New 'smart' headphones learn your tastes, share songs

Muzik to work with developers to create more apps for its headphones

New Miami-based startup Muzik, has created a set of headphones that with the push of a button allows you to share what you're listening to on Twitter and Facebook.

The new Muzik headphones, which sell for $299, have four buttons on the right earphone that controls not only a Facebook and Twitter sharing app, but also allows users to tag songs they're listening to in order to create a playlist. The fourth button on the earpiece controls enables an iPhone or Android app that learns your music tastes while you listen.

Muzik's earpiece with four-button controls and its Facebook posting app

The headphones are expected to be available in the fourth quarter.

Muzik's "smart" headphone lineup includes their marquee product: an on-ear wireless headphone that combines high-fidelity audio in a simple design with capacitive touch controls. The company claims they are the first headphones in the world that allow users to natively share what they are listening to on Facebook and Twitter or "instantly send a song anywhere in the world."

"While the music industry has seen its challenges, technological advances have also created a world of opportunity, which Muzik is seizing to create an entirely new category," Jason Hardi, founder CEO of Muzik, said in a statement. "Headphones will never again just be for listening to music or talking on the phone - our headphones will improve the way we socially discover, share, listen and experience music."

Muzik headphones folded

Muzik also plans to work with "the developer community" to create more applications that can leverage the smart headphones music sharing capabilities.

The headphones, which come in black or white, work by sending messages to a smartphone via Bluetooth connectivity.

To post a song on Facebook, a user pushes the button on the front of the earpiece down and to share on Twitter, the button at the rear of the earpiece. In order to begin making a to a playlist, a user would depress the top button, and to save the music you're listening to Muzik's app, a user depresses the bottom button on the earpiece.

All Facebook and Twitter song posts direct "friends" to song posts on Muzik's platform.

Lucas Mearian covers storage, disaster recovery and business continuity, financial services infrastructure and health care IT for Computerworld. Follow Lucas on Twitter at @lucasmearian or subscribe to Lucas's RSS feed. His e-mail address is lmearian@computerworld.com.

See more by Lucas Mearian on Computerworld.com.

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