Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

3G Speeds Tested & Compared, City by City [Performance Tests]

As wireless users know all too well, not all 3G networks are created equal. PC World recently put Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T to a multi-city test to determine which best delivers speed and reliability.

The magazine took a snapshot of the performance of those three major networks in 13 markets during March and early April (specifically, 5443 individual tests from 283 testing locations). Weather, time of day, and other variable factors not withstanding, the magazine found that Verizon had an average download speed of 951 kbps, and produced uninterrupted speeds in 89.8 percent of tests.

For its part, Sprint's 3G network delivered solid connections in 90.5 percent of cities tested, with average download speeds of 808 kbps across 13 cities, while the AT&T network's average download speed clocked in at 812 kbps. But where reliability was concerned, AT&T delivered only 68 percent of the time.

Take a look at the link below for the full city-by-city results, then let us know your take on PC World's conclusion. Do they match up with your own wireless experience in those cities? Let us know which network you use and how it fares in your location.

A Day in The Life of 3G [PC World]

Aviary.com Creates Edit-Ready Web Screenshots [Screenshots]

Looking to grab a copy of the entire scroll-able content of a web page? Aviary, makers of a previously mentioned online image editing tool and Firefox extension, make it really simple: just add the site's URL after aviary.com/.

The speed with which Aviary's Flash-based editor pops open depends on their server load and the content of the site you're trying to paste over—Lifehacker is a "large image," while aviary.com/xkcd.com loads just fine. But the full-length capture works, allows you to save to the desktop (through the "Export" function) and make basic edits like cropping and text and shape addition. Our initial tests showed some real lag, and a few failures, when trying to open the right-hand tools for "Advanced Editor" or "Image Effects" on larger web captures, but when they work, you're getting a pretty neat Photoshop-lite to play with.

Aviary's URL appending service is free to use, requires a free account to save images online and access certain advanced features.

Capture any webpage: Just add Aviary.com/ in front of the URL [Aviary blog]

The Most Detailed 3D Map of Earth Yet [Maps]

Forget Google Maps: NASA and Japan's Ministry of Economy have released the most detailed three-dimensional map of Earth yet. It covers our planet between the 83 north and 83 south parallels thanks to 1.3 million stereo images like these:

The images were captured by ASTER, ! and then stitched together into a seamless map. ASTER—Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer—is the instrument taking maps of land surface temperature, reflectance and elevation flying onboard NASA's Terra satellite. Once the Global Digital Elevation Model was complete, it was divided into 23,000 GeoTIFF files, each covering 1 x 1 degree of the globe. You can download the map here. [JPL]

Philips Cinema 21:9 TV Will Cost $7400 [TVs]

I don't know if we will ever see the 56-inch Philips Cinema 21:9 in the US, but if I didn't have a projector, I would totally fall for it. Even at the $7400 price tag just published in the UK.

The Philips 56PFL9954H Cinema 21:9 uses the same aspect ratio of most movies out there, which means that it eliminates the black bars while watching a Blu-ray title. And while every single consumers electronics expert in the UK is raving about the amazing quality of this 8.3-million-pixel TV set, the Philips Cinema 21:9 still has to do zooming to make the movie to fill its 1080-pixel vertical resolution. In other words: It looks great, but it's still not perfect. [Daily Mail]

gdgt, the Data Driven Gadget Site, is Live [Media]

gdgt is a new gadget site that's database driven. You pronounce it either g-d-g-t or "gadget". I like it, mainly because I can track pieces of information about gadgets I own, but also tech I would like to have.

See, here's my list of gadgets.

Since the database is user generated, I can't wait to get in there and add some classic tech and offbeat stuff. Using it is peculiarly thrilling. The problem with general news sites is that you don't always get news that relates to the gadgets you own; the problems with forums is that the information is relevant to what you're interested in, but highly unstructured. This fixes both. A year or two ago, we decided to cover less new product, and cover more software and updates you can use to improve the gadgets you already have. gdgt is built upon this philosophy.

The site's just launching today, but Ryan Block and Peter Rojas (Engadget and Gizmodo alum) are only getting started and I've been told the road map is epic and long. (Disclaimer: I advise gdgt here and there, too.)

How do you get started? You sign up. Quickly, so you get the user name you want, I would suggest. I'd explain how it works in depth but Veronica Belmont, has a video here with all the details.

Oh and here's my account. Add me as a friend!

UPDATE: Looks like they're down because of traffic, time to ease up a bit and check back later.
[gdgt]