White paper: Logitech Squeezebox Boom audio design is an interesting in-depth look behind the design of an all-in-one network music player from one of its lead designers. This device includes amplifier and speakers and other music player electronics in one box. One of its lead designers tells the story.
Image source:
http://www.logitechsqueezebox.com/product_matrix.html
This is a really neat trick I just read about. LackRack is the ultimate, low-cost, high shininess solution for your modular datacenter-in-the-living-room. Its low-cost and perfect fit are great for mounting up to 8 U of 19″ hardware, such as switches (see below), or perhaps other 19″ gear. Featuring the LACK (side table) from Ikea, the LackRack is an easy-to-implement, exact-fit datacenter building block. Installing hardware in your LackRack is easy! Screw all the screws that fit in the rack mount in the left and right leg. The table legs have just right dimensions for almost 9U of rack space for 19″ hardware.
Earlier some hifi people have built hi-fi stand made out of IKEA Lack side tables, but now the world is ready for 19″ networking equipment racks. Check LackRack home page for more information on how to build your own very cheap 19″ rack system. The page also tells that also Ikea LACK coffee table and Ikea ODDA night table have right dimensions and can be easily converted to cheap 19″ racks.
Image source: http://wiki.eth-0.nl/index.php/LackRack
All the good ideas have been gone in high end AV industry? Why work hard for something original when you can just license it and use your brand to warrant charging huge extra for the same electronics? Are high-end brands just becoming marketing and no real engineering or quality benefits…
In earlier blog post there was information that Ayre DX-5 bluray player was a modified Oppo BDP-83 blueray player. The repackaged device with new power supply changed the price from $500 to $10000.
Now there is another similar case. Now it looks there is even less modifications.
AV Rant #163: Bacon Wrapped Vegan blog posting says that Lexicon BD-30 looks like Oppo. Audioholics article Oppo on the Inside, Lexicon on the Outside shows that inside Lexicon BD-30’s beautiful chassis there is Oppo BDP-83. The article says that according to the reps at the show, Lexicon had merely taken components of that player and tweaked them to make it their own – adding technology and making improvements to what was a good basic building block. What a load of hogwash. The article claims that Lexicon actually put a full Oppo BDP-83 INSIDE of a chassis, slapped a label on it and is shipping it for $3000 more. Don’t take our word for it, however, check out these pics. Where they went wrong, however, was when they simply lifted the Oppo BDP-83 player and threw it into their own chassis without making any performance enhancing modifications – despite claims to have done just that. What they’ve done doesn’t seem to even begin to justify the exorbitant price markup
We live in a world where everyone is building products with other peoples parts. It is just not possible to design and manufacture many electronics devices (even very possible) from “ground up”.
For most companies it’s simply not cost effective to produce their own DVD / BD players or other very complicated digital audio/video device. So the high-end manufacturers that make this kind of devices need to take some shortcuts and use ready made components. What they are now doing on those examples doesn’t seem to even begin to justify the exorbitant price markup. Has high end industry become to state where High End is just repackaged consumer electronics with huge price markup?
When Nokia bought Symbian in 2008, nobody had any reason to believe their thoughts were anywhere near Open Source. Parts of the Symbian platform have been Open Source for quite some time and other portions have slowly been released.
Symbian, maker of the the world’s most popular mobile operating system, has just completed the transition to a completely open platform months ahead of schedule. While the kernel was opened up last year, the entire platform is now open source, primarily under the Eclipse Public License. By putting Symbian fully in the public domain, the Symbian Foundation is pitting it against Google’s Android.
Sources:
Symbian Opens Up
Symbian Completes Transition To Open Source
Symbian.org
Everyone knows that movie popcorn is one of the biggest ripoffs, right? It turns out that movie popcorn carries a 600 percent markup. The biggest ripoff: text message beats movie popcorn article tells that the text messaging has a much bigger markup. Text messages themselves, are just tiny blips of data being transferred to and from mobile devices and don’t even cost the carriers a full penny to process. So with text message an operator gets a 6,500 percent markup from 20-cent message. This number only considered the text message delivery cost. It could be possible (and very probable) that charging for text message service costs considerably more than the service itself.
But don’t expect anything to change anytime soon because operators are making good money on this as people are buying the product well at the current pricing. Those of us who pay for flat-rate, all-you-can-text plans don’t worry about cost of single text message.
Fiber optic microscopes are used to inspect connectors to check the quality of the termination procedure and diagnose problems. A well made connector will have a clean, smooth, polished and scratch free finish. There is not be any signs ofcracks, chips or fiber not even with the ferrule front. The magnification for viewing connectors can be 30 to 400 power but it is best to use a medium magnification. Dealextreme sells cheap Illuminated Pocket 60X to 100X Zoom Microscope that can be used for this if you make yourself a simple adapter that hold the fiber optic connector nicely in place when you want to look at it. It is hard to keep it steady while holding it at hand. You need to work out some kind of universal adapter for 2.5mm ferrules (works with FC/SC/ST connectors) and maybe another for 1.25 mm ferrules (LC and MU connectors) to keep the fiber well in place when you look at it.
A lot of “bad” fibers can be traced back to dirty connectors. You can see the dirt with microscope. But usually it is always easiest just to clean the connector every time you suspect it could be dirty. So always clean the fiber before plugging it into an interface. Cisco document Inspection and Cleaning Procedures for Fiber-Optic Connections gives you a lot of information on fiber connector cleaning.
WARNING: Remember to check that no power is present in the cable before you look at it in a microscope to protect your eyes! The microscope will concentrate any power in the fiber and focus it into your eye with potentially hazardous results. Some commercial fiver microscopes have laser safety filter in them but this DIY model does not have it.
How much does the components that make a smartphone cost? iSuppli has analyzed over the years the cost of the components to make several cellular phones and other electronics gadgets. Interesting reading always when you get your hand to this material.
Nexus One is the new HTC Phone, with a Goggle name on it, with the newest Android Software, and powerful hardware inside. Nexus One’s hardware estimated to cost $175 article tells that Google’s forthcoming Nexus One smartphone is composed of components worth about $175, according to a tear-down conducted by iSuppli. That price is just for components, it does not include other expenses such as manufacturing, packaging, and software. The cost of the raw ingredients of a phone does not take into account the R&D, design and testing that must happen. And there is always the marking costs.
One very interesting part of the article is the table that lists the complete list of hardware in the Nexus One, including the prices for different components. This is interesting reading for everybody interested in what is inside this gadget. The most expensive component is Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon processor ($30.50). It runs the Google’s Android 2.1 operating system.
So it looks like the cost of making the phone is about the same as the iPhone 3G S ($178.96 BOM). Nexus pricing is not so different from the iPhone, so margins for the phone as Apple is famous for high margins.Those are the normal industry margins for high end smartphones when they are new. When the models get older, the prices tend to drop and margins fall unless the manufacturing is optimized. Just for reference check this Nokia N79 Eco Mobile Phone terdowns.
Image source: Nexus One: “Web meets phone” video
Android is a rising mobile operating system running on the Linux kernel. It was initially developed by Android Inc., a firm later purchased by Google. Google opened the entire source code (including network and telephony stacks) under an Apache License. Android has been available as open source since 21 October 2008. Android allows developers to write managed code applications in the Java language. The device features are controlled via Google-developed Java libraries. Nice if you want to develop applications using Java language, not so nice if you would prefer native Linux applications. In Android the Linux is the motor pretty well hidden from the applications perspective.
There seems to be hype that about Tuesday’s expected launch of the first Google Phone. That news actually made to start writing this article. Nexus One review will give you all the details to know about this phone. According to this unauthorised review on Engadget, it’s nice, but only really a sleeker version of the Droid. It is powered by the latest version of Android (2.1 “Flan”). Read those reviews and you can see what to expect. Let’s see if Google succeeds for the benefit of creating a real competition for iPhone. Is Google trying to push Android just forward or is Google wanting to take control over the way you buy mobile phones?
Some people expect that Google wants to flip the USA mobile carrier and distribution market upside-down, becoming the place you go to search for and buy a mobile phone. You select the phone before you even pick a carrier, number, voice and data plans, or extras.
That could be new in USA, but not new to mobile markets in Europe. For example in Finland you normally used to go to buy the phone from shop, and then picked up the carrier operator you wanted to use. And you can do it freely nowadays also. Other option (became available few years ago as it became allowed to combine phone and service) is that you buy a package from operator where you get the phone and call plans at monthly fee. After paying the fee for 12-24 months (depending on plan), the phone is yours and you are free to use any operator you want with the phone.
Besides phones there seems to be interests in running Android operating system on other devices also. The expected application list goes like phones, GPS and computers. According to Gizdomo article Do You Really Need a Microwave or a Washer-Dryer Running Android? there are some developers whowant to give Android the power to control our washer-dryers and ovens and printers. Touch Revolution NIM1000 module (demonstrated at CES) is an Android-based module that is designed to control all kinds of appliances. Do you need your microwave to be a kitchen command center? This reminds me a bit of the old dot.com era where almost everyone tried push Java everywhere and Microsoft pushed Windows CE to every device out there.
A modern Audio-Video amplifier/receiver (AVR) is an exceedingly complex piece of consumer electronics, requiring expertise in many aspects of analogue and digital audio and high definition video, plus considerable software skills. ‘The anatomy of a modern audio-video amplifier’ lecture by John Dawson from Arcam for Audio Engineering Society UK is an interesting talk on engineering related to home theater amplifiers. This lecture takes a look inside the Arcam AVR600 (one of the few such units developed outside of the large Japanese consumer electronics companies) and will discuss some of the design choices made in order to try to ensure a good chance of commercial success. You can download the lecture in MP3 format.
The main points in talk are that designing a home theater amplifier is a paradox. The amplifier should be cheap to sell well. On the other hand it should be expensive to be well made (it is a very complex device). The amplifier should be designed quickly (so that it is not outdated when comes to quickly changing markets) but the design should be free of bugs. The amplifier should have all the newest features in it, but it should also be as simple as possible to sound good and be easy to use.
Image source: Arcam AVR600 web page
Computer keyboards are peripherals partially modeled after the typewriter and designed both for the input of text and characters and also to control the operation of a computer. Keyboards can arrive in many shapes or sizes. 14 Cool Computer Keyboards for Geeks shows you a set of extraordinary and interesting computer keyboard designs currently available in the market.
