bluetooth

The BlackBerry Mini Stereo Speaker doesn't look like your average Bluetooth wireless speaker. Crafted in the shape of a U, this tiny Bluetooth smartphone accessory can be pinned to shirts, bag straps, and other articles of clothing so you can enjoy phone audio out loud and with your hands free. The gadget also functions as a speakerphone for hands-free calls. At $99.99, however, the speaker isn't exactly an impulse buy. Also, other portable speaker systems such as JBL's Flip deliver much better sound for the same price.

Design and features I can't deny that this … Read more

So many deals, so little time!

1. Mo' terabytes, mo' savings. If your PC doubles as a media center, especially one that pulls DVR duty, you can't have too much storage. Likewise, if you work with a lot of video, you can't have too much storage.

While supplies last, TigerDirect has the Western Digital Elements 3TB USB hard drive for $99.99, plus $3.80 for shipping. That's after redeeming a $20 mail-in rebate (PDF), which makes this the least expensive 3TB external drive I've ever seen.

It's a USB 2.0 drive, alas, but … Read more

I love a good Bluetooth speaker, especially one that's battery-powered and portable. Mine goes everywhere with me: to the bathroom for shower tunes, to the garage for honey-do-project tunes, even on trips for hotel-room tunes.

Today only, and while supplies last, TigerDirect has the ChilBox Wireless Speaker for $49.99, plus around $3 for shipping. It sells for exactly twice as much if purchased directly from Chil, Inc.

The nicely rounded, brick-shaped ChilBox measures 6 inches by 2.5 inches by 2 inches and weighs around 14 ounces. Its built-in rechargeable battery is good for up to 12 hours … Read more

You've played that "no phones at dinner" game and lost. You can't bear ignoring your messages. Well, this bit of bling could be your new best friend.

LinkMe is a digital bracelet that displays the messages, Facebook updates, and tweets that you need most.

Billed as a world first on its Kickstarter page, LinkMe will "display the messages and alerts you choose, making your entire social life available to you with just a glance at your wrist." … Read more

I've lived with a smartwatch, in one form or another, for several periods over the past few years. Recently, with the Martian Passport. Further back, with the iPod Nano and a Hex wristband. Before that, a SPOT watch.

I love the idea of a smartwatch. Certainly, so does the media as of late. Bloomberg reports and iWatch rumors galore, plus various wearable watch-type items at January's CES, have started to give this territory the sense of a category.

Between the Martian and the Nano watch, I loved aspects of each -- and also found them both lacking. There'… Read more

In my kitchen I have this great Fluance speaker dock -- well, great except that it doesn't have Bluetooth. If I want to listen to music, I have to plop my iPhone onto its 30-pin connector.

Or not, if I plop an Auris onto it instead. This Kickstarter-spawned gizmo can turn that dock into a Bluetooth speaker, able to play wireless audio from my iPhone, iPad, Android device, Windows phone, or anything else capable of Bluetooth streaming.

Neat, huh? No wonder this Kickstarter campaign earned more than three times its funding goal. I received a sample Auris from BiteMyApple.co (… Read more

It's not every day the president of Sony writes a blog post headlined "Help Sony's President Name His Pink Audio Balls."

What balls are we talking about? Today, Sony U.S. President Phil Molyneux took to the company's official blog and asked the Internet to leave a comment with a new name for the anemic-sounding SRS-BTV5 Bluetooth Wireless Mobile Speaker. If he likes the name, he'll push it through as the product's new moniker. The people behind the top five names get free -- ahem -- balls.… Read more

A relatively minor update for the Nexus line of devices, Android 4.2.2, was released last week by Google. The update, which included various performance improvements, also included a change to the behavior of the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi tiles in Quick Settings.

To access Quick Settings, you simply swipe down from the top of your screen with two fingers. You'll see various tiles, all allowing you to quickly access their respective settings screen. New in the 4.2.2 update is the ability to long-press on the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth icons, toggling the state of the service.

It'… Read more

Apple offers several alternative boot environments for OS X that can help you troubleshoot problems you might be experiencing, which can be invoked by holding various key combinations at startup. Of these, Safe Mode is perhaps the most common; it offers a limited boot environment and can be started by holding the Shift key. In addition there is Single User mode (Command-S) for a command-line interface, Apple's hardware diagnostics tests (the "D" key), Target Disk mode (the "T" key), and holding the Option key will bring up the boot loader for choosing a startup disk.… Read more