From the audio-technica site:

Electronics in the control box create a noise-cancelling wave that is 180° out of phase with the ambient noise. This wave acts like a noise eraser: it cancels out the annoying sounds that surround you without diminishing the audio you want to hear. The result…a peaceful enclave to enjoy the music or movies of your choice.

I found the headphones to be quite comfortable for a long flight. The sound quality is good, but perhaps not quite as good as my Etymotic earphones. But, the most dramatic thing I noticed was how much I could reduce the volume when the noise-cancelling was turned on. While I was on the plane, I turned on the noise-cancelling switch and adjusted the volume to be comfortable. Then, I turned off the noise-cancellation. The engine noise from the plane was so loud that I literally could no longer hear the music at all. Basically, without the noise-cancellation, you have to turn up the volume way beyond a normally comfortable level. Not good.

So, I’m sold. I take them with me on all flights now. And what a difference it makes! One simple product that makes the experience of flying a little more enjoyable.

I’m obviously not alone in reaching this massive point of failure in the email system:

• Lawrence Lessing publicly declares email bankruptcy
• TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington returns from a trip and decides to simply delete his entire inbox
• Andrew Baron starts over as well, telling everyone to resend their email if it was important

This initial blessing has become a curse, as with many technology solutions. In some ways it reminds me of music CDs. When digital music on CD first came out consumers were thrilled, and they should have been. CDs were a huge improvement over cassette tapes. But, much like email, CDs simply didn’t scale. It might be fine for a person with a moderate music library to have dozens of CDs. But, for heavy music lovers, having hundreds or thousands of CDs was ridiculous. Finally, along came MP3 players and the beloved iPod. Now, you can fairly easily manage a music library that scales.

So, what to do about email? There are many, many people offering a host of tips, tricks, and tools for supposedly managing your email. Yes, I know all about filters and autoresponders and etc., etc. Have tried them all, used them all. Too much work. Some recommend time management strategies. For example, Timothy Ferriss’ tip that you should only check email twice a day. Good tip for not letting email addiction fragment and destroy the rest of your day. But, still doesn’t solve the massive volume problem.

One approach is already in play: Big changes in how existing email applications work. At CES this year, Jerry Yang showed the future of a smarter email inbox that could prioritize the most relevant connections in your life. Leveraging the knowledge of who you care about and interact with the most holds promise for making all of your communications easier to manage (email, IM, SMS, file sharing, etc.). Xobni is yet another solution promising to enhance your existing Outlook email application to give you “effortless email management”.

I’m sure that these approaches will make email better. No doubt about that. But, who is going to come along and “iPod” the whole thing? Give us a whole new way to manage our communications with others? That is what I’m looking forward to.

An Open Approach to Search
The open theme continues today as we are announcing that we are opening up Yahoo! Search itself. That’s right — you heard it correctly — the Yahoo! Search experience will soon be open. This open search platform enables 3rd parties to build and present the next generation of search results. There are a number of layers and capabilities that we have built into the platform, but our intent is clear — present users with richer, more useful search results so that they can complete their tasks more efficiently and get from “to do” to “done.” Read full blog post…

Good coverage and comments on TechCrunch. Want to learn more about our Open Search Platform? Sign up here

Key Highlight
Yahoo isn’t afraid to shake up the traditional web search paradigm in order to give users what they need: More useful search results that will help them get things done more efficiently. The end result will be something that is not only good for users, but also good for web site owners.

The 2.0 Upgrade
However, the latest 2.0 software upgrade finally made it a lot more interesting. Now I can instantly rent movies (including a number in high-definition with Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound), buy TV shows, and browse Flickr photos on my widescreen HDTV (and I love Flickr). The downsides are that it does take a long time to download a movie (especially an HD movie), once you start a movie you have to finish it in 24 hours, and they need more titles.

Instant Movies + Variety
I do already have Pay Per View movies through DirecTV. The instant purchase and instant on do provide instant entertainment gratification. But, the variety is sorely lacking. Way too many PPV channels of the same titles. I am also a Netflix subscriber and a big fan of the service. They have a huge library of titles and a nice recommendations engine. The only drawback is that you have to wait. They do offer a movies download service if you have a Windows PC, but no solution yet if you are an Apple house (unless you’re running Parallels). So, if you feel like a movie right now, you’re out of luck.

Key Highlight
Consumers like instant gratification and the movies entertainment business is shifting rapidly to meet that need. PPV, Netflix, and movie downloads are all competing to be this movies-on-demand solution. The only barrier now seems to be bandwidth. Once that problem is solved, the winners in this space will be the ones who can provide consumers with the largest number of high-definition movie titles instantly available with one click.

Well, it looks like Sony’s Blu-Ray technology has won the high definition DVD format battle. Toshiba is dropping support for the HD DVD format. This is great news for consumers who will no longer have the confusion of the competing high-def formats. Well, except for those consumers who invested in HD DVD systems. Sorry!

High definition DVDs provide dramatic video and audio quality when displayed on an HDTV with a high-quality home theater audio system. Up until now, consumers either had to make a hard choice between the formats when deciding which hi-def DVD player to purchase or pay a premium for a combo player that supports both formats. To make matters worse, sometimes your favorite movies were only available in the the opposing format. This will no longer be a problem.

When Time Warner, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Netflix all shifted support to Blu-Ray, the writing was on the wall for HD DVD. As with the old format battle between VHS and Betamax in the late 1970’s, it came down to dominating market share. And for consumers, it really came down to price (of the player and movies) and availability of titles. It certainly didn’t hurt that you could purchase a Playstation 3 and have both a great gaming console and a Blu-Ray DVD player in one device.

It will take several months for the dust to settle on this victory. Over that time, we should expect a renewed focus on the the next generation of Blu-Ray DVD players and a great expansion of movie titles in Blu-Ray format. And that is good news for all of us. Because, once you have watched one of these movies on your HDTV, you will want all of your movies to be high-def format.

Grinds Coffee & Tea House, Capitola, CA,
originally uploaded by Larry Cornett.

I have talked about the commoditization of the coffee business before. You can certainly get a good cup of coffee (or name your favorite coffee drink) at many of the coffee houses that sprang up over the past decade. So, when “quality” is no longer the differentiator that it once was, what is a coffee house owner to do? Well, as many industries are discovering, you start focusing on differentiating through the consumer experience.

I visit Santa Cruz, CA occasionally on the weekend when I need a break from Silicon Valley. For those of you who have spent time there, you know what I mean. Each time I am in the area, I go out of my way to visit the Grinds Coffee & Tea House in Capitola. Sure, I could just as easily hit Starbucks. There are at least five in that area. But, I don’t. Why? Because I’m in Santa Cruz and Santa Cruz has a very specific culture and context.

Grinds is a Santa Cruz experience. It is a bit quirky with the bright green exterior, but very authentic, unique, and pleasant inside. It is a treat to go there and get whatever coffee you want made fresh by the cup. Grinds is a differentiated experience and it certainly fits the Santa Cruz context.

Yes, there are economies of scale in providing the same menu and even interior decorating when you are a global business. And, yes, you will attract customers who want “the comfort of the same.” But, increasingly, consumers are starting to tire of the McDonald’s-Walmart-Starbucks effect and want to experience something unique, something new, something with “local flavor.” Sites like Etsy are yet more proof that the pendulum is starting to swing back.

• Search Assist - suggestions and related concepts that give users a new way to explore a subject area they may be unfamiliar with. Try a search for the United Nations.
• Multimedia integration - video, Flickr photos, etc.
• Enhanced Shortcuts - music artists, movies, travel destinations, and athletes

It is all about improving the experience for consumers who are trying to get things done. No one wants to struggle with a search engine when they need information. Search just shouldn’t be so hard. With our new Search experience, it just got a whole lot easier.

To learn more, visit our Yahoo! Search Blog or you can check out my recent television interview with CBS 5.

Where do you go to get your daily fix of fresh information? If you are like millions of other users out there, you hit sites like Digg, Delicious, Techmeme, or just open your favorite RSS reader. Or, you tap into your Stumbleupon toolbar to see what your fellow Stumblers have found interesting lately. Most people don’t automatically think of search as a place for serendipitous exploration. Search is best when you have something specific in mind, right?

Actually, search has been evolving a lot lately. And, as we seek new and better means of disambiguating intent, the search engines are increasingly offering richer media and information that feels a lot more dynamic and exploratory.

Read full article…

He interviewed a very interesting list of folks:

• Jakob Nielsen, one of the biggest names in the Usability world
• Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of user experience and interface design
• Michael Ferguson, one of the UE architects at Ask.com
• Larry Cornett (me), the VP of search experience at Yahoo!
• Justin Osmer, Product Manager for Microsoft Live search
• Chris Sherman, Executive Editor of Search Engine Land
• Greg Sterling, another industry analyst
• Danny Sullivan, the search engine guru and founder of Search Engine Land

I won’t bother summarizing the article here, so read it!