Stuffy Bose On-Ear Cans Are Now Designed For the Youth [Audio]

By Mario Aguilar Oct 12, 2011 9:50 AM 7,681 14

Watch out Dre, 50-Cent's not your only competition. Soon you might not be buying Bose's on-ear headphones just because they're the cheapest one's the company has to offer—the new Bose OE2 headphones have a refreshed street-ready design.

The most noticeable difference between the Bose OE2 headphones and their predecessors is the stylish new design, which is available in both black and white. Bose definitely took a page from the success of Beats by Dre and spruced up the cans to be hip-looking and noticeable on the subway. The new design is also slimmer and lighter so the headphones should be more comfortable on the street, too. But don't expect these cans to have the Beats' deafening bass-response since the OE2's are packed with standard Bose sound. The new Bose on-ear headphones come in two versions—OE2 and OE2i—the only difference being the the inline microphone and inline remote and microphone compatible with Apple products. At $150 and $180 respectively, they're priced competitively with their chic competition. [Bose]

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Daily Desired: Exercise Headphones Designed to Stay Put [Desired]

When it comes to headphones built to stay put when you're exercising there's plenty of products that look hardcore but are just annoying. Polk's new UltraFit3000 headphones might just be the the most thoughtfully designed I've seen.

Like other old school speaker companies Polk has decided to make the jump from wooden boxes to headphones. I like that idea, because Polk's awesome sound shouldn't be confined to home theaters and stereos. Detailed specs aren't yet available, but I'd expect these to sound amazing. What is really going to set these apart for exercise addicts is the attention to function. The over-ear hook is pliable and made of a moldable rubbery material so that they will sit securely on your ear. Polk makes it sound easy.

There's lots of little details from the length of cable extensions to the shock-resistant internal build that are impossible to evaluate until I get the headphones on. I'm psyched to try these if only because exercise is an inconvenience enough without crappy headphones making it worse. If these really fit well, and sound as good as Polk gear is supposed to, I might actually get in shape. That's worth $100 easily. [Polk Audio]

Daily Desired is our look at a product we're drooling over.

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Apple Stores Are Obsessively Designed to Look Perfectly Symmetrical from the Outside [Apple]

Apple's obsessive compulsive, super-spartan, Kubrick-meets-Superman's-Fortress-of-Solitude industrial design goes way beyond phones and tablets. ifoAppleStore points out the meticulous, somewhat-insanely clever efforts Apple takes to make their stores visually enticing. Human brains like symmetry! So human brains like Apple Stores.

As much as China's faux Apple Stores looked pretty close to the real thing, there's no way they could come to this scary level of attention. Did you know Apple builds new sidewalks outside their stores to so that they match the interiors? Yeah. ifoAppleStore dishes, with California's 4th Street store in California as reference:

Store window panels and inside stone floor tiles all are dimensioned and positioned to present a symmetrical appearance. In this case, the master element is the stone floor tiles, which are 76 centimeters square (about 30 inches). The glass window panes are then manufactured to a multiple of that dimension.

This sounds like something straight out of the steel mind of Jobs. He did, after all, patent the staircases inside himself. [ifoAppleStore]

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The Inflatable Wetsuit Designed to Save Lives in Big Waves [Video]

No, you're not looking at Igor, The Hunchbacked Waterlad. This is Shane Dorian, one of the best (if not the very best) big wave surfers in the world, and he's wearing the world's first inflatable wetsuit.

In 2010, while attacking monstrous waves at Mavericks—a notoriously dangerous surf spot in California—Dorian suffered the worst wipeout of his life.  He was pushed down to the ocean floor (25 feet below the surface) and held there as two more waves steamrolled him. He nearly drowned.  Once he was safely back on land, he knew he never wanted to find himself in that situation again.  And that's when he came up with the concept for an instantly inflatable wetsuit.

Drawing inspiration from the type of life vests found on airplanes, Dorian contacted Billabong wetsuit designer Hub Hubbard.  Hubbard contacted survival wear manufacturer Mustang Survival, who was excited about the idea, and together Dorian, Billabong, and Mustang put together the first prototypes of what would become the V1.

It works just like an airplane life vest.  You pull a cord, a CO2 cartridge instantly inflates an air bladder, and you are rocketed back to the surface.  If, after enduring a situation where you actually had to use this thing, you're crazy enough to want more, paddle back to shore (the inflated bladder is on your back to facilitate paddling), swap out the CO2 cartridge, and you're all set to go back out and almost drown again.  Dorian has already tested this in the real world situations (read: poo-your-pants-sized waves), and claims he hasn't been held down for longer than ten seconds, tops.  The video below has some great shots of it in action, and some waves that will give you nightmares.

The V1 is not yet commercially available, and there is no word yet on when or whether it ever will be, or if it will only be distributed to the world's elite big wave riders.  I think it would be criminal for Billabong not to release this into the wild, eventually, but I'm not convinced that it couldn't use some refinements first.  I understand putting the pouch on the back so you can paddle once you're back on your board, but what if you are unfortunate enough to pass out on your way back to the surface?  The air bubble on your back would leave you floating face down.  Wouldn't it be better to have a full vest that you could keep inflated until the set has passed, and then you manually deflate it through a valve on your neck and paddle away?  Also, you can't pull a cord if you've been knocked in the head (by your board, or a rock) and are out cold.  Could some sort of auto-release be integrated for that contingency (perhaps a pressure gauge that activates at a certain depth)?

We love big wave surfers.  They are inspirational, incredible, and daring as hell athletes, but we lose them too often.  Just a few months ago the much-beloved and uber-talented Sion Milosky drowned at Mavericks.  Hopefully, with wetsuits such as the V1, such tragedies will someday be all but eliminated.  Good on Shane and Billabong for thinking outside the box on this one and coming up with the first wetsuit that can accommodate an inflatable life preserver.

How the wetsuit accommodates Shane's gargantuan balls is a whole other mystery.

Image credit: Billabong

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