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microphone posts

Video: Sanwa's throat mic for city-bred sissies

by Thomas Ricker posted Mar 23rd 2009 @ 6:24AM

Throat mics have been around for decades. However, unless you're manning a tank or involved in black ops, you've likely never seen such a set beyond the reach of a typical paintball turret. Sanwa's throat mic (pictured) is an urban take to the otherwise, combat-inspired gear design you'll find at retail. Unfortunately, we can't find any additional detail beyond the images. We can, however, drop in a hardcore video of the $50-ish US Special Forces Throat Mic (as it's called) from Real Action Paintball. This rugged mic with voice-box positioned transducer is compatible with VOX-capable radios and features four styles of discrete listening devices (special forces, secret service, SWAT, and Socom) and a remote push-to-talk (PTT) switch that can be strapped to the index finger supporting your sniper rifle. Fake-war is so much fun.

Read -- Sanwa's throat mic
Read -- RAP's US Special Forces Throat Mic

Continue reading Video: Sanwa's throat mic for city-bred sissies

New earpiece design puts a microphone inside your head

by Joshua Topolsky posted Dec 18th 2007 @ 10:34AM

Finally, you no longer have to mess with annoying bone conducting headsets to get your message heard in noisy environments. A Japanese company called NS-ELEX has created a new type of earpiece / microphone called the "e-Mimi-kun" (good ear boy), which utilizes air vibrations in the ear to deliver your voice to the other end of the line. Apparently, the design reduces outside noise by a factor of six, and a Sanyo chip used in the device further reduces sound levels, making things up to ten times quieter. The earpiece can be tethered to a phone, or work wirelessly via Bluetooth. No release date or pricing info available right now, but we're pretty sure stock brokers will snap these up like hot-cakes.

[Via PhysOrg]

FBI taps cellphone mics to eavesdrop on criminals

by Darren Murph posted Dec 3rd 2006 @ 9:38PM

While we figured the NYPD could just install Magic Message Mirrors in every mafia hotspot in the Manhattan area, the Genovese family has proven quite the eagle-eyed bunch when it comes to spotting wiretaps, tailing, and other (failed) attempts of bugging their conversations. In order to tap into critical conversations by known mafioso and other, less glamorous criminals, police are utilizing a "roving bug" technique which remotely activates the microphone of a crime lord's cellie, giving the boys in blue convenient access to their secret agenda(s). The presumably controversial tapping was recently approved by top US DoJ officials "for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques." Software hacks (and actual phones, too) have previously allowed such dodgy eavesdropping to occur, with "Nextel, Samsung, and Motorola" handsets proving particularly vulnerable, but this widespread approach in tracking down criminal conversations could hopefully pinpoint future targets where prior attempts failed. Of course, if mafia members hit the internet every now and then, they're probably removing those batteries right about now anyway.

Inventec allegedly flubs 144,000 Treo 680s

by Chris Ziegler posted Nov 17th 2006 @ 10:44AM

It's alright, Inventec; we know that your ODM relationship with Palm is in its early years and you're still learning the ropes. Still, we have to admit, forgetting to connect the microphones on those Treo 680s before you ship 'em out the door is a pretty big no-no! Rumor has it that Inventec rendered not 100, not 1,000 -- but 144,000 of the new entry-level smartphones deaf and still managed to send them out to retailers. Needless to say, this isn't the kind of thing that can be fixed with a firmware update; every last one has had to go back home to get reworked. Oopsie!

[Thanks, big8tenor]

Sanyo developing earphone LSI chip that doubles as a microphone

by Darren Murph posted Oct 11th 2006 @ 8:05PM

We've got phones so tiny we can barely dial our intended contacts, Bluetooth headsets that allow calls to be placed by just lifting a hand, and now Sanyo Semiconductor is giving the couch dweller in us all another glimpse of jubilation with its latest chip. Although typical BT earpieces combine a speaker and microphone for an all-in-one conversation solution, even the tiniest of units aren't exactly discrete, and if your surroundings happen to drown out your voice, your only solution is to escape the racket or yell louder. Sanyo is hoping to ease the frustrations of current handsfree applications by creating an LSI chip that can be worn in one's ear and yet still transmit outgoing audio. The device operates by picking up the faint diaphragm movements that occur whenever you utter even a whisper, and magnifies the vibrations into spoken words that your recipient can comprehend. While the eardrum emits voice signals "at a strength of about one-30th that of the voice itself," the circuity can reportedly transform comments made under your breath into phrases heard loud and clear. The company isn't handing out release details nor giving any indications on how much these will cost, but it looks like we'll all be one step closer to double-agent status should these ever hit store shelves.