Best portable Bluetooth Speakers
Take your music with you with a portable Bluetooth Speaker.
Portable Bluetooth speakers are one of the best ways to take those awesome audio waves with you everywhere. Compatible with virtually any Bluetooth-enabled device, Bluetooth speakers will make sure that, as long as your phone, tablet, or laptop is around, your music is loud!
We’ve rounded up some of the best portable Bluetooth speakers that you can take with you just about anywhere!
- Sony SRS-X55
- Bose Soundlink III
- UE Boom 2
- Creative Sound Blaster Roar 2
- Marshall Kilburn
Sony SRS-X55
Sony has a whole line of Bluetooth speakers that vary in size, but, if we are talking about the best portable speakers, it would be a shame to forget about the SRS-X55.
Let’s get to the most important part of any speaker: the sound quality. It works on a 2.1 channel system, meaning it has a dedicated driver for bass to deliver a great low-end without muddling the rest of the sound at all, which, from this 2.5 pound machine, is impressive to say the least.
Sony clearly had functionality on the brain when designing the SRS-X55. Not only does it work with Bluetooth, but it also has NFC compatibility and a standard 3.5 millimeter jack, so you should have no problem getting all your favorites devices to play through it. On top of what you can plug into it, Sony has also thrown in a USB port for charging your phone or tablet on the go, making the SRS-X55 one of the most versatile Bluetooth speakers in its class.
Top this all off with 10 hours of playing time and you have a portable Bluetooth speaker that keeps pumping out the jams well into the night!
See at Amazon
Bose Soundlink III
Bose has always focused on sound quality before anything, and that mantra continues with the Bose Soundlink III. Whether you are listening to your music directly from your phone or tablet via the AUX input or you’re wireless playing via Bluetooth, the sound quality is truly impeccable. And, at only 2 pounds, the Soundlink III feels very light for its size, so it’s not a pain to lug around in any way.
Although the Soundlink III doesn’t have the ability to charge via Micro-USB and lacks some more fancy features you may see in other portable Bluetooth speakers, the sheer performance with regard to sound quality is practically unmatched. The bass that pumps out of this small speaker is incredible, and we mean that wholeheartedly. The low-end sounds always sound warm and full even at high volumes which can typically be a problem for speakers this size. Also, if you love blasting your music as loud as possible, the Soundlink III delivers in spades, perfect for keeping the party bumping!
This speaker is perfect for audio-junkies who want a simple great sounding speaker.
See at Amazon
UE Boom 2
Living up to it’s onomatopoeic name, the UE Boom 2 is impressive, offering 360 degree sound in a truly portable package.
The Boom 2 has a very high water-resistant rating, allowing it to be submerged in 3 feet of water for 30 minutes and come out just fine. It’s also protected against dirt and mud, but you can hand-wash the speaker with warm, soapy water just in case it gets messy.
UE Boom 2’s battery will last you approximately 15 hours of playing time and has a Bluetooth range of 100 feet, giving you more than enough time and space to enjoy all the sounds you want to hear. Plus, if you find yourself lacking the volume you want from just one UE Boom 2, you have the option to set up another one to make a stereo pair and really raise the roof.
The UE Boom also has the added pleasure of a controller app that can you can use to skip songs, adjust volume, and pause music, without having to touch the speaker at all.
See at Amazon
Creative Sound Blaster Roar 2
The Creative Sound Blast Roar 2 has five drivers in total: three top-end drivers that deliver a great room-filling sound and two passive bass radiators so you can see, hear, and even feel the low end. Plus, you can play all your favorite music through the Sound Blaster Roar 2 four different ways! With Bluetooth and NFC compatibility, USB and AUX ports, and even a MicroSD card slot, Creative’s speaker is virtually omni-compatible.
Creative went out of its way to really make this the speaker that can do everything you need it to. Want that great sounding bass at low volumes? Tap the Roar button once. Need to turn it up as loud as it can possibly go? Pressing the Roar button twice will activate the second amplifier.
The Creative Sound Blaster Roar 2 is a fantastic speaker that has really been built with the consumer in mind. If you’re looking for an all-in-one speaker that delivers great quality sound and has tons of features, this could be your dream machine.
See at Amazon
Marshall Kilburn
The Marshall Kilburn’s vintage guitar amp look may not be for everyone, but there’s no denying its power. It weighs quite a bit at about 6 pounds, so it may be a little less portable than some of the others in our roundup. However, what it lacks in portability, it makes up for in battery life. Twenty hours of playing time is the longest battery life on our list, and is more than long enough to last through the entire party.
The sound quality is just as good as all the others on this list, but its real advantage comes with its ability to customize the sound on the speaker itself. Just like a guitar amp, there are knobs to adjust the treble, middle, and bass levels, allowing you the luxury of manipulating the sound to suit your ear.
See at Amazon
How do you take your music with you?
Are you constantly listening to your favorite jams on a portable Bluetooth speaker? Why do you love it and what kinf do you have? Let us know in the comments below!
Acer will help Starbreeze make its VR headset
Starbreeze may be comparatively new to virtual reality headsets (and hardware in general), but it’s getting some big allies in its corner. The Payday 2 game studio has revealed that Acer will help design, make and sell its theme park-oriented StarVR headset as part of a planned joint venture. Yes, the computer industry veteran is doing more than just making VR-ready PCs. While Starbreeze already has some help from outsiders (Toshiba is one of its partners), the alliance should give it a better shot at becoming a significant player in the VR world. And for Acer, this isn’t just about entering an undiscovered country — this and the company’s existing mobile efforts are a hedge against a declining PC market.
Source: Starbreeze (BusinessWire)
Google reportedly faces a record antitrust fine in Europe
It’s growing increasingly likely that Google will face European Union fines for allegedly abusing its dominance of internet search, but just how big will the penalty be? Huge, if you ask the Telegraph’s sources. They claim that the European Commission expects to fine Google “in the region of” €3 billion ($3.4 billion) — that’s an all-time high for an EU antitrust payout, and far larger than previous record-setter Intel (which paid the equivalent of $1.4 billion). The massive sum would reflect the length of Google’s perceived abuse, and might even “make an example” out of the company for supposedly implementing changes that made it even harder for competitors to get noticed in search results.
If the story is accurate, the Commission would announced the fine as early as June, and before a summer break at the latest. The terms aren’t finalized, according to the tipsters, so there’s a chance that the fine and other terms will change in the weeks ahead.
Neither the Commission nor Google has been willing to comment so far. However, Reuters sources previously stated that Google has given up trying to settle the EU case. While it reportedly still objects to accusations that it’s anti-competitive (it cites the success of online shopping sites like Amazon and EBay as proof it’s fair to rivals), it would rather resign itself to its fate than fight a losing battle.
Via: Reuters
Source: The Telegraph
Guns and Magic: Surprisingly robust for free-to-play (Review)
Overview
Guns and Magic is a simple, fun and sometimes frustrating tower defense game with a good amount of content for a free game.
Developer: Joyfield Studio
Cost: Free (with ads and microtransactions)
Highlights:
- Fun, simple gameplay
- Short cooldown on time-gate
- Lots of content and levels to play
Impressions
Guns and Magic is a fun, addicting tower defense game with some surprising depth in its content, despite the free-to-play tag. The game has some elements of a story as well, even though it doesn’t do much with it.
Gameplay is simple: just tap and hold the enemies to shoot them, and collect resources
while defending your base. The levels can be repetitive, but occasionally the game throws in a scouting mission to break the monotony, having you dodge and destroy obstacles in an infinite-runner style mode.
There are several planets and 36 different locations and enemy types to experience, as well as some large bosses to defeat. There is some challenge in later levels, forcing you to deal with large hordes and strategically use your powers and choose your targets wisely to minimize damage.
The game offers several weapons and powers to use in combat, such as miniguns, rocket launchers, and snipers. Most of them work rather well, but the sniper is my vote for the best, with high damage and penetration. However, the weapons don’t feel that distinct from one another in the late game, as enemies become bullet sponges that require multiple shots from most weapons to defeat.
Powers, or “spells” (even though they don’t seem very magical), are useful for clearing large groups, but the only one worth using is the firebomb, as the others are expensive and don’t really offer value for their high cost. All of the items in games can be upgraded to increase effectiveness, but they get prohibitively expensive unless you’re willing to farm.
There is the standard time-gate, this being a free-to-play offering, but the refresh rate on the energy required to do missions is mercifully short. You have 5 tanks, and each refills in about fifteen minutes, so you aren’t forced to wait a whole day to keep playing.
And yes, microtransactions are present, but not too intrusive. They can get pricey however, as upgrades are expensive and using real cash for resources often won’t get you more than one at a time.
Also, the game does have ads, which are thankfully skippable and don’t interrupt gameplay.
Visuals in the game are decent, if lacking sometimes. The environments don’t offer much to look at, being mostly flat open areas, but the enemies are fairly diverse in color and shape and the ship itself is visually interesting.
Sounds are fine as well, but the music could match the gameplay a bit more.
One thing that bothers me a lot about the game is the way you collect resources. They don’t automatically go to your inventory when you defeat an enemy. You have to manually touch each one to collect it and they have very short timers before they’re gone. This forces you to stop shooting, or use another hand in an awkward position to ensure you collect them all.
In the more difficult levels, juggling shooting and collecting makes for a frustrating experience, as you struggle to get every piece of crystal and energy as you take damage from the oncoming enemies. I would have liked to see a more intuitive system for the resource collection.
Conclusion
Overall, the game is innocuous enough. It has a surprising amount of depth in its levels and upgrade system, but the gameplay isn’t terribly complex or diverse to warrant extended playtime. I’d recommend it to someone looking for a decent tower defense game that will last them a good while.
Download and install Guns and Magic from the Google Play Store.
How to cancel AT&T service
Unhappy with your service? Moving to another country? Free yourself from AT&T.
Whatever your reason, it’s your right to switch carriers as you please. That doesn’t mean you can just leave whenever you want and expect no penalties. Believe me, there are penalties.
If you’re at the end of your proverbial rope and need to leave AT&T behind pronto, we’ll tell you how.
Cancellation is a bit different, depending on whether you’re on a two-year contract or on an AT&T Next or month-to-month agreement.
- How to cancel your two-year AT&T contract
- How to cancel your AT&T Next or month-to-month agreement
- How to drop lines from AT&T family plans
- Remember
How to cancel your two-year AT&T contract
Do I cancel my two-year contract online or over the phone?
The only way to cancel your account is over the phone or in person. AT&T will need to verify your identity and there’s no way they can truly do it via some online form. This isn’t like breaking up with someone over text; you have to face the music.
If you do decide to cancel with AT&T, you can call 1-800-288-2020.
You mentioned penalties. What kinda fees am I looking at?
If you’re cancelling your service with AT&T, you’re probably looking at a couple different fees.
Billing charges
Depending on where you are in your billing period, you’ll have to pay out the rest of the month.
Early Termination Fees (ETF)
Here’s where those penalties rear their ugly heads. In your contract with AT&T, you agreed pay a fee if you were to cancel your service early.
If you have a phone that requires a data plan, then the ETF is $325, minus $10 for every completed month of service. If you have a basic phone, then you’re looking at $150, minus $4 for every full month of service you’ve completed.
If you cancel within the first 14 days of service, you won’t be required to pay an ETF, and you’ll have to return your phone in like-new condition.
Is there any way around the fees?
There’s no guaranteed way to avoid paying any of the fees associated with cancelling AT&T, but here are a few options you can try:
Poor service
You could try explaining that the coverage or features that AT&T promised you are not being delivered. This may result in some reduced fees, but, depending on how long is left on your contract, don’t expect them to be waived entirely.
New provider pays your fees
If you’re switching to a new provider, you might be able to talk them into paying your fees for you. It’s a bit of a long shot, but the competition is fierce and if you’ll be signing up more than one line, it can definitely work in your favor.
Verizon and T-Mobile may actually pay your fees for you, so long as you trade in your phone and buy a new one on their payment plans. You might lose money on that deal, so do all the math before signing.
What’s the easiest way to get out of a contract?
Plain and simple, just tell AT&T that you’re switching providers. There’s no need to pussyfoot around it, and AT&T might even try to sweeten the deal to keep you, especially if you’re a long-time customer.
The bottom line
There are quite a few variables to consider when cancelling your service with AT&T, whether or not you’re canceling early. If you really want to see what it will all cost you, you’ll have to contact AT&T and have a customer service rep go through it with you.
How to cancel your AT&T Next or month-to-month agreement
Depending on the phone you bought, you get off a bit easier if you’re in a Next or month-to-month agreement with AT&T.
Can I cancel my AT&T Next or month-to-month agreement online?
No, you have to either show up at an AT&T store or call their customer service line at 1-800-288-2020. They need to verify your identity.
What fees will I have to pay?
There are no early termination fees for an AT&T Next or month-to-month agreement. All you have to do is pay out the remainder of your billing month (if any amount applies) and then pay out what you owe on the phone, in full. The amount you pay will be based on the retail price of the phone, how many months are left on your agreement, and how long you initially signed up for (12, 18, or 24 months), and whether or not you signed up with a down payment on the phone.
Can I avoid paying off the phone?
Some other carriers might be willing to help you with switching to their network. You’ll probably have to trade in your current phone and buy a new one.
The bottom line
AT&T Next and month-to-month agreements are way easier to break than two-year contracts. Yes, you can sign up for two years on a Next agreement, but all that does is determine how much you pay in installments for your phone everything month.
With more carriers switching to monthly agreements rather than multi-year contracts, it’ll be easier for you to bounce around and find the carrier that suits you best.
How to drop lines from an AT&T family plan
Early termination fees apply to every line of service that you have. If you’re on a family plan and someone wants to leave to start their own AT&T account and their own plan, don’t cancel their line outright. You can request an Assumption of Liability, which simply transfers the responsibilities of that particular line to a new account. This way you avoid nasty early termination fees.
If more than one person is leaving your family plan and there are only two or three people on said plan now, you might want to look at switching to individual plans, since the shared plan might not be saving you any money at all.
Remember
All of the above-mentioned fees and policies are at the discretion of AT&T. Every cancellation scenario is unique, so the above are just guidelines and may vary on a case-by-case basis.
The After Math: Buyer’s remorse
You can’t always get what you want, even if you pay good money for it. Disney has decided to drop its Infinity franchise and the studio that developed it. A judge ordered Lyft to double its class action payout to drivers. And Earth’s atmosphere has doubled — that’s right, doubled — in weight since we first got it. That’s it, I want to talk to the manager.
These Japanese smartglasses are trying to teach me zen
I’m on the subway, my head tilted downward to face my phone. I blink five times, I put my hand on my tummy to “feel” my breathing. To casual onlookers, I look suspicious as hell (or about to cry), but I’m meditating — so please leave me alone. Yes, there’s no lack of meditation apps on both iTunes and Google Play, but a wearable that monitors your body’s reactions and offers feedback is rarer. JINS Meme is a pair of Japanese-made smartglasses that look pretty much like normal glasses. I’ve trained with them and run with them, and now the latest app for the specs is trying helping me to chill the eff out.
JINS Meme look just like a pair of glasses, albeit with chunky arms, fortunately avoid the jarring appearance of other gadgets that use sensors to measure your brainwaves. That said, they’re sometimes a little uncomfortable due to the high-tech nose-bridge that’s monitoring the electromagnetic field created by your eye movement (crazy, right?). And you need to recharge them pretty regularly.
About that nose-bridge: It’s made of three contacts that detect and extrapolate your blink frequency as well as the movement of your eyes based on tiny electromagnetic differences caused by your very eyeballs. JINS, the Japanese spectacle maker behind the smartglasses, cites scientific research that shows the frequency and intensity of our blinks give a good representation as to how well we are focusing.
The app makers themselves suggest you can use the meditation software (almost) anywhere. So I did.
The “zen” meditation app is different from everything else I have tested with these smartglasses. I didn’t need a change of clothes, trainers or somewhere with some degree of privacy — I just needed my phone, JINS Meme and a pair of headphones to listen to the meditation instructions. The app makers say you can use the meditation software (almost) anywhere. So I did.I used it on my commute into work, skipped a half-hour of work (for research) and tried it at home, all in search of chill, if not Netflix.
The app is divided into two meditation classes: one for relaxation and focus, the other for improving creativity. The first, simpler class is called “Focused Attention” and asks you to gaze on an ever-decreasing circle displayed on your phone — best practice is to place the phone on the floor or table roughly 50 cm ahead of you. The audio-based narration guides you through the short session, reminding you to concentrate on breathing, maintaining good posture and listening to the noises around you.
The last part doesn’t work so well good in the office or on the train, but it’s comparable to a relaxation tape, albeit in Japanese. After you complete it once, you unlock longer meditation sessions up to 10 minutes long. A free mode also allows you to plot lengthier sessions, although this lacks the dippy calming narration of the level-based meditation sessions.
The second class, “Open Monitoring”, is a higher-level training exercise that has additional white noise and faux murmuring and ocean noises aimed at pushing your creative boundaries. It’s hard to empirically measure if Open Monitoring made me more creative, but subjectively, I felt it invigorated me (I was energized, less distracted) more than Focused Attention.
Relaxation is a complicated thing: graphing may help quantify but that doesn’t mean it’s an effective feedback mechanism.
Both features use the Meme smartglasses to gauge your breathing, mindfulness and posture. While you get scored on using each, the point isn’t to consciously aim for a high score. Relax, Mat. Relax. I found the individual scores pretty arbitrary, perhaps because meditation is hugely subjective and personal; when I felt I was particularly relaxed, the scores didn’t reflect this. Relaxation is a complicated thing: Graphing may help quantify it, but that doesn’t mean it’s an effective feedback mechanism.
I found the advice offered after each session far more useful. It suggested I push to concentrate through the entire five-minute session (which is difficult when your train stop is just three minutes away) and reminded me to sit up straight. Yes, I was slouching. The main aim is to get into a “focus” red zone, in which each score contributes to a total that the app deems a high level of concentration. After a week or two of use, I was starting to hit this area with some regularity. Unsurprisingly, a quieter environment helps — just because you could meditate on the side of the highway doesn’t mean you should.
I’ve tried some relaxation apps before, and even some posture wearables that irritate with notifications when I’m not sitting properly. However, setting aside five minutes a day to meditate and receive feedback on how my body is reacting seems a much more effective way to improve my outlook and posture at the same time (and all without any incense or soothing forest sounds playlists). It’s never going to make me completely stress-free, but five minutes was more than enough for me to claw back some degree of calmness and centeredness. That is, as long as I remembered to charge the smartglasses the night before.
From the Editor’s Desk: The dark side of selling an app
Use Dark Sky, or don’t use Dark Sky. But don’t tell me it’s somehow not worth $3 a year. The math doesn’t lie.
Here we go again. A long-awaited app finally comes to Android — and the developer has the gall to ask for $3 a year to use the really good parts of it. Instead of, ya know, mucking the whole thing up with ads, or charging more money a single time, or …
Yes, we’re going to have this discussion again.
The question at hand isn’t whether weather app Dark Sky is worth $2.99 a year. If you’ve already got a weather app you love and that does what you want and that doesn’t cost you less more than eight tenths of a penny a day and doesn’t have ads, awesome. Use it.
And the question isn’t why you’re willing to pay $5 a day for coffee-flavored sugar water that you’ll piss out by lunchtime — but think a $3-a-year weather app costs too much. There’s some basic math at work there, and it’s not supporting your argument, no matter how many times you try to make it.
No, my question is this: Who cares?
I get that we have to have something to complain about on Twitter. (What else is it for, right?) But this one’s really silly. There’s no need to overthink this. If you want a weather app that attempts to tell you within minutes that it’s going to rain, and you’re willing to pay a paltry sum for such an app — do it. If you’re not, no worries.
Three dollars. A year. Not even a month. If that’s too much for something you’re potentially going to use every day, then …
It’s as simple as that. There’s no reason to overthink things. I should yell out my car window when the driver in front of me needs two hands to take ownership of the oversized snow-covered sugar mountain, while I await my more humble latte?
It’s OK to be a cheap bastard. It’s OK to be frugal. And it’s OK to spend a little more sometimes on a thing you’re going to be using a lot. (Particularly, I’d argue, when what you’re spending goes fairly directly to the folks who actually made the thing you’re buying.)
What’s truly dumb is wasting as much time as I’ve just done here, discussing this very thing. Time to grab my coffee and head outside. It’s nice out today.
(But first, a few other things I think I think:)
- Brilliant little video from TeslaCentral. Just because you see something on Facebook doesn’t make it true. (And, in fact, probably means it’s not.)
- Speaking of Facebook, this “trending topics” controversy is ridiculous. Countless organizations use people to chose what you see as “trending” every day.
- I did it for years, for a newspaper. It was called a “wire editor.” We chose the AP stories that everyone read the next day. Is there bias? Of course. And if you know your bias, you can do your job better.
- I’m choosing what you’re reading in this column right now.
- Facebook had a decent response, though. That’s how it works.
- But this? It’s an effing joke, right? This is what the U.S. Senate is spending its time on?
- Speaking of good responses, I think Ring handled this the right way. Good response to a dumb mistake. (That affected very few people.)
- Glad Google’s providing OTA links for Nexus updates now. I’ll say it again — it’s worth learning how to do that basic command line stuff.
- If only so I don’t have to go on another tweetstorm like this.
- I stole the Ricoh Theta S from Russell. This is the 360 camera to get, IMHO.
That’s it for this week. We’re headed to Google I/O. You can find all our stories here, and things kick off in earnest on Wednesday!
Inhabitat’s Week in Green: Hyperloop One’s public test, and more!
The Hyperloop promises to one day transport passengers at blazing speeds — and the technology just took a big step forward. This week Hyperloop One launched a cart from 0 to 166 miles per hour in 1.1 seconds in its first public test. In other futuristic transportation news, a European Space Agency incubator just unveiled the world’s first flying car capable of vertical takeoff and landing. In Japan, there are now more electric vehicle chargers than gas stations. And researchers in Mexico have developed a new type of glowing cement that could light up dark highways.
Germany is investing heavily in clean energy, and it’s paying off: This past weekend the country generated so much renewable electricity that utility prices went negative. Meanwhile, renewables overpowered natural gas in the US for the first quarter of 2016, and Santa Monica passed new regulations requiring solar panels on all new buildings. Nissan took on the Tesla Powerwall with a home battery of its own, and BioLite launched a new lantern that doubles as a portable microgrid for outdoor adventures.
As the 2016 Rio Olympics draw near, health experts are issuing grave warnings about the Zika Virus. Fortunately, Harvard has developed a cheap paper test that can detect the virus in hours instead of weeks, and IBM is developing a new macromolecule that could be a “magic bullet” in the fight against viruses. In other design and technology news, researchers have developed a new bionic hand that allows amputees to “feel” their fingers again. The Mover Kit is a wearable gadget that teaches kids how to code and build their own devices. And a mountainous vertical forest skyscraper is set to scrub the air clean in Guizhou, China.
Watch Autoblog take a ride in the vomit comet
For our 200th episode, we wanted to send host Jonathon Buckley where no Translogic host had gone before. And while it isn’t technically the final frontier, a Zero-G flight and astronaut training at the National Aerospace Training and Research center got us closer than ever to the stars.
First, Bucko experiences the crushing g-force of suborbital flight in the Phoenix centrifuge simulator at the NASTAR center in Southampton, PA. Then it’s off to Las Vegas to experience weightlessness during a Zero-G Experience parabolic flight.
“It’s a giant arc,” said Zero-G pilot Erich Domitrovits. “We pretty much go as fast as we can, and then we get into a pull… and when we run out of speed I start to push over. And when I push and depending on how hard I push, is the amount of weightlessness you feel.”
“A good way to think of it is, you’ll be floating just like somebody threw you like a football, and we’ll be moving the airplane around you.”
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- Click here to learn more about our host, Jonathon Buckley.
AIVAnet 