I don’t need to point out how well designed these headhones are, do I? They’re the result of another collaboration between Philip Starck and the design influence shows. Now I’m not one to wax lyrical about the design merits of a gadget, but when the work has been done, it’s worth mentioning.

The headphones sit on your head comfortably thanks to an artificial leather band which runs down in to curved connections to the noise cancelling ear pieces. This is one of the best features of the Zik by Starck, they’re true noise cancelling headphones. When you put these cones on your ears, the world quite literally drowns out, and it’s you VS the music.

But that’s where the looks end. Because the cups do a lot more than just look good. On the plastic surrounding, Parrot have included a capacitive touch panel for swiping through volume and tracks. This is a very cool, if not the coolest, way to interact with your music.

The cups also house 5 microphones, two of which analyze the sound around you for noise cancellation, another two work to find any residual noise and the last one handles voice calls.

Connect via Bluetooth and you’re rocking in no time. Run out of battery and you’ve got a micro-USB port to plug in to and continue listening.

The Zik by Starck is also jam packed full of insane and cutting edge technology. Just to name a few: Near Field Communication, Bluetooth connectivity, active noise cancellation, head detection which pauses and plays as you take the headphones off or on and a jawbone sensor for speech clarity.

My two bones to pick in this gadget review are small but important.

Firstly, there’s no external charger for the onboard lithium-ion battery which they say will give you between 5 and 20 hours of use depending on what features you use (I got about 7 hours). That means you’ll need an extra battery which costs a couple of hundred rand and you’ll have to keep track of what’s charged and what’s not. That’s annoying.

The other issue I take with the Zik by Starck headphones is that they aren’t terribly portable. You get a good quality suede bag to transport the headphones in, but even when folded flat as they’re intended to be transported, they’re still quite bulky, far more bulky than a set of Beats by Dre which is what I travel with regularly. If you’re on a trip, even for a weekend, the last thing you want is valuable luggage space taken up by huge ear cups and a leather head boom.

Zik by Starck headphones are made for the music fan who has discerning taste and sips a brandy while listening to the latest Rolling Stones album before deciding it’s crap and they should have just been happy to live off royalties. This kind of listener doesn’t even know who Kesha is and Psy is just an abbreviation for Psychology.

At R4 000, the Parrot Zik by Starck headphones are not what I’d call cheap. In fact, they’re not what I’d call reasonable. They’re bleedin’ expensive, but on the other hand they’re also tremendously advanced, deliver outstanding sound quality and do the job of a few gadgets in one. A decent buy, but they’re not easy to travel with.

Get it: R4 000
From: www.dionwired.co.za

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Straight out the box and immediately you want to fly it. This I’m glad to report is not a pipe-dream. It really is idiot-easy on set-up. Just download the free app, locate where the battery goes and it’s pretty self-explanatory from there.

But this is the worst idea ever. Trust me; take some time to learn how to properly control this gadget, what all the settings mean, and most importantly, what “Absolute Control” is.

“Absolute Control” is a setting the AR Drone 2.0 has that toggles the drone’s perspective when you fly it. With AC off, the forward and backwards perspective runs according to which way the AR Drone is pointing, and not to which way you are pointing. This is important because when you’re standing with an iDevice in your hands, and you lean the drone forward, you don’t want to be worrying which way the drone is pointing, you just want it to obey.

This setting alone is going to save you on barrels of damage that you could do to the soft outer shell of the drone which protects the valuable innards like the motherboard and the full HD video and still camera.

While on the subject of the camera, what more do I need to say. I’ll show you. Here’s some footage from the Fucha Gatherings party out in Magaliesberg a week back. What an absolute jol.

As you fly, you push record from the screen of your Smartphone or tablet, and it switches on. All the footage is stored directly on to your device, or if you prefer on to a USB memory stick which you connect on to the drone.

The camera onboard is a 720p HD one, shooting at 30fps and through a wide-angle lens. My advice is to fly it low when you’re shooting at something nearby or at people. Otherwise you just chop off the body of your subjects. If you’re shooting landscape, go wild and high.

Bide your time cautiously while the drone is in the air. Quite disappointingly the battery on the drone only lasts about 10 minutes, and that’s not even mentioning what it does to your Smartphone’s battery. Still, a small price to pay for this amount of fun.

The second gen AR Drone is brilliant for a number of reasons. First of which is the lengths they’ve gone to make sure that you don’t crash it. They’ve got settings onboard which make take-off and landing easy enough for a toddler to master, if the battery on your phone dies mid-flight the toy enters drone mode and drops to the earth and hovers and they’ve included an auto-pilot mode for the extremely nervous amongst you.

The second reason this gadget rules so hard is because it’s far from a one man show, solitary experience. Your mates will gape in awe as you fly it, waiting for their turn. And in no time they’ll also invest the cash for a drone of their own so you guys can partake in some 165-foot altitude dog-fights.

And thirdly, upon buying your drone you sign your membership card to the AR Drone online community, a thriving nest of like-minded fliers who are enthusiastic and available with tips, ideas and footage of their experiences with your new toy. The best part is that you don’t even need to be a certified nerd to join. In fact, all the better if you aren’t.

Cost: R3 500
From: www.smac.co.za
Forum and help: http://forum.parrot.com/ardrone/en/

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Simple concept really: wire up a shocking mechanism from a throw away camera, strap some metal to the outside and then complete the circuit.

Shocking! (sorry. That wasn’t necessary)

More: http://hackaday.com/2012/08/27/the-taserdrone-a-shocking-mod-for-the-ar-drone/

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You might be thinking that companies like Bose and Shure would have Parrot whipped in the audio arena, but just listen to some of the specs on this gadget first.

The Zik are wireless headphones that pair via Bluetooth to any capable device, and with Near Field Communication on board, they’re also ahead of their time. Instant pairing comes from just touching the two devices together.

Since they’re pairing with your mobile phone, they’ve got to be able to make and take calls. The Zik are equipped with two directional microphones (for high frequency) and an Osseous conductor sensor (for low frequency). They can sense vibrations from the jawbone and merge it with voice signals improving call quality.

A touch panel on the side gives you touch an gesture control of your calls and music. Brush your hand up or down to control volume and left and right to skip songs. When you’re interrupted, just take the headphones off and put them around your neck and the song pauses or the call transfers straight to your mobile phone.

The Concert Hall Effect technology gives you the impression that the sound is coming from in front of you, like in a concert hall. And the Active Noise Cancellation isolates you from external sounds by using four active mics to reduce external sound by 98%.

And they’re bleeding stunning too, aren’t they?

Get them: www.smac.co.za
For: R4 000

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