The Motorola HX1 could raise the standard for noise cancellation on a Bluetooth headset. As we've reported before, the HX1 uses a bone-conduction microphone in severely noisy areas to extract your voice straight from your skull, thus eliminating noise. The special bone mic is the little nub on the right hand side of the in-ear piece shown at left.

Okay, it's not quite the Blackberry Storm 2, but today Research in Motion announced a new accessory for its ever-popular smartphone line. The new BlackBerry Visor Mount Speakerphone lets users stream music from their handset wireless to their car's speakers. Better yet, the thing is designed to help you not crash your car, streaming call to the stereo, as well.

The device is Bluetooth enabled and clips to your car's visor, as advertised. It's available now for $99.99 from BlackBerry's retail site.

Motorola today announced a new noise-canceling Bluetooth headset that uses "true bone conduction technology" to transmit voices from extremely noisy environments. By using the word "bone," of course, Moto not only makes teenage boys around the world giggle, but directly positions themselves against the Aliph Jawbone Prime headset.

Logitech today announced a new wireless Bluetooth mouse to be released sometime later this month. The M555b mouse ($59.99 list) features a battery life indicator, hyper-fast scrolling, and a smooth laser tracking system. This mouse is an upgrade from the V470, which was first in the line of Logitech Bluetooth mice.

The M555b mouse weighs 116 grams with two AA batteries inside, and has five programmable buttons.

Microsoft might be crippling Bluetooth support in an attempt to make money off a competitive product, the Wi-Fi-based media networking system known as DLNA.
 
Microsoft has some explaining to do.
 
The Windows 7 Beta allowed computers with Bluetooth to play stereo audio wirelessly to other Bluetooth devices, such as headphones and speakers.  The new Windows 7 Release Candidate dumped that feature. Oddly, Microsoft added another feature that wasn't in the Beta that is similar but incompatible.
 
The release candidate boasts a new music feature called Play To. This new feature allows users to play music and video to wireless speakers and media extenders. Play To is otherwise known as DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance.) DLNA streaming doesn't work over Bluetooth, only over Wi-Fi (or wired Ethernet), and Microsoft seems to be closely involved in its development.
 
According to the DLNA website, Microsoft is a "promoter member" and part of the DLNA Board of Directors.  The DLNA site's "What's New" section has headlines that read "Windows ....Play To and Media Compatibility" and "Zune + DLNA  + Windows 7 = ?"  
 
All these signs seem to suggest that Microsoft has a big stake in DLNA - a passion they haven't shown for Bluetooth. Microsoft was contacted for a comment, but has yet to respond.

Post by PJ Jacobowitz

You say you like the idea of a Bluetooth headset, you just don't want to wear one all the time? You say they get uncomfortable after a little while, and even the "fashion" models aren't that attractive? Then I've got a gadget for you.

Yesterday Yubz introduced the Yubz Clipo (a shoo-in for our Best Product Name award at the end of the year), the retractable Bluetooth. You simply clip the Clipo onto your shirt, jacket, or anywhere convenient, then pull out the retractable earbud when making or receiving a call. It comes in black and surprisingly bright shades of pink and blue.

When fully charged, the Yubz Clipo offers 8 hours of talk time and 168 hours of standby time. Recharge it through a USB port. It's available for $59.95 from the Yubz online store.

For four years we've loved the Plantronics Voyager 510 Bluetooth headset, and it finally has a worthy successor in the Voyager Pro. (http://tinyurl.com/cg6fuk)

The Aliph Jawbone Prime (http://tinyurl.com/ctw7c7) looks just like the last Jawbone headset, but appearances can be deceiving: This one's better.

Sound ID, the Bluetooth headset company, has announced two new headsets at the CTIA trade show in Las Vegas.

The first model, the Sound ID 200, is an update on the company's original Sound ID SM100 mode. The 200 features NoiseNavigation, which uses dual adaptive beam-forming microphones and a sound isolation algorithm to reduce background noise. It also has an automatic volume control that compensates for the user's environment.

The Sound ID 300 (pictured), meanwhile, includes those features and adds PersonalSound, which lets users select from three listening modes in order to enhance speech clarity without raising the volume.

The Sound ID 200 lists for $99.99 and will be sold at Fry's and in Apple Retail Stores beginning in mid-April. The Sound ID 300 will sell for $119.99 and be sold through AT&T retail stores and online this month as well.

To be honest, I had forgotten that Apple had ever produced its own Bluetooth headset. The company introduced the device back in June 2007--the same time it came out with the original iPhone. I suppose we can all be forgiven for having paid little mind to the single-button, $129 headset.

Apple dropped the price a year later to $99. And now, less than a year after that, the company appears to have abandoned the headset altogether, marking it "discontinued" on its Web site and causing even the most devoted of Apple fans to utter a collective "meh."

Microsoft's Sync, a voice-activated communications and entertainment system available exclusively on new Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury vehicles, will receive several major upgrades as part of its 2.0 release.

According to The Detroit News, the second-generation version of the Bluetooth-wired system was unwrapped at CES last night and will include new features such as traffic updates for selected routes, turn-by-turn directions, weather for specific areas, and personalized news, including sports scores, stock listings, and entertainment highlights. First introduced in the 2008 Ford Taurus, the upgraded Sync will be available free of charge for three years on all 2010 Ford models.

Stay tuned for more on this and other hot Microsoft tech as we continue to bring you the latest straight from the CES floor. You can also learn more about Ford Sync here.

For PCMag's full CES coverage, go to http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,2806,2235882,00.asp.

Bluetooth headset maker BlueAnt is here at CES, showing off their newest model: the Q1, which rolls together voice control, noise cancellation and a sleek design to try to knock Aliph's New Jawbone off its pedestal as the top Bluetooth headset in the US.

The Q1 uses both mechanical and digital noise cancellation to knock out wind and road noise. It's BlueAnt's first headset to use both methods of noise cancellation, company spokeswoman Lauren Sell said.

The Q1 also includes the built-in voice commands that we first saw on BlueAnt's V1, which essentially adds voice dialing to phones that don't have it already. The headset has about 4 hours of talk time and 120 hours standby on a charge, according to BlueAnt.

The BlueAnt Q1 will cost $129.95 when it comes out in the second quarter of this year.

For PCMag's full CES coverage, go to http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,2806,2235882,00.asp.

Nextar has announced the NXBT-001 and NXBT-002, two solar Bluetooth hands-free car kits designed for use when clipped to a sun visor. They recharge in standby mode without having to plug them into a DC power socket.

The NXBT-001 is a bit ungainly looking but offer up to 250 hours of standby time and 10 hours of talk time when fully charged. It includes a LED signal display, and supports A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile) and AVRCP (Audio/Video Remote Control Profile) Bluetooth profiles.

The smaller, sleeker NXBT-002 (pictured) offers 150 hours of standby time and up to six hours of talk time, but includes a backlit LCD display and caller ID. Both units will debut at CES next week and hit retailer shelves in the spring, with MSRPs of $59.99 (NXBT-001) and $69.99 (NXBT-002), respectively.

Gearlog readers tend to get a little googly eyed when new technology arrives. We love you for that. So, we're watching for stuff as soon as it comes out. If you're really sensitive to what's going on--and we try to be, you can sometimes even get ahead of the curve.

Broadcom is making it tough. For instance Monday Broadcom issued eight press releases. Sorry Broadcom. As of today you've been cut back to three a day max. If you cure cancer, maybe four.

Where was I?

So Broadcom puts out this slew of pr fodder and buried inside is a tantalizing release on a new chip. It's labeled BCM4329 and this chip is pretty hot with 802.11n, FM transmit/receive and Bluetooth. Sure, your phone or other portable device already has most of these features, but not on a single chip. Single chip means a smaller footprint, easier integration and lower power consumption. Power consumption, or battery life, is arguably the toughest place to improve cell service at the moment.

Yup, it's noise-cancelling Bluetooth headset day. At lunch today, Motorola rolled out two new noise-cancelling headsets, the flagship MOTOPURE H15 and the less-expensive H780. The new pair follow up the disastrous MOTOPURE H12, a noise-cancelling headset which in our tests did not actually cancel any noise.

The H15, at least, seems to be doing much better. Motorola dragged me around Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan to show off the noise-zapping functions, and I made several calls to both humans and robots. The H15 did a terrific job of cancelling the noise coming through my mic - the folks on the other end reported not hearing the background noise. But although they sounded clear to me, they weren't all that loud in the earpiece, and I found myself mashing the 'volume up' button futilely. For more comprehensive testing, you're going to have to wait for the review.

The H15 and H780 use a new version of CrystalTalk, Motorola's noise-cancelling algorithm. Like Plantronics' recent Voyager 835, they use two microphones to detect and cancel outside noise, and alter both the sound profile that they're transmitting out and the frequency distribution in your own earpiece accordingly. The H15 is designed to handle wind noise especially well, Moto said.

Both headsets have multipoint Bluetooth 2.1 for easy pairing to multiple phones and come with multiple earbuds to fit your ear. The smaller H15 has 4.5 hours of talk time; the larger H780 has 7 hours.

The MOTOPURE H15 will be available for $129 later this year. The H780 will be available for $99 later this year.