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EU Orders Mp3, Mobile Phone Makers to Put a Cap on the Volume Dial

Pulkit Chandna — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:58:14 -0500

European Commission's consumer protection unit has chalked out a new plan under which MP3 and mobile phone makers will be required to throttle device volume in a bid to save millions from the risk of deafness. However, millions of MP3 and mobile phone users will have to bear that risk for another two years - the amount of time EU has earmarked for manufacturers to come up with new devices.

New devices will ship with their sound levels capped at 80 decibels. But the consumer will be free to tinker with the factory settings. "If consumers chose to over-ride the default settings they can, but there will be clear warnings so they know the risks they are taking," said Meglena Kuneva, the head of European Commission’s consumer protection unit.

Image Credit: HealthJockey

New Logitech Speakers Spray Sound Pretty Much Everywhere

Paul Lilly — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:30:36 -0500

Logitech this week announced four new multimedia speaker sets, each one touting 360-Degree Sound, otherwise known as omnidirectional acoustics. These include the Logitech Z320, Z323, Z520, and Z523.

Unlike standard speakers with forward-firing drivers, all four sets boast both forward- and backward-firing drivers in each satellite. According to Logitech, this creates a substantially wider sweet spot and comes as a boon to anyone who struts around their office.

"Many PC speakers focus sound in one direction, which is fine if you're always sitting in the same spot," said Mark Schneider, vice president and general manager of Logitech's audio business unit. "But now with 360-Degree Sound, whether you're listening to your favorite song on iTunes, watching a video on YouTube, or playing your favorite game, you can enjoy rich sound and minimal distortion throughout your room."

The Z523 and Z323 are 2.1 speaker sets with a 6.5-inch down-firing subwoofer, with the former pushing 40W of power and the latter pushing 30W. The Z520 and Z320 take it down a notch by discarding the subwoofer and pushing 26W (Z520) and 10W (Z320).

Interestingly, Logitech has priced both the Z320 and Z323 at $70. These will be available starting in August (Z320) and September (Z323). Equally interesting, the Z532 is expected to be available this month for $100, while the sub-less Z520 will be available this month for $130.

Image Credit: Logitech

Samsung's N120 Netbook Shows up for Pre-Order, Boasts 2.1-Channel Sound

Paul Lilly — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 11:02:29 -0500

It seems as though everyone is looking to put a twist on their netbook lineup as of late in order to stand out from the crowd. Dell tossed a TV tuner into its Inspiron Mini 10, OCZ unveiled a DIY netbook at CeBIT, and more recently, Asus announced its first optical drive-equipped Eee PC. Not to be left behind, Samsung's upcoming N120 netbook will come with integrated 2.1 speakers, and it's available for pre-order now.

Samsung still hasn't published an official product page for the N120, but that's okay, because a handful of merchants have coughed up the core configuration. And at this point, we have the basic netbook blueprint fairly well memorized. In addition to somehow managing to cram a subwoofer into a 10.1-inch netbook, Samsung's N120, available in either black or white, will come configured with Intel's Atom N270 (1.6GHz) processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and Windows XP.

Pre-order pricing has so far hovered in the $450 range with at least one site showing an ETA of April 14.

Image Credit: Samsung via Portablemonkey.com

Creative Announces X-Fi Notebook Soundcard. Again.

Paul Lilly — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:12:24 -0500

Creative this week unveiled its Sound Blaster X-Fi Notebook, which as the name implies is an add-in soundcard for (cue the drum roll) notebooks. But wait, doesn't Creative already offer an X-Fi geared towards road warriors? The answer is yes, and the X-Fi Xtreme Audio Notebook has been available for some time now, but this re-release sports a slimmer profile, a new color scheme, and the ability to transmit wirelessly.

That's right - when paired with the optional Creative Wireless Receiver, the X-Fi will have the ability to beam music to your speakers rather than remain tethered. The new soundcard supports up to 4 wireless receivers, and each one can be placed up to 100 feet away from the notebook.

The slimmed down peripheral fits into both ExpressCard 34 and 54 slots (previous version is 54 only), and brings the usual assortment of goodies to the table, including CMSS-3D, EAX Advanced HD, and Creative's Crystalizer technology. You get a pair of headphones bundled in, along with a free download of PowerDVD with full DTS and Dolby Digital decoding support.

Look for availability by the end of month, with the X-Fi Notebook priced at $80 and optional receiver commanding $70.

Image Credit: Creative and NothingButCreative

Creative Finally Releases Vista Functional X-Fi Soundcard Drivers

Paul Lilly — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:05:11 -0500

We were beginning to wonder if Creative would ever update its X-Fi soundcard drives to work properly in Vista, and after the whole Daniel_K fiasco, we were about ready to throw in the towel. For those that stuck it out, Creative has finally released a new driver package that fixes the hardware Dolby Digital and DTS decoding in its X-Fi cards running under Vista. The company also added DVD Audio playback, a feature that previously went by the wayside when upgrading from XP to Vista.

The new driver also addresses a niggling bug that causes system crashes when switching to an unsupported sampling rate in the Audio Creation Mode while Dolby Digital Live is enabled.

All X-Fi soundcards except the Xtreme Audio version are supported with the driver update.

Image Credit: Creative

Daily News Brief: Can You Trust Local PC Repair Shops?

Paul Lilly — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 19:24:01 -0500

Who Can You Trust to Fix Your PC?

Maximum PC readers have no problem opening up PCs and performing self-diagnostics and repairs, but for everyone else, a trip to the local repair shop may be in order when something goes awry. But can they be trusted? Denver's local ABC news affiliate sent their Call7 Investigators team on an undercover mission to answer that question. Armed with a laptop with intentionally dislodged RAM, the undercover team pinged 7 local repair shops, four of which misdiagnosed the ailment and blamed the motherboard, power supply, or power drive. Read the full story here.

New Version of AVG Free Available

Penny pinchers can now download the newest version of Grisoft's widely popular AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition, updated to version 8.0. The latest release introduces a cosmetic makeover while adding anti-spyware protection and Safe Search technology, which scans and rates Google, Yahoo, and MSN search results in real-time.

PC Makers Give XP Life Support

By June 30, PC manufacturers are supposed to stop selling computers with Windows XP, but rather than kick the OS to the curb, Dell and HP will still offer XP. How? By taking advantage of "downgrade rights" offered as part of Vista's license agreement. Technically Vista Business and Ultimate machines, the PCs will have been factory downgraded to XP at the customer's request, providing them with a no-charge Vista upgrade path to boot. Much more here.

Dealing with Defcon

Anti-virus vendors are taking exception to a new contest being introduced at the Defcon hacker conference this August. Called Race-to-Zero, participants are challenged to circumvent anti-virus software, with awards to be given for "Most elegant obfuscation," "Dirtiest hack of an obfuscation," "Comedy value," and "Most deserving of beer." Security vendors fear the contest will only help malware writers learn new tricks, but contest organizers contend it will help highlight that anti-virus protection alone doesn't provide a complete defense.

Getting Your X-Fi Soundcard to Run on Linux

If you're even the slightest bit curious about Linux, consider giving the newly released Ubuntu 8.04 LTS a spin. And if you own a Creative X-Fi soundcard, keep your eyes peeled for an updated beta driver from Creative (the current one supports Ubuntu 7.10, openSUSE 10.3, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1). In the meantime reference this thread for status updates and workarounds.

Duke Nukem Forever Update

Should the game ever ship, one of the longest running jokes in PC gaming will finally come to an end. And according to ShackNews, that's a very good possibility. ShackNews claims to have "witnessed several different DNF gameplay scenarios, mechanics, and environments being demonstrated," concluding that "Duke Nukem Forever is looking great, and will easily stand apart from the crowd in both visual and gameplay styles." More here.

Tritton Audio Xtreme 360

Michael Brown — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:28:23 -0500

Tritton’s headset delivers true surround sound, just like the Turtle Beach Ear Force HPA2 we recommended in June. It also offers a feature that the HPA2 doesn’t: a powered Dolby Digital decoder module with optical and coaxial digital inputs, plus a port for plugging in a second set of Tritton headphones. Cool!

This feature renders the AX360 useful for watching movies on a DVD player or gaming on a console system, but it doesn’t do much for PC use. Tritton provides an analog adapter cable, so you can plug the headset directly into your soundcard, but the AX360’s mic isn’t as good as the HPA2’s, and it’s leagues behind theBoom Quiet in terms of rejecting background noise. The Tritton also can’t match the HPA2 in terms of audio fidelity in music, movies, and games, but it sounds far better than the BQ and the utter waste of plastic that is the Genius.

Surround-sound support is a welcome feature, but the Turtle Beach product bundles it in a better package.

Audioengine A5 Speaker System

Michael Brown — Tue, 22 May 2007 18:41:20 -0500

The Audioengine 5 is not only one of the best-sounding speaker systems we’ve heard in a long while, it’s also one of the smartest speaker designs we’ve seen in the MP3-player era. These puppies will fill a room with sound, and they don’t cost an arm and an ear.

Audioengine pitches this self-powered system as an iPod companion, but we think that’s selling it short: The shielded speakers are compatible with any digital media player, they’re a great companion for your PC, and they’re a fabulous solution for a Squeezebox, Sonos, or other streaming-audio system. If you’re short on outlets, you can even plug your streamer into the auxiliary AC power outlet on the back of the left cabinet. But don’t be fooled by the USB port on the top of that cabinet: It won’t sync your media player to the library on your PC—its sole purpose is to charge the player’s battery. There’s a second 1/8-inch input right next to it, so you won’t need to do a reach-around or disconnect something every time you plug it in. These are handy “just what I needed” features that add value without overkill.

The Audioengine 5 boasts a long list of high-end traits: While many cabinets in this price range are fabricated from injection-molded plastic, the Audioengine 5’s are constructed of one-inch-thick MDF painted an attractive semigloss black (or white). The left cabinet housing the Class AB amp (45-watts RMS per channel) tips the scales at a hefty 14 pounds (the right speaker weighs nine pounds). The speaker connections are sturdy binding posts, not cheap spring clips.

Listening to Johnny Cash’s “Were You There,” from the original 1963 vinyl LP Ring of Fire, we were impressed with the Audioengine 5’s ability to deliver Maybelle Carter’s crystalline vocals through the 0.79-inch silk dome tweeters and Cash’s thundering baritone from the five-inch Kevlar woofers without compromising either end of the spectrum. These speakers aren’t quite as tight as M-Audio’s discontinued Studiophile LX4 system, and we wouldn’t rely on them as studio monitors, but they’re great for less-critical—and more common—missions.

UPDATED 2/8/2008: While referencing this review for an upcoming review of the Audioengine A2, we noticed that the online review had the incorrect verdict (a "9" versus a "9 Kick Ass").