How Beats Tricks You Into Thinking It Makes a Premium Headphones

The designers behind Beats by Dre are either extremely smart or extremely sneaky. According to recent reports, Beats by Dre plastic headphones trick you into thinking they are worth the premium price.

Besides their crappy sound, they’re basically designed to break. However, they sell millions of pairs of headphones. So how do they trick millions of people into buying pieces of crap and selling it for a fortune? In part it’s marketing, and the other part is all physics.

A detailed breakdown via PopMech of a pair of Beats’ popular Solo headphones show how cheaply made the headphones really are. The company cuts corners everywhere it can; gluing pieces together instead of using screws, and reducing the amount of tooling wherever possible. For all the company’s claims about sound design and precision, the headphones use cheap products you can buy for less than $5 dollars.

But, the craziest part is that the headphones are so cheaply made that the Beats actually needs to add weight to make them feel like a premium product.

One of the great things about the solo headphones is how substantial they feel. A little bit of weight makes the product feel solid, durable, and valuable. One way to do this cheaply is to make some components out of metal in order to add weight. In these headphones, 30% of the weight comes from four tiny metal parts that are there for the sole purpose of adding weight.

On the left, all of the components that actually do something. On the right, four pieces of metal designed specifically to add weight to the product. Image courtesy of Bolt.

I had no idea that Beats by Dre headphones used this technique. Obviously, product designers use all sorts of design cues to make things look fancier than they really are, but in this case, it’s downright sneaky.

What do you think? Do you own a pair of Beats by Dre headphones? Are they overrated? Share with us your thoughts in the comments below!

Image Credit: pisaphotography / Shutterstock.com

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Comic-Con bans drones, Google Glass, selfie-sticks and E-Cigs.

With only a few days to go before San Diego Comic-Con 2015, organizers have announced new rules for attendees that deal with the threats posed by selfie-sticks, Google Glass and e-cigarettes.

Revealed in a post on Comic-Con’s official blog, Toucan, the new rules ban the use of “selfie sticks, GoPro poles, or any device that extends your camera or phone away from your hand” at Comic-Con. Similarly banned are “drones or flying devices of any kind,” including helium balloons and “any lighter than air object, either powered or unpowered.”

Inside the show, live streaming of any event and the recording of any footage shown on screen is prohibited. In itself, this isn’t a new rule, although the blog specifically points out that this rule includes Google Glass. “You cannot wear Google Glass during footage viewing in any program room,” the blog states. “If your Google Glass is prescription, please bring a different pair of glasses to use during these times.”

In addition, Comic-Con bans all use of smoking. “No smoking at Comic-Con includes traditional cigarettes, pipes, cigars, plus E-cigarettes and any vaping product or device,” the blog states.

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Playboy Model, Holly Madison has just revealed the creepy and scary details behind living with Hugh Hefner and living inside the Playboy Mansion.

Holly Sue Cullen thought living with Hugh Hefner in the Playboy mansion was her only way out of a small town in Alaska. She moved to Los Angeles to get famous. But, not long after arriving, she was spotted by a friend of Hugh Hefner’s and invited to a party at the Playboy Mansion.

She was only 22 years old, a college dropout who’d picked up extra shifts at HOoters to make ends meet. Soon she would become Holly Madison, one of the most famous Playboy models and Playmates ever to cover the face of Playboy magazine.

But, in a recent interview, Holly Madison reveals living in the Playboy mansion was hell.

Then Hef approached her, bent over and opening one hand to reveal a bunch of pills nestled in an old tissue.

“Would you like a Quaalude?” he asked.

Madison was mortified. “No thanks,” she said. “I don’t do drugs.”

“Okay, that’s good,” Hef said. “Usually I don’t approve of drugs, but you know, in the ’70s they used to call these pills ‘thigh openers.’ ”

Looking back, she writes, that was the moment she should have left, never to return: “It doesn’t get much creepier than that.” [NYPost]

On top of doing drugs, Hefner was a little bit of a Hoarder with a large collection of porn littered throughout his room.

“As Tina led me into the bedroom, “I stumbled over and weaved through massive piles of junk covering the floor,” she writes. “Ceiling-high piles of videotapes, stuffed animals, art and gifts littered the room. It was like an episode of ‘Hoarders.’ ”

But things seem to get worse, as NYPost explains Madison’s first sexual experience with Hefner in detail, Madison had no where to go and despite going through such a traumatizing experience, she decided to stick along for the ride.

Even today, the shame and regret Madison felt about that night sticks with her. “I remember feeling really s–tty about it the next day,” she says. Yet the next morning, she asked Hef if she could move into the mansion. “That might seem counterintuitive — ‘I’m not into it, but I’ll come back for more,’?” she says. “But I felt stuck in my life, trying to make ends meet. I lost the lease on my apartment. I felt like I’d already thrown myself to the wolves, so I might as well reap the rewards and not just be one more slut who walked through those doors.”

“The only thing he ever gave me is a little bit of fame,” Madison says. “Fame is not always worth it.”

Source: NYPost

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Disney Channel is known for finding young child stars and transforming them into A-List stars.

The Disney Channel discovered Shia LaBeouf, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens and more.

In a recent production by Variety, Elizabeth Wagmeister goes behind the scenes with Disney Channel’s chief of casting, Judy Taylor, and with “K.C. Undercover” stars Zendaya and Veronica Dunne, to find out how they do it.

Check it out here:

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Apple will add a camera for video chats to the next generation of its Apple Watch, according to reports.

A new report from 9to5Mac, the next version of the Apple Watch, which won’t be available until some time in 2016, will also feature better wireless technology that will make it possible to use many more apps and features over Wi-Fi.

Currently, the Apple Watch requires a nearby iPhone to send text messages, email and more. In the future, the device will be able to tap into Wi-Fi networks to do these things, even though some data-heavy features will still require a phone in order to remain connected.

However, users will still have to recharge their watch every night. Apple was looking into ways to enhance the device’s battery life, but then realized that most consumers don’t mind charging their watches daily.

This new report should be taken with a grain of salt as technology innovators over at Apple could be creating a larger list of features outside of cameras and better wifi.

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Jon Stewart delivers an eye-opening monologue about Charleston Shooting.

Jon Stewart’s monologue last night was amazing. Stewart’s response to the Charleston shooting was somber and and honest. “I didn’t do my job today,” he said. “I’ve got nothing for you in terms of jokes and sounds, because of what happened in South Carolina.”

Stewart went on to call out how common of this type of tragedy is becoming in America, pointing out that at the end of the same we always end up with the same result: nothing.

“I honestly have nothing other than sadness that once again we have to peer into the abyss of the depraved violence that we do to each other and the nexus of a just gaping racial wound that will not heal yet we pretend doesn’t exist. I’m confident though that by acknowledging it—by staring into it—we still won’t do jack shit. That’s us. And that’s the part that blows my mind…What blows my mind is the disparity of response. When we think people that are foreign are going to kill us and us killing ourselves…We invade two countries and spent trillions of dollars and lost thousands of American lives and now fly unmanned death machines over like five or six different counties, all to keep Americans safe. We’ve got to do whatever we can—we’ll torture people. We’ve got to do whatever we can to keep Americans safe. But nine people shot in a church— ‘Hey, what are you going go to do? Crazy is as crazy is, right?’ That’s the part that, for the life of me, I can’t wrap my head around. And you know it’s going to go down the same path.”

Jon Stewart then addressed the hypocrisy of South Carolina’s love for its Confederate and deeply racist history.

“Nine people were shot in a black church by a white guy who hated them who wanted to start some sort of civil war,” he said. “The confederate flag flies over South Carolina. And the roads are named for confederate generals. And the white guy is the one who feels like his country is being taken away from him. We’re bringing it on ourselves. And that’s the thing—al Qaeda, ISIS, they’re not shit compared to the damage we can do to ourselves on a regular basis.”

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Emily Kinney, Beth from The Walking Dead is not Dating Norman Reedus

Yesterday, US Magazine reported that Norman Reedus and Emily Kinney were dating based on their “sources, who were apparently fan-fiction writers who made it all up. Norman Reedus replied to this rumor by it’s a lie.

“We can confirm that they are not dating,” his rep said, according to MTV News.

That doesn’t mean that Norman Reedus isn’t dating anyone, as he took to Twitter last night after refuting rumors that he was dating Kinney to announce the arrival of a new couple.

Norman Reedus is currently working on Season 6 of ‘The Walking Dead’ while it films outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Recently, casting directors posted casting calls seeking military types and a supposed psychiatrist role for the series.

Reedus is also well known for his Prada clothing modeling in the 1990s. In addition, he has appeared in numerous films, created several videos, and modeled for various other fashion designers

Sorry to break your hearts.

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