{"id":480728,"date":"2019-01-10T16:10:19","date_gmt":"2019-01-10T23:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=776941"},"modified":"2019-01-10T16:10:19","modified_gmt":"2019-01-10T23:10:19","slug":"most-exciting-music-tech-from-ces-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/music-news\/most-exciting-music-tech-from-ces-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Most Exciting Music Tech From CES 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Music has been center stage this week at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/ces\/\" id=\"auto-tag_ces\" data-tag=\"ces\">CES<\/a> 2019, the latest edition of Las Vegas\u2019s international annual consumer electronics bacchanal. As smart speakers and smart home devices become ubiquitous in households around the world, audio-tech companies new and old are now fighting to show off fresh-off-the-line premium <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/technology\/\" id=\"auto-tag_technology\" data-tag=\"technology\">technology<\/a> at the show, an event that usually serves as a good indictor of trends \u2014 or at least fads \u2014 to come in the year ahead. Here are a few of the innovations in music that caught our eye this time around.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/sony\/\" id=\"auto-tag_sony\" data-tag=\"sony\">Sony<\/a> Debuts Speakers That Can Mimic a Live Concert<br \/><\/strong>Pharrell Williams led Sony\u2019s CES press conference this year to announce \u201c360 Reality Audio,\u201d which sounds like vaguely nonsensical marketing lingo but is actually an intriguing idea that\u2019s garnered many favorable reviews from tech critics so far: Sony is trying to expand high-resolution music by adding a spatial dimension, which will build upon the MPEG-H 3D audio format to place vocals, instruments and other certain sounds on a track \u201caround\u201d a listener. By being recorded and distributed in this new splintered format, songs will ideally be delivered to listeners sounding like they\u2019re being performed live.<\/p>\n<p>The new format will be available on a special new Sony speaker, but the idea is that music fans will also be able to hear\u00a0360 Reality Audio music with any speaker system that can project sound in a number of directions, as well as audiophile-grade headphones. Stay tuned for more details out of the Japanese tech company in the next few weeks. Sony says it\u2019s currently working with streaming services that already offer high-res listening tiers, like Tidal and Deezer, to bring the format to the mass market.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_777392\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" readability=\"32\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-777392 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Samsung-TV_iTunes-Movies-and-TV-shows.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"650\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Itunes on Samsung<br \/>Courtesy Samsung<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>Apple Opens Up Its Locked Ecosystem<br \/><\/strong>Apple, notorious for years for its closed-loop software and a refusal to integrate with competitor technology, came to CES this year to specifically announce that it is now offering features like iTunes and AirPlay on Samsung, LG, Vizio and Sony televisions. This means Apple Music and iTunes users are finally able to more seamlessly integrate those platforms with non-Apple devices. The company \u2014 which has never set up a booth at the showcase before, preferring to hold its own branded launch events several times a year \u2014 has recently seem sluggish sales in its flagship products and seems to understand it has to look outside of its own ecosystem to continue growing its services business. (Apple Music integration was also recently made available on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/apple-music-amazon-echo-761943\/\">Amazon Echo devices<\/a> as well as Android phones.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>A Music-Making Ring Ups the Ante In Arts Education<br \/><\/strong>Sphero, the robotic toymaker behind the Star Wars R2-D2 robots that were on every kid\u2019s Christmas wish list last year, has launched (or relaunched, since the tech was offered by another company before Spheros bought it) the Specdrums musical motion-enabled bluetooth ring, which is a Bluetooth-enabled ring, worn on the user\u2019s finger, that creates music when tapped against different colored services. It\u2019s one of the first projects announced after Sphero said it would move away from licensed toys and delve more deeply into educational robots and gadgets that support STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) disciplines.<\/p>\n<p>The ring, customizable for over 100 different instruments, allows kids to make guitar riffs, drum beats, piano tunes and other sounds by tapping the device against either a colored play-mat provided by the company, or everyday objects. It\u2019s a modest invention \u2014 but one that proves how useful simple devices from tech companies could really be for many non-academic aspects of education, as well as for younger markets and parents eager to immerse their children in creative arts.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_777396\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" readability=\"32\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-777396 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/SpecHR-1231w.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shpero\u2019s Specdrums<br \/>Credit: Courtesy Sphero<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/tech-ces-speakers-776941\/\" target=\"_blank\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Music has been center stage this week at CES 2019, the latest edition of Las Vegas\u2019s international annual consumer electronics bacchanal. As smart speakers and smart home devices become ubiquitous in households around the world, audio-tech companies new and old are now fighting to show off fresh-off-the-line premium technology at the show, an event that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-480728","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-12 11:52:41","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KQZR - The Reel","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}