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Music Media Technology

Digital Music Eyewear From Oakley 244

Posted by CowboyNeal from the listen-to-them-frames dept.
Mecha-A writes "Am I the only one that finds this insanely awesome? Oakley is marketing a new line of digital music eyewear in time for the holidays. $400-$500 is an obscene lot for a small USB MP3 player, but the coolness factor is way up there. Questions: Is a brand name like Oakley going to get this idea off the ground? Who's going to be first to market this same thing except with a 'now playing' HUD on the sunglasses?"
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Digital Music Eyewear From Oakley More

Digital Music Eyewear From Oakley

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  • accessorize (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bin_jammin ( 684517 ) <Binjammin@gmail.com> on Saturday September 25, 2004 @08:42AM (#10348006)
    I'm holding off until they come out with a hat that's got a built in subwoofer

  • Paying for "Oakley" not MP3 player (Score:3, Interesting)

    by frdmfghtr ( 603968 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @08:43AM (#10348007)
    My guess is that you're playing for the Oakley sunglasses...the MP3 players is more or less a tag-along, as far as cost is concerned.

    As somebody who has never owned a pair of Oakleys, I ask: wht does a good pair cost?

    • Re:Paying for "Oakley" not MP3 player (Score:4, Informative)

      by webroach ( 655190 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @09:05AM (#10348116)
      You're right, to an extent.

      These are a bit more than a normal pair of Oakleys. I have a pair of matte black polarized Oakleys, very understated, and I paid maybe $210 for them. Best eyewear I've ever owned, quality-wise. Some other styles do come near the $300 mark, I believe.

      That being said, I'd still prefer to just have a pair of sunglasses and my Rio Nitrus. I don't see the need for this combination, at least not until the get it a bit more compact.

      I find it ironic that people on Slashdot are bashing this. Maybe it isn't geeky enough.
    • You can usually expect minimum of $80. When I was in high school, I knew a lot of guys that bought Oakleys for about $120. As other posters have said, some models go into the low hundreds.

      If you add $100 for a USB MP3 player, you're looking at maybe $350-450. I guess that's about right.

      Of course, I've also heard that you can pick up a pair of Oakleys for about $20 in Mexico...
    • Take a good look at these sunglasses, they're hidious, why would anyone pay hundreds of dollars for something so ugly.... Second thought, people buy stupid expensive things all the time. nevermind.
    • what does a good pair cost?

      While all these ideas about implementing new digital technology are important and interesting, I feel that the designers don't grasp the central point of the digital revolution.

      That is, digitronics are supposed to make everything in which it is implemented vastly cheaper. Designing an MP3 player into the frames of a pair of glasses is cool, but then charging $300 to $400 for them is an insult. The super rich won't buy them, the rest of us can't afford them, and anyone

      • While all these ideas about implementing new digital technology are important and interesting, I feel that the designers don't grasp the central point of the digital revolution. That is, digitronics are supposed to make everything in which it is implemented vastly cheaper.

        Umm, according to whom? When you're adding new capability to existing applications (or combining unrelated technologies in new applications), it's almost always more expensive than either of the original items.

        examples:

        early PDA

    • The most expensive pair [altrec.com] of Oakleys, the "Juliet" model will run you at leastUSD $250. Dealer cost is around $150, so markup of course takes it toll.

      That being said, I have had a pair for over 2 years now, and they are awesome. Very, very strong (I used to break cheaper sunglasses al the time) and light as a feather. A heavy feather mind you....

    • With any product that has a dominant name (some that come to mind are Oakley in sunglasses, Sony in consumer electronics, etc), you usually pay more for the name. But seriously, this looks like a great idea, though not for me (I have a great pair of glasses, and a nice MP3 player).

      As someone who has done some reading about Oakley (and a former wearer of their glasses), I can say one thing, Oakley does not come out with a crap product. They would not just snap a MP3 player on their glasses and release the

  • Geek Factor Enhancement (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kurt Wall ( 677000 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @08:43AM (#10348009) Homepage
    The geek factor will go way up after you break your brand new Oakley MP3 player shades and tape them together across the bridge...

  • Am I the only one that finds this insanely awesome (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 25, 2004 @08:44AM (#10348012)
    Yes, you are.

  • Bad teeth (Score:5, Funny)

    by brejc8 ( 223089 ) * on Saturday September 25, 2004 @08:45AM (#10348016) Homepage Journal
    Notice how both [slashdot.org] guys [slashdot.org] in the pictures have false teeth?
    Maybe they got their heads kicked in for wearing rather geeky mp3 players.

  • Lance wore these (Score:5, Informative)

    by after fallout ( 732762 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @08:46AM (#10348022)
    This is very similar or the same as the eyewear that Lance Armstrong wore this year in the tour de France. His was only 128MB though.

    • Link (Score:5, Informative)

      by CoreyGH ( 246060 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @08:47AM (#10348032) Homepage
      Here is a link with a picture of Lance's MP3 sunglasses.

      http://www.tdfblog.com/2004/07/armstrongs_othe.htm l [tdfblog.com]
      • He is sponsored by Oakley, and has been since before leaving the sport with cancer. He's been sponsored by them ever since (along with Nike).

        -Spyky
    • My understanding from my years biking is that only an idiot would wear headphones while riding, especially road riding. It makes you deaf to approaching cars, other cyclists, moose, and feral cats.

      In fact, if I remember correctly, there was a minor uproar in the early 1990's when Sony ran an ad in Bicycling magazine with a person wearing headphones while riding. Readers were aghast that Bicycling would even run the ad, and the magazine said that in the future they would not allow depictions of cyclists

      • My understanding from my years biking is that only an idiot would wear headphones while riding, especially road riding. It makes you deaf to approaching cars, other cyclists, moose, and feral cats.

        I use my iPod all the time (with the regular earbud headphones) when riding my bicycle to and from work. I can hear the traffic just fine.

        JP

      • This summer I went on a 4500 mile road ride (see sig for details/pictures) and one of the guys I went with had the ingenious idea to duct tape some cheap speakers to his handlebars and plug his iPod into them. It actually worked pretty well, and you'd be surprised how well a little music can lift peoples' moods when you can see for 50 miles and not see any cars (think middle of Nevada, right around Area 51. Middle of nowhere, literally.)
      • RTFA!!! THe eyeglasses headphone does not sit INSIDE your ear, but at adjustable distances from it specifically to avoid the loss of outside sound if need be. That is the one thing that I am finding most impressive about these items, and while I know that it will be an overpriced pair of glasses it doesn't seem that Oakley is charging all that much for the MP3 player.

        Can't wait for someone else to develop this kind of flip up earphone for those of us that have never seen a pair of Oakley's that we liked th

  • This is news? (Score:4, Informative)

    by capt.Hij ( 318203 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @08:47AM (#10348026) Homepage Journal
    Is this news? These things have been heavily promoted by Oakley all summer. For example, if you watched any of the tour de france coverage you would have seen cyclists wearing them. Putting the story here is just one more way to get free publicity.

    Then again, I'm just pissed that Oakley hasnt given me a free pair yet...

  • Perhaps. I for one however find it insanely ugly.

    • No number of tattoos will change the fact that you look like a TOTAL DORK with that crap on your head! And the lady wearing the ones without the frames? I think that photo made the cover of Nerdular Nerdence! [homestarrunner.com]

      The other problem with this how sturdy is this going to be? Rigid frame sunglasses (unless titanium!) frequently get crushed in pants pockets, or when they are sat on. (thus, my polarized bolle's are pastic).

      So in conclusion; MP3 player adds fragility and cost, subtracts any kind of coolness (to
      • Questions for you:

        Do you think that Homestar's beannie was outfitted with an Oakley MP3 player?

        Isn't two jillion emails every two jillion seconds just one email per second even if "jillion is not a real unit of measure"? Does that qualify me for the cover of Nerdular Nerdence?

      • they didn't look too dorky on lance on the tour the france..

        besides, the mp3 doesn't really add much cost to an item that's a fashion piece in the first place(you're already paying just for 'style').
    • Yes, insanely ugly. Doesn't help to advertise it with a guy that has metal mouth either.

      Guess I've jumped the shark, don't find this 'hip' or 'cool' at all.

  • Stickers (Score:4, Funny)

    by shplorb ( 24647 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @08:47AM (#10348030) Homepage Journal
    I thought Oakley was all about thermonuclear protection stickers for cars?
  • ...indeed. But I would have prefered a full size image of her!

  • Am I supposed to identify with these guys ? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by obarthelemy ( 160321 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @08:50AM (#10348052)
    I guess I am not in the target market (then again, I'm 36 and French): the very large face shots that illustrate the product actually repulse me.

    Why don't they just sell a product instead of a lifestyle ?

    Apart from the fact that I find the sades both ugly and flashy, I find the idea quite good... 1 item less to carry. Oh wait, my bluetooth phone already does MP3 and FM.

  • Ewww. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Fear the Clam ( 230933 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @08:51AM (#10348056)
    I think both of those guys modeling should have spent the $400 on a dentist instead.

  • Wasn't it a pair of "modified" Oakley sunglasses which Ethan Hunt wore to receive his mission, at the beginning of Mission: Impossible 2? Media, HUD, soundbud, and a self-destruction device. Just a little more engineering...

  • What would be cool... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Saint Aardvark ( 159009 ) * on Saturday September 25, 2004 @08:52AM (#10348063) Homepage Journal
    ...is if music playback paused automatically when you took them off, or flipped up the earpiece to take a call, then started playback again once you were done.

    I listen to music at work on headphones; it would be great if I could come back to my desk, put them back on and have the same song playing that I interrupted when I left. I'm a bit surprised that Apple hasn't figured out how to do this yet....Hey Apple and Oakley -- you listening?

    • RTFA, dude.

      If you did RTFA, RTFA more carefully.

      When you flip up the earpiece your music pauses. If you just take them off it won't though, unless you flip up the earpiece to take them off.
    • put them back on and have the same song playing that I interrupted when I left.

      This is a great idea. There would be a switch in the center point of the headphones. When the headphones are taken off the head, the switch trips, the music stops, and its position is recorded. Place the phones back on your head, the music restarts.

      Put this idea on your resume and send it to both Apple and the company that actually makes the stuff that Apple claims as their own.

      A better life awaits you.
    • The 4G iPods will pause playback if the headphone jack is removed from the socket.
  • what if you want to listen to music at night?

  • Sweet! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by holzp ( 87423 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @09:00AM (#10348090)
    Now if my glasses break, I lose my MP3 layer. And if my MP3 player breaks, I get a bulky pair of glasses. Convergence is Awesome!
  • you want to look like one of the Borg.

    resistance is fut.... ahh nevermind.

  • The Future of Computing? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by FVK ( 411455 )

    A couple years ago I remember talking to a mac-geek friend of mine and he said "Someday, Apple will be an eyewear company"

    This obviously only makes sense in a future where the network is CPU and Storage, wireless is very fast and advanced, and the glasses are basically just display technology.

    How likely is this future, maybe as a precursor to direct neural jacks ala Matrix?

    Do slashdotters believe the "Network is the Computer" idea will eventually come to be ?

  • no way (Score:2, Interesting)

    by almostmanda ( 774265 )
    The IPatch [henninger.name] is WAY cooler.
  • Anyone else find the model offensive? At least use someone that has teeth! Geesh..

    Didn't stay long enough to read the specs.. wont be buying one in the store..

    I wonder how may other potential customers they scared off..

  • Not targeting slashdot crowd ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @09:19AM (#10348189) Homepage
    Oakley doesn't target the slashdot crowd. They target skiiers, snowboarders, skateboarders, cyclists, etc.

    The people doing these sports would really like the idea of not having the wires for headphones to get caught up in, and the extra weight of a player flopping around. I've pulled my headphones out a lot while riding a bunch of times.

    The placement of the headphones looks really nice since they don't need to fully block your ears. They've even got good operating temperatures for the player and support both windows and mac. Since they don't specifically require software, thet might even be compatible with everything else.

    Most people aren't going to spend that kind of money, but having the music in the glasses will be something that a lot of people go for. But you can bet that Oakley will find people who will definitely want to buy 'em.

    And bad jokes about the teeth of the models aside, Oakley knows who they're marketing to. And a bunch of clean-cut models wearing clothes from the Gap isn't how they sell their products.

    Cheers

    • Re:Not targeting slashdot crowd ... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      > They target skiiers, snowboarders, skateboarders, cyclists, etc.

      As a former IT guy for Burton, I can tell you that might be who Oakley markets to, but they, like we did, had the same damn problem. Instead of intelligent people buying our products, most of our customers were white trash. My question is, how in the hell does Oakley expect to get white trash to spend $500 on a pair of sunglasses when they won't spent $3 on deodorant or more than $10 on a shirt? I think their marketing department was o
    • They target skiiers, snowboarders, skateboarders, cyclists, etc.

      No. They target rollerbladers, skiiers, scooter riders and every other lame sport.

      Snowboarders, surfers and skaters are way to cool to wear such lame looking sunglasses

      • Hey, I'm a snowboarder, and I'm not cool! Hell, I'm on /.

        Back when I lived in Colorado and was actually pretty good at it (didn't quite make it through qualifiers for boardercross to compete in the x games every time I tried), I had some top of the line Oakley goggles that were absolutely incredible. On cold days I pulled my neck gator up over my face and tucked it in under the bottom of the goggles, this kept my face really warm but unfortunately all of my hot breath would drift up into the goggles and fo
  • These were showcased during the Tour de France, as Oakley is one of Lance Armstrong's sponsors. I wasn't impressed then, and I'm not impressed now.

    If Oakley wants to impress me, put a HUD inside my M-frame lenses, with a wireless link to my cyclecomputer, so I never have to take my eyes of the road to check my data.

  • Dodgy pictures? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by polyp2000 ( 444682 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @09:23AM (#10348205) Homepage Journal
    Am I the only one here that thinks
    a) the design of the glasses look like something you might get free with a happy meal?
    b) the "models" have their mouths open and look slightly gay?

    I was expecting something a little more slick to be honest.

    I wouldnt be seen dead wearing a pair of those.

    Nick ...

  • the coolness factor (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dncsky1530 ( 711564 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @09:26AM (#10348224) Homepage
    the coolness factor is way up there.

    For the price of the sunglasses you can get an iPod, which also has a great coolness factor plut the functionality.

    When I go to buy sunglasses I look for the ones that are lite and easy to put in my pocket, these sunglasses look pretty similr to a science project where you tape a USB memory stick mp3 player and tape it to a pair of sunglasses. Definately not worth 395$ or even half that. Of course thats just my opinion, i'm sure i don't speak for most people

  • Picture (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Mephie ( 582671 )
    That picture has been photoshopped so much, she almost looks fake.

    At any rate, I personally think Oakleys are over rated and over priced. Get a pair of Rudy Projects and a decent MP3 player for the same price and have better sunglasses and better mp3 player.


  • "Am I the only one that finds this [oakley.com] insanely awesome?"

    Sure not; I, too, find this girl insanely awesome.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @09:45AM (#10348305)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • First thoughts (Score:2, Interesting)

    by fermion ( 181285 )
    It looks like there is growth coming out of the sunglasses. Quite ugly. It appears to be a quick hack will little thought of the aesthetics. Quite not Oakley. On the other hands Oakley are more and more worn by people who want to look cool and hip, and need quite a bit help with that image.

    OTOH the lack of wires is a big benefit for many applications. If I were working outside often I would definitely consider a pair of these. Of course the battery life makes it unsuitable for anyone but the hobbyis

  • "Am I the only one that finds this insanely awesome?..."

    it would seem that it's just you and the homeless man with the terrible teeth on the website.

    the rest of us are laughing at you.

  • HUD (Score:2, Informative)

    by Webs 101 ( 798265 )
    Technically, a projection onto sunglasses or other lens/screen in front of the eye is not a HUD (Head Up Display) because you don't need to keep your head up. You would be able to watch even with your head between your knees, or with your head between someone else's knees. You get the point....

    I suppose you could call it an EFD (Eyes Front Display), though.

  • I think these are, aesthetically, right up there with those yellow plastic sunglasses with the amber flashing lights and "windshield wipers."

  • Would it not be better (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fozzmeister ( 160968 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @10:49AM (#10348663) Homepage
    To create a small mp3 player that grabbed onto a glasses arm, rather than a whole pair of glasses.

  • The worst of both (Score:4, Funny)

    by twelveinchbrain ( 312326 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @11:03AM (#10348748)
    This is both:
    1) an MP3 player that you can't listen to without wearing sunglasses

    2) a pair of sunglasses that you can't wear in extreme conditions.

    This is about as useful as a champagne glass with a built-in knife.
  • Does anyone have glasses-sized VGA HUD that takes a serial output right now? Even if you can't see through them, my (Treo 600) phone's got a camera, a 100Kbps Internet connection, and USB/serial ports. The camera's only about 20KB:frame, so the phone might be able to overlay small transparent windows of text over a video image, at a framerate acceptable when you're sitting at a desk, like 2-5fps. It would suck, but it would be a start!
  • "the perfect compliment to your digital music collection"

    It's no wonder that people enter university with atrocious language skills.
  • or the imac, so they won't like these. nevertheless as the success of such products has shown, there is an enormous market for mixing fashion/design with tech; the difficulty is tapping into it. Only Apple & Sony have done it more than once so far. I would say Oakley have a good chance at hitting the vein.
  • Where can i BUY that stuff? Right Now!

    *me wantssssss it*
  • Now all we need is the rumoured wireless iPod interface and the ability to stream music to the glas...er.. eyewear.

    Now that would be cool.

  • "Am I the only one that finds this insanely awesome? "

    Am I the only one that finds this insanely OLD NEWS?

    -S
  • But it comes with a hot chic! Sign me up!
  • Mecha-A writes "Am I the only one that finds this insanely awesome?"

    Probably. An insanely awesome device would have been able to play OGG files.

  • Wouldn't it be cheaper to buy an iPod AND glasses separately? Who in their own mind would even consider dropping FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS on this gay-looking piece of garbage?

  • It's a really ugly gadget. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Saturday September 25, 2004 @03:33PM (#10350481) Homepage
    By carefully darkening the image and photographing the thing from angles that deemphasise the bulky earpieces. Oakley PR has been able to create the illusion that this isn't a piece of crap. Bring the images into a program that can lighten them up and you'll see how tacky this is.

    It looks like the hearing aid glasses of the 1970. Except clunkier.

    Integrating a wireless headset into sunglasses, so you could listen to music or talk on your cell phone, would be cool. Only one gadget to carry around, too.

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