Hasta La Gadget!

Have you played Dr. Mario on the Game Boy before? There is just something about the Beats Pill portable wireless speaker’s design that brings me back to the monochrome goodness of the Dr. Mario puzzler, which makes sense considering the naming convention of the Beats Pill itself. It will definitely lend a new meaning to the word “take a chill pill” as you relax and soothe the day’s woes by listening to your favorite music. The Beats Pill will be accompanied by built-in patented Beats Audio, hoping to cement their position in the upmarket audio equipment market for the masses.

The Beats Pill clearly believes in the mantra that “sound is king”, where the placement of the drivers to the materials of the grill have all been carefully orchestrated and optimized in order to deliver the best sound quality possible while maximizing volume. Not only that, the Beats Pill has the distinction of being the first product to be fully integrated with the company’s patented Beats Audio algorithm, while delivering exclusive speaker modules so that one can enjoy the highest quality portable listening experience. It carries up to 7 hours of continuous play on a full charge, and boasts of auto shut-off after 30 minutes of no signal detection so that battery life is prolonged.

Interested parties can pick up the Beats Pill in black, white and red shades, although other color options are on their way, all for $199 a pop. [Press Release]

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: This 6-foot subwoofer can output some serious bass, Parrot Zikmu Solo coming to U.S. in November for $999,

When you come across a name as unique as the “Unmonday 4.3L”, what comes into your mind? It does sound like the engine capacity of a vehicle, does it not? Well, the Unmonday 4.3L is nowhere near to having four wheels and being a people mover. Heck, it does not even come with a single wheel, although that does not detract from its claims of being the “first-ever portable Dolby Surround, expandable, independent, ceramic airplay speaker” which has launched as a Kickstarter project.

Basically, the Unmonday 4.3L lets you construct a Mono, Stereo or Dolby surround sound system using up to five hexagonal speakers. You need not deal with transmitters, audio wires or separate controllers, as it is as simple as rolling it to change the audio channel, now how about that? It is 22 days shy of achieving its funding target, and something tells me that there will be enough backers at the end of three more weeks to see it through. What do you think after watching a video of the Unmonday 4.3L above?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Beats Pill portable wireless speaker, Xbox Music announced by Microsoft, Apple iTunes and Amazon Cloud Player to watch out?,

It’s official. Aside from letting loose its first set of headphones post-Monster for the Executive types, Beats Electronics has set its sights on nabbing the portable Bluetooth audio crown from Jawbone’s Jambox. You’ll recall this hitting the FCC a bit ago, but today the Dr. is officially ready to offer you it’s remedy for on-the-go wireless audio with its $200 Pill, an NFC-equipped portable Bluetooth 2.1 speaker. Coming in your choice red, black or white, the cylindrical system is loaded with a quartet of 1-inch drivers, and supports codecs including Apt-X and AAC. An internal battery is said to provide about seven hours of listening at around 75-percent volume (80 decibels), and the unit can be charged via its Micro-USB input. Notably, an auto-off feature turns the unit off after 30 minutes if no audio is streamed to it. As you’d expect, the Pill features a front-facing on-board mic for use as a speakerphone, physical volume buttons and power button, as well as a 3.5mm input if you’d like to play sans Bluetooth. We’re also pleased to notice that the diminutive system also features a 3.5 output if you’d like to send the audio out to another audio ware. The Pill comes with a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable, a USB to Micro-USB cable for charging with an included wall adapter and, lastly, a carrying shell case that can be hooked to a bag.

We’ve been able to spend about an hour with the system, and we’re frankly come away very impressed. The unit feels very sturdy, with a stiff metal grill and soft-touch coating around the rest of its exterior. It feels very comfortable to hold in a hand, and will easily fit in a jacket pocket. Actually, one of our only initial complaints is that the included carrying shell doesn’t leave any room for the included cables. All of the buttons have a soft, slightly clicky tactility, which also aids to its premium feel.

Using it initially alongside one of Beats’ on-hand Jamboxes in a wired A/B comparison, the Jambox came out sounding like a distorted, rumbling mess up against the pill — we even had a rep bring out a second unit confirm that it wasn’t a dud. If that wasn’t enough, the Pill also manged to get much louder, staying fairly clean (in comparison), and without rumbling on the table as the Jambox did very slightly. As a triple-check measure, we later came up with a similar outcome with our in house unit of Logitech’s $99 UE mobile boombox — a speaker we find comparable in sound, if slightly better, than the Jambox. In what could be viewed as slightly ironic, the Pill has a voicing that edges toward the flatter side of things, rather than pumping out exorbitant amounts of bass. It’s not to say that it can’t reproduce bass at all, it’s just not the focus here. This flatter output seems to be a big part of what keeps it from distorting, but we should be clear, that the audio here is many times better still on the Pill. Pleasantly, the speakers are also angled up slightly, which makes makes for a noticeably more natural listening experience. Our only other concern for the time being is that the Bluetooth connection with our iPhone 5 did crackle occasionally like a vinyl record, but it’s too earlier to say if the issue will be consistent during future use. We’re still a ways off from being able to definitively give you a thumbs up on the Pill, but — at least, initially, it seems like it’s easily blowing the Jambox and similar speakers out of the water Like the Executive headphones, the Pill is available today at Beats stores and other retailers — check out our video hands-on after the break for a better look.

Continue reading Beats by Dre Pill portable Bluetooth speaker officially drops, we take one per the Dr. and go ears-on

Filed under: Misc, Peripherals, Portable Audio/Video

Beats by Dre Pill portable Bluetooth speaker officially drops, we take one per the Dr. and go ears-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Oct 2012 11:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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JBL has announced that it is now shipping its OnBeat Venue wireless loudspeaker designed for the Apple iPad. The wireless speaker dock is designed to turn the iPad into an entertainment system and features full-range drivers and a JBL Slipstream port technology. The Slipstream port technology is designed to improve bass performance.

JBL says that the OnBeat Venue is powerful enough to be used as the home’s primary audio system. The device is available in multiple colors, including black, white, and white/red. While the device is designed primarily for the iPad, it also supports the iPhone and iPod. The speaker features TrueStream wireless streaming technology for high-quality sound via Bluetooth.

The speaker dock is capable of connecting the eight Bluetooth devices and supports any Bluetooth device, including Android and others. The speaker dock pairs with a free downloadable app called MusicFlow. The app allows users to create custom playlists, edit mixes, adjust volume and EQ settings, and view album artwork.

The speaker dock also has an auxiliary input jack for connecting to just about any other audio device computer out there. An available component video cable allows the OnBeat Venue to be connected to a TV. The speaker dock measures 16-inches long and five-inches in diameter and is available in Europe now for £159.99.

JBL OnBeat Venue for iPad ships in the UK is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

You could say that the advent of the MP3 format as well as Apple’s slick marketing (coupled with decent hardware, of course) of the iPod certainly fueled the boom of digital music, while signaling the death knell for the cassette Walkman and eventually, CD-toting Discman. Microsoft must have seen Apple’s iTunes and Amazon’s Cloud Player to be a viable business to be in, hence they have announced a potential heavyweight in the department, calling their service the Xbox Music which will be available for their Xbox consoles from tomorrow onwards.

The Xbox Music service will be expanded to Windows-powered computers and tablets in due time, including the Windows 8 and Windows RT versions of the upcoming Surface tablet when October 26th rolls around to coincide with the Windows 8 operating system launch. Not only that, smartphones (definitely the ones running on Windows Phone 8) will also be getting the Xbox Music service as well. With Xbox users spending up to 60% of their time on entertainment services on the Xbox 360 console, Microsoft figured out that this is a good time to enter the fray with Xbox Music, which will continue where the ill-fated Zune service failed to take off. Microsoft will make Xbox Music available in 22 countries first, and hopes to deliver the service to iOS and Android-powered devices from 2013 onwards. [Press Release]

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