Bose takes on the HomePod with a $400 Alexa smart speaker

The post Bose takes on the HomePod with a $400 Alexa smart speaker appeared first on BardTech.

The latest Echo devices are a touch more premium than their predecessors, but Amazon hasn’t gone out of its way to compete with Apple’s HomePod head-on. And why bother, really, when hardware partners are willing to do the heavy lifting?

Bose is certainly making a compelling case with the Home Speaker 500 . The compact smart speaker finds the audio company going all in on the smart assistant market, along with a pair of new soundbars that also sport Alexa functionality.

The company has cautiously embraced Amazon’s smart assistant in recent years, but the trio of new products are the first Bose speakers to feature Alexa built-in, rather than relying on a skill. The Home Speaker is a fairly compact device, measuring 8 x 6 x 4 inches, with two custom drivers built-in, designed to reflect sound off of walls. The looks are a little lacking, but the sound is really what counts.

There are eight microphones on board that support Amazon’s far-field tech, which means it should play nicely with other Echo devices. Those mics, along with the ones of the soundbars, are built from the same tech found on the company’s headsets.

The smart speaker runs $400, and the soundbars are $550 and $800. All will hit the market in October. Support for other smart assistants is forthcoming (including, one assumes, Google Assistant), with AirPlay 2 functionality arriving early next year.

Original Content By TechCrunch

The post Bose takes on the HomePod with a $400 Alexa smart speaker appeared first on BardTech.

Tags: Alexa, Amazon, bose, Hardware, alexa, homepod, smart, speaker, takes

Original link: here
via BardTech

Comments

How to change the PIM of a VeraCrypt volume

The developers of VeraCrypt introduced Personal Iterations Multiplier (PIM) functionality in the encryption program in version 1.12 . PIM stands for "Personal Iterations Multiplier". It is a parameter that was introduced in VeraCrypt 1.12 and whose value controls the number of iterations used by the header key derivation function. PIM is used by volumes even if the creator of the volume did not specify a value. It is an optional component that improves security: it adds another step to the authentication process similarly to two-factor authentication. The main difference is that the PIM value is fixed and not generated on the fly when requested. An attacker needs to know the master password and the PIM, if not set to default, to breach the encryption successfully and access the content of the drive or partition. A couple of good reasons exist to change the PIM value: It was leaked or stolen. The default value is used and that is not as secure as using a custom PIM. Yo...

Huawei Mate 20 Pro launched in India with Kirin 980 for ₹69,990 ($988)

For years, the highest-end Android flagship used to be defined by Samsung’s Galaxy Note series as the “best-of-the-best” Android phones. Google entered the premium smartphone segment in 2016 with the Google Pixel . In addition, one company that has been steadily improving its flagship phones is Huawei. Huawei has also been steadily increasing the prices of its flagship phones at the same rate. Indian consumers, however, were left out as Huawei had not opted to launch any Mate series phone in India before. This year, as the company’s strategy has changed, high-end flagship smartphone buyers now have another option to choose from. The Huawei P20 Pro was launched in India in April . Now, Huawei has launched the Huawei Mate 20 Pro in India—the first ever launch of a Mate series phone in the country. The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is the successor of the Huawei Mate 10 Pro . It’s positioned as a higher-end variant of the standard Huawei Mate 20. It should be noted that Huawei didn’t launch the s...

The 5 Best Free IPTV Apps to Watch Live TV on Android

It’s easier than ever to watch on-demand TV shows and movies on your Android device. But what about live TV? Yes, there are services like Sling and PlayStation Vue. However, if you know where to look, you don’t need to subscribe to their expensive plans. You can use free IPTV instead; you just need an IPTV app and an IPTV source. What Is an IPTV App? IPTV apps are a bit like Kodi; they are empty shells that can’t stream any content without some user input. You have the responsibility for adding channels, playlists, and other sources. Typically, you cannot use the apps to watch Netflix, Hulu, or direct content from other third-party providers. Here, we’re not interested in the best on-demand streaming apps or places to watch TV online. We are only looking at the IPTV apps themselves. Specifically, we want to know what the best IPTV apps on Android are. 1. Lazy IPTV Our first pick is Lazy IPTV. It supports M3U playlists in open-view, ZIP, and GZ formats. The app can also read pl...

BardTech

Search This Blog