Meet Aether Cone: a simple and discreet music player that, according to its developers, is ‘‘the first music player that thinks.’’ Developed by electronics company Aether,
a dynamic team of programmers and designers dedicated to creating
products that can make our lives both easier and aesthetically pleasing,
Aether Cone is not just a striking piece of design. It is also a state-of-the-art music player with a very ambitious concept: it chooses your music for you!
A powerful algorithm embedded within the player observes your listening
habits and picks up on your musical tastes; based on what it learns, Cone plays music that you’ll like from Rdio’s
vast music library and internet radio (the device comes with a
free subscription to these services). It observes which songs you
usually skip, what you like to listen to more often and even when and
where in your house you have actually played a song - so it knows what
you like to hear in your bedroom before bedtime for example, or in your
kitchen while making breakfast.
Although there is a very thorough iOS App that lets you control and monitor Cone’s behaviour, you will rarely need to use your smartphone to interact with it because of its smooth and efficient interface: for example spinning the rotation wheel on the player’s face lets you skip songs or change genres whilst by pressing the centre button you can actually give Cone voice commands and specifically request what you would like to hear (through Nuance’s advanced voice recognition system, Cone can recognise artists’ names, song titles, album titles and radio stations). Essentialy what Aether wants to achieve with Cone is a music player that thinks for you, so you don’t have to worry about preparing playlists and saving your music all the time — the more you use it, the better it learns what you like and plays music that you’ll love, thereby becoming your very own personal DJ or radio producer.
As far as the hardware is concerned, Aether Cone is a stunning object in itself, and comes in two colours (black/copper and white/silver) that are meant to fit into every kind of interior. Inside, the player has a 3-inch woofer and a dual tweeter design that generates a natural stereo envelopment, while its battery can cover up to eight hours of continuous playback before you have to charge it again. In addition to its WiFi connection, Cone also has a Bluetooth option (which will become available in early 2015), and is also AirPlay compatible for those rare moments should you wish to use the player merely as a good-old wireless speaker. Cone’s app will also be released for Android at the beginning of next year.
from yatzer