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Nokia bring out Linux Cellphone/TV/Browser
Matt Booth writes "New Scientist has an article about a new cellphone from Nokia which is also a digital TV and web browser. It runs linux, and apparently it won't be available in the States because of the poor Digital TV standard there. " Cursed am I!
Some people don't use slashboxes...they take up valuable space.
To watch digital signals on an analog tv wont you have to add some sort of reciever/dac no matter what?
If you really want to know more about the thing, maybe the Product Manager could help you. Let me see... his mail address is jakob.lindblom@nokia.com
The release date is still two years away, so expect big changes. But for the moment the size is announced as 25x35 cm. That gives a screen size of about the size of an A4 paper.
Not bad, huh?
Data is data and I think if that you get broadbast wireless up and running (like the lucky folks in Tuscon, AZ have wireless T1s) the rest of the stuff...like broadcast of digital TV... will be simple.
Unfortunately TCP/IP is not necessarily the best protocol for video, the reasons being:
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
In my experience, PAL is the superior standard (superior judged by quality of picture and resistance to vagueries in signal). NTSC has problems with colour. SECAM in France, the signal only has to degrade slightly for the picture to revert to black and white! Belgium uses PAL, but they stuck the sound on a different frequency which is rather annoying. Belgium borders on France so sells dual PAL/SECAM sets. It would have been nice to have had equipment I can use in both England and France. Pretty much all English video players can play PAL and NTSC.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Not to mention that the range of a TV broadcast is rather limited (line of sight and all).
TV broadcast limited by line of sight? I think you are mistaken.
No different from the problems associated with mobile reception of FM radio which is crap too
In Europe we have digital radio (Digital Audio Broadcasting, or DAB) which provides CD quality sound over the radio. Still new, so receivers are quite expensive.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Tell me - which makes more sense. Designing
for compatibility or causing the 250 million
people in this country who own NTSC TV's to
junk their hardware? Boy- now that WOULD be
a boon to the industry, and do the consumer
no good at all.
Incorrect. You will need a box to interface between the digital signal and the analogue TV no matter what standard you decide on. The final analogue encoding (whether PAL or NTSC) is irrelevant to the standard.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=7 86
>What makes you think cable tv still worked after the earthquake in >turkey. About payment, cable tv is not free either.
Hey jerk, who said *ANYTHING* about (or paying for) cable tv? The TV set at work connects to a roof-top antenna.
As for hearing about the events I mentioned, SURE you did. After they had made the news over radio and TV. Face it, internet based-news and TV services are pretty much a scam aimed at yuppies who think crap like Star Trek: The Next Generation and it's 3rd rate clones are kool....
You might be referring to the difference that used to be in measuring the power a car engine produces. American auto makers wanted big horsepower figures; they removed all external power consuming devices (water pump, air cleaner, mufflers etc). This was the SAE hp measurement standard. European manufacturers used a more real world type DIN measurement standard. The SAE hp cannot directly be converted into DIN hp but multiplying by 3/4 will give you an approximation. Americans changed the power measurement standard in 1971. JiiPee
(This is about the Nokia DVB@Air and not about how superior US standards are ;-)
You can check it out on the Nokia website. They have pictures of it at the bottom of the page. They presented it at the IBC99 (I think). They had a page where they said almost nothing about it alos, but I lost the URL..
They call it a MediaScreen, so it is more a TV with a builtin mobilephone than a mobilephone/PDA with a builtin TV so you need really large pockets to make it fit... Might be good for the bussrides as somebody sugested.
This is, however not to mean that they use the same rules when other measurements are concerned, such as how close to the tracks a signal is allowed to be etc. These things are indeed different in the UK.
--
Linux user since early January 1992.
Imagine a soccer mom driving her van/tank while watching oprah and talking to her friends over cell phone at the same time. Forget NRA, LA ghetto looks like heaven compared to that.
The US has a long history of going their own way as far as telecom is concerned. TV signal (analog and digital) is one of them, but probably the most amazing of these difference is cellular communications. Europe and Asia (I don't know anything about Africa or Australia) uses GSM. So what does the US have to do? Use their own system (TDMA, etc.). Actually, what am I thinking! They use several digital systems, since an AT&T digital cell won't work on the Bell Atlantic network, etc... It's silly, it's annoying, and it's inconvienient for the user and for themselves (they could share a lot more of their towers if they could just agree on one standard - GSM).
Although, aside from the cell phones, Europe is not necessarily a whole lot better. For analog TV, France uses PAL, Belgium (and most of Europe - methinks) uses Secam... But at least I don't think Europeans makes any new mistakes like that (could be wrong - i am belgian but i live in the us, my european info may be a bit stale).
Foo.
--
there's a commercial for some car company where the people do just this (hop in their car to drive down the driveway to get their mail). maybe some people just take things a little more seriously than others.
either way, you may want to have your blood pressure checked. if you get worked up over this, you may have bigger problems to deal with.
After buying up all available antique and old works of art and science, Monsieur Gateaux will buy the old standard we knew from Celsius, re-christens it Centium[tm] and impos..., eh, introduces a brand new system of thermal measurement to the world. Since it comes bundled with Windeux it'll inevitably become the New Standard.
But dear Americans, relax. It'll be, as can be expected from Mr Gateaux' innovations, based on the totally screwed-up and obsolete Fahrenheit system you'll all be familiar with...
>[snip] the Nokia 9110 has a special operating system
/. request : I wonder if anyone's ported Linux to the 9110?
It runs an incarnation of GEOS, from Geoworks. GEOS is/was one of the early contenders for the PC GUI back in the '80s. The 9110 is basically a tiny PC linked to a mobile phone in the same box.
Obligatory
Its usually the person in the SUV, it is actually a sad sight that I have seen. Americans drive so much because everything is spread out, I can't walk to the local store because its miles away. This is because country suburbanized (actually word?) after WWII. Its much different than in Europe where everything is centralized.
I think it was meant as a fine way of critizing the so called "American way of life," which many Europeans (including myself) believe is a deadly serious threat to mankind's future on earth. As my old American gov't teacher used to say, the citizens of United States constitute about 5% of the total world population (?) while consuming *one third* of the world's resources. The "American way of life" would maybe be more appropriately be called the "American way to death."
The MILLIONS of UK tellys arn't useless. You get a FREE dig-decoder box, plug it into your telly (via the scart) and bobs your uncle one digital telly.
Sometimes it's good to make a leap and leave the old standards behind, you just have to provide a stop-gap to give people time to change.
"The TV set at work connects to a roof-top antenna."
OK, you want wireless, that's possible too. But that's not my point. The point simply is that most people will have fast internet connections in a few years. Lets get this into your thick skull. Once the connections are there they might as well be used to transmit video. And I just claim that if it can be done it will be done. As for wireless TV, in Holland there are only three channels available that way. If you want to receive the rest of the channels you need a satelite dish or cable.
BTW. I don't like to be called a Jerk, especially with such weak argumentation. I also think star trek the next generation is a piece of crap as most of the stuff America pukes out on european television. I can't stand those mediocre sitcoms and these poorly written&acted sf series. Not to mention those mind numbing talkshows. But that's beside the point, it's just my opinion.
Jilles
Just letting you know - you need to shop around a little more for your cell phone services in the states I guess.
1. I got a motorolla startac digital phone for free (that's a $350 value)
2. I do pay a montly fee of $20 - (the all have fees, the only thing that stinks I suppose)
3. No roaming or long distance charge for any call made to and from the East Coast (you can get the same plan for the entire usa if you want).
4. There is enough free airtime included in the monthly fee that I basically never have any charges other than the monthly fee. Additional air time is about $.10
5. Caller don't pay anything extra when they call my cell phone (it's just like a regular landline - no strange area codes, nothing like that)
6. A bunch of services come free as well, such as voice mail, caller id, text messaging, etc.
Now, the reason why you might think that digital service is more expensive, it's because it fairly new here in the us. In fact, you typically can't get digital service unless you live in very populated areas (like suburbs of big cities or most of New Jersey). The rates will go down with time - right now they are installing the infrastructure (towers, etc.) as fast as they can, but this is a very large country if you have not noticed, so it's very expensive and the consumer gets to pay (no government help like in europe).
If you want cheap cell phones, use analog (based on where you live, you may not have a choice). That's pretty much dirt cheap.
Sorry.. had to be said. ;)
--
If the source code (and development kit) will be available as well, then it wont be long until someone implements strong-crypto point-to-point voice connections between two such cellphones - and this with widely available commodity hardware.
--Coke
The problem with the US isn't that you use the Imperial system. It's worked over here for hundreds of years (and in France, you can still ask for a livre of apples, if you want... dunno what you'll get tho'). The problem you've got it that you don't know what these units represent.
For example, we invented something called a gallon.
Now I like gallons. If I drink a gallon of beer, I start to feel quite nice. It's a good unit of measurement. In the US, if I drink a gallon, I don't feel nice, so much as confused, 'cos I don't know how much I've drunk. Of course, if you bothered to put any alcohol in your beers...
Anyhow, the metric/imperial thing has nothing to do with digital tv. You've had lower resolution TV than in Europe for many years. And for some reason, those deciding on the digital implementation just chose to go their own way and not look at what other countries are doing.
I could go on... "I know", says some US telco, "We'll implement GSM phones. It's what the rest of the world's doing, and it _has_ to be better than D-AMPS!". So somewhere along the line they do some research, and find out that the world implements GSM at 900Mhz and 1800Mhz. Now maybe they'd been in the UK when they researched this, and drank some beer with some alcohol in it, but they decide to run GSM at 1900Mhz. Great idea. A third standard. A new line of US only handsets means that you get a limited range of handsets, and we have to get a different phone when we visit the US. Everyone loses (except possibly handset manufacturers).
Anyhow, linux in a phone's a top idea, although I'd thought they were going with epoch. At least it's not CE... now what's this I hear about CE and Dreamcast?
Turns out, it wasn't the accuracy of the thermometer that was the problem, but his subject had a bout of 'flu.
Farenheit is a decimal scale though, 0degrees for freezing point of sea water (or alchohol?) up to the temperature of a man's armpit at 100degrees.
He was just unlucky I suppose - or lazy more like, he most likely didn't test the scale on anyone else.
1) How much will it cost? 2) When can I get one? 3) Can we tweak our digital TV standards to make this work? ARG!
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
I still don't know why I should pay to receive, though, because that's the bottom line. As for the other points...
Analog: no good. It can be 'airtapped' very easily, others can even crack in and use my phone no... really not safe. Besides, I could only use it the USA. What I want is a world-wide phone: with GSM, I get thet all over Europe, good part of Africa, Asia, Australia, some American countries, even USA are slowly going there (Sprint & Omnipoint, for example). GSM is becoming the world standard, no doubts about it. It's the pricing policy that I don't like in the USA.
1) a Motorola startac costs about $150 in outlet stores in EU. And what if I want something better than that? What if I want a service which does not tie me to it by having the "free" phone? AFAIK free phones only come with subscriptions. Don't want no subscriptions to pay, thanks. For example, when I am in the USA and can't use my GSM phone, I pay nothint to have it standing there unused in EU. Vice versa? If I want a service of only, say, 3 months a year in the USA and nothing to pay during the rest of the year?
2) $20 montly fee is more than what I spend regularly per month... since I pay 0 for other people to call me.
3) how much does it cost to have free roaming for the entire USA - and I mean *digital*?
4) you are talking about air time: for me the whole concept is wrong - I don't want to pay nothing when someone calls me. Wrong wrong wrong. Only USA, Canada and Ukraine do this, in the whole world. Besides, how much does it cost to call international from a USA cell phone? I checked: *much* more than from a home USA phone. No comparison with EU prices.
5) Bad: they should! Why should I pay for someone to call me? Why shouldn't a cellphone have its own area code? Besides USA&Canada, the whole world works that way (including other non-GSM countries like Japan).
6) With my GSM provider I get for free: voice mail (I pay to call it, as you do), caller ID, call forwarding, GSM-SMS (what's called messaging here), plus I can send/receive email from my GSM phone (try that on an analog), etc. That's included in the -zero- monthly fee.
GSM is one of the examples where government directions (e.g. pushing for GSM, 1800MHz etc) in EU actually made sense: every counry had to allow at least 2 more GSM providers to enter the marked, as for government help - it helped the market.
But, all in all, I just want a free service as in EU.
I buy a cheap phone, I have the number, nothing else to worry, no monthly fee, whoever wants to call me knows they have to pay a bit more.
They use linux in their own cell-phone project and let the gnokii project go begging.
How can they feel the rain but not know of the flood?
I have no objections about anything you said - except for one:
Why should I pay for someone to call me? Why shouldn't a cellphone have its own area code? Besides USA&Canada, the whole world works that way (including other non-GSM countries like Japan).
Because if I don't pay for the airtime to receive a call, the caller will. I know you are going to say: who cares? Well, a lot of people like myself do. Some people want to be called (like business people on the road, or people that choose to have a cell phone as their only phone) and don't want the burden to be on the caller. The only case where this could be a problem is wrong number or telemarketers, but that problem is currently taken care of since the first minute is usually free of airtime (therefore free).
You don't have to agree, just stating that if they were to change this particular policy - it would piss people off (like me) just as much as it would make others happy (like you). Maybe they could have both systems in place - and I believe they are thinking about it (as of a recent article I read somewhere. Wait! Wasn't it here?)
It would be nice not to have a yearly contract, but I wouldn't have if I had actually paid for the phone (like with AT&T). And I suppose that it would be nice if there was no monthly fee, but I don't think that is a reasonable expectation or a big deal (regardless of what europe does) - no unless they drop the monthly fee for a landline. Would it be nice to have all the prices drop a bit? Sure it would. And it will. In a few years, when the company have built their infrastructure and are making pure profit - until then, it is not reasonable to expect them to do so.
Anyone know if this thing has a built-in nic?
Would make a great portable net connection if you could run ipmasq on it.
We always take the hard way into things. The metric system is a good example, here laid out in front of us was this wonderful system of measurement based on the number 10. Us? Bahhh, screw it, we will just make it more difficult. Then theres that whoel Celsiuis/Fahrenheit thing. I get Celsius, 0 is when water freezes, but Fahrenheit? Whats that? water freezes at 32 degrees ABOVE 0? huh? Oh well, enough ranting. I know I wouldnt be too keen bout switching now as it is, been using the good ole US system for to many years. But that article has a point, it appears out digital signals really ARENT as hardy as the european ones. But it does look like we might be switching, so Ill be looking for that first handheld all in one in my local over-priced CompUSA soon I hope. Well, enough complaining form me. Judg3
*******
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
A cellphone web browser. Now I can have the web on the subway, on the job, at a restaurant. Just click in and I'm there.
(That slurping sound is productivity going down the drain)
-- Moondog
Base10 probably happened because we have 10 fingers and 10 toes. It's not a *bad* choice but base12 is probably better. More divisors. In base12, 1/3 is 0.4 exactly. 1/2 is is 0.6 1/4 is 0.3 1/5 is funky but 1/5 really isn't use that much.
Base8 and base16 are only really good for computers. All the uglies of base10 + you can't divide by 5 evenly.
I don't pretend to understand the relative merits of DSB and 8-VSB, but the fuss over selecting a standard reminds me of the difficulties people in the 19th century had with railroad gauges.
During the last century (well, I suppose it was nearly two centuries ago now...) when railroad was the primary means of transporting goods, Russia pulled a similar egotistical maneuver and selected a railroad "gauge" or width (12?) that was inconsistent with the gauge gaining acceptance in neigboring Europe (8?). As a consequence, when trains passed the Western Russian boarder, all the passengers and contents had to be humped out, placed in another train, and sent on their way. Needless to say this retarded commerce between Russia and Europe.
Now information, not gold or even dollars, is becoming the crucial international currency and nations are building their information infrastructure. If nationalism entices us or any other country down the same path as the Russians, they will quickly learn their mistake. Devices built in adherence to the de facto standard will suddenly cease to function the moment they enter the rogue country. This will be far more inconvenient - and costly - than converting between Standard and Metric.
Let's not forget when advocating standards that common usage is an important factor, and that the world isn't limited by the San Andreas and the Potomac!
-konstant
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
1 Kelvin = -272 degrees Celsius
273 Kelvins = 0 degrees Celsius
I'm not sure if this was just an "oops" in your message, but you're basically right: 0 K = absolute zero, 0 degrees C = freezing point of water. Aside from those starting points, the scales are the same.
I know i could use mobile TV.. Just for all those long bus rides back and forth to school. And it even runs linux *drool* :)
:)
But why do people whine so much about an unfortunate joke about americans?
I get the feeling that if this product would have been developed by an american company, people would have been talking about how cool it is for linux to be used in yet another product..
Yet another standards war, as if we didnt have enough of them already.. The Europeans decide on one thing, and then the Americans go off and develop yet another standard.. But in the end the japaneese wins the game with something thats 3x as smart and cost half of the othe solutions. (Or turn it around all if you like, that's not my point) The world needs everybody to agree on a standard, and not have half a dozen incompatible standards that only work in their own region.
I thought the coming of the internet would signal an end to nationalism.. oh well, maybe in time.
-henrik
Digital TV is available now in the UK - but only
via satellite, and possibly some cable. Not on terrestrial _quite_ yet, but it will be very soon.
Sky has just started broadcasting some sprots events in digital format, so that users with the right set top box can select camera angles blah blah blah.
I'm not convinced any of that is all that useful, but I'm sure they;ll find a use for it all one day.
Shame about the way HDTV died though - that was, in some ways, miles ahead of the new digital t.v.
-----
US is abig cellphone market but at least some time ago China was a bigger cellphone market. Also the usage of cellphones in the US is minimal compared to Europe. In finland the Cellphone penetration in the whole population is 60%. Also in the analog market the NMT was in use few years before AMPS systems and covered at first 3 countries (sweden,finland and norway).
The new Nokia 7110 has a browser in it. Check it out at : http://www.nokia.com/phones/7110/
:-)
I'm getting mine in the next few weeks.
In a few years' time, lot of people will use a single handheld unit to make face-to-face "photo-phone" calls, to watch TV, surf the 'net and organize their personal data etc.
Why not have it all in one, convenient package if that's possible? Because you think it's moronic? Would it be okay for you if it ran Redmondian WinCE instead of that (originally) "Euro-Trash" Linux?
You are missing some points here: watching TV is ILLEGAL when you are driving. I agree that mobile phone thing. But imagine that you are showing your new gadget to your buddies and have to say "maybe we must move about 200m that way. That skyscraper is blocking my station badly". Nokia mentioned echoes, that`s like a shadow between you and your receiver. If you have multiple channels, no broblem there.
http://www.nokia.com/multimedia/ibc99/press_dvb.ht ml
...when a product is released in the US only.
;-)
All I can say to your whingeing is: HAR HAR HAR!!
Mmmm, revenge is sweet...
Media-screen is a laptop-sized device, with integrated GSM, and it is more like a portable TV than a phone. It will not run programs designed for 9110 and I would guess that future communicator-type products from nokia use EPOC32 anyway (not GEOS as 9110 or Linux as mediascreen). Anyway, Mediascreen is very nice device and hopefully much of the software will be opensourced. You (in the states) also have a model of old communicator (9000-series) available there. I had one, but got tired of nokias policy not to support Linux-connectivity.
Vaadin - the best open source framework for building web applications in Java - no plug
I think French local trains run on the same guage as British ones. Its the high speed trains (TGVs vs InterCity) where there is a difference, because the French (and most Euroean countries) have separate high speed networks, whereas the British do not.
...
I just though the use of Talgo trains held an interesting moral
they're still bad, not as bad as the US but bad. The fact that we drive smaller cars, with more economic engines & generally have better Mass Transit systems helps a lot
stty erase ^H
--
Linux user since early January 1992.
* Shoulder strap to carry the car battery this will need to power it :^)
Such phones have some use but only if everybody uses them AND we can convice the cell network providers to use the same (secure) protocols.
The 9110 is the end-of-the-line as far as that model of phone goes: Nokia have said that future devices are going to use EPOC (32-bit, multitasking, etc) as opposed to GeOS (DOS with twiddles). Ok, this project uses Linux, but I can see why - EPOC is great for getting a lot out of small hardware, but isn't as easy to develop for as Linux.
Hugo
(a longtime 9000i user)
>The US went thru a fairly long, involved, >somewhat politically charged That explains it all, and nothing but the all. Bureocratic things are always killed all good technological breakthroughs. "We have all the time in the world".
Nokia 9xxx phones are running GEOS.
r s/geossdk/geossdk.html
Go here http://www.forum.nokia.com/developers/communicato
I have been on a project where a GPSGSMServer program was made for C9000. European Space Agency will start using it soon (I hope).
Nuff said indeed!
The data may be the data, but choosing the right transport system for a particular noisy environment can make a lot of difference to how much of that data actually arrives.
The US standard basically assumes any error is equally possible, so you might as well use the first set of basis functions you think of. The European standard (CODFM) takes account of the fact that the most important signal degradation mechanisms are interference from reflections, and doppler distortions, and chooses basis functions accordingly to minimise the crosstalk between symbols. This pushes the total error rate right down.
You also get different error properties for the different carrier basis channels this creates, so you can use the most reliable channels for the outline of the picture, then the more vulnerable channels only for higher and levels of detail. As a result when the signal does degrade, you only lose a little detail to start with, rather than getting a massive glitch to the whole picture.
The technology isn't that new. GSM mobile telephones have used CDMA for years, and the military have had spread spectrum for a long time before that.
But the mobile telephone companies with the CDMA patents were kept off the US committee (not invented there). Instead the committee wasted most of its time listening to lobbying for 1001 different standards for content, and finally in a completely useless cop-out mandated all of them. Meanwhile the vital issue of the low-level transport standard was hardly considered.
france and russia (?) uses secam while rest of the europe uses pal. i think that most tv's nowadays can recieve both pal and secam
I guess some1 had to try defend a stupid decision.
So by your thinking, its right to continue to use incompatable technologies, just so your old incompatible technologies are still supported easily.
In any case all old tv's could be supported for both standards its just a matter of how difficult it is to do it.
One day the US will haveto take the plunge and get with the rest of the world.
Oh, but maybe not, you could bully some other littler coutries into using your standards as well, that way you wont look as stupid.
Is there any real reason why we process base ten numbers better, other than the fact that we historically only have 10 written digits. Also, I guess that's what people are taught. :)
I've always thought it would be an interesting experiment to teach a kid octal or hex or something first, and see how they adapt to "weird" bases that aren't powers of two.
Nokia Mobile Phones
Currently DTB is being used to broadcast 625 line standard resolution pictures... so no coversion artifacts. Australia is probably going to be first off the blocks to use it for higher definitions.
But I think no digital TV cards are on sale yet ?
The Register has more on this, but their info seems to differ from the above. They imply that this is merely a wireless networking framework that will use cellular and Digital TV bandwidth. In other words, its not a phone or a TV or a combination of the two. But I guess the potential's there. Maybe. Please.
Not to shabby, but still basically just a prototype, not a real shipping unit quite yet..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
My Seimens S25 GSM mobile phone has a built in web browser, but I prefer to use its onboard modem over an IR link with ProxiWeb on my Palm III as the Palm has a bigger screen and I get to check my mail too.
:-)
Sometimes I really like living in Europe...
The European DVB standard is completely backwards compatible. All you need is a converter box, just like you'll need one in the states. If I'm not mistaken DVB is actually MPEG2 (like on DVD disks), it's just a question of how one transmits it. Actually this reminds me of how the US demand to have their own standard for the next generation of mobile phones, even though the rest of the world has agreed on one standard.
My feeling is that the market is big enough in the US that a minor setback that the standard isn't "robust" enough isn't going to hold back some brilliant engineer to get around a poor signal.
I mean, we still deal with 7-bit transmissions and that hasn't slowed anyone down. With 265 million people with money burning a hole in their pocket, standards won't matter that much. The tech will come to the US, it'll just take a while.
What are the figures for Europe? (Probably better, but are they enough better, or is the European way of life still a threat to mankind's future on earth, just a less serious one?)
... support your argument.
Hm... Well that is possible. I for one am an american and I do agree that some of us lack common sense. Example, those three retards in Texas who decided to drag that guy (James Byrd Jr.) behind a pickup truck just because he was black.
But I think it is a major mistake for one to assume that we all lack common sense. Question. If the people of the US lack common sense then how did we become the greatest super power in the world? It takes a lot more than genius, good looks, and a Hiroshima&/Nagasaki to win that title of respect. What it takes is a great deal of common sense.
I would think the greatest display for a lack of common sense might lie in a place that was the focal point of two world wars. Wars that in which caused the loss of millions of Allied, Russian, and German lives. Huh... now there's something to think about.
$nyper
"The Patriotic Hacker"
"Help me Obi-/.-Kenobi,your my only hope!" -$
Or kilowatts; for example, this page on the BMW 320Ci at BMW France lists the engine's power both in "ch" ("chevaux", presumably, although I don't know what relationship "ch" has to "horsepower") and kW.
Ironically, Sprint PCS just launched their data network today that allows several cell-phone models that they support to browse with a mini-browser, including a model from Nokia. I know most of the other digital PCS carriers have similar plans ready to roll in the next few months.
I don't know how well the conversion works for DVB, but having seen the artifacts generated by a converter mapping a 1080i HDTV signal onto a 480i display here in the State, I don't plan to use a converter to keep my old sets going when the final switch happens in 2006.
I wasn't aware that the US was demanding a different cell phone standard. I thought that GSM-3 and Wide-CDMA were still on track. AT&T was clinging to their current system, but it is easy enough to change to another provider; afterall, I have 7 different providers to choose from.
--rick
The real reason for russia choosing another track width, was fear of the railroad tracks being used for invading Russia. If the width is incompatible, it is impossible to use them for anybody else than you. :-)
so let's build a beowolf from them!!! It would rock playin Quake while craking RC5 keyz!!!
PAL has more lines per field, but fewer fields per second than NTSC. The PAL image is slightly sharper, but it also flickers more than NTSC. The difference is subjective. Besides North America, NTSC is the standard in Japan (NTSC-J).
It's the like the GSM vs US hodge podge (CDMA, GSM, Satellite, AMPS, etc, etc, etc) again. Political porkbarrelling matters much more than the consumer. Again.
Compatibility - there's a major amount of computing power in the set. They can have a analog and digital tuner to allow existing signals to be processed. If you want digitial reception for old equipment, I'm sure someone will build a set top box to convert the digital signal to NTSC, like when UHF became more common.
A large TV I'm looking at has a slot for a digital tuner card. Since it already does 100 Hz progressive scan, it'll cope with HD Digital TV as going to be found in Europe and Australia.
Andrew van der Stock
...and I noticed that the gnokii project home page says
so it's "for Linux", but not exclusively for Linux.
In fact, that page seems to indicate that it's not even exclusively for Linux and FreeBSD, as it says
so, whilst "The development sources are currently targeted towards Linux systems", that doesn't mean it's a Linux-only project, it may just mean the developers currently have only Linux boxes, or haven't cleaned up non-portable code yet, or haven't written for other OSes versions of whatever OS-dependent code exists, or something such as that.
I usually just place my outgoing mail in my
mail slot for the postman to pickup. We don't have a corner mailbox, so when I need something deliveried timely, I'll stick in the mailbox at our local post-office on my way to work (I drive 7 minutes to the train station, so you got me there). That box is picked up earlier than when my postman shows up.
Has anyone noticed that there are less and less corner mailboxes these days in the States?
Jay
Article was nearly as skimpy as this one , something along the lines of it's just a prototype piece and initial rollout is only being considered for Germany , as its a joint venture with a German television company
Don't seem to be able to find the link now , maybe it was a different site
-
-- Oh Well
"I am amazed that a country where people drive to the corner postbox has chosen a digital TV system that does not allow mobile reception," says Helmut Stein, Nokia's vice-president.
-From New Scientist, 11 September 1999
About the '...drive to the corner postbox...' bit; technology is nothing without common sense of which America/Americans lack.
From the article:
I am amazed that a country where people drive to the corner postbox has chosen a digital TV system that does not allow mobile reception
What the f is that supposed to mean? Is he trying to say that US mail delivery people don't pick up the mail from mailboxes? Does he expect people to watch TV while driving to the post office? Or is the passenger going to watch TV while accompanying the driver going on an unnecessary trip to the postoffice instead of leaving a letter in the mail? I don't have to drive anywhere to send a letter, and I live in the US. And I thought they already solved the echo problem. Great way to sell phones. Insult the customer.
TV's in mobile phones. What is this world coming to?
Web browsing technology will be standard in the next generation of cell phones. Want more info? check out this press release What it really means is that phone.com basically has this whole thing locked up.
Be insightful. If you can't be insightful, be informative.
If you can't be informative, use my name
Where can I get more info? I want one NOW. I hope there is a way to get a shell on that thing - it would be fun :) real geeky :) / iocc (login doesn't work.. for me)
So if watching TV is illegal while driving, what is the point of a comment like the chairman of Nokia made about the standard being stupid because Americans drive everywhere? Not to mention that the range of a TV broadcast is rather limited (line of sight and all). So you aren't going to get good reception in most cases anyway. No different from the problems associated with mobile reception of FM radio which is crap too. More than 10 miles from the station you don't even get enough signal strength to get stereo.
Seems like the Chairman of Nokia should be moderated down (flamebait) for his comment.
Personally I think the whole concept of a DTV handheld is questionable. I mean, what is the point of delivering 5000 lines of resolution to a 3" screen? Hasn't anybody seen what a Watchman looks like? Even with a good clear signal the tiny screen makes the whole experience laughable.
I also have to wonder about the practicality of multiple DTV channels? Aren't you going to chew up a HELL of a lot of precious broadcast bandwidth with that? In a big city with a lot of stations it seems to me that this would be VERY impractical. Myself, I'd MUCH rather devote that bandwidth to wireless networks than a broadcast media like DTV. Just think - high resolution DTV crowding out wireless networks, giving you 57 channels of High-Res Married With Children Reruns!!! I can't wait to expeerience the thrill of watching I Dream of Genie on my portable phone!!!!! Just imagine catching Jerry Springer on your cross town Taxi ride during Lunch!!!!!!! Or better yet, Melrose Place!!! What next, DTV with a tiny TiVo built in to a handset so you don't have to miss General Hospital on your 2" screen?????????
To me this sounds like a technology whose time has NOT come.
>If I'm not mistaken DVB is actually MPEG2 (like >on DVD disks) Yepp! right! And with a digital TV-Card (e.g. by Hauppauge) you can save it right to harddisc! No further compression needed (hardw nor softw), no bandwith problem, no quality loss ... Poor americans ;-(
Linux + Moz sounds pretty cool to me. :-)
--Z.
Zontar The Mindless,
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Basic cable service is really cheap and available almost anywhere whereas picture quality and the number of channels available without cable or satellite is pathetic. Where I live they're introducing digital cable right now and digital satellite's been around for many years. These are all compatible with the existing tv's through the use of set top boxes. Why not get one of those for your old analog tv if you so dearly whish to stick to it.
And why is it that everytime when europe(or rest of the world) creates something technically or practically superior americans can't accept it. This is what happened with digital mobile phones and now its happening with digital tv. I mean look at yourselves, there are more digital mobile phones in china than in usa.
The only reasonable application of airwave reception in such a cable oriented country as usa is mobile reception. If your standard doesn't allow it then what good is it?
Um...perhaps I may be missing something here, but why the hell would I want to browse the web on a screen the size of a postage stamp?
1. that was response to: "watch when you are not driving, drive when you are not watching". 2. It is most annoying to watch TV when you have to tweak your antennas to get best picture. And those bypassing cars when you`re located on street level. Damn van. 3. I did mean that the program channel is divided in thousand subchannels for better receiving so that the receiver can select most echo free ones to retrieve original signal (sorry about bad explaining in the first Re). 4. It`s seems that you have never heard about standing wave. That can ruin ANY signal on the earth. No matter how digital or not it is.
...but nearly three trillion fleas eat trash. (sorry, I can't resist it... :-)
--- Sueños del Sur - a webcomic about four young siblings
The whole cellphone business in USA is unexplainable to me. It actually *costs* to *receive* a phone call!!! Someone should explain to me why should I pay a] a monthly rate. b] much higher costs for phone calls than in EU. c] have 'minutes' expiring every month. d] pay to RECEIVE a call! The whole idea is sick. Just to compare, cellphone service in Italy (GSM) typically a] costs $0 (nothing, no charge) per month. b] you buy credit for it when you want (in chunks of about $25 or $50) and the credit lasts 11months (not 1mo. as in USA) - within 11months you have to buy new credit to maintain your phone no. c] it costs about $0.20/min to call from anywyere within Italy 24hrs/7days, to anywhere within Italy, and $0.25-$0.30/min to call other European countries, or USA (always 24hr/7days). That's less than most USA phone companies charge to call EU from home! And when you roam around Europe, you pay at most $0.30/min to receive a call. I wonder when will some decent-minded phone company start charging plausible rates in USA, and expecially, not to charge to *receive* cellphone calls (would anyone like to pay to _receive_ phone calls at home...?) - of course the whole cellphone business is so slow to grow in USA, compared to EU. There's also the GSM900/1800/1900 trouble...
("chevaux", presumably, although I don't know what relationship "ch" has to "horsepower")
It is merely the word "horsepower" translated into french.
The thing to remember about Nokia is that it's really a pile of smaller units
(cell phones, monitors, phone exchanges, misc r&d etc.) and the different units do things very differently.
Some use VMS as a development platform (or did atleast a few years ago), some think NT is the solution to everything including world hunger
and others (generally the ones that don't do
end-user products) use whatever does the job best. Linux has increasingly been just that thing for quite a lot of stuff.
If I understood correctly this was done by the
multimedia terminal people whereas the information the gnokii people want is from the cell phone
people and they seem to want to keep their stuff pretty secret.
Boy, it seems to me that having no digital TV mobile reception for a device like this is a damn good idea, despite the Nokia poor-mouthing. It's bad enough to have crazy drivers yakking on the cell phone while driving (a Canadian study showed the accident rate for cell phone users was HIGHER than for drunk drivers!!). I can just imagine the carnage on European roads from people trying to watch these things while driving!! Make 'em pull over to use a video phone, I say!
Nokia already has a cellular phone available in Europe that can do web browsing..the Nokia 9110 series. In fact, Europeans have a way cool version with Indiglo-style backlighting that (as far as I know) will not work in the US.
= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
But if I understand correctly, the Nokia 9110 has a special operating system that allows third-party companies to write wireless applications that use the cellular connection (sorta like the PalmVII in the states but billed by minute per your cell phone contrct and not by KB).
So if they now have this thing...does that mean they are scrapping plans for continuation of 9110 or can the new device also run the programs developed for the 9110?
I doubt anyone here can answer but I thought I would ask. =)
Also...in reference to this "smug superiority" of Europeans for having a better system than US, it is my belief that if you check the dates you'll probably find that development of the digital TV standard in the US began before the EU started investigating their own. So of course whoever is later is going to have the technical advantage. I doubt that anyone working on the digital TV standard back when it was created could have anticipated the boom in wireless activity.
Personally, I think the EU approach is pointless. We are quickly moving to a point where ALL audio and video traffic happens over TCP/IP (like Voice over IP for phone traffic and video conferencing for video traffic). Making a specialized wireless system for JUST digital TV is a waste. Spend the money on improving wireless bandwidths and then you can just broadcast the MPEG-2 video streams from your DVD directly to the wireless devices.
Data is data and I think if that you get broadbast wireless up and running (like the lucky folks in Tuscon, AZ have wireless T1s) the rest of the stuff...like broadcast of digital TV... will be simple.
My $0.02 and not necessarily yours...
- JoeShmoe
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Seems rather vague on the specs etc.. I'll believe it all when I see it on a Nokia web site..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
The US went thru a fairly long, involved,
somewhat politically charged, but also
technically motivated selection process
for digital TV. The bottom line is that
the format was chosen so that the MILLIONS
of existing TV's didn't become instantly
useless!
Now some of you will think that backward's
compatibility is a BAD thing. From a
marketing and sales position - it's mandatory.
My Dad was in Finland last year (the home
base of Nokia) and he had exactly this
same arguement with several guys - my Dad
made the compatibility arguement with them -
they had no retort.
Nuff said.
Steve
Have you compiled your kernel today??
Which Nokia should we bug for that one?
Yes, but is a French "ch" .74 kW? I had the impression that German "pferdestarken" weren't equal to US/UK "horsepower" (although the BMW Germany technical data page for the car in question just lists kilowatts, so maybe pS aren't used any more).
You could also add the following features:
I know for sure that such a device exists, but I don't know when it will become available.
-Raphaël
The next question is, if we have a DigitalTV standard that stops certain technical innovations being released (or even being possible according to the article), have we chosen the right standard? We could of course ask, who would really want to watch TV on a mobile phone? But the arguments are still the same! The US is falling behind in Digital TV because the networks are implementing an inferior standard.
Anyway... the good thing is they've used linux!! I wonder if we'll see anything coming back to the community from Nokia! It would be nice to have the Digital TV decoding algorithms etc.
--
"I was either onto something, or on something!"
NTSC = Not Twice the Same Color
They should release PalmVII with connectivity to GSM network. It would be killer product. Wu
And there's my PDA, phone, watch, and many other things I need. If I had such a thing, I might even leave the house from time to time!
--
Xenu loves you!