Recent Comments:
Invisible hand slashes NVIDIA GTX 280 and GTX 260 prices {Engadget}
Jul 14th 2008 6:52AM still overpriced...
2009 Nissan Maxima starting at $29,290 {Autoblog}
Jun 26th 2008 11:04PM not bad, but i would choose genesis over this; genesis would be bit more expensive (10%...maybe not little), but you get rwd, and all the goodies. hyundai just needs to release a sporty edition of genesis with a proper 6 speed manual or a dual clutch, then it will be a poor man's bmw 535
Video: 82-inch 4K Sony prototype display gets showcased {Engadget HD}
Jan 8th 2008 1:52PM same thing at samsung...guess sony could not help it as samsung is only tv size lcd supplier for sony...from sony funded s-lcd
Video: Sony's 27-inch OLED leave jaws open {Engadget HD}
Jan 8th 2008 1:51PM not sure what you will do when you see samsung 31" OLED tv at ces...engadget is blinded??
Toshiba and Samsung to cross-license NAND rights: more flash for all! {Engadget}
Dec 3rd 2007 10:21AM they kind of had to do it because oneNAND is to compete with nor type flash & mram, and lba-nand is good for reducing complexity/power consumption/cost of flash memory controllers.
this might put some damages on a new player micron backed by both apple & intel, and controller technologies of sandisk & lexar
the competition will be bloodier
Exploding phone battery not blamed for Korean's death {Engadget}
Nov 29th 2007 4:32PM lithium ion polymer is the full name of most common lithium battery; this is also called polymer, li-polymer. since li-polymer is a type of lithium-ion battery, i guess some still refers it as li-ion rather than polymer.
the way you can tell whether the battery is a traditional lithium-ion or the newer polymer is through the casing of a battery. li-ion has a metal casing & usually in cylinder shape like AA, and the polymer type is usually rectangular type polygon shape with a plastic casing.
this is exactly why hybrid is using lead-acid type rather than lithium which can make hybrid even more fuel efficient.
however, in future, super capacitor and/or bio-fuel cell might replace batteries.
Exploding phone battery not blamed for Korean's death {Engadget}
Nov 29th 2007 12:58PM most cellphone batteries are li-polymer and NOT li-ion like sony laptop batteries. because of that it is very difficult to have a properly made li-polymer to be exploded in great scale.
the problem of sony battery (li-ion type) was the metal particle impurities in electrolytes which causes internal shorts that causes overheat of electrolytes which is highly reactive. sony knew this problem about two years ago, but they thought batteries cannot be overheated that much to actually causeing overheat as ultraportables are the choice of laptops in japan
cellphone batteries are mostly (if not all) li-polymer with solid electrolytes so that those batteries can withstand physical impacts far greater than li-ion. only way this type of battery can be exploded is when reactive lithium is exposed to heat & water & oxygen. li-sheets are liminated multiple times to prevent this problem in addition to over charging prevention circuit. even if it happened, the scale of explosion should be far less than what you saw on burning dell.
i heard about exploded li-poly type batteries but most of them were knock-off of usual brands except one or two nokia batteries.
my guess of this case is that the man who died had either heart attact triggered by the fire/explosion, or someone killed him then blamed on the battery as i don't think it is possible to have burning cellphone in the pocket
Korean man killed by exploding cellphone {Engadget}
Nov 28th 2007 8:22PM sony deserved it; sony knew that there were problems with batteries, but they kept on making defective batteries until they were forced. sony assured to the public and its business customers like dell that problems were isolated, but becuase apple, dell, and other business customers were getting killed for sony's fault that sony's business customers forced sony to admit the problem.
the recent unpopularity of sony rooted in sony's attitude; sony doesn't really care about its end customers. sony has a tendency to ignore problems like that because sony believes that we are the ones who should be thankful to sony for providing products. it's a cultural thing like it is customary to pay "THANK YOU MONEY" to a landlord for let you rent a room/house (it's NOT refundable) on top of a security deposit.
in sony's defense, sony probably thought that people wouldn't use their laptop PCs for so long as most product support cycles are much shorter in japan than u.s.
In German crash test, China's Brilliance BS6 sedan fails miserably {Autoblog}
Jun 24th 2007 4:02AM @ the marais
chinese had made great deals of arts & technology in old era, but the concept of chinese people is very different from either japanese & koreans as chinese are consist of more than 20 different races & the original china empire was disappeared, but the one who took over simply kept chinese culture that it is still called china
japanese were NOT known for their workmanship; any other known cultures produced products equally good, but their obssessiveness to beat #1 in any means made their quality to be known as today started from 1980s; it is irony that japanese kidnapped over 200k korean craftmen & artisans during korean invasion of 16th century which gave foundation of their technology in many areas at that time. of course, it is the other way around, today.
koreans are cheapstakes, but they made some fine quality artifacts; most of craftmen & artisans were working hard to make their name to be known NOT to make profits; that those guys (and maybe gals) produced so so works for monetary needs without putting their names on their productions;
anyway, the crash was a joke, and i don't think it is too soon either to disregard chinese companies or to be afraid because it all depends on how supposed to be communist chinese government will act on the issue.
afaik, no auto company can operate in china alone, so that the production technology are being trasfered in fast pace to china, but no body is working together with chinese to develop, their design technology is being lagged way behind; however, nowdays, there are many tools to analyze & reverse-engineer, it is only matter of will to catch other countries in terms of design power.
only problem is that china doesn't seem to be interested in developing design technology by itself as being a world factory can satisfy the needs of supposed to be a communistic government
In German crash test, China's Brilliance BS6 sedan fails miserably {Autoblog}
Jun 24th 2007 3:23AM i don't know much how much, but the political instability (it still is) in korean definitely hinders their businesses.
i remember many ceo's have been put into jails for the political problems & many big businesses were forced to either sell or break up not because of anti-trust but becuase of political matters. that's why valuation of korean companies are still way lower than other companies, but not many are brave enough to invest heavily in korea.
the environment to promove economic development hasn't been great since end of wwii
