Before anything else, a few things to consider: 1. We’re clueless about dancers’ lifestyles and dance crew culture, and 2. Anything we do know about the “dance culture” is from what we’ve seen in that movie where stomping was a big deal, another movie where some dude died, but was part of a crew of dancers, and that other movie where the guy and the girl met at an artsy school and… danced together in the end. But if you consider yourself a dance-lifer, then this is something you’re going to want to check out: Pioneer has just introduced a new Steez line of portable audio systems designed “specifically for dancers and the surrounding culture.” What exactly sets them apart? They don’t just play music; these kits will also let you adjust tempo, set cues and mixes, and come with an “Auto Battle Mode” for doing impromptu “1-on-1 battles on the spot.” We like them because they look like really trippy boomboxes.
If you love your music (or whatever it is you kids call it these days), you like it clean, and you rock out on a mobile device, then you’re going to love this. Pioneer has just released the SE-NC31C-k, a pair of earbuds that comes with active noise cancellation. That three-word feature sets this apart, since ANC is usually found on over-ear headphones, and it’s what makes these in-ears all the more awesome. These are easier to pack, easier to wear, and generally look less douche-y when you’re out and about. The set’s active noise cancellation feature is listed to eliminate up to 90% of all external noise with the flick of a switch (it’s like having a noise vacuum in your ear), so you don’t have to turn up the volume when you’re outside and trying to drown out traffic noise. The result? Less noise, and you get to hear more of your music without having to raise the volume to ear-busting levels.
Pioneer’s new navigation system, the AVIC-X920BT, comes with the usual (albeit high-end) features that include a touchscreen interface and speech recognition, plus a handful of entertainment features—like DVD playback and Internet Radio connectivity to make for a sweet, complete in-car kit.
Pioneer has just announced that they’ve come up with what’s currently the world’s fastest Blu-ray disc burner, the 12x BDR-205. It’s an internal drive that connects via the SATA interface, and takes a step up the evolutionary tech ladder by going past the previous 8x cap for BD burners. It features Pioneer’s Low Vibration Mechanism Design for noise and vibration reduction, and can also burn onto recordable DVDs at 16x and CDs at 40x speeds. The 12x recording speeds is supported on both 25GB BD-R and 50GB BD-R DL discs.
It’ll sell for $249 when it comes out early next year.
Pioneer has just announced a new ultra-slim external DVD burner that plugs in via a USB port and burns single layer DVDs at 8x speed and dual-layer discs at 6x. Calling the DVR-XD09 “ultra-slim” is pretty accurate, since the entire drive is hardly larger than a regular CD jewel case. Weighing half a pound, the drive is also capable of burning dual-layer RW discs and CD-RW discs at a 24x clip.
The DVR-XD09 will be out by August for $80.
