Gadget Ogling: Floating Speakers, Neckbrace Audio, and Charming Caffeine Fixes

Welcome, dear friends, to another incarnation of Gadget Dreams and Nightmares, the column that occasionally peels its eyes from Super Mario Run to cast its gaze over the latest gadget announcements.

In the Mushroom Kingdom this time around are a levitating speaker, a speaker to hang around your neck, and an adorable coffee machine.

 

Crowd Forms on Alexa Bandwagon

New additions to Amazon's growing ecosystem of Alexa-based products are making a splash at CES this week. With a growing number of home appliance, computer and electronics makers announcing integrations with the company's digital assistant technology, the transformation to automated homes and home offices appears to be taking place before our eyes.

c, FCA Test-Drive New Open Source Infotainment System

Google and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles this week showcased a new in-auto infotainment platform at CES in Las Vegas. The open source system combines Uconnect with Android Auto.

The companies demonstrated their concept design inside a Chrysler 300 sedan at the show. The new system is built around Android 7.0, or Nougat, and an 8.4-inch Uconnect system.

Dell puts 10 speakers inside new XPS 27 all-in-one PC

Making a distinctive and uniquely appealing desktop PC is a daunting task nowadays, but not an impossible one. Dell’s approach to this challenge, unveiled with the 2017 XPS 27 all-in-one, is to go for audio overkill. This new desktop has six speakers staring down the user — four covering the mid and bass frequencies, plus dedicated tweeters in each corner — along with two more down-firing, full-range speakers and a pair of passive radiators. I say overkill, but audio has been generally a neglected aspect of desktop PCs, with makers expecting people to buy separate speakers or use headphones, so Dell is tapping into an opportunity to deliver a true all-in-one.

Dell XPS 27

 Jake Kastrenakes

TWO TIMES LOUDER THAN AN IMAC, 10 TIMES THE BASS OF AN HP ENVY 27

Dell’s new audio system has been engineered in collaboration with music producer Jack Joseph Puig, and the PC-making company isn’t too shy to claim it has "the best sound for an All-in-one PC." It certainly has more than enough hardware to grab that title. But Dell’s claims don’t end there: the company also says the XPS 27 is two times louder than Apple’s 27-inch iMac and has up to 10 times the bass of HP’s Envy 27.

Absolute Linux Caters to the Slackware Crowd

Absolute Linux is a distro that raises the question: Is it really worth the bother?

Any version of this Slackware-based Linux OS is just that -- a really big bother -- unless you love Unix-like systems that give you total control. It likely would be especially bothersome for less experienced users and for folks comfortable with Debian distros such as Ubuntu, Linux Mint and such.