And www.plazes.com is building initial database of such beacon point locations.
It could have some pretty cool uses, provided that privacy concerns are adequately addressed.
Such software have hidden cost on ISP hardware. Imagine how many serevers you need for soultion like this to service say 10,000 simultaneous users. Plus extra staff to maintain it.
Basically it makes ISP to run more poverful servers and at the end they still pass the cost of it to the subscribers.
In the article they are quoting spokesman for Cingular Wireless, basically saying "tough luck!". What he fails to mention is a ridiculous Cingular policy of charging user for incoming SMS messages! If you are a Cingular customer, I can rob you of 10 cents, just sending you text message. On the other hand, AT&T Wireless always had free incoming SMS, which makes perfect sense to me. I wonder, what pricing policy new joint Cingular/AT&T plans will follow.
They are also pretty advanced in terms of supporting new technologies. For instance they provide FOAF info for users, have rich SOAP API, was among first to support ATOM. They also allow to incroprorate syndicated feeds into your friends page. Posting by email and phone is pretty cool.
As to demographics of their user base, I would try to avoid generalizing there. Yes, there are lot of young people there, but there are some serious blogs there, technical and otherwise. By the way, they also provide very nice stats (user distribution by age, buy location, etc.)
Palm OS historically have database storage model: everything on it was organized in databases, which contain records. Each record is just chunk of arbitrary-size (well, there is 32K limit) of binary data. Database API provides only means of accessing records by number, marking them as deleted and adding new ones. (I am slightly over-simplifying here, there are also database and record attributes, categories, etc. but this is not relevant to what I want to say here.
Main advantage of database abstraction is that HotSync could incrementally backup and synchronize your data without knowing about its internal structure. In cases when it should know about record structure, it could be extended on PC-side by something called "Conduits" - essentially plug-ins responsible for synchronizing certain kind of database records.
In more recent versions of Palm OS they realized that they could not get away without good old file system abstraction (for example for accessing network drives or compact flash cards) and they introduced Virtual File System manager, in short VFS. VFS is certainly step ahead, but data stored on VFS does not have advantage of HotSync - it is not backed up, not synced on per-record basis, not purged then application owning it is deleted.
Other systems, like PocketPC and Symbian already have just one data storage model - File System. PalmOS now have two, incompatible ones.
VFS abstraction is more flexible than database, since it offers multi-tier data organization (nested directories) versus two-tier in database (database and record). Interestingly, old model could be mapped into VFS model. One could write VFS library representing databases in main memory as VFS directories. Each record will be shown as file in appropriate directory. This would allow to access with old data structures via new API. Databases modified via this VFS API are still valid PalmOS databases and could be backed up via HotSync. Now developers could gradually shift to new VFS API and old database API could be eventually phased out.
I hope somebody will develop such VFS implementation.
The problem with technologies like this is that they need to gather widespread acceptance to become useful.
Quick grep on my mail archive (which is HUGE) failed to find single message with X-HashCash header. That means even if I would enable it now, it will be practically useless.
Of course wide acceptance could be achieved by the means of widespread grassroots campaign, but this is hard way. If somebody big like GMail, Yahoo Mail or MS Outlook or Apple Mail started to use it , that would have snowball effect.
The technique they are trying to patent is called "collaborative filtering" and existed well before they introduced it. I think University Of Minnesota have GroupLense project doing this. Some more info about it here:
Goog thing is that WOT certificates are instantly recognized by popular email clients (Outlook, Apple mail) since they already know about thawte root certificate.
I am using X.509 certificate to sign all my email. I feel that this gives better protection from email address spoofing that other domail or SMTP-server based scheme. I wish more people do like me.
You should read an excellent book: "Flesh and Machines: How robots will change us". It is written by Rodney Brooks. His company (iRobot) was behind Roomba design. The book explains algorithms used in it.
They are not finished, they are evolving. There is that much gizmoz you can carry on you. I have PDA, phone and iPod (plus walled, bluetooth headset). I have to carry all this stiff on my and charge it.
This calls for combining functions to decrease number of devices. Ideally all 3 (PDA, iPod and Phone) should be the same device.
It is going in this direction, but not quite there yet. My Clie could play MP3, but battery life and storage size is too small. My iPod could work as address book, but there is no way to edit data on it - only view. My cell phone have some PDA functions, but due to small screen and most importantly poor keyboard they are not really useful.
Slashdot Mirror
What about data export? Can I export all my data from it in XML or other open format?
I understand your frustration, but yellow stickers with root passwords attached to your monitor must go.
And www.plazes.com is building initial database of such beacon point locations. It could have some pretty cool uses, provided that privacy concerns are adequately addressed.
Another good article on the subject is: "The Spam Problem: Moving Beyond RBLs" by Philip Jacob
I'd like to approach them with all of the relevant information in a presentable format
That would be Microsft Power Point.
Such software have hidden cost on ISP hardware. Imagine how many serevers you need for soultion like
this to service say 10,000 simultaneous users. Plus extra staff to maintain it.
Basically it makes ISP to run more poverful servers and at the end they still pass the cost of it to the
subscribers.
Why bother with these savages speaking funny
languages! Next step is disable support for any
non-ASCII characters in browser.
Last time I've checked Microsoft was not producing portable MP3 player with hard-drive.
So it is not like parking your BMW car on General Motors factory parking lot, but rather riding BMW motorcycle to your work on GM factory.
We are not ready to change keyboard layout yet. We must wait until generation of people using 'vi' dies or retires.
In the article they are quoting spokesman for Cingular Wireless, basically saying "tough luck!". What he fails to mention is a ridiculous Cingular policy of charging user for incoming SMS messages! If you are a Cingular customer, I can rob you of 10 cents, just sending you text message. On the other hand, AT&T Wireless always had free incoming SMS, which makes perfect sense to me. I wonder, what pricing policy new joint Cingular/AT&T plans will follow.
They are also pretty advanced in terms of supporting
new technologies. For instance they provide FOAF
info for users, have rich SOAP API, was among first to support ATOM. They also allow to incroprorate syndicated feeds into your friends
page. Posting by email and phone is pretty cool.
As to demographics of their user base, I would try
to avoid generalizing there. Yes, there are lot
of young people there, but there are some serious
blogs there, technical and otherwise. By the way, they also provide very nice stats (user distribution by age, buy location, etc.)
History repeats itself. VM/CMS is back, but
on smaller sexier boxes.
Main advantage of database abstraction is that HotSync could incrementally backup and synchronize your data without knowing about its internal structure. In cases when it should know about record structure, it could be extended on PC-side by something called "Conduits" - essentially plug-ins responsible for synchronizing certain kind of database records.
In more recent versions of Palm OS they realized that they could not get away without good old file system abstraction (for example for accessing network drives or compact flash cards) and they introduced Virtual File System manager, in short VFS. VFS is certainly step ahead, but data stored on VFS does not have advantage of HotSync - it is not backed up, not synced on per-record basis, not purged then application owning it is deleted.
Other systems, like PocketPC and Symbian already have just one data storage model - File System. PalmOS now have two, incompatible ones.
VFS abstraction is more flexible than database, since it offers multi-tier data organization (nested directories) versus two-tier in database (database and record). Interestingly, old model could be mapped into VFS model. One could write VFS library representing databases in main memory as VFS directories. Each record will be shown as file in appropriate directory. This would allow to access with old data structures via new API. Databases modified via this VFS API are still valid PalmOS databases and could be backed up via HotSync. Now developers could gradually shift to new VFS API and old database API could be eventually phased out.
I hope somebody will develop such VFS implementation.
(copied verbatim from my june 2004 blog entry)
Well, this is contemporary history - you
do not have to go digging into woods to check this. Just type the name of the city into the fucking google!
The problem with technologies like this is that they need to gather widespread acceptance to become useful.
Quick grep on my mail archive (which is HUGE) failed to find single message with X-HashCash header. That means even if I would enable it now, it will be practically useless.
Of course wide acceptance could be achieved by the means of widespread grassroots campaign, but this is hard way. If somebody big like GMail, Yahoo Mail or MS Outlook or Apple Mail started to use it , that would have snowball effect.
The technique they are trying to patent is called "collaborative filtering" and existed well before they introduced it. I think University Of Minnesota have GroupLense project doing this. Some more info about it here:
http://notbrainsurgery.livejournal.com/7586.html
Goog thing is that WOT certificates are instantly recognized by popular email clients (Outlook, Apple mail) since they already know about thawte root certificate.
You do not have to pay. Use Thawte WOT
I am using X.509 certificate to sign all my email.
I feel that this gives better protection from email address spoofing that other domail or SMTP-server based scheme. I wish more people do like me.
no need to make numbers longer - just extend
alphabet with additional characters.
Arguably, this would be easier upgrade for existing
systems.
You should read an excellent book: "Flesh and Machines: How robots will change us". It is written by Rodney Brooks. His company (iRobot) was behind Roomba design. The book explains algorithms used in it.
I've used Shadow Plan but switched to HWiki
They are not finished, they are evolving. There is that much gizmoz you can carry on you. I have PDA, phone and iPod (plus walled, bluetooth headset). I have to carry all this stiff on my and charge it.
This calls for combining functions to decrease number of devices. Ideally all 3 (PDA, iPod and Phone) should be the same device.
It is going in this direction, but not quite there yet. My Clie could play MP3, but battery life and storage size is too small. My iPod could work as address book, but there is no way to edit data on it - only view. My cell phone have some PDA functions, but due to small screen and most importantly poor keyboard they are not really useful.
... helmet is provided -- just in case.
After reading link about segway accident, I realized
that helmets should be provided also to pedestrian, not just drivers.
for some reason it is always disabled for me. Any way to enable it?