model

Finally, a great-sounding table radio

There was a time when table radios didn't get any respect.

That's no longer true now that some radios come jazzed up with iPod/iPhone docks, CD players, Internet radios, and all sorts of features. But they still sound like table radios--even the ones featured in full-page ads in magazines and newspapers that sell for $349 or more. The sound isn't bad, just inoffensive, and they make do with fake stereo. True, they may sport two speakers, but since the radios are just 15 or so inches wide, stereo imaging isn't part of the plan.

Enter the Cue Radio Model r1 Outlaw Audio Signature Edition; it's a table radio that aims higher, and mostly hits the target. It's the best-sounding table radio I've tried at home.

Styling is iPod-inspired and elegant, with a black high-gloss body and large backlit display. The Cue radio sports a built-in iPod/iPhone dock, dual alarms, remote, etc. Stereo? It's an unabashedly mono affair, with a single two-way, tweeter/woofer driver hunkered down on the right side of the cabinet, but you can add Cue's matching Model s1 speaker and get bona-fide stereo. That feature alone elevates it over most of the competition, and automatically ups the Cue radio's hi-fi quotient by a few notches.

Cue's 3/4-inch silk dome tweeter is mounted on a waveguide, strategically centered over a 3.5-inch woofer. The combined driver is a proprietary design, and it's a honey. The Cue Radio is "bi-amplified," meaning one 25-watt amplifier drives the tweeter, another 25-watt amp drives the woofer. The radio has two more 25-watt amps standing by for when you run stereo speakers. There's a 3.5 mm stereo Aux input jack on the rear panel for connecting CD players, MP3 players, computers etc. It's too bad a headphone jack didn't make the cut. The radio is 10.5 inches wide by 4.25 high by 6.5 deep and weighs six pounds.

I'm reviewing the Cue Radio Model r1 Outlaw Audio Signature Edition, which sports a couple of features missing from the standard Cue Radio Model r1, but both models retail for the same price, $399 for the radio, or $479 when bundled with the stereo speaker. In either case, the radio is assembled by hand and tested by Cue in the U.S..… Read more

Twitter gets into deal alerts with '@earlybird'

Twitter is getting into the online shopping business--or at least pointing to places where deals can be had.

The company's new service, aptly named @earlybird, is an official Twitter account that the company plans to feed with deals at both online and offline retailers, as well as "sneak peeks and events." Users who follow the account will see these entries just like any other tweet in their stream.

While it might seem to be a minor offering, @earlybird is notable in that Twitter plans to monetize it. The company is partnering with companies to provide the deals, … Read more

What's more American than a muscle car? (concept car Friday)

More than trucks, more than minivans and SUVs, I believe that there's no better vehicular representation of America than the muscle car. However, with muscle cars come deep seeded loyalties to and rivalries among the three manufacturers and their respective vehicles. Specifically, we're talking about Ford's Mustang, Dodge's Challenger, and Chevrolet's Camaro. In a recent episode of Car Tech Live, we three hosts were asked which modern muscle car we'd each have and came up with three very different answers. Rather than spend our Independence Day weekend arguing over which is best, we've … Read more

Model S keyboards will drive your neighbors click clack crazy

The Das Keyboard Model S series was forged in the fires of the original IBM Model M keyboards that shipped with all IBM-branded computers back in the 1980s. Highly regarded for their durability and clicky tactile feedback thanks to mechanical switches embedded underneath each key, the Model Ms have since gone out of production, but Das Keyboard picks up where IBM left off with the Model S. We recommend it to anyone willing to pay slightly more for a nerdy niche input device.

Das Keyboard offers a Professional and an Ultimate version of the Model S keyboard, but the only … Read more

Car Tech Live 174: Tesla reveals its secret sauce to the Model S (podcast)

We'll reveal the *real* range you can expect from the Nissan Leaf...Find out what secret sauce Tesla will use to build the coming Model S...See where Chrysler hid the owners manual...and drive a Lexus SUV that straddles more than creeks & gullys.

Subscribe with iTunes (audio) Subscribe with iTunes (video) Subscribe with RSS (audio) Subscribe with RSS (video) EPISODE 174 SHOW NOTES

• Tesla lays out Model S production line

• Nissan Leaf has 100-mile range--give or take 40 percent

• Lotus finds a buyer for its hybrid engine

• Scosche Fine Tunes iPad Kit

• Livio Unveils the Carmen Internet Radio Player for Cars… Read more

Boeing's 787 meets its oldest ancestor, on high

When the new kid on the block meets the grizzled old veteran, it can be a beautiful sight to see.

On May 8, in a promotional moment worthy of its setting, Boeing's newest airplane, the 787 Dreamliner, briefly met up in the skies over Washington State's Mount Rainier with the company's first-ever commercial production aircraft, the Model 40.

As seen in the image above, the rendezvous was a serious moment of old meets new. But for Boeing, the chance to put the two planes together in the sky was all about taking a quick moment from months … Read more

Stanford grads hope to change smoking forever

To James Monsees and Adam Bowen, the biggest problem with the smoking industry is that it stopped innovating 50 years ago. And the two San Francisco entrepreneurs have set out to get that innovation engine moving again.

Monsees and Bowen, who were classmates at Stanford's design school, worked on a master's thesis together about smoking and in their research, discovered that many smokers love the ritual and the social elements of having a cigarette, but hate the fact that doing so often bothers people and is known to be unhealthy. With their degrees in hand, the two decided to build a product around helping people maximize those positives and minimize those negatives.

That was four years ago. Now, their company, Ploom, has just released its first product, the Model One. The $40 Model One is a vaporizer built around patent-pending technology that heats tobacco to a temperature that releases its flavor, but doesn't burn it. It's intended to be a white-gloved slap to the face of the traditional cigarette and the companies that make them.

The Model One looks something like a cross between a flute and a high-tech pen.… Read more

Open-source support: Can it scale?

Open-source software had a very good 2009, and all indications are 2010 is on track to be even better.

Enterprises turned to open source to shave money in the economic downturn and are staying with it now to drive greater innovation and productivity.

This brings great hope to open-source vendors, anxious to cash in on open source's rising popularity, but it also introduces some specific challenges as they scale their organizations to meet demand.

Specifically, since support is the lifeblood of any open-source business, how can companies expand their support capabilities while simultaneously scaling profitability? The two don't … Read more

Is ad blocking the problem?

Ars Technica's Ken Fisher recently wrote an impassioned plea to turn off ad-blocking software like AdBlock Plus to save the online publishing industry. His attempt to turn back the clock on digitization, however, would likely accomplish the opposite.

Fisher has a good point: ad-blocking software almost certainly does hurt sites like CNET by denying them revenue. As he points out, "[m]ost [large] sites...are paid on a per view basis," not a click-through basis, which means that ad-blocking software very literally takes money out of the pockets of publishers, leading consumers to "devastat[e]...the … Read more

Microsoft's desktop future may look like a phone

Competition in the personal computer market is heating up, even as it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish just what we mean when we talk about a PC. Airline flight attendants seem to be able to discern the difference between mobile phones and personal computers in their in-flight announcements, but the vendors who make and sell them increasingly can't.

It is precisely this fuzziness that offers Google and Apple a chance to get a leg up on Microsoft, but is also why Microsoft may be able to cement its lead.

Google is clear about its aims: it wants to get … Read more