Hijinks Inc.

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  • How Apple spends $100 million… on a faulty product.

    Here at Hijinks Inc. we tout ourselves as being ‘a technology blog focusing on reviews and tutorials,’ and I’ve yet to post anything really technology related. Sure, I cover the entertainment stuff, so that’s kind of a built in excuse, but when given the chance, I like to get in with the tech-y stuff as well.

    This is making the rounds in the blogosphere today, and I found it interesting. These are some pictures of Apple’s $100 million iPhone testing facility, all for a product that gets released with flaws, you think they would’ve noticed the phone not working. Here’s the statement Apple released with these images:

    Apple never releases a product without thoroughly testing it first. To do this, we built our multimillion-dollar antenna design and test labs. These labs feature 17 different antenna characterization chambers (or anechoic chambers) designed to accurately measure antenna and wireless performance.

    Our anechoic chambers are connected to sophisticated equipment that simulates cellular base stations, Wi-Fi networks, Bluetooth devices — even GPS satellites. These chambers measure performance in free space, in the presence of materials simulating human tissue (“phantom” heads and hands, for example), and in use by human subjects. Over a one- to two-year development cycle, Apple engineers spend thousands of hours performing antenna and wireless testing in the lab.

    Apple engineers tested iPhone 4 in a variety of scenarios, environments, and conditions in order to gauge performance. They spent thousands of hours in cities in the U.S. and throughout the world testing iPhone 4 call quality, dropped-call performance, call origination and termination, and in-service time. They tested iPhone 4 while stationary, at high and low speeds, and in urban, dense urban, and highway environments. In low-coverage areas and good-coverage areas, during peak and off-peak hours — iPhone 4 was field-tested in nearly every possible coverage scenario across different vendor and carrier equipment all over the world.

    You can see the rest of the images after the jump. (more…)

  • T.W.I.S.T. for July 11-17

    This is the dog days of summer, so if I want to continue to do a weekly sports summary, I’m gonna be forced to mention baseball. I really apologize about this guys. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.

    MLB

    • David Ortiz, who’s hardly been able to hit the broad side of a barn, let alone hit the ball out of the park for the better part of 2 years (*cough* steroids *cough*), apparently has been saving it all for the Home Run Derby, because he cranked out 11 HRs, in the final round to take down Hanley Ramirez and win the competition.
    • George Steinbrenner passed away this week after having a massive heart attack on Tuesday. In 37-plus seasons as owner, Steinbrenner led the Yankees to seven World Series championships, 11 American League pennants and 16 AL East titles. He purchased the Yankees, now valued at $1.6 billion, for about $10 million in 1973.
    • In what is probably the worst rule in sports, the National League locked up home field advantage in the World Series by winning the All-Star game, for the first time since 1996, 3-1.

    And… that’s about it. There were a few good laughs at the ESPY’s though, I’ll include those videos after the jump. (more…)

  • Put BP To Shame

    BP is the epitome of cooperate power and greed. Hijinks Inc. is the opposite of that. Want to stick it to the man? Want to show those money grubbing oil mongers that you won’t take their oil spewing madess? Great! Go run for president.

    In the meantime:

  • Why your iPod won’t charge (and what to do about it)

    Why your iPod won’t charge (and what to do about it)

    Show of hands if you’ve seen this message on your iPhone or iPod touch:

    “Charging is not supported with this accessory”

    Why not?  The music and video still works… why wouldn’t charging be supported?  It upset me too.  I tried connecting it to an older Alpine stereo and it flashed me the error.

    The short and sweet of it?  Previous to the 3G iPhone and 2G iPod touch, the pin-out configuration of the connection used a FireWire standard for the location of the charging pin.  The newest generation switched to using a USB pin-out standard, and low and behold, the charging pin is different!

    Enter the Scosche passPORT charging adapter.  The $20 adapter (Apple actually sells it, as well as many other retailers) switches the charging pin-out, but allows the rest of the data stream to pass-through.  However, there are limitations… this from Scosche’s website:

    “The charging adapter is specifically designed to fix the charging error associated with several iPod and iPhone accessories. If the accessory you are intending to use does not initially support the audio or video functionality of the iPod or iPhone , the charging adapter will not enable these features.”

    What bothers me is there had to be some poor tech from Scosche who took this call:

    Customer: “Hi, I’ve got a problem.”

    Tech: “What can I help you with?”

    Customer: “Well, I bought your charging adapter for my iPod touch, but I can’t see the video on my TV!”

    Tech: “Are you connecting your iPod to your home theater system?”

    Customer: “No, I’ve got it connected to a wall-mount charging adapter.”

    Tech: “Great, now we need a disclaimer…”

  • How To: Load NCAA 11 Rosters With A Flash Drive

    How To: Load NCAA 11 Rosters With A Flash Drive

    I’ve had a number of people hitting me up on twitter asking how to download the updated rosters without Xbox Live or the PSN. After searching high and low for the information, I figured it would be easier to just centralize it here. PS3 and Xbox walkthroughs after the jump. (more…)