News in Brief

  


New agreements in the UK

 

Parrot is going to collaborate with the telecom operators Orange and T-mobile in offering Bluetooth kits (Parrot CK3000 EVOLUTION and Parrot CK3100 LCD) to these operators' business customers so that they comply with the tighter legislation in the UK. Parrot also makes its appearance in 800 Carphone Warehouse stores (the number one brand in the UK) with the Parrot MINIKIT. A co-branding campaign involving radio, posters, the Internet and video animations at points of sale will support this product's launch in the UK, as it joins the Parrot CK 3000 EVOLUTION and Parrot 3200 LS-COLOR, which are already stocked by The Carphone Warehouse.

 

 

 

First anniversary on the stock market

 

Parrot held its combined general meeting of shareholders on 4 June . One year on from joining the stock market, the economic climate is looking good for this specialist in wireless technology, which posted good results for 2006. Henri Seydoux, Parrot's CEO, emphasised the relevance of the strategic choices made and the economic model adopted. With the release of new products, its marketing activities and the development of its OEM business, Parrot has had a successful first quarter in 2007.

 

 

Wibree Forum joins Bluetooth SIG

 

In an agreement with Nokia, the Wibree Forum, which develops ultra-low power wireless technology for the mobile phone manufacturer, will merge with the Bluetooth SIG. This agreement will facilitate the development by 2008 of Bluetooth peripherals which consume less energy. For instance, there will be distance and speed sensors which will be able to communicate with watches and phones in order to collect and store performance data for professional cyclists and runners.

 

 

Bluetooth 2.1 : taking performance level even higher

 

The new Version 2.1 + EDR specification makes it easier to use Bluetooth. Pairing two peripherals is done both more quickly and automatically. Added to this is the lower power consumption, not to mention a five times longer operating life for batteries used in wireless keyboards and mice. The new specification also takes into account NFC (Near Field Communication) technology.
 

GO ON HOLIDAY AND ENJOY
A WIRELESS EXPERIENCE!



Portable hi-fi speakers, communicating GPS systems, designer headsets and hands-free kits offering voice communication and music. What key features do all this summer's star products have in common? They're all wireless. Here's our shopping guide if you want to enjoy some hi-tech entertainment and not miss any calls while getting a tan.

 

The headset is still very much the star of the show, with products offering increasingly more compact and elegant designs. Just take the Motorola Mini Bluetooth Headset H9, which you can slip directly into your ear, the Jabra JX10 with its elegant design, the Sony Ericsson HBH-PV702, which comes in the shape of a pencil and in several colours, the Nokia BH-303 with an ear loop, the first headsets from Palm® Treo™ and Logitech®, and Apple with headsets for the iPhone. But, we are also well aware that the trend is towards listening to MP3 music tracks wirelessly, in quality stereo too.

On the subject of Sony Ericsson, it is also worth us mentioning some really imaginative concepts, like the Bluetooth watch (which can also control remotely MP3 tracks on your phone) or even this remote control (HBH-DS980), which allows you to control all the menus on your phone, as well as the music tracks stored on your mobile (play, pause, track search).

GPS starts to communicate

Mobile GPS is very popular in Europe and is enjoying growing success in the US. It too is getting involved with Bluetooth. If you are thinking of getting a system, you're best to opt for a model which also supports wireless communication. You can then connect your phone and use it hands-free, while controlling the menus, including your phonebook, via the navigation system's touchscreen.

For example, Parrot is collaborating with Garmin, one of the major players in the market. The Garmin Nüvi 660TFM not only supports voice communication, but also MP3 music, thanks to an integrated FM transmitter which enables you to play songs you have stored on the GPS via the car radio.

 

Parrot has also worked with another manufacturer, Navman (on the F50 Europe), to develop a Bluetooth hands-free kit, with its special feature being that it is not connected to the actual product, but to its cradle.

This means that you can still use the hands-free kit even when the GPS is not connected. In addition, this innovative cradle also has an integrated RDS-TMC receiver, which will advise you of any traffic jams on your holiday route. Music, hands-free and GPS: what better ingredients for a good summer?

 

Parrot becomes a new beach companion with its' mini-speakers

This trend is certainly not passing Parrot by; if anything, it's quite the opposite. After the launch of the Parrot SOUND SYSTEM and more recently the Parrot BOOMBOX, which scored well in tests carried out to review its sound quality, Parrot is now cranking up the volume with the Parrot PARTY. This is a compact, portable audio system (620 g and 23 cm wide), which makes music truly mobile. The Parrot PARTY transmits in Bluetooth stereo MP3 tracks stored on a mobile phone, a desktop or portable PC, or even on an MP3 player (or iPod), as long as they are Bluetooth-enabled. It also has a minijack analogue input for connecting a CD player or any other peripheral.

Apart from its design, maintaining the tradition of the multimedia products in the brand, the Parrot PARTY offers a quality of sound that is unprecedented in such a small device. Engineers in the Signal processing team have designed a special software (see more about this in the interview below with Guillaume Pinto, Parrot's Deputy CTO) to give the impression that the music is being output in stereo from all sides, with a bass reinforcement effect too, into the bargain (which can be disabled). These wireless mini-speakers are going to make a great splash down on the beach, and who knows, they might even knock radios and other CD players off their perch. But whatever you do, make sure that you keep your mobile away from the water and sand!

A new musical and plug 'n' play hands-free kit

Playing music in the car wirelessly is also becoming more popular. While you're on the road to your holiday destination, you will be able to both take your calls hands-free and play music wirelessly, thanks to the new Parrot PMK5800. This universal kit (Bluetooth® plug & play) can be plugged into the car's cigarette lighter without any need to be installed. Once connected to the phone, it can transmit your conversation via the car's speakers. It can also transmit in Bluetooth stereo via the car radio the songs you have stored on your mobile. How does it do that? It has an integrated stereo FM transmitter, which uses the available frequencies on the FM bandwidth to transmit the audio signal via the car radio.

MP3 music is transmitted with hi-fi quality, just as if you were listening to it on a stereo system. You can also connect to this kit other audio peripherals, CD players and non-Bluetooth MP3 players using a jack. Parrot has already shown the way in this area with the Parrot MK6000 and a version derived from this, supplied with an OLED screen, the Parrot MK6100.

 
 
   
 
 

Interview

 

 

« Parrot is keeping a close eye on market
trends in terms of miniaturisation »
Guillaume Pinto, Parrot’s Deputy CTO

 

How do you manage to deal with the constraints imposed by miniaturisation?

« We have certainly been observing for some time the development of a real craze on the market for small products, whether in areas where this trend has always existed, such as telephony and headsets, or in more unexpected areas, such as home audio systems.

The Parrot PARTY is a good illustration of this point. The advent of the iPod generation has radically changed consumer behaviour. Consumers have now switched their money from hi-fi and audio systems to portable music players and audio accessories which are often small, such as the famous docking stations. This means that it is necessary to miniaturise products even in this area. But miniaturisation actually has a number of aspects to it.

The first aspect, of course, is that it reduces the footprint of electronic components and modernises factory cabling systems. This aspect is a variable developed outside Parrot, where we simply need to monitor the technological trends in this area to choose the best solutions at the best price. The second aspect relates to electromagnetic functions (Bluetooth receiver and transmitter) and audio functions (microphone pick-up, speakers) existing side by side on a small surface. Even greater imagination is required than usual when it comes to the electronic design to make sure that interference from the radio waves does not adversely affect the product's sound quality ».

Were there any specific problems that arose when designing the Parrot PARTY ?

« The Parrot PARTY brings a new aspect into play. As you can very easily see, the product's speakers are extremely close to each other and very small. This poses two problems. Firstly, if you are one metre away from the device, you'll find that the sounds coming from the right and left speakers blend completely together, which means that the stereo effect is drastically reduced. Secondly, small speakers are very ineffective when it comes to transmitting bass sounds. Listening to the sound in mono when watching your Home Cinema or hearing a shrill voice when playing a track from Barry White is hardly very audio-friendly !

As a result, two highly innovative solutions have been developed by Parrot to "trick" the listeners' brains by creating the illusion that the sound is not coming from the PARTY's two speakers, but from two virtual speakers, one metre apart and positioned either side of the product (stereo widening), and giving them the impression that they can hear bass sounds which are not physically present in the room (virtual bass). This effect is achieved through real-time audio processing carried out by the Parrot 5 processor and its software. So, with the Parrot PARTY, you won't need to choose between the sound quality of a large speaker system and the tiny footprint of a small MP3 speaker! Parrot offers real added value with its method for processing audio signals digitally.

A similar problem cropped up when we were designing the Parrot MINIKIT where the position of the hands-free kit's speaker became dangerously close to the microphone. In this case, the echo (the feedback from the signal transmitted by the speaker in the microphone) will be powerful. Parrot has come up with some innovative gems to develop digital processing solutions designed to suppress this echo and only allow the voice of the person using the kit to be transmitted to the other person taking part in the conversation ».

Do universal kits (Parrot PMK 5800) now come with audio streaming ? Did this also pose a technical challenge ?

« Integrating audio streaming into the Parrot PMK5800 presents an additional technical problem, compared with developing the Parrot SOUND SYSTEM or Parrot MK6000. As the product is extremely compact, there is little space available for the Bluetooth receiver antenna. You also need to remember that implementing Bluetooth-based audio streaming in an environment where there is even slight interference requires a large number of bits per second to be transmitted. This means that the design of this antenna must be of exceptional quality to ensure the product works properly ».

How do you work, at the start, with industrial companies to get your solutions integrated ?

« We keep a close eye on market trends in terms of miniaturisation. This means that, as part of the design process for the next generation of products, we are actively trying to get companies to design power management and audio digitisation chips adapted to our requirements. Power Management Units, as they are known, are currently widely used by mobile phone manufacturers to reduce the size of the PCBs, the printed circuit boards which contain the electronic components, and ultimately, the size of the phones themselves ».

 


 

 
 
 

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«  The Parrot Trademarks appearing on this document are the sole and exclusive property of Parrot. The Bluetooth word mark and logos are owned by the Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of such marks by Parrot S.A is under license. Other trademarks and trade names are those of their respective owners. ».

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