The JB-200 supersedes the JB-100 model, which “boldly presented a new design in bluetooth stereo headsets and headphones.”

The new/improved headphones bring complete AVRCP music and call controls, 25% narrower ear-tip, better sound isolation (50% longer sound isolating ear-tips), greater comfort thanks to the softer silicon ear-tips, enhanced audio experience (25% more volume and improved bass performace), relocated and upgraded microphone, and more freedom of movement thanks to the longer behind-the-neck cord.

The JB-200 works with any Bluetooth A2DP enabled mobile phones and could be yours for $129.

Tags: bluetooth handsfree, gadgets, mobile, Mobile gadgets

LOUVAIN-LA-NEUVE, Belgium: Microsoft Corp CEO Steve Ballmer offered a glimmer of hope this week to fans of the company’s Windows XP operating system, saying the company may reconsider its decision to stop selling it soon. But Ballmer was adamant that most people who buy PCs today buy them with XP’s successor, Vista.

“That’s the statistical truth,” he told reporters at a news conference at Louvain-La-Neuve University. “If customer feedback varies, we can always wake up smarter.”

Fans of XP — the six-year-old operating system set to be pulled off store shelves by June 30 — have plastered the Internet with blog posts, cartoons and petitions recently. They trumpet its superiority to Vista, whose consumer launch in January was greeted with lukewarm reviews. Ballmer said the customers buying PCs with XP are corporate information technology departments that are having trouble shifting old machines to newer technology.

Some 160,000 people already have signed an online Save XP Web petition who want Microsoft to keep selling it until the next version of Windows is released, currently targeted for 2010.On another issue, Ballmer said he was very confident that Microsoft’s offer for Yahoo Inc was “a very good price. Microsoft has set a Saturday deadline for Yahoo to accept its offer or face a proxy battle.

Microsoft has threatened to oust Yahoo’s board if the 10 directors don’t accept the current offer Saturday. That risky course of action, known as a proxy contest, probably wouldn’t be settled until Yahoo’s shareholder meeting, which doesn’t have to be held until July.The cash-and-stock bid is now worth about $42.7 billion.

Tags: microsoft, operating system, xp

Not unlike the early colorized versions of the original Zune before it, the red zune looks like it should finally be ready to make its un-tattooed retail sales debut . If you’ve been considering getting loud and/or proud with your next Zune, call ahead to your local gadget stock keeper and see if they’re in.

Tags: gadgets, Mobile gadgets, retail, zune

Navigation systems are really becoming a driver’s must have accessory, so manufacturers are adding some really sophisticated features to keep people interested. In Japan, for example, Honda has developed a crime rate detecting GPS that will search through local police records to alert drivers in real-time if they ever happen to drive by high crime areas.

The on-board navigation system to be installed in newer Honda cars will specifically warn drivers when they’re too close to high risk areas where a good number of cars have been previously stolen, damaged, or broken into according to a report by the AFP. Honda says there are no pending plans to add this feature to navigation systems in the U.S., but I think it would be nice if they did. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve driven by shady areas in the past, only to be told later I was lucky I didn’t get my car stolen, or worse yet, shot at.

Related:

Protect your GPS system from thieves

Tags: crime, honda, navigation system

Doom-filled warnings arrive from AT&T this week. The company says that without substantial investment in network infrastructure, the Internet will essentially run out of bandwidth in just two short years.

Blame broadband, says AT&T. Decades of dealing with the trickle of bandwidth consumed by voice and dialup modems left AT&T twiddling its thumbs. The massive rise of DSL and cable modem service in the 2000s has had AT&T facing a monstrous increase in the volume of data transmissions. And that’s set to increase another 50 times between now and 2015. That’s enough, says AT&T, to all but crash the system.

In response, AT&T says it’s investing $19 billion to upgrade the backbone of the Internet, the routers, servers, and connections where the bulk of traffic is processed.

Of course, AT&T is using this breathlessness in part to point fingers beyond simple broadband use. Web video (especially high-definition video) is the most commonly mentioned bandwidth hog. AT&T says video alone will eat up 80 percent of traffic in two years vs. just 30 percent now. One wonders how YouTube doesn’t collapse under the pressure. Hmmm.

Meanwhile, many are wondering whether this is prelude to AT&T announcing (or not announcing, but doing anyway) a traffic prioritization/shaping system like Comcast has been tinkering with… and which has earned it nothing but scorn. Net neutrality (which would forbid premium pricing for certain Internet applications and destinations) is a topic that continues to be hotly debated on Capitol Hill, and telcos are anxious to kill the idea since they’d love to be able to charge additional money for different kinds of web traffic. If the whole Internet is about to crash, well, that makes AT&T’s argument all the more compelling, doesn’t it?

Tags: Att, Boradband, internet