Recent Comments:
Former Gizmondo exec Stefan Eriksson gets 1.5 year sentence, movie might now have ending {Engadget}
Jul 11th 2009 2:48PM He should get at least five for destroying a work of art...
Silverlight 3 out of beta, joins forces with your GPU for HD streaming {Engadget}
Jul 10th 2009 1:36AM "However, we may see google come out with their own flash/silverlight competitor."
Yep. It's called HTML 5.
Silverlight 3 out of beta, joins forces with your GPU for HD streaming {Engadget}
Jul 10th 2009 1:32AM If you mean support it just like they support CSS, then IE 8 supports HTML 5. If you mean support it according to the spec (like WebKit and Opera do) then I'll take that bet, and I'll put my money on the first of never. It is not in Micrrosoft's interest to have a completely standards compliant browser - if it were I'd think they could pull it off using some of that $7B+ R&D budget.
Video: Antares DLR-H2 becomes planet's first fuel cell-powered aircraft {Engadget}
Jul 9th 2009 12:09PM Energy transported from a power plant to the point of use for either electrolysis or charging a battery is going the be the same so is not relevant.
Electrolysis to H2 to fuel cell to kinetic is only 20% to 25% efficient. Charging a LiIon battery to drive a motor is overall about 70% to 75% efficient.
With today's technology batteries are about 3 time as efficient as fuel cells.
H2 has a much higher energy density that LiIon batteries, but the volume required is quite large, even if you liquefy the H2 (which takes a fair amount of energy BTW), so there is a practical limit to how much you can take with you.
The only advantage H2 has over batteries as a storage medium is density, which makes a lot of difference in an aircraft, where safety and range are more important than efficiency, and weight is a critical factor. In an automobile however, IMO fuel cells make no sense when compared to even current battery technology.
Video: Antares DLR-H2 becomes planet's first fuel cell-powered aircraft {Engadget}
Jul 9th 2009 11:52AM "Making no judgment on the viability of fuel cells"
I will. Aircraft and spacecraft are the only areas where I think fuel cells make any kind of sense. Firstly, electrolysis of water is inefficient, only about half the electricity actually produces usable fuel, the other half is waste heat. Then you need to compress it, (more energy) ending up with only about 40% to 45% efficiency to generate the H2 from H2O, never mind that most H2 comes from natural gas... then the efficiency of fuel cell systems to drive motors is only about 50%. So the total efficiency from production to kinetic is somewhere around 22.5% (50% of 45%). This does not factor in the efficiency of producing and delivering the electricity used for electrolysis. For planes this makes sense because batteries are too heavy.
Contrast that with charging LiIon batteries, which is 90%+ efficient, then the efficiency of a battery driven motor is around 85%. Of your original energy investment you get about 75% efficiency (85% of 90%).
Colorware offers up $6,000 Stealth MacBook Pro: it's really dark {Engadget}
Jul 4th 2009 8:25PM "people would start to think that my Macbook is discontinued or knock-off MacBook Pro design."
Only a complete tool would make a purchasing decision based on what "people would start to think"
Colorware offers up $6,000 Stealth MacBook Pro: it's really dark {Engadget}
Jul 4th 2009 8:19PM except that he's dead, just like Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks... /somewhat obscure reference
Captain Piccard unveils Solar Impulse HB-SIA solar-powered plane {Engadget}
Jul 4th 2009 1:02PM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjNKyoRudOQ&NR=1
How would you change the Palm Pre? {Engadget}
Jul 4th 2009 1:52AM what trap has apple fallen into?
How would you change the Palm Pre? {Engadget}
Jul 4th 2009 1:48AM no, we understand is just fine. perhaps you've confused engadget with 4chan?
