ANC REVIEW: Tranya Nova Lite Wireless Buds

ANC

ANC is an acronym usually associated with South Africa and the name of the African National Congress, in turn associated with Nelson Mandela and the overthrow of apartheid. In this case, however, it applies to Active Noise Cancellation and the overthrow of annoying outside noise, a technology that has become increasingly attractive in a world of external chaos.

It’s no surprise that the people of today are happy to retreat into their headphones to experience a world of their making, not one out of control.

So step forward the Tranya Nova Lite ANC Wireless Buds, a cheaper alternative to Apple’s excessively overpriced Airpods and excellent value for those looking for a listening experience that is not based on brand, but on sound quality. Readers also get a 15% discount if they to to the official Tranya website and use code: Novalite15.

Tranya has been selling this type of product for a few years and have been previously reviewed on this website, usually with very good reviews. So, what of this particular iteration of its ANC wireless buds?

They’re good, very good and even if they are bit more fiddly to get going than Airpods, it’s worth the trouble. My ANC Wireless Buds came in an Apple shade of white, but there are other colors, most notably black.

There’s little to choose between AirPods, they look the same and easy to connect to a device through Bluetooth 5.3 and can be attached and switched to/with two devices at once through the three listening modes of ANC, normal and transparency mode.

The ANC is excellent with an emphasis on letting the noise in and increasing the efficiency of the sound/music. The transparency option not only blocked out annoying outside noise, it also cut out the sound of the wind when talking.

The Tranya Nova Lite ANC Wireless Buds come in the mandatory chargeable case via a USB-C connection or a wireless charging made. The company says that the battery life can last up to 36 hours, but a more realistic, although still excellent, nine hours is the norm.

I’m not an Apple fan and have rarely used Airpods, but I can’t imagine they’re much better than these wireless buds… and customers won’t have to pay the earth to receive great sounds, with fantastic ANC.

Recommended Christmas purchase.

Great Fridays shores up board with ex-Pearson hire

elephant indoorInnovative product and service design company Great Fridays has appointed Genevieve Shore to its influential advisory board with immediate effect.

Great Fridays advisory board is made up of an illustrious and eclectic mix of experienced Design and Business Leaders including Peter Gabriel (musician, technologist, inventor), Nancy Dickenson (independent design strategy consultant and ex-VP Design at eBay, PayPal, Apple), Peter Skillman from HERE and Josh Ulm (VP of Design at Adobe). Continue reading

150-WORD BOOK REVIEW: Jony Ive by Leander Kahney

jony_ive_1It’s interesting that the title of this book ignores Sir Ives’ knighthood, but why mention that when this hagiographic book tells of a saint? This particular designing saint who served under God Jobs and who helped us to revere Apple products.

While I enjoyed this well-written book, at times it was stodgy and like reading Apple promotional literature. Moreover, there are no direct interviews with Sir Ives and there is even a page at the end of the book called ‘Secrecy and Sources’ that sums up how much of this book comes from Third Party sources.

What is clear, however, from this book is that Sir Ives is not only an industrial design genius, he is also an egotist, strategist and was an expert player in the court of God Jobs. In a year that has seen the 500th anniversary of Machiavelli’s The Prince, Sir Ives’ continuing hold on power at Apple means a follow-up book will be even more interesting. Something has to go wrong for this man…

REVIEW: 7/10

Digital is bringing football to the point of collapse

GUEST POST: Joel Windels tweets here and is the Community Director for social media measuring company Brandwatch

digital footballFootball is on the brink of financial collapse. It’s an issue that relevant governing bodies have scrambled to address in varying ways, but the problems are rooted far deeper than fickle billionaires and greedy footballers.

The digital revolution has been stampeding through almost every entertainment industry – which few will deny is what football ultimately is – as the footsteps of technological advances leave no cultural opiate untrodden. Continue reading

Introducing Nina Mobile, your virtual assistant for iOS and Android

Nuance Nina picNina Mobile, Nuance’s virtual assistant for mobile customer service, has been upgraded. She/he/it is now supported in 38 languages with an enhanced mobile experience for tablets, as it continues to make an impression in the enterprise space.

As Robert De Niro in his role as Travis Bickle it the movie Taxi Driver once said; “Are you talkin’ to me?” Yes, it would appear so, Robert, not only is somebody ‘talkin” to you, but through Nina, you are talkin’ to everybody else as well.

Nina Mobile allows companies to add speech-based virtual assistant capabilities to existing Apple iOS and Google Android mobile apps. It combines Nuance speech recognition, Text-to-Speech (TTS), voice biometrics, and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) technology hosted in the cloud. Continue reading