Hasta La Gadget!

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First, there was the Red Ring of Death (RRoD) epidemic. It struck thousands of early Xbox 360s and led Microsoft to announce in 2007 that it would repair all afflicted consoles free of charge and offer an extended three-year warranty on those machines.

The latest XBox 360 bug?

…

In almost every standalone Blu-ray player we review, you’re likely to find a comment about its disc-loading speed and how it inevitably doesn’t compare with the Sony PlayStation 3. For once, …

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found in a new series of crash tests that drivers of 2009 versions of the Smart fortwo, Honda Fit and Toyota Yaris risk “significant leg and head injuries in severe front-end crashes” with larger, mid-size vehicles, according to the Associated Press.

Worse, the Smart fortwo actually went airborne and turned 450 degrees–more than one full rotation–after hitting the other car (a Mercedes C-Class, itself no giant) in the test. The tests consisted of 40 mph head-on crashes between the fortwo and a 2009 Mercedes C-Class, the Fit and a 2009 Honda Accord, and the Yaris and the 2009 Toyota Camry–rare but possibly representative scenarios of real life crashes between two vehicles of different sizes.

“There are good reasons people buy mini cars. They’re more affordable,
and they use less gas. But the safety trade-offs are clear from our new
tests,” said Adrian Lund, the institute’s president, in the article.

Here’s the problem: automakers are saying that the IIHS’s tests in general rehashed past insurance industry arguments against tougher fuel efficiency requirements, according to the report. I always thought the IIHS’s crash tests were important, since they go far beyond what the government requires and often lead to safer car designs. But I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say that everyone should drive large vehicles, especially considering that many have done poorly on IIHS tests.

Who woulda thunk it? A global recession leads to belt tightening, and belt tightening leads to fewer mobile data card sales. According to a new report from ComScore, that’s exactly what happened at the tail end of last year, where WWAN card growth slowed to just 5 percent compared to 28 percent in Q4 2007. Still, carriers can’t grumble too loudly — after all, at least it grew. In fact, PC data card adoption rose 63 percent overall in 2008, and if any of these 4G services can see rollouts of significance, we suspect 2009 will show equally positive numbers. The reality is that mobile data is still priced far too high for the average Joe or Jane to stomach; most mobile broadband plans run upwards of $50 per month and require a two-year contract to get a free or cheap card, and unless one is planning to be on the road an awful lot, buying in just doesn’t make sense when times are tough. In other words, cut us a break on these mobile data rates, operators — it’s what Uncle Sam would want.

[Via mocoNews]

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Wireless

Mobile data card growth slows dramatically in Q4 2008 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Apr 2009 10:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The prolonged death spiral of its retail stores have been well-documented (not least by our undercover spy shots of the so-called liquidation sales), but the Circuit City story seems to have added yet another chapter.

Computer vendor Systemax has agreed to purchase the bankrupt company’s trademarks and domain names …