The Engadget Show - 008: Dr. Dennis Hong, Ryan Block, Rick Karr, ATI Eyefinity, and more!

Greetings humans! The Engadget Show is back in a big way with this latest episode! Josh sits down with the brilliant roboticist Dr. Dennis Hong to chat about his supremely cool yet surprisingly terrifying 'bots, and then take a look at a few models which the professor brought along with him. Correspondent Rick Karr is back to give us the skinny on why the songwriting industry would like net neutrality to be a little less neutral, and Engadget editor emeritus and gdgt founder Ryan Block joins Josh, Paul, and Ross Miller on the roundtable to delve deep into all things newsworthy in tech. We also got to play with the ATI Eyefinity, one of the craziest gaming rigs you'll ever see... and then give it away to one lucky audience member! All that, and music from Neil Voss and visuals from NO CARRIER. Okay that's enough reading... time to watch!

Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Paul Miller, Ross Miller
Special guests: Dr. Dennis Hong, Rick Karr, Ryan Block
Produced and Directed by: Chad Mumm
Executive Producer: Joshua Fruhlinger
Edited by: Michael Slavens
Music by: Neil Voss
Visuals by: NO CARRIER
Opening titles by: Julien Nantiec

Download the Show: The Engadget Show - 008 (HD) / The Engadget Show - 008 (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 with roboticist Dr. Dennis Hong and more!

[mikmik111 Posted Apr 26th 2010 2:18PM]

that was fast

[electron Posted Apr 26th 2010 2:20PM]

@mikmik111
thats what she said

(sorry, I had to)

[jjrp123 Posted Apr 26th 2010 2:22PM]

*sob* i never thought you'd come back i thought the echo meant you were gone forever

[Jack Posted Apr 26th 2010 2:25PM]

Neil Voss is awesome. His soundtracks for The New Tetris and Tetrisphere on the N64 kicked ass.

[Haxxy Posted Apr 26th 2010 2:30PM]

@Jack
Neil Voss composed the Tetrisphere soundtrack??

My head just exploded.

[Jack Posted Apr 26th 2010 2:40PM]

@Haxxy

For reals. One of my favorite overall soundtracks, and definitely one of the best techno soundtracks ever.

[werty1432k Posted Apr 26th 2010 2:36PM]

Question: where does Josh buy his suits? Really quite fashionable, and the tie as well.

[Joshua Topolsky Posted Apr 26th 2010 3:00PM]

@werty1432k Hey thanks! This one is actually from J.Crew. Others I've worn were bespoke (it's really hard to find suits that fit right being this tall).

[werty1432k Posted Apr 26th 2010 3:05PM]

@Joshua Topolsky I know what you mean, thanks for the reply!

[Spectracide Posted Apr 26th 2010 2:45PM]

FYI, clicking the graphic takes you to an older episode.

[Joshua Topolsky Posted Apr 26th 2010 2:51PM]

@Spectracide Should be fixed now...

[IceNio Posted Apr 26th 2010 2:47PM]

Thank you!

[rav97 Posted Apr 26th 2010 3:10PM]

Maybe I'm overly negative, but Dr. Dennis Hong looked kind of a jerk. Microsoft presented the LG WP7 phone, the first WP7 handset, as a worldwide exclusive on the Engadget Show. Why couldn't Dr. Hong give us a preview of Charlie, this teenager robot that they're going to announce today (Monday, April 26th). All the robots they had on the show were at least 1 year old, when not older. To me, saying "we're demoing only old stuff here, go to our website to see the new stuff" was very rude.

[Dest Posted Apr 26th 2010 4:00PM]

@rav97 Yeah, you're just overly sensitive... like a woman.

[nickux Posted Apr 26th 2010 3:15PM]

Happy I got to rick-roll the Twitter crawl during the livestream. It's the little things that keep me going. It was a great show- the roundtable was one of the best yet.

[Ayrton Posted Apr 26th 2010 3:31PM]

Guys, can you fix your download system? Every time, for the first two days, it is impossible to download the show, especially the HD version. Download abrubtly stops and you have to restart from scratch. I have more than 10 failed attempts thus far and I am giving up.

[hdawggy Posted Apr 26th 2010 3:42PM]

Great Show guys =)

[ScriptyWeb Posted Apr 26th 2010 3:44PM]

@hdawggy I second that

[ScriptyWeb Posted Apr 26th 2010 3:47PM]

@hdawggy forgot to mention: Awesome giveaway! I wish I lived in the USA! :P

[werty1432k Posted Apr 26th 2010 10:05PM]

@ScriptyWeb I know lol, I live in Canada but I think one time im going to have to go to NY and see the show.

[hdawggy Posted Apr 27th 2010 5:18PM]

@werty1432k
Yeah im in Seattle... Its really just not feasible to get on a plane and goto a show =(

[Hydra Posted Apr 26th 2010 4:00PM]

I couldn't watch the last one live, the comments were off, and the video just echoed the whole way through

[Robotbling Posted Apr 26th 2010 4:03PM]

Bad Josh! BAD! Not all robots are out to kill us, you know...

[rads06 Posted Apr 26th 2010 4:04PM]

is there any way we could get a "making of the Engadget show" Engadget show? I think that would be fun.. some behind the scenes action

[nwndarkness Posted Apr 26th 2010 4:07PM]

So what's a host who doesn't have a funny bone in his body to do when he wants to give the illusion he has a sense of humor?

AhA! Make the same tired tired TIRED joke about how robots are gonna kill humans. HILARIOUS!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Wow, Josh. You are so funny.

Tell the same joke 50 MORE times! That will make your show ever better!

[Invader Par Posted Apr 26th 2010 4:55PM]

@nwndarkness

The more people talk about it in the open, the safer I feel. What purpose does Engadget fulfill if not to keep warning us all of the impending robot apocalypse? Soon we'll be telling you "we told you so". Don't believe us? Come back here in 5 years and we'll sort this out, alright? Bring a gun, because the streets won't be safe to walk.

[nonexcludable Posted Apr 26th 2010 5:04PM]

@nwndarkness Yeah. And the exact same joke is made EVERY time a new robot is shown on the blog. :(

[kirillis Posted Apr 26th 2010 4:27PM]

great show, I love robots ;)

so where can I find this charlie robot the professor was talking about? I just found this http://www.romela.org/main/CHARLI:_Cognitive_Humanoid_Autonomous_Robot_with_Learning_Intelligence

but it´s only the torso.. no legs, no video :(

[Nitesh Posted Apr 26th 2010 4:33PM]

All the Dell phones are hawt.



Also, iron man helmets = lawl.

[The Geek Posted Apr 26th 2010 5:49PM]

@Nitesh that was me, where do you see us?

[Nitesh Posted Apr 26th 2010 6:00PM]

@The Geek
You two are awesome. I don't know the exact spot, somewhere in the middle-ish. First there was a camera shot of one guy alone with it on (you?), and then it goes back to the guys on stage for a while, and then back to where you are and then there are two guys with the masks on. Hilarious. Next time, get like five people :-)

[Chad Mumm Posted Apr 26th 2010 6:22PM]

@The Geek Wow, you guys really are awesome!

[blenderman345 Posted Apr 26th 2010 4:52PM]

I frickin wish I was there. That guy winning it was epic. I SO WANT TO COME FOR THE NEXT SHOWW!!

[AckbarsFist Posted Apr 26th 2010 5:11PM]

Sound seems a little off sync on the HD version for me... anybody else get this?

[TheAmazingWJV Posted Apr 26th 2010 5:20PM]

The shows keep getting better, and they were awesome from the start.
One thing about the robots: if you basically want to build mechanical slaves to do the boring jobs, I don't think it's wise to make them look and act like humans. The whole empathy thing will be kicking in pretty soon that way. Tools should look like tools, not like pals.

[LuckyD Posted Apr 26th 2010 8:43PM]

All,
please vote for Engadget Show for Webby Awards. see link.

http://www.youtube.com/webby?x=tech

[witq Posted Apr 27th 2010 2:17AM]

I love the show, but it would be ewen better if I could subscribe the HD version. Is there a way I can do that?

[Myst3ry Posted Apr 27th 2010 3:25AM]

Hello fellow geeks, i have a serious question to ask...

Why is Ryan Block hating on WiMax? why doesn't he consider that true 4G? i thought it was a pretty great rising service to have (while limited)
am i missing something?

I'm on Sprint and i plan to get the EVO, so i'd like to know before i make the final decision.

[NIMBUS Posted Apr 27th 2010 1:25PM]

the IRON MAN is in the audience!

[NIMBUS Posted Apr 27th 2010 2:05PM]

the IRON MAN is in the audience!

[John5246 Posted Apr 28th 2010 6:53AM]

Josh stop acting like an idiot so often. Every damn joke has to be about robots killing us!!!?!?!?!?


Instead of welcoming these robots so we can have a better quality of life all you can do is pop stupid jokes, keep in mind some people take them seriously!

Seriously you should be banned from doing more engadget interviews!

[Brian 9 Posted Apr 29th 2010 11:05AM]

Maybe it’s just me but Joshua just looks really awkward in his suits. I don’t know if it is the suits he has, or if it’s suits in general. But every time you see him in a suit it just looks bad.