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What's the difference between active and passive noise cancellation?
Active noise cancellation (ANC) is very different from passive noise cancellation: Here's what you should know.
Good news, audio fans! We’ve never had a more diverse selection of headphones and earbuds to choose for your phones, computers, TVs, and more. There’s something for everyone at every price, with any dazzling array of smart features you want (as long as you’re willing to pay for them).
Get the most out of your Chromebook with noise cancellation and these other hidden Chrome OS 92 features
Improve your Chrome OS experience by enabling all this extra functionality
Chrome OS 92 has finally rolled out to Chromebooks following a week's delay, and it's packed with goodies like a brand new emoji picker and a clipboard manager for tablets. We've been digging into the new update and pulling up even more features that should help you get the most out of your Chromebook. Here are a few advantageous but experimental features we've found that you can take advantage of today.
Video calling on Chrome OS is finally going to sound good
Noise cancellation will drastically enhance the audio quality of your video calls
Google is working hard to improve Chrome OS with features that make the system simpler to use, with things like better media controls and easier copy and pasting planned for the near future. But the company also wants to make Chromebooks better at things you might not notice right away, especially when you work from home. One of these upcoming improvements is microphone noise cancellation, which could enhance the audio quality of your video conferences drastically — if you have compatible hardware, that is.
Google Meet (formerly Hangouts Meet) has become an essential tool for workplaces and schools across the world, following the rise of COVID-related lockdowns and work-from-home measures. Google has been rapidly adding features over the past few months, and the latest improvement is noise cancellation on mobile platforms.
Anker's Soundcore Life 2 ANC headphones are just $40 on Newegg
Excellent value for money and a great partner to work in peace during lockdown
Noise-canceling headphones are gaining in popularity during lockdown, as they isolate from unwanted noise and help remain focused on work. Sadly, many of these cost at least $150, which can be too steep for most people, especially if they seldom need to use them. Thankfully, Anker's Soundcore Life 2 headphones are currently available for just $40, making them very affordable and a smart purchase given the current context.
Google Meet gets new low-light mode and Chrome tab presentations, noise cancellation coming soon
Making the quality of at-home work meetings a bit more tolerable
Google has already given us a new, tiled, Zoom-inspired layout in Meet that makes it a little easier to view everyone in a packed call, but that was only the start for the company's G Suite video conferencing service. It's also rolled out three other highly requested features: An AI-enhanced low-light mode, tab-focused presentation mode, and a noise cancellation feature. Together, these changes might make Meet your first choice over other options the next time you need to do a work meeting from home.
Black Friday is still a few weeks away, but that's not stopping companies from starting their deals early on, very early on. We're not complaining, though, as competition means we get to see some fantastic discounts such as today's deal on the Sony WH1000XM3 over-ear headphones: they're down to 8 on Amazon, a full $122 off.Sony's cans are amongst the best over-ear noise cancelling headphones on the market right now. Great tunable sound, efficient noise cancellation, comfort, 30 hours of battery life plus USB-C charging, Google Assistant integration, and a sleek design made our own Richard love them and recommend them when he reviewed them. What he didn't like were the touch controls and the high $350 price, the latter of which is easily mitigated by this 35% discount.
When it comes to over-ear headphones with active noise cancellation, Sony's WH-1000XM3 are probably the best in class, but the Japanese tech giant hasn't yet wowed us with an equally impressive pair of true wireless earbuds. That could be set to change, however, with the introduction of the (also obtusely named) WF-1000XM3, coming next month for $230/£220/€250.
Sony announced the MDR-XB950B1 andMDR-XB950N1 over-ear Bluetooth headphones earlier this year at CES with plenty of cool features like Noise cancelation (N1 model), surround sound, very powerful bass, Bluetooth and NFC, and excellent battery life. At the time, Sony said that you could control these with the Headphones Connect app and now that app is available on the Play Store.