Slashdot Mirror

Will the dual processor nature of these Intels make emulators like Qemu faster? XP in Virtual PC on a G4 is barely useable for Internet Explorer. I'm hoping Mactel means faster emulation and XP in Qemu on OS X with good performance.
No, the dual processor nature will not.

However, the Intel nature most definitely WILL.

Rather than a 5:1 performance slowdown, expect 1.2 or 1.1:1

x86 is easy to virutalize on x86. The problem with Qemu is running x86 code on PPC. In fact, these new Intel Core Duo's have VT, which is Intel's transparent virtualization technology. You'll be able to have Linux, OS X, and Windows Vista all running simulataneously, with the only performance degredation being resource starvation. This means minimal overhead; just the same amount of numbers being crunched per second, distributed among your running processes.

Proof of vanderpool (VT)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core
http://www.wirelessnewsfactor.com/story.xhtml?stor y_id=40711

Xen and Vanderpool:
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/ar chives/2005/06/the_way_of_xen.html

I hate to use a cliche, but the future is now.

And neither does the FCC know if that is legal. This story talks about using buildings to block the signal

While it is clearly illegal to jam the signal their is nothing against constructing buildings that jams the signal by just the nature of how the radio signal travels through the building.

HEre an article on home to legal jam cell phones.

SCOs published claims both from press releases, news reports and their own complaint are about IBM putting "enterprise" technology into Linux: NUMA, JFS, RCU, SMP etc. None of these things apply in the least to embedded systems running out of ROM on a consumer electronic device. Whats up with that?

John Deere already includes GPS on some of their equipment. Check this out. Your idea may not be as far-fetched as you think.

This is already being worked on. In Canada, for example. You can buy jammers. Here [theregister.co.uk] and here [theregister.co.uk] are two articles with more info.

I'm very skeptical of these kinds of devices. For example, how many people really want stock quotes on their watches? Is there real value in that? How is a stock ticker on a watch significantly better than a stock ticker on a PDA or cell phone? Also, beyond the cool factor, how important is atomic time to Joe Sixpack? Let's face it, if it isn't significantly better, then only technogeeks will care about it. It'll die a quick death. But wait, there's more. The other factor is this. Even if the product is significantly better in terms of functionality, if the usability sucks then uptake of the product in the market could be minimal. IMHO there are many strikes against these products becoming mainstream products any time soon.

1. More on usability: webword.com (Disclaimer: This is one of my web sites.)

2. Bell Labs Reports on Progress Towards "Dick Tracy" Watch

3. Check Out a Watch Dick Tracy Would Envy

4. IBM stuffs Linux into "Dick Tracy's watch"

5. A User Interface Toolkit for a Small Screen Device

6. Is Timing Ripe for Wrist PDAs?

It seems that Cometa networks, formed by tech giants AT&T, Intel, and IBM, will be the company to turn nationwide Wi-Fi into a reality. They plan on unrolling 20,000 access points across the top 50 U.S. metropolitan areas in two years. The service will be sold wholesale, and it's estimated that consumers will be able to access the network for between $10-$20 per month. The Times article mentions Cometa, but this Wireless NewsFactor article goes into more detail. And of course there is the company's own website as well.

See this article..

Suddenly, seeing one of those "wireless communications make people happier" commercials shortly before seeing one of those "Marijuana funds terrorism" infomercials has become more ironic.

You don't have to. This tech already exists. Canada was looking at legislation to put jamming fields in certain areas.

Look at this for more info.

Loudly ringing mobile phones in cinemas/theatres deserve to be pelted with jaffas. You can recycle the jaffas already on the floor.

According to a British Insurance company, using cell phones or mobile phones handsfree or not, makes the driver more dangerous than a drunk driver. Now imagine a drunk driver on the phone and you have a killing machine. Terrorism at home.

Other things that are bad for driving are

• conversation with passenger when driver insists on eye contact. At least the passenger can watch the road and scream.
• trying to change a tape or cd while driving,
• having sex while driving
• smoking while driving
• eating or drinking. Nothing like dropping a milkshake in the driver's lap to cause a prang.
• having a large hairy spider crawl out of the air vent (fortunately managed to pull over safely before jumping out of the vehicle and screaming).
• getting a flat tyre while travelling at speed on a bad road
• tailgating a truck when it has a blowout.
• mosquitos in the car. trying to kill the mosquito or blow fly while driving
• small children fighting in the back. For gods sake, mum and dad, pull over.
• driving while really angry. like after getting a speeding ticket.
• driving with a dog in your lap (and its head out the window)
• getting changed for basketball game in driver's seat while passenger steers and changes gears
• swerving around an (imaginary) animal on a narrow winding hill road.
• using a street directory or map while driving.
• thinking that a truck can pull up quick enough to avoid you when you cut infront in your tiny 4 cylinder car
• thinking that a truck coming at you on a narrow country road will pull off the road to let you and your caravan drive down the centre of the road.
• roadside advertising, specifically designed to attract driver's attention to the sign and away from the road.

wireless news article on study of mobile phone users driving reaction times

car accident story

another car accident story

links to more info

I would like to see the statics on that. Here is what I can find on using a cell phone.

Understanding what you mean now, I think we totally agree.

Glad to see we're on the same page and we're not just starting another slashdot flamewar. I'm also glad we agree. I'm not against any new technologies as long as they're not abused in a way that could endanger other people.

I took this view specifically about cell phones because of several incidents that occured in this area (an especially congested area known for its bad drivers), and because of studies such as:
Direct Line reported that the results showed drivers' reaction times were, on average, 30 percent slower when talking on a handheld mobile phone than when legally drunk -- and nearly 50 percent slower than under normal driving conditions.

http://www.wirelessnewsfactor.com/perl/story/16908 .html

The press release doesn't really go into detail, so I don't know how similar (or disparate) the respective IBM and Samsung solutions are. They do both have the same net effect for users: non-volatile main memory.

This is cool stuff, but what hasn't been said is that as long as operating systems and applications leak memory, there will be a need for reboots.

Ciao.

It's far from clear. The wireless companies are trying to push this, but you have to ask why? I think the answer is that the market has become saturated. Anyone who wants one can get a cell phone for a few bucks a month. The only way that they can increase their income is by charging more, and the only way they can do this is by offering new services. However, this does not automatically mean that people will adopt them. Current estimates of the costs of 3G data is about $170 for 10Mb of data monthly. This would put your star trek out of the price that most people would pay. Unfortunatly the goverments around the world saw the spectrum requirements for 3G as a way to make money (22 Billion pounds in the UK, almost 100 Billion DM in Germany), plus the cost of building a new network. These have to be paid back, and that means expensive services.

3G might become the next big thing, or it might become the next Iridium.

Not true. When your cell phone is on and broadcasting, there is a thing called multipath in which your signal bounces off of trees and buildings and such on its way to the cell antenna. Normally, that's a problem. But the best way to track users to satisfy the e911 requirement is to plot the multipath on every street, using in the guy who presented this at a conference I attended--college kids in wired up vans driving up and down every street in every city. So when you fire up your cell in a city that has been mapped, your position is tracked quite well. here is a pretty cool set of links about it. a patent story and the main culprits/innovators, US Wireless and their product, including some demo links. Oh, I just revisted the site, and it appears that the demo they had of a car driving around on the freeway in Oakland isn't there anymore. Too bad, it was scary.

Your not the first developers to face this dilemna

Wireless News Factor
C|NET

And the list goes on and on. One of the measures you guys should try to take, is follow on AOL's steps to make money on their client and offer some sort of revenue generating scheme for AOL in an effort to have them allow you to use their services (bandwidth ,connection to their servers, etc.), maybe your team should code an exact replica and allow AOL to pay you for the revisional code to allow *nix based clients to use the IM, this way AOL could continue to spam people with their messages, (banner revenue generation bs), and since its open sourced the typical geek would know how to chop this up.

This way AOL is happy they continue to gain revenue by selling ad space via GAIM, FAIM, etc., while you guys continue to provide your products, and make some side money off of it. Don't expect however AOL to just sit by pay for your programs bandwidth, then lose money while they own the servers your clients to connect to. Its not feasbile in a business sense and downright stupid.