Doug

One thing is for sure... the PS3 images are captured from a progressively rendered source, and the 360's are coming from interlace. That alone is going to make a huge difference in the way they look. The captures from the 360 are going to show a mix of two separate points in time in even/odd scan lines, but the PS3 images are rendered progressively. Not sure whether it is an output settings difference, or if the 360 is rendering at a higher frame rate; that's impossible to tell from screenshots.

It also looks like the 360's anti-aliasing is turned off. Not sure why... there isn't much of a performance hit on the 360 when anti-aliasing is turned on.

Where's the GPS?

They deserve each other.

@J D

I understand what a backup camera is for; I have one. But it doesn't make any sense to me to put the monitor in the front of the car when you should be turned around and looking backward whenever you are backing up. Shouldn't the monitor be in the back?

About 1/2 the time when my camera lets me see something I wouldn't see otherwise it is because it has moved into my path as I am moving, not just beforehand. Having the camera in the front means you can only safely check it before you start moving. Putting it in the back means you can see it the whole time you are in motion.

By putting it in the front they are almost encouraging people to not turn around when backing up.

I'm not sure why everyone keeps putting the display for back up cameras in the dash... aren't you supposed to be looking backward when backing up?

I put the LCD for my backup cam in my headliner above the rear window. It works so much better than having one in the front.

http://www.thebaseonline.com/ridgeline/IMG_0469_sm.jpg

@Jason102 It would be ridiculous to expect that a company provide coverage everywhere regardless of terrain and population density. But the problem with AT&T's network is that they aren't providing good coverage where every other carrier else is. If all other providers are able to do it, it seems reasonable that AT&T would be able to do it as well instead of asking customers to pony up the dough on a box to fix their problem.

Actually I feel a bit vindicated by it. The story didn't pass the smell test. Now that word is out that this guy didn't have anything to do with Windows 7's design, it makes the original author look silly, not me. They may not have made up the guy or his statement, but they certainly implied that he was involved in the design of the product, or at the very least that he was qualified to comment on the situation. If you look hard enough you'll be able to find someone in any organization that will make bonehead comments.

And to answer your first question, generally I don't visit the site any longer. But Engadget was citing AppleInsider as the original source on this one, so I had to see what they had to say.

I do have to agree with his stability statement. My Mac has to be rebooted at least once a week due to lockups while sleeping. My Windows PCs only get rebooted when Windows Updates or software installation requires it. I have even skipped updates on occasion and had PCs run for months without a restart.

After an exorbitant number of completely bogus and fallacious posts that have come from AppleInsider over the years, I don't trust them as a worth news source any longer. They really ought to be called AppleInciter now, because it seems like an unacceptably high percentage of their stories seem to be designed to incite hate for anything that comes from anyone but Apple, no matter how good that technology may be. I'm not going to go so far as making an accusation, but I wouldn't be surprised if they made this guy and/or his statements up. Publicly admitting theft of intellectual property can open up a company for lawsuits, and I highly doubt MS would allow any of their employees to make such a statement publicly.

Aside from that, Windows 7 doesn't look very much like OS X. And user interface ideas have been "borrowed" in both directions.

Again, the storage capacity argument is moot. Nobody is using the extra storage for movies, because it just isn't necessary. Blu-ray has the capability for higher bitrates on video (40 vs 29 Mbps), but that's like saying your car can do 200 MPH when the speed limit is 55; 20 Mbps is more than enough for essentially pristine reproduction of HD video. Both formats have more than enough bandwidth for both extremely high quality video and audio.

The higher capacity also brings with it problems. The data is more densely packed on the disc, making it more prone to damage, and harder to make discs that work properly. Just yesterday my copy of Monsters, Inc. (brand new) already started skipping and freezing on both of my Blu-ray players.

The local storage capability is mandatory with Blu-ray, but nobody is actually implementing it internally. I can't even think of a single Blu-ray player that comes with internal storage besides the PS3. Most require you to buy a USB flash drive, making a lot of interactive features unavailable on most players. (Go read your manual; it probably doesn't have it.) All HD-DVD players all had it built-in.

Both HD-DVD disc and hardware manufacturing costs were lower because it was a less complicated format. The discs themselves were more similar to DVD, and easier to make. The lack of BD+ encryption required less powerful hardware to decode the bitstream. Of course HD-DVD was going to be cheaper. It was a simpler format.

We can talk specs all day long, but it isn't going to change the fact that HD-DVD was a better designed format and it didn't require three (four?) versions to finally get the feature set right. Having three (four?) versions of Blu-ray and some of its features be optional has fractured the market, creating a mess. You never know if the features on a disc are going to work on a given player. And that isn't just a theoretical argument either; I have run into several discs that have portions that do not play properly on my current model Samsung BD-P1600. The problems do pop up in the real world. It's an ugly situation that could have been avoided if the designers of Blu-ray had done a better job designing before releasing the product.