling headphones

Randy Sarafan writes: One of the keys to making good music is mindless repetition. That is what the simple sequencer is great at. It does the same thing over and over again in an eight note sequence. You can adjust the frequency of the note, the duration of the note and the pause between notes. If you get really good, you can anticipate the next note and change things up on the fly. This little box is sure to provide endless hours of fun. Build one yourself with the instructions . [via Make ]

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Randy Sarafan’s Simple Sequencer

Fortune : So is SanDisk sitting pretty? Not really. While Harari’s flash evangelism has yielded some impressive results, it hasn’t addressed his main challenge: SanDisk’s core flash memory business is dizzyingly volatile. Because so many companies manufacture flash storage chips, and because the fast-evolving technology has a brief shelf life, the flash market lately has suffered gut-wrenching price swings and whipsawed SanDisk’s stock price in its wake.

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Number-two MP3 player maker declares, "You can’t out-iPod the iPod"

Eliot Van Buskirk : “If I were Steve Jobs, the video…would scare me senseless.” Spotify is a streaming music service that also now allows caching on supported mobile devices. It is currently limited to Finland, France, Norway, Sweden, Spain, and the UK, due to licensing issues . Every song ever instantly available for free. It’s getting awful close.

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Video: Spotify music app for Android

⌦ Why announce now, when you’re not releasing the Zune HD until the fall? –”Honestly, the disclosure timeline was shook up a little bit,” says Brian Seitz, Marketing Manager of Zune. “We’ve been weathering a round of rumors over the last couple of months. In my job particularly it’s painful to not be able to talk to our customer.” Seitz says Microsoft is building the final firmware, so features are not yet set in stone. But with a full reveal of many of the Zune HD’s video marketplace features and their integration with Xbox Live at E3 next week, it seemed like the time was right. ⌦ Why would someone care about HD Radio? – Besides higher quality audio, it’s all about subchannels . “A country station could have a subchannel of bluegrass or new country,” says Seitz. One of Seitz’s local NPR affiliates switches to BBC broadcasting at 8PM—but runs the full BBC Radio stream on a subchannel 24×7. ⌦ Can you record HD Radio to the Zune HD to listen to later? – Nope, but you can “tag” songs for later purchase, similar to how it works with the current Zune’s FM radio, although more consistent artist and song data from HD Radio stations make it more accurate than before. ⌦ How about that HD video output? – You can do it, but it’ll take a “dock” that Microsoft is manufacturing. (Nothing that Seitz said implied there couldn’t just be a simple cable, too, unless there is some sort of heavy-duty scaler in the dock itself.) ⌦ Will there be Flash support in the web browser? – Despite rumors to the contrary, Flash support is “still being worked out.” The Zune HD’s web browser may not ship with Flash support at all. ⌦ How much storage does the Zune HD have? And will there be more capacious hard drive variants? – The Zune HD will be flash memory-based, but Microsoft hasn’t announced capacities yet. (I’d be shocked if it’s under 32GB.) There aren’t any plans for hard drive-based Zune HDs, nor should we expect any other touchscreen Zune devices before the end of the year. “This will definitely be our hero device for the next cycle.” ⌦ Will there be games? – “We know that people like games on the go,” and it sounds likely that a few casual, one-off games might be available on the Zune HD as are already available on older Zune. But there could be something more in the future: “There’s definitely discussions happening. We would not be very smart if we weren’t exploring those opportunities.” ⌦ So what’s this about Zune on the Xbox, then? – It’s not games—it’s video. “We’re taking over the existing Xbox Live Video Marketplace. That will turn into Zune. And we’re not just taking it over, but we’re adding new features.” What those features will be will have to wait until Microsoft’s E3 keynote. Portable Netflix, perhaps?

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8 Questions (and answers) about the Zune HD

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Photo: To the shores of Tatooine