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Sony today unveiled two new Xperia phones for people who may find the 5-inch Experia Z and ZL too big to handle.

The Xperia SP offers a super-bright 4.6-inch 720-pixel HD Reality Display. Sony's Reality Display borrows technology from the Bravia TV lineup, which the company says enhances the brightness and picture sharpness. Courtesy of the Mobile Bravia Engine 2, the phone automatically adjusts its display based on the image being viewed.

Packed with 4G LTE, the SP also comes with near-field communications to display photos and videos on a TV and share files with other devices. An … Read more

Back in February I first posed the question, "Do separate components sound better than AV receivers?" when I checked out the Outlaw Audio 975 surround processor and 7125 power amp and compared their sound with a Denon AVR-1912 AV receiver. The Outlaws handily trumped the receiver.

I ran another comparison with the Denon, this time with the Emotiva UMC-200 seven-channel surround processor ($599) and UPA-500 five-channel amplifier ($399). If you just go by the numbers, the AVR-1912's 90 watts per channel might appear to be slightly ahead of the Emotiva UPA-500 amp, which has 80 watts per … Read more

LAS VEGAS--The iSpO2 by Masimo ports the hospital checkup experience to iPhones and iPads and makes on-the-spot pulse readings available to active types wherever they are.

iSpO2 is a consumer pulse oximeter that connects to most Apple i-devices and comes with a sensor that you slip on to your ring finger for immediate oxygen, pulse rate, and perfusion index readings.

While not intended for home use, the idea behind iSpO2 is to help fitness fanatics, aviators, skiers, and extreme sports enthusiasts find out crucial information on their vitals without the need for a physician. Max Safai, senior vice president of … Read more

I recently wrote about a Hsu Research subwoofer, "Shaken & stirred: The Hsu VTF-1 MK2," but today I'll cover a complete Hsu 5.1 channel sub/satellite system. There are four HB-1 MK2 sats, one HC-1 MK2 center channel speaker, and the VTF-1 MK2 sub. The six pieces sell for $1,159, and the sound is truly astonishing for the money. A Denon AVR-1912 receiver and an Oppo BDP-93 Blu-ray player completed the test system.

The Hsu system has extraordinary power and dynamic oomph. It also sounds sweet at late-night listening levels, but it can rock with … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Did RIM just stage this BlackBerry 10 "leak"?

- Do we need this? Kohler shower head doubles as a wireless speaker.

- Dude builds OSX into old Macintosh Portable, let's talk about RETRO OBSESSION.

- Bionic mannequins spy on shoppers to boost sales.

Bathroom break video: One of the best couples Halloween costumes ever recorded.

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The Hsu Research VTF-1 MK2 is, hands down, the best-sounding affordable subwoofer I've heard to date.

It was designed by Poh Hsu and I have fond memories of the first time I met him, at a Consumer Electronics Show in the late 1990s. He had a room filled with subs and a single pair of tiny speakers hooked up to an inexpensive receiver. He played a short series of music pieces with thundering bass drums, mighty organs, and hard-hitting rock bands, and those baby speakers sounded like heavyweight towers. It was a great 2-minute demo, and when it was … Read more

Kingsoft Antivirus 2012 is a free Internet security program for scanning and defending your computer against malicious files and/or hackers.

A quick scan only takes a couple minutes. For a full scan, which scans all of your drives, it can take from an hour and a half to 2 hours to complete. On average, it scans 93 files per second. You do need to use the full scan every once in a while, though, because it picks up on threats that the quick scan will often miss. We take care not to download anything questionable, but threats are not … Read more

Giving it a lens your neighborhood stalker of, um, squirrels is sure to love, Olympus today announced the Stylus SP-820UZ iHS featuring a 40x f3.4-5.7 22.4-896mm lens. Nikon's Coolpix P510 and its 42x zoom lens still beat it, but hey, it's nice to have options.

Unlike the Nikon, however, the 820UZ iHS is more of a fully automatic camera with no manual or semimanual shooting modes. Its high-sensitivity 14-megapixel CMOS sensor and Olympus TruePic V image processor will let you capture 1080p HD and high-speed video (240fps HSQVGA) clips, though, and you get multishot HDR … Read more

Andrew Jones has a degree in physics, but his real passion is speaker design. He worked as a research engineer for KEF, Infinity and now with Pioneer, and he's chiefly responsible for their ultra high-end TAD Reference line of speakers that sell for upwards of $80,000! So a few years ago when I first heard that Jones was working on a line of superaffordable speakers for Pioneer, I didn't believe it. I said, "You mean that Andrew Jones? No way." Well, it was that Mr. Jones, and the speakers were astonishingly good. The now-discontinued 5.1-channel, … Read more