News and design logo

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg/CNET)

Starting in the 1970s boom boxes provided the soundtrack of urban life -- on the street, buses, subways, parks, and beaches -- boom boxes were everywhere. Now they're almost defunct, music has moved inside, between our ears. We plugged-in and tuned-out from the world around us. The transition from external to internal was slow at first, before the iPod there were other MP3 players, and before that there were portable CD and cassette players. But big and brash boom boxes survived and prospered when those headphone-oriented devices appeared and then disappeared from the scene. If iPods and phones didn't kill off the boom box, they signaled the beginning of the end of their reign.

Boom boxes were popular with rock and heavy-metal fans, but later 'boxes hit it big in hip hop culture. The Panasonic RX-F32, JVC RC-M90 and the Sharp GF-9696 were the boombox kings. They could rock your world, but battery drain was considerable, the bigger 'boxes sucked the life out of a load of D batteries in a matter of hours.

They looked cool, decked out with all of those switches, knobs, and exposed drivers, boom boxes made a statement, sound is my thing and I'm proud of it!

Boom boxes never sounded good to me, but the biggest ones boomed and played really loud. They looked cool; decked out with all of those switches, knobs, and exposed drivers, boom boxes made a statement, sound is my thing and I'm proud of it! Today's puny portable Bluetooth speakers can't match a boom box for sheer braggadocio. Blue tooth speakers are pretty humble sounding devices, the little cylindrical ones make no bass to speak of, the larger ones pump out some low-end, but can't touch the mighty bass oomph of a 14-pound JVC RV-NB70 Kaboom! ($300) boom box. That's fine for a modern 'box, but the KaBoom is a far cry from the behemoths from back in the day. I rarely see or hear monster boom boxes on the street anymore; it's been years.

If you still tote around a massive boom box, tell us all about it in the comments section.

I do love parenting videos.

(Credit: DdiPankara/YouTube; screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

Some parents believe in an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a Facebook post for a Facebook post.

Children, they think, sometimes need to learn lessons the hard way. Because the power of the hard way hasn't yet been disrupted by the clever young people in Silicon Valley.

In order to teach her 12-year-old that she was too young to have Facebook and Instagram accounts, Kira Hudson from Colorado made her pose with a sign that read: "Mom is trying to show me how many people can see a picture once it's on the internet."

The picture was accompanied by these words from mom: "My 12-year-old daughter doesn't understand why she can't have an Instagram or Facebook account...Please 'like and Share'...She just doesn't get it!"

Oh, and just to prove how much she doesn't get it, as The Huffington Post reports, mom posted it on the Internet's loudest bulletin board: Facebook.

This isn't the first time that a parent has tried to use social media to shame a child.

An Ohio mom, Denise Abbott, posted a Facebook picture of her daughter with a red cross over her mouth.

And who could forget Tommy Jordan, the man who made a YouTube video of himself shooting his daughter's laptop dead?

Just as that video prompted a visit from child protection services, Hudson's Facebook posting had interesting consequences too.

The picture traveled far and wide, including to Facebook pages such as Southern Mama, which enjoys the description: "A page for mama's and daddy to talk about what we talk about kids, men and women, pride, god, music whatever. DRAMA FREE!!! KEEP IT AT THE DOOR."

Drame free, indeed.

Then, as The Daily Dot reports, members of the /b/ imageboard at 4Chan used their wits in an attempt to discover Hudson's Facebook page, address, phone number.

Soon, different -- and some less pleasant -- versions of the photo began to circulate. Then pizzas were delivered to Hudson's address. Or at least what the 4Chan members thought was her address.

The photo has now been removed from Hudson's Facebook page, but not before it enjoyed almost 1 million Likes. However, she admitted to The Huffington Post that this had not all gone quite to plan.

She said that she was glad that her attempt at humiliating her daughter had helped other parents teach their children about the Web.

She admitted, though: "It certainly opened my eyes to the fact that I thought my own private Facebook was secure. It was not as secure as I thought. Luckily for us, the information that was gathered by others was not my current residence or phone number."

Clearly, she hadn't received the memo about people wanting to share more all the time and Facebook, um, facilitating that sharing.

She also apologized to the family who now lives at the address that 4Chan obtained, and she promised to send them a pizza.

Through it all, though, one 4Chan poster might also have offered a useful tip. He or she posted the picture, with this caption: "Maybe you shouldn't use your daughter as an experiment to prove your point...Just an idea."

Mom's intention had been to spread her daughter's picture and humiliation as far and wide as possible. She had even encouraged anyone who saw it to "click on the picture, and then hit 'Share' and change the setting to 'public.'"

This way, she thought she'd get a clear reading on how many people would witness the shaming.

It didn't quite work out that way. Shame, that.

A new report based on the trove of secret NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden gives a glimpse of the agency's role in the cyber-intrigues taking place between the US and China, with files showing that the NSA hacked into Chinese router-maker Huawei's servers with the hope of gaining info on government plans and of exploiting the company's products to spy on other foreign rivals.

The New York Times reports that the NSA "pried its way into the servers in Huawei's sealed headquarters in Shenzhen, China's industrial heart" and "obtained information about the workings of the giant routers and complex digital switches that Huawei boasts connect a third of the world's population, and monitored communications of the company's top executives."

The goals of this "Shotgiant" operation, the paper says, included unearthing any ties between Huawei and the People's Liberation Army, and also gaining information on how to exploit Huawei's products in order to spy on foreign customers such as Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kenya, and Cuba.

The news is ironic, according to a senior Huawei executive in the US who spoke with the Times.

"The irony is that exactly what they are doing to us is what they have always charged that the Chinese are doing through us," Huawei exec William Plummer told the paper.

Some American officials think Huawei is a front for the People's Liberation Army, and in 2012, the US House Intelligence Committee released a report accusing Chinese telecommunications gear makers of being threats to US security and discouraging US companies from buying their equipment. (The Times ran a story yesterday about how US companies are currently seeing their bottom lines affected in some countries over suspicions about ties to the NSA.)

Huawei, for its part, says it's the victim, in the US, of economically motivated protectionism. But the US counters that it's the Chinese who hack into systems for their companies' economic gain and that US intelligence efforts are focused solely on protecting national security. "We do not give intelligence we collect to US companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line. Many countries cannot say the same," a White House spokeswoman told the Times.

The Times reports that the Snowden documents it reviewed do not reveal whether Huawei has links to the PLA.

In their book "The New Digital Age," published last year (before the Snowden leaks), Google's Eric Schmidt and co-author Jared Cohen called China "the most sophisticated and prolific" hacker of foreign companies, adding that "the disparity between American and Chinese firms and their tactics will put both the government and the companies of the United States at a distinct disadvantage," because "the United States will not take the same path of digital corporate espionage, as its laws are much stricter (and better enforced) and because illicit competition violates the American sense of fair play."

The Times article goes on to discuss the growth of hacking by China, citing anonymous current and former intelligence officials, and saying, among other things, that:

"For some of its most audacious attacks, China relies on hackers at state-funded universities and privately owned Chinese technology companies, apparently as much for their skills as for the plausible deniability it offers the state if it gets caught. The NSA is tracking more than half a dozen such groups suspected of operating at the behest of the Chinese Ministry of State Security, China's civilian spy agency."

After reports last year that China was behind hacks of the Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, China's Defense Ministry told the Post: "The Chinese military has never supported any hack attacks. Cyberattacks have transnational and anonymous characteristics. It is unprofessional and groundless to accuse the Chinese military of launching cyberattacks without any conclusive evidence."

You can read the Times story about "Shotgiant" and the NSA's hacking of Huawei here.

Turkey's battle over Net censorship is heating up, with the government there reportedly blocking a method that let citizens sidestep a Twitter ban, the White House expressing "serious concern" over the ban, and Google reportedly refusing requests from Turkish authorities to take down YouTube videos that cast the prime minister in a critical light.

Bloomberg cited Turkish newspapers in reporting that the Turkish government had blocked on Saturday a Google service that enabled citizens to tweet. Setting a PC or mobile device to use Google's DNS IP address of 8.8.8.8 had let people slip past the ban (and graffiti displaying the phrase "DNS 8.8.8.8" was even spotted around Turkey, helping spread the word). But on Saturday the government prevented access to Google DNS, Bloomberg said.

Yesterday, the White House issued a statement condemning Turkey's blockage of "access to basic communication tools." As reported by The Switch, Press Secretary Jay Carney delivered the remarks, saying, "We oppose this restriction on the Turkish people's access to information, which undermines their ability to exercise freedoms of expression and association and runs contrary to the principles of open governance that are critical to democratic governance."

Meanwhile, Google ignored requests from the Turkish government to remove YouTube videos that allege government corruption, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources. The videos include clips that feature a recording, supposedly of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in which Erdogen seems to instruct his son to hide money from investigators. Erdogen has called the recording a fake.

"We support a free and open Internet throughout the world and are concerned whenever and wherever it comes under threat," Google told the Journal in a statement. The paper's source said Google feels "an immediate threat" of a YouTube ban in Turkey.

On Thursday, Turkish courts took Twitter offline for the country's 76 million citizens following actions by Erdogan. An unabashed critic of social networks, Erdogan has threatened to "wipe out" the site in the wake of a political corruption scandal that has embarrassed the government through news, videos, and images posted on the microblogging site. Members of Erdogen's government face local elections March 30.

Reuters reported Saturday that the Turkish government said Twitter was being used "to carry out systematic character assassinations by circulating illegally acquired recordings, fake and fabricated records of wiretapping." The news service quoted a statement from the prime minister's office that said, "It is difficult to comprehend Twitter's indifference and its biased and prejudiced stance. We believe that this attitude is damaging to the brand image of the company in question and creates an unfair and inaccurate impression of our country."

Reuters also quoted an unnamed senior official of the Turkish government as saying that talks with Twitter that began on Friday are continuing and that "the process is going positively."

"As far as we are concerned, when the court rulings are implemented the problems will be resolved and the block on Twitter will be lifted," the official told Reuters.

"We stand with our users in Turkey who rely on Twitter as a vital communications platform," Twitter said in a tweet on Friday. "We hope to have full access returned soon."

Reuters also said many people on Twitter were reporting that the reportedly blocked DNS settings were working by the early afternoon in Turkey.

A future MacBook Air may depart from the 11- and 13-inch designs to date.

(Credit: Apple)

Apple is planning a radical redesign of the MacBook Air "soon," if a forum post out of China is to be believed.

A key aspect of the redesign would be the elimination of the fan assembly, according to MacRumors, which describes the post as coming from a reliable leaker of Apple hardware.

A fanless design almost always implies ultrathin and -light. For example, the iPad Air is a fanless design as are Android and most Windows tablets. Even some of the newest, thinnest Windows 2-in-1s are fanless, such as the Intel Haswell processor-based HP Spectre 13 tablet that can double as a laptop.

The post also mentions that the new MacBook Air would have a trackpad sans mechanical button. Microsoft's Type Cover ultrathin keyboard that goes with Surface Pro 2 and Surface 2 has that kind of trackpad.

This latest rumor follows an NPD DisplaySearch report last October that forecast a 12-inch MacBook Air with a Retina-class display. That report said simply that it was due in 2014.

To date, the MacBook Air has come in two sizes: 11.6- and 13.3-inch, both with relatively low-resolution displays.

Whatever Apple ultimately decides, it seems certain that the ultraportable laptop will eventually get a physical makeover. The MacBook Air hasn't seen a physical redesign or display change since late 2010, when Apple introduced a new chassis and debuted the 11.6-inch Air.

Pioneer SP-BS21-LR speakers

(Credit: Pioneer)

Ah yes, the Pioneer SP-BS21-LR -- it was love at first listen back in 2011 when I reviewed it as part of Pioneer's awesome SP-PK21BS six-piece, subwoofer/satellite home-theater system. I used the SP-PK21BS package as one of my reference speaker systems in reviews after that and was always amazed by the speaker's sound and build quality. The SP-BS21-LR speakers sold for $130 a pair. It was later replaced by the SP-BS22-LR, which is the current model (the SP-PK21BS package has also been discontinued). The old and current speaker models have the same retail price, $130 a pair, but right now while supplies last, Pioneer is clearing out its remaining stock of SP-BS21-LRs for $51.98 a pair on Amazon, and shipping is free for Prime customers.

The SP-BS21-LR is a midsize bookshelf speaker, it measures 12.6x7.2x8.1 inches and features a 4-inch woofer and a 1-inch soft-dome tweeter. The black vinyl-wrapped wood grain cabinet has curved side panels, and the drivers are protected by perforated metal grilles (they can be removed, but it's not easy).

The SP-BS21-LR sounds a lot better than my recommended go-to budget speaker, the Dayton Audio B652, which currently sells for $52 a pair on Amazon. I recently compared the two speakers head to head, and the B652 sounded coarse and harsh next to the more refined SP-BS21-LR. That speaker produces more spacious imaging with higher definition bass, and voices sound more natural than what you'll hear from the B652.

I also compared the SP-BS21-LR to our SP-BS22-LR speakers, and SP-BS22-LR speakers were definitely more transparent than the older model. If you can afford $130 a pair, go for the SP-BS22-LR.

I'm not sure how long the Amazon deal on the SP-BS21-LR will last; if you're interested don't hesitate.

Once you complete 2048 by reaching the titular score, you're given the option of rejoicing in your victory and moving on, or attempting to score higher. Beware though: building another 2048 tile from scratch is an entirely different breed of challenge.

(Credit: Screenshot by Nick Statt/CNET)

Like the popular iOS and Android puzzler Threes, from which it borrows its core concept, 2048 is a game as much about numbers as it is about space.

You have a limited number of free squares, and each move introduces another tile into the mix. But combine like numbers into their sum and you've opened up the board for the new tile and simultaneously progressed a little further toward your goal of making a magic 2048 tile, a feat accomplished by combining two 128s into a 256 and two 256s into a 512 and so on.

The HTML5 game, which can be played in a mobile or desktop browser for free, took off earlier this month when 19-year-old Italian programmer Gabriele Cirulli published it on GitHub, playable on a standalone site for mobile and desktop. He claims it's borrowed from the iOS app 1024, yet that game itself is a self-described free version of Asher Vollmer's Threes, so all three exist in a similar family of addictive, math-based puzzlers.

But where 2048 differs substantially from Threes, an admittedly far more difficult game with a steeper learning curve, is in its addictive conceit. 2048 is difficult -- and you don't realize that until you first progress far into the game; whereas Threes will aggressively remind you that you must keep the board free from clutter. In fact, I've gone one game in Threes earning as much as 10,000 points to my next where I earn in the low triple-digits, moving too quickly and mindlessly to realize I'd made fatal mistakes so early on.

It's that antithetical challenge curve of 2048 that keeps you coming back. For one, it's actually difficult to lose for the first few minutes of play unless you have absolutely zero strategy. Not only does that let you progress far into the game very early on -- a 512 tile can be unlocked in under a minute if you move fast enough -- but it instills in you, like the infamous Flappy Bird, a notion that this game can't be that hard. Yet, get far enough and everything seems to fall apart before your eyes, possibly with an elusive 1024 tile on board that makes you kick yourself and start again.

So how exactly does one succeed at 2048? It's fairly easy in fact to reach the end the same day you pick up the game. It takes simple strategy, a knowledge of when to alter that strategy, and, unlike Threes, requires almost no luck whatsoever.

Build into a corner

The first step with all these Candy Crush-meets-Sudoku number games is to understand that the corner is your best friend. For me, it's the upper left. It's just how I play, and any of the corners will do. That strategy lets you build toward a singular tile without moving it around and disrupting your ability to merge it with other large tiles when the time comes.

The key, however, is to understand that this limits your movements. In my case, that means I should only be swiping to the direction of my corner -- that is, left and upward -- to merge tiles. Never pull in the opposite direction of your largest tile -- meaning down for an upper left or right tile and up for lower left or right tile -- unless you absolutely have to. In most cases, that's never needed.

This strategy hits a snag early on though when you discover that using two directions exclusively reaches gridlock pretty fast.

A gridlock position people hit early in 2048 if they employ the necessary corner strategy of moving in only two directions.

(Credit: Screenshot by Nick Statt/CNET)

The solution here is to move in the opposite direction of your largest tile one space and then up one space. Then you can resume the two-direction strategy. The pivotal point is to make sure that you have four tiles in the row containing your highest multiple. Without that, you run the risk of having a low two tile take up the space next to your largest one, a chance occurrence that proves near fatal to a play-through. In 2048, as opposed to Threes, the new tile can show up in a random spot but is exclusively a two or four tile, making building new multiples extremely easy once you have the space to do so, but awful if it shows up next to larger ones in your top row.

There are exceptions to this where you'll see that it's evident you have an opportunity to combine tiles and move things around a little more deliberately for a more efficient progression. Meaning, the over-once-up-once strategy can be modified for moving to the right twice, or up twice, or any combination of those alternative moves to achieve a more compact board. However, early on you shouldn't have the need to do that as long as you keep aggressively pushing toward the corner, moving right and then up when necessary.

The automatic beginning

This introduces an interesting aspect to 2048. If you can just abide by a simple directional strategy almost without thinking what numbers are involved, that means you can practically automate the first 25 percent to 40 percent of a winning play-through without running the risk of messing up your game at all.

It's more difficult to do on mobile, given that you're swiping your finger, but on the desktop version you can literally mash buttons and watch as 2048 practically solves itself, making you look a bit like a numerical wizard in the process.

You do of course have to be careful when you solve the gridlock problem that you don't overdo the directional movements opposite your largest multiple. Still, it's a surefire way to get past the drudgery of the early game and onto the challenging parts that arise after you get a 512 tile and start attempting to build a second one.

Late-game hurdles

On your way toward a 1024 tile and beyond, the game will begin to require a different, more-risky strategy. It's recognizing that shift, noted by the fact that your board may begin to fill up less like an arrow and more like a two-row rectangle, that will help you maximize space and achieve a 2048.

For instance, if you're dealing with the unfortunate circumstance of a rectangular block and you can't move left or right or even up, there are ways to get out that involve breaking the above mentioned rule of never moving opposite the location of your largest tile.

In this scenario, a three-row block can be solved by making the otherwise ill-advised decision to pull downward, but quickly creating an opportunity to put the two highest tiles back in the corner.

(Credit: Screenshots by Nick Statt/CNET)

There are issues you'll encounter late in the game that have to approached on a case-by-case basis, but they can be boiled down to a few simple rules. Never let the 2s build up, and do your best to turn them into 4s and 8s by moving only upward. if you're running into gridlock issues due to a small amount of large-numbered tiles and no way to combine them, try going from right to left and back again to quickly build 8s and 16s. The tactic is also great for placing a number in a certain position by crowding it on the right and left with 2s and 4s so that you can then combine it upward.

Most importantly, never compromise your position on the board to combine tiles, as they will combine naturally if you move toward your highest-numbered tile. Only actively attempt to combine tiles by moving away from the direction of your corner when you know the corner tile can be kept in place.

When you do finish the game, you're given the opportunity to continue on and keep scoring, perhaps even earning a second 2048 and creating a 4056. But for most of us, finally reaching the titular tile is enough to put this game to rest, especially so in a year when addictive mobile titles have been ravaging the psyche. So use these tips, and may you hopefully find solace, through victory, from the grip of 2048.