Hasta La Gadget!

Crazy huh? Sure, but if your company just launched a commercial vacuum cleaner so quiet that it’s called the “UltraSilencer” then what better way to drive that point home than by adding an “iPod dock” (though that’s no iPod we’ve ever seen) and speakers to the damn thing? In fact, Electrolux has taken this Silence Amplified concept so far that they’ve conducted a lab study to prove that “music assisted vacuuming increases the number of nozzle sweeps, improves the cleaning result and leaves a general feeling of happiness.” Duh. Now go check the video evidence after the break.

Continue reading Electrolux “Silence Amplified” vacuum with iPod dock and speakers probably sucks

Electrolux “Silence Amplified” vacuum with iPod dock and speakers probably sucks originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Dec 2009 06:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Whoever it was at Sony HQ that decided to pursue “military contracts” as a revenue source, kudos! Mere days after the US Air Force expressed interest in expanding its PS3 supercomputer, we’re hearing glorious Britannia’s Royal Navy has conscripted 230 PSPs into duty as revision aids for its trainee sailors. Loaded with maths and physics materials, the PSPs can be used in a bunk, have familiar controls for the young and mostly male recruits, and are considered pretty tough to break. The underlying reason for this move though is cost cutting: by making the training course more intensive, the Navy is saving on teaching time. Given that the UMD drive won’t come disabled — which is hoped to encourage the sailors to take better care of the device — the future this paints is of marines who’ve spent more time with a freebie handheld console than with a pro instructor. At least they’ll have a great stable of captured monsters to show for it.

[Thanks, pankomputerek]

Sony PSPs enlisted as study aids by the Royal Navy originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Nov 2009 21:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s no easy way to say this so we’ll just spit it out: Mac owners are bigger gadget nerds than PC owners. At least that’s the conclusion drawn in NPD‘s 2009 Household Penetration Study. NPD concludes that Mac owners not only own more computers than the norm, they also own more types of consumer electronics — the average Apple household owns 48 consumer electronics devices compared to 24 in the average computer household. In fact, NPD suggests that “Apple household owners’ actions and purchases can be used by the industry as leading indicators for hot new products and adoption.” Unfortunately, there’s no direct mention of Linux PC owners because they usually still live with their parents. Oh!

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

NPD: Mac owners are bigger gadget nerds than PC owners originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Oct 2009 07:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Market research firm Interpret recently made some discoveries about public perception of smartphones that should shock, surprise, and amaze you. The just released report, dubbed “Signature Smartphones: Gaining Mindshare in Order to Gain Market Share,” reveals that despite being massively disadvantaged in the marketplace, Palm managed to nab a huge chunk of mindshare with the Pre — in fact, the report suggests that the Pre is number two only to the iPhone 3GS in the metric. The study looks at the driving factors behind purchaser’s decisions to buy a smartphone, narrowing down the list to three major components: belief that the phone is “smart,” belief that the phone is “hip / cool,” and belief that the phone will make them more productive. Rating a swath of phones (BlackBerry Curve and Storm, G1, iPhone), the report found that only the iPhone and Pre balanced the three factors in a way in which consumers felt the higher price tags were warranted. More to the point, only the Pre and the iPhone 3GS managed to strike that balance at all; offerings such as the two BlackBerrys were lopsided. There’s not much more meat to the study, though it does shed some interesting light on just how Palm managed to squeeze its way back into the limelight (of course, it doesn’t hurt to have a product that’s actually kind of cool). Check out the whole PDF for yourself over at that read link.

Disclosure: Engadget columnist Michael Gartenberg is an employee of Interpret, and worked on the study cited above.

Filed under: Cellphones

New study says Palm Pre second only to iPhone 3GS in mindshare originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Sep 2009 08:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, it’s not exactly news to hear that the Xbox 360 is the most unreliable console of the big three, but just how unreliable is it? Now there’s a point of contention. The good news for Microsoft, of sorts, is that a new study from SquareTrade found that just 23.7% of Xbox 360 consoles failed within the first two years of ownership, which is actually a fair bit better than some of the previous numbers that topped 50%. The study also found that 10% of PlayStation 3 users reported a system failure, compared to a mere 2.7% of Wii owners. The Wii actually fared the worst when it came to power and remote control issues, however, while the most common problems with the Xbox 360 and PS3 were disc read errors and output issues. For its part, while Microsoft hasn’t responded to this particular study, it has previously pointed to its “best warranty in the industry” to reassure its users and, of course, to its more recently-produced consoles, which are less likely to buckle under the pressure of a marathon Call of Duty session.

[Via InformationWeek]

Filed under: Gaming

New study finds close to one quarter of Xbox 360s fail within two years originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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