Slashdot Mirror
Coming Soon, Mobile Torrents
explosivejared writes "ZDNet is running an article on the "mobile implementation of the bittorent protocol which says
'Mobile implementations of the BitTorrent protocol are nearly certain to be part of whatever Google Android comes up with, and if not someone will have one for the open platform straightaway. Already a Windows Torrent product is on Version 2.0, and given the video capability of the iPhone it's clear Apple is not going to let this opportunity pass by. A Symbian Torrent program is on Version 1.3."
Maybe I'm being dumb, but I don't see the point of this. Files sent to a mobile are relatively small, even in the case of video due to the size of the screen, and mobile bandwidth is expensive. Bittorrent, on the other hand, is designed to save bandwidth for the server, not the client.
It seems like a bad trade-off to save yourself cheap server bandwidth by spending expensive radio bandwidth.
The BitTorrent protocol keeps connections open with multiple peers and periodic communication with a server. If I was mad enough to download a video or music file on my phone I certainly wouldn't want the phone spending the next several hours uploading on my behalf - the battery drain being a major factor. I think the BitTorrent protocol is fantastic. It is very efficient in using as much bandwidth as you can throw at it and serves its intended purpose of distributing the impact of serving large sets of data. There are more sensible protocols in existence though for devices such as phones.
How long do you think your battery would last under constant usage?
haven't you ever noticed the difference between stand by and talk times?
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Name one Industry standard Codec? quicktime is at least playable on linux, windows and OS X. unlike Say WMV where msft won't even release the specs for it, so OS X and linux users are out of luck period.
besides Youtube uses Flash video where the individual codec doesn't matter so much.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
From Wikipedia
In October 2005, Apple Inc began selling H.264-encoded videos over the Internet through their iTunes Music Store.[11] Initially selling just television series and music videos, they expanded in September 2006 to sell films. On May 30, 2007 Apple announced plans to integrate streaming of YouTube videos into the Apple TV. In a later interview, Apple VP David Moody revealed that all of YouTube's videos are going to be transcoded to H.264 for higher compatibility and quality on the Apple TV. Starting in June, YouTube will be automatically encoding all new uploads with H.264. Their intention is to have the entire video catalog available in H.264 this autumn. Apple's iPhone supports H.264 Baseline Profile, Levels 2.1 and 3, at resolutions up to 480x320 or 640x480 and bitrates up to 1.5 Mbit/s and is capable of playing the YouTube video content.[12]
Adobe will support H264 in its Flash Player [13].
So you're saying that H.264 isn't an industry standard? As opposed to Flash Video?
I guess Apple must have bought out Adobe as well, considering the next Flash Player will use (cough) "Quicktime".
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
ISPs think BitTorrent is incredibly evil, because from the ISPs viewpoint it is VERY inefficient... Bittorrent is not about efficient file distribution (thats called Akamai), rather Bittorrent is a way for someone to provide a large file cheaply, because it puts the bandwidth costs directly on the customers of the large file.
Unless the protocol has a significant number of simultaneous users for a given file within the ISP's local network, everything is actually transfered twice: once in, and once out. This isn't an efficiency savings, it is an efficiency hit, and a big one given the volume transferred.
They can't cache it either, because so many uses are copyright violations and the protocol is not designed to be friendly to transparent caches. You could make up a cache, but you'd basically have to do a LOT of work with an IDS and a custom cache for a cache which will require many MANY terabytes of disk and that will get you sued if you deploy it.
Likewise, for a mobile use, it will suck twice the power, as you send and receive EVERYTHING twice on your local link.
And wireless bandwidth is much more valuable than the commodity internet link (there is a lot less of it), so even if items ARE staying in the ISP, the double transfer problem is a huge issue unless you have a bunch of people getting the same file right next to each other.
Bittorrent in the mobile world saves the content provider from having to provide cheap, wired bandwidth by making the recipients and/or their WISPs provide expensive wireless bandwidth instead!
Test your net with Netalyzr
Ok, Its fairly clever, I'll grant you (Though, its not THAT tricky to code a BitTorrent client in Java), but with mobile data tariffs being what they are, whose actually going to use it?
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.