Google quality report is out now in the USA

Released in Canada first, it's now hitting the US and will be expanding further shortly.

It's rather like Netflix's ISP speed index. Thay want to show up internet service providers (ISP's) where they have bottle necks either through limited peering and transit off / on their network or where they restrict third party services.  Also it will give a good indication of which ISP's networks contain their caches (CDN's like Googles GGC or Netflix's OpenConnect) which keep the content closer to the customer to it doesn't have to traverse the wider internet.

The idea being that if the ISP's don't provide good access to the third party video content (more data = more cost loosely speaking) then their customers can be made aware and vote with their feet if they want.



http://www.google.com/get/videoqualityreport/

Xbox One delivers premium voice quality via hardware improvements and Skype’s audio codec

Thanks to integration with Skype’s audio codec, which has a proven track record of high-quality voice through billions of hours of use within Skype, as well as dedicated audio processing (for Xbox One conversations via Skype and multiplayer party chats), Xbox One offers higher quality voice chat with the Xbox One Chat Headset compared to Xbox 360—whether you’re chatting in-game or through party chat with Skype on Xbox One.

But the improvements don’t stop there. The Xbox One Wireless Controller’s new expansion port dramatically expands the data transfer rate between the controller and console. Combined with Skype’s audio codec, this enables crystal-clear digital audio with the Xbox One Chat Headset, both capturing and rendering speech at 24 KHz PCM, which is triple the rendering sample rate and a 50 percent capture rate improvement over Xbox 360 headsets. And, as we shared before, the Xbox One Chat Headset comes with every Xbox One console.

http://majornelson.com/2013/08/29/xbox-one-delivers-premium-voice-quality-via-hardware-improvements-and-skypes-audio-codec/

New gadgets! Onkyo TX-NR616 & Wharfedale DX-1

Just finished wiring these up yesterday and they are simply awesome for the price! 

Wharfedale-DX-1

Onkyo TX-NR616

Edit: After about two years of use these are still amazing. Living in flats, the sub has mostly been on the lowest setting but even on this it has a decent punch to it. Blu-ray movies via my dedicated Panasion player sound simply amazing. 

The speakers come with black grills but to be honest I couldn't stick them on as these speakers are just so good looking without!