Gadget Blog Corrections Blog

Dyson CR01: Happy 2001

2006-09-28T12:31:00.000-07:00

Brian Lam at Gizmodo posts about a new development in washing machine technology:

Dyson, masters of the cyclonic vacuum cleaners are taking on the task of washing out your dirty laundry. The contrarotating, or rotating in an opposite manner, design uses two drums to get clothes cleaner, by "flexing" fabrics more.

Except the machine in question came out in early 2001 and in the time since it's not only been superseded by the CR02 but later both models have been withdrawn due to poor sales, and Dyson no longer makes washing machines.

SED: Burning televisions

2006-09-16T16:22:00.000-07:00

A cute slip up from Mark Wilson at Gizmodo:

It's built upon the foundations of phosphorus televisions, but Canon and Toshiba basically packed all that technology into each pixel of a flat-panel.

Sadly, phosphorus is an unstable substance that glows in air because it's on fire. Phosphors are unrelated chemicals named after it that are used in CRT TVs.

D-ILA1080MF1: Lots of wrongness

2006-09-16T11:53:00.000-07:00

Donald Melanson of Engadget takes a look at the Meridian Faroudja D-ILA1080MF1:

Our pals over at HD Beat continue to rock CEDIA, taking time to check out Meridian Faroudja's latest high-end projector offering -- the D-ILA1080PMF1 -- retailing for a hefty $20,995.. If you stare at that model name for a bit, you should realize that this one sports full 1080p with D-ILA technology backing it up.

Sadly there's not actually a "P" in the model number, but nice try. That's the first flag something wrong. We continue:

If there's one area where it comes up a bit short, however, it's inputs, with just RGB, s-video and DVI coming standard.

It's worse than that, it does 1080p DVI and that's it. But wait, there's an add-on video processor:

it adds multiple progressive analog video outputs/inputs including RGBHV, component, RGBS and RGsB

But those are all roughly the same thing - variants of analog component - so they're different formats, not different inputs. Lo and behold, the product brochure shows only one set of inputs, and in fact the processor is needed just to get the inputs that Engadget alleges are on the projector. As is common with Engadget, all of these errors are blindly copied from the source article. It's understandable HD Beat wouldn't have to time to check facts when they're blogging from the road (or at least pretending to be), but Engadget have all the time in the world and a complete set of easily-Googlable documents on Meridian's website, so apparently they just can't be bothered.

Hybrid "Formula One" car: Chinese Whispers

2006-08-30T16:36:00.000-07:00

So two Italian companies - who (as far as I can tell from their websites) have no involvement in Formula One - propose to... well, let's see what they actually say:

N.Technology S.p.a. and Tatuus s.r.l. have signed a deal for producing the new single-seater Formula car [...] fitted with an hybrid engine system. From the next 2007 season the Formula N.T07 cars will compete in a new international series within the European rounds of the FIA World Touring Car Championship.

Gizmag writes it up, without producing any obvious errors:

Now comes the breaking news from Italy that N.Technology S.p.a. and Tatuus s.r.l. have signed a deal to produce a new single-seater Formula car.

Now Jalopnik writes up Gizmag's post:

Motorsports Firms to Build Hybrid F1 Car

And we have our first mention of Formula One. Note they're only saying an F1-style car will be built, not that it will race in F1 anytime soon, and confirm this is what they mean later in the post:

Could a new "green" series be in the offing, or will Moseley get his F1 wish? Stay jacked into the eco-matrix for updates.

Finally, the idiots at Gizmodo get their hands on it. They miss the nuance in the Jalopnik article, don't bother checking the Gizmag article, certainly don't look up N Technology's website, and come up with this:

Hybrids Bound for Formula One

Which is completely not what anyone else has said so far. They go on:

Two big players who build such Formula One dream machines, N.Technology S.p.a. and Tatuus s.r.l

No they aren't. N mainly do Touring cars, Tatuus do Formula Renault. And again, no one else in the chain has said this. Gizmodo don't stop there - they try to draw a conclusion from the stuff they've just plain made up:

The fact that hybrid engine technology is even being considered by world-class Formula One designers serves as an ad hoc endorsement for the idea

So Gizmodo are incapable of reposting something from their own sister site without screwing up. Round of applause.

Sony Ericsson W700i: Who's awake?

2006-04-04T09:23:00.000-07:00

Engadget's Thomas Ricker spots something fishy about this new phone:

Hey, wait a second, other than being gold and shipping with a 256MB (not 512) MS Pro Duo card, there's nothing to distinguish this Walkman from the W800i released last year. Hell, it even sports the exact dimensions.

And I think he's right. Did Gizmodo spot this?

Sony Ericsson also announced a new member of its Walkman line, the W700 (pictured at right).

No then. They actually made another post about it a second time:

The titanium-colored phone maintains the simplistic styling of previous Walkman phones, but don’t mistake that for weakness. It has 256MB of storage onboard, with the capacity to add more via Memory Stick Duos.

No again. Also the 256MB isn't onboard, it's on a Memory Stick.

Leica C-Lux 1: Are you high?

2006-04-03T04:12:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to point this utterly bizarre post on Gizmodo:

This is the latest in Leica's digital cameras. It comes in an elegant black metal exterior and measures 2-inches by 4-inches. This is a 6-megapixel camera that also features an ultra-short shutter delay, precise auto-focus measurement and a slew of other options. The ease of use, size, quality and large 2.5-inch screen would make this camera excellent for any situation.

The first thing I thought was that they've gotten lazy and cut and pasted some text from the press release, but no, apparently Gizmodo employ someone who writes like a marketing droid.

It's also worth mentioning (which Gizmodo don't) that that camera is nothing but a rebadged Panasonic FX01, which Gizmodo covered in February.

Kodak Easyshare V610: Ball dropped

2006-04-03T03:57:00.000-07:00

Ryan Block contributes this weird little post to Engadget:

it's dubious this is anything more than a proof-of-concept for future, yet unearthed-in-the-FCC cameras, like the one in which the device appears to be implanted (that dual-lenser that sure as hell aint a V570, that much we can tell you).

Of course, if he'd spent a few moments flicking through the report (PDF) he linked to he would have discovered the test camera is the as-yet-unannounced V610 (see page 8). A Google search reveals rumblings about the V610, but as yet no photos (this other report, which is also on the page Ryan linked to, does contain photos).

See how a little research could have turned some pointless and apparently wrong conjecture into an exclusive first post on the new Kodak model? It seems I have the scoop instead.

(I should add that Gizmodo and Mobilewhack also dropped the ball on this one)

10 fuck up free days

2006-03-31T09:10:00.000-08:00

I'm meant to updating this blog again but the gadget blogs haven't made any mistakes worth writing about that I've spotted. It's so annoying. Anyway, well done gadget bloggers. Email me and I'll send you a sticker.

Sound from TI calculators

2006-03-21T05:18:00.000-08:00

Evan Blass of Engadget natters on for 145 words about playing music on a Texas Instruments graphing calculator, without mentioning exactly why the story is impressive. What he doesn't make clear is that TI calculators don't have any kind of sound capability, and the audio is being played by manipulating the serial link port.

Sony makes a radio that's just a radio

2006-03-17T12:30:00.000-08:00

Sony decided to bring out a fancy radio. Engadget's Marc Perton is pissed off because, erm, it's just a radio:

What can you say about a plain, rectangular, $150 table radio that gets FM and AM, has a mono speaker, LCD readout and line in jack? If you're Sony, you call it not just a radio, but "the radio," and claim that you've taken "the next step" in radio technology. Sorry, Sony, but the late Henry Kloss did that decades ago, and it looks like "the radio" is just following in his well-worn footsteps.

Sony's press release is a little thin on details, but it sounds about as fancy as a radio can get (although the mono speaker is a bit crap) and it looks nicely put together. Yes, the press release is a bit over the top, but it's a company press release for God sake.

(Note how he didn't complain about the iPod Hi-Fi, which costs twice as much, does even less (it isn't even a radio) and had much more hype)

MacBook Pro "fire"

2006-03-17T12:29:00.000-08:00

Gizmodo asks:

How safe is a connector that bursts into flames with no provocation?

Ars Technica says:

MagSafe power connector bursts into flames

Sadly, as far as I can tell from the Flickr post, the Wired article and the Dutch news post, there weren't any flames at all. It just sat there and quietly melted itself (I'd guess sparks from a lose connection).

The drama queens also found another way to hype the story. Apple politely asked the guy that posted the pictures to remove them. He was impressed with their customer service, so he did. How did Wired report it?

[Here are the pictures] that were removed from Flickr on Thursday at the request of Apple

Just about true, but note the use of the passive voice to imply black helicopters. Gizmodo on the other hand decided to just make shit up:

Adding insult to injury, soon thereafter Apple contacted Flickr and asked that the pictures be removed, and Flickr inexplicably complied with that “request.”

3LCD: Gizmodo sucked in

2005-12-20T18:53:00.000-08:00

Someone at Gizmodo is asleep at the wheel

Using a 3LCD projector, a new alternative to DLP, it has (shocker) three LCD panels and is also known as high-temperature polysilicon or HTPS.

Er, no. 3LCD is a branding exercise for the same old LCD technology that's been around since 1989. Here's the press release for the group if you don't believe me.

Slate talks processors

2005-12-20T17:57:00.000-08:00

While the gadget blogs may churn out errors one at a time, the general interest sites like to cram all of their errors into one article.

Intel can cram almost 1 billion transistors on a microchip that is less than 100 nanometers in size

The chip is 28 by 21 mm. Only off by a factor of 300,000 or so. Read the article for more floundering hilarity.

LG SD280: The gist

2005-12-17T07:10:00.000-08:00

Paul Miller at Engadget has gone all indecipherable on us:

The SD280 from LG might not be anything special [...] but has LG shaking in their boots.

What? To decode Miller's 200 word ramble, LG has released the first phone with a CDMA chip that wasn't made by Qualcomm, but to keep Qualcomm happy they've chosen not to advertise it. That's it.

The car that runs on water

2005-12-14T01:18:00.000-08:00

Paul Miller at Engadget writes about a fuel-cell driven model car, and gets a little confused:

Sure, it might not exactly hold your weight or speed you through a commute, but it is a zero emissions vehicle, and runs on the good old H2O, so it all kind of levels out, right?

Except it doesn't. It runs on hydrogen, which is produced from water by electrolysis. It runs on the two AA batteries that do the electrolysis. It is not extracting any energy from water.

Plextor PX-608U: Buffer underrun nostalgia

2005-12-06T08:46:00.000-08:00

Gizmodo likes it old school:

And if you get a writing failure because of a slow or stopped buffer (it's got 2MB), the drive will actually pause for you and start burning again as soon as the buffer is cleared.

This feature is standard in any CD or DVD recorder you're likely to be using today. Here's a five year old Roxio article on the topic. Also, check the source article. Gizmodo's writer has changed the perfectly accurate "if the data to the drive write buffer is slowed or stopped" to "a slow or stopped buffer", which is complete gibberish.

Blu-ray: Bitrates, filesize, whatever

2005-12-02T20:08:00.000-08:00

A gem from Gizmodo

[H.264] enables content to be encoded at much higher bitrates without huge increases in file size

Just remember, whoever wrote this makes a living as a tech writer. It's also worth looking at the overall argument:

Looks like Sony's been busted for using a really old codec for its next-gen Blu-ray format. For its first Blu-ray movies, Sony will encode with MPEG-2, which is the same codec used for today's old-fashioned DVDs

MPEG-2, the data format, is really old. But modern MPEG-2 codecs do most of the same things as H.264 codecs. H.264 just has a few clever ways of storing data, hence the smaller file sizes.

(Thanks to reader Tim for sending this in)

Philips Candeo

2005-12-02T19:57:00.000-08:00

Evan Blass at Engadget shows off his detective skills:

Anyway, we assume that these 40-square foot models are mostly meant for commercial use, and not for pushing incredibly downscaled 1080p through your home theater (even though they do contain digital inputs). Another clue about the target audience for these behemouths is the pricetag, which hovers around $100,000 no matter which pixel pitch you prefer.

Or, he could have saved himself the effort and clicked on his own link, which offers no clues whatsoever that the displays might be for some kind specialized business use.

He also fails to mention that there is a third 576 x 324 pixel model available; that the things are 2-3 times brighter than plasma and 5-8 times brighter than LCD; and thet they weigh a quarter of a ton.

XBox 360: Money blunder

2005-11-26T09:02:00.000-08:00

Someone at Gizmodo has never written up a console launch before:

Altogether, the parts cost [...] over $100 more than its retail price tag. [...] this maybe shows a grim chance of the unit ever going down in price.

Every recent console has been sold at a loss and has also eventually gone down in price. Here's a good article on the topic.

Samsung 250GB hard disk

2005-11-18T17:55:00.000-08:00

How do you mess up a link to a hard disk review? Gizmodo managed. First the title:

Samsung Dishes Up 250-GB Platters

Except the drive has 125GB platters, which even the writer acknowledges in their first sentence:

Eclipsing Seagate and Maxtor, Samsung has come out with the SpinPoint P120, a hard drive with two 125-gigabyte platters, combining for a total of 250 gigabytes of storage.

But Seagate has drives with both larger platters and double the total capacity, so how have they been eclipsed? I think they were confused by the opening sentence from the linked review:

Samsung's storage division was just the second manufacturer to venture significantly beyond the 100 GB/platter plateau set by rivals Seagate and Maxtor in 2004 [...]

Which is as poorly written as the average gadget blog post, seeing as the first manufacturer to go past Seagate and Maxtor was, apparently, Seagate. A plague on both your houses.

Kenwood MP3 players: Boring

2005-11-18T17:23:00.000-08:00

Thomas Ricker at Engadget whines:

[Kenwood announced new] flash players that don’t really offer anything innovative, unless integrated FM radio is your idea of innovative.

Kenwood's press release disagrees (quote is tidied up from Babelfish):

If this connected to certain stereo systems, play/pause, track skip, folder skip and so on are possible with remote control operation from the stereo's own controls. You can enjoy the sound at the volume of the stereo system. In addition, without using a personal computer, it is an easy operation to record audio to the MP3 player. Because the sound output is at the optimum level for the MP3 player, the highest quality sound recording is possible.

So the player integrates fairly seamlessly with Kenwood stereo systems. It may not be innovative exactly, but mentioning it would have made a boring blog post about an apparently boring player a hell of a lot more interesting.

LG-KP4700: Reading comprehension

2005-11-18T17:01:00.000-08:00

Mobile Korea wrote this:

Its memory chip can store a maximum of 48 songs (4 megabytes per song). The phone also supports an external memory (T-Flash).

Paul Miller at Engadget wrote it up as:

[...] search for songs on the 192MB Transflash memory

Engadget writers: Can't read, can do basic multiplication.

Compact Flash <=> MiniSD

2005-11-18T16:54:00.000-08:00

So, can someone at Gizmodo not tell the difference between a MiniSD card and a Compact Flash card, or what? (re: the "4GB version" link in their post)

4:3 TVs: Two thirds isn't enough

2005-11-15T07:38:00.000-08:00

Someone at Gizmodo seems to be living in a weird parallel universe:

Panasonic may have finally realized that although the whole 16 x 9 flat panel TV thing is great for some things, there needs to be some variation. Especially when it comes to smaller LCD TVs, [...]

A quick search of 14-18 inch flat-panel TVs on Dealtime reveals 175 of 253 models appear to be 4:3 already. The same search for Panasonic televisions only reveals that the vast majority of their TVs are also 4:3. I'm aware Dealtime isn't the greatest source of factual information, but still.

Apple laptop upgrading: Which is it?

2005-11-15T07:30:00.000-08:00

Gizmodo has a writeup about doing something to some kind of Apple laptop. But which model?

"Upgrading Your 12-inch Powerbook"?
"one valiant reader took the plunge and cracked the hermetically-sealed titanium beast"?
"A step-by-step to turn your iBook12” into [...]"

The 12-inch PowerBook is made of aluminum, so that second one is an error within an error, which is kind of impressive.