Gadgets: A compact music player with surprising sound

The trouble with compact music systems is their compact sound. JBL has taken a shot at the laws of physics by packing quality sound into a relatively small package, the JBL OnBeat Extreme.

The player takes up modest desktop real estate, but it has high wattage for its size, with 30 watts to each bass speaker and 15 watts to each high-range speaker.

The OnBeat is designed for more than music, though. It has a cradle that can accommodate an iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad and can be rotated to show a landscape or portrait view.

In the case of the iPad, that means it can be used as a small video system with enough aural oomph to watch with a few friends.

It also has an iPhone setting, which improves the sound of phone calls, and it has a built-in echo-canceling microphone for conference calls.

Of course, the higher-end sound comes at a higher-end price: $600.

Solar Walk, designed by the same people who created the stargazing app Star Walk, lets you pinch and swipe your way through the solar system and beyond.

When viewing Earth, you can also check the position of 10 satellites. Zoom in to pull up information about the International Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope or less-famous craft like the Koronas-Foton satellite from Russia.

Solar Walk also supports Apple's AirPlay mirroring feature, which allows you (if you have an iPad 2 or an iPhone 4S) to stream exactly what you are looking at on your device to an Apple TV-equipped television. Now you are not viewing the rings of Saturn on a 3.5- or 10-inch screen, but on serious double-digit real estate.

And if you happen to own a 3-D TV, you can set the app to send a 3-D image to your display (this also works on iOS devices themselves) and, with the requisite 3-D glasses, watch satellites and moons whip around in front of you.