Enjoy Now Offering Same-Day Delivery and Setup of Apple TV, iPads, and AirPort in NYC and Bay Area
Enjoy today announced the introduction of the Apple TV, iPad, and AirPort to its free delivery and installation product lineup. The online marketplace and delivery service sends an Enjoy Expert to each customer’s house to deliver their ordered product in under four hours and even provide easy setup.
Founded by former Apple retail chief Ron Johnson, the company seeks to make the purchasing of new technology easy and hassle-free for those maybe not as familiar with certain functionalities of products like the new Apple TV.
In terms of Apple merchandise, the company now sells the iPad Pro, iPad Air 2, iPad mini 4, AirPort, and fourth-generation Apple TV. Enjoy noted that the setup process of the Apple TV includes:
Hand delivery and unboxing: We’ll will plug it in and connect to your wifi. We’ll even bring an extra HDMI cable (just in case).
Connect all your devices: We’ll get all of your accounts and Apple devices talking to each other. You can now think of the TV as the hub for all of your family entertainment.
Meet the new Siri remote: We’ll introduce you to the new Touch Surface remote and walk you through all of the gestures and voice commands. We know that you and Siri will get along just fine.
Explore the App Store: Apps are the future of TV. We’ll set you up with the ones you love, and introduce you to some great new ones.
Once a user orders something off of Enjoy’s online store, they can receive the delivery in “as fast as four hours,” with up to an hour of personalized installation and instruction on how the product works courtesy of an Enjoy Expert. Shipping and home support are all free, but the Enjoy service is currently only available in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Enjoy also allows customers to purchase a hand-delivered iPhone 6s or iPhone 6s Plus to their home in a partnership with AT&T. Other than the newly-introduced Apple products, the company offers at-home delivery and tutorials on products like the DJI Phantom 3 drone, Xbox One, and even fitness devices like the Specialized Turbo bicycle.
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Twelve South Launches Rose Gold HiRise Deluxe to Match Rose Gold iPhone 6s
Twelve South today expanded its HiRise lineup, launching a new stand designed to match the rose gold iPhone 6s and the iPhone 6s Plus. Twelve South’s HiRise Deluxe stands for iPhone and iPad are some of its most popular products, and with the addition of the rose gold color, there’s a finish to match every iOS device.
“There is something special about the new Rose Gold iPhone. It has captured the imagination of millions of people who want anything but basic black or standard silver when it comes to the iPhone they use everyday.” said Andrew Green of Twelve South. “HiRise Deluxe is already the most functional and flexible stand available, but with a version that now perfectly matches the hue of our customers’ Rose Gold iPhones, their experience will be complete.”
For those unfamiliar with the HiRise Deluxe, it’s an angled aluminum pedestal that’s designed to function as a stand for FaceTime sessions, video watching, and more, all while keeping an iPhone charged with a Lightning cable. The HiRise Deluxe ships with Lightning and micro-USB cables, and it’s adjustable, so it’s able to accommodate most iPhone cases.
According to Twelve South, when not in use charging an iPhone, the HiRise can also be used to charge the Siri Remote for the Apple TV, the Apple Pencil, the Magic Mouse, the SteelSeries Nimbus controller, and other Apple accessories that charge via Lightning.
The new HiRise Deluxe in Rose Gold is available from the Twelve South website for $59.99 starting today. It’s also available in Silver, Black, and Gold.
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Rdio bids farewell with a look at your favorite songs
Rdio has one last treat for you before it rides into the sunset following Pandora’s acquisition. Visit a special farewell site and you not only have a handy place to export your data, but a retrospective look at your listening habits. You’ll know what you first played, what your favorites were, and who you shared tracks with. It’s hard not to get a little misty — in some ways, this is like digging up a mix CD you made in high school. Still, it’s good to see Rdio acknowledging that you’re losing a part of your history, not just some playlists.
Source: Rdio
Microsoft owns up to issues with the Surface Book and Pro 4
When reviews of the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 hit, it seemed like Microsoft would be riding a wave of positive publicity into the holiday season. We liked both devices, and while the Surface Book wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, most reviews were also fairly positive. But things changed once they actually reached consumers. Some early buyers reported a variety of issues, including screen flickering, system instability and power problems. Those concerns prompted Microsoft to release several firmware and software updates within weeks (on top of a launch day fix), which helped with some issues. But they came too late to erase the idea that something was up with Microsoft’s new hardware.
And one big issue remains for Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 owners: erratic power management. Some users are reporting that the devices simply don’t go to sleep properly when you close their lids or put them into standby. Instead, they continue to drain power, which could be a nasty surprise if you don’t bring your charger along. That’s a particularly surprising issue for flagship devices in 2015 — it’s something that’s mostly been fixed by laptop makers over the past decade. Making things even worse, a Surface engineering manager noted earlier this month that the issue might not be fixed until 2016.
“We are focused on delivering a great experience to every Surface customer,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Engadget. “We know a small set of Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 customers are experiencing issues and addressing that is a top priority for us. We have dedicated engineering teams working to get updates and fixes out as quickly as possible and we will continue to use our Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 support forums to share new information directly with our customers as it becomes available.”
Microsoft also issued a brief apology last Friday for the “less than perfect” Surface experience, which basically urged users to keep updating their devices. There was no mention of the ongoing power issues.
It’s not unusual for brand new hardware to exhibit some growing pains, particularly unique devices like the Surface Book. But in those situations, being completely transparent with customers is usually the best response. It’s been nearly two months since the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 have been released, so it’s also surprising that they’re still exhibiting debilitating power issues.
Microsoft reps tell us that they typically don’t offer up timing expectations when it comes to fixes, as the Surface engineering manager (identified only as “Joe”) did. Every update requires extensive testing to make sure they don’t cause new issues, so it’s not simply a matter of writing up a fix and deploying it. Still, at least “Joe” actually said something about the power issues. Microsoft has yet to acknowledge it otherwise.
It’s not as if Microsoft is ignoring the Surface issues, though. It’s constantly tracking all of the issues being reported; some just take longer to fix than others, reps say. The company has also sped up the timing of Windows Updates so they can be deployed as soon as they’re ready, rather than just a few times a month.
Mostly, it seems that most of the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 issues caught Microsoft by surprise. While the devices went through plenty of internal testing, most of the problems only became apparent when they reached consumers. That may be a sign that Microsoft should open up its testing process a bit to a wider audience, before releasing new hardware. The company doesn’t have plans to do that yet, reps say, but that’ll ultimately be up to its engineers.
So where do things stand now? Microsoft is updating its Surface devices with all of the currently available fixes at the factory. If you’ve already got one, be sure to install all of the updates that get released. The company isn’t offering any special customer support path for Surface issues, but I hear the replacement process is fairly painless if you’re near a Microsoft store. Otherwise, contact Microsoft support and hope for the best. In some cases, they can send you a replacement before receiving your faulty device.
It’s always tough to judge just how extensive product issues are based on forum complaints. Consumers having a negative experience with new products are generally louder than the rest. But when those issues are being reported consistently, it’s worth noting. We’ve also seen a major issue with our pre-production: One Surface Book crashed after running a 3D benchmark and refused to boot. We initially chalked that up to just being early hardware, but some users are reporting similar booting issues.
One Surface Book owner I know — who was particularly eager to get one — had to replace their device three times at a Microsoft store. After getting tired of the issues, he just got a Dell XPS 13 instead.
LinkedIn’s revamped job listings are all about you
LinkedIn is revamping its job listings pages with new sections geared towards giving you more information on whether a position is right for you. Rather than simply listing a job description and similar postings, the new pages are personalized based on your LinkedIn profile.
The first change you’ll notice is a prominent graphic showing you which employee created the listing and offering you the opportunity to send them an InMail (LinkedIn’s name for a private message). Below the job description there’s a module that highlights where recent hires have come from (i.e. which college they graduated from or companies they used to work for), and invites you to check out their profiles. There’s also a “connections” section, which, as you’d guess, shows you employees at the company you have connected with through LinkedIn.
LinkedIn’s new “meet the team” panel
Further down still is a “meet the team” panel that lets you explore a company’s current employees, check our their skills, their alma maters, and previous work experience. As with all the changes, the idea here is that, if a job is right for you, you’ll find commonalities between a company’s hiring practices, its employees’ skill sets, and you. It also seems to encourage you to reach out to people at a company before you apply, perhaps to ask what it’s like to work there, or to put in action the tried-and-tested “put in a good word for me” tactic.
The changes are rolling out today to approximately 10 percent of LinkedIn users. That covers the US, Canada, UK, Australia and India, and will slowly ramp up as the site expands the redesign internationally next year.
[Image credit: shutterstock]
Source: LinkedIn
Xiaomi Mi5 gets mistakenly listed on Oppomart for $599, reveals full spec sheet
Xiaomi’s upcoming Mi5 handset is set to make its debut on January 21st, however the device was just listed on Oppomart revealing all its hardware specifications.
Based on the listing, the Xiaomi Mi5 will include a 5.5-inch QuadHD display and will run Qualcomm’s newest Snapdragon 820 64-bit octa-core processor which will be clocked at 2.5GHz. Other specs include 4GB of DDR4 RAM, a 20MP rear-facing camera, an 8MP front-facing camera, a 3,800mAh battery, and up to a whopping 128GB of internal storage. It will also contain global 4G LTE-FDD bands. This sounds like a pretty specked-out phone if you ask me. Pricing on Oppomart begins at $599, and reads “out of stock,” considering the phone is yet to launch.
Anyone interested?
Source: Oppomart
Come comment on this article: Xiaomi Mi5 gets mistakenly listed on Oppomart for $599, reveals full spec sheet
The 15 weirdest gadgets of 2015
It’s been a good year for gadgets, and also a bad year for gadgets. From smile-enforcing Santa beards and remote telepresence teddy bears to “wearable” tablets and cameras, here are 15 marvels of modern technology that are either the best or worst ideas (or maybe both) that we’ve covered this year. Slideshow-347638
Netflix’s new video approach looks better, uses less data
The last time we noted Netflix extensively discussing how it stores video for the best streaming performance, its HD quality maxed out at 720p, surround sound was still a pipe dream and tablets weren’t a thing yet. A Variety report explains that after extensive testing it’s going through and re-encoding the entire library with a process that applies compression in a smarter way to maximize quality and save a ton of bandwidth. Soon, when you press play Netflix’s servers will do a better job of recognizing what kind of device you’re watching on and, depending on the connection speed available, pick a stream that fits its capabilities.
Back in 2010 Netflix’s engineers established pairs of video bitrates (the amount of data used each second) and corresponding resolutions. Depending on the speed of the connection available (and what resolution the player can handle) you get the corresponding quality video, and that’s that — a slow connection means low-res SD or worse, while fast connections got the high-res 1080p stream. But after years of streaming untold amounts of video over the internet, the company has figured out that different content handles compression in different ways.
In this cropped and resized image (see Netflix for the originals) you can compare 1080p Bojack compressed the old way (left) and the new way, using a slightly lower bitrate (right).
An animated title like Netflix’s own Bojack Horseman, for example, looks good at a far lower bitrate than any typical action movie needs. After it’s re-encoded under the new rules, someone with a slower DSL-quality connection might see a 1080p HD version of Bojack instead of the SD they used to,simply because it will still appear high quality and without artifacts. Pick something with live characters, like Orange is the New Black or fast-moving action scenes, and it will serve you something encoded at a lower resolution, but the same bitrate. That way it can max out on the actual quality the viewer sees without causing artifacts or pixelization. In the future, it could even apply the technique per-scene for better quality and more bandwidth saving.
Netflix:
What does this mean for my Netflix shows?
Per-title encoding allows us to deliver higher quality video two ways: Under low-bandwidth conditions, per-title encoding will often give you better video quality as titles with “simple” content, such as BoJack Horseman, will now be streamed at a higher resolution for the same bitrate.
When the available bandwidth is adequate for high bitrate encodes, per-title encoding will often give you even better video quality for complex titles, such as Marvel’s Daredevil, because we will encode at a higher maximum bitrate than our current recipe.
Our continuous innovation on this front recognizes the importance of providing an optimal viewing experience for our members while simultaneously using less bandwidth and being better stewards of the Internet.
Ultimately, this won’t just benefit the viewers who Netflix says can expect better or the same quality viewing experience over a variety of connections, and devices (for those with high-speed internet and high-res screens, the maximum bitrates are also going up so you’ll be better off too). The new scheme could use up to 20 percent less bandwidth than existing techniques, which is massive considering how much data Netflix is using at any given moment — the most recent stats show it accounts for 37 percent of North America’s downstream traffic at peak times.
Beyond net neutrality squabbles with ISPs in North America and Europe, the company’s plans for worldwide domination streaming mean that soon it will rely heavily on last-mile connections in countries that don’t have the same level of broadband rolled out everywhere. At the same time, it’s adding more and more video in 4K and even HDR quality with higher bandwidth requirements, so it needs to save where it can.
Netflix told Variety that it started adding video encoded the new way earlier this month, and it expects to have a thousand titles done by the holidays, starting with its most popular content. The whole catalog should be done early next year, and then we can truly judge if it’s living up to the promises. Netflix is using Amazon’s servers not only to compress all these new versions of each video, but also to run an automated process that inspects each version and uses machine learning to catch glitches. As we saw when it ditched the old “X-high” standard a few years ago, it will be up to viewers to tell (or, hopefully not tell) the difference.
Source: Variety, Netflix Tech Blog (1), (2)
Netflix’s new video approach looks better, uses less data
The last time we noted Netflix extensively discussing how it stores video for the best streaming performance, its HD quality maxed out at 720p, surround sound was still a pipe dream and tablets weren’t a thing yet. A Variety report explains that after extensive testing it’s going through and re-encoding the entire library with a process that applies compression in a smarter way to maximize quality and save a ton of bandwidth. Soon, when you press play Netflix’s servers will do a better job of recognizing what kind of device you’re watching on and, depending on the connection speed available, pick a stream that fits its capabilities.
Back in 2010 Netflix’s engineers established pairs of video bitrates (the amount of data used each second) and corresponding resolutions. Depending on the speed of the connection available (and what resolution the player can handle) you get the corresponding quality video, and that’s that — a slow connection means low-res SD or worse, while fast connections got the high-res 1080p stream. But after years of streaming untold amounts of video over the internet, the company has figured out that different content handles compression in different ways.
In this cropped and resized image (see Netflix for the originals) you can compare 1080p Bojack compressed the old way (left) and the new way, using a slightly lower bitrate (right).
An animated title like Netflix’s own Bojack Horseman, for example, looks good at a far lower bitrate than any typical action movie needs. After it’s re-encoded under the new rules, someone with a slower DSL-quality connection might see a 1080p HD version of Bojack instead of the SD they used to,simply because it will still appear high quality and without artifacts. Pick something with live characters, like Orange is the New Black or fast-moving action scenes, and it will serve you something encoded at a lower resolution, but the same bitrate. That way it can max out on the actual quality the viewer sees without causing artifacts or pixelization. In the future, it could even apply the technique per-scene for better quality and more bandwidth saving.
Netflix:
What does this mean for my Netflix shows?
Per-title encoding allows us to deliver higher quality video two ways: Under low-bandwidth conditions, per-title encoding will often give you better video quality as titles with “simple” content, such as BoJack Horseman, will now be streamed at a higher resolution for the same bitrate.
When the available bandwidth is adequate for high bitrate encodes, per-title encoding will often give you even better video quality for complex titles, such as Marvel’s Daredevil, because we will encode at a higher maximum bitrate than our current recipe.
Our continuous innovation on this front recognizes the importance of providing an optimal viewing experience for our members while simultaneously using less bandwidth and being better stewards of the Internet.
Ultimately, this won’t just benefit the viewers who Netflix says can expect better or the same quality viewing experience over a variety of connections, and devices (for those with high-speed internet and high-res screens, the maximum bitrates are also going up so you’ll be better off too). The new scheme could use up to 20 percent less bandwidth than existing techniques, which is massive considering how much data Netflix is using at any given moment — the most recent stats show it accounts for 37 percent of North America’s downstream traffic at peak times.
Beyond net neutrality squabbles with ISPs in North America and Europe, the company’s plans for worldwide domination streaming mean that soon it will rely heavily on last-mile connections in countries that don’t have the same level of broadband rolled out everywhere. At the same time, it’s adding more and more video in 4K and even HDR quality with higher bandwidth requirements, so it needs to save where it can.
Netflix told Variety that it started adding video encoded the new way earlier this month, and it expects to have a thousand titles done by the holidays, starting with its most popular content. The whole catalog should be done early next year, and then we can truly judge if it’s living up to the promises. Netflix is using Amazon’s servers not only to compress all these new versions of each video, but also to run an automated process that inspects each version and uses machine learning to catch glitches. As we saw when it ditched the old “X-high” standard a few years ago, it will be up to viewers to tell (or, hopefully not tell) the difference.
Source: Variety, Netflix Tech Blog (1), (2)
Engadget giveaway: Win a ‘Star Wars’ prize pack courtesy of ThinkGeek!
In case you’ve been under a rock (or frozen in carbonite), Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens in theaters this Friday. There’s been a massive build up to the film and that means more merchandising than you can shake a lightsaber selfie stick at, but that’s just part of the fun. ThinkGeek has stocked up on pretty much anything you could want for this overlap of super fandom and holiday gift giving. To celebrate, the company has provided us with a selection of gadgets from its Star Wars collection. One lucky Engadget reader will be able to keep their beverages at just the right temp in an 18-can-capacity Han Solo mini fridge and geek out with spacey glassware, a BB-8 desk lamp, Force FX Lightsabers and an R2-D2-themed Bluetooth speaker. All you need to do is “let go your conscious self” and head down to the Rafflecopter widget below for up to three chances at winning this healthy pile of Star Wars swag.
- Entries are handled through the Rafflecopter widget above. Comments are no longer accepted as valid methods of entry. You may enter without any obligation to social media accounts, though we may offer them as opportunities for extra entries. Your email address is required so we can get in touch with you if you win, but it will not be given to third parties.
- Contest is open to all residents of the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec), 18 or older! Sorry, we don’t make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so direct your anger at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.
- Winners will be chosen randomly. One (1) BB-8 desktop lamp, one (1) Star Wars R2-D2 Bluetooth Speakerphone, one (1) Han Solo Fridge, one (1) Star Wars Force FX Lightsaber and one (1) Star Wars Planetary Glassware set.
- If you are chosen, you will be notified by email. Winners must respond within three days of being contacted. If you do not respond within that period, another winner will be chosen. Make sure that the account you use to enter the contest includes your real name and a contact email or Facebook login. We do not track any of this information for marketing or third-party purposes.
- This unit is purely for promotional giveaway. Engadget and AOL are not held liable to honor warranties, exchanges or customer service.
- The full list of rules, in all its legalese glory, can be found here.
- Entries can be submitted until Dec. 16th at 11:59PM ET. Good luck!
AIVAnet 