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Wi-Fi Pearl to be Found in Oyster Speakers?

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Australia based start up Avega Systems today unveiled what they are calling the world’s first Wi-Fi based speaker system. The company hopes to have their new Oyster 802.11 networked loudspeakers into production by the end of the first quarter of this year.

The Oyster speaker system, said Avega Systems, “provides wireless access to music stored on a home PC or media server…by integrating 802.11 connectivity, surround decoding, audio signal processing and power amplification directly into a speaker.” If a wireless network exists in the home, the speaker becomes recognized as a network device. If there is no wireless network, the speakers can create one amongst them and properly handle the audio needs of diverse products such as an iPod or DVD player.

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A graphical, Wi-Fi remote is used to control the speakers as well as browsing of media.

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“Our technology overcomes key technical challenges associated with the networking of loudspeakers based on 802.11 and TCP/IP, including speaker synchronization,reliability of data transmission, lip-sync, and interoperability,” said Peter Celinski,VP of Product Development for Avega Systems. “The technology is aimed at the networked entertainment device segment of the global consumer electronics (CE) market, currently worth US$3.9 billion and expected to grow to US$16.1 billion by 2009 in the USA alone, according to InStat research. The Oyster product fills the Wi-Fi speaker niche, and will be offered at an astonishing price point given the unprecedented benefits which the system offers. This really is audiophile audio over Wi-Fi for the masses.”

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