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Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture reconstructed from 1000 cellphones, 2000 text alerts (video) {Engadget}
Oct 23rd 2009 6:12AM There is no QoS on sending a SMS. So there is no timing relieability on WHEN it will receive the SMS message.
They tricked by doing this when everyone was sleeping (01AM-06AM) so the have the whole network for themselves and by having a Vodaphone engineer "guru" onboard to send the messages.
PS3's new 3D mode captured on video, coming in 2010 to all existing games {Engadget}
Sep 4th 2009 9:39AM "OLED - Wave of the future."
But you need to work at Goldman Sachs to by one.
PS3's new 3D mode captured on video, coming in 2010 to all existing games {Engadget}
Sep 4th 2009 8:41AM actual smooth 200Hz ... on a LCD TV ?
Yeah ! Right ! An then you wake up in your bed ?
Latest features on LCD TVs to have a better response time was to do some tricks on the backlight but not actually having a better LCD response time.
Since here you need a clear separation between images (you don't want to seen a trailing left image with your left eye), plasma might be the recommended technology for 3D.
PS3 Slim bitsreams Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA audio, at last {Engadget}
Aug 24th 2009 4:34AM @why not the LS2LS7?:
"One thing bitstreaming allows (but long before HDMI 1.3) is sending DSD from a SACD player to your amp. This may be useful as DSD cannot be converted losslessly to PCM."
As I said in my (lenghty) message, this was added in 1.2 and I didn't said that this was irrelevant.
Earlier PS3 model had support for SACD along with PS2 emulation, 4 USB ports and memory cards reader. Current models and PS3 slim are scaled down to 2 USB ports and no support for PS2, SACD an no card reader. The PS3 Slim ever drops Linux support.
One feature also introduced in software with the v3.0 firmware is the support of outputing the audio stream in both the HDMI and the optical interface.
PS3 Slim bitsreams Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA audio, at last {Engadget}
Aug 21st 2009 4:56AM Hey, HD codec bitstreaming is a hoax or, at worse, a con.
On HDMI 1.0, people defining the norm thought : including 8 audio channel at LPCM 24b/192kHz is enough for any situation. And it was true. Instead of having a cable for video (composite, S-Video or component) and one or more cables for the audio (stereo or 5.1 analog RCA or SPDIF in RCA or optical), you could have a single connection with the best quality in every domain, both audio and video.
Before HDMI, SPDIF in RCA or optical was great. Not because it was a lossless way to transmit the raw bitstream contained on the source material (this is was purists say) but because you could replace a cluster-fuck of 6 analog RCA connections by a single wire. With HDMI, you can go even further : you have a single wire for both audio and video. A dream come true.
But people started asking for the AC3 and DTS bitstream. Why would people ask that ? Any DVD player can easily decode those codec (at least AC3) and decoded audio could be send lossless in LPCM thru HDMI. Some crazy purists could claim that their very expensive AC3 decoder does a better job than the one included in the player but those guys could use the already available SPDIF output on the player to connect a gold-plated-unicorn-tear-washed optical cable and use their marvelous dedicated decoder. What people really did want is that the LED displaying AC3 or DTS on their HC receiver would light up. They did want the decoding to happend in the receiver instead of the player BECAUSE THE FORMER HAD A LED FOR IT.
The easy solution was to tell people to use a additional SPDIF connection from their player to their receiver. And this was not really a problem because early HDMI receivers were not able to read the audio from the HDMI stream anyway (those 8 great audio channels at 24b/192kHz) and still required a dedicated audio connection.
Then came the HD codecs. There are 2 important things to know with those codecs. 1st, they are lossless. That means that the output of the decoding is exactly the same as the input. That could also be described as : every output from every single decoder will all be exactly the same since they are all exactly identical to the original signal before encoding. So no purist can come and tell "my decoder is better than yours" because all outputs will be identical, that would be irrelevant. The second thing to know is that the raw data bandwidth needed to transport those HD lossless codec is higher than what the good-old SPDIF could do. The trick to parallel-wire HDMI with an optical cable can not be used in this situation. But, this is not a problem because, the codec being lossless, decoding it in the player or in the receiver would be EXACTLY THE SAME. With those 8 high resolution LPCM audio channels available in HDMI since 1.0, that should not be an issue. In between, HDMI came up with 1.1 and 1.2, supporting new audio features but those were relevant evolutions since DVD-Audio contains additional DRM data and SACD in not encoded in LPCM.
So far, receiver manufacturers were very happy with the release of new codecs. From Dolby ProLogic to DTS NEO:6, they were able to sell again and again new receivers to their customers. Now, with the 8 channels of decoded LPCM audio in HDMI, no one would never need to upgrade again. You would upgrade your player when a new media is available, supporting new codecs, as you need to by a BluRay player since your DVD player can not play Bluray disc, but you won't buy a new receiver since by supporting HDMI audio channels, it won't be obsolete. So they asked HDMI to include something 100% irrelevant : bitstream of lossless audio. That way, they can sell brand new Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD receiver, WITH 0% ADDED VALUE from a BluRay player and, above all, DISPLAY A CORRESPONDING LED.
All this, for a lossless audio format that won't give a single difference in audio quality. Worse : if the decoding is done in the receiver, the end user WILL LOSE FEATURES !
Let me get this straight : decoding HD codec audio in bitstream inside the receiver does not increase the quality and removes features. One more time : this "added feature" is only minus and no plus.
I already explained why this can not add anything since the codec is lossless. Now, I'll explain what features I'm talking about. In DVD, interactivity was pretty limited. You could display a static image or a dynamic video with a solid color overlay (menus) and jump from one video/image to another with actions (left/right/up/down/enter).
With BluRay, people decided to go a lot further in interactivity and included a complete java implementation inside the specs. With this, you could do modern stuff, like displaying your disc menu as an overlay of your movie, without stoping it. One feature is to play audio on top of the actual movie audio. This is used for menus clicks and pops but also for commentaries. The BluRay producer doesn't have to produce a gazillion of audio tracks for every single commentary, you just keep the initial movie audio track and mix in the audio commentary you wanted to include. Simple and neat. To do this, the player decodes the movie audio and mix the tracks. But this can not be done when streaming the audio track to the receiver in bitstream ! because there's no way to tel the receiver : "hey, get those 4 raw streams, this one is mp3, this one is AC3 and mix them together". You could just provide one single audio stream : raw or 8 tracks LPCM. Providing the complete mixing process over HDMI would make it a complete nightmare to describe in the protocol and receiver would need to be very very complex and thus expensive.
So bitstreaming hidef codec introduced in HDMI 1.3 is only here for receiver manufacturers to sell you a new set with a dedicated led.
Philips' 56-inch Cinema 21:9 HDTV: not for Americans {Engadget}
Jan 31st 2009 8:14AM Well, since you are the guyz who invented BlockBuster distributing specific editions of movies, edited for time and content and violently truncated to 4/3 ratio, I doubt that a 2.35 screen would have found a huge market size.
Panasonic expands VIERA HDTV lineup at CES 2009 {Engadget HD}
Jan 20th 2009 2:49PM Because below 37", a plasma TV is becoming impossible to manufacture. Plasmas are based on small bubbles containing ... plasma. The smaller the screen, the smaller the bubbles. The smaller the bubbles, the harder it is to build the screen. This is the reason FullHD (higher res => smaller bubbles) arrived on plasma much later than on LCD.
To every screen size, Pana choses the best technology available. Below 37", LCD is the only choice available. Above 37", both plasma and LCD are available but Panasonic selected plasma. Panasonic belives that plasma provides a better image than LCDs. So do I (37" plasma from Pana).
Orange's iPhone exclusive ruled illegal in France {Engadget}
Dec 17th 2008 8:53AM This won't make much a difference, since other carriers in France are offering similar plan at almost the same price (5-10%). The 3 carriers operating in France have already been convicted and fined for abusive market sharing and non competitive actions.
What we (I'm french in France) truly need is another carrier, like the ISP called Free that introduced 22Mbps ADSL with triple-play (internet+IPTV+phone) at 30€/month while other ISP were providing ADSL capped at 1Mbps for twice the price. Now, french broadband is one of the best.
China takes the leap: Emdrive aka Infinite Improbability Drive now in development {Engadget}
Sep 25th 2008 8:21AM EmDrive is Relativity Drive while Infinite Improbability Drive is Quantum Drive. Those are not unified yet.
Intel denies USB 3.0 abuse, dangles controller spec from window {Engadget}
Jun 12th 2008 5:38AM 1st - because with a bigger bus, you can also fit more of currently existing devices.
2nd - because many devices are not limited by the bus but by their inner technology and those devices should not slow down the development of those who might be able to go even faster
