Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Just sending a quick reminder in case you missed the earlier announcement, our contest to giveaway a set of Axiom AudioByte computer speakers ends tomorrow, the official deadline for entry is Friday (September 5, 2008) at 11:59pm EST, which also happens to be just 24 hours from the time of this posting.

Remember entry is simple, just leave a comment on the original announcement posting (link above and below) with a picture of the speakers you are hoping to replace.

You can check out the full contest post including the rules here, and don’t forget to check out our full review also.

Cambridge Audio just announced today in Denver that they too will be joining the ever popular Blu-ray club by coming out with their version of Blu-ray technology, the 640BD, in Spring 2009.  The player is meant to complement the Azur range of AV receivers, and from the spec sheet/release, it looks like it isn’t too shabbily put together.

The 640BD will have a full set of analog video outputs, full HDMI 1.3 output (which will include bitstream output of all the latest Dolby/DTS tracks), S/PDIF, Ethernet, Toslink and a set of separate, dedicated 7.1/stereo analog outputs. And no...they haven’t put a price tag on this baby yet.

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Hey, if thousands of people are doing it, it can’t be wrong.....right? That’s the million dollar question about one of the newest music sites on the Web. Songza advertises itself as a “music search engine and Internet jukebox”. Ummm, ok.  Or, one might also say they are a site you can go to in order to search out music and be able to listen to and download it for free. I’m just sayin’.

With 28 million songs instantly playable on the site, 10 month old Songza is luring in the music-seeking crowd pretty nicely.  And they make their songs playable in a rather creative way. When you go on their site and enter the song or band title of your choosing, Songza will search the huge inventory of music videos on YouTube looking for it.  Then, it streams the audio of the song, while hiding the video in an unseen margin of the browser. Pretty dang tricky, but.....is it actually legal?

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Just sending a quick reminder in case you missed the earlier announcement, our contest to giveaway a set of Axiom AudioByte computer speakers ends this Friday (September 5, 2008) at 11:59pm EST.

You can check out the full contest post including the rules here, and don’t forget to check out our full review also.

Its always nice to be able to give stuff away, especially a very nice sounding set of computer speakers that retail for $528. This latest giveaway is the set of recently reviewed (and loved) Axiom Audio AudioByte computer speakers, and I must say they are hard to part with, but I cannot delay it any longer. They have been packed up and are sitting on my office floor awaiting shipment to the lucky winner. You can check out my review here.

To enter: Via the comment form below, show us where you will be using these. Take a picture of your current setup or current speakers, upload it to the web, and leave a link to the image in the comments below.

The rules:

• You can only win once during the extent of this giveaway.
• The winner will be sent a notice via email and has 72 hours to reply with their mailing address to claim their prize—make sure you use a valid email address.
• This giveaway will close on Friday, September 5 at 11:59pm EST, then we’ll pick the winner at random.
• All entries become the property of Dabbledoo, LLC and we have the right to use any and all submissions in any way, manner and in any media and in perpetuity without additional compensation or right of approval.
• This is only open to residents located in the continental 48 US States, and you must be 18 or older to win.
• Void where prohibited by law. The promotion is subject to all federal, state and local laws and regulations.

This giveaway will close on Friday, September 5 at 11:59pm EST, then we’ll pick the winner at random.

Product: Axiom Audio AudioByte Computer Speakers
Price and Availability: $528 total price. The speakers and amp are $349, plus an additional $179 for the subwoofer.
Rating: 9/10
Pros: Excellent sound quality, clean design, very nicely built.
Cons: A little on the expensive side, and the system takes up a lot of under desk space between the amp and subwoofer.
Overall: Would not hesitate to recommend, would also love to own a set.

Keep reading to check out the full review, and keep reading Gadgetell because one lucky reader will have the option to win this set very soon!

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No middleman. Claims of paying their artists more than twice the royalty rate offered on commercial radio. Sounds pretty darn good for independent artists, doesn’t it? Last.FM is a music-streaming service that says they offer all of that and more.  The company actually launched in January of 2007, and has since been bought by CBS, so, they have some pretty strong backing holding them up. And they are starting to pass the longer running Sound Exchange even with the fact that royalty rates for music being streamed over the Internet has been raised; making it somewhat difficult for ad-supported start-ups to stay afloat. Some people though, say this is not wholly due to their really being all for the artist, but instead because they pay rock bottom royalty rates. From a commenter at DashGo regarding Last.Fm’s royalty tier - “Even bands that write just one great song deserve compensation for their copyright. Maybe not by a major label force bundling it into an album, but certainly at more than 30% of whatever pitifully low CPM Last.fm and CBS can dredge up - something they won’t even guarantee a floor on.”

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The portable audio market has boomed in the last few years, and its in now thoroughly convoluted with ‘style,’ ‘good value’ and cheap rip-offs. So it would appear that the only to make an impact on this sector would be to either have a very cheap player, a very big drive or a unique design, and it is the latter that Philips has tried to utilize.

And to be fair its not that bad. With their most recent ‘Go Gear’ design they have gone for a square design which does look very sleek, mainly due to its 128 x 64 resolution OLED display with a ‘mirror finish’, which upon a touch shows you the track information.  They are fairly small, at just 41 x 41 x 15mm (which makes it another gadget easy to lose) but delivers a full sound thanks to the Philips FullSound technology which it includes. According to Philips, FullSound tweaks the dynamics, bass, treble and stereo imaging of highly compressed MP3 to revert the sound quality back to (or near enough to) where it was before it was compressed, which should give a high quality sound.

As with most MP3 player nowadays they support MP3 and WMA files, a battery life of 20 hours and (according to Phillips) a good quality set of earphones. 
The players support WMA and MP3 files, battery life is rated at 20 hours and Philips says they come with a decent set of cans. The SA2845 (4GB+FM) and SA2825 (2GB+FM) cost £45 and £35 respectively, and the non-FM SA2840 (4GB) and SA2820 (2GB) cost £40 and £30. They are not cheap, but its look like a good quality stylish MP3 player.

Via [Gizmodo]

Remember what we told you about Skype needing to give itself a boost to avoid getting sacked by its mother company, eBay? Well, after successive announcements the past couple of weeks, it looks like Skype is really out to prove itself and hopefully sends the signal that its “synergies are strong.” For its latest buzz creation strategy, Skype has just taken version 3.9 for Windows out of beta.

So, what’s in mean for us, the Skype-using public with this new version? A couple of good features actually, including reduced background noise during calls, less delay, fewer call drops and fewer cut-offs. Plus, changing headsets, headphones and microphone will now be easier as Skype 3.9 will adjust the settings of the devices automatically. Another major improvement made by Skype is the taking out the default profile image that previously shows up when authorization request is incoming. This is in response to users’ demand as some of them encounter offensive profile photos of other Skype users. These plus other improvements which the Skype blog did not mention, are supposed to come with the new version of Skype for Windows.

It’s up to you if you want to be part of Skype’s move towards strengthening its synergies. By all means download the new Skype for Windows version or just continue using the old one.

Via [Skype]

Love your white Apple earbuds, but are tired of getting tangled in the wire. The Sony DRC-BT815 will come to the rescue. Plug any pair of headphones into the DRC-BT815 and they become pairable with any Bluetooth audio device or phone. Including an embedded microphone, the DRC-BT815 can also be used as a hands free headset for your mobile phone.

It could use a little more juice, it offers just 6 hours of usable time, thanks to the rechargeable lithium-ion battery. At $130, the DRC-BT815 isn’t going to fly off shelves, but hopefully it finds a place in my pocket.

Via [Gizmodo]