The Engadget Show - 004: The decade in gadgets, with special guest Peter Rojas!

What a crazy 10 years, right guys? It's really flown past; the highs, the lows, the stuff in the middle that didn't seem very impressive one way or another. For our final Engadget Show of the decade, we asked site founder Peter Rojas to join us for a look back at our picks for the most important and / or interesting gadget developments since 2000. A hardcore crowd came out just after a gigantic snowstorm to witness the proceedings, and now you get your chance to see how it all went down. This is a long one folks, so grab some popcorn and settle in for the show!

Update: The HD download is now live!

Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Paul Miller, Nilay Patel
Special guest: Peter Rojas
Produced and Directed by: Chad Mumm
Executive Producer: Josh Fruhlinger
Edited by: Tony Chen
Music by: Bubblyfish
Visuals by: CJ
Opening titles by: Julien Nantiec

Download the Show: The Engadget Show - 004 (HD) / The Engadget Show - 004 (iPod / iPhone / Zune formatted)

Subscribe to the Show:

[iTunes] Subscribe to the Show directly in iTunes (M4V).
[Zune] Subscribe to the Show directly in the Zune Marketplace (M4V).
[RSS M4V] Add the Engadget Show feed (M4V) to your RSS aggregator and have it delivered automatically.

The Engadget Show is hosted by:

[MowDownJoe Posted Dec 24th 2009 7:08PM]

@Cam I dunno... I liked this girl. The one in episode 3? Not so much.

Now, where's Anamanaguchi? I'd prefer some electric guitar to accompany my 8-bit music.

[jupigare Posted Dec 24th 2009 7:41PM]

@MowDownJoe
I'd love seeing some Anamanaguchi on the show.

[Appl Posted Dec 23rd 2009 5:53PM]

Now I get why you guys come off as Appl€ fanboys. :p

[jimcasey Posted Dec 23rd 2009 6:07PM]

How about a torrent of the HD version next time? It takes a few tries to get things going here...

[ieko Posted Dec 23rd 2009 6:47PM]

@jimcasey My thoughts exactly..

My download rate literally keeps going down, I suspect by the time I get to 75% I'll be downloading at 20kbps =/

[Inflictionmitch Posted Dec 23rd 2009 6:13PM]

No HD up on the Itunes Canada store. Grrrr. Do you know if it will be up later or are Canucks getting SD-only action?

[eysun Posted Dec 23rd 2009 6:13PM]

is there any mirror servers for downloading the Show? i think im having trouble with the server....:-(

[ieko Posted Dec 23rd 2009 6:21PM]

It'd be nice if there was a torrent of the HD version...

[KLegSY Posted Dec 23rd 2009 6:39PM]

dude i remember getting super excited about getting my Motorola rokr E1! Its 100 song cap made you pick your songs very carefully though . and syncing it was a nightmare and it never charged the phone when it was plugged in and used to drain the battery so quickly you had to have enough time to sync it and charge it. but mine lasted for a while because it was so strong ! i never think that netbooks will catch up with the normal laptops because laptops will start to get more and more powerful . you guys definitely deserved tech blog of the decade ! i really enjoy watching these shows and reading your posts ! keep it up you guys !

[avail1236 Posted Dec 23rd 2009 6:47PM]

seriously, stop laughing! I'm a Touch Pro 2 user and would love an Engadget app. WinMo has higher market share than Android or Web OS. I don't know what the demographics are like inside the market share but I can say as a WinMo user that we are gadget lovers and as such a Engadget app would be in your best interest to make. that's my pitch...

[Nithin Posted Dec 23rd 2009 7:03PM]

Surprised that there was no mention of HDTV and the blu-ray. They changed the way we look at entertainment.

[Judah Rosenthal Posted Dec 23rd 2009 7:46PM]

Please consider posting more of these as regular ole podcasts. I don't generally have enough time to watch the video, but I could easily listen in podcast mode. The one you did w/ Balmer was appreciated. Why not do it again? Just double up on podcasts those weeks. I'm sure no one would mind.

[shu Posted Dec 23rd 2009 7:57PM]

For people who were there, the card-holding iPhone case from the give-aways is available at http://www.smrtcase.com

[joshwoods Posted Dec 23rd 2009 7:57PM]

Wow, you can count the pixels when they're on the blue background.

[Carman Posted Dec 23rd 2009 9:01PM]

@BGates

SLEEP FAIL. http://i45.tinypic.com/6nxzbp.jpg

[Carman Posted Dec 23rd 2009 9:04PM]

@Carman

also...cameraman cuts to him just as they are talking about Nilays cable guy falling asleep...haha.

[jenny10021 Posted Dec 23rd 2009 9:56PM]

my very first engadget show and found it entertaining...but sitting in the front row, can't help but notice how tight Josh's suit was, and his pants were a bit too short as it was hiked up to his calf. Other than that, show was entertaining, wish they talked about eReaders though cause I had my nook tucked in my bag...

[TrueEddie Posted Dec 23rd 2009 10:38PM]

Can you make an rss feed for the HD version of the show also? I'm subscribed to the sd feed in iTunes, but I would like to be able to subscribe to the HD version also.

[anderlan Posted Dec 23rd 2009 11:35PM]

What has kept me coming back to Ubuntu, like Peter, is the way it doesn't interrogate you when you want to do some normal thing. You see, so often in WIndows, even 7, I feel like options are being forced on me, options that so often don't even apply to me. I feel like I've wasted minutes going through dialog after dialog sometimes. In Ubuntu, many things are intentionally smoothed out.

Or, I *thought* it was Ubuntu (or maybe GNOME, nautilus/eazel, name a component of Ubuntu).

Then I started helping people with their Macs, and I noticed that every instance of this "get the heck out of the way and let 80% of the people who don't apply to this special situation get to work" value being implemented was copied straight from Apple.

Apple has given Ubuntu, Android, and every other Linux, something a helluvalot better than Windows to copy, as far as user experience. I think Ubuntu's selling point is that you can have something with fewer headaches, a little more like a Mac and less like Windows, but without the tax.

[FeatherKing Posted Dec 24th 2009 1:14AM]

I drag my wife to this thing because we happened to be in new york. She sleeps through half of it, wakes up and wins an xbox. Go me? I need to download it still to she if I can see her sleeping on camera

[Nithin Posted Dec 24th 2009 1:39AM]

@FeatherKing Lucky you. As far as i know, i dint notice a sleeping lady.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 24th 2009 3:04AM]

Where's the Danger Hiptop?

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 24th 2009 3:09AM]

Where's the Danger Hiptop? boobs.

[chichich Posted Dec 24th 2009 4:03AM]

extremely monotonic 1.7h. dont get me wrong, you guys are great, but need to put more fire in to it, and stop interrupting each-other so much. Josh, as a host you need to lead and ask your guests more questions. btw, i love your site and show!

[jupigare Posted Dec 24th 2009 5:15AM]

I'm having trouble downloading this from the Zune Software. I can download the file directly from this site and add it to my Zune as a video file, but it doesn't work when downloading as a podcast directly from the Zune Software.

It says it failed due to an "unknown error" of error code C00D11CD (800C2EFE).

Am I the only one with this problem?

[Macskeeball Posted Dec 24th 2009 6:36AM]

In the HD version, the audio is about 5 frames (208ms) after the video, for people who want to sync them back together in their player. A good Mac app for that is QT Sync. Not sure about Windows or Linux.

[Wwhat Posted Dec 24th 2009 9:10AM]

Both media player classic and VLC have correction options for that, and probably many more players do too.

[Macskeeball Posted Dec 24th 2009 1:17PM]

@Wwhat Ah, nice. I had looked for VLC options before posting but didn't find anything. Because of your comment, I Googled and found that the easiest way to fix this in VLC is to press F or G while playing. That will slow down or speed up the audio. There's also another way hidden in the preferences. More info: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=262728

I guess I can get rid of QT Sync now.

[Macskeeball Posted Dec 24th 2009 1:49PM]

Oops, what I meant to say was that, as downloaded, the audio in the HD version is about 5 frames (208 ms) *AHEAD* of the video. To sync them back up, make the audio play that much *AFTER* the video.

[rob47 Posted Dec 24th 2009 8:26AM]

@pachi72 Yes because a poorly made dual sliding mechanism is worth remembering...

[bakafo Posted Dec 24th 2009 9:17AM]

I love the initiative for this show and all but as a proper English speaking person, I would love a word count on "like".

It feels like listening to a bunch of teenagers trying to, like, have a conversation, like.... you know?

[Kirtay Posted Dec 24th 2009 1:19PM]

@bakafo:
Yeah, that annoyed me slightly as well.
That was the best part about Josh pretending to read from a MSFT script.
No "like"s.

[blenderman345 Posted Dec 24th 2009 3:24PM]

@Kirtay : just uh, remove the pretending. No joke

[iMick Posted Dec 24th 2009 11:17AM]

I'm always looking forward to your shows and podcasts. It really amazes me every time how funny it can be seeing people nerding about gadgets. Come to think of it, I always thought of it as informing and interesting, but you guys made me have a change of mind.

Only 1 thing, I think the show is too focused on America. I live in Europe and spent a loth of time in China as well and somethings discussed in this episode are not that relevant to other world parts.

Anyways great show and hope you guys keep them coming.

[GFL Posted Dec 24th 2009 11:35AM]

I'm not a Sony fan but there is a lot of Sony Bashing! :P

[GGG Posted Dec 24th 2009 12:00PM]

i'm watching the show right now and i can't believe i have never heard of the tivo. so you just tell it to record a certain show from live TV and you can watch it whenever you want?

and it existed in 2001?


mind=blown

[blenderman345 Posted Dec 24th 2009 3:25PM]

@(Unverified) ROFLOL. You have made my day.

[GGG Posted Dec 24th 2009 4:43PM]

@blenderman345

so does it work properly even if the show you want to record is on 10 minutes too late?

this is really the ultimate torrent killer, why download stuff when you can get it legally and for free :)

[GGG Posted Dec 24th 2009 4:47PM]

@(Unverified)

hmm, i just read on wikipedia that it involves a subscription fee :\

[Chu Posted Dec 24th 2009 7:34PM]

Could you guys get a different band for your next show? What happened to Bit Shifter?

[Wwhat Posted Dec 24th 2009 10:53PM]

I think it's clear by now that all the claims that engadget staff are brand 'x' fanboys is actually an illusion, what they are is trend-fanboys, and they are so into that world that they lost sight a bit of reality for most people, but that's not a bad thing, it's part of why people hang on engadget, to be into that non-real world.
It's just that being in the job, they are even more in it than most all gadgetlovers and that causes a small rift even between geeks and geeks from time to time because they focus a bit too much, because josh can say out loud apple only has a 10% share but in his mind they have a 90% share really because of his focus and the real 90% just seems unimportant, and not because of the brand either, another time it can be another brand he/they might get a focus on, or another industry rather than cellphones which he seems locked onto now.
That's my impression at this time at least.

[zxcvbnnm Posted Dec 27th 2009 1:42AM]

is that the Jewish symbol of a star near the begining of the show?

[smileyboy Posted Dec 28th 2009 3:45PM]

At 55:48, what headphones are those?
thanks

[nightalon Posted Jan 1st 2010 2:01PM]

WHERE IS THE WOZ VIDEO? It's been far too long.

[hgris Posted Jan 5th 2010 12:19PM]

hey guys, any word yet when the one in Jan will be?

[smileyboy Posted Jan 6th 2010 10:54AM]

Great show as always however........Bueler.... Bueler? At 55:48, what headphones are those?
thanks