Google Voice (Grand Central rebranded) is a wonderful service. Not for the reason many tout - its bevy of useful features. It's incredibly valuable because it provides a virtual phone number which redirects to whatever phone number you have now. Change carriers or move out of their service area? No problem; just change the forwarding phone number in GV and anyone who calls your GV number still is calling you.
This is something that is also valuable with email - Mail.com used to offer free redirection for life but they've since gone back on their promise and now charge for their service. Imagine having an email address that is yours forever - one that simply redirects mail to whatever account you currently have. Change providers? No problem; change your address at the redirector and nobody has to change the email address they reach you at.
Anyone who has changed phone numbers or email addresses knows what a hassle it can be - these redirection services provide a solution to this problem.
Hey, AT&T and Apple - what me, a customer, wants is to have a phone number and email address that is mine - one that will be mine for as long as I want - no matter if my email or phone provider changes or goes out of business. That's what Google Voice provides and AT&T does NOT. Phone number portability is largely a joke as anyone who's tried to keep a phone number knows. Portability doesn't help if you move to a different area code, anyway.
Phone companies like to lock in their customers - one of the ways they do this is through the fear they instill in their customers. If you change providers, you'll have to tell everyone you know that you've got a new phone number. Rather than deal with that nuisance, people accept yet another fee increase and stay with the same provider. This isn't customer service at all - it's corporate service where they inconvenience you to insure that the corporation makes more money. That's why they sabotage "portability" in any way they can - and it's why AT&T doesn't want Google Voice on the IPhone.
And they'd really prefer that you didn't realize that if your phone number is in one area code and your Google Voice phone number is in a different area code that you could be receiving local calls from a much larger area. In areas like Silicon Valley this can make a huge difference in the ability of people to contact you.
Stuff like this is why I do not have an IPhone - it's a nice piece of hardware but since it's tied to AT&T it's not for me. I got away from AT&T years ago and never looked back.
Those so-called scientists should have their heads examined. The "dangers" they prattle on about are fantasy things from science fiction stories - the real world is in absolutely no danger of encountering an intelligent machine. Not in this lifetime, and probably not in the next one either.
People keep trotting out this notion that if a computer is powerful enough it'll somehow magically become intelligent and start thinking on its own. That's pure nonsense - it's not a problem of processing power (although that does provide a threshold that's yet to be met) - it's more of a problem of "operating system" and "database".
We're the only examples of this kind of intelligence and most of us have no idea what's involved in sitting down to type a coherent message here that others will be able to read and comprehend. You weren't born knowing how to do this - you learned about the world through observation and you were educated for a number of years before you could accomplish this feat. That little thing called "common sense" is really the accumulated knowledge about the world and how it works - you can't wave a magic wand and instill this into a machine.
Quick example: imagine turning an "intelligent machine" loose in an art gallery and asking it to find the Picasso painting. We could do that without even really thinking but the machine would fail unless it knows about Picasso, that he was an artist and his paintings and what they look like. Otherwise, that machine could be spinning its wheels for hours looking for a painting of Picasso.
That's one of an almost infinite number of examples of why machine intelligence is so far off. To see the best progress made by a very dedicated organization, visit http://www.cyc.com/ and take a look around. And try not to be fooled by those "scientists" that play these public relations games.
The first step towards endowing machines with intelligence like (or better than) ours is to understand how our own intelligence actually works. There's still very, very little good information on this and a lot of speculation.
The linked story has all of the alternate energy buzzwords in it - and it's nice that they've gained the wind power leases for some land in Texas. But all those high-powered wind turbines are going to cost some very serious cash - that's the first problem. They aren't likely to have access to the kind of money it takes to make this happen. Then they talk about having their data center in three years. There's another clue to what's going on here - even if they did have the money, it'd be very difficult for them to have even one of these wind turbines actually generating power by then.
I'm still chuckling about those 300 foot tall towers that will be standing on the 450 acres of ocean they've leased. For extra credit, calculate the wind load of a turbine extracting 3.5 MW of power from the wind when it's at the top of a 300 foot tower. For extra credit, determine the size and number of supports it would take to keep this thing standing. Remember, it's standing in the Gulf of Mexico so be sure to design for the storms that blow through there from time to time and a long life standing in seawater.
It's an interesting story - but if you're approached about investing in this project you might want to keep your wallet in your pocket.
This is coming out of Utah, the fraud capital of the country. Could they have something worthwhile? Yes, but don't believe it until you have proof. Oh, that proof will take 1,000 years? That's no proof at all. You might want to check to make sure you still have your wallet.
12 consumer level SATA drives by Samsung. What'd be interesting is to see how long it takes before it fails with complete data loss due to drive failure. Raid 5 isn't going to save this turkey.
This sounds like the nice folks at Microsoft finally read the Google Chrome specs and decided to claim that they invented it - or to be more charitable, they're doing the same thing.
This is business at usual for the Microsoft people - but the real world has changed while they weren't looking. That "internet" thing that Bill mis-predicted has allowed news and information to be disseminated at lightning speed. Those who deal in lies and deception no longer have the cloak of secrecy to hide behind.
If Microsoft wants to actually invent something new, we'll be right here to cheer them on. But they need to realize that the days where "innovation" meant stealing from others or stupid (Microsoft Bob) useless (talking paperclip) junk were marketable are over.
I'm not expecting much from them, though. That "I'm God" feeling that comes with great success will be their downfall - they are yet to realize that they're not anything special in the real world and their attempts to force new standards will no longer be a "fait accompli".
They lost sight of who their customers really were and created Vista - and it was a sales flop. If they didn't have those restrictive contracts with hardware vendors to force it onto new machines their sales figures could be counted on their fingers and toes.
But now they're coming out with Windows 7 and there's a huge marketing push going on - and the nice folks at Microsoft are being very careful not to reveal that Windows 7 is really just Vista with some (but not all) serious bugs fixed and just enough changes to the user interface to make it appear to be something different. Even the IT savvy people here on Slashdot are hailing Windows 7 as being something special.
Hey, guys - the DRM is still baked in and everything that was bad about Vista is bad about Windows 7 too. And for those who believe otherwise, here's a challenge: name one single thing in Windows 7 that provides more value to the customer than XP. Just because they can hang more bells and whistles on the same old pig doesn't make it a better pig.
Maybe we're thinking of different models. This one has the ball offset to the left and you operate the ball with your thumb. Sounds strange, but after becoming accustomed to it it's a very good way of "mousing".
Works good and is super easy to navigate once you get used to it. It resists crud build up - and it's stationary on your desk. Knowing how free desk space is at a premium in the real world of programming, this works out very, very well.
My biggest use of it? The scroll wheel is invaluable for paging through long docs.
Charter allows you to opt out from getting their custom search page instead of an NXERROR.
So when you opt out, you don't get the search page anymore. You get a fake IE DNS error page instead - that's served from a Charter server. Useless.
I think you'd find that under the current copyright laws, creations of artists who are under contract to a record company are considered "works for hire" and the record company owns the copyrights automatically.
You might want to check your facts before you make statements of fact like this.
It would avoid you looking like an idiot - or a Microsoft sock puppet.
Did you check the security certificate that is being used by that Microsoft site before posting? I'm sure you understand what role these certificates serve in relation to https connections.
Of course, the connection to their site might be being intercepted by aliens who are replacing a valid certificate with a bad one. Or maybe they're using an old skool coal fired server and forgot to shake down the clinkers.
I'll just use Occam's Razor here - and the simplest explanation is that that server is running Windows and it wasn't configured correctly.
I'm looking over the postings here and have realized that the people who are saying that IT workers are whiners and should suck it up - they have never worked in IT and have no idea what it's like. It must be just like any other job, right? No, it's not.
It's a job where upper management sees you as a cost center; you contribute nothing to the bottom line. They don't want to spend any money on IT upgrades either; that old server has been working this long, it can keep on working for years. Problems? That's why we have IT staff.
When things are working you've got management wondering why they pay you. They are constantly finding busy work for you so that you're not just sitting there. But when something fails - be prepared to work as many hours as it takes to resolve the issue. And don't be surprised if you've got executives standing over you and berating you while you're trying to fix the problem.
Imagine (if you can) the Exchange server taking a crap (like they're known to do). The database is corrupt? No problem, that's why we have backups. Now, restore the last backup and while it takes HOURS to complete you get to deal with every asshole in management demanding to know where their email is and why you haven't got it fixed yet. It's a test and if you don't have the right answer you're out of a job. Too bad there's no right answer - good luck trying to think one up.
I survived for eight years doing this job for a major international corporation. Would I go back to it? I'm not sure; the money wasn't too bad but oh geez, the working conditions were awful. It's not the actual problems with hardware and software that get you, it's the problems with all those managers and executives that seem to think that nothing should ever go wrong because they have an IT department taking care of it. And when something does go wrong it's because those IT people didn't do their jobs right and should be punished.
For those of you who think that this is overstated - go get yourself a job in IT and see how you like it. After you've done it for a year or two let's see if you still think the people who have actually done it are nothing more than whiners.
My Charter HD box has an M-Card plugged into the back of it. It doesn't look like CableCARD is dead at all - it's just that they don't want you to use any set-top box other than their own.
Sounds like a great idea. It's such a good idea that researchers and inventors have been working at it for years - and at this point are still just obtaining some insight into how difficult the problems are.
Consider this: when we use language, the meaning of what we want to communicate is not contained in the words we use. They're just symbols that we use to refer to shared knowledge. So if I say "cat" then you already know about the small mammal that many of us keep as pets. Or maybe this refers to a shell command? Or maybe a piece of earth moving equipment? So it's not just the symbols, it's the context they're used in. To recognize the context you need to understand "cat" and the surrounding symbols as a whole.
We use "common sense" to decode those language symbols; it's based on what we've learned about the world we live in, and takes years to accumulate - for us, who are exquisitely well equipped to observe and learn. Without that background of shared knowledge to decode the symbols then language is just noise. I could say "murf blayt noksy" and while it might have meaning to me it's not likely to mean anything to you. Now consider the poor robot: he's expected to understand what we want and perform useful tasks - but even the first step of understanding what we want is far, far beyond what we can provide a machine with.
For now, the various artificial intelligence demonstrations are mostly artificial. Sure, this thing can be programmed to drive over to the bar and bring back a "beer". But that's only after humans have programmed these limited functions - regardless of what the marketing people may want you to believe. And it's all very cute, but if the bartender puts a grenade on the robot's head the robot will happily carry the grenade back to the customer. It knows nothing about "beer".
The "invention" here seems to be that the robot can navigate to locations that have a sonar "image" that matches one that it's been programmed to recognize and it's been given a "speech pattern" to trigger programmed behavior based on a sound that matches that stored speech template. Nothing new here; we were playing with ultrasonic sensors twenty years ago and even Windows comes with a rudimentary (but good enough for this demo) speech recognition engine.
With a dozen "customers" sitting in the room this thing wouldn't be able to find the right one. And all it's going to the "bar" for is something with weight. This is nothing but a marketing demo and even if they do scare up some investors the promised technology will remain out of reach.
It seems like every year or two this old idea gets dusted off and applied to one or another business. Remember when micropayments were discussed as being the way to pay for online newspapers? How about blogs? Now it's games; too bad it's a lame idea - but nobody seems willing to put it out of its misery.
Consider carefully the liability side of this issue. If the university exercises NO control over the use of the laptop then they are also (almost certainly) not liable for anything the student may do with said laptop. But if the university places controls over what sites can be visited, or prevents file sharing programs from being installed - they're creating a problem for themselves. Now, if the student downloads the latest album the lawsuit can include the university - because they made a policy of controlling these uses and failed to do so adequately.
I can see those RIAA attorneys cackling and rubbing their hands together. It was hard prying settlements out of those college kids, but if they can drag the university in too they can really collect some money to give to those poor starving artists.
Consider also just how long it'll take the average college student to bypass any and all restrictions you may place on the laptop - it's a virtual certainty that those laptops will be used in ways the university specifically forbids. You can't put controls on these laptops and avoid the liability issue.
It used to be that if you made a poor business decision and lost money you went out of business. But somehow in the recent past someone came up with the idea that just because someone is running a business they deserve to make a profit and stay in business.
It's not just the financial institutions - now it's the car companies (stalled for the moment), airlines - and foreign businesses are lining up for a handout now too.
Why bother with improved products or competitive pricing? Let's just build a factory, make some overpriced junk, then have the government give us a bunch of money? Seems like this is the new gold rush...
The question should be "is this the year that SSDs will be price competitive with hard drives?" Until that day comes, SSDs will only sell in small quantities.
It's not how likely or unlikely those various doomsday scenarios are. What's disconcerting are the significant number of plausible and possible doomsday scenarios. It's not a matter of if, it's more of a matter of when.
I sincerely hope that we'll be able to set up colonies on other planets or in other solar systems before something snuffs out life on Earth. Our survival as a species will depend on it.
Something that hasn't been stressed enough - you need to define what service you'll be providing in detail and in writing. Write a complete specification for the project; this not only protects you from "just one more little change" but it also protects the customer because clear expectations have been set up front.
Most of your customers will be reasonable, but some will not. About 20 percent of them will try to get everything and get it for free; you can either let them run you over or take precautions beforehand. Consider a simple example of a spec: "A drop down list containing up to 20 items will be provided". What this means for you as the coder is that you have to supply that drop down list, and it has to be able to contain up to 20 items. Get that right and you get paid for doing what you promised. When the customer says "but I really need 48 items in that list" then you can point to the spec and let them know that if they need 48 items it'll require an additional payment.
There are some who will suggest that a handshake and a promise is all you really need. I'm very happy for those people that their lives are sunshine and puppies and it never rains. But those who develop in the real world will find that you can never really complete a project because the customer is revising their needs as you code. No matter what you do it won't be right and when you recode to the latest need it'll be wrong, too. It's great if you want full time employment but good luck getting paid for all the time you spent.
Now if you want to spend 40 or 80 hours coding and get paid $100 for your time - and don't mind being stiffed 1 out of 5 times - then just ignore that spec and code to their whim. You might even make a little bit of money.
But if you are serious about developing to make a living then you need to take care of business. The hour or two you spend on that design spec up front that you and your client sign is nothing compared to the hours of free labor you won't be giving away afterward. And your client will appreciate knowing up front just exactly what they'll be getting and how much it's going to cost them. And when those inevitable questions arise afterward - there will be a clear measure of what constitutes a completed project and how much the client is obligated to pay for that completed project.
You don't have to have a tightly-puckered contract for them to sign - but you do need to specify clearly what they get and what they pay for it and get them to sign it before you do one bit of work. If they object to signing then wish them a good day and send them on their way.
I'll agree 100% with what you've said. I've got a Pearl 8120 too and it's clear that it could have used another trip across the drawing board before release. Sure, the phone and email seem to be mostly solid - it's just when you try to use some of the other features that you'll run into software bugs galore. I've run into the most issues with the camera; it works well when it works but it's almost a given that you'll have to hard reset the phone before you can use it.
If it wasn't for UMA I'd be swapping it out for something else. I live in a fringe area and UMA solves the problem for me. Any other cell phones with UMA capability are a poor second to the Pearl. That's not saying a lot for them...
Slashdot Mirror
Google Voice (Grand Central rebranded) is a wonderful service. Not for the reason many tout - its bevy of useful features. It's incredibly valuable because it provides a virtual phone number which redirects to whatever phone number you have now. Change carriers or move out of their service area? No problem; just change the forwarding phone number in GV and anyone who calls your GV number still is calling you.
This is something that is also valuable with email - Mail.com used to offer free redirection for life but they've since gone back on their promise and now charge for their service. Imagine having an email address that is yours forever - one that simply redirects mail to whatever account you currently have. Change providers? No problem; change your address at the redirector and nobody has to change the email address they reach you at.
Anyone who has changed phone numbers or email addresses knows what a hassle it can be - these redirection services provide a solution to this problem.
Hey, AT&T and Apple - what me, a customer, wants is to have a phone number and email address that is mine - one that will be mine for as long as I want - no matter if my email or phone provider changes or goes out of business. That's what Google Voice provides and AT&T does NOT. Phone number portability is largely a joke as anyone who's tried to keep a phone number knows. Portability doesn't help if you move to a different area code, anyway.
Phone companies like to lock in their customers - one of the ways they do this is through the fear they instill in their customers. If you change providers, you'll have to tell everyone you know that you've got a new phone number. Rather than deal with that nuisance, people accept yet another fee increase and stay with the same provider. This isn't customer service at all - it's corporate service where they inconvenience you to insure that the corporation makes more money. That's why they sabotage "portability" in any way they can - and it's why AT&T doesn't want Google Voice on the IPhone.
And they'd really prefer that you didn't realize that if your phone number is in one area code and your Google Voice phone number is in a different area code that you could be receiving local calls from a much larger area. In areas like Silicon Valley this can make a huge difference in the ability of people to contact you.
Stuff like this is why I do not have an IPhone - it's a nice piece of hardware but since it's tied to AT&T it's not for me. I got away from AT&T years ago and never looked back.
Those so-called scientists should have their heads examined. The "dangers" they prattle on about are fantasy things from science fiction stories - the real world is in absolutely no danger of encountering an intelligent machine. Not in this lifetime, and probably not in the next one either.
People keep trotting out this notion that if a computer is powerful enough it'll somehow magically become intelligent and start thinking on its own. That's pure nonsense - it's not a problem of processing power (although that does provide a threshold that's yet to be met) - it's more of a problem of "operating system" and "database".
We're the only examples of this kind of intelligence and most of us have no idea what's involved in sitting down to type a coherent message here that others will be able to read and comprehend. You weren't born knowing how to do this - you learned about the world through observation and you were educated for a number of years before you could accomplish this feat. That little thing called "common sense" is really the accumulated knowledge about the world and how it works - you can't wave a magic wand and instill this into a machine.
Quick example: imagine turning an "intelligent machine" loose in an art gallery and asking it to find the Picasso painting. We could do that without even really thinking but the machine would fail unless it knows about Picasso, that he was an artist and his paintings and what they look like. Otherwise, that machine could be spinning its wheels for hours looking for a painting of Picasso.
That's one of an almost infinite number of examples of why machine intelligence is so far off. To see the best progress made by a very dedicated organization, visit http://www.cyc.com/ and take a look around. And try not to be fooled by those "scientists" that play these public relations games.
The first step towards endowing machines with intelligence like (or better than) ours is to understand how our own intelligence actually works. There's still very, very little good information on this and a lot of speculation.
I'm still chuckling about those 300 foot tall towers that will be standing on the 450 acres of ocean they've leased. For extra credit, calculate the wind load of a turbine extracting 3.5 MW of power from the wind when it's at the top of a 300 foot tower. For extra credit, determine the size and number of supports it would take to keep this thing standing. Remember, it's standing in the Gulf of Mexico so be sure to design for the storms that blow through there from time to time and a long life standing in seawater.
It's an interesting story - but if you're approached about investing in this project you might want to keep your wallet in your pocket.
This is coming out of Utah, the fraud capital of the country. Could they have something worthwhile? Yes, but don't believe it until you have proof. Oh, that proof will take 1,000 years? That's no proof at all. You might want to check to make sure you still have your wallet.
12 consumer level SATA drives by Samsung. What'd be interesting is to see how long it takes before it fails with complete data loss due to drive failure. Raid 5 isn't going to save this turkey.
This is business at usual for the Microsoft people - but the real world has changed while they weren't looking. That "internet" thing that Bill mis-predicted has allowed news and information to be disseminated at lightning speed. Those who deal in lies and deception no longer have the cloak of secrecy to hide behind.
If Microsoft wants to actually invent something new, we'll be right here to cheer them on. But they need to realize that the days where "innovation" meant stealing from others or stupid (Microsoft Bob) useless (talking paperclip) junk were marketable are over.
I'm not expecting much from them, though. That "I'm God" feeling that comes with great success will be their downfall - they are yet to realize that they're not anything special in the real world and their attempts to force new standards will no longer be a "fait accompli".
They lost sight of who their customers really were and created Vista - and it was a sales flop. If they didn't have those restrictive contracts with hardware vendors to force it onto new machines their sales figures could be counted on their fingers and toes.
But now they're coming out with Windows 7 and there's a huge marketing push going on - and the nice folks at Microsoft are being very careful not to reveal that Windows 7 is really just Vista with some (but not all) serious bugs fixed and just enough changes to the user interface to make it appear to be something different. Even the IT savvy people here on Slashdot are hailing Windows 7 as being something special.
Hey, guys - the DRM is still baked in and everything that was bad about Vista is bad about Windows 7 too. And for those who believe otherwise, here's a challenge: name one single thing in Windows 7 that provides more value to the customer than XP. Just because they can hang more bells and whistles on the same old pig doesn't make it a better pig.
Maybe we're thinking of different models. This one has the ball offset to the left and you operate the ball with your thumb. Sounds strange, but after becoming accustomed to it it's a very good way of "mousing".
Works good and is super easy to navigate once you get used to it. It resists crud build up - and it's stationary on your desk. Knowing how free desk space is at a premium in the real world of programming, this works out very, very well. My biggest use of it? The scroll wheel is invaluable for paging through long docs.
Charter allows you to opt out from getting their custom search page instead of an NXERROR. So when you opt out, you don't get the search page anymore. You get a fake IE DNS error page instead - that's served from a Charter server. Useless.
I think you'd find that under the current copyright laws, creations of artists who are under contract to a record company are considered "works for hire" and the record company owns the copyrights automatically.
You might want to check your facts before you make statements of fact like this. It would avoid you looking like an idiot - or a Microsoft sock puppet.
Did you check the security certificate that is being used by that Microsoft site before posting? I'm sure you understand what role these certificates serve in relation to https connections.
Of course, the connection to their site might be being intercepted by aliens who are replacing a valid certificate with a bad one. Or maybe they're using an old skool coal fired server and forgot to shake down the clinkers.
I'll just use Occam's Razor here - and the simplest explanation is that that server is running Windows and it wasn't configured correctly.
And visiting that link brought up an "invalid security certificate" warning. Good old Microsoft - they can't even get their own servers set up right.
I'm looking over the postings here and have realized that the people who are saying that IT workers are whiners and should suck it up - they have never worked in IT and have no idea what it's like. It must be just like any other job, right? No, it's not.
It's a job where upper management sees you as a cost center; you contribute nothing to the bottom line. They don't want to spend any money on IT upgrades either; that old server has been working this long, it can keep on working for years. Problems? That's why we have IT staff.
When things are working you've got management wondering why they pay you. They are constantly finding busy work for you so that you're not just sitting there. But when something fails - be prepared to work as many hours as it takes to resolve the issue. And don't be surprised if you've got executives standing over you and berating you while you're trying to fix the problem.
Imagine (if you can) the Exchange server taking a crap (like they're known to do). The database is corrupt? No problem, that's why we have backups. Now, restore the last backup and while it takes HOURS to complete you get to deal with every asshole in management demanding to know where their email is and why you haven't got it fixed yet. It's a test and if you don't have the right answer you're out of a job. Too bad there's no right answer - good luck trying to think one up.
I survived for eight years doing this job for a major international corporation. Would I go back to it? I'm not sure; the money wasn't too bad but oh geez, the working conditions were awful. It's not the actual problems with hardware and software that get you, it's the problems with all those managers and executives that seem to think that nothing should ever go wrong because they have an IT department taking care of it. And when something does go wrong it's because those IT people didn't do their jobs right and should be punished.
For those of you who think that this is overstated - go get yourself a job in IT and see how you like it. After you've done it for a year or two let's see if you still think the people who have actually done it are nothing more than whiners.
I'd say that the shark has been jumped already.
My Charter HD box has an M-Card plugged into the back of it. It doesn't look like CableCARD is dead at all - it's just that they don't want you to use any set-top box other than their own.
Consider this: when we use language, the meaning of what we want to communicate is not contained in the words we use. They're just symbols that we use to refer to shared knowledge. So if I say "cat" then you already know about the small mammal that many of us keep as pets. Or maybe this refers to a shell command? Or maybe a piece of earth moving equipment? So it's not just the symbols, it's the context they're used in. To recognize the context you need to understand "cat" and the surrounding symbols as a whole.
We use "common sense" to decode those language symbols; it's based on what we've learned about the world we live in, and takes years to accumulate - for us, who are exquisitely well equipped to observe and learn. Without that background of shared knowledge to decode the symbols then language is just noise. I could say "murf blayt noksy" and while it might have meaning to me it's not likely to mean anything to you. Now consider the poor robot: he's expected to understand what we want and perform useful tasks - but even the first step of understanding what we want is far, far beyond what we can provide a machine with.
For now, the various artificial intelligence demonstrations are mostly artificial. Sure, this thing can be programmed to drive over to the bar and bring back a "beer". But that's only after humans have programmed these limited functions - regardless of what the marketing people may want you to believe. And it's all very cute, but if the bartender puts a grenade on the robot's head the robot will happily carry the grenade back to the customer. It knows nothing about "beer".
The "invention" here seems to be that the robot can navigate to locations that have a sonar "image" that matches one that it's been programmed to recognize and it's been given a "speech pattern" to trigger programmed behavior based on a sound that matches that stored speech template. Nothing new here; we were playing with ultrasonic sensors twenty years ago and even Windows comes with a rudimentary (but good enough for this demo) speech recognition engine.
With a dozen "customers" sitting in the room this thing wouldn't be able to find the right one. And all it's going to the "bar" for is something with weight. This is nothing but a marketing demo and even if they do scare up some investors the promised technology will remain out of reach.
Read more about how hard this stuff is at http://www.cyc.com/
Those "air needle things" were around long before Star Trek. A lot of polio vaccine was injected this way back in the early 60's.
It seems like every year or two this old idea gets dusted off and applied to one or another business. Remember when micropayments were discussed as being the way to pay for online newspapers? How about blogs? Now it's games; too bad it's a lame idea - but nobody seems willing to put it out of its misery.
I can see those RIAA attorneys cackling and rubbing their hands together. It was hard prying settlements out of those college kids, but if they can drag the university in too they can really collect some money to give to those poor starving artists.
Consider also just how long it'll take the average college student to bypass any and all restrictions you may place on the laptop - it's a virtual certainty that those laptops will be used in ways the university specifically forbids. You can't put controls on these laptops and avoid the liability issue.
It's not just the financial institutions - now it's the car companies (stalled for the moment), airlines - and foreign businesses are lining up for a handout now too.
Why bother with improved products or competitive pricing? Let's just build a factory, make some overpriced junk, then have the government give us a bunch of money? Seems like this is the new gold rush...
The question should be "is this the year that SSDs will be price competitive with hard drives?" Until that day comes, SSDs will only sell in small quantities.
I sincerely hope that we'll be able to set up colonies on other planets or in other solar systems before something snuffs out life on Earth. Our survival as a species will depend on it.
Most of your customers will be reasonable, but some will not. About 20 percent of them will try to get everything and get it for free; you can either let them run you over or take precautions beforehand. Consider a simple example of a spec: "A drop down list containing up to 20 items will be provided". What this means for you as the coder is that you have to supply that drop down list, and it has to be able to contain up to 20 items. Get that right and you get paid for doing what you promised. When the customer says "but I really need 48 items in that list" then you can point to the spec and let them know that if they need 48 items it'll require an additional payment.
There are some who will suggest that a handshake and a promise is all you really need. I'm very happy for those people that their lives are sunshine and puppies and it never rains. But those who develop in the real world will find that you can never really complete a project because the customer is revising their needs as you code. No matter what you do it won't be right and when you recode to the latest need it'll be wrong, too. It's great if you want full time employment but good luck getting paid for all the time you spent.
Now if you want to spend 40 or 80 hours coding and get paid $100 for your time - and don't mind being stiffed 1 out of 5 times - then just ignore that spec and code to their whim. You might even make a little bit of money.
But if you are serious about developing to make a living then you need to take care of business. The hour or two you spend on that design spec up front that you and your client sign is nothing compared to the hours of free labor you won't be giving away afterward. And your client will appreciate knowing up front just exactly what they'll be getting and how much it's going to cost them. And when those inevitable questions arise afterward - there will be a clear measure of what constitutes a completed project and how much the client is obligated to pay for that completed project.
You don't have to have a tightly-puckered contract for them to sign - but you do need to specify clearly what they get and what they pay for it and get them to sign it before you do one bit of work. If they object to signing then wish them a good day and send them on their way.
If it wasn't for UMA I'd be swapping it out for something else. I live in a fringe area and UMA solves the problem for me. Any other cell phones with UMA capability are a poor second to the Pearl. That's not saying a lot for them...