Recent Comments:
Popcorn Hour puts A-110 HD media streamer, B-110 mobo up for pre-order {Engadget}
Aug 4th 2008 11:42AM As a popcorn hour user myself I will acknowledge that the issues you describe are there. But, on the other hand, what product, at any price point, will play the stuff that the popcorn hour will? I used XBMC for years and once I went HD found that XMBC wouldn't cut it anymore. I looked around and the ONLY device I could find was popcorn hour. You're right, 5.1 audio doesn't decode well, but I downsample 5.1 to 2.0 when I am ripping and compressing, and its fine. I use this to play HD media and for that, it shines. Short of building a $1000 computer for your media center, there is nothing else that comes CLOSE to the popcorn hour, and certainly not at the price/energy point.
Sprint Nextel sells off "nearly all" of its towers to TowerCo for $670 million {Engadget}
Jul 25th 2008 9:17AM The same retard who starts a company that after many years can pony up $670 million in cash to buy towers from Sprint? If your company owns TOWERS and deals with other BUSINESSES do you really think it matters what they're named?
Roberts releases solarDAB: world's first solar-powered DAB radio {Engadget}
Jul 1st 2008 4:03PM This is one of the few times where a 'standard' picked by America actually proves to be better than what is used in the rest of the world. DAB is seeing a very slow buildout, where as America's HD (Hybrid Digital) is seeing a better buildout. It, of course, benifits from an additional 5 or so years of research, however...
FCC may put another 25MHz of spectrum on the block for "free broadband" {Engadget}
May 24th 2008 3:02PM Its not proportional. AM Broadcast band gets roughly 1.2MHz of bandwidth to cram in all the stations (0.520MHz - 1.710MHz). An NTSC or ATSC TV station is given 6MHz of spectrum (per channel). This means, that all the AM Radio stations fit in roughly 1/6th the space given to a single TV station. If you think you're going to fit much in 1.2MHz of bandwidth, think again...
FM Radio isn't much better. It gets 20MHz to play with for all stations, so the same as 3 TV stations get.
Not to mention that lower frequencies require gigantic antennas to transmit (without fancy coils, a full wavelength -- or the distance the traveled between the rise and fall of the sine wave that makes up the transmission). At 600KHz that is nearly 1600 feet. Not going to be able to make a very portable transmitter with an antenna that is 1600 feet long.
Low frequencies are very carved up, and work well for what they're alloted for, but the types of small, local area communications we need in the digital age are just better suited to higher frequencies. One, the signals are line of site, so you avoid interference issues. Also, as mentioned above, the antenna concerns. Not to mention just the sheer amount of bandwidth available at higher frequencies. Also, IIRC anything under 30MHz needs to be coordinated internationally to avoid interference -- those signals travel very far...
DirecTV continues to gift towns with HD locals {Engadget HD}
Feb 7th 2008 10:32PM Confirmed in Cedar Rapids, D* has KGAN (CBS) KWWL (NBC) and KFXA (FOX). They have not come to an agreement with Cedar Rapids Gazette Co (KCRG) ABC yet for retransmit rights (sources close to the discussion who I've spoken with, also known as some guy on avs forum states they're close however).
AT&T targets a more mature audience with new plan {Engadget Mobile}
Oct 28th 2007 4:01PM On top of that, you must live in a Sprint service area -- NOT a Sprint Partners area like I do. How you can tell if you're in Sprint Partners? Well, its almost impossible. Best way to tell is to go to sprint.com and enter your zipcode. In my case its 52402 then get the caution "!" triangle with the caption "Sprint currently offers wireless service in the 52404 area." Well, whooptie shit. No SERO for me, however. What a bummer.
FCC proposes mandatory switchover PSAs {Engadget HD}
Oct 23rd 2007 3:57PM @h4idol
Thanks for the suggestion, I wasn't sure if I was leaning toward BlueRay or HD-DVD. I'm now pretty sure I want to see HD-DVD succeed just so that you look like an even bigger fool. You do realize that HD-DVD and BlueRay are pretty much the same thing. Same video and audio codecs... the disks are a little bit cheaper to produce. I guess that brings out the elitist in you, no HD for the masses, only overly expensive stuff!
I wonder if Wal-Mart carries HD-DVD, if so I'll be picking one up this weekend, I think.
iPhone Elite team releases "revirginizer" for unlocked iPhones {Engadget}
Oct 23rd 2007 2:03PM I did this to my and my girlfriends unlocked iPhones last Saturday (it was mostly done but the source code to the server wasn't released). Worked like a charm. Fully upgraded to 1.1.1 without incident.
iPhone now software unlocked in 32 countries and 69 carriers {Engadget}
Sep 13th 2007 7:34AM I have my iPhone working on i Wireless (a regional GSM carrier in Iowa) with EDGE and Youtube.
Video of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2qRt9a1hNA
Dude, you're not getting a Dell: shipping delays hound PC maker {Engadget}
Aug 10th 2007 10:16AM All of our laptop orders at the place I work have been delayed by a few weeks. Dell told us its because SONY has quit selling them the LCD panels needed to assemble the D420 / D620 laptops we normally purchase. They're switching us to D430/D630 laptops because these use other LCD panels... Along with this replacement LCDs (to fix a cracked, damaged, etc) have skyrocketed to over $700. We've switched to purchasing all replacement LCDs from 3rd parties. I'm not sure why the LCDs have gone up so quickly in price, but I think thats where the keys to this problem lie.
