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Posts Tagged ‘testing’

Man, leakers don't sleep! That hush-hush Kinect beta program is indeed in full effect, and while hardware is en route to giddy testers, the accompanying Xbox 360 Dashboard update has already been distributed -- and promptly leaked. Joystiq has a gallery of screenshots from the new interface, including a revamped Avatar editor and some navigational alterations to account for using your body as the controller. We like this just for the humor value, including the note above instructing you to take a break if you get "sore" and the full-page list of prohibitions against talking about or showing the beta program's interface. Ah well.

Kinect beta Dashboard update gets leaked as soon as it arrives, hardware kits are 'being packed' originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 04:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Man, you just can't hide your gadgets from curious onlookers these days. Case in point: Samsung's Galaxy Tab was innocently doing some testing rounds through Sydney recently, only to be happened upon by the Electronista scribes, who diligently videotaped it -- seemingly without the knowledge of the tablet's possessor. The video confirms what we already know, it's a 7-inch tablet, it'll be driven by an Android, and it looks very much like a giant cellphone. The Samsung employee described it as "awesome" and very different from the iPad's experience, while the UI apparently looked very responsive. Go after the break to see for yourself.

Continue reading Samsung's 7-inch Galaxy Tab gets spied in the wild (video)

Samsung's 7-inch Galaxy Tab gets spied in the wild (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 10:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It all started with Micro Four Thirds, but now just about everyone is jonesing to play along in the mirrorless camera game. The crew over at Serious Compacts managed to get ahold of quite a few contenders (Samsung's NX10, Sony's NEX5, Olympus' E-P2 and E-PL1, and Panasonic's GF1, GF2 and GH1), and rather than taking 'em apart one by one, they've decided to size 'em up in a fantastic size comparison piece. From lenses to bodies, all six cameras are shown from various angles, and even if you've convinced yourself to not be in the market for one of these bad boys, the eye candy alone is worth a peek. Furthermore, the group has been entered into a telling ISO comparison test, but if you came here looking for a spoiler, you'll be sorely disappointed. Tap those links below to get your study on, won'tcha?

Mirrorless camera shootout: DSLR alternatives get sized up and ISO-examined originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Aug 2010 06:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well what do we have here? It appears our friends over at Joystiq have received word from diligent tipsters that Microsoft's Connect customer feedback service is sending out Kinect beta program invites. Details are predictably sparse, but naming ironies aside, the note does specify that chat will be limited only to those involved in the preview program. While this isn't really surprising given the context, Joystiq surmises that this choice clarification could hint invitees will have the chance to sample the video chat app available through the Kinect's new dashboard, which was shown off at E3. Unfortunately, Ballmer and crew have yet to lend any official credence to these murmurs, though apparently the email address behind these notes is valid. It's also not that outrageous to imagine Microsoft wanting to spin Kinect's wheels in the wild before releasing it to the unwashed gaming masses on its official November 4th launch date. Considering the program would have to put hardware in the hands of testers though to pull something like this off, we're counting on more than a few overly excited gamers shining additional light on the situation should things get serious.

Is Microsoft quietly opening up a Kinect beta program? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Aug 2010 05:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Be it because you have no friends, or simply no friends with an iPhone 4, Apple's got your back if you're looking for a chum to test that curiously intriguing FaceTime feature. Just dial up 1-888-FACETIME (after cleaning yourself up a bit, of course) and hang tight, as a dapper Apple employee will be there in a moment to "show you the basics and a few advanced tips." And don't even try any of those late night shenanigans -- the help line's only open from 8AM to 8PM CDT.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

No one to test FaceTime with? Call Apple. originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oh, AT&T -- you can't post up a video detailing the testing process for Android phones and not expect us to notice that your guys are waving around the heretofore unannounced HTC Liberty, which was leaked by Android Central on Sunday. Honestly, now. It's hard to tell much from the video apart from the fact that this thing is running Sense and has a flush face with capacitive buttons along the bottom, but the leak says the screen res is just 320 x 480, which is somewhat less than awesome. Of course, AT&T's Android lineup has been relatively low-end so far, so maybe we're not so surprised, but we're hoping this thing is a little more Desire than Legend, if you catch us. Video after the break.

Continue reading HTC Liberty for AT&T revealed during routine testing video

HTC Liberty for AT&T revealed during routine testing video originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Jun 2010 11:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So these three operating systems walk into a bar one night ... alright, we'll behave. With all the Steamy conversation about gaming on non-Windows desktop platforms going on, we thought you might care to peek at a little OpenGL performance comparison review. As the chief cross-platform API, it's the only way we're going to be seeing the latest games running natively on Mac OS and Linux, but how will that experience compare to the market leader? As it turned out, Windows maintains superiority in this field, with frame rates that were habitually above those on the latest Ubuntu and well ahead of what you might get on Mac OS 10.6.3. It's still early days -- after all, Steam's non-DirectX cupboard is pretty bare right now -- but at this point in time, OpenGL gaming is a crown that Microsoft retains with relative ease. Hit the source for all the line graph evidence, and let's hope things improve for the rest of us in rapid fashion.

Windows 7, Mac OS X, and Ubuntu 10.04 meet up for an OpenGL benchmarking session originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 May 2010 04:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So where exactly are you supposed to go if you need to freeze one of largest passenger jet planes ever made? Well if you’re Boeing, you go to the McKinley Climatic Chamber at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. This facility is designed to simulate anything from the most extreme freeze, to the hottest desert. You have to wonder though, what is the military doing with this technology? Is this part of Bill Gates’ agenda to control the weather?

Ordinarily, the jet would have just been flown up into the arctic and test there, but due to delays Boeing missed the timing on winter. After they realized that it wouldn’t time out properly, Boeing announced that they would be flying the jet to Florida to be tested. The advantage of the McKinley Climatic Chamber is that not only will Boeing be able to test the cold, but they also plan on testing the jet in high desert temperatures.

[via Autopia]

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last couple months, you know that Toyota has had problems with sudden acceleration of some of its vehicles. Apparently, the root cause of the problem is still unknown, which is a little troubling to the average consumer. Toyota claims to be doing everything they can to investigate, but that doesn’t seem to be enough. Now everyone and their brother are suddenly product design engineers and have the gall to tell Toyota what to do and how to do it.

Witness this opinion piece in the LA Times by David M. Cummings entitled “Haven’t found that software glitch, Toyota? Keep trying“. Mr. Cummings worked on the Mars Pathfinder project for NASA, so he has some credibility to his name when it comes to software design and product testing. But his opinion piece seems to completely miss the point of the PR nightmare that Toyota is dealing with.

Mr. Cummings says “I’m still skeptical when I hear an engineer declare a complex software system to be bug-free based on laboratory testing.” I admit I haven’t been following the Toyota situation very closely, but I’d be floored if anyone at Toyota has gone on record to say that the millions of lines of embedded software used in Toyota vehicles is “bug free”. I’d be surprised if any professional software developer anywhere would have the gall to claim any code bug free. Code is complex. The systems on which the code runs are complex. The number of variables affecting the execution of that code are even more complex.

As Mr. Cummins observes at the beginning of his rant, “Toyota’s chief engineer testified to Congress that the company has done extensive testing on its cars’ electronics and believes they are not the cause of the sudden acceleration.” To claim that the software is not the cause of the sudden acceleration is not the same thing as claiming that the software is completely free of bugs!

What really sticks in my craw about Mr. Cummins complaint, though, is that he doesn’t appear to appreciate the audience that Toyota is addressing. Sure, some of the people following this situation are engineers, and they may well be interested in the details of the testing methodologies, or specifics of lab results; but most people are average consumers with no interest whatsoever in the science of this issue. They just want to know that the problem has been identified and fixed.

When I provide technical support to people, I don’t go into the specifics of memory registers, or heap and stack overflows, or any of the other things that happen to cause problems. I tell people that something went wrong in very simple terms. They trust me to know what I’m doing, else they wouldn’t have asked me to help them to begin with. They don’t want to get into the nitty gritty, else they’d pursue a job in technology on their own. I think Mr. Cummins needs to remember that not every Toyota owner, and certainly not every member of the U.S. Congress, is an engineer, or has an engineer’s mentality.

Mr. Cummins final remarks are very sound, though: “this should serve as a wake-up call to all industries that increasingly rely on software for safety.” I agree whole-heartedly. The world is only going to continue to get more complex. We need to build safety and reliability testing into every facet of product design, and not trust the tool chains we use to build software.

We'd already seen first hand what kind of GPU improvements Apple made with the iPhone 3GS (in comparison to the iPhone 3G, anyway), but if you've ever wondered how Cupertino's latest stacked up against Google's Nexus One in the graphical department, your answer is just a click away. The technical gurus over at Distinctive Developments set out to determine which handset was capable of pushing more frames per second when really taxed, and through a series of pinpoint tests, they discovered that the Nexus One (in general) lagged behind. The reason? Reportedly, Google's phone isn't using Neon floating-point optimization, but if it did, the scores you'll see just past the break could be quite different. Hey Mountain View, you getting all this?

Continue reading iPhone 3GS pitted against Nexus One in 3D frame rate test (video)

iPhone 3GS pitted against Nexus One in 3D frame rate test (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 02:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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