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Asus Chromebox preorders now available for $179, shipping March 14

Jordan Kahn
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ASUS Chromebox frontS_575px
ASUS Chromebox frontangleS_575px

After first announcing last month that its smallest-ever Chromebox would be arriving sometime in March for $179, Asus today started accepting preorders for the device through a number of online retailers. Amazon is currently accepting orders and listing an expected release date of March 17th for the new Chromebox.

The new Chromebox from Asus will actually arrive in three CPU configurations. Preorders today start for the dual-core 1.4GHz Celeron 2955U model, while an Intel Core i3 will also arrive March 14 as will an i7 model for outside of North America. Other specs include 2GB RAM, a 16GB SSD, 4 USB 3.0 ports, SD card reader, HDMI, DisplayPort, Bluetooth 4.0, and dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n. That’s all inside a case that measures 4.88″ x 4.88″ x 1.65” and comes in at 2.2 pounds.  Read more

Samsung launches ‘Milk Music’, a free and ad-free (for now) radio app for Galaxy users

Jordan Kahn

Milk-Music

Samsung announced today that it’s launching a new free and ad-free music service called “Milk Music” that’s powered by Slacker and available to customers of select Galaxy devices. Samsung says the app, which is available now on available as a download on Google Play, is “fully customizable” and offers over 200 stations and a library of over 13 million songs.

“Milk Music introduces a fresh approach to music that reflects our innovation leadership and our focus on creating best-in-class consumer experiences,” said Gregory Lee, president and CEO of Samsung Telecommunications America and Samsung Electronics North America Headquarters. “We’re offering consumers amazing, rich music experiences built around what matters most to them and their lifestyle.”

The service is launching today in the US and available to those with a Galaxy S® 4, Galaxy S® III, Galaxy Note® 3, and Galaxy Note® II  as well as the upcoming Galaxy S 5.  Samsung added that it will soon offer “unique music programming from top selling and emerging artists available exclusively through Milk Music.”

While Samsung is promoting the service as completely free and free of ads, the Google Play page for the app says that the app will only be without ads and free for a for a limited time. It’s unclear if Samsung is referring to the ads or the service being free of charge, but it appears that it will either be implementing advertisements or a fee for the service in the future.

Here’s a list of features from Google Play: Read more

HP releases HP 8, an iPad mini lookalike for $170

Ben Lovejoy
New HP 8, with iPad Mini (right)

New HP 8, with iPad Mini (right)

HP’s new tablet – simply called the HP 8 – not only bears more than a passing resemblance to the non-Retina version of Apple’s iPad mini, it appears to use an almost identical 7.85-inch IPS 1024×768 display.

It looks like a reasonable if unexciting buy for the money, with an Allwinner quad-core ARM chip, 1GB RAM, 16GB storage, a microSD slot (supporting up to 32GB cards) and running Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean) …  Read more

Google releases huge Text-to-Speech app update with more realistic voices, interface tweaks

Chance Miller
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nexusae0_wm_Screenshot_2014-03-05-13-49-40_thumb

Google has rolled out a massive update to its Text-to-Speech Android app that includes a variety of enhancements. The update, which began rolling out to devices yesterday evening, bumps the app to version 3.0. Most notably, this update improves the voice functionality and quality. While the voice was originally rather robotic and boring, this update makes it more fluent and realistic, much like Apple did with Siri in iOS 7. The updated voice is available in several languages and both male and female varieties, but each language and style runs about 200MB, so be sure you’re on WiFi when you download them. The voices are also now available in Portugese (Brazil), and Spanish (United States).

There are some issues with the new voices, however. Android Police notes that commands that contact the Google server for a reply, such as ”what is 3+2″, still use the old robotic voice. Local questions, such as  ”what is my next appointment”, do use the new voices, however.

The user interface has also been tweaked heavily. The voice management screen has been redesigned to show the size of each download, as well as detailed information about the voice.

The update is rolling out gradually on Google Play, so be sure to keep an eye on the Play Store for it to hit your device.

Read more