This just in from a friend via text, and just verified by me, the RIAA (riaa.com) MPAA (mpaa.com) Justice Department (justice.gov) and UMG (universalmusicgroup.com) have all been DDOS’d (Distributed Denial of Service) meaning that their websites (for our less computer savvy friends) has been hacked and taken down, Anonymous the victorious and viscous , yet very vivacious hacker group has claimed responsibility as a direct response to Megaupload.com being taken down. This my brethren and fellow pirates is literally all out digital warfare!

You heard it here first, now let’s see how long before the media companies and newsgroups broadcast it “RIAA – Justice.Gov – MPAA – and UMG suffer DDOS”

You read correclty… MegaUpload website down is my “OMFG” grammatically incorrect way of saying that Megaupload.com is down and at the moment, it looks like it’s for the long haul!

The Justice Department has indicted seven individuals and two companies behind the popular file sharing website Megaupload.com which has been touted by stars will.i.am, Kim Kardashian and Puff Daddy.

The indictment alleges that the website and a shell company associated with the website, Vestor Limited, caused an estimated half-billion dollars in copyright losses and made an estimated $175 million in proceeds. The website was established in 2005 and at one point ranked as the 13th most visited website on the Internet.

The feds indicted the site’s founder, Kim Dotcom, aka Kim Schmitz, a 37-year-old resident of Hong Kong and New Zealand. He was arrested in New Zealand by New Zealand authorities.

Also indicted were employees Bram van der Kolk, aka Bramos, 29, Julius Bencko, Finn Batato, Sven Echternach, Mathias Ortmann, and Andrus Nomm. New Zealand authorities arrested Batato, Ortmann and van der Kolk. Bencko, Echternach and Nomm remain at large, officials said.

The indictment accuses the suspects of being members of “the Mega Conspiracy, a worldwide criminal organization whose members engaged in criminal copyright infringement and money laundering on a massive scale.”

The case comes a day after internet companies and websites such as Google, WordPress and Wikipedia protested about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA).

An hour after the indictment was announced, the Justice Department’s website, www.Justice.gov, came under cyberattack with a denial-of-service attack. Anonymous, the hacktivist computer group, is claiming responsibility.

Describing the operation of the site and relations with users the indictment noted, “For much of its operation, the Mega Conspiracy has offered an ‘Uploader Rewards’ Program, which promised premium subscribers transfers of cash and other financial incentives to upload popular works, including copyrighted works, to computer servers under the Mega Conspiracy’s direct control and for the Conspiracy’s ultimate financial benefit.”

The seven suspects have been charged with participating in a racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement.

If convicted they could face a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Amazingly this comes at a time when the focus of “Intellectual property” rights is basking in the limelight, which could indirectly benefit Megauploads accused staff/owners.

By: David Leach

Today January 18th, the internet goes on strike. Well some of the internet technically speaking. We are still here…and yes we should be striking as well but I figured the big guns like Google, Wikipedia, reddit, and other larger website would get the point across, or just call me lazy. If you don’t know what SOPA is you’ve been out of the loop or do not read the news much, so educate yourself here: CLICKY THIS LINKY

You can also see if your senator supports SOPA or PIPA HERE

Alternatively if reading isn’t your thing (which I think you’ve identified by not wanting to read the above link to the Wiki, then you can watch this video here:

Or you can watch the Anonymous Video discussing SOPA:

At failedExE we are strongly against SOPA, you would not be reading this if SOPA is passed, as well as you wouldn’t have the great Windows 7 cracks and hacks and the upcoming Windows 8 cracks and hacks if SOPA passed. As a matter of fact…if you happened to be watching…oh let’s say, a web cam girl at 2:00am playing with herself around in lingerie and she happened to have Justin Beibers music playing in the background, well that website could be taken down with no legal process for copyright infringement.

The main problem with the main supporters behind SOPA and PIPA (see here)

I have personally written, emailed and called my state senator with the SOPA provided methods. FailedExE actually holds a slightly different view than most anti-SOPA and anit-PIPA folks, I actually believe in the piracy. Most of the anti-SOPA and anti-PIPA individuals and companies believe we should have stricter online policies but think that SOPA and PIPA are not the correct methods.

You can slap a patch on my eye and turn this ship towards the horizon because like most of my readers and followers, I a mutha frakkin pirate party member!

By: David Leach

This is more specifically, what parts to purchase to build a hackintosh, although I will provide support for anyone building their hackintosh.

So many people ask me or send me emails asking for help on how to build a hackintosh and while there are some really great resources available like tonymacx86, and osx86project.org, I thought I should relieve you of some of the searching. This is my current Hackintosh build and I attained absolutely 100% functionality. If you have any questions please leave me a comment and I will do my best to help you out in a timely manner.

My build is what I would consider a “2011″ build however it is still a beast of a hackintosh. Below each component I have linked to where you can purchase the product in order to save you time (if you plan on duplicating it).

David’s Hackintosh Build – GA-X58-UD3R – Core i7-960@ 3.85ghz – GTX480 x2 -Momentus XT 500gb SSD Hybrid

NZXT “H2″ ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Modern Looking Hackintosh case

GIGABYTE GA-X58-UD3R LGA 1366 ATX Motherboard
A great Hackintosh (fully) compatible motherboard

MSI Twin Frozr N480gtx Lightning (Superclocked) x2 (SLI in Win7- Dual GPU recognized properly in OS X)
GTX480 in Hackintosh
Now I would actually recommend different video cards than the ones I chose, these were a royal pain in the ass to get working properly. You will not lose any functionality by choosing an alternate GPU. I would personally recommend any of the 6XXX series from ATI or the any of the 5XX series from Nvidia.

Intel Core i7-960 (overclocked to 3.85ghz) Bloomfield 3.20GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor (model #: BX80601960)
CPU for the hackintosh, Optionally I’d probably go for a Sandy Bridge CPU these days (for price) but you would have to use a different motherboard.

Corsair Hydro Series H70 CORE
CPU Cooling for Hackintosh
Now this isn’t the most practical cpu cooling solution for a hackintosh and it is a little on the pricey side, however I originally planned on overclocking my hackintosh from the beginning so if you plan on overclocking as well, then this is a decent solution. I used the excalibur silent fans in a push-pull configuration.

PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-219L
Compatible DvD drive for Hackintosh
***Make sure to read my notes below regarding the importance of choosing the proper DvD / Bluray drive!

Patriot Viper II Sector 7 Edition 24GB (6 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3
High performance memory (ddr3) for Hackintosh

SILVERSTONE Strider Gold Evolution SST-ST1000-G Evolution 1000W ATX 12V v2.3 / EPS 12V 80 PLUS GOLD Certified 100% Modular, Active PFC Power Supply, with 140mm Fan Filter
Powersupply for your hackintosh. For the powersupply you do not have to get a 1000watt PSU, if you plan on running a single GPU, you’ll be fine with a 600-650watt PSU, if you plan on running two GPU’s then I’d personally recommend a minimum of 700-750watts for your PSU.

Seagate Momentus XT ST95005620AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache 2.5″ SATA 3.0Gb/s with NCQ Solid State Hybrid Drive
Hybrid SSD / HDD for Hackintosh
I chose the Momentus XT because it natively (without needing/having TRIM on the OSX side) remembers which applications I launch the most and essentially caches them in the flash memory for quick access, for the applications or files that I access less frequently, it stores them in the platters on the HDD side of things. This “Hybrid” drive offers a great performance to price value.

(3) Western Digital Caviar Black WD1502FAEX 1.5TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive
Hard drives for your Hackintosh I haven’t heard of any compatibility issues with using any other manufacturers drives, but I tend to go with what I know, and Western Digital has earned a reputation with having reliable drives.

Targus ACB10US1 Bluetooth 2.0 Adapter
Bluletooth USB for HackintoshYou need it for all those fancy Apple bluetooth devices…and you’ll want it.

Apple Magic Mouse
Sure you can use almost any other mouse, but this really gives you the Apple experience.

Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard or OS Lion
Purchase or Pirate?
Unlike my brethren at TonyMac and a few other sites, I will not scorn you for discussing whether or not you choose to use a pirated copy of OS X 10.6.8 or OS Lion. OS Lion (which I’d recommend you to purchase and use is only $30) …however it’s up to you whether you want to purchase or pirate it. When I built my system OS Lion was not yet out and I just haven’t had the time to upgrade my hackintosh to it, but I will.

Apple 27″ LED Cinema Display
Simply the best Hackintosh display…period.

Atlona 6 ft MALE Displayport to FEMALE mini Displayport cable
You absolutely need this cable for your hackintosh to support all the Apple 27″ cinema display features (built in speakers, camera, microphone). On my friend’s hackintosh that I built him, he actually runs three 27″ Apple Cinema Displays! (see image below) *Note that I have no confirmation that the new Thunderbolt displays will work properly and as far as Im aware they will not.

A hackintosh triple Apple 27

(It was a major pain in the ass to find this exact cable which is absolutely needed to support the Apple 27″ in it’s NATIVE resolution of 2560×1440, as well as still reproduce sound and allow the internal mic AND internal camera to work as intended) Works both in OS X AND Win7 for Display (of course), built in camera, built in mic, built in speakers. I tried those janky $100+ adapters but you must pay close attention because there is a lot of “small text” as to what they can legitimately support.

M-Audio AV 40 – Monitor Speakers for Professional-quality Media Creation
When you want some more boom to your beats. Sure there are other speakers out there that look a LOT better. I bought 7 different sets of 2.0 desktop speakers ranging in price from $100 to $900, and these (now priced) at $130-150 are hands down the absolute best when it comes to Bass response, mids and crystal clear highs, without the need for a subwoofer under your desk and without the need for wires going everywhere. +++ Highly recommended!

Apple Magic Trackpad
This is optional for your hackintosh. I rarely use mine except when editing photos.

Mobee Magic Numpad
(optional) and honestly I wouldn’t recommend it. As a matter of fact, nope I won’t.

Apple Wireless Pro Keyboard
Keyboard for your hackintosh. Again, yes you can choose any keyboard for your hackintosh, but the Apple keyboard is bluetooth (wireless), it’s slim and feels comfortable.

Mionix Propus 380 Gaming Mouse Pad
(optional) You may already have a mousepad for your existing computer, but I thought I’d recommend a decent one.

Comments:
This is my 5th (personal) Hackintosh build that I put together last year (2011) for my home workhorse. I am running 10.6.8 and plan to upgrade to OS lion, but after the absolute headache of getting both (2x GTx 480′s) to work nicely with full QE & full resolution on the Apple display,

I really wish case manufacturers would start making cases that do NOT include any 5.25 bays for DvD/CD/Bluray drives, after install I never use it again. I prefer the minimalistic look

I have a couple Drobo Pro FS’s that I didn’t list above, solely because I believe they are garbage, I’ve replaced them both several times under warranty due to data loss and power cycling issues, absolutely gorgeous *looking* storage/RAID devices with bad support and cheap product quality.

I originally wanted the Fractal Design Define R3 Black Pearl mid tower silent PC case..this is the exiest damn computer case I’ve seen in a long long time.but it was literally sold out world-wide, I am still debating on getting one although my NZXT looks similar, the white LED on the bottom isn’t bright enough (after all…if it has to be there, shouldn’t it be bright?), for my next build.

***I had some odd restart and weird KP problems initially, and after much trial and error I found out that the selection of DvD-Drive’s actually is important, I originally used a Asus Bluray burner, and found it to be the cause of all the random errors, as soon as it was replaced by this cheapy Pioneer drive, everything became normal!

Getting the 2x 480′s to play nicely in 10.6.8 was no easy task, it required a lot of tweaking and countless days of literally writing down different variables until I was able to achieve success. Then…I realized the built in display speakers wouldn’t work properly, so I spent another week figuring that out. Thanks to the tonymac forums I was able to get this working properly. I have the 4.0.19 CUDA drivers, there is an update available and I *think* I remember seeing that I could update this with no problems, but again, I’d rather play it safe.

I have no stability problems with the overclock, it runs absolutely rock solid (and cool), even during 10+ hour intensive renders, or re-coding videos, and I leave this machine on for daaaaays (weeks actually)

Sleep works fine, shutdown works fine, restart works fine,

I’m thinking of adding a second Apple Cinema Display before the 2010-11 model disappears and is completely replaced with the thunderbolt displays.

App Review: CodeRunner

By: David Leach

At my company Consultoria Inc we leverage a lot of different software to develop websites and iphone / ipad / android apps, one app that I use both at work and personally is CodeRunner

You can write and test code, run scripts, work with algorithms, or simply experiment with a new coding or scripting language. It’s only $9.99 in the app store and the functionality it provides I sometimes take for granted, like it’s auto-completions (automatically adding closing brackets when you open one) which to me is invaluable when I’m burning through late night coding and tend to forget until compilation. Oh and did I mention it has tabbed browsing!

If your in OS Lion, one feature or aspect that CodeRunner adopted which I don’t like is the “Save a Version”, though I’m not a fan of antiquated features, I feel more comfortable with saving directly to any location (usually my cloud).

CodeRunner also has a built in console, you there isn’t a need to switch over to terminal, you can run your scripts without having to leave the application.

FEATURES:

- Edit and run code in AppleScript, C, C++, Java, JavaScript (Node.js), Objective-C, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Shell or any other language you might have installed on your system
- Fully featured editor with tabs, syntax highlighting, great code completion, color themes, intelligent bracket matching and more
- Editable code presets for new documents eliminates the need to keep writing main functions etc.
- Built-in file browser for easy access to your source files
- Fully supported user input in programs, with the ability to run with predefined input sets
- Built-in timing of code execution
- Autosaving, Versions and Fullscreen (Lion only)
- Customizable run commands and compile flags, custom fonts, full encoding support, and much more

You can purchase CodeRunner from the App Store for your Apple computer.

2012 is here chubs and chubettes (I can call you that right?….ok great) and in a rather funny story we have a publicized scandal coming from our brethren across the pond. Comet a large UK based retailer is accused by Microsoft, of counterfeiting and distributing copies of Windows.

Now we are not talking about 5 or 6 copies of Windows, but 94,000. How they came to that exact figure is pretty mind boggling, and even more odd, is why is it EXACTLY 94,000? Why wasn’t it 94,023? Oh well, only the suits know the answer to that one.

Microsoft is stating that the British chain counterfeited 94,000 copies of Vista and XP recovery discs and bundled them with PC’s sold at Comet. Comet allegedly produced the copies at a factory in Hampshire and bundled them with PCs sold at its stores.

Comet’s response?

“We note that proceedings have been issued by Microsoft Corporation against Comet relating to the creation of recovery discs by Comet on behalf of its customers.

Accordingly Comet is satisfied that it has a good defense to the claim and will defend its position vigorously.”

The funniest tidbit is the part where they state: “Comet firmly believes that it acted in the very best interests of its customers.”

LOL, you can act on my behalf anytime Comet…

What Microsoft should realize though is that we are talking about shitty ass Vista and XP, garbage that I (or my intelligent reader base) wouldn’t accept for FREE.

By now most of you have opened up your presents and are astonished at how much caffeine you’ll need to stay up and tinker with your new gadgets, or alternatively for a handful of you, your about to doze off and sleep off that wicked headache from the bottle of cheap liquor you drank to fast in order to get this miserable night over quicker. It’s okay my friends I’ve been on both ends of the spectrum.

Those of you traveling remember to not post your travel details on facebook like a idiot, set your alarms and hide your kids, hide your wife cause they rapin everybody out here since you’ll be gone, why not que a bunch of torrents for downloading since nobody will be needing all that bandwidth, but most of all be safe.

In 2012 I am looking to expand the video reviews section of failedexe, looking for new blogging talent, and have a ton of exciting things happening, but for now I just wanted to wish everyone a safe and happy holidays.

Cheers,
David Leach

Skyrim Flickering water driving you nuts? Skyrim is known to have a problem with flickering water with certain video cards, so here is the SKyrim Flickering water fix..after all.it is really annoying.

There is an relatively easy fix, you can use one of either two methods:

1. Disable all reflections for water detail

2.If your using Nvidia cards, and SLI, then go into the Nvidia control panel, select “Manage 3d Settings”, then select “Multi-GPU rendering Mode” and select the corresponding “Alternate frame rate-2″, so if you have two cards in SLI then you will select “2-GPU Alternate frame rendering -2″ if you have three it will be “3-GPU Alternate frame rendering -2″, click apply and start/restart the game.

You will want to return this to normal for all other games. I quickly found that this dropped my FPS in Battlefield 3 to about 15 fps, with 4x GTX 580′s in SLI.

We had a database error, and the review had been lost, we are working to restore it, in the meantime we’ve provided the intro videos below!

Star Wars the Old Republic Imperial Game Intro

Star Wars the Old Republic Rebel Game Intro

The JamBox is not so Jammin

In the last quarter of 2011 I went on a quest for an audiophile upgrade for all my gadjets and computers systems, which is how I came across the Jawbone Jambox speaker and decided to do an realistic Jawbone Jambox review. Most of the Jawbone Jambox reviews I had read online really overstated the performance and quality and I personally think that those who rated it well are seriously retarded and have piss taste in sound quality. Hence the need for a honest Jawbone Jambox Review. The Jawbone Jambox is not particularly new, it was released in 2010 and has had one revision/update to the actual hardware since. I had heard from a trusted friend of mine that the Jambox was worth the high(er) price of $200 and that the sound quality was “absolutely great”, so I decided to give it a try. I intended to use the Jambox as an upgrade over the built in Apple 27″ cinema display speakers that I had. The bluetooth functionality (translated= no messy wires) really appealed to the minimalist in me and I figured that charging it once every other day was worth the payoff of not having to see any wires. I had looked into other 2.0 speaker setups, but anything that was marketed as “having a lot of bass” had to have a separate bulky subwoofer, something I absolutely did not want.

Here’s one thing I learned that applies to any wireless speakers / headphones globally. If it is wireless, then it IS NOT loud. Loud speakers require more power, power which cannot be delivered efficiently via batteries. “Loud” however… can be defined in so many different definitions. My fiancé thinks that her stock ipod headphones are loud, I think there “ok”. Listening to my (unwelcome) surrounding environment while I’m jogging on a squeaky treadmill with some fat guy next to me talking on his bluetooth headset at the gym really drives my nail to the point.

Jawbone’s website states:

“JAMBOX delivers stunning hi-fi audio in a portable wireless speaker so compact you won’t believe it when you hear it. It’s loud. With an output capacity of 85 decibels, JAMBOX fills even the largest rooms. Unlike other portable speakers, JAMBOX is powered by a pair of proprietary, highly sophisticated acoustic drivers, unmatched in their ability to produce extreme high (tweeter) and low (woofer) frequencies from a single, ultra-small dome speaker. They work in concert with an innovative moving-wall passive bass radiator and airtight enclosure to deliver shimmering highs and thumping lows that you can literally feel – the richest sound all in the palm of your hand.”

They even have this nifty Youtube Video aptly showing off all the great and super snazzy social activities you can liven up with your Jawbone Jambox.

Now before I go on I have to point out something about the Youtube commercial for Jambox. That black kid is a complete dork. I mean we’re nerds around here, but that kid takes the cake. If you’re playing your Jambox speaker at a party, A. the party f**kin blows and B. You WILL be playing video games ALONE later on.

Like it says, a dorky black kid plays alone

Jambox Detailed Specifications

For those of you interested in the detailed specifications (yawn):

Audio
Proprietary acoustic drivers (stereo pair)
Proprietary passive bass radiator
Built-in Microphone
Output Level: 85dB at 0.5m
Frequency Response: 60 Hz – 20 kHz

Design
Four bold designs: Black Diamond, Blue Wave, Grey Hex and Red Dot.

Size and Weight
Length: 151mm
Width: 57mm
Height: 40mm
Weight: 347 grams (12oz)

Power and Battery
On/Off Switch
About 10 hours of continuous play (varies by volume level and audio content)
Battery life displayed on iPhone
Built-in rechargeable Lithium-ion battery

Bluetooth
Wireless Range: at least 33 feet
Bluetoothv2.1 compliant
Supports Enhanced Data Rate (EDR)
Profiles Supported: Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) 1.2, Hands-Free Profile (HFP) 1.5, Headset Profile (HSP) 1.1

Connections
Bluetooth
3.5mm Stereo Input
Micro-USB (charging only)
Simultaneous Multipoint (enabled via MyTALK): make connections to two devices at the same time

PC Compatibility
MyTALK
Windows 7, Vista, XP
Mac OSX 10.5 and higher

In the Box
JAMBOX
60″ micro SB charging cable
12.5″ micro USB charging cable
36″ 3.5mm stereo cable
Carrying case
A/C wall charger
User guide

Actual Use and Performance

Unpacking the Jawbone Jambox I do have to give them credit on the packaging, they did a fantastic job. Unlike older models that came in a cardboard box, this one comes on display in a nice plastic (almost “glass-like”) container that aptly shows the goods inside.

Superb Job on packaging

I fully charged the Jambox and synced it to my ipad 2, iphone 4s and Mac Pro. The bluetooth setup process was extremely simple and I had no major complications. I only say “major” because connecting it to my Mac Pro was not straightforward and I had to revert to reading the support forums to get it to work properly to use them as “speakers”. Once that was done, I set it to two different settings for the review, “external speakers” and “headphones”. I also went to the Jambox update service and updated the Jambox’s firmware(?). At the writing of this review when I initially connected the Jawbone Jambox to the Mac Pro, the sound was sub-par, sounding muddled and almost paper-like. I later found that by holding down the volume up and volume down button simultaneously enables (or disables) the LiveAudio function, making the speakers sound clearer and a tad less distorted.

I wanted to test the Jambox with various types of music, as we all know, some speakers just do a better job with certain types of music and in order to deliver a solid review I decided on some of the following songs:

Phillip Glass- The hours
Adele – Someone Like you
Airborne Toxic Event – Sometime around Midnight
Pendulum – The Island Part 2 (Dusk) (dubstep)
Radiohead – Paranoid Android

As you can see from my video they Jawbone Jambox is a sexy little bitch. It’s compact, it feels solid, and and looks right at home with your other high end gadgets. But it stops there for me. It’s simply not loud enough, and when you do have it at it’s maxed setting, it distorts and has that “paper-like” sound to it, quickly losing it’s low volume “deepness”. Not that it is recommended, but turning the speaker on it’s backside you can see from the video that it does vibrate itself. On my glass desk it did not vibrate the desk at all, rather itself. Comparing the Jawbone Jambox to what I intended to replace it with (my 27″ Apple Cinema display built in speakers) I’d honestly measure it at about the same, the Jambox having marginally deeper bass response. Looking up the current Thunderbolt Apple 27″ cinema display, the output on the built speakers are rated at 87db, surpassing the Jambox by 2db. For those of you that don’t have that reference, then I would say they are about 15-20% louder than an iPad 2, with a increase in bass. Mind the fact that the single speaker on the iPad 2 is downward facing.

The battery life is another issue. It says on the Jawbone Jambox website product page that it is rated up to 10 hours, however I never saw anything beyond 7 hours and 25 minutes, listening to dubstep on Pandora with max volume settings, which you will be playing it as well (because it’s really not that loud at all), unless you’re using it to play John Denver while you bake cupcakes for the girl scouts.

I’m sure if you connected it with the included audio cable, and did not use Bluetooth to stream the music, then it would likely increase the battery life substantially, you might achieve another hour and a half. If you played at a low volume I could see it lasting up to 8-9 hours max.

Jambox and Siri / Conference call

Using it with my iphone 4s and Siri for taking phone calls it did a decent job, nothing stellar but decent. With Siri, she often could not properly interpret what I was saying even though I had successfully used the commands hundreds of times already (without the Jambox). Conference calls were much more audible on my end, but for the caller on the other end, they reported it sounding “distant” which is typical with any alternative audio system for phones.

The spotty Bluetooth Reception

In the video I point out and display how the speaker almost needs a “line of sight” of the Mac Pro in order to maintain a solid bluetooth connection. However moving it (with line of sight) a good 18-20 feet away, it does not work well, with the audio stuttering again. At times I found myself having to reposition the Jambox to “find the best signal strength” so-to-speak.

Wrap up…literally

Literally… I wrapped this sucker back up and returned it. $200 is a lot to ask for such a paltry performing device, it’s target price point would be at $65. Truly. At $65 I would keep it for the sheer novelty alone, I’d use it to put my daughter to sleep at night (actually the battery would die and not last through the night). But for $200 you can get so much more, and better performing speakers. They may not be bluetooth or wireless, but in the end, and I mean this honestly, look at the ideal market for these. If you’re looking to purchase these, you’re most likely intending to use it with some other device, whether it’s an ipad, iphone, android phone, tablet, etc. The last thing you or I need is another device to charge for $200 that doesn’t absolutely wow the senses with nose bleed loudness (which I have to state yet again, the Jambox does NOT do).

I would not recommend these to anyone I know. Plain and simple. The people I know would demand more, and they should. It is possible with a future model that the Jawbone Jambox could crank up the output and be a serious little speaker system, but they would also increase the price into the “retarded zone”. At this point the Jawbone Jambox has a mediocre foundation that could eventually (with time and future technologies) transform into something really worth it’s (current) price.

Sure you can be the combination of Steve Urkel and Kanye West like the young kid in the youtube commercial, but you’re not earning any geek street cred with anyone around here.

For my personal solution I ended up purchasing Studio Monitor speakers, which I have a review on coming shortly.

-David Leach