Filed under: Meta

Indeed it was a banner year here at Engadget — completely thanks to you, of course. Google may have its Zeitgeist, but we figured we could at least cap things off with a few lists of the most well-read posts of 2007 (and a few stats, to boot). Also, don’t forget to check out the lists at Engadget Mobile and Engadget HD! See you in 2008!

Top 20 most trafficked posts of 2007 (in order)

1. Live from Macworld 2007: Steve Jobs keynote
2. Steve Jobs live — Apple’s “The beat goes on” special event
3. Live from Apple’s summer Mac product press conference
4. The Apple iPhone
5. Steve Jobs live from WWDC 2007
6. Xbox 360 Elite: new, black limited edition Xbox with HDMI and 120GB drive
7. iPhone unlocked: AT&T loses iPhone exclusivity, August 24, 2007, 12:00PM EDT
8. iPhone review
9. The second Xbox 360 revealed: codename Zephyr
10. Nokia’s iPhone — no, seriously
11. Live from Apple’s “Mum is no longer the word” event in London
12. Apple keynote: live from NAB 2007
13. Is this the new iMac keyboard?
14. iPhone & LG KE850: separated at birth?
15. The Wii Laptop!
16. Apple’s iPod touch gets official
17. The Motorola RAZR 2
18. LG’s KE850 PRADA official: iPhone says, wha?
19. Leopard vs. Vista: feature chart showdown
20. Xbox 360 Elite vs. classic: the test

Man, people really seem to like Apple. Click on for more.

Continue reading Engadget’s top posts, 2007

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Filed under: Home Entertainment

We didn’t have to wait long to hear more about Mark Levinson’s partnership with LG, resulting in two new home theater systems to launch at CES 2008. No longer limited to audiophiles searching eBay auctions for discontinued equipment, the AP3133 and LHT888 promise a high end AV experience at “astonishing” — albeit TBA — prices. The AP3133 HTIB puts LG’s Super Blu BH200 dual-format player at the heart of a 7.1-channel system with 150 watts x 7 ICEpower output, multi-input HDMI switching, Burr-Brown PCM and Audessey Auto Room Multi EQ adjustment. The LHT888 fulfills our needs for a champagne-glass styled HT system, with each speaker in a tapered, integrated pedestal, to math the 1080p upscaling, DivX / MP3 / JPEG / DVD playing 700W 5.1-channel receiver. Prices (and pics) are due at LG’s press conference January 6th.

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Filed under: Announcements

It’s (still) New Year’s Eve out here in the States, meaning in a few more hours you’ll not only see what it’s like to live in the future (i.e. 2008), but you’ll also lose your last chance to enter to win two round trip tickets on JetBlue (and some noise canceling headphones, to boot). Check out the rules, and to the young’ns out there, remember: if someone tells you that you’re going to a “key party” tonight, we recommend you politely bow out.

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Transportation, Wireless

So to be clear right off the bat, this is not the type of hovercraft that you might commute to work or class in, but rather a small RC version more suitable for transporting babies or adorable pets. That being said, Instructables user bradpowers has posted step-by-step guide for the ambitious modder to build his or her very own remotely-controlled or autonomous ‘craft, from constructing the frame to assembling the lift and propulsion systems to setting up the onboard PIC. Definitely not a project for the easily distracted, however, a successful build will surely make you the delight of neighborhood children for blocks in every direction. Check out a video of the little guy in action after the break.

Continue reading How-to build your own wireless, autonomous hovercraft

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Filed under: Gaming

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Filed under: Digital Cameras

We know you’ve had plenty of time to recreate that shutter release hack, and if you found yourself impressed with the results, you’re bound to adore this one. Eagleapex has struck again with yet another swank camera mod, this time giving DSLR owners an easy (and affordable) method for handling time lapse photography. Granted, this creation isn’t the simplest to build, and there’s still a few notable limitations that keep it from supreme greatness — namely the inaccurate interval setting and the occasionally problematic short output pulse — but neither of those quirks are ones that pros can’t remedy when concocting their own. Check out a video of the results after the jump, and don’t ever say that watching ice melt is a bore.

Continue reading DIY time lapse intervalometer saves dough, improves creativity

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Although we don’t encourage you to lower your standards in 2008 like so many already have, our eyes did rest upon a couple of janky devices that you might want to take a gander at before the year’s through. Just don’t look too long, they might make you blind — or somehow willing to shell out some cash. Which, we cannot say. Crapgadget signing off for 2007.

Read - The most massive iPod touch knockoff you ever did see. Ok, so it’s probably not that big, and just suffered from a crappy image editor. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Read - Yeah, it’s a mango talking clock, so what?
Read - “State of the art” Versus Scoreboard / boombox. Righteous garbage.
Read - TakeTV goes the way of SDHC in the TV Card Player
Read - USB egg cluster (huh?)

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Although the press release issued to announce the settlement between Vonage and AT&T earlier this month is still the shortest we’ve seen in all of 2007, we’re pretty certain the one doled out to trumpet the truce between Vonage and Nortel is holding down the two-spot. In just five wee sentences, we learn that the two have agreed in principle to end the litigation pending between ‘em, and though no cash will be changing hands, the agreement does involve a limited cross license to three patents per firm. Way to put the past behind before entering into the new year, we say.

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Just a few months back, the FCC approved a set of rules for the 2009 digital TV transition, but now the entity is apparently okaying even more guidelines that will give US broadcasters “more flexibility in making the switch to digital television from traditional analog signals.” More specifically, the new rules would allow some stations to make a “phased transition” to digital broadcasting, and furthermore, these stations will also “be allowed to reduce or terminate their analog service before the February 17, 2009 deadline for the transition if doing so is necessary to achieve their transition.” According to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, the new rules are being enacted in order to “provide broadcasters the flexibility they need while at the same time ensuring that any disruption to over-the-air viewers is minimized to the fullest extent possible.” Still, even those affected by the cutover will have ample time to pick up a converter box, and considering that some stations may now start the switch before February of ‘09, acting soon is looking better all the time.

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Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video, Networking

Got an iPod touch? And some audio input hardware? Want to make some VoIP calls? If you answered yes to all of the above, you’ll want to check out the Touchmods site later tonight, when they’ll supposedly be releasing their full-on SIP client for the touch. Hopefully by now it’s a little more prettied up than the last time we saw the thing above. If those last videos are anything to go by, though, it looks like it will be.

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Filed under: Gaming

Of all the weeks to have a major outage of your online gaming service, the holiday and vacation weeks of Christmas and New Years may have to be the worst — which Microsoft has learned all to well over the last ten days. We know you’ve heard plenty about it here at Engadget — but that’s really only because Xbox Live has had such a solid track record over the years, and we’re all just as surprised as you. But while it’s perfectly clear users have been seeing these issues, it’s still unclear exactly how “intermittent” those issues really are. Care to let us know how you’ve fared in our wholly unscientific poll?

View Poll

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Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

In the latest major twist in this epic battle between wireless chipmakers, a US District Judge has slapped a permanent injunction on any products containing those Qualcomm 3G chips ruled to be infringing on Broadcom’s so-called ‘686 patents. Not only can Qualcomm no longer offer infringing devices nor the chips themselves in the US, the retroactive nature of the ruling means that the company can’t even provide service or technical support for ‘686 products already on the market. At this point, with a voluntary licensing agreement seemingly off the table, the next move for Qualcomm is establishing a plan of action to show Judge James Selna how it plans to redesign its products into compliance. [Warning: PDF link]

[Via Reuters]

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Filed under: Laptops

Shockingly enough, Laptop magazine — of all magazines in print today — wanted remind everybody that tonight’s the last night your hard earned (and increasingly devalued) American currency can be exchanged for an OLPC. But they also got a few words out of NickNeg as to how many OLPC units sold in the decidedly successful Give 1 Get 1 program (150,000+, not counting big buyers like Birmingham, Alabama), and why not continue the program indefinitely (”We are a charity and not a business. If we continued it, it would become ’sales’ versus a charitable promotion.”) While we kind of take umbrage with that attitude — isn’t it better, after all, to seed as many machines to underprivileged children as possible under any circumstances you can? — we’re hopeful at least that the gang at OLPC will bring back the G1G1 program next year with their v2 hardware. Hopefully by then some sovereign nations will have actually bought some OLPCs of their own.

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Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Ah, how we do love a good root-hacking resulting in the ability to run homebrew code. And being that we also have a soft spot in our heart for Archos’s 605 and 705 series players, ARCwelder ought to do our kind and yours quite nicely. If yours is running firmware 1.7.13, check it out, it should get you root access to the device’s Linux shell, enabling you to do all kinds of fun things, like develop and run your own apps, or see how long it’ll take to break the DRM on downloaded media. Did we say that?

[Thanks, Justin and Nathan]

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Filed under: Gaming

It’s been ten days since we started tracking The Great Xbox Live Outage of Late 2007 — ten days that the team at Microsoft has spent working 24/7, apparently unable to quash the issues affecting untold thousands (or millions) of users. Things were supposedly looking better until earlier today when they apparently got worse again, resulting in Xbox Live’s service status box making a decisive turn towards the apology side of the spectrum. Granted, the whole thing may seem a little gratuitous at this point, especially considering that the issues are still tagged as intermittent — but at least our informal polling at Engadget HQ has improved, with some of us even able to get on and play a game (slow and sticky though it may be).

We suggest everyone get a little extra drunk tonight on behalf of all those at the Xbox NOC who will be ringing in the new year sitting at terminals so we can have our precious Live service back.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Filed under: Laptops, Tablet PCs

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British rockers The Kooks almost broke up following the shock departure of their bassist earlier this year. The band were stunned when founding member Max Rafferty walked out due to illness in October.

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British rockers The Kooks almost broke up following the shock departure of their bassist earlier this year. The band were stunned when founding member Max Rafferty walked out due to illness in October.

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I have to admit this one is true for me. Not that I don’t mind a guy buying me a drink, but I would prefer him talk to me first. And after he says hi, I like what would you like to drink! Just joking.
BTW check out Neil Strauss’ blog to get his pickup lines that are sure to work!!!!

Boxer Oscar De La Hoya’s wife Millie Corretjer has given birth to the couple’s second child. The baby girl, named Nina Lauren Nenitte De La Hoya, was born on Saturday in San Juan, Puerto Rico, weighing a healthy 7 pounds, 13 ounces.

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