A Small Bluetooth Speaker Named Boom

Just in time to annoy the people on the neighboring beach blanket, Ultimate Ears has produced the aptly named Boom, a Bluetooth sound dock that is both compact and loud.

The cylindrical Boom, at about 3 inches around and 7 inches tall, is a bit larger than a can and a half of Red Bull. It weighs about 19 ounces - about the same as two Red Bulls.

The remarkable thing about the Boom is how much sound it can produce. Played in a roughly 10-by-10-foot room, it was almost overwhelming. The quality of the sound, however, was not as remarkable. While it was loud and distortion free, it was also indistinct. There were no particularly notable highs or lows, just a general lack of clarity.

The reason for that could be â€" at least partly â€" that the left and right speakers are so close together. Although Ultimate Ears advertises “360-degree sound,” it doesn’t say stereo sound. You can get tue stereo by linking two Booms to one phone or tablet. It can be set so one Boom plays the left channel, the other the right. But at $200 each, it’s an expensive solution. You can put a single Boom on the floor in a corner of a room so the reflections off the walls improve the stereo effect (and increase the bass), but you won’t find too many corner walls at the beach or poolside.

The Bluetooth was easy to connect, and the Boom signals, with a whimsical bongo beat, when it is on or off and that it’s connected to another device. It also has an oversize plus and minus on the side, so you know what to press when the neighbors are yelling at you to turn it down.

The Boom claims 15 hours of battery life, is available in black, blue, olive green, pink, red, and white, and is water resistant, but not submersible.

A Small Bluetooth Speaker Named Boom

Just in time to annoy the people on the neighboring beach blanket, Ultimate Ears has produced the aptly named Boom, a Bluetooth sound dock that is both compact and loud.

The cylindrical Boom, at about 3 inches around and 7 inches tall, is a bit larger than a can and a half of Red Bull. It weighs about 19 ounces - about the same as two Red Bulls.

The remarkable thing about the Boom is how much sound it can produce. Played in a roughly 10-by-10-foot room, it was almost overwhelming. The quality of the sound, however, was not as remarkable. While it was loud and distortion free, it was also indistinct. There were no particularly notable highs or lows, just a general lack of clarity.

The reason for that could be â€" at least partly â€" that the left and right speakers are so close together. Although Ultimate Ears advertises “360-degree sound,” it doesn’t say stereo sound. You can get tue stereo by linking two Booms to one phone or tablet. It can be set so one Boom plays the left channel, the other the right. But at $200 each, it’s an expensive solution. You can put a single Boom on the floor in a corner of a room so the reflections off the walls improve the stereo effect (and increase the bass), but you won’t find too many corner walls at the beach or poolside.

The Bluetooth was easy to connect, and the Boom signals, with a whimsical bongo beat, when it is on or off and that it’s connected to another device. It also has an oversize plus and minus on the side, so you know what to press when the neighbors are yelling at you to turn it down.

The Boom claims 15 hours of battery life, is available in black, blue, olive green, pink, red, and white, and is water resistant, but not submersible.

Q&A: Recycling Responsibly at Any Time

Q.

I try to recycle my old computers and electronics responsibly, but my town only has e-waste disposal days every so often. Where else I can take stuff?

A.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s Web site has links to several national electronics-recycling programs, but if you live near a Best Buy or a Staples outlet, you can usually drop off old equipment for responsible recycling right at the store. Best Buy has information on what it accets here and Staples outlines its free service here.

Some computer makers have take-back programs of their own where you can mail or drop off old gear for recycling. These include Dell (which works with 2,000 Goodwill Stores and has a mail-in service, as described on the company’s site) and HP. Apple usually accepts old Macs, PCs and iOS devices and will sometimes convert the value of the item into an Apple Gift Card. Companies like Gazelle and Amazon have trade-in services for old equipment that may still have resale potential.

Q&A: Recycling Responsibly at Any Time

Q.

I try to recycle my old computers and electronics responsibly, but my town only has e-waste disposal days every so often. Where else I can take stuff?

A.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s Web site has links to several national electronics-recycling programs, but if you live near a Best Buy or a Staples outlet, you can usually drop off old equipment for responsible recycling right at the store. Best Buy has information on what it accets here and Staples outlines its free service here.

Some computer makers have take-back programs of their own where you can mail or drop off old gear for recycling. These include Dell (which works with 2,000 Goodwill Stores and has a mail-in service, as described on the company’s site) and HP. Apple usually accepts old Macs, PCs and iOS devices and will sometimes convert the value of the item into an Apple Gift Card. Companies like Gazelle and Amazon have trade-in services for old equipment that may still have resale potential.

A Guide to The Times’s Supreme Court Coverage

This week is expected to be one of the more consequential ones at the Supreme Court in recent years. The justices ruled Monday on affirmative action at the University of Texas, likely starting a new period of legal challenges to race-based admission programs. The court has yet to rule on six cases from the 2012-13 term, including three of the most closely watched: two on same-sex marriage and one on the Voting Rights Act. The court will issue rulings sometime after 10 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, potentially including a decision on one or more of those major cases.

We realize that people will be eager to know what a ruling means as soon as it comes out (and you can read the decision yourself when it is posted on the court’s Web site). But we also want to point out that the immediate descriptions of any ruling may not be very meaningful.

For one thing, a ruling cold be complicated, as were last year’s health care ruling and the 2000 Bush v. Gore decision, and not amenable to instant summarizing. The court could even announce one portion of a decision â€" especially on same-sex marriage, given the two different cases â€" before it releases another portion.

Dozens of Times journalists, in Washington, New York and around the country, are covering the major rulings and the reactions to them by the public and those directly affected. At the center of the coverage is Adam Liptak, the Supreme Court reporter for The Times (and a lawyer), who will be in court to hear the ruling. He offered an overview of this week, and what it will say about the justices’ vision of equality, in Sunday’s New York Times.

The moment that we feel comfortable with a ruling’s basic meaning, which could be almost immediately, we plan ! to explain the decision. But we promise not to bombard you with guesswork or unintelligible legal technicalities. The Times will also run blog posts from the legal experts at SCOTUSblog on our own site, as well as ask other outside experts to help readers understand the decision. Once the initial meaning of the ruling seems clear, Times reporters and editors will be analyzing it in real time, on our live blog dedicated to the ruling and on stories appearing across our digital platforms. We will also post updates to Twitter on @thecaucus and @nytimes, and post selected reactions from readers.

We expect to have Mr. Liptak’s initial story about any ruling by late morning or shortly after noon, not long after the court’s session has ended. Whatever happens Tuesday, we expect the court to issue more rulings later this week, on a day or days yet to be announced.

- For background on same-sex marriage, we recommed: Mr. Liptak’s article on the history of gay clerks at the Supreme Court; on the legal strategy, with roots in San Francisco, that helped push the cases to the court so quickly; on the shadow of Roe v. Wade; and on the two days of oral arguments earlier this year. We also recommend Ashley Parker’s article on younger opponents of same-sex marriage; Sheryl Gay Stolberg’s article on Ken Mehlman, a former Bush adviser turned advocate for same-sex marriage; Michael D. Shear’s article on the decisions that may await President Obama; and a recent New York Times/CBS poll, as described by Ms. Stolberg and Dalia Sussman.

- On the Voting Rights Act: Mr. Liptak’s article from Shelby County, Ala., the plaintiff in the case, as well as his article about the oral arguments; Campbell Robertson’s article, in Monday’s Times, about the act; Nate Silver’s blog post about the use of statistics during oral arguments; and a graphical overview of the act.

Thanks for being with us.

The Early Word: Escalating

Today’s Times

• The story of Edward J. Snowden, the former national security contractor who leaked government surveillance information, evolved into a diplomatic incident on Monday, with the United States facing an open rift with one major power and a tense standoff with another, Peter Baker and Ellen Barry report.

• Solid bipartisan support for a proposal that would substantially bolster security along the nation’s southern borders suggested that advocates for immigration overhaul have the votes needed to clear remaining procedural hurdles and pass the legislation, Ashley Parker writes.

• The Supreme Court agreed to decide whether President Obama’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board were in violation of the Constitution, Adam Liptak reports.

• After an investigation found that the federal government and many states were “behind schedule” in carrying out the new health care law, the Obama administration announced that it would establish a Web site and telephone call center to provide information to consumers buying health insurance, Robert Pear reports.

Around the Web

• Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, is in talks with the National Football League and the National Basketball Association to partn! er with her department in promoting new health insurance options, The Hill reports.

• Rick Santorum, a former Republican senator and 2012 presidential candidate, accepted a new job as C.E.O. of a movie studio that makes films for a Christian audience, Politico reports.

Happenings in Washington

• President Obama will deliver remarks on climate change and the environment at Georgetown University on Tuesday.

• Later, he and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will meet in the White House with Congressional leaders, including Senators Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, John A. Boehner and Nancy Pelosi.

Razer’s Blade a Small, Powerful Gaming Laptop

How is the performance of Razer’s 14-inch Blade gaming laptop? Impressive enough that a dedicated console player shelved his Xbox in favor of the Blade. Considering that console players and computer gamers feud over format supremacy, that’s a considerable endorsement.

Gaming devices need fast processors and good screens to make the most of the complex graphics that go into creations like Crysis 3, Metro Last Light and Bioshock Infinite. That usually means the machines are pretty big, run hot and have noisy cooling fans.

The new Blade is small, not quite 14 inches wide, about 9 inches deep and only two-thirds of an inch thick, weighing four pounds. It runs nearly silently, and as for heat, well, two out of three ain’t bad. You wonâ€t want it in your lap during extended play.

I lent the computer to my neighbor Mark, an Xbox devotee, who showed me the last 30 games he had played, then remembered he had another drawer full as well. He said he had been a console player for years.

He tested the Blade using Bioshock Infinity, the latest version, which puts the greatest demand on the system. Running the graphics at the highest quality, there were no freezes (after updating the drivers), no crashes and the motion was smooth. Looking straight on, he said, the graphics topped those of his Xbox playing on a 60-inch 1080p Sony Bravia.

The graphics are powered by a fourth-generation Intel Core “Haswell” chip with an integrated HD6400 graphics processor that works with an Nvidia GeForce GTX graphics card to keep motion fluid. It comes configured with eight gigabytes of RAM and a solid-state hard drive of either 128 gigabytes ($1,800), 256 gigs ($2,000), or 512 gigs ($2,300).

That kind of power is good for graphic ! editing, too, so it might be a machine photographers and videographers would consider, although they will probably need to add an off-board or external hard drive to augment the Blade’s scant memory.

With the Blade, you are seeing 720p high-definition TV, not 1080p. That was a conscious decision by Razer, said a spokesman, because a Windows 8 desktop won’t scale to 1080p - it would make lettering tiny. That’s a problem, assuming people will not dedicate the laptop solely to games.

Although the Blade has built-in speakers, they are weak. You’ll want a headset or accessory set.

Razer’s Blade a Small, Powerful Gaming Laptop

How is the performance of Razer’s 14-inch Blade gaming laptop? Impressive enough that a dedicated console player shelved his Xbox in favor of the Blade. Considering that console players and computer gamers feud over format supremacy, that’s a considerable endorsement.

Gaming devices need fast processors and good screens to make the most of the complex graphics that go into creations like Crysis 3, Metro Last Light and Bioshock Infinite. That usually means the machines are pretty big, run hot and have noisy cooling fans.

The new Blade is small, not quite 14 inches wide, about 9 inches deep and only two-thirds of an inch thick, weighing four pounds. It runs nearly silently, and as for heat, well, two out of three ain’t bad. You wonâ€t want it in your lap during extended play.

I lent the computer to my neighbor Mark, an Xbox devotee, who showed me the last 30 games he had played, then remembered he had another drawer full as well. He said he had been a console player for years.

He tested the Blade using Bioshock Infinity, the latest version, which puts the greatest demand on the system. Running the graphics at the highest quality, there were no freezes (after updating the drivers), no crashes and the motion was smooth. Looking straight on, he said, the graphics topped those of his Xbox playing on a 60-inch 1080p Sony Bravia.

The graphics are powered by a fourth-generation Intel Core “Haswell” chip with an integrated HD6400 graphics processor that works with an Nvidia GeForce GTX graphics card to keep motion fluid. It comes configured with eight gigabytes of RAM and a solid-state hard drive of either 128 gigabytes ($1,800), 256 gigs ($2,000), or 512 gigs ($2,300).

That kind of power is good for graphic ! editing, too, so it might be a machine photographers and videographers would consider, although they will probably need to add an off-board or external hard drive to augment the Blade’s scant memory.

With the Blade, you are seeing 720p high-definition TV, not 1080p. That was a conscious decision by Razer, said a spokesman, because a Windows 8 desktop won’t scale to 1080p - it would make lettering tiny. That’s a problem, assuming people will not dedicate the laptop solely to games.

Although the Blade has built-in speakers, they are weak. You’ll want a headset or accessory set.