Recent Comments:
Ask Engadget: Best backpack for traveling with gadgets? {Engadget}
Jun 20th 2008 9:33AM I've seen a couple of recommendations for the Kata Sensitivity V. There's a good podcast showing this bag and what it carries here: http://www.pixelcorps.tv/twip030. Kata is also introducing a new bag that converts from a sling to a backpack. There's a preview of it here: http://girlsgonegeek.tv/archives/483 but it doesn't start shipping until July.
Dell battery explodes at Yahoo HQ, hundreds evacuate {Engadget}
Sep 20th 2006 5:05PM It's a real story, but you can't blame Yahoo!'s IT department. We are exclusively a HP/Compaq shop (with Macs for designers who want them), so this must belong to a visitor or be someone's personal laptop (which would really suck since they actually spent their own money on it).
Yahoo buys Meedio, but not Meedio TV {Engadget}
Apr 18th 2006 5:50PM Ditto dxtr. It's no secret that Meedio has been hurting for cash lately. I hope Pablo and co. got a nice wad of cash for this after pouring years of hard work into it. That said, I also agree the transition could have been a little less jarring (losing EPG, shutting down downloads and support, etc.).
There is no HD via BitTorrent {Engadget HD}
Mar 8th 2006 5:31PM I agree with what you say, but keep in mind that a large amount of the file size savings from these BT files is due to conversion from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4. I've seen up to 8x the compression with relatively little loss in quality. So while you can't squeeze an 8GB, 1 hour MPEG-2 file down to 300MB without reducing the resolution, a full resolution MPEG-4 file will be significantly smaller. I'm just waiting for MPEG-4 to become more ubiquitous so I can stop buying 400GB hard drives for my MCE box.
ATSC is great; when it works {Engadget HD}
Jan 18th 2006 12:37PM I'm using the silver sensor that came with my ATI HDTV Wonder card on my MCE box. I'm about 3 mi from Sutro Tower in San Francisco and everything from there comes in great. Of course, that assumes Sutro is online, which was not a great assumption over the past several weeks. They have had antenna problems and have been shutting down all DTV broadcasts during working hours to fix it. In the evenings, they occasionally were able to power up to 20% full gain, sometimes not at all. Hard to believe that major networks (we're talking ABC and PBS) can be down for weeks because of tranmitter problems.
The other problem is that NBC comes from San Bruno Mountain, which is not only 90 degrees off of Sutro, but it is also the only local to transmit in VHF. The silver sensor surprising picks up the VHF signal pretty well most of the time, but I get occasional dropouts. It's also sometimes difficult to tune in both NBC and the other stations from Sutro at the same time - since I have dual tuners, this can be an issue.
Live from Yahoo's keynote with Tom Cruise {Engadget}
Jan 6th 2006 3:57PM g-man: I can't dispute your point. Every one of these companies wants to report the most optimistic numbers, and the measurements are almost all pretty flawed. I could make an argument that every IP could represent multiple users (in a household, for example) which could offset your claim that every user likely comes to Yahoo from multiple IPs. The fact is that none of the metrics is perfect and it's likely that the one that gets the most press is also the one that overstates the true number the most. By any measurement, however, Yahoo's viewership cannot be trivialized and they are well positioned to impact the future of the web if they play their cards right. My original post addressed those that bash Yahoo's relevance for purely emotional reasons - even though I hate AOL, I still recognize their position as an influencer on the direction of online business.
Live from Yahoo's keynote with Tom Cruise {Engadget}
Jan 6th 2006 1:47PM The 400 million users metric is purely unique users of the site; I'm guessing calculated by the number of unique IPs hitting the site. These are not necessarily registered users with an ID, so the bot-created IDs are irrelevant to that number.
Second, I never said Yahoo was first on any of the aforementioned services; I simply said Google was further from first (by a long shot). I'm also not saying that being earlier to a market makes you any better, though I believe Yahoo's new mail, maps, and messenger offerings are as good or better than others out there. Now, would Yahoo have improved their products without the pressure from Google? Maybe not, and it's that competitive pressure that I think Google should be getting the most credit for, not being some wildly innovative technology company.
Live from Yahoo's keynote with Tom Cruise {Engadget}
Jan 6th 2006 12:58PM Thanks, Leo. It kills me when people write off Yahoo as irrelevant. Any site that has more users than the population of the US has to be significant. And they do seem to have gotten social networking and are opening up their platform. Google gets all the hype, but they haven't really innovated from the standpoint of creating truly new products and market segments. Webmail? IM? Maps? They trailed Yahoo by a long shot on all of those. True, Google approaches each product with a new viewpoint that causes the incumbents in each area to wake up and improve their services, and for that we are all benefitting. But everybody saying they're the only innovative company on the Web is a huge stretch.
12 HD Days of Christmas: Day 4 {Engadget HD}
Dec 16th 2005 2:45PM Dean, how is the silver sensor holding up outdoors? I have one that came with my ATI HDTV Wonder card and it works pretty well, but I still get the occasional dropout. Considering that I'm less than 3 mi from Sutro Tower, I figure if I get it on the roof, I won't have any problems. Also, does anyone know if the Terk does UHF and VHF? Here in the Bay Area, every network except NBC broadcasts in UHF from Sutro Tower. Unfortunately, NBC broadcasts in VHF from Mt. San Bruno, about 90 degrees off Sutro. The silver sensor, while optimized for UHF, does pull in NBC, but it's spotty.
Sub-grand WMCE 4: configuring the PC for HDTV {Engadget HD}
Dec 1st 2005 8:03PM One thing missing here is that you will need an MPEG-2 decoder like NVidia's Purevideo decoder. OEMs install this on their MCE machines, but we do-it-yourselfers need to purchase one seperately.
