Sorry, prospective job seekers of America, but as it turns out there’s no use winging those resumes to Hangzhou. It appears that Wei actually meant that Alibaba.com believes its online trade platform–which links smaller manufacturers, usually in China, with interested buyers, usually abroad–will create 100,000 jobs indirectly through the commercial opportunities it creates as it expands. Alibaba.com isn’t planning to actually hire 100,000 U.S. workers, in California or any other state.

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Since Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad last month, hardware makers such as Griffin Technology, Gelaskins Inc., Sanho Corp. and SDI Technologies Inc. have hurried to design chargers, sticker covers and other accoutrements.

“There are some things we’ve identified as no-brainers,” said Mark Rowan, president of case maker Griffin in Nashville, Tenn., which began drawing up designs for iPad cases and contacting manufacturers within hours of the iPad announcement. “We know people are going to want to protect the device.”

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Next time you get comfortable on the couch, remember that you’re relaxing in the consumer electronics battleground: the living room. Major tech companies are pouring resources into products they hope you’ll use to remotely receive your computer’s content — namely videos, music and photos — in a more comfortable place.

But while some of these complex solutions are still struggling to catch on, digital music marched steadily into the land of recliners long ago. IPods naturally plug into home stereos, multiplying music collections and bringing playlists to parties. And an industry of devices sprouted up specifically for playing iPods and other music players to a crowd.

This week, I tested a new version of one of these dock systems that specializes in wirelessly distributing music via small, cube-shaped speakers that can be spread throughout your house: the $300 Evolve speaker system from Griffin Technology Inc. (http://evolvespeakers.com). This setup offers a straightforward and stylish solution, delivering what I consider good quality sound.

Griffin Technology’s $299.99 Evolve is an affordable wireless speaker system.

Griffin’s attempt at claiming valuable real estate in the living room pits it against Sonos Inc., a high-end competitor that is already well-established in the wireless-music arena. Sonos sends digital tunes from your computers to up to 32 rooms using an attractive remote with a full-color screen. But this system starts at $1,000, not including speakers, and its computer-related set-up might intimidate potential buyers.

Closer competitors to Griffin’s Evolve can be found in Brookstone and Hammacher Schlemmer catalogs, where similar wireless speaker systems for the iPod are sold for $150 (on sale) and $400, respectively. Brookstone’s set-up includes small, spherical wireless speakers and Hammacher’s uses bulkier, rectangular-shaped wireless speakers with visible antenna.

I tested the Evolve system using my iPod touch and a first generation iPod nano bought in 2005. Both devices worked with the system, and the Evolve speakers connected wirelessly to the base station from up to 150 feet away on the digital 900MHz spectrum, which doesn’t interfere with Wi-Fi and works through walls and floors. Two speakers come with the system, each carrying a charge of 10 hours according to Griffin, though I got 11 in my tests.

Evolve has some downsides. While it’s great to know that its speakers work 150 feet away from the base station and iPod, they can only be controlled by the base station or by a remote control in view of the base station. So, if you and the speakers are in a room without the base station, you can’t see any information about the song that’s playing, nor can you adjust the volume. Each speaker does have its own power button.

And when I switched from my iPod touch to the iPod nano, the Evolve remote stopped working, and I couldn’t get the remote to work with my iPod touch again. Griffin acknowledged a bug that occurs with speaker systems when an iPod isn’t up to date with the latest firmware, which it wasn’t, and assured me that updating the device, unplugging and re-plugging the Evolve would fix the issue. These fixes didn’t help, nor did repairing the remote, and there wasn’t time for Griffin to send a new remote. I continued to use Evolve without the remote, but hope that other units won’t operate like mine.

Griffin’s Evolve base station seems to hover just inches off the ground and is made of a brushed aluminum. Left to right, it measures about 16 inches, and an iPod dock and three buttons mark the center of the base station. Two squat antenna stand behind this dock, and square wells on the left and right give the speakers a place to rest while charging. These wire-free charging wells are designed with overcharge/undercharge protection, so each speaker’s battery isn’t harmed by resting on the base station for a long period of time.

When the remote was working with my iPod touch, I navigated through songs from across the room, pausing and adjusting volume. I easily carried the speakers into my kitchen using handles built into the back of these cubes, and my roommate enjoyed listening to Amy Winehouse in stereo while she made dinner. But during the actual dinner, when we wanted to turn the volume down, we had to walk back to the living room where the base station was located while calling down the hall to one another to find out if the sound was low enough.

Hidden indicator lights in each speaker tell whether they’re charged or not; orange signifies a charge is needed, while green means you’re in the clear. A switch on the base station changes the speaker sound from mono (useful when listening to audio books) to stereo. Each speaker contains built-in technology that assigns it to automatically know if it’s right or left. To conserve battery, a speaker that’s turned on but isn’t playing music will turn off after 60 minutes.

I kept my speakers on for 11 hours straight before they pooped out, moving them to different floors and as far from the base station as possible — the signal stayed strong. In just two hours, the pair was recharged. I kept the volume pretty low for at least half the time my speakers were on, and Griffin says lower volumes conserve battery, and vice versa. I listened to all sorts of music, including hip-hop, jazz, country, rock and classical. I’m no audiophile, but to my ear, the Evolve handled each genre with aplomb.

All iPods (even the iPhone) work with Griffin’s Evolve, and this gadget will also work when connected to other MP3 players, stereos, TVs, and CD players, which could come in handy. In early March, Griffin will sell add-on speakers for $99 each with separate charging plates for $30 apiece; $200 bundles will include two speakers and two charging plates. There’s no limit to the number of speakers that you can add to a system.

Though Griffin’s Evolve lacks some of the luxuries that high-end systems have, it solves a problem with minimal effort on the user’s part, and looks good while doing it. If you don’t mind returning to the base station to make adjustments, and if your remote doesn’t stop working, you’ll enjoy this sleek and functional device.

• Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications:

Griffin Technology Inc.’s Evolve wireless sound system uses a remote that can control certain functions of the iPod, even when it is out of sight of the base station. This column erroneously implies that the remote must be in view of the system to work.

But, with the advent last fall of the video-capable iPod, a new type of product is emerging: connectors and docks that allow iPods to play video through a TV, as well as playing audio through home receivers and speakers. In addition, there are finally some iPod docks that place a menu of options, similar to the iPod’s own menu, on a TV screen.

$99 Apple iPod AV Connection Kit, www.apple.com/ipod/accessories.html

If you own a video iPod and happen to miss Sunday’s episode of “Desperate Housewives,” you can easily log on to Apple’s iTunes Music Store, pay a couple of bucks to download the episode and copy the video onto the iPod for watching on the go.

But watching movies or TV shows on your home entertainment center will always be more enjoyable than watching on a comparatively tiny 2.5″ iPod screen while listening through earbuds.

This week we reviewed two of these new iPod video connectors: the $99 iPod AV Connection Kit from Apple Computer Inc. itself and the $150 HomeDock Deluxe by Digital Lifestyle Outfitters, or DLO, as the smaller company calls itself.

When it comes to watching videos or digital photo slide shows, these two docks are about the same. Because of limitations in the iPod itself, video and slide-show menus can’t be projected on the TV screen, so selecting them requires manipulating menus on the iPod. But for listening to the iPod’s music through your speakers, the DLO HomeDock Deluxe pulls ahead. It offers a special mode that lists music on your television screen, not just on your iPod screen like the Apple kit, so you can see song details clear across the room. And overall, the DLO remote is much easier to use than Apple’s.

Griffin Technology, another popular maker of iPod accessories, has plans for its own iPod video connector that it will call the TuneCenter. This product — like the DLO HomeDock Deluxe — will offer music navigation through a TV screen menu. It should be available starting in June.

For our tests, we used a $299 30-gigabyte iPod, and made sure to copy two videos onto it from our iTunes library: rock band Coldplay’s music video of its song, “Fix You,” and the latest episode of the Bravo channel’s TV series “Top Chef.”

We started with Apple’s iPod AV Connection Kit, which includes a simple white dock, tiny white remote, white AC connection cable (red, white and yellow plugs at one end) and power adapter to charge the iPod while it docks.

We used one of four small adapters to fit our iPod into the dock. A power adapter cable and AC connection cable plug into the dock’s back side, and a small circular infrared receiver for the remote decorates the front. The other end of the AC cable fit into our TV’s red, yellow and white plugs, just like attaching a DVD player to a TV. We also made sure to turn on the iPod’s “TV Out” setting, so videos could be transmitted out rather than just playing on the iPod itself.

We picked up the iPod dock’s tiny remote, and pressed play, hearing music from our TV’s speakers, but seeing nothing on our TV screen. You can use the remote to skip through songs and turn the volume up or down, but that’s where its functionality ends. You can’t use the remote’s Menu button (nothing happens), nor can you use it to select other settings like listening to a play-list of music or turning on the iPod’s useful Shuffle Songs setting.

As if this weren’t maddening enough, we got even more frustrated when trying to use the remote to watch videos or photo slide shows on the iPod AV Connection Kit — it works only if you’ve already selected a video or slide show using the iPod buttons, not the remote.

If you’re tired of this remote limiting you to one list of songs and you want to suddenly start watching a video or slide show, you’ll have to get up, walk over to the iPod, pick it up (it’s easier to operate when holding) and start playing the video or slide show. Only then can you use the remote to navigate within that media. Apple says you wouldn’t be able to see the screen to use the remote anyway, but we’d rather have the option.

$149.99 DLO HomeDock Deluxe, www.dlo.com

After dealing with the tiny remote’s big hassle, we did watch videos and slide shows through the iPod on the TV screen. While watching the episode of “Top Chef,” we easily paused with the remote to get a show-inspired snack.

Using the DLO HomeDock Deluxe was liberating compared with working with the limited Apple device. It’s a little bigger and is black, rather than white, with slots that hold its 18-button remote and the iPod. It uses the same cables and jacks, powering up from a wall plug and hooking into the TV with an AC cord.

But because the HomeDock Deluxe uses two modes — one that displays a useful user interface on the TV screen while playing music (On-Screen Navigation Mode) and another that operates videos and slide shows, as well as music (iPod Mode) — a special button on the remote must be pressed to switch between the two modes. This gets a little clumsy, stopping the iPod in midsong, for example, to swap over to the new mode.

In iPod Mode, where all data only show up on the iPod screen like on Apple’s iPod AV Connection Kit, you can listen to music, watch videos or watch photo slideshows. But the remote doesn’t limit you to one list of songs, as Apple’s does. Rather, you can skip through the iPod’s menus selecting various options with the remote, even going from videos to slide shows to music. We did have to stand closer to the HomeDock Deluxe to read some smaller print, but we never had to pick up the iPod in frustration.

We watched the Coldplay video, rewinding and fast-forwarding easily to find a favorite moment when the group’s lead singer, Chris Martin, bursts onto a stage surrounded by fans after running through the streets of London.

A small button in the HomeDock Deluxe remote’s top left corner switches to On-Screen Navigation Mode. This mode shows a brightly colored welcome screen on your TV that lists Music, Shuffle Songs, Playlists and HomeDock Settings. The Music section showed Playlists, Artists, Albums, Songs, Genres, Composers and Audiobooks — a familiar iPod-like format that was easy to navigate.

Each song’s information — minus album art — showed on the screen as it played, and the bigger screen allowed us to move far away and just glance to the TV to see the upcoming song or what artist was singing. DLO hopes to add the album art to this screen in the future.

A few times, while using the HomeDock Deluxe remote, our iPod’s backlight went off, which was annoying. The company says it is working on this bug, but a special button on the remote turns it on again for now.

Overall, the DLO HomeDock Deluxe is more satisfying to use than Apple’s iPod AV Connection Kit, though it still has to work out a few kinks. Its remote is more functional than Apple’s, and it just works more easily. We’re looking forward to the day when a dock like this one can offer a TV-screen navigational mode for videos and slide shows, as well as music, so users can see all of the iPod’s data in a big-screen view.

• Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com.