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Harman designs developer-friendly audio tech with possible future AR applications
A host of companies converged at the recent Samsung Developer Conference to showcase their latest technology in consumer electronics. Harman International Industries Inc., an audio technology company acquired by Samsung Electronics America Inc. earlier this year, unveiled two new developer-friendly audio products that may have future augmented reality-oriented applications.
“… This is our first conference, kind of together, and we’re excited to show off a lot of cool developer tech,” said Kevin Hague (pictured), vice president of technology strategy at Harman International Industries Inc.
Hague spoke with host John Furrier (@furrier) of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Samsung Developer Conference in San Francisco, California. The two discussed the latest tech-enabled products offered by Harman.
Audio technology in the connected age
The first product Hague showcased were the JBL Everest Elite headphones, which have a fully supported Android developer API. Features including noise-cancellation levels and audible environmental indicators can be controlled by a third-party application, crowdsourcing creativity for new applications to the developer community, Hague explained.
“It’s probably one of the first consumer hackable headphones. We have an API, out for Android, that allows the developer to control many of the features and functions of this headphone,” he said.
In addition to the new developer-friendly headphones, Harman has also released a new kind of wearable speaker that goes around your neck, called the JBL Soundgear. The sound is directed precisely vertically so that only the wearer can hear it. This opens up a number of applications from connecting to a TV to more AR-oriented applications that benefit from being able to hear the environment around, Hague pointed out.
“We’re looking in the future and seeing augmented reality-type experiences are going to be important. But with augmented reality, you want that kind of pass-through. So I want to be able to talk to you while you have your glasses on or whatever the future brings us,” Hague concluded.
Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Samsung Developer Conference.
Photos: SiliconANGLE
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