Harman's new system is designed to break the car's cabin up into sound zones for each passenger.Harman has announced a new in-car setup that allows drivers to create "individual sound zones," each of which can play different sounds with minimal interference from other zones ? potentially eliminating the age-old argument over who gets to choose the music.Harman's individual sound zones (ISZ) bre...

The historic downtown commercial district of Montclair, N.J., is known for its restaurants, antique shops, and art-house movie theater. It’s not usually home to lavishly funded attacks on the entrenched giants of global e-commerce. Yet on the second floor of a three-story red-brick building on Bloomfield Avenue, across a parking lot from a fancy pizza joint and up an unmarked stairwell, are th...

HOW would you rank “important” languages? If asked to rattle them off, many people start with English, but after that are reluctant to go further. Important how, they ask. One approach would be to look at people and money: surely a language is important if it is spoken by lots of people, in countries with great wealth (and presumably, therefore, power).But in December came a new approach. A g...

In the six years that Flurry has been reporting on our mobile app usage, and in some cases addiction, we’ve seen stunning growth. This last year was no different. According to Flurry Analytics, in 2014 overall app usage grew by 76%. In this context, Flurry defines app usage as a user opening an app and recording what we call a session. In 2014, Shopping, Utilities & Productivity, and Messa...

In 2014, Americans consumed nearly 260 eggs each on average, more than in recent years but fewer than in 1945, when consumption peaked at 402 eggs per person.The recent uptick in consumption has been attributed to soaring meat prices, which make eggs a comparatively cheaper and more attractive protein source, plus new awareness that eating an egg a day won’t harm your health. A sudden abundanc...

Oscar Insurance is encouraging frequent, gentle exercise by offering gift vouchers as rewards to customers in New York and New Jersey.Regular readers of Springwise will have no doubt noticed a growing wave of insurance and finance companies using tracking technology and monetary incentives to encourage healthier lifestyles from their customers.We’ve already seen Harvard Pilgrim Health Care’s...

Why fuss over the defunct iPod Classic when we have refreshing new ideas like the Mobile Audio Player Concept to toy with. This music player specialized in streaming services like the iTunes Radio, Spotify, etc. Designed with a simple and intuitive user interface, the player is slick and easy to use. Mobile Audio Player Concept from SPECT DESIGN on Vimeo.Designer: Kizuku Kitada ? SPECT DESIGNWa...

Marketers predict brands will latch onto smartwatches.TapSense this week unveiled what its programmatic ads for the soon-to-be-released Apple Watch will look like, exhibiting a buy-one-get-one-free mock offer from Starbucks. It's at least the second tech company to reveal a programmatic offering for wearables in the last few months, coming on the heels of FitAd's debut with Amtrak.This will be...

MERCEDES-BENZ JUST DREAMED UP THE FIRST TEMPTING SELF-DRIVING CAR. AND IN THE PROCESS, THEY SHOW US ALL WHAT GOOGLE WAS MISSING.A man pulls his cellphone out of his pocket and hits a button. A glowing vehicle pulls up that looks like it was carved from a single block of silver. The door opens automatically, and the empty seat turns its driver, beckoning him with a tacit "get in." Who could resi...