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. With In The New York Times Magazine: Noise-canceling headphones
Posted Under: Consumed
SILENCE GENERATION
Technology adapts to eliminate the clatter of city life, one person at a time
For today’s special issue of The New York Times Magazine, The Next City, I devoted the Consumed column to a look at noise-canceling headphones, in particular the Bose QuietComfort line. The connection to the “city” idea is that such headphones are relevant to the thing that makes cities both appealing and oppressive: All the other people.
Originally developed for use in airplanes, Bose’s headphones moved from pilots to consumers, and then to city streets.
Deep into the age of cellphones and iPods, the portable soundtrack is a given in city life, although some of the conceptual pieces in “Design and the Elastic Mind” suggested that we’re still adjusting to this new reality. … One concept, by the Social Mobiles project, which originated in the London office of the design firm IDEO, proposes phones that modify their owners’ behavior — for instance by shocking them when they talk too loud.
Given the unease and adjustment that such projects imply, it’s no surprise that noise-canceling headphones have come to be tools for blotting out not just the dull roar of an airplane but also the clatter of city life…
Read the whole column in today’s issue of The New York Times Magazine, or here.
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Reader Comments
I’ve admired Bose’ QuietComfort products since they first appeared, for both their design and technology. Ten years later they are still the state of the art. The product is great!
But I cannot buy one because doing so would make me feel slimed.
Even after being on the market this long no retailer is able to sell below the price dictated by Bose. This is exploitive price fixing by a manufacture with a de-facto monopoly.
There is no free market for QuietComfort headphones because sellers are constrained from competing by Bose, which reaps the benefits.
To me this falls somewhere between a swindle and extortion. Economic thuggery.
The times when I have bought under such circumstances I always end up with a pathetic feeling for having caved to this kind of bullying.
So no thank you Bose, until you lighten up on the sleaze.
Adam,
Do you own an iPod? They have been on the market for quite some time as well and Apple regulates their price. Whether you go to an Apple store, CompUSA, or Target, an iPod will cost the same price.
I don’t see this as exploitive price fixing. I see it as “brand integrity control.” This prevents big box stores like Best Buy from exploiting the success of popular brands by selling them cheap in hopes that customers will also walk out of the store with a new 50 inch TV.
I think the way those stores operate is much sleazier than a company who knows the value of thier product and maintains that value through all retail outlets.
This reminded of a piece Karrie Jacobs wrote for Metropolis awhile back that I thought y’all might enjoy:
http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=2600
Rob, hope to make your reading tonight at Frog and hope that I can grab one of your posters! Not sure if I’ll be able to make it Friday but the posters look great…