Gadget turns table-tops into stereo speakers
Roger Arnold reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a gadget that turned an ornate wooden table in a Las Vegas nightclub into a booming stereo speaker.
Arnold is part of a WOWee One team at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week to introduce a "Pro" model portable speaker that uses a conductive gel backing to transform hard surfaces into attention-grabbing woofers.
"The gel serves as an acoustic coupling that is actually resonating the table," Arnold said as he gave AFP a look, and listen, as CES prepared for its formal opening on Tuesday.
"If you are looking for a really good, pocketable speaker for your music this is it," he maintained.
The WOWee One Pro will be priced at $150 when it is released in Apple Stores around the world in March as an accessory for iPhones, iPads, or iPods.
The gadgets pair wirelessly to smartphones, tablets or MP3 players with Bluetooth connections over which digital audio is streamed.
WOWee in 2009 launched what is now a "Classic" model of the gadget that required a wired connection to devices holding music files.
When linked wirelessly to a smartphone, a Pro will also act as a hands-free speaker for incoming telephone calls, according to Arnold.
The company also provided a glimpse at a "Vue" pocket-sized projector that uses an energy-sipping green light laser to display digital video on any surface from as far as 20 feet away.
"If you are a businessman you can just turn up at a meeting and do a presentation," WOWee sales director Andrew Caddick said while demonstrating the Vue.
"If you are a family man and your kids are really annoying you, you can pull this out and your kids are watching a movie; hopefully nice and quietly."
The Vue, which claimed a four-hour battery life, will be priced at $369 when it is released globally in February. A light cable is used to stream data-rich video files from smartphones or tablets to the projectors.
(c) 2012 AFP
