Obama Visits Wounded as Afghanistan Casualties Continue

President Obama is winding down the war in Afghanistan, but the casualties continue. So on Tuesday afternoon, he made the first trip of his second term, and the 12th of his presidency, to visit wounded service men and women at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

The White House, as usual, put out little information about the visit, because it considers the visits private moments between the wounded service men and women and their commander-in chief. But during more than an hour, it said, Mr. Obama met with 16 service members â€" 10 soldiers, five Marines and one member of the NATO coalition forces.

At the hospital, he awarded two Purple Hearts and participated in a promotion ceremony. Among the few aides who accompanied Mr. Obama was the White House photographer, Pete Souza, who photographs the meetings to make copies for the wounded and their families.

Obama Recruits Republicans for Budget Talks With Personal Calls

For most of his presidency, Barack Obama has viewed outreach to Congress as a chore rarely to be touched, and rank-and-file Republicans largely a contact point of last resort.

But the onset of across-the-board spending cuts and the refusal of Republican leaders to budge on new revenues to reduce the deficit has brought the president to Capitol Hill in a way few Republican senators say they can remember since he was a senator.

Since this weekend, Mr. Obama has spoken to at least a half-dozen Senate Republicans, trying to restart talks on a comprehensive deficit deal in the wake of the cuts, known as sequestration. In tone and detail, senators said Tuesday that they were hearing a president they had not heard in years.

“Maybe because of sequestration and frustration with the public, the time is right to act, and what I see from the president is probably the most encouraging engagement on a big issue since the early days of his presidency,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of Souh Carolina. “He wants to do the big deal.”

The president spoke around noon Tuesday with Mr. Graham for about 10 minutes, the senator said, and both agreed that a major deal could be reached that raises revenues by closing tax loopholes and slows the growth of Medicare and other entitlements.

“The president is engaging with lawmakers of both parties and will continue to do so,” said Jay Carney, the White House press secretary. Repeating a phrase the president first used on Friday, Mr. Carney added that Mr. Obama’s outreach was an effort at “finding the members of the caucus of common sense and working with them to bring a resolution to this challenge.”

He said Mr. Obama was making clear to Republicans that he remained committed to his compromise offer for long-term deficit reduction, which would combine spending reductions in the fast-growing entitlement programs, chiefly Medicare and Social Security, with new revenues from overhauling the ! tax code to reduce tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations.

The question, Mr. Carney added, is whether the new revenues are used mainly for deficit reduction, as the president wants, or diverted to new tax cuts, as Republicans demand â€" tax cuts that Mr. Carney said would disproportionately benefit the wealthy.

Mr. Obama has also had phone conversations with other Republican senators, including Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Rob Portman of Ohio and Bob Corker of Tennessee. Mr. Obama just missed Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, over the weekend. And senior White House aides opened a channel with Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri and a member of his party’s leadership.

Mr. Corker called the conversation “constructive.” Mr. Portman, while reluctant to detail private talks, was also positive.

“I think there’s a window of opportunity between now and the end of the summer,” Mr. Portman said. “This is the last best chance.”

Sonos Does Television

Sonos is no longer ignoring the TV. The company’s new Playbar begins shipping Tuesday, allowing customers to improve the sound of their televisions while also connecting them to Sonos speakers throughout the house.

The 35-inch-long speaker will be familiar to those who know Sonos’s other products. It is sleek and easy to set up, and the sound is loud and clear. Like other Sonos products, it is best controlled through the company’s smartphone and tablet apps, but the volume can also be controlled through the television’s own remote. The speaker costs $700 and also requires a bridge that connects to a wireless router.

The television has always been a major gap in the service from Sonos, which makes an Internet-connected home stereo system that allows uers to stream music from iTunes, Spotify, Pandora and other online services. It has been possible to link a television to the system using either the company’s amplifier or the line-in inputs on its more expensive speakers. But these options lacked the simplicity that is one of the major appeals of Sonos, and the performance was spotty.

John MacFarlane, one of the company’s founders, said that Sonos had tried multiple times to create a better television speaker, but had killed each attempt.

You can tell why they held onto this one; the Playbar contains a few nice television-specific features. There is a nighttime listening mode, and when the user presses a moon icon in the app, the system brings up typically quiet sounds like dialogue while lowering the volume on the loud, bassy sounds that are likely to wake people sleeping elsewhere in the house. A dialogue enhancement feature works to bring out dialogue from background sounds, offsetting a common problem with television speakers.

The speaker actually contains nine different speakers, six midrange speakers and three tweeters. The sound is clearly superior to your average internal television speakers. But the real benefits will be lost to those who do not listen to their television at high volumes.

The speaker is designed to work alone, or paired with the company’s subwoofer and its Play:3 speakers for stereo sound. (You cannot use the more powerful Play:5 speakers for surround speakers). The surround sound leaves something to be desired. At low volumes the surround speakers stay silent, and even at high volumes the lion’s share of the sound still comes from the Playbar itself. Sonos users familiar with the full stereo sound from a pair of the company’s speakers will likely see the surround sound from the Playbar as a step down. But those used to listening to their television’s speakers will notice a big step up.

A Streaming Player for the Digital Media Enthusiast

The WD TV Play media player from Western Digital focuses on streaming content stored on a computer or external drive to a TV.

Q&A: Keyboarding With an Apple TV

Q.

Do I have to use the Apple Bluetooth keyboard with an Apple TV, or can I get a cheaper one instead

A.

Although Apple’s online documentation for connecting a Bluetooth keyboard to a second- or third-generation Apple TV is geared toward its own wireless keyboard model, the company does state that “third-party Bluetooth keyboards that use the Apple keyboard layout may also be compatible.” (The company also notes that its own original white wireless keyboard from 2003 does not work with the Apple TV.)

Some users have found that keyboard models from Logitech and Microsoft work fine for tasks like typing in an Apple ID name and password, navigating screens or searching for content. However, Apple’s $69 Bluetooth keyboard includes playback keys for music and video that other keyboards may not have.

To use a compatible Bluetooth keyboard with an Apple TV, you ned to pair the two. Apple has posted steps for doing so with its own keyboard, and the instructions should be similar for third-party models.

If you happen to own any of Apple’s iOS devices (the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch), you can use the company’s free Remote app to browse, search and control media on the Apple TV. You can find more information about the app and a link to download it here.

Q&A: Keyboarding With an Apple TV

Q.

Do I have to use the Apple Bluetooth keyboard with an Apple TV, or can I get a cheaper one instead

A.

Although Apple’s online documentation for connecting a Bluetooth keyboard to a second- or third-generation Apple TV is geared toward its own wireless keyboard model, the company does state that “third-party Bluetooth keyboards that use the Apple keyboard layout may also be compatible.” (The company also notes that its own original white wireless keyboard from 2003 does not work with the Apple TV.)

Some users have found that keyboard models from Logitech and Microsoft work fine for tasks like typing in an Apple ID name and password, navigating screens or searching for content. However, Apple’s $69 Bluetooth keyboard includes playback keys for music and video that other keyboards may not have.

To use a compatible Bluetooth keyboard with an Apple TV, you ned to pair the two. Apple has posted steps for doing so with its own keyboard, and the instructions should be similar for third-party models.

If you happen to own any of Apple’s iOS devices (the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch), you can use the company’s free Remote app to browse, search and control media on the Apple TV. You can find more information about the app and a link to download it here.

How Users Rate Their Phones

If you are phone-shopping and wonder about the reliability of various brands, you are in luck. FixYa, a volunteer technical assistance Web site, has analyzed more than 720,000 support requests to come up with complaint-per-phone ratios, which the company said represent reliability.

The study also showed what owners generally liked â€" and did not like â€" about their phones.

The short answer is that iPhones were found to be by far the most reliable, almost three times more reliable than the second-place Samsung phones. Third was Nokia, followed by Motorola.

Apple

That is not to say the iPhones were problem free. Most complaints, 35 percent in fact, concerned the iPhone’s battery life. Apple recently released a system update (6.1.2) to address battery drain, but it’s too soon to know if it has worked. That was followed by complaints over a lack of new features in later models.

What iPhone owners liked was the simplicity €" it was easy to guess how to use the phone’s main features. That was followed by the reliability of features like phone, data and text functions. And finally they liked the vast number of apps in the iTunes store.

Samsung

Samsung owners made 40 percent of their complaints about microphone problems and 20 percent over speaker problems. Owners said the microphone occasionally cut out so the person on the other end could not hear. Less often, the speaker cut out so that the caller could not hear.

Owners of one specific model, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, complained about battery life. Conversely, owners of the Samsung Galaxy S III cited battery life as one of its best features.

Over all, owners liked the sharp screen quality on the Samsung phones, and the Android operating system’s on-screen controls.

Nokia

Nokia owners, in 35 percent of complaints, said the phones responded slowly in comparison to competing phones. The next most c! ommon complaints, at 20 percent, were about a lack of available apps.

What owners liked about their Nokia phones were the durability of the screen, performance of the touch screen, and the Windows “Live Tiles” user interface that uses animated rectangles as controls.

Motorola

In 30 percent of complaints about the Motorola phones, Droids and Razrs included, people wanted help with removing preinstalled apps, sometimes known as “bloatware.” Next most common, in 25 percent of complaints, were problems with the touch screen, such as its refusing to unlock. That was followed, in 20 percent of the complaints, by dissatisfaction with speaker and camera quality.

Owners liked the design of the phones and their battery life. Motorola claimed when the Droid Razr Maxx was released that it had the longest battery life of any phone.

The Early Word: Signals

In Today’s Times

• By appointing a clean air regulator to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, and a natural gas advocate to run the Department of Energy, President Obama sent an unmistakable signal that he intends to mount a multifaceted campaign in his second term to tackle climate change, John M. Broder and Matthew L. Wald report.

• President Obama nominated Sylvia Mathews Burwell, a Clinton-era veteran, to be the budget director on his economic team, Jackie Calmes and Richard W. Stevenson report.

• Across-the-board spending cuts have placed the president between two political imperatives, Michel D. Shear writes. As the leader of his party, he has to dramatize the impact of the sequestration cuts on families, businesses and the military, but as leader of the country, he has to make them appear as painless as possible.

• Mark Sanford, the former South Carolina governor who turned the phrase “hiking the Appalachian Trail” into a euphemism for an extramarital affair, is one of 18 candidates in what is, by all accounts, the wildest political race in the country right now, Kim Severson reports.

Happening in Washington

• President Obama will visit with Wounded Warriors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Later, he and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will sit down with Chuck Hagel, the defense secretary, in the Oval Office.