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The Disposable Computer
sp00 writes "A disposable paperboard computer has been developed and is already in use in Sweden. Developed by Cypak AB, the paperboard computer can collect, process, and exchange several pages of encrypted data, the company says." Pretty impressive, given that they say it has a mere 32K of memory.
Jeez, no one would ever want to buy that underpowered machine! Give me 640k, and we will talk. ;-)
Who needs more than 32k of memory anyway?
Jay | http://oldos.org
I remember when a 32K Commodore PET was a cool thing. ... Just imagine a cluster .... in a three ring binder.
If they print double sided could they emulate a Commodore 64.
In a few more years
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
For that to go from decent home computer to disposable.
If I get Windows running on this thing (with 32k!) and I get a BSOD, do I just throw it away and get a new one instead of a reboot? Or even better, could I mail it to MS and ask for a new one?
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
A computer you use for a few days and then throw away? Hell, Dell's like twenty years ahead in that market.
..a computer I can actually wipe my ass with when I get pissed at it.
So what's the payout for collecting pounds of these and returning them to my local recycling center?
The difference between disposable and classic is age. My three year old PC is disposable. My 15 year old PC is a classic and goes for $9,000 on Ebay.
The only thing necessary for Micro$oft to triumph is for a few good programmers to do nothing". North County Computers
Imagine....a Beowulf cluster of these!
*sigh*
I don't get it. Why a computer that's disposable? Sure, I can understand disposable razors or diapers, but computers?
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
By the time the box puts a 5 lb hard drive in, they'd upgrade to the beige metal box high end model.
March 4, 2004 (11:40 a.m. EST)
By W. David Gardner, TechWeb News
A disposable paperboard computer has been developed and is already in use in Sweden. Developed by Cypak AB, the paperboard computer can collect, process, and exchange several pages of encrypted data, the company says.
"Initially, it will be used in industrial-specific applications as an enhanced and secure RFID device," said Cypak marketing director Strina Ehrensvard in an email. "Today, in pharmaceutical and courier packaging as a data-collection device; tomorrow maybe for interactive books, lotteries, passports, and voting cards."
With just 32 Kbytes of memory, the paperboard computer's functionality is somewhat limited at present, but the firm believes its future will be broad. Cypak has entered into an agreement in the U.S. with MeadWestvaco Healthcare Packaging, which has marketing rights to the product and technology in the Americas.
Ehrensvard said the device is currently in use in a trial sponsored by a Swedish university involving compliance monitoring of pharmaceutical packaging. The trial tracks when a medicine tablet has been taken out of a package; it is then placed on a Cypak scanner connected to a PC on which the information can be viewed and stored. Ehrensvard said the paperboard computer is being considered in another healthcare application, as well: doctors would use it to help authenticate the administration of pharmaceuticals.
The Cypak product utilizes RFID technology that is based on printable sensors and electronic modules. The components are integrated on a variety of products, ranging from packaging and plastic cards to adhesives. In healthcare applications, Cypak says the paperboard computer time-stamps medicine dosages, which can be integrated with a patient's electronic diary. It can deliver sound reminders, too.
Cypak has also developed a companion device--a smart card with an integrated numerical keypad. The firm expects this to be used initially in applications demanding high security. By entering a unique PIN on a card, a user can connect to the Internet and exchange data. Cypak says the card's encryption can't be copied or broken, enabling it to deliver "military-class security."
"The paperboard computer concept and the PIN-on-Card are the same core technology--components integrated in different products," Ehrensvard said. "They exchange information to a PC with the same reader."
Cypak offers the components on an OEM basis for about $1 each. The firm added that OEM components for its readers are available for approximately the same price in large volumes.
The firm has developed a tamper-proof package technology with the Swedish Postal Service. Called SecurePak, the packaging technology stores sender and receiver relevant data and alerts receivers of any possible package tampering before the package is opened.
Cypak will demo the products at the CeBIT 2004 exposition, in Hannover, Germany, later this month.
unlike other cultures, they make a computer that can do what they say it can on paper!
Well, with this configuration the power receptacles would take up more room than the cluster nodes. So imagine 1,000,000 of these in a box the size of a filing cabinet? And along these lines, can you unplug it and store it with your other files?
The only thing necessary for Micro$oft to triumph is for a few good programmers to do nothing". North County Computers
Their mod specialist Yoshi DeHerrera will show off a cardboard case PC. (Web story is already posted here.)
This was actually a delayed segment from last week. Yoshi cut his hand working on setting up his demo on how he did it last time he tried to do this segment. He needed to leave the studio to get stitches and missed most of the show as a result.
even that whiz-bang new computer that you just bought that's not made of cardboard...
the future complication may only be just where you can dispose if it given the environmental concerns.
Forget about clustering, I want to see someone overclock one of these without the thing smoking and going up in flames!
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
In Soviet Russia...
the computer disposes of YOU!
*ducks*
Now I can use my disposable cell phone to dial up and post my photos from my disposable digital camera and ask disney why I cant find anymore disposable dvds.
Oops. Better get back to work. Else no disposable income.
Well, it seems we will finally be able to refer to something as truly a "Notebook computer"
68.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Look at pr0n then shred the evidence...
Somebody help me: I keep my todo/dates, todo/tasks, books/want, books/have, tidbits in a plain Unix text file and I maintain it with a text editor and print it using a2ps -2. My life fits in two columns landscape mode.
Whenever I need it, I print it, at a cost of 17 cents on my inkjet. When I need to update it, I simply use a pen and "sync" at home later.
I can fold it, put it in my pocket, access the data randomly instantly, and easily add graphics or test with a 0% error rate. However it gets expensive at 17 cents per sync.
All I need is a little bit of memory (32k) and a read-only display screen, super-tiny, and cheap as hell. If America wasn't ass-backwards, I'd just SMS the stuff to my cell phone.
As an employee at Microsoft I had TWO of the top of the line PocketPCs : I played quake on them, wrote some C programs, and put them away as toys. I need to do WORK, as a technical person, not a salesman. All I need is digital paper.
What can I use?
People bitch at Americans for being the wasteful throwaway society, but it seems all our advances in disposable technology comes from the swedes.
I mean theres this, and everything from Ikea, which is essentially disposable. I bought a dresser there that lasted about a month before the drawers fell apart.
Is it just ikea and this, or is it some cultural thing?
Oblig Futurama reference: "Enjoy yer afferdabel svedish crap"
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Cypak has also developed a companion device--a smart card with an integrated numerical keypad. The firm expects this to be used initially in applications demanding high security. By entering a unique PIN on a card, a user can connect to the Internet and exchange data. Cypak says the card's encryption can't be copied or broken, enabling it to deliver "military-class security."
Hmmm, so the password is entered directly on the card and stored in the magnetic strip along with the rest of the data - now the card has all the security info on the strip? Gee that'll make the crooks life harder!
Wow those sellers of card readers on ebay are going to make a killing with this one.
while sco {
wget -O
}
sure a beowulf cluster of them would be cool, but then they'll generate enough heat to burn themselves! ;) :(
i suppose you could invest in some fancy cooling, like a liquid-based system... then your computers are soggy
I know - because that's how much RAM my Radio Shack Model 1 had after I'd purchased the add-on module and populated it with the extra 16K of RAM (the main module could only handle 16K) and before I pushed the limits by moving to 48K.
Note that the module plus 32K extra RAM (to bring the system to 48K) was about $2,000 Canadian at the time.
This is not insignificant - at least not if you've ever used something other than Windoze ;)
Been there, done that, paid for the T-shirt
and didn't get it
"My dog ate my computer sir"
Cypak says the card's encryption can't be copied or broken...
...
AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
*whew*! I needed that.
You insensitive CLOD...
Jay | http://oldos.org
There are devices marketed as calculators that have more than 32k of memory these days...
:)
High-end wristwatches are starting to behave like low-powered computers with a small black and white pixel-based display, the beeping speaker, and ability to accept wireless input. We're not calling those computers, just "smart watches".
So, this really is more about "smart paper"... paper with a few chips in it and therefore the ability to beep. Only a small upgrade over the musical greeting card.
Sweden already makes disposable cars, so I guess progressing into the PC business is natural enough...
Somebody's been playing too much Paranoia again.
This could be real handy when you need to distroy the encryption device without a trace that it ever existed.
A spy gets caught with what looks like a fussy picture of her family stored in the spy's pda. And with no trace of a encryption device, I guess it must be just a bad picture.
Sometime within the next 20 years, if we continue this trend, we're going to have more crap IN landfills than we will actually in service.
Does anyone else think this sounds similar in aplication and design to the RFID's in the center of the new twenties? You know the story a while back about the twenties in the microwave... Or maybe I'm just a poor college student reasuring myself that it's a good thing I have no money.. eh..
I always wanted some Windows toilet paper
Table-ized A.I.
How do they read a cardboard monitor? In fact, how do they write to it?
I'm still waiting on the disposable cell-phone .....
wouldn't a beowulf cluster of these.. be a book?
Cypak says the card's encryption can't be copied or broken, enabling it to deliver "military-class security."
sigh.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
They're probably great at running Folding@Home.
that that is is that that is not is not
Why climb everest?
I think you'll find the answer to both questions is "why not?"
Not so. The true answer to all questions is: "to improve my chances of getting laid".
-kgj
-kgj
Haha! Just imagine: Mead producing yellow paper ledgers with these to compete with tablet PCs =D
Does this mean that a computer and a printer can reproduce?
while sco {
wget -O
}
"Who would ever want more than 16K?" He said it to Woz when Woz was designing the Apple II. Woz wanted to put socketing for 16, 32 or 48K on the motherboard, as opposed to the 16K limit of the Apple I. Jobs was also against the color capabilities. Woz built them in anyway.
When Jobs hoisted the pirate flag and built the Mac, he specifically left out expandability and color on purpose. It wasn't because of technical considerations, as the Apple IIgs was in design at the same time as the Mac. It was computer design by temper tantrum.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
When you run out of memory, just add a 'scratch pad' and malloc some more 'pages'.
'Scratch space' wasn't meant to be taken littlerally!
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH goatse.cx link!!!!!!!11 You're a bad man.
So much for the paperless office...
Perhaps they can get it to run Windows, sell them on rolls and I'll be able to wipe my butt with Microsoft on a daily basis.
John.
Quote from flashing Adobe ad on /. front page...
"And I need to design paper forms that are identical to the paper ones"
while sco {
wget -O
}
Note that the module plus 32K extra RAM (to bring the system to 48K) was about $2,000 Canadian at the time.
This is misleading. At the time the Model 1 was released, $2000 Canadian is only equivalent to $22.40 U.S.
tattooing computers on disposable employees
(to better manage the workforce inventory)
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
...the paperboard computer can collect, process, and exchange several pages of encrypted data, the company says.
What do they mean by process? It sounds more like data storage. This is quite different than a computer. What kind of calculations (or computations) can it do?
All of the examples could easily be implemented on this paper computer with nothing more than a clever encoding scheme and be decoded by a real electronic computer (PDA) with a scanner.
In short this sound like a new type of ticker tape. The PDA and scanner would be the "Turing machine" (or processor).
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
Imagine me beating you over the head with a Beouwulf drain pipe for being the first one to come up with that redundant response to a /. posting!
"In the future, you're going to get computers as prizes in breakfast cereals.
You'll throw them away because your house will be littered with them."
-Robert Lucky; c. 1984
This might be a good time for me to start learning parallel architectures.
However, it's right up there for the applications they outline - pharmecutical inventory tracking where a vial of drugs can cost a couple of grand.
I thought eMachines and Gateways were disposable machines... Perhaps these guys have exceeded that mark?
Paranoid, poorly informed, easily-led leftist-wannabe asshat.
32K is a lot of RAM
These days, relatively high-level CAD functions can be done with a $599 el-cheepo machine (I still wonder why some 3DLabs cards cost $1K).
Aside from modelling the entire universe and rotating it, texturized and shaded, in real-time, why does anyone need a videocard that costs more than, say, $500? Is this why Intergraph went out of the hardware business?
My experience has been in relatively complex models of large piping systems, and today's processors, affordable RAM and displays seem to be OK to me for design/visualization purposes when I need to do design.
Then again, when in doubt, I use the old tried-and-true drafting table. Freaks out the new-tech morons.
At least it will be easy to case mod!
I just can't be bothered.
...a ream of these paper computers.
Reminds me of those cardboard box forts I used to build as a kid. Except this time ... er... Fuck, I'm too tired to think of something witty.
blah.
S
bah.
Only mankind would be self-centered enough to think of creating something so valuable with the intent to throw it away. I've had my qualms about other things we throw away, but this really takes the cake.
The power of Christ compiles you.
A Random Blog
It's interesting that you mentioned the US government--because I didn't. Some things just kinda flow naturally, don't they, AC?
For the record, however, let me state emphatically--the US government should be allowed to have as many disposable computers as they like. Hell, they're losing notebooks loaded with classified info all the time as it is; this would just make it more affordable.
For CAD you might get by. I've got no experience with CAD software. But for 3d modelling and rendering, the state of the art truly still isn't fast enough. A fast graphics card is necessary for showing the textured model on the fly. The better the card, the better this model, the easier it is to work on and see how it'll look compared to the real thing. The better the processor, the faster the render, the less time you have to wait to see the final product (and for a high-quality complex render, that wait is a pretty long time).
It's good that people are catching on that they don't need the fastest machine anymore for pretty much anything. But there are still a few specialized tasks for which you do.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =2789658017&category=4610
Amazing!!!
Let's get this copy- and crack-proof encryption on everything!!
Hmm... perhaps Cypak are a little too confident about their encryption..??
Important info:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
http://dieoff.org/synopsis.htm
http://www.peakoil.net
Can I make a beowulf cluster with that? ;D
Boss:
Jim, where have you been and where is the data?
Jim:
I uh, we just had a core dump, all the data has been flushed.
I wonder if /. can set things up so that any story related to a piece of hardware would get an automatic "imagine a beowulf cluster blah, blah blah" post from anonymous coward. Seems as if it would save a lot of valuable time for /.'ers.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
with Slashdot when 95% of Score:5 comments to such an interesting article are "Funny." That having been said, I believe that our community as a whole (id est Slashdot at large) seems to completely lack any professionalism regarding cryptography by writing on the front page that "the paperboard computer can collect, process, and exchange several pages of encrypted data, the company says." which is supposedly 'Pretty impressive, given that they say it has a mere 32K of memory.' Surprise: To "collect, process, and exchange several pages of encrypted data" you don't need million times more memory than said data! Film at 11! What will be "impressive" next? The fact that strong crypto can use only few cycles per byte on general purpose processor? Wow! How impressive! Really? I don't need 4GHz Pentium 5 with 4GB of RAM to "collect, process, and exchange several pages of encrypted data"?
Give me a break! This article is great news and really worth reading, but for much more important reasons than those that kids today think that you need ten hundred megabytes of ram to encrypt and store ten kilobytes of plain text. I, for one, feel insulted by such article summaries, because everyone who knows that I am a Slashdot user might think that I must be completely incompetent looking at the front page.
I might only suggest for everyone who wishes to post stories about cryptography to read at least Applied Cryptography by Bruce Schneier first. This is the absolute minimum if you don't want to make an idiot out of yourself. Why cannot we talk about the serious implications of using RFID technology to build this machine instead of posting completely unintelligent jokes in the lines of "Imagine a beowulf cluster of those! It might have 640kB of RAM! Who needs more?" This is stupid at best and insulting at worst. I urge you to start posting insightful, informative or at least interesting posts before it is too late and this discussion is already archived.
What I am personally most concerned about is how disposable are the active and passive (semi-)conductor elements which are printed on this boards. Does anyone have any experience in disposing them? It is not very clear in the article.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Is it allowed to call itself a "computer"?
Yes.
One can even build a "computer" out of tinker toys if so inclined. It wouldn't have the specs you're used to, but it's still a computer.
Life is too short to proofread.
I believe the word you are looking for is "props."
Karma: Marginal (mostly due to the border around the website)
Hmmm, I seem to have purchased several computers in my days that turned out to be disposable. I don't think this is a new idea. Of course, each time I bought a new machine (8088, 286, 386 ...) I thought it was the bees knees that would never be replaced. The only new thing would be pricing them at a level that didn't make buying a new machine extremely painful. Also admitting a limited lifecycle upfront is a new idea.
Of course, on the battle front, there is a large number of computers that only get to live for a few moments before going out in a blaze of glory.
I think this internet thing sounds like a good idea
Very handy for when the SCO cops show up. Quick, everybody, flush the computers down the toilet!
"32K is a lot of RAM. It's enough to do a fairly useful voice recognition system, or word processor, or even spreadsheet."
WordStar takes 8k...
Elite, one of the best Sci-Fi computer games ever, was developed on a 32K computer.
Ah, well, lets see. On a "normal computer" (P4, 1.8ghz, 512mb) one of our customer regularly spend 45mins rendering their CAD stuff. Now we supplied them with a new computer
Dual Xeon 2.8ghz
2GB RAM
Matrox 650 Video Card
And now thier rendering is at 7mins. They paid AUD$10000 for it (US$8000 approx). But they are more than happy with the result.
My point is there are still applications out there that require a lot of grunt, and the video card does play a role, small it might be but it adds up.
Ah, well, lets see. On a "normal computer" (P4, 1.8ghz, 512mb) one of our customer regularly spend 45mins rendering their CAD stuff. Now we supplied them with a new computer Dual Xeon 2.8ghz 2GB RAM Matrox 650 Video Card And now thier rendering is at 7mins. They paid AUD$10000 for it (US$8000 approx). But they are more than happy with the result. My point is there are still applications out there that require a lot of grunt, and the video card does play a role, small it might be but it adds up.
What kind of CAD were they doing?
I can't think of *any* CAD work that would take 7 minutes, unless you're talking about animation rendering. What I'm talking about is computer/software response time so that the designer has an adequate view of what he's doing.
I commend you. You are in a position where you can say that two hundred fifty dollars for a 20 year-old obsolete computer isn't "a bundle."
The first computer I used had an architectural limit of 8192 39bit words (none of this power of two rubbish), and the fastest instruction took 576ms (2.4kips). Somebody heroically modified it to act as a timesharing system for 3 terminals.
The first computer I built had a massive 128 bytes; never did manage to fill it up with anything useful.
Dilbert had to contend with this years ago... too lazy to find link in archive, use your imagination...
"They locked up a man who wanted to rule the world, the fools, they locked up the wrong man! L.Cohen
No new technology seems to be involved, some comments would lead one to believe that there was some inkjet printed circuitry involved and that it is a paper computer. Not so, I could see no evidence of this.
Y XN DuXjmUV8L4csZfu f23F4H6t48GNwxex SEvRGke8favAC0V JJP5dGsm3o86FXxB kGobiHr/3FAAURW RAeWFob28uY29tPo kAlQMFEEBH2CQZe MxN16fSQGNSFZ/hA eedRDP9rHMqpGXh Bvu4wgIk2OQzubGM LVIjHcV0kRQiqjL xod4kZHCDxFizUkh bs6mudzzmN
The pin on card product looks like it has some applications.
To order the development kit which includes a usb reader and two cards was 500 pounds(the money sort) the license to get this kit did not allow any reverse engineering or disassembly so it would not seem well suited to determining just how secure it is, they also reserved the right to take the equipment back. Postage and handling was another 100 pounds.
I use an RSA secureID it has a keypad and numeric lcd, this does everything except the contactless is achieved by reading the correct number off the lcd.
One of the goals of having a keypad on the card is to prevent the pin going through untrusted chanels and for achieving this I say bravo! every access card should have this feature, however combine to a wirless power and comms means you have to put it down on a reader surface.
Ignoring cameras I still wonder how easy it would be to steal the pin by sensing the pressure through the card as it is used. Of course the card would still need to be stolen. Mind you if the reader is untrusted then how can you even be sure what your authorising?
The package dispensing is a fancy birthday card as someone else mentioned, the pin on card is only good to tell a remote and trusted web site that yes it really is you and I'd still trust my RSA SecureID over this.
What is truely needed is a card or cheap pda (cost similar to card) that has a keypad and a display big enough to display an incoming request.
This can then be aurthorised (signed) and the response sent. Contactless is important for security but enough distance so that emissions and key pressure do not factor in. IR beaming is probably the best, keeping it low power and rechargable should not be insurmountable problems.
Once something like that is built then untraceable digital cash and communications would be instantly realizable. Once you have secure comms and finance then all other freedoms are possible.
If you wish to help build such a device or would be a potential user of it then by all means contact me.
-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: PGPfreeware 6.5.8 for non-commercial use
mQCNA0BH2CQAAAEEAOPWa1ggC5SxV+CSOJUF0u47ZjRr7Rf
N5ks+ALXtga4GyWuEyUWFiGvik/jCdQTQ
BMv+crgfmYF0//yAZLZnaemyTWttBvqfu
tCNZb3VzZWYgQWhtZWQgPHlvc2VmYWhtZ
BqG4h6/9xQEBnJcD/1dFH+HIQouQR9VY+
7siNbJ66Mecc1XQCtNnZpKiKUsGZ4Psos
xg3ZIIu04RMaROpvSYc88dygnjjxMciZt
=iTJe
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Parent makes a good point. What about the board elements? Are they disposable as well?
For it is good and informative and a fine use of the anonymous function.
I can see it right away: We swedes have long been taunted for our wooden shoes and wooden houses. Imagine what (basically) wooden COMPUTERS would do to our image. Sigh.
(Seriously, for the benefit of a non-American, what does it abbreviate in this context?)
Tamper proof? Riiight.
bah "32k should be enough for anybody!"
:)
"Cypak says the card's encryption can't be copied or broken, enabling it to deliver "military-class security.""
^ well fate is tempted. I'd say slashdotters will take about 3 months to crack it after being distributed commonly...
A blog I run for the wealth
word processor yes
spreadsheet yes
voice recognition system Not a chance
they cant get that working decently with 2Ghz of processor speed and 512 meg of ram.
Yes, it certainly was. The Mac was not Apple's first computer with a mouse and a graphical interface. That was the Lisa, which nobody bought, because it was too expensive. A colour Mac would have required a huge frame buffer in order to provide adequate resolution. The memory costs of this would have pushed the price too high. Also, the 7MHz CPU was not fast enough to draw text and windows on a colour graphics display (again, unless the resolution was too small to be useful).
And keep in mind that the Lisa, despite its immense cost, was also black and white. So was the Xerox Star (another failed GUI computer that cost too much).
The Mac was not the first personal computer with a GUI. It was the first GUI computer that was cheap enough for ordinary people to buy. The hardware limitations you mention were necessary to keep the cost down.
Doug Moen
I have written a truly remarkable program which this sig is too small to contain.
No doubt the design was first roughed out on the back of a notebook PC!
AT&ROFLMAO
We throw away a mobile phone each every 12 months - what's the definition of disposable?
Good morning Mr. Phelps. The documents you are viewing are... Your mission, should you decide to accept it... This computer will be recyclable in 60 seconds. Please deposit it in the nearest cardboard recycling bin.
"Crash and burn" gets a whole new meaning with theese "computers"
Do I need to add anything to the subject?
eMachines have already been out for years.
If you think
So now we can become a truly paperless society, once they come out with version 1.0 of WipeMe for this system...
Non-Linux Penguins ?
No, it should be "War and Peace". Much more power to the user.
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
Yup, looks like we're going back to punchcards. Now THAT's news!
although I don't think one associates "getting laid" with "prison rape". Maybe that's just why the other inmates think when the new one is asking why he's going to prison...
All the computers I have bought have been disposale. None of then have lasted over 2 years.
War isn't about who's right. It's about who's left.
They already did.
Timex Sinclair. Also useful as a doorstop.
Zenith tried using paper/cardboard circuit boards in their televisions once and it was a complete failure. It seems that many of the televisions arrived at stores and simply would not work out of the box. Turns out that the vibrations created during shipping was enough to break the circuit boards and forced them to recall the sets and replace the boards with ones that weren't as flimsy.
Big difference between voice recognition and text-to-speach. I strongly suspect you meant the latter. :)
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
I wonder if this guy will be remembered? He tried to do it in the US ten years ago.
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
A year or so ago, we read about annonucement of a printable comptuer..
Was going to be uses by the US census.. And was never heard from again...
What ever happened to them?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
you might be kidding, but i think of the people back then were clever enough to warrant the old style definition of hacker :)
Computers were designed and built by engineers (directed by theorticians). But they were programmed by the same women who used to run the adding machines! Though usually they were women with a college degree, often in math.
At that time, programming the computer was often seen as 'below' the designers who built the thing and not a particularly manly job. Given this, its little surprise that many of early advancements in programming were done by women. Grace Hopper's development of mnemonics comes to mind and the invention of the compiler.
Though in the western world this attitude has done a complete 180 (men are much more common as programmers), there are still some places in the world where programming is often seen as a more womanly job.
-
Well, Mr. Maztuhblastah (if that is your real name), there is indeed no "e" in "Hose" but "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH ACUTE" (0xE9) but for some reason Slashdotcode don't let me use ISO-8859-1 characters, let alone Unicode. However funny that might be, I fail to find any irony here to be honest.
Ha! Nice try! Din't you know that Funny moderation doesn't increase your "Karma"?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Read Practical Cryptography. Same author, but much more real engineering insight alongside the theory.
I know that this dates me, but I had my very own disposable cardboard computer way back in 1966. Sure, it only had about 100 bits memory, but it didn't require any batteries either!Here are some pics.
It said memory. It's probably EEPROM though. This is all simple smartcard technology. The only thing interesting is the inclusion of sensors and their interface with the chip. Otherwise, nothing new.
So the memory will be SLOW and cannot be written over continuously. So much for the software you are talking about. Oh, well, we will get there sometime.
Come on guys. This is just a smart card chip with some sensors put on it. It has a non-ISO 14443 type A or type B interface, which means you can only use the readers provided by Cypak.
On top of that it only uses AES encryption. Great. Most smartcard processors can do any symetric cryptography and DSA and RSA as well. 156 / 1024 bit 3DES/RSA is common nowadays and higher asymetric encryption is on the horizon, if not there. 16 bit processors are quite common as well, with 32 bit processors just around the corner. You can host web servers on smart cards for some time now.
Obviously there are some interesting things to this story. What kind of wireless protocol will they use? How do they connect the sensors? What kind of sensors are available? What kind of operating system can be used? How easy is it to integrate it into some piece of clothing (eg)?
And 1 dollar per CPU is very good value I suppose.
Complex 3d solid modeling work, probably.
I do electrical CAD. I could use the video card from my 286 to do the display, but when simulation time comes, I need the fastest CPU possible. And at that, my last simulation ran at a roughly 2000:1 ratio (2000 seconds runtime to simulate one second simtime).
Other people have other needs.
www.papercomputer.com? it was /.ed a few years ago, but it's gone now. pity. any info?
and because the site always gets /.'d, they'll have to add another smart-ass AC post remarking on how "The server must be running on one of these!"...
Use a pen. Or a pencil for rewritability.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Please... I am sick of everyone feeling somehow obligated to point out every single orthographical (sic, not grammatical) errour of mine just because I happen to have Philosophiae Doctor degree, intelligence quotient well above the "genius" level or Mensa membership for that matter. Now please tell me, how do you think it is all related to my orthographical, lexical, syntactical---or linguistical as a whole---skills or the lack thereof? Let me tell you how: it is in no way related, not at all. Have you ever taken a Mensa test for God's sake?! Do you know how does it look like, for the love of God?! This is just unbelievable! What is wrong with you people?! Do you feel smarter because you have found some stupid typos in my post? Do you feel better? Do you think you have succeeded in disproving my point? Please tell me, why are you doing it? I would really like to know.
Good to know... It was not meant but it was an argumentum ad hominem, the most stupid and insulting logical fallacy since Sophistical Refutations by Aristoteles!
I hope you are having a great time!
As a matter of fact, yes, I do. What is your point?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
If this technology can be adapted to on-the-fly production, perhaps in a supermarket or mall, imagine going to the kiosk and having a Commodore64 or Atari etc etc built for you instantly ( assuming advances in more memory) from a list of templates.Use it for a specific purpose, then into the recycler.
I imagine creating a hardware interface by just telling the machine that makes these things: "I have a so-and-so output from this thing, and a such-and-such input here, make 'em talk to each other".
If this has RFID capability, what's to stop it gaining two-way wireless next?
Once you get the process started, the sky is the limit.
It's like having interchangable motherboards instead of ISA/PCI cards.
It isn't. It is less than 1/2 the median rent in the United States. That makes it less than a bundle.
Maybe he was aiming for a "funny". Don't bother reading the post scores, obviously they affect your opinion.
I was, as you suggest, aiming for "funny" -- seemed like an easy karma-whore.
What surprises me is somebody modded it "insightful". Although maybe there's an element of insight in Sartre's comment --
"If I became a philosopher, if I have so keenly sought this fame for which I'm still waiting, it's all been to seduce women basically."
- Jean Paul Sartre (quoted in Harpers, Jan. 1995 p. 25)
-kgj
Actually I really meant voice recognition. It had to be trained, but could recognize about 30 words fairly well once this was done.
Been there, done that, paid for the T-shirt
and didn't get it
Aren't there enough computers already stting in trash dumps (or dumped straight into the sea thank you very much China) poisoning our environment without adding computers destined to get there even quicker?
"But I don't want to go among mad people" Alice remarked. "Oh you can't help that" said the cat: "We're all mad here."
I thought maybe you were trying to be insightful (although I wasn't the one who modded you). After all, the only real purpose to life, from a biological standpoint, is to procreate and carry on your genes. So the most worthwhile motive for any action would be to try to increase you chance of getting sex.
I wasn't really trying for insightful, but you make a good point about procreation and genes.
-kgj
-kgj
What is throwaway money to you is groceries for a month for a family of four to others (for an item that is virtually useless). once again... congratulations on all your success in life.
I never said it was not a decent amount of money, I just said it wasnt a HUGE amount of money as was being implied.
Damn, do you look for things to get pissed off about?
My original post... "But a 1984 Mac 128K, 512K, 512KE will fetch you a bundle..."
I am sick of responding to you. It is simple: we both have different opinions on what a bundle of cash is. Case Closed.