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>> Hi, I'm Michael Kanellos at News.com and right now I'm shouting at the camera. Why? Because I'm wearing this wireless headphone set from Acoustic Research. Now, wireless headphones have been on for years, most of them are pretty bad, what makes this different? Well, it's the source of the music. It's not here in the headphones, it's not in my pocket, it's all the way over here coming from the PC of my Director of Engineering Greg Sandoval. See it caught any music at a distance of about 45 feet? Dah, what's going on? The secret saw us here is the high fidelity wireless chips set from a company called Avnera. They've been toiling in secret mode for the past 4 years up in Oregon, but they're finally coming out in consumer products this year. Now in the past, most wireless speakers stunk, they're crackly, they popped, they didn't get good sound. These guys have really honed down the signals, so it won't interfere when you use things like your microwave oven or your garage door. The music will sound fine. Now, what've they done differently? First, they came up with their own wireless transmission standard. It's made for music not for data and things like that. So, [inaudible] get lost and that what humans can hear it when it comes down the pipe. Two, they'd made it cheap. A chip set, one for the receiver and one for the transmitter only cost $14. Here's an early product with their chips in it, it's called the Rocketfish from BestBuy. You basically hook this up to your stereo speakers, and your stereo speakers are wireless. Now, it's not the most attractive box in the world, but by screening all the electronics in this are gonna be inside the speaker cabinets. 2007 we said was gonna be the year of the wireless. 2008 is really gonna be the year of the wireless. I'm Michael Kanellos for News.com.
