'Most of the city is evacuating': Gridlock on Alberta highway after evacuation order in Fort McMurray
Four Fort McMurray neighbourhoods were ordered to evacuate on Tuesday as a wildfire gets closer to the city.
It can be awkward to take a phone call while you’re driving and your family is in the car with you. If you’re listening to music it turns off and everyone has to stop and listen to whatever someone on the phone wants to tell you.
Infiniti, Nissan’s luxury vehicle division, just revealed a feature in its new full-sized SUV that can allow everyone else in the vehicle to keep listening to whatever they want while the driver takes a phone call and no headphones are needed. Only the driver can hear the call and the person on the other end of the call can’t hear the music playing in the SUV.
It’s the latest trick in the increasingly competitive world of luxury car sound systems. These days, there’s almost no luxury car company that doesn’t play up its high-end audio system with brands like Burmeister in Mercedes-Benz, McIntosh in the opulent Jeep Grand Wagoneer SUV and Bang & Olufson in Bentley and Genesis cars, among others. For Klipsch, famous for its top-end hand-made speakers, this is only the brand’s second appearance in a vehicle. The US$87,000 Ram Tungsten luxury pickup has a Klipsch stereo as standard equipment but even it doesn’t have the Infiniti’s high-tech sound isolation system.
The system in the QX80, developed by Infiniti along with Panasonic Automotive and Klipsch, works through a combination of clever speaker placement and sound canceling technology. The driver and front passenger seat both have speakers mounted in the headrest. That’s not a new idea, but headrest speakers are usually found in convertibles where music, phone calls and navigation instructions have to overcome buffeting wind noise. They’re not usually found in large, quiet luxury vehicles like the Infiniti QX80.
Sound cancelling technology, in simpler forms, also isn’t new. It generally works by using speakers to create off-setting sound waves to deaden unwanted sounds. If you imagine sound waves as a line going up and down then imagine overlaying that with a second line that goes up and down in exactly opposite directions, you would end up with, essentially, a flat band. In other words, no sound.
Sound cancelling in headphones and car stereos is usually used to wash out continuous, droning background sounds like engine noise. It’s much harder with sounds like music, which changes a lot from moment to moment.
A 2025 Infiniti QX80 during the 2024 New York International Auto Show. (Gabby Jones / Bloomberg / Getty Images via CNN Newsource)
Instead of just relying on microphones to pick up sounds from the air, the optional Klipsch stereo in the 2025 QX80 reads the digital music track that’s being played – as it does to play it, anyway – and can use that to create offsetting sound waves from speakers around the driver’s seat. That creates a quiet bubble around the driver so a phone call or navigation prompts coming through the headrest speakers can be heard only by the driver while others in the vehicle can listen to music at full volume. Meanwhile, the person on the other end of the phone call won’t hear the music at all. For them, it will be just like talking to someone in a quiet room.
The redesigned QX80 won’t go on sale until next year, so I tested the system in a QX80 parked inside a building in Manhattan. A party with a live singer nearby made for a fairly noisy environment outside the SUV.
I sat in the passenger seat of the new SUV while Panasonic executive Tom Dunn took a phone call from the driver’s seat. Pop music was playing on the stereo. I could hear Dunn talking but the voice on the other end of the phone came through, at first, as just an intermittent quiet buzz. Then Dunn turned down the call volume slightly and the other voice disappeared altogether, covered up by country music.
Then I stepped out of the SUV and walked to where an Infiniti spokesman was on the phone about 20 feet away. I took his phone and talked to Dunn. I could hear Dunn talking to me but not the music that was still playing in the car.
Earlier in the demonstration, I’d already taken a call from the driver’s seat while music was playing, but I had figured that was, relatively speaking, the easy part. I had to trust Dunn, who was then in the passenger seat, to tell me he couldn’t hear the person calling me. It was much weirder to later be in the passenger seat and to not be able to hear the call. It was positively baffling to be on the phone outside and to not hear the music that I knew was playing inside the vehicle.
The call-masking feature only works if music is playing on the stereo. If there’s no music playing other people in the SUV will still have to listen to your call but it will be quieter than in most other vehicles.
And, regardless, everyone will still have to listen to the driver talking. But, if your call involves anything embarrassing, you can just make sure to always just answer “Yes” and “No” to everything. Your secrets will be safe.
Four Fort McMurray neighbourhoods were ordered to evacuate on Tuesday as a wildfire gets closer to the city.
Saskatchewan RCMP have revealed that a historic sexual assault investigation has led to the discovery of alleged crimes against children dating back to 2005.
Less than a week after two public sculptures featuring a livestream between Dublin, Ireland, and New York City debuted, 'inappropriate behaviour' in real-time interactions between people in the two cities has prompted a temporary shutdown.
The Edmonton Oilers will start Calvin Pickard in net Tuesday for Game 4 of their playoff series with the Vancouver Canucks.
Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker railed against Pride month, working women, President Biden's leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic and abortion during a commencement address at Benedictine College last weekend.
King Charles III has unveiled the first portrait of the monarch completed since he assumed the throne, a vivid image that depicts him in the bright red uniform of the Welsh Guards against a background of similar hues.
The annual list of Canada's top restaurants in the country was just released and here are the places that made the 2024 cut.
The province has released more information on its plan to break up Alberta Health Services and replace it with four sector-based health agencies.
The Biden administration has told key lawmakers it is sending a new package of more than US$1 billion in arms and ammunition to Israel, two congressional aides said Tuesday.
A team is ready to help an entangled North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
A $200 reward is being offered by a North Vancouver family for the safe return of their beloved chicken, Snowflake.
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.
YES Theatre Young Company opened its acclaimed kids’ show, One Small Step, at Sudbury Theatre Centre on Saturday.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.