Basically every aspect of cellphones has improved astonishingly in the past few years, except for the actual phone call part. Cypher, a brand-new startup, has some tricky software it says can fix our muddied mobile conversations. In a short live demo in NYC, it sure seemed up to the task.

King's College Dental Institute's Professor Brian Millar thinks that his invention—a noise cancellation device that eliminates the unnerving sound of dental drills—will make people not fear the dentist. Really, Professor Brian Millar? Really?

Aliph's just gone and improved the second-generation Jawbone Bluetooth headset in both the sound quality and the looks department.

The Gadget: A Bluetooth noise canceling headset from nXZEN, a company whose strange fascination with the letters N and X belie the quality, size and performance of their headsets.

Today JVC introduced a pair of noise-canceling headphones that are said to lock out up to 85% of background noise, thanks to circuitry that "constantly monitors the noise cancellation process." It's also got a "double housing," better for physically insulating your ears from the world's more audible hustle and bustle.

If the official iPhone Bluetooth headset is $129, what would you expect it to have? More than just auto-pairing via the dock, right? Well, a reader just told us he called up Apple support and asked them whether the headset supports noise cancellation. They said no. Not only that, they recommended that he buy a Jawbone…

Sony has updated its noise-canceling headphones, claiming that its MDR-NC60 cans can cancel noise about 20% better than their MDR-NC50 predecessors. They've got some pretty good numbers associated with them, including a claim of 14Hz - 24kHz frequency response and noise reduction of 16.5db at 200Hz. That's a 1:6…