As you already may know, today is Ryan Block's last day as editor-in-chief of Engadget, and, consequently, the beginning of my tenure in that same position. If you've ever met Ryan, read his work here on the site (and you'd better have), or seen one of his appearances on television, then you know that he's that rare kind of obsessive technology nerd who also happens to be incredibly erudite and funny. Along with founder Peter Rojas, he made Engadget what it is today, so while there's no question that he'll be missed here, we've got great expectations about his new project, and we're happy to say he'll remain on-board as editor-at-large for columns, advice, and picking up the tab when he's in town.

All of that said, however, I'm incredibly excited about getting started on what tomorrow brings: the next phase of Engadget's evolution. Stepping into the role that Ryan is vacating isn't just about emulating the accomplishments that he and Peter worked for, but building off of those successes and bringing something new to the table, and you can be sure that's what I plan on doing. Still, what's core to Engadget won't change, and we'll continue to be the definitive voice in tech journalism thanks to the tireless work of our team (the best in the industry), and the dedication of the legions of readers that visit this site every day (also the best in the industry). It's a huge honor and challenge to take the reins here, and I know it's going to be an amazing ride.

For most of us here, at some point the sensation of breaking the news takes hold and turns into something else, something much more like an addiction. It really gets into you, keeps you up at night, makes you stay in on weekends. It's in Engadget's DNA, and it's what's kept me glued to the site most waking hours of most days for over four years now.

But fresh challenges can also be addictive, which is why I've decided to step down as editor of this publication in late August so as to start a new company. I'm extremely excited -- but there's also simply no way I can give up working with Engadget that easily, so I'll remain on as editor-at-large, where I'll have a longer-term advisory role to the site (and do some writing from time to time, as well).

I'll be leaving Engadget in the immensely talented hands of Josh Topolsky, whose vision and voice will ensure the site lives up to its legacy as gadget publication nonpareil. Also, Engadget's current Managing Editor Joshua Fruhlinger will soon begin to formally oversee the AOL Tech network, including Switched, TUAW, Download Squad, and the Engadget network. With Josh Topolsky at the helm and Joshua Fruhlinger's stewardship, I have no doubt that Engadget won't just carry on, but will become even better than ever. Read on.

Whoa, hard to believe its been three years since the last internationalized version of Engadget launched, but we're back and have a number of new sites in the pipeline -- kicking off with Engadget in Polish!

Why Polish, you ask? Well, besides the fact that we had some amazing talent waiting in the wings to blow it out, it's also a smaller (dare we say underserved?) market to soft-launch in that allows us to work out the kinks as we prepare to do even more international versions of Engadget in the coming weeks and months.

So if Polish isn't your bag, just hang tight, you'll be seeing even more localized Engadgets soon enough. And if it is, head on over and welcome our Polish team to the fold!

As of a couple redesigns ago, Engadget's content column has been variable width, meaning the wider your browser, the wider the content. Readers with big widescreen monitors can feel the full effect, but we're also cognizant of the reading issues go along with having too much width, so we've been toying with the idea of going back to a fixed-width layout for the site. What do you think, how wide is wide enough for reading Engadget?

You nominated, everybody voted, and the results are in. The winners of the 2007 Engadget Awards are...

It's been well over a year since our last big redesign, which in gadget time means our last design was unveiled circa original Walkman. So we're freshening up the whole joint -- all seven sites -- with a brand new design. Oh, and we're also adding an eighth site to the Engadget network: Switched!

Our latest addition, Switched will be dishing out features for those with a more casual interest in tech, as well as highlighting fresh, hand-picked tech news from our network of sister sites. So expect to see hot stories from Engadget classic, Mobile, HD, TUAW, and Download Squad running over there, as well as news from other geeky Weblogs, Inc. sites like Joystiq, Xbox 360 Fanboy, and Wii Fanboy.

As for Engadget's new design, we went through and really cleaned up the joint, yanking out old modules and ads wherever possible. You might spot our new and improved photo gallery browsing and updated looks on things like comments and polls, but it's hardest to miss the new rotating carousel over on the right. Keep an eye on that thing, it's where we'll be plugging in our biggest stories and must-see features.

Of course, launching eight sites at the same time is bound to cause a few problems, so please tap that first adopter attitude and bear with us as we squish bugs and tweak styles. And definitely hit us up in comments to let us know what you think (or if you see anything wonky)!

P.S. -Big ups to the gang that worked tirelessly to make this happen: Matt, Mark, Erik, Gavin, Celly, Alex, Christoph, Charlie, Marty, and the rest of the crew!

After yesterday's very real and not-at-all-fake story about Deutsche Telekom demanding Engadget discontinue using the color magenta, and today being what it is, we're putting up some new wallpaper on all the Engadget sites and ever so slightly tweaking Engadget Mobile's logo. We hope you approve!

P.S. -In a related side note, our old pals at Phone Scoop pinged us earlier this morning to let us know they've gone magenta for the day in an act of solidarity. Much love, Phone Scoop! Oh, and now so did Phone Arena, Fitch, and GearBits! Also, myself and some other eds are in on the action.

Okay, okay, technically our birthday was yesterday (what, no cake? And you didn't even call?), but we just wanted to take a brief moment to thank you, our ridiculously dedicated, obsessive, and somehow still-growing audience for making Engadget the runaway success it's been. We know it's a cliché, but none of us would have the privilege of doing what we do without your support, and it's pretty hard for any of us to imagine going back to a world where Engadget didn't exist. So thanks!

-Ryan, Peter, and the entire team at Engadget

P.S. -Stick close by, we'll be having a giveaway in a little bit.
P.P.S. -And yes, contrary to popular belief, we are both four years old and were also somehow around in 1985.

You may have heard a little something about the Greener Gadgets Conference, a gathering in New York focused on cleaner, renewable, recyclable, or generally forward-thinking technology and design. At the end of the one-day event, Core77 editor-in-chief Allan Chochinov MC'd a showcase of entrants to a design competition held by the Greener Gadgets team, which were then vetted and discussed by co-organizer (and Inhabitat editor-in-chief) Jill Fehrenbacher, Valerie Casey of IDEO and The Designers Accord, and our own special-somebody, Ryan Block. When the dust settled, first prize went to crowd favorite Ener-Jar -- a DIY project which allows you to easily view how much energy an appliance is using. Second place was snapped up by the Gravia, a gravity-based lamp which generates its own power by slowly dropping a weight in its center. The third place spot was nabbed by the Green Cell Universal Battery, a standardized battery which could be swapped out in vending machines. Sure, they probably won't inspire you to trade in your gas-guzzling Hummer for a bike any time soon, but this stuff might at least get you thinking in the right direction. Check the video after the break to see how it all went down.

Long time Engadget readers know it's been a while since we've seen a service outage during Steve Jobs keynotes, which basically come close to making asplode the internets. Today, unfortunately, we did see some issues -- we're hosted by AOL, which obviously has more bandwidth than God, and yet still two data centers went out. Of course, there are far more data centers hosting us than just two, so a lot of readers saw no issues whatsoever. We are already in the midst of a post-mortem, but it's pretty clear you all must really love what we've got going on here, because this was easily our most trafficked live coverage to date.

The upshot, of course, is that we're fully back online right now and anticipate zero further issues throughout the day. So head on over and hit up our hands-ons and check out all the news of all the new Apple gear! Don't worry, we can handle it.

Apple MacBook Air first hands-on
Apple TV Take 2 hands-on

The MacBook Air
The MacBook Air SuperDrive
Meet the new MacBook family
Apple introduces Time Capsule, a NAS companion to Time Machine
Apple unveils the Apple TV, take 2
iPhone firmware 1.1.3 update announced: it's just like we heard
Apple introduces iTunes movie rentals, HD rentals
Live from Macworld 2008: Steve Jobs keynote

Hard to believe, but the 150,000 some-odd people that flooded into Vegas for CES have all gone home -- including your Engadget editors. Sure, it wasn't the most exciting CES in recent memory, but it wasn't without merit, either. Why, just think of the eight thousand HDTVs announced, blockbuster format war news, or iriver's unexpectedly show-stealing lineup. One thing's certainly for sure: you demanded we give wall-to-wall coverage of CES, and we'd like to hope we did you right. See you at CES 2009 -- and every day in between!

The strangest things happen to Engadget editors at CES -- I spent 20 minutes hanging backstage at G4TV with "David" before I realized who he was.

Indeed it was a banner year here at Engadget -- completely thanks to you, of course. Google may have its Zeitgeist, but we figured we could at least cap things off with a few lists of the most well-read posts of 2007 (and a few stats, to boot). Also, don't forget to check out the lists at Engadget Mobile and Engadget HD! See you in 2008!

Top 20 most trafficked posts of 2007 (in order)

1. Live from Macworld 2007: Steve Jobs keynote
2. Steve Jobs live -- Apple's "The beat goes on" special event
3. Live from Apple's summer Mac product press conference
4. The Apple iPhone
5. Steve Jobs live from WWDC 2007
6. Xbox 360 Elite: new, black limited edition Xbox with HDMI and 120GB drive
7. iPhone unlocked: AT&T loses iPhone exclusivity, August 24, 2007, 12:00PM EDT
   
8. iPhone review
9. The second Xbox 360 revealed: codename Zephyr
10. Nokia's iPhone -- no, seriously
11. Live from Apple's "Mum is no longer the word" event in London
12. Apple keynote: live from NAB 2007
13. Is this the new iMac keyboard?
14. iPhone & LG KE850: separated at birth?
15. The Wii Laptop!
16. Apple's iPod touch gets official
17. The Motorola RAZR 2
18. LG's KE850 PRADA official: iPhone says, wha?
19. Leopard vs. Vista: feature chart showdown
20. Xbox 360 Elite vs. classic: the test

Man, people really seem to like Apple. Click on for more.

It's always nice to be recognized, especially by those high-caliber tech journos like Steven Levy, who gave Engadget a shout out in the intro to his new book, The Best of Technology Writing 2007:

"It is nonetheless true that some blog writing doesn't translate well to the medium of print. And so the excellent ongoing work in places like Engadget, Scripting News, TechCrunch, and other real-time dispatches doesn't appear here. ..." [Page 6]

Granted, we'd prefer to have a piece in the book, but the first to get namechecked? We won't kick it out of bed. Much love, Señor Levy.

Those paying close attention won't be surprised to find out that today marks a special day in the history of Engadget. It brings us no small amount of pride to help announce a dear friend and cohort's new venture: Peter Rojas, who founded Engadget, Joystiq, and Gizmodo, is launching his latest company today, RCRD LBL.

A joint venture with Downtown Records (who retain such acts as Gnarles Barkley and Cold War Kids), RCRD LBL represents a completely fresh take on the distribution structure of music, offering all-digital, all-free music for streaming or download without DRM. Yeah, seriously, free, unrestricted, legal music downloads. RCRD LBL's catalogue already has music from partner labels like Warp and Dim Mak, too, with tracks from a few artists you may have heard from like Mos Def, Bloc Party, and The Stills.

Of course, anyone who knows Pete knows he's one of the few people in this world fanatic enough about both technology and music to pull something like this off. So feel free to head on over to RCRD LBL and show some love -- and try not to blow up their servers too badly, ok? It's only day one for these guys.

-Ryan

P.S. -Oh, and no, this doesn't mean we're letting Peter go so easily. We've managed to retain his services a while longer, so those worried about missing out on some of his amazing and instantly recognizable writing need not worry, because he's still a part of team Engadget.