EngadgetPrimed
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Engadget Primed: The rise (and rise?) of Bitcoin
Ask anyone about why Bitcoin has suddenly risen to prominence and they may offer one of a number of theories. Perhaps it'll be the one about Cypriots smuggling money out of their country, or the promise of a digital gold rush, or perhaps the tale of a disruptive new economy created by a person who may not even exist. Either way, if you'd like to untangle the myths, half-truths and labored economic newspeak behind the world that is Bitcoin, why not join us after the break?
Engadget Primed: The crazy science of GPU compute
Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day -- we dig deep into each topic's history and how it benefits our lives. You can follow the series here. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com. As you're hopefully aware, this is a gadget blog. As a result, we're innately biased towards stuff that's new and preferably fandangled. More cores, more pixels, more lenses; just give it here and make us happy. The risk of this type of technological greed is that we don't make full use of what we already have, and nothing illustrates that better than the Graphics Processing Unit. Whether it sits in our desktops, laptops, tablets or phones, the GPU is cruelly limited by its history -- its long-established reputation as a dumb, muscular component that takes instructions from the main processor and translates them into pixels for us to gawp at. But what if the GPUs in our devices had some buried genius -- abilities that, if only we could tap into them, would yield hyper-realistic experiences and better all-round performance from affordable hardware? Well, the thing is, this hidden potential actually exists. We've been covering it since at least 2008 and, even though it still hasn't generated enough fuss to become truly famous, the semiconductor industry is making more noise about it now than ever before. So please, join us after the break as we endeavor to explain why the trend known as "GPU compute," aka "general purpose GPU (GPGPU)," or simply "not patronizing your graphics processor," is still exciting despite having let us down in the past. We'll try to show why it's worth learning a few related concepts and terms to help provide a glossary for future coverage; and why, on the whole, your graphics chip is less Hasselhoff and more Hoffman than you may have imagined.
Engadget Primed: digital audio basics
Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day -- we dig deep into each topic's history and how it benefits our lives. You can follow the series here. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com. Digital audio. There's a very good chance that you've enjoyed some today. It's one of the more universal aspects of technology. In fact, perhaps the more relevant question would be, when was the last time you listened to an analog format? The truth, for many, will be quite some time ago -- vinyl purists and the odd cassette fanatic aside. Yet, despite its ubiquity, there's a lot of misunderstanding and confusion about digital audio. Some believe it'll never match analog for true fidelity, some assert quite the opposite. Many lament the lack of a tactile format, while others love the portability that comes with zeros and ones. In this installment of Primed, we take a look at the history of digital sound, as well as provide an introduction to some of its key components, with the view to helping us understand it better. Wondering what bitrate to encode your MP3s at? Or whether you should choose a 96 or 44.1KHz sample rate? We thought as much. By the time we're through, these questions should no longer lay heavy on your mind, and you can enjoy that latest Knife Party, or Britney track as much as its bit depth allows. What's bit depth you say? Well, read on to find out...
Engadget Primed: why nanometers matter (and why they often don't)
Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day -- we dig deep into each topic's history and how it benefits our lives. You can follow the series here. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com. Welcome to one of the most unnecessarily complicated questions in the world of silicon-controlled gadgets: should a savvy customer care about the underlying nature of the processor in their next purchase? Theoretically at least, the answer is obvious. Whether it's a CPU, graphics card, smartphone or tricorder, it'll always receive the Holy Grail combo of greater performance and reduced power consumption if it's built around a chip with a smaller fabrication process. That's because, as transistors get tinier and more tightly packed, electrons don't have to travel so far when moving between them -- saving both time and energy. In other words, a phone with a 28-nanometer (nm) processor ought to be fundamentally superior to one with a 45nm chip, and a PC running on silicon with features etched at 22nm should deliver more performance-per-watt than a 32nm rival. But if that's true, isn't it equally sensible to focus on the end results? Instead of getting bogged down in semiconductor theory, we may as well let Moore's Law churn away in the background while we judge products based on their overall user experience. Wouldn't that make for an easier life? Well, maybe, but whichever way you look at it, it's hard to stop this subject descending into pure philosophy, on a par with other yawnsome puzzles like whether meat-eaters should visit an abattoir at least once, or whether it's better to medicate the ailment or the person. Bearing that in mind, we're going to look at how some key players in the silicon industry treat this topic, and we'll try to deliver some practical, offal-free information in the process.
Engadget Primed: Camera metering explained
Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day -- we dig deep into each topic's history and how it benefits our lives. You can follow the series here. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com. Is learning how to meter with your camera really necessary? With all the intelligent models out today, who needs it, right? Well, you may, depending on the type of killer photography you hope to produce. When it comes to the person behind the camera, there are a few types of photographers. First, there's the photog who just wants to snap away, not terribly concerned about how their photos turn out -- or, at the very least, not interested in knowing how to alter the camera. If this describes you, that's fine -- the latest-and-greatest compact cameras may be your cup of tea. But then there's the amateur shooter who desires a better understanding of how their cameras determine exposure, and if you fit into this category, this piece should be right up your alley.Metering is not a subject you can easily master, let alone explain entirely in an article of this length, but we can give you an idea of how it all works. I consistently see the faces of my workshop students glaze over as I wax rhapsodic about the wonders of metering, but I also notice wry smiles from time to time, which shows me the wheels are turning -- they begin to realize all the things they can do if only they can conquer this aspect of photography. However, comprehension and applied mastery are two separate balls of wax. Putting what you learn to practice is the start, and you can improve over a number of months, but true metering control in any situation requires years of practice.So for our 2012 pre-apocalyptic installment of Primed, we'll break down the world of camera metering, giving you a bit of history, dissecting the main components, describing what your camera wants to do and telling you what the future may hold. By the end, you'll have a better understanding of this vital photographic topic... either that or you'll be in a nice deep sleep.Note: Check out our recent Primed articles on aperture and image sensors to add to your metering knowledge.
Engadget Primed: What is aperture, and how does it affect my photos?
Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day -- we dig deep into each topic's history and how it benefits our lives. You can follow the series here. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com. Last week I wrote a piece for Engadget Primed on image sensors -- arguably the most critical component of any digital camera, having a direct influence on the quality of each and every photo. In a completely different way, another component that controls and changes the look of your photographs is the aperture. To create amazing photos with impact takes much more than the will to capture them -- sadly we can't all be like Ashton Kutcher, snapping away at well-lit parties overrun with models. It's a multifaceted process; to have the desire to work for a shot, to make the effort to put yourself into position, and to know how to utilize the equipment you have in the best way possible. None of these skills are easy to master, yet just like a painter who knows how to use their brush, mastering the photographic tool that is your camera yields more opportunities to plaster that Google+ page with shots you're proud of. In this Primed installment, we'll define the mechanism, explain the concepts and share ways to better convey messages in our two-dimensional stills -- just by adjusting the aperture. Ready to dive in? It's all after the break.
Engadget Primed: Why your camera's sensor size matters
Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day -- we dig deep into each topic's history and how it benefits our lives. You can follow the series here. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com. The first thing I look for when purchasing a camera is something most aren't even aware of. It's not the brand name or the quality of the lens, the touch screen technology or the LCD screen size, and not the array of functions it offers or shooting presets available – it's the size of the image sensor. As a 20-year pro photographer who's captured over a million images during my career, I'm the guy who admires the parts of the engine instead of falling in love with the flashy exterior or high-end sound system. The image sensor is where the rubber meets the photosensitive diodes. In writing my first installment for Primed, I'll give a few definitions to clear things up a bit when it comes to a camera's image sensors and size, explain in detail the parts of a sensor, how it alters the photos (or video) you capture, where it came from, and why it's important to consider its size – I'll cover the meat and bones, get to the heart of the matter, the nub, the crux, the nuts and bolts, get down to the brass tacks, all while exhausting our thesaurus. Let's dive in, shall we?
Engadget Primed: HDTV technologies detailed, past and future
Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day -- we dig deep into each topic's history and how it benefits our lives. You can follow the series here. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com. Like so many things in life, when it comes to high-definition televisions, size matters. So, too, does picture quality -- we like watching the devil in crisp detail, after all. As the centerpiece of home entertainment systems, today's flat big-screen HDTVs pull triple duty. They're the preferred display when you're braining zombies during a flesh-tearing PS3 game of Dead Island. They're ideal for watching zombies (er, walkers) get brained on AMC's hit The Walking Dead. And in terms of social status, big HDTVs serve notice that, yes world, you've arrived. So join us as we explore and demystify the acronym-filled habitat of HDTVs -- and in the process maybe save your bank account from getting bitten. In this installment of Primed, we'll examine the two main breeds of flat-panel HDTVs, including a look at liquid crystal display and plasma technologies. We'll also put screen size, resolution and frame rates under the microscope. We'll wrap things up with a view of what's on the high-def horizon and close out with a critical assessment of 3D HDTV. Strap yourselves in, couch jockeys, it's time for Primed.
Engadget Primed: SSDs and you
Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day -- we dig deep into each topic's history and how it benefits our lives. You can follow the series here. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com. If you're a storage aficionado -- and who here isn't? -- you've probably heard a lot about SSDs, those friendly solid-state disks promising dramatically improved performance over their magnetically inclined brethren. No doubt you've heard about the advantages, thanks to NAND storage that makes them silent, shock resistant, energy efficient and lightning quick. Yet you've also heard the horror stories: drive slowdowns, controller failures and manufacturer recalls. And adding to all those anxiety-producing headlines, there's the price premium. While most magnetic drives average around a nickel or dime per gigabyte, even consumer-grade SSDs still run $1-2 per gigabyte, often for drastically smaller-capacity drives. Three years ago, Intel launched its X25-M and X18-M: the "M" stood for "mainstream," and the pair of drives were designed to reintroduce solid-state storage to a cost-conscious consumer market. (Perhaps more importantly, they were also meant to solidify Intel's standing in the nascent SSD realm, up to that point a chaotic, Wild West-style domain. But we'll get to that.) For most users magnetic drives still remain king, with solid states appealing primarily to a niche of enterprise IT professionals and modding enthusiasts. How did that happen -- and should it be different? After the break we'll look at how and why SSDs haven't (yet) conquered the storage world, and examine whether they're poised to do just that.
Engadget Primed: all mobile displays are not created equal
Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day -- we dig deep into each topic's history and how it benefits our lives. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com. The quality of a mobile phone's display is arguably the most important factor to consider when you establish a relationship with a handset. It's inescapable, really. Whether you're playing a rousing game of Robot Unicorn Attack or (regrettably) drunk-dialing an ex, it's the one interface element that you're consistently interacting with. It's your window to the world and your canvas for creation, and if it's lousy, it's going to negatively influence everything you see and do. Today, we're delving into the world of mobile displays, where we're aiming to entertain and edify, and hopefully save you from making regrettable decisions -- when it comes to purchasing new phones, anyway. In this edition of Primed, we'll be examining the different qualities and underlying technologies of several displays, starting with the ubiquitous TFT-LCD and moving through the nascent realm of glasses-free 3D and beyond. We'll also be addressing the importance of resolution and pixel density. Finally, we'll be scoping out a handful of upcoming technologies -- while some are thoroughly intriguing, others are just plain wacky. Go ahead... buy the ticket, take the ride, and join us after the break. It's Primed time.
Engadget Primed: are multi-core chips worth the investment?
Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day -- we dig deep into each topic's history and how it benefits our lives. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com. My, how times have changed over the last eight months. At CES 2011, we ecstatically witnessed the introduction of mobile devices with dual-core CPUs and drooled over the possibilities we'd soon have at our fingertips. Now, we look down at anything that doesn't have more than one core -- regardless of its performance. Not only are these new chips quickly becoming mainstream, Moore's Law is in full effect with our handheld devices since tri-core and quad-core systems are just over the horizon. We can't even fathom what's in the pipeline for the year 2015 and beyond (we don't think we're too far away from that 3D shark seen in Back to the Future 2). Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here, however. After all, we first need to wrap our puny human minds around the idea of what this newfound power can do, and why it's changing the entire landscape of smartphones and tablets. In this edition of Primed, we'll focus on why multicore technology makes such a difference in the way we use our handheld devices, whether we should even consider purchasing a handset with a single-core chip inside, and why one-core tech is so 2010. Check out the whole enchilada after the break.
Engadget Primed: Using benchmarks
Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day -- we dig deep into each topic's history and how it benefits our lives. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com. Staring at your smartphone, you realize that there's something missing. It does everything you want it to -- very well, we might add -- but what hole is left to fill? We'll help you out with this one: you want bragging rights. There has to be a way to face your friends with confidence, right? All you need is a little nudge in the right direction, and in this edition of Engadget Primed, we'll give you that much-needed shove by explaining benchmarks. Perhaps you've seen us talk about benchmarks in our product reviews. We'll typically use them to gauge the relative performance of various devices, but discussing a Linpack score doesn't mean much without going deeper into what it actually means. What aspects of performance do these benchmarks measure, and what techniques do they use? How much can we rely on them when making purchasing decisions? Read on after the break for the full scoop.
Engadget Primed: how wireless and inductive charging works
Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day -- we dig deep into each topic's history and how it benefits our lives. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com. The world of wireless is dragging us into the 21st century kicking and screaming. Our treatise on NFC was a great sneak peek into how our future will play out over the next five years, but we're also seeing other types of suave new tricks coming out as short-range wireless technology creeps closer to the mainstream. Wireless is the crux of convenience that will keep us calm enough to make our way through this speed-demon culture. It didn't take long for our quest to obtain simpler and faster everything to become an obsession, and it shows no signs of stopping; on the contrary, it's only speeding up exponentially at a rate even manufacturers have a hard time keeping up with. Wireless charging is making some serious headway in public mindshare. Once confined to toothbrushes and other simple household items, it's now a handy means of powering phones (HP's Touchstone, for example) and media players, and it'll soon be ready to charge up our notebooks and cameras at our command. Are we sure this is the future, or will this just be a passing fad? Why should it matter? Read on after the break to get the air-conditioned answers to those burning questions.
Engadget Primed: What is NFC, and why do we care?
Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day -- we dig deep into each topic's history and how it benefits our lives. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com. The introduction of Google Wallet felt a little too good to be true, didn't it? It's magical, like the tech equivalent of pulling a rabbit out of a hat. In reality, the tech behind mobile payments has been around since 2003 on a much smaller scale using near-field communications, more commonly known as NFC. The idea behind Wallet (amongst other services, like ISIS) is contactless pay -- using your phone as a credit card -- and is just one of the many ways NFC can be useful in our everyday lives. In fact, we're only scraping the surface of what's theoretically possible. Google is definitely not the first company to dabble in NFC, but it appears to be poised and ready to push the tech's adoption forward at a rapid pace with the advent of Wallet and Offers. Until now the coals have been hot; but if a fire's going to start, someone monolithic has to throw a few newspapers in as kindling -- and Google volunteered. But what good is NFC if it's just an acronym that causes our eyes to glaze over? Is El Goog the only instigator? After the break we'll focus on what NFC is capable of, and why we want it on our phones as soon as yesterday.
