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| Big Jambox Pumps Out Awesome, Ear-Splitting Audio [REVIEW] | |  Ever since Jawbone introduced the first Jambox wireless speaker, people have wondered when they would introduce a larger model -- one that could pick up with audio where the diminutive Jambox leaves off. Jawbone heard that steady drumbeat and has answered with the pricey, but extremely effective Big Jambox Bluetooth wireless speaker. Why would you need a larger Jambox? To be honest, I wasn't sure either. I own the original Jambox and love it. It fills my office with music or the most recent NPR audio cast. It's small enough to fit neatly into my backpack and travel to and from work. It handles calls as well as it does audio, announcing when I have an incoming call and letting me conduct it through the device's build-in speaker phone. I always thought the sound was pretty big for such a small device. That was before I heard the Big Jambox ($299). The Velveeta Cheese-sized wireless audio system is at least four times larger than the original Jambox and can fill not just a whole house with audio, but might be capable of pumping sound to a whole block. It can get LOUD. No, it's not distorted, crackling sound, This is just sharp, sometimes bassy, clear audio that handles everything from Lady Gaga and The Beatles to Frank Sinatra without making anything sound muddled or tinny. The Big Jambox is not an exact over-sized replica of the original Jambox. The metal skin has a new, puckered pattern. Instead of rubber on the top and bottom, the sides are rubberized and the Big Jambox has eight stabilizing rubber feet on the bottom. No matter how loud I played the speaker, it never jumped around. Jawbone also did some subtle, but smart button redesigns. Power is now, thankfully, just a push button (the sliding power button on the original Jambox is one of my least favorite parts of that device). The top has six large buttons (tiny Jambox has three): volume up and down, previous and next song, a play/pause button and a speakerphone talk button. The side has, in addition to the power button, a dedicated Bluetooth pairing button that can also be used to switch between paired devices (yes, you can pair two devices at once). That side also includes a power jack, USB-in, audio-in and the DC charging port. At 2.7 lbs. the Big Jambox is relatively lightweight, certainly lighter than traditional boom boxes and some docking stations. It doesn't have a handle, but the body is easy to grip and pick up. More than once I carried it indoors and out with one hand and never felt like I was going to drop it. Jawbone is also selling a nice carrying case (which will hold the speaker and AC power system ) for $49 Inside the red speaker (it also comes in black and white) is an air-tight enclosure, proprietary active drivers, multi-band compressor, a DSP and dual-pass audio processing. The Big Jambox also has an omnidirectional mic on top for full-duplex speakerphone functionality. Setting up the Big Jambox was easy enough. When you turn it on, it automatically goes into pairing mode. My iPhone 4 found it and soon I was playing music though it. Pairing took a slight bit longer with older iOS devices like the iPad 1 and my son's iPod touch. I tested the Big Jambox in variety of scenarios: pairing with an iPhone, iPod and iPad, switching between two devices connected at once using the pairing button and I played video and games on my iPad, while the audio boomed out of the Big Jambox. In the case of Real Racing HD the Big Jambox filled my home with screeching tires and a racing-inspired soundtrack, until my wife begged me to turn it down. One of my favorite experiments was using the Big Jambox in place of my HDTVs built-in speakers (since my TV's don't have Bluetooth, I used the audio-in jack). In those instances, the Big Jambox produced audio that was louder and clearer than either one of my Sony TVs (one is a thin LED, the other LCD). The two sets are both pretty new, but have never offered sound worth writing home about. Movies and TV shows both sounded excellent. Really, I wonder why everyone isn't using an external audio device like the Jambox for all of their devices. What do our tablets, computers, smartphones and TVs have in common? They're all getting thinner and thinner. This makes them lighter and sexier than ever. But that svelte form leaves no room for decent speakers. There's also the issue, at least on portable devices, of where the speakers are. How many times have you noticed that your hands are covering the speakers on your iPhone or iPad? While it took just a couple of hours to charge the Big Jambox, It played reliably all weekend long at my house and, according to Jawbone, can go 15 hours on a charge. Bluetooth connectivity was great, by the way, as long as I stayed within 25 feet-or-so of the device and did not, say, put a floor between my iPhone 4 and the Big Jambox. Jawbone says it should work at distances up to about 33 feet. Like the Jambox before it, Big Jambox supports Jawbone's LiveAudio 3D audio technology (early Jamboxes can get it with a software update). Jawbone executives played some fairly impressive live audio demos for me that made audio sound like it was coming from all around the room. However, any time I tried LiveAudio at home with virtually any audio source, I was less than impressed. It invariably deadened the vocals in favor of the background sounds and backup singers. Thankfully, it's easy to enable and disable this feature: You just hold down the volume up and down buttons until the Big Jambox announces that the feature is on or off. Big Jambox is, in general, always like that: ready to tell you when it's pairing, when it's paired, when a call's coming in and when you need to plug it in. It just makes Big Jambox that much easier to use. When you can buy an iPad 2 for $399 or an Android smartphone for $99, $299 may seem like a lot to spend for a Bluetooth speaker system. On the other hand, there aren't a lot of speakers that look or work like the Big Jambox. It charges and plays for days, and needs no annoying batteries. It's got a great form factor, brilliant design and truly excellent sound quality that will fill the biggest room. I know my family was sorry to see it go and I bet Jawbone, which has already sold millions of original Jamboxes (Jawbone said it was the number one-selling speaker in US last year), has another audio hit on its hands. Big Jambox goes on preorder today and should arrive in stores on May 15. Check out the gallery and then let me know in the comments if you're ready to pony up for a powerful and portable new Bluetooth boom box. |
| BlackBerry Music Gateway: Streaming So Simple Your Grandma Could Do It | | Monday, April 30, 2012 11:49 PM | Pete Pachal |
|  To kick off the annual BlackBerry World trade show, Research In Motion unveiled a gadget, the BlackBerry Music Gateway, that bridges your phone with your stereo. Just pair your BlackBerry (or competing handset) via Bluetooth, and you'll be quickly streaming music to whatever audio system it's connected to. Wait, pairing? Isn't that why Bluetooth streaming hasn't really taken off? Actually, it's more complicated than that, but never fear: RIM has made the pairing simple by using yet another wireless technology: near-field communication (NFC). Although NFC gets a lot of headlines for its application in mobile payments, it actually has a lot of other uses, insanely easy Bluetooth pairing being one of them. Just hold up your NFC-equipped BlackBerry to the Gateway, and -- Bam! -- you're connected. Other Bluetooth phones can stream to the Gateway, but the NFC pairing is apparently BlackBerry-only. SEE ALSO: RIM's Secret Weapon for Reviving BlackBerry: HTML5 RIM is far from the first to come out with a wireless music adapter, but few Bluetooth products so far have the NFC-pairing feature (Parrot's Zik headphones, which we caught a glimpse of at CES, are another). The gadget is very small, about the size of a case of dental floss, so it should be easily tucked out of sight somewhere near your stereo. It connects to a stereo either via RCA connectors or a 3.5mm minijack, getting power via USB, letting it transition from home to car fairly easily. The BlackBerry Music Gateway goes on sale in June for $49.99. How do you like RIM's new gadget -- particularly the NFC-pairing ability? Have your say in the comments. |
| How You Could Build a Hit iPhone App Without Learning to Code [VIDEO] | | Monday, April 30, 2012 9:54 PM | Sam Laird |
|  So you've got a great idea for an iPhone app. It's fresh, it's useful and no one's ever done it before. Except there's just one major hitch -- you can't write a line of code to save your life. But coding illiteracy could soon become less of an issue for wannabe iOS app developers if a startup called RadicalFlow achieves its mission. The company says it needs $75,000 to make the vision real for everyone and is taking to Kickstarter to raise funding. With donations open until May 26, RadicalFlow had raised about $3,500 at time of writing. RadicalFlow is a web-based HTML5 tool. "Think of it like opening Photoshop or Powerpoint with a blank slate ready for your creative input," reads a portion of the company's Kickstarter pitch. You design the interface, add buttons and create interaction, while RadicalFlow handles the backend heavy lifting. Then, once you've built your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch app, the company touts an added bonus -- a platform to publish your product without having to obtain an Apple developers account. The Brooklyn-based company says meeting its funding goal will help fill out its development and design team, pay for server costs and legal fees, and support a marketing and promotional push. It also plans to add porting ability to Android devices in the near future. But you don't need to be a coding noob to benefit from RadicalFlow. Advanced features will enhance what you can alredy do on your own, according to the company's Kickstarter pitch. A desire to make app-building easier for coders and non-coders alike is actually how RadicalFlow was born. The tool was founded by a trio of longtime iOS app makers who write that "all of the work related to RadicalFlow comes out of our need to create tools that would make our lives easier, both on the design and development side." Do you think RadicalFlow is a cool idea? Will you contribute to its Kickstarter campaign? Check out its full video pitch below and let us know in the comments. Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, akinbostanci |
| Instagram Passes 50 Million Users, Adds 5 Million a Week | | Monday, April 30, 2012 9:09 PM | Chris Taylor |
|  So maybe that $1 billion it cost Facebook to buy Instagram was a bargain after all. The photo-sharing app is on fire. It now has more than 50 million users -- and is adding new ones at the rate of roughly 5 million per week, according to its API. Instagram hit 40 million users around April 13, and 30 million at the start of the month (no April Fooling). This is astonishing growth for an app that started 2012 with just 15 million users. Of course, the fact that the app was recently released for Android -- after being iPhone-only for its first two years -- is likely driving a lot of those sign-ups. But Instagram also hit number one in the iOS App store for the first time in the wake of the Facebook acquisition. Google doesn't break out exactly how many Android downloads an app gets on its Google Play page. But Instagram did cross the 10 million download threshold two days ago, so it's a safe bet that roughly 40 million of those users are on the iPhone. In other words, iPhone and Android have divided Instagram sign-ups fairly equally since it became available for both platforms. (So much for Apple executive Phil Schiller's claim that the app had "jumped the shark.") And who is Instagram user number 50 million? According to Gramfeed, it's a user named fox289. All we know about the user is drawn from his or her profile picture: an FC Barcelona soccer shirt. Just how many accounts are like fox289 -- with no photos posted, no users followed -- is something Facebook will be very interested in. Thanks to alert Mashable reader and web developer Rakshith Krishnappa for the tip. Where does Instagram go from here? How big can it get? Let us know in the comments. |
| KegDroid Android Serves Beer With a Google+ Login [VIDEO] | | Monday, April 30, 2012 5:31 PM | Emily Price |
|  Need a beer? Want to show your love for Google's Android operating system at the same time? Then look no further than KegDroid. Named Betsy, this kegerator features a touchscreen for selecting your drink of choice, and two taps as arms for dispensing your order. KegDroid was created by Google employee Paul Carff, who has been homebrewing his own beers since 1991. The pint-sized Android dispenses pints of beer using an Android tablet -specifically, a Motorola Xoom -- as its controls. The tablet is running the latest version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, and protects brews from unauthorized drinkers; it has to be authenticated before Betsy starts pouring. In order to authenticate the KegDroid you have to have a badge. Google is using NFC badges, however, Carff says you could also implement an RFID badge in the system. An NFC reader is built into the KegDroid's stand. Once it reads your badge, the application authenticates your access to Betsy's wares. Once you're authenticated, Betsy will grab your name and photo from your Google+ page. Then you select what beer you would like to drink -- Betsy offers two options-- as well as whether you would like a 1oz, 8oz, or 12oz pour of your brew of choice. The application also keeps track of how cold the keg is, and how fast a beer is pouring from the keg once selected. Would you want your own KegDroid in your office? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. |
| Dell Upgrades High-End Gaming Laptops With Faster Graphics, Ivy Bridge | | Monday, April 30, 2012 5:16 PM | Samantha Murphy |
|  Dell has announced a series of upgrades to its Alienware gaming laptops, including Intel's new quad-core processors and powerful graphics cards unavailable in any other device. The company updated its lineup of high-end gaming laptops for Alienware's M14x, M17x and M18x models Monday. The devices will now tout the new Intel third-generation Ivy Bridge processors, as well as the latest graphic cards from Nvidia and AMD to bring improved visuals to the gaming experience. The laptops also come with Bluetooth 4.0, Blu-ray disc drive, HDMI 1.4 capabilities and USB 3.0 for fast data transfer. SEE ALSO: Dell Expected to Reveal Tablet in Late 2012/a> The M14x model boasts a 14-inch high-definition display and is the most mobile of the three. Meanwhile, the M17x and M18x models bring gaming power with AMD Radeon HD 7970M graphics card and GDDR5 Nvidia GeForce GT 660M and 675M graphics solutions. In addition, theM17x is the only laptop in the series that comes with an optional 3D display. Dell also announced a partnership with EA and the popular game Battlefield 3, so users can control certain aspects of the game while playing on an Alienware device. For example, accessing the Alienware control center on the laptop will allow users to personalize the experience by adjusting lighting colors and effects settings. The laptop becomes an extension of the game. When a player is in full health, the keyboard will glow white. When a player in the game is dying, it will pulsate red. A spokesperson told Mashable that Dell aims to roll out these capabilities to more EA games in the future. Alienware M14x, M17x and M18x are available now on Dell.com and Alienware.com with prices starting at M14x, $1,499 for the M17x, and $1,999 for the M18x. Would you buy a laptop specifically for gaming? Do you see this as a growth area? Let us know in the comments. Bonus: 10 Indie Games Worth the Cash |
| Google's Data Collection From Wi-Fi Networks Wasn't Accidental After All | | Monday, April 30, 2012 4:09 PM | Geekosystem |
|  Google has released a report that explains how and why the company's street view cars collected data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks. A few weeks ago, the Federal Communication Commission announced that it had concluded its investigation into Google's interception of user data from the Wi-Fi networks its cars passed while photographing streets. Google's report gives some more insight into this curious case. It is currently available on Scribd, for those interested in reading it. Until this point, it had seemed that Google's interception of data was purely accidental. That appears now to be only half true. According to the L.A. Times: The report points the finger at a rogue engineer who, it says, intentionally wrote software code that captured payload data information — communication over the Internet including emails, passwords and search history — from unprotected wireless networks, going beyond what Google says it intended. The engineer invoked his 5th Amendment right and declined to speak to the FCC. After the code was written, it somehow escaped being noticed by anyone involved with the project. Coworkers missed it during code reviewers, and managers missed memos discussing the utility of intercepted data. Whether or not you believe this perfect storm of lapses in oversight depends, I suppose, on how much you trust Google. What may have helped the code go unnoticed was Google's policy of allowing employees to work on projects that interest them in their free time. The engineer who wrote the data-intercepting code was apparently working on it as a side project, and he was not required to get permission from the street view team before modifying the code. One wonders how long that policy will remain sacrosanct. Though it shielded Google in this case, it also portrays the company as being ignorant of its own products. You may be wondering what value the intercepted data could possibly have to Google. Again, from the L.A. Times: On at least one occasion, the report says, the engineer reviewed the data to identify frequently visited websites. He thought it might be helpful in determining how much people were using Google search, so he asked a member of Google's search quality team who told him "it had no use or value," the report says. When he determined it had no value, he abandoned the idea. After that, it seems the code remained on the cars -- presumably because no one thought to remove it. These apparent "communication failures" within Google aside, you might believe that the search giant was being noble when it turned away the intercepted data. But let's look at the dates. The code was implemented on cars in 2006. Two years later, Google announced its super-fast Chrome web browser. While it's certain that the information picked up by the street view cars did offer little value to Google, part of the reason might have been that the search giant had already come up with a far better (and far less creepy) way to gather information about how users were surfing the net: A web browser. Though the FCC wound up merely fining Google for obstruction of justice, its reason for not prosecuting the company was simply because there was no precedent. There are, it implies, simply no laws against what Google did. Sometimes it seems like Google's "don't be evil" policy is more along the lines of "don't be evil within the narrowly defined parameters of the law." |
| Growing Up Google: How Cloud Computing Is Changing a Generation | | Monday, April 30, 2012 2:45 PM | David Politis |
|  David Politis is the founder and CEO of BetterCloud, the leading provider of Google Apps extensions that create security and management. Follow David @DavePolitis. A few weeks ago, a school administrator shared a story about how he tried to block Google's chat feature, but his students created a workaround. They opened up a new Google Doc, shared it with friends, and used the sidebar chat to talk with each other. Although the behavior was worrisome to the administrator, it was hard not to be impressed at how cleverly these 7th graders interacted with the software. These students literally grew up on Google's products, and that's largely thanks to Google. SEE ALSO: How Google+ Can Succeed at Business Without Really Trying Google's foray into enterprise computing began nearly six years ago with the launch of Apps for Your Domain, today's Google Apps. Google offered the product for free to businesses, government agencies, and educational institutions. The practice is still in place for schools worldwide. Now, we know Google isn't necessarily evil, but is the company really that benevolent? After all, Google's free Apps for Education program appears to have had a rather interesting result: it's turning kids into loyal, long-term users. With dwindling budgets, it's no wonder more and more schools are retiring costly on-premises hardware and making the move to Google. Today's young digital natives and their teachers are certainly embracing this modern technology. In fact, one educator required kindergarteners type their name into a Google Doc every morning in lieu of traditional roll call. With kids as young as five and six immersed in Google's product suite, which provider do you think they'll choose when creating personal email accounts later on in life? To some degree, this is already happening. Nearly half of Gmail's overall user base is under 25, a statistic mirrored by the student bodies of American colleges and universities. Of the nation's top 100 universities 66 have already gone Google. According to Northwestern, one of the first universities to make this move, students actually requested that the school implement the platform. A majority of students were already forwarding email to Gmail. Recently, the University of Pennsylvania's School of Arts and Sciences also announced a Google Apps roll out slated for this summer. The school's director of student technology listed heavy mail forwarding as just one of the reasons for switching, with more than 50% of students forwarding emails from the current school mandated Hotmail platform to personal Gmail accounts. And finally, while Princeton University's administration may still be deciding between Google Apps and Microsoft's Office 365, the student body has already made up its mind. In a survey of 150 students piloting the two options, only two preferred Office 365 products. As these early adopters enter the workforce, it will become difficult for companies to justify sticking with legacy messaging systems. These users may also end up impacting specific areas, like mobile. Today's youth are so attached to the Internet that two out of three list their mobile device as their most important technology appliance. Google claims 43% of the smartphone market and also happens to be the only operating system that supports mobile versions of Google Apps products. Mobility is second only to social. That why Google+ essentially serves as the social layer on top of all Google products, enterprise included. What does this all mean? Only that growing up Google should not be considered a trend, because if Google has anything to do with it, it will be the norm. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Skynesher |
| Folding Smartphone Charger Saves Space, Prevents Damage [REVIEW] | | Monday, April 30, 2012 1:55 PM | Amy-Mae Elliott |
|  Product: The Mu Folding USB Adapter Price: £25 (approx. $40) What It's Good For: Slimline smartphone charging. Who It's Good For: Anyone who wants a compact charging solution on the go. Bottom Line: The Mu improves the traditional British plug with its innovative folding design. A Look at The Mu After its clever concept product design went viral, UK firm Made in Mind brought an altered version of the product to the British market. In 2009, designer Min-Kyu Choi's YouTube video (embedded above) showed a cunning concept that dramatically reduced the size and bulk of the British plug. Choi's vision hit a chord with consumers, and was quickly shared online, covered by tech blogs around the world, and went on to win design awards. Choi explains how the design came about. "I was frustrated by the dimensions of the traditional plug, and felt that the existing unit, which dates back to 1947, was out of touch and incongruous with modern design. My idea was very simple -- redesign the plug to bring it in line with the clean look and feel of today's technology, without compromising functionality." While a laptop charger is still in the works, the Mu, a folding USB adapter for smartphones, is now available for purchase in the British Isles. A small, white device, the Mu folds out to reveal three prongs, two of which swivel to take the traditional plug shape, ready to charge your USB-powered smartphone. When folded down, the Mu is compact and (crucially) safe to chuck in your bag, without fear of the prongs damaging your kit. At £25, the Mu is a pricey alternative to an iPhone USB plug (OEM versions can be picked up for a couple of pounds), but it is a price many design aficionados and digital nomads will be happy to pay. And if its fold-down design prevents the pain of stepping on an upended plug even once, it's priceless. |
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