With smartphones and tablets increasingly becoming the focus of our entertainment a decent portable speaker is becoming an essential accessory if you don’t want to be tied to headphones or want to share your music with others.

Inatek's latest offering has a pair of 5W speakers mounted in a stylish, compact (around 9.5 inches long by 2.5 inches high) black and silver enclosure. It has a nice weighty feel and there's a slot in the top into which you can sit a smartphone or tablet -- a pop-out strut at the back prevents the unit from becoming top heavy and tipping over as well as keeping a comfortable viewing angle -- so you can use it to watch videos. A built-in microphone means you can make hands-free calls too. However, it isn't an actual dock so it won't charge your phone or tablet.

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Bluetooth headphones are pretty common place but these from DIGICare are a bit different because they use bone conduction technology -- as does Google Glass and some hearing aids.

That means instead of sitting in or over your ears they rest on the sides of your head and feed the sound into your inner ear via your skull.

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Music is my favorite hobby, and I am certainly not alone. Technology has enhanced my listening in ways that I never dreamed. As a child of the 80's, I started with cassettes and later upgraded to CD. Collecting CDs and vinyl consumed my life; I even embraced MiniDisc to create my own digital mixes from my newest records.

Nowadays, I have continued my evolution to mp3 and ultimately, streaming. Long gone are the days of collecting and storing; Spotify is the sole source of all my tunes. Whether listening on my PC, tablet or smartphone, I demand a quality speaker -- preferably Bluetooth and portable. My current favorite portable is the UE BOOM. Today, I am looking at the next-generation, called the MEGABOOM. Is it mega awesome?

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Sure, I'm a pretty high-tech guy who loves his gadgets and toys; however, I am also extremely frugal. Don't get me wrong, I am willing to spend money for quality, but I believe the old adage that a fool and his money are easily parted. Case in point, when I went new car shopping a few years back, I had a number in my head that I did not want my monthly payment to exceed. Once at the Ford dealership, I found a car that fit my budget, but it did not have any cool tech features. The little car has no Bluetooth support, no steering wheel audio controls, no navigation. It did, however, have Sirius Satellite radio, which I needed for Howard Stern, but I digress.

Long story short, I connect my Nexus 6 to my car stereo using an Aux cable with the headphone jack, like a total loser. Day after day, I pine away for a Bluetooth connection for my ride. Well, the concept of adding such a connection to a car is not new, but today, Griffin announces an elegant solution for a dilemma such as mine. Hell, for you Apple folks who want to charge and play through a lightning connection, the company has you covered too.

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Bluetooth has proven to be quite the impressive standard; it has seen wide adoption, and is found in most modern cellular phones (both smart and dumb). Hell, it is even found in many automobiles nowadays.

While an incremental update to the Bluetooth standard probably won't make the evening news, it is a very important moment in the tech world. Today the Bluetooth Special Interest Group announces exactly that -- version 4.2 is now officially adopted. Even though the version number change is slight (from 4.1), the new version is big on new features.

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While I am a fan of all genres of music, I am mostly a Hip-Hop lover. With that said, I have been really enjoying Dubstep and other electronic music lately. Do I go to clubs and dance? Hell no! I consume this music at my computer desk. If you are ever feeling fatigued or having trouble focusing, a Red Bull and some Dubstep will change that quickly -- the beats and tempos act like a metronome for your life.

The man most associated with Dubstep music is Skrillex. If you are a bit older, please know that he looks a bit like Corey Feldman. His music is erratic, crazy and beautiful all at once. Sadly, Dubstep cannot be properly enjoyed on a smartphone speaker; you need more power! No worries, as today, Ultimate Ears and Skrillex are partnering on the Skrillex Edition UE BOOM Bluetooth speaker.

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Developers of ‘the world’s first smart earring’ are hoping to raise over $30,000 on the Kickstarter crowd-funding website as part of a vision to "take fitness monitoring to the next level".

With most fitness and activity tracking devices typically worn on the wrist, developers of the Ear-o-Smart earring believe the wearable electronics market is missing a trick.

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Bluetooth speakers can be a mixed bag, audio-wise. I have a Cambridge Audio speaker which I’m very happy with, but I may be tempted to stray now that B&O PLAY has launched the BeoPlay A2.

The stylish new speaker is designed be carried and has a leather strap/handle on the side. It features Bang & Olufsen Signature Sound and delivers 180W power, with True360 omni-directional performance so the audio should sound good no matter where you are in the room. It has two speaker drivers on each side -- a 3/4-inch tweeter and a 3-inch full range driver.

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Tablets are fantastic for casual tasks such as checking email, browsing the web, watching movies and playing games, but they’re not so good for doing work on because the virtual keyboard takes up so much of the screen space, and it’s difficult to touch type on.

If you want to boost your productivity, you need to consider buying a keyboard for your device. There are plenty of good ones to choose from, but that adds yet another thing to carry around with you. The Atongm Bluetooth Virtual Laser Keyboard is a tiny solution (36x18x74 mm, approx. 40g) which gives you back your screen space and turns any surface -- such as a table in a coffee shop -- into a keyboard.

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Nowadays, all major operating systems are great. Regardless of your preference, it cannot be denied that Windows, OS X, iOS, Android and many Linux distributions are amazing feats of technology. It is not uncommon for me and many others to use multiple operating systems every day. While Windows is what I use mostly for getting work done, Android is my smartphone OS of choice, and the iPad is my bedtime entertainment computer. It is not necessary to live on a desert island-like environment from only one company exclusively.

Bluetooth keyboards have made typing on devices convenient; however, there is an annoying aspect -- pairing. If you use a Bluetooth keyboard with only one device, you should have no issue. Unfortunately, if you want to share it between multiple devices and operating systems, you have to re-pair it every time you switch. This becomes a tedious affair, turning convenience into a hassle. Luckily, Logitech has released a product, that should alleviate this nuisance -- the Bluetooth Multi-Device Keyboard K480.

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Just short of one year after the Bluetooth 3.0 specification was unveiled, we are just now beginning to see designs that take it into consideration.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) posted a Core spec 3.0 "qualified design listing" yesterday for a new Samsung Mobile phone going by the name GT-S8500, a 3.1" OLED touchscreen device.

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