Bluetooth Speaker "Bose SoundLink Mini"

The segment of small Bluetooth speaker has flourished since the release of the Jawbone Jambox that somehow defined this category. The famous speaker manufacturer and Bose audio players do not make a mistake and he has released his own version with the SoundLink Mini. The SoundLink Mini is barely larger than the Jambox and its dimensions are quite reasonable for a small Bluetooth speaker. The product forms a parallelepiped with rounded edges 20 cm long and a little less than 6 inches wide and a little over 5 inches tall. The first thing that strikes you when you take the speaker in hand is its weight. We do not expect such a heavy object and in fact, the SoundLink Mini reached almost 700 grams on the scale, more than twice as much as its competitors. That's a lot and we are surprised the first time by the weight of the product. About build quality, it should be noted that the manufacturer has done a great job. Compact, its enclosure is built around an aluminum strip that completely surrounds the SoundLink Mini and contributes the perceived quality, its weight and solidity of the whole. The aluminum is thick enough to withstand minor impacts, even if we avoid dropping the speaker too. SoundLink Mini has two perfectly symmetrical faces with, in both cases, form not quite right sides. The base of the enclosure is a little narrower than the top and form gives a slightly retro look to the product. Difficult, in general, to be choosy: The enclosure is extremely well finished and very elegant. Bose has focused on control over all of its enclosure.

 A block in a darker gray distinguishes between the space allocated to control the name of the speaker is there, and six buttons. From left to right and has an ON / OFF button, which mutes, two buttons for volume control and finally two buttons to select the operating mode of the SoundLink Mini. The buttons are not aluminum, but in a soft and gray rubber. This provides a continuous strip of rubber and no spaces: one imagines that the enclosure will withstand a few drops of rain, even if it is not intended to be wet. These controls are fully assembled; they suffer no game and definitely participate in this general feeling of solidity. The two volume buttons stand out in all, which is very convenient for the spot. The other four, grouped both sides are distinguished by a line cut into the rubber so that you can completely manipulate the SoundLink Mini in total darkness. The black will not really be absolute if you use the speaker, since Bose has incorporated some of the LED device. Very discreet, these lights are first to know that the speaker is on: above the source (Bluetooth or auxiliary), a white LED appears continuously both to show the selected source and to indicate that the chamber works. The Bluetooth turns blue when the enclosure is configured to accept new connections.

 Above the mute button, a white LED will flash when the function is active. Finally, a light shaped battery lights at startup above the ON / OFF button on the Sound Link Mini. It takes three different colors depending on the battery status from green to red when it is time to load and it can also be viewed at any time by pressing the ignition button pressed. All is quiet and you can greet Bose effort to minimize the number of lights. The volume change for example is represented by a flashing LED associated with the source. The Mini also operates the SoundLink speaker to communicate with the user: there is thus a sound when the enclosure is connected to a Bluetooth source and another when it is (un) plugged in for recharging. About recharging the manufacturer provides a charger that can be plugged into the side, but a charging cradle on which we simply ask the speaker.

 This stand is a great idea and it is very pleasant in everyday life, even if it is designed with plastic poor quality and it is very light. It is far from the level of production of the Mini SoundLink itself, but this support has the merit to exist and it has done its job. On the right side of the accessory, two inputs can both charge the SoundLink Mini comes without support, but also connect to any Bluetooth device with a mini-jack input. Under his product, Bose arranged a wide rubber pad which serves both to protect the aluminum to keep the speaker in place and reduce vibration. A key point, as we shall see in the next section. The SoundLink Mini also has at this point the connector to the charging stand and a micro-USB connector used for any updates. Again, no cable is provided. The SoundLink Mini may well be very well built and quite strong, you will want to protect a minimum if you plan to use in extreme conditions. Bose has thought of everything and enjoy features that are reminiscent of the bumpers for iPhone 4 and 4S. Three colors are available (green, blue and orange) and they cost € 25 each time.

Samsung detailed more about its V-NAND and New SSD

Samsung recently unveiled memory chips NAND Flash V-operator a new architecture supposed to improve reliability and performance. At the same time, the manufacturer the opportunity to present a SSD of 960 GB, which is not unlike what has Crucial M500 series with her. A few days ago, Samsung showed that the mass production of memory chips NAND-Flash V (Vertical NAND), had begun. Unlike the conventional NAND using a 2D structure; the V-NAND is gaining height and it passes relief stacking layers. Up to 24 for the time the Samsung said. As stated in the presentation of the Flash Memory Summit, Samsung believes that the reduction of fine engraving comes to its limits. Besides the possibility to switch to alternatives such as TLC NAND and three bits per cell (rather than two), as explained in that other document, you must solve the problem of interference that are increasingly important as the transistor size is reduced. The structure type Floating Gate MOSFET (FGMOS) is set aside for the passage Charge Trap Flash (CTF) that is more reliable and better density. The whole is then stacked to provide chips that are still operating the same fine engraving, but are also able to hold more data.

Samsung announces and mentioned that it already produce faster SSDs consume less and less equivalent operating chip storage capacity. But the company is also focusing on to a strong impact of the arrival of this technology in the market and listing and expects an explosion of its orders on the business market and the general public in 2020. Unfortunately, the surprise and the announcement effect turn this time a little short, without details. Of course, we know they operate a S-ATA 6Gb / s, but the rates and IOPS are not specified. The manufacturer just announced that "960 GB version has the highest level of performance, with over 20% more sequential reading and writing through the use of 64 die of 3D V-MLC NAND, each with a storage capacity of 128 GB ". Finally, we just know that the SSD NAND-V are given for 35,000 erase cycles, which is particularly high because is generally between 3000 and 5000 cycles with conventional MLC chips. Now we have to wait until the first returns of independent tests to find out what it is exactly V-chip NAND and SSD exploiters. Samsung says that the production of these began at the beginning of the forthcoming year, so we will soon have more information.

Chrome 29 arrives with omnibox

Google has just put online version of Chrome 29 browser. As expected, it brings improvements of the Omnibox side, corrects not less than 25 security vulnerabilities while improving stability and performance. For its part, the OS X version finally takes advantage of the notification center. A little over a month after Chrome 28, Google continues its stride and has published the 29th version of its permanent home browser. As a reminder, it now operates its own rendering engine Blink, the Mountain View Company has decided to set aside Webkit to chart its own course. This version does not bring big surprises and resumes the main novelty announced with Chrome 29 beta. Thus, the Omnibox, the address bar that allows you to search, offers suggestions that want to be more relevant and which are based on the timing of your visit.

Users of Chrome for OS X can now enjoy the notification center that is available on Windows since the previous version of Chrome. The wait will finally not so very long. This is not the only novelty and Google announced that it is now possible to restore the profile to its original state. You must go to settings, display the advanced settings and click the "Reset Browser Settings" button. This will remove the extensions and themes, delete cookies, temporary as well as Tabs data, etc. As a advantage the list of your favorite and the saved passwords are not affected by this reset. As always, the overall performances have been revised upwards. In addition, no less than 25 security vulnerabilities have been corrected, with awards ranging from $ 500 to $ 1337 for those who discovered them.

Is The Government Reading Your Tweets?

The US Government is facing tough questions and mounting pressure over its surveillance programs as a result of information revealed by Edward Snowden. Leaders in the National Security Agency have endured grilling from Congress and increased scrutiny from journalists due to recent revelations that the phone and Internet activity of millions of Americans has been viewed by the government agency. But does the added scrutiny mean that the NSA pulling back on how much data it gathers on social media users? According to Twitter, the answer is a definitive “No.”

Big Jump In Information Requests

In Twitter’s transparency report it appears that the number of government requests in connection with criminal cases is rising. A total of 1,157 information requests by governments worldwide were made in the first six months of 2013. That is an increase from 1,009 requests from the previous six month period and 849 requests in the six months before that. In 2013, the United States lead the pack in amount of requests by far with 902. Japan came in second place with just 82.
Since this is the first transparency report to be released since the leaks of NSA documents, Twitter recognized its significance. "An important conversation has begun about the extent to which companies should be allowed to publish information regarding national security requests," Twitter said in a blog post on Wednesday. "We have joined forces with industry peers and civil liberty groups to insist that the United States government allow for increased transparency into these secret orders."

Information Removal Requests

Federal institutions worldwide aren’t just contacting Twitter in order to collect IP addresses and other personal information. Twitter has also received requests from governments to remove content from their site. In the first half of 2012, Twitter handled only six removal requests. In first half of 2013, however, that number shot up to 60. Most of these requests were designed to remove libelous tweets and hate speech. Brazil sent in the most content removal requests with 39. While the US government requested that two tweets be removed, Twitter didn’t comply with either one.
"Over the last six months, we have gone from withholding content in two countries to withholding content (ranging from hate speech to defamation) in seven countries," said Jeremy Kessel.
Twitter says that all users affected by government requests are notified unless prohibited by law.

The Future

It has long been known that the police and other government organizations monitor Twitter for dangerous or threatening tweets. More than a few people have added an entry to their arrest records because they tweeted something violent or threatened another person. But these revelations by Twitter show that the government is interested in more personal information, such as your IP Address (which can reveal the geographic location of someone making a tweet.) Will the US government cave into public pressure and leave Tweeters alone now that surveillance programs are in the hot seat? We may have to wait until Twitter’s next transparency report (due to be released early next year) until we get an answer.
Phillip Harding is a writer from Rainbow, California. He writes about social media, crime, and the law.

Waze Reports integrated into Google Maps

Waze was bought by Google ht two months ago, Waze Community GPS will allow in Google Maps to improve, at least on mobile. The first Advanced announced by Google Maps integration into the incidents of Waze community reports. The latter is however not the only one giving, since technology from Maps are also available to "wazers" said the Web giant. In recent years, the Waze app is available on iOS and Android, has attracted tens of millions of users. The Wazer’s statement during driving, allow the whole community to enjoy their statements in real-time accidents, traffic jams, police presence, radar, work stations, etc. Its acquisition two months ago by Google, for nearly a billion dollars, was not a surprise. In June, when formalizing the acquisition of Waze, Google did not hide his desire to improve Maps quickly. Yesterday, Google has confirmed this philosophy perfectly, announcing further concrete improvements on both sides. On Maps mobile users benefiting by getting reports from other Waze users about the incident reports in real time Waze users. This includes accidents also the work and road closures. Waze community can in turn benefit from the Google search, complementing already services including Foursquare and Yelp. The Waze map editor, which allows correcting some errors, also now it has Street View technology and satellite imagery from Google. Finally, note that the Federal Trade Commission, the government agency responsible for competition in particular to investigate the acquisition of Waze by Google. I must say that Maps is already one of the most important mobile applications in the world, crushing all competitors. And on the Web, its dominance is equally impressive. The acquisition of Waze can be interpreted as a strengthening of a dominant position. In the worst case scenario, it could go up to the cancellation of the acquisition of Waze. However, Google seems sure of himself in terms of comparisons between Maps and Waze.