Get ready for an explosion of Alexa-powered headphones

Get ready for the Alexa headphone explosion.

Up till now, there haven’t been too many headphones that integrate Amazon Alexa. There are certainly some you can buy — from high-end noise-canceling cans that fit over the ears to true-wireless models — but even when Alexa is present, its abilities are limited to a subset of what it can do on an Echo smart speaker.

That’s about to change in a big wayQualcomm has developed an audio chipset specifically for headphones to integrate digital assistants like Alexa, and a reference design that incorporates the technology: a neckband-style pair of headphones lets you call up Amazon’s digital assistant at the touch of a button. Read more...