She has a particular interest in audio and TV, which means she has spent a lot of time watching movies and listening to music and passing it off as work. In her time as a journalist she has covered the highs and lows across the breadth of consumer tech, and tested everything from smartphones and stereo speakers to robot lawnmowers and electric cars. Fourteen years and staff roles at Stuff, MSN and What Hi-Fi? later, plus a 5-year stint as a freelancer contributing to the likes of Wired, Metro, Evening Standard and BBC Science Focus, she is back as Pocket-lint's reviews editor, testing the latest tech and heading up the site's review programme. Verity has been a technology journalist for 15 years, starting her career working for the rather questionably named "Boys Toys" magazine, before its editor moved to an up-and-coming website called Pocket-lint, and brought her on board as staff writer. For that reason, we wish UE's Power Up base charger was included here - but it costs $39.99 extra. The Megablast promises 16 hours of battery life, but for a smart speaker you really want it on hand all the time. We didn't find the Alexa experience as smooth as Echo, even though the sound quality is far superior. The Megablast differs from the Megaboom 3 below it as it has Wi-Fi and comes with Amazon Alexa built-in, replacing the need for an Amazon Echo or Echo Dot. Like a lot of UE speakers, it offers 360-degree sound, which packs a confident punch and delivers an overall very likeable balance in deed. It's since been retired, but you can still find it for sale if you don't need something as big as its (very) big brother.Īs you'd expect, it offers the distinguishable UE design with giant volume buttons and a combination of rubber and fabric, with a power button on the top and a Micro-USB port on the bottom. It’s become more difficult to live and I don’t have the feeling it will end any time soon.Before the Hyperboom, the UE Megablast was the top dog in the Ultimate Ears portfolio. “We will feel it from January 1, when electricity becomes more expensive,” he said.īut for Borodina, the processing plant worker, life has become tougher: “Wages have fallen yet everything is more expensive. ![]() Pensioner Alexander Poplavsky said his life hadn’t changed materially since the crisis began. But for those who live from one wage to the next, it’s having a very bad effect.”įor some, the crisis has yet to bite. ![]() “They are only working part-time, so salaries have been lowered three or four times,” she said. Tatyana Andronova said her husband, employed in a car depot, was working reduced hours. ![]() “It’s tough for people who have become accustomed to getting maximum pay, and today are only getting 8,000-9,000 roubles.” Natalya Guseva, director of the city’s employment centre, said employers were trying not to fire people and that, should this become necessary, they were required to give three months’ notice of such action.īut in a city where a large portion of salaries are earned as production-related bonuses, miners who prospered early in the year must contend with a sudden drop in income, she said. “If people have started to work less, of course they will receive lower wages,” Galina Kovalchuk, head of Raspadskaya’s press service in Mezhdurechensk, said. Monthly production of coking coal concentrate has dropped to 150,000 tonnes from peak levels of 650,000 tonnes early this year. ![]() Raspadskaya, which employs 7,800 people, confirmed it had cut its working week to four days. They are trying very hard not to lay off employees,” she said. “There haven’t been any redundancies, thank God. Marina Borodina, a resident of Mezhdurechensk, said she and her colleagues at a coal processing plant owned by Raspadskaya were on a reduced working week. They, along with rivals Sibuglemet and Belon Group BLNG.MM, said in the letter they were owed a total 13.6 billion roubles ($490.4 million). Raspadskaya and Mechel MTL.N, another big local employer, are Russia's two largest coking coal producers. Mines are already cutting output and, without such help, many will be forced to close. The company is among several that wrote last month to Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin requesting financial assistance and a review of taxes and rail tariffs.
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