Blocking Out Background Noise

Everybody knows what one consumer-tech product is going to snag all the headlines this summer: the iPhone. I’m perfectly happy to admit that I’m looking forward to writing this review. It’s looming over my calendar like Colossus.
But otherwise, summer is a slow time in my biz. Everybody’s holding off their big announcements for September, when there’s so much new stuff, I could easily write a column a day.
So for today’s column in The Times, I reviewed noise-canceling headphones. It’s not a new category, but it’s a topic I’ve wanted to cover for years, and had never had a moment. The summer lull seemed a perfect opportunity. Surely, I thought, readers would forgive this one less-than-heart-pounding column.

Holy cow, was I mistaken — about the heart-pounding business, I mean. No sooner had the column appeared last night on the Web than my e-mail box began to fill up. Evidently, noise-canceling headphones are VERY exciting to a lot of people! Read more …