Tag: significant

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Entertainment

A small but significant update

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Samsung’s HW-Q990C was the best overall soundbar I tested last year, mostly due to its stellar audio and the fact that a subwoofer and rear speakers came with it. The company didn’t change much for the 2024 version, the HW-Q990D, but one tweak delivers a feature last year’s model should’ve had: HDMI 2.1. There are some new audio modes too, but you can find those on other Samsung soundbars. The Q990D is as powerful as ever, but it’s still pricey at $2,000. If you already bought a Q990C, the company hasn’t given you a reason to upgrade just yet.

Samsung

The biggest addition to the Q990D is a feature Samsung’s flagship soundbar should’ve already had.

Pros

  • HDMI 2.1
  • All-in-one surround setup
  • Excellent, immersive audio
  • Handy features
Cons

  • Pricey
  • Not a huge update over last year’s model

$2,000 at Amazon

The biggest addition on the Q990D is HDMI 2.1. With this, Samsung addressed my main criticism of the Q990C, which debuted last year at a time when much of the competition had already adopted the standard. HDMI 2.1 delivers 4K passthrough at 120 frames per second, which will improve the visuals if you connect your PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X directly to the soundbar.

The Q990D also arrives with new audio modes. Private Listening turns off all of the front-firing drivers and uses only the rear satellite speakers. It’s basically an expanded version of the night mode a lot of companies offer on soundbars, aimed at reducing boomy bass when family or roommates might be asleep. My house has an open floor plan and my TV faces towards the hallway to the bedrooms, which means any soundbar will beam noise in that direction. Private Listening sends the audio the opposite way, and while you have to sacrifice some overall quality, it’s good enough for all the times you need to be quieter.

There’s also a new Party Play mode that provides more balanced sound between the soundbar and rear speakers for a better experience when you’re hosting a rager. When this is active, you get the full audio range rather than just the channels specifically programmed for the speakers behind you. I actually turned the speakers around and faced them out of the living room to project the re-tuned audio into other communal spaces. This makes a bigger difference for movies and TV because music already plays from the rear speakers with more balanced levels.

These two modes aren’t unique to the Q990D; the rest of the 2024 Q-series lineup will be able to use them too. This is the first time I’ve tested them though, and it’s notable that they actually work well on Samsung’s most expensive soundbar.

Samsung Q990D soundbar from the left side showing the side-firing driver. Samsung Q990D soundbar from the left side showing the side-firing driver.

Billy Steele for Engadget

The combination of a driver-packed soundbar, large subwoofer and more-robust rear speakers produces immersive sound that envelops my living room. Whether you’re listening to music or the soundscape of Dune, the Q990D retains the sonic prowess of its predecessor. Dolby Atmos content from Disney+ is as immersive as ever. I could hear the finer details of Knowhere in the opening scenes of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, including the life-like reverb of Radiohead’s “Creep” playing over a loudspeaker. The directional sounds of the town, including the hustle and bustle of people moving around, make it seem like you’re standing right there.

For music, there’s deep, boomy bass when a track calls for it, and that crisp detail that I heard in movies is here too. Justice’s Hyperdrama shows off the Q990D’s range, with driving low-end tone on songs like “Neverender” accompanied by textured synths. Quieter genres like jazz are a blanket of sound too, with albums like Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue offering subtleties that make you feel like you’re in the studio.

The thing I like most about the Q990D is that everything you need for a complete surround sound setup is included in the box. The subwoofer and rear speakers come with the soundbar and don’t require an additional purchase. Those satellite speakers also house up-firing and side-firing drivers, which isn’t always the case on comparable accessories from the competition. And the setup is as easy as plugging everything in because pairing with the rest of the system happens automatically.

One of the rear speakers for the Q990D sitting on a wooden table. One of the rear speakers for the Q990D sitting on a wooden table.

Billy Steele for Engadget

An all-in-one setup is great, but that also means the Q990D is expensive. At $2,000, this is a considerable investment even if you’re getting everything you need in the package. The Q990D is currently on sale for $1,750, but we don’t know how long that discount will last. For comparison, Sony’s upcoming Bravia Bar 9 is $1,400. The cheapest subwoofer and rear speakers you can get for it are $400 and $350 respectively, which puts your total cost at $2,150. Of course, with Sony you have two options for subs and rears, and you don’t have to buy all of them. LG offers some respite if you want to go that route, with its S95TR coming in at $1,500 and including the subwoofer and rear speakers with up-firing drivers.

The overall size of the soundbar is something else you’ll need to consider. The Q990D houses 11 front-facing speakers, two up-firing drivers and a subwoofer. All of those components need space, and accommodating them means this soundbar ends up being quite large at 48.5 inches wide. While that’s not a deal-breaker per se, it does require some planning, so just know you’ll need ample room.

Like soundbars from other companies, the Q990D has some handy features that are reserved for Samsung TVs. For example, Q-Symphony, which uses your TV speakers in addition to the soundbar to expand the audio capabilities, requires a compatible 2020-2024 Samsung TV. The Q990D sounds great without this, but just know you’re not getting the full bag of tricks unless you also have a supported TV.

Unless you care for the latest HDMI standards, the Q990D doesn’t offer a huge upgrade over last year’s model. Their design and features lists are nearly identical, except for two new sound modes and 4K/120 passthrough. And some of those additions are available on more-affordable Samsung soundbars. So if you already sprang for last year’s Q990C, there’s probably not enough reason to make another sizable investment. If you don’t already own a Samsung flagship soundbar, the Q990D offers boomy, immersive sound in an all-in-one package that now has all the modern conveniences it should.

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Featured

Nvidia’s Project GROOT brings the human-robot future a significant step closer

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The age of humanoid robots could be a significant step closer thanks to a new release from Nvidia.

The computing giant has announced the launch of Project GROOT, its new foundational model aimed at helping the development of such robots in industrial use cases.

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News

According to GOP primary debate moderator Dana Perino, the economy is vital to significant concerns ‘worrying Americans.’

“This second debate, coming less than four months before the first vote in Iowa, is where the rubber hits the road,” Perino said. FOX News host Dana Perino, who will help run Wednesday’s Republican presidential primary debate in Simi Valley, Calif., expects a wide-ranging look at the candidates vying to be the next president.

Perino said that even though FOX Business is holding the discussion, it will be broad and cover a lot of different issues. But she thinks that the economy will be a big part of the conversation, not just because it will be presented by a business network, but because so many important problems are tied to money.

“I think the economy will be a big topic,” Perino told FOX News Digital. “We all know that it’s the biggest worry and concern of the American people.”

“In many ways, the economy is the link between all of these other possible topics, in my opinion,” she said. “For example, if you’re worried about crime, one of the things to think about is, ‘What tools do you have and are you ready to use them to help?’ Or, if you care about education, childcare, or national defense, you need a strong and growing economy to feel like a strong and growing country.
From 9 to 11 p.m. ET, Perino, Stuart Varney of FBN, and Ilia Calderón of UNIVISION will all be moderators at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

She thinks she is ready for anything, but she is especially ready for this group of candidates because she was in the room when FOX News hosts Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier led the first debate last month.

“I had never done that before, because I’m usually on the group that reports on what happened later. But this time, I got to go into the building and watch because I did the peek of the debate,” she said.

“For a lot of people, that was the first time they heard from those candidates or had even heard of those candidates,” Perino said. “I would say that all of them did fine, but nobody had a great breakout moment.” “So, this second debate, which is happening less than four months before the first election in Iowa, is where the rubber hits the road.”

Perino thinks that the candidates are well aware that they need “some sort of breakout moment” on Wednesday night to show that they should be among the main competitors to former President Trump, who is in the lead.

She said, “I think these candidates know that this is their make-or-break moment.”

Since Perino is so close with her FOX News coworkers, she has been planning to co-moderate the debate since before she was even chosen for the job.

“Martha and Bret have been very generous with their time and advice for me,” said Perino. “One of the things I like about being friends with my coworkers is that we always talk about these kinds of things. Even as they were getting ready, I sent them thoughts for questions back and forth.”
Perino said that MacCallum and Baier told her how to keep the candidates in line, and there are rules in place to make sure that people don’t keep stopping the event. Ironically, the former co-host of “The Five” has dealt with that very same problem a lot in the past.

“When ‘The Five’ first started in 2011, we didn’t really know what we were doing. It’s a brand-new kind of show, and there were times when we all started talking at once and talked over each other,” Perino said.

“I remember getting a call from the control room during a commercial break saying that if it kept up, they were going to cancel the show because no one can hear when everyone is talking at once at home,” she said. “The same is true of these individuals. So, it’s in their best interest to get to the point quickly and not go over their allotted time so that everyone can hear what they have to say.

“The Five” got it, and now it’s the most-watched TV news show. It’s not clear if the candidates will follow the same road, but Perino thinks that a good showing in the debates is very important because millions of dollars are spent on ads just to get people’s names out there.

“In this debate, which will last two hours, they have a chance to get free media coverage to reach a much larger audience and make their point,” Perino said. “There’s no way you could buy airtime like this.”

Both FOX Business Network and FOX News Channel will have special live coverage of the second Republican presidential primary discussion.

At 6 p.m. ET, Dagen McDowell and Sean Duffy will host a special two-hour version of “The Bottom Line” as part of FBN’s special live broadcast. At 8 p.m., FBN’s Larry Kudlow will host an hour-long show called “Countdown to the Debate” with a team of commentators, including co-moderators Dana Perino and Stuart Varney, Martha MacCallum, Bret Baier, Sean Hannity, Brit Hume, Harold Ford Jr., Karl Rove, and Kellyanne Conway.

After the two-hour debate, FOX News will air a special episode of “Hannity” at 11 p.m. ET, which will also be shown on FBN. The show will include live coverage of the debate from the spin room and real-time reactions from the candidates in Simi Valley.
“Fox News @ Night” with Trace Gallagher will continue the network’s live coverage from the spin room at midnight EST. The debate will be shown again at 1 a.m. ET.

Several FNC and FBN shows will be broadcast live from Simi Valley all week, including “Varney & Co.” and “Kudlow” on FBN and “Fox & Friends,” “America’s Newsroom,” “The Five,” “Special Report,” “Hannity,” and “FOX News @ Night” on FNC.

FNC’s White House reporter Jacqui Heinrich will report live from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and FNC’s Bill Melugin, FBN’s Madison Alworth, and FBN’s Grady Trimble will report live from the Reagan Library on how people across the country are reacting.

FOX News Digital will also have a live blog on the site of FOXNews.com that will be updated all the time.

Categories
News

The most significant hazard to the U.S. electrical grid is not what you think.

Renewables are not the problem that is putting the power grid in danger.
The Biden administration keeps hitting the snooze button even though electric officials and companies across the country are sounding the alarm about the stability of the grid.

The latest warning comes from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (NERC) annual “Reliability Risk Priorities Report.” For the first time, energy policy is one of the five key risk profiles. It joins grid change, security risks, extreme events, and the interdependencies of important infrastructure. This is important because it shows that bad energy strategy is one of the biggest dangers to the grid.

The news is not unexpected. Even with our “all of the above” method, grid stability kept me up at night when I was secretary of energy. But those times are over. In the name of climate change, President Joe Biden’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency are handing out money as fast as they can. However, some officials know that our grid is not as safe as it could be.

At a meeting on Capitol Hill in May, Willie Phillips, the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), said, “We face challenges to the reliability of our nation’s electric system that have never been seen before.”
Traditional power sources are leaving the grid faster than we’re putting in place better energy. This puts us on a path to “a very catastrophic situation in terms of reliability,” as Commissioner Mark Christie said. These threats aren’t new, but at least FERC seems ready to do something about them now.

Renewable funding and rules are making energy markets even less stable, which hurts the supply of steady baseload power. All of the green energy that Democrats promised isn’t coming true because stable power sources are being shut down too soon. At the same time, the push to make everything electric, from cars to stoves, adds to the pressure on supply.

To be clear, the problem is not energy but the policies of the Democrats. In their new study, NERC tried to get this point across. The biggest threat to our grid is bad policy, and the Biden government has made sure that all Americans have to deal with the effects of the bad policies we’ve seen in blue states.

Just look at New York as an example. Even though the state is required to have 70% of its energy come from green sources by 2030, solar and wind only provided 1% and 3.6% of the state’s power in 2021. The state’s grid operator says that by 2040, the state will need to have about three times as much power as it does now. To do this, the state will need to replace fossil fuels with zero-emission technology that is “not yet available on a commercial scale.”
And a few years ago, it was ignorant to give in to pressure from then-Governor Andrew Cuomo and so-called activists to shut down both nuclear units at Indian Point Power Plant. Because of this, the state’s power sector’s carbon pollution went up by 35%.

On the other hand, look at what’s going on in Virginia, where Governor Glenn Youngkin has made a “all-of-the-above” energy plan for the state. He has already made a plan to bring in small modular nuclear plants to meet the growing demand for clean baseload power. This is in addition to picking away at unfair rules from the previous governor’s office.

Tech companies are building data centers all over the state because they trust his plan to keep energy cheap and stable. And people in Virginia agree.

In the 2000s, when I brought wind power to Texas, I saw it as a chance to expand our energy sources. But I never thought it would lead to the dogmatism we see now on the political left, where keeping the lights on is less important than putting up renewables quickly.

Entrepreneurs, not government managers, are the ones who keep trying to change the market in revolutionary ways. We don’t know what new technologies will come out or grow in the next few years. As governor of Texas and U.S. secretary of Energy, I didn’t know either, and neither do the Democrats.

I urge my fellow Republicans in all levels of government to make grid stability a policy goal. A recent Heatmap study found that 63% of Americans have heard “nothing” or “not much” about what’s in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which Wood McKenzie says could cost taxpayers up to $2.8 trillion.
But it still has a lot of fans, which shows that the public and the people in charge of their tax dollars have dangerously different levels of knowledge.

When I was the U.S. secretary of energy, safe, efficient, and cheap energy came first. I accepted the right of states to decide how to use natural resources for energy in the best way. But if NERC came and said that keeping the lights on was dangerous, I would at least listen.

Chairman Phillips put it well when he said that being reliable “is and must always be job No. 1.”