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News & Reviews for Living with Bluetooth Wireless

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Spot Global Phone Keeps Adventurers Connected with the Power of Satellites

SPOT Global Phone Brings Affordable, Superior Voice Quality to the Outdoor Recreation Market

Spot Global Phone - QTOOTH

Portable, easy-to-use and affordable, the new SPOT Global Phone keeps users connected to family, friends and emergency services when their adventures take them off the grid

Covington, LA (May 14, 2013) – SPOT LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Globalstar, Inc. and leader in satellite messaging and emergency notification technologies, today announced the new SPOT Global Phone, a portable, easy-to-use and data-enabled satellite phone. Hunters, hikers, boaters, off-road travelers and all outdoor enthusiasts will find that SPOT Global Phone provides industry-leading, crystal clear voice quality where cell service won’t work.

“Outdoor recreationists have come to appreciate SPOT as a brand that keeps them safe as they explore new ways of getting off the grid,” said Jay Monroe, Chief Executive Officer, Globalstar. “As the first satellite phone available in major retail outlets such as West Marine, REI and Cabela’s, SPOT Global Phone will not only provide a lifeline during these adventures, but an opportunity to connect with impeccably clear voice quality on a satellite network that is light years ahead of the competition.”

  • SPOT Global Phone Features
  • Compact size: 5.3″H x 2.2″ W x 1.5″D
  • Lightweight: 7 ounces
  • Satellite-based technology
  • Superior voice clarity with no noticeable delay or echo
  • Backlit color display optimized for outdoor daytime viewing
  • Long-life battery: 4 hours talk time, 36 hours standby
  • Data capable enabling email and file transfers
  • Quick online activation, ten-digit dialing with local phone numbers
  • Ergonomic design
  • Lighted keypad
  • 911 emergency service access

SPOT Global Phone ensures users can connect with family, friends and businesses even when their adventures take them out of cell coverage. With patented Qualcomm-based CDMA technology providing crystal-clear voice quality from anywhere within the service footprint, SPOT Global Phone users experience superior performance. Critical communications happen in an instant, with no noticeable time delays on a network that transmits even a whisper. With the availability of Express Data on most data plans, guaranteed data speeds of 9.6Kbps provide up to four times the data speed of most other mobile satellite data services and enable emails, file transfers, and basic services to occur at high-speed.

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Nokia Lumia 925 vs HTC One

Here’s a great little video review on the pros and cons of the Nokia Lumia 925 vs. the HTC One from the folks over at PocketNow.

nokia-lumia-925-qtoothEach of these phones are the flagship of their respective companies. Both have some stunning features and just like most phone shootouts, each comes out on top… depending on what features you value the most. Choices, choices. Nokia Lumia 925 or HTC One. Hmm… htc-one-qtooth

Check it out:

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The Case for the Intranet of Things and the Smart Home

Eclipse Technologies for the Internet of Things and the Smart Home - QTOOTH

The following thoughts come from Kai Kreuzer. He raises a good point when he questions what it all really means when people discuss the “Internet of Things” or, as he makes a great case for, the Intranet of Things. In other words, many of us want our home and office technology to be networked and to work well together, and hopefully saving money and precious resources in the process, but this doesn’t mean that we want the information that this network produces to be readily available over the internet. So, here’s what he has to say on the subject:

“The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the big hypes at the moment – and as usual with such a buzzword, it does not mean much at all (or rather it means something different, depending on who you talk to).IoT is often used synonymously with M2M (machine-to-machine). From my point of view, this is not a valid equation – the IoT is trifold, M2M just being one part of it. M2M was coined by the telco operators and thus it usually meant in the past to stick a SIM-card on a remote device and have it communicate through the GSM network. Work was usually done in customer projects which had the goal to remotely administrate and monitor distributed devices, be it solar panels, trucks or coffee machines. None of these solutions actually wanted to connect anything to the Internet, they were usually proprietary and closed – or if you want to formulate it positively: they were targeting vertical markets.
A step towards more openness of M2M is the Open Source M2M initiative at Eclipse led by Benjamin Cabé. This will hopefully help on standardizing the used communication protocols and make it much easier for many people to program embedded devices and make them connected. Nonetheless, the focus here is still on connecting proprietary devices through unreliable and low-bandwidth networks (like GSM), so it is a good match for the classical M2M use cases mentioned above.

iPhone - QTOOTH

Another “movement” that likes using the term IoT is all the cloud-enabled gadgets ( I call them Cloudy Things) that are popping up here and there. Think of things like Nest, Koubachi, Withings, Fitbit, WeMo etc – each of these gadgets comes with its own cloud service, for which you need to register a user account, install a separate app and let all your data flow to some cloud service. Ok, these gadgets are connected to the Internet, but effectively they are totally disconnected from each other. The user serves as the point of integration, using his smartphone, switching from one app to another. Is this really the ultimate answer?

No, there is one more thing to it – a big part of what is the Internet to all of us is actually the private part that is under our own control: The Intranet! Nobody wants to make his printer, scanner, VoIP telephone etc. publicly available on the Internet – and yet they are part of the Internet, merely behind the firewall of the local router.

And here we enter the space of the Smart Home – Smart Home technologies again are a part of the Internet of Things, but they are neither M2M nor Cloudy Things – they are the Intranet of Things. There are two simple reasons: Firstly, you don’t want your house become unusable just because your DSL connection is down – things still have to work when you are offline! Secondly, you want to be in control of the data and process it the way you need. It shouldn’t be a dozen of cloud services that grab your data exclusively and then decide, what you will at all see of it and how you are allowed to use it.

Actually the three parts (M2M – Cloudy Things – Intranet of Things) are not disjunct, but also clearly overlap. Yet, the intention behind them is quite different.

Let me give you an example that everybody should be familiar with: The Smart Meter. In the European Union Smart Meters are aggressively pushed to the households. But what is the intention?

M2M: Smart Meters are a mandatory part of the smart grids through which the utility companies want to move towards a distributed system of power generation, driven by the renewable energies. A possible way of connecting the meters is via GSM using a SIM-card. This is clearly M2M: The companies need the data from these distributed remote devices for their own purpose, the customer does not have any benefit.

Cloudy Thing: As the customer does not have any benefit from the original M2M use case, the utility companies try to offer him at least something – they visualize the gathered consumption data in a nice chart that the customer can view after login at the companies cloud service, right next to his invoices. How this is presented and with which granularity is completely up to the company. The raw data is not available to the customer.

Intranet of Things: A Smart Meter is only really interesting for the customer, if he himself can get hold of the data. Unfortunately this is not really in the focus of the utility companies. Otherwise, you could have use cases like: Is the “idle” consumption a few hundred watts higher than usual? -> possibly something was not turned off! Is the current consumption higher than what the photovoltaics produce? -> maybe a bad time to start the washing machine. Is my average daily consumption lower than last month? The investment in the new fridge might pay off.

OPENHAB Powering the Smart Home - QTOOTH

You may wonder, how you can avoid relying on Cloudy Things for your Smart Home – well, this is what I founded openHAB for! It is the missing part of your Intranet to give you (and not the cloud services) full control of your devices and your data. It already supports a long list of devices, like KNX, Homematic, Philips Hue and many more. Others are currently under development like digitalSTROM, EnOcean, AVM Fritz DECT ULE, Z-Wave etc.), so soon there should hardly be anything missing what is currently hip in the Smart Home market.

Having mentioned Eclipse M2M above: openHAB is not a competition, but a perfect complement to it – while the Eclipse M2M projects allow building devices, openHAB brings them (and many others) together and introduces the user to the network of “machines”. openHAB itself is built on Eclipse technologies: Equinox, Jetty, EMF, RCP, Xtend, Xtext, Xbase,… Once the openHAB MQTT binding is ready, this can be a really cool combination!

If you have read up to here, I am convinced that you share my enthusiasm that openHAB is the missing piece to make the IoT really useful to the end user – please therefore support us and vote for openHAB at the IOT challenge, where we participate – it is just a simply click. I count on you!”

via Eclipse Technologies for the Internet of Things and the Smart Home | Kai Kreuzer.

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Hands-Free Gadgets Don’t Mean Risk-Free Driving

Hands-Free Study: Driving - QTOOTHThis story comes to us from NPR’s Shots Health News Desk. We here at QTOOTH feel that technology needs to be MORE transparent in our lives. It is our belief that this can happen through the use of low-power wireless devices. We don’t have any problem with these studies at all. To us it just means that more work needs to be done so that operating our devices while engaged in another activity, like driving, can be done as safely as listening to the radio (an example given in the study). We’d love to get your feedback on your thoughts and feelings about the subject. Please comment below or contact us directly. Here’s the story:

If you’ve felt smug and safe using built-in, voice-controlled technology for text messages, email and phone calls while driving, forget it. There are some sobering findings about the risk of distraction from the American Automobile Association and the University of Utah.

“ Don’t assume that if your eyes are on the road and your hands are on the wheel that you are unimpaired.

– Prof. David Strayer

The proliferation of hands-free technology “is a looming public safety crisis,” AAA CEO Robert Darbelnet says. “It’s time to consider limiting new and potentially dangerous mental distractions built into cars.”

AAA commissioned a study by a that has focused on distracted driving. The report can be found .

“These new, speech-based technologies in the car can overload the driver’s attention and impair their ability to drive safely,” says psychology professor . “Don’t assume that if your eyes are on the road and your hands are on the wheel that you are unimpaired.”

Strayer and his team tracked eye and head movements, charted brain activity and measured driver reaction time while test drivers in simulators and on the road listened to the car radio, talked on a cellphone (both handheld and hands-free) or listened to and responded to voice-activated email features.

“We found that interacting with the speech-to-text system was the most cognitively distracting,” Strayer reports.

Voice-activated features “increased mental workload and distraction levels” and heightened risk, says Peter Kissinger of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, which funded the study. Test drivers experienced “a type of tunnel vision or inattention blindness where motorists don’t see potential hazards right in front of them,” he says.

Driving simulator in University of Utah’s Applied Cognition Laboratory

Strayer says that “an unintended consequence of trying to make driving safer — by moving to speech-to-text, in-vehicle systems — may actually overload the driver and make them less safe.”

Maybe you can find that creative spark out in Zion National Park in southwestern Utah.

AAA urges the electronics and auto industry to limit voice-activated technology to “core driving-related activities, such as climate control, windshield wipers and cruise control.” The group wants car companies to disable voice-to-text email, texting and social media while driving.

The prefers to wait for other academic studies so that “a complete body of research” drives policy, spokesman Wade Newton says.

“We will need to review the AAA/University of Utah study, but we are extremely concerned that it could send a misleading message since it suggests that hand-held and hands-free devices are equally risky,” Newton says. “The AAA study focuses only on the cognitive aspects of using a device, and ignores the visual and manual aspects of hand-held versus integrated hands-free systems.”

The most distracting task for test drivers in the study involved remembering words while solving math problems while driving. The researchers don’t actually believe that’s a real-world problem. It’s what they came up with to provide a benchmark for the most severe distracted driver reactions.

In you case you were wondering, the researchers took care to make sure that the drivers they were distracting weren’t in danger. The cars used in road tests were outfitted with redundant brakes that researchers riding along could use, if necessary. They also could warn drivers about imminent hazards.

via Hands-Free Gadgets Don’t Mean Risk-Free Driving : Shots – Health News : NPR.

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Hotel Wireless Access is Top Demand of Guests

wi-fi-logoHotel wireless access is the top customer demand of guests in their rooms and throughout the hotel properties, according to a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Motorola Solutions (NYSE: MSI) in April 2013. This survey includes responses from 500 North American hotel guests, including business and recreational travelers.

KEY FACTS

  • 90 percent wished hotels offered WiFi as an amenity, making it the top priority of both business and recreational travelers.
  • More than 90 percent of hotel guests surveyed indicated they wanted WiFi in their hotel rooms, not just in common areas.
  • 40 percent of business travelers said they would not stay at a hotel without internet.
  • #WiFi is becoming the key differentiator for hotel properties, as technology continues to enhance the guest experience.

Good to know we’re not alone in our desire to have access whenever and wherever we need it. These answers are no surprise to us here at QTOOTH!

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Pioneer XDJ-R1 Wireless All-In-One DJ System

Pioneer XDJ-R1 Wireless All-In-One DJ System - QTOOTH

Pioneer introduces a really fun Wireless All-In-One DJ System. Check out the specs and the video demo below:

Industry-first operation of various functions with iPad/iPhone/iPod touch

By connecting this device via a wireless LAN connection to an iPad/iPhone/iPod touch with the special “remotebox”*2 mobile application installed, it is possible to select songs stored inside USB storage devices connected to the XDJ-R1 via the screens of these devices. In addition, it is possible to apply an “AUTO BEAT LOOP”*3 function, which automatically loops music at a specified tempo, as well as intuitively controlling various effects using the X-Y pads of devices. The back of the XDJ-R1 also features a stand for installation of iPhone/iPod touch devices at an angle conducive to easy song selection.XDJ-R1

Support for diverse media and music formats

DJ play can be performed using a diverse range of media and music formats, including music CDs and file formats such as MP3, AAC, WAV and AIFF stored inside USB storage devices or recorded onto CD-R/RW.
The XDJ-R1 also provides MIDI support and can be used to operate various pieces of DJ software.

“BEAT SYNC” function*5 for one-touch beat synchronization of two songs

The “BEAT SYNC” function automatically synchronizes the beats of songs that have been analyzed by the “rekordbox™” music management software played on each player, simply by pressing the “SYNC” button.

Unified structure containing two players and a mixer

The unified structure of two players and a mixer means users can DJ with this device alone. The mixer part is equipped with ports for the connection of external hardware such as CDJ players and turntables, etc., so it can also be used as an independent 2-channel mixer.

Functions for enjoyment of wide range of music arranging and mixing

A combination of all kinds of effects enables simple performance of a wide range of music arrangements and mixes.

1. HOT CUE
The “HOT CUE” function enables instant playback from a previously specified point, simply by pressing a button. Each player can set “HOT CUES” at three points.
2. 4 BEAT SAMPLER
The “4-BEAT SAMPLER” function makes it possible to play recorded sampling sound sources simply by pressing a button. Sound sources can be recorded from songs on USB storage devices and CDs.
3. BEAT FX*3
Diverse forms of DJ play can be enjoyed by selecting from 4 effects (TRANS, FLANGER, ECHO, and ROLL) for each song played on each player and changing BPM and effects levels.
4. SOUND COLOR FX
Diverse forms of DJ play can be enjoyed by selecting from 4 effects (FILTER, CRUSH, PITCH, and NOISE) for each song played in each channel.

XDJ-R1

High sound quality design for clear and powerful DJ sound

Noise has been reduced by separating analog and digital circuits, and performing digital conversion of analog input signals by the shortest distance possible. All signal processing is conducted with a high-performance CPU to ensure that DJ mixes have a clear sound.

Additional Features

  • ● “AUTO BEAT LOOP”*3 function enables songs to be looped automatically at a specified BPM
  • ● “QUANTIZE”*5 function automatically corrections divergence from specified BPM when using “AUTO BEAT LOOP” or “BEAT FX”
  • ● Equipped with independent 3-band isolator
  • ● Internal sound card (Audio Interface)
  • ● Complete with MASTER OUT (XLR), BOOTH OUT, AUX and MIC ports
  • ● Environmentally-friendly “Auto Standby Function” that switches the power to standby mode when there is no operation or input for a certain period of time.

Main specifications

Playable mediaUSB storage devices, music CD,CD-R/RW
Playable file formatsMP3, AAC, WAV, AIFF (only MP3, WAV and AIFF can be played from CD)
USB storage formats supportedFAT32、FAT16
No. of channels2
Wireless communications formatIEEE 802.11b/g (2.4GHz band)
Sampling rate44.1kHz
A/D, D/A converter24bit
Frequency response20Hz～20kHz
S/N ratio98dB or above (USB)
Total harmonic distortionMax. 0.006 % (USB)
Head room19dB
USB portsA port × 1, B port × 1
InputsPHONO/LINE × 2 (RCA)　MIC × 1 (1/4inch PHONE)　AUX × 1 (RCA)
OutputsMASTER OUT × 2 (XLR × 1, RCA × 1) HEADPHONE MONITOR OUT × 2 (front 1/4inch PHONE, MiniPin)
BOOTH OUT × 1 (RCA)
Maximum external dimensions (W×D×H)623mm × 308.4mm × 107.7mm
Body weight6.8kg

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