[opendtv] Beyond speakers: Bose turns to potholes

Beyond speakers: Bose turns to potholes

By Scott Kirsner  |  June 21, 2004

Mysterious dark sedans have been sighted on the Mountain in 
Framingham, the looming butte just north of the Massachusetts 
Turnpike that is home to Bose Corp. They cruise over potholes without 
a shudder, and skim over speed bumps at 40 miles per hour without 
jostling their passengers. Ex-Bose employees who have ridden in the 
test vehicles say they hardly feel like they're attached to the road. 
One describes it as ''like a Luke Skywalker land speeder," the 
hovercraft vehicle from ''Star Wars."

What on earth is a speaker company doing trying to reinvent the way 
auto suspension systems work?

...

Bose has been phenomenally successful since its founding -- save for 
the occasional misstep, like a long-ago foray into music 
distribution. But two products debuting this summer will test the 
company's ability to enter new markets. One, the uMusic intelligent 
playback system, was unveiled this month in New York and will go on 
sale in late July. The second, the Bose suspension system, will be 
announced in August, though auto industry journalists are getting a 
preview this week in Framingham.

I went to the Mountain last week to get a demo of uMusic. 
(Unfortunately, the company refused to make Bose or John Coleman, the 
company's president, available for an interview.) uMusic is part of 
Bose's new Lifestyle home theater systems. It's essentially a giant 
hard drive that can store the contents of up to 350 compact discs. 
UMusic links each track with information about its genre, tone, and 
musicians. As uMusic plays songs from your collection, it notices how 
you use the remote control: which songs you skip, and which ones you 
''tag" with a negative or positive rating. If a disc was stored 
recently, the system will play it more often, assuming that you 
bought it recently.

...

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2004/06/21/beyond_speakers_bose_turns_to_potholes/

 
 
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