This seems like a really awesome idea! I just wish they had provided some more details about the actual underlying technology. Is this something like a miniaturized version of the cow-generator we saw forever ago? Or is it just a tiny generator with an insanely strong spring and a high gearing ratio, designed to provide about as much resistance as you'd expect from a solid object?
I guess the question comes down to the cost of producing enough piezo-electric mats to actually help dull the sound in addition to the amount of energy harvested from their current method.
Does anyone know how exactly they currently get the energy for the aforementioned flood-detector?
Yes, hence why they're using footfalls in subway lines instead of gyms. The gym analogy was just meant as to describe the "humans produce a lot of wasted energy, why don't we harvest some?" sentiment.
Probably much more, but the idea is that if it lasts for any period of time, it will hopefully provide enough energy for 6,500 light bulbs * however many years it remains up and running
It appears to have already been patched on my Debian etch system (both kernel and libraries). Does anyone know how to force all my ssl/ssh keys to refresh?
Yes, I know it'll break all the old connections, but I'd much rather know it was secure.
I understand that this is for people who are developing their own hardware (I don't quite like how you insinuate that I don't know what developing hardware means, I'm not an idiot), but I still think that it's really only useful, not always necessary. The kind of circuits people will be building at entry levels are going to be circuits that can be debugged with blinking LEDs and serial connections. Yeah, it takes more effort, but if you're motivated, you can do it.
Yes, I understand that you're developing for hardware, as I do as well (albeit as a hobbyist, not professionally). I guess I haven't developed a circuit that I haven't been able to debug without the use of a multimeter, blinking LEDs, and the occasional use of a Serial connection on a PIC to report back to a computer what the heck is being transmitted where.
Though I guess that's a lot more time and effort to debug than it would be with an oscilloscope, but if you're not developing something really huge than it's feasible to do so.
USB to serial adapters don't work (by and large) because although they deliver the voltages required, they have very little amperage and thus quickly fail to provide enough power. I can attest to this being true as I have two different USB to serial adapters and neither of them can power my JDM programmer. And while certainly there are such solutions (http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=460) you need to know where to find them, which is hard when you're getting started.
When I say cheap programmers I mean ones in the $20 range. A $100 programmer that works via USB is a pretty huge investment for someone like myself a year ago (when I got started in embedded programming work) and had no idea if I was going to be successful. What will measure the success of MiniOn is to provide a cross-platform, cheap ($75 or under) solution to the problem.
And yes, oscilloscopes are wonderful, and I'd really love to have one, but if you can't develop without one you're probably in the wrong field.
One of the major barriers getting into embedded programming is finding a cheap programmer that doesn't require RS232 standard 18 Volt serial ports (or similarly high-voltage parallel ports). If you're making something that helps around that? You're certainly going to help people get into the game.
Absolutely wonderful! This has been something that's been bothering me for the better part of four years. I felt odd when I wanted to do something, but it would mean that I'd miss out of the collective culture of watching TV.
Now I know why. We're moving on from TV, and you can't have both ideas at the same time. You can either do something or watch TV, and I for one want to do something.
Actually the video seemed to imply that it was re-writable. So I say nay! It isn't too off in the future.
And really, if all of this stuff is being fab'd in-house the quality may be good enough to make claims about longevity of the media.
What will drop it off and destroy it will be when they're mass produced, at which point cheap imperfections will make it just as unlikely to last.
And as I said, if it eventually gets up to it's predicted speeds. Yes, it's an emerging technology, it's not as impressive as it will be. Did you burn CDs at 52X the first day they came out? Hell, I still burn DVDs at 8X, what's the big deal with having to take a while to burn now? It'll get better.
The read/write times for holographic media outstrip even the fastest tape drives.
If the technology proves to work at even half of the projected speeds it will have numbers in the GIGBYTES per read/write. And the point is that, no matter how hard you tried, you could never keep a continual backup using that tape drive because you'd chew the tape to death over the course of a billion writes, and have little idea until you went back to read it.
The data retention time is, in fact, 50 years.
If the data turns out to be usable through the years than this will turn out to be invaluable.
The film industry currently has a crisis on their hands where more and more "garbage" video of sets when no filming is going on and alternate scenes, interviews and all the things we see on the "extra features" sections on those fancy new blu-ray and DVD discs.
They need some way to safely and easily store that media for many, MANY years before the common media supports it, and it the discs last 50+ years? This will be a boon. Especially if damaged discs turn out to be as easily recovered as is theoretically possible.
The only x-factor will be whether the discs from the first generation of reader/writers is compatible with future generations. If they are? This is a winner.
Get firefox, Noscript, and adblock plus.
Block all the tracking websites!
I have "google-analitics.com" (it's frightening how many websites have this embedded, even those without ads)
"googlesyndication"
"doubleclick"
and lots of other on my "untrusted" list. Makes me 20% less paranoid.
Managed to get it to run on my machine (Debian). Gave me root access just as promised. Funny though that I still can't run administrative functions (like ifconfig) without running them with an absolute path (little comfort though).
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This seems like a really awesome idea! I just wish they had provided some more details about the actual underlying technology. Is this something like a miniaturized version of the cow-generator we saw forever ago? Or is it just a tiny generator with an insanely strong spring and a high gearing ratio, designed to provide about as much resistance as you'd expect from a solid object?
I guess the question comes down to the cost of producing enough piezo-electric mats to actually help dull the sound in addition to the amount of energy harvested from their current method.
Does anyone know how exactly they currently get the energy for the aforementioned flood-detector?
Yes, hence why they're using footfalls in subway lines instead of gyms. The gym analogy was just meant as to describe the "humans produce a lot of wasted energy, why don't we harvest some?" sentiment.
Probably much more, but the idea is that if it lasts for any period of time, it will hopefully provide enough energy for 6,500 light bulbs * however many years it remains up and running
It appears to have already been patched on my Debian etch system (both kernel and libraries). Does anyone know how to force all my ssl/ssh keys to refresh? Yes, I know it'll break all the old connections, but I'd much rather know it was secure.
I understand that this is for people who are developing their own hardware (I don't quite like how you insinuate that I don't know what developing hardware means, I'm not an idiot), but I still think that it's really only useful, not always necessary. The kind of circuits people will be building at entry levels are going to be circuits that can be debugged with blinking LEDs and serial connections. Yeah, it takes more effort, but if you're motivated, you can do it.
Yes, I understand that you're developing for hardware, as I do as well (albeit as a hobbyist, not professionally). I guess I haven't developed a circuit that I haven't been able to debug without the use of a multimeter, blinking LEDs, and the occasional use of a Serial connection on a PIC to report back to a computer what the heck is being transmitted where.
Though I guess that's a lot more time and effort to debug than it would be with an oscilloscope, but if you're not developing something really huge than it's feasible to do so.
USB to serial adapters don't work (by and large) because although they deliver the voltages required, they have very little amperage and thus quickly fail to provide enough power. I can attest to this being true as I have two different USB to serial adapters and neither of them can power my JDM programmer. And while certainly there are such solutions (http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=460) you need to know where to find them, which is hard when you're getting started.
When I say cheap programmers I mean ones in the $20 range. A $100 programmer that works via USB is a pretty huge investment for someone like myself a year ago (when I got started in embedded programming work) and had no idea if I was going to be successful. What will measure the success of MiniOn is to provide a cross-platform, cheap ($75 or under) solution to the problem.
And yes, oscilloscopes are wonderful, and I'd really love to have one, but if you can't develop without one you're probably in the wrong field.
One of the major barriers getting into embedded programming is finding a cheap programmer that doesn't require RS232 standard 18 Volt serial ports (or similarly high-voltage parallel ports). If you're making something that helps around that? You're certainly going to help people get into the game.
Absolutely wonderful! This has been something that's been bothering me for the better part of four years. I felt odd when I wanted to do something, but it would mean that I'd miss out of the collective culture of watching TV.
Now I know why. We're moving on from TV, and you can't have both ideas at the same time. You can either do something or watch TV, and I for one want to do something.
I hope this guy is right.
Actually the video seemed to imply that it was re-writable. So I say nay! It isn't too off in the future. And really, if all of this stuff is being fab'd in-house the quality may be good enough to make claims about longevity of the media. What will drop it off and destroy it will be when they're mass produced, at which point cheap imperfections will make it just as unlikely to last. And as I said, if it eventually gets up to it's predicted speeds. Yes, it's an emerging technology, it's not as impressive as it will be. Did you burn CDs at 52X the first day they came out? Hell, I still burn DVDs at 8X, what's the big deal with having to take a while to burn now? It'll get better.
It's all backwards compatibility. If it turns out to be? This will be quite an achievement.
The read/write times for holographic media outstrip even the fastest tape drives. If the technology proves to work at even half of the projected speeds it will have numbers in the GIGBYTES per read/write. And the point is that, no matter how hard you tried, you could never keep a continual backup using that tape drive because you'd chew the tape to death over the course of a billion writes, and have little idea until you went back to read it.
The data retention time is, in fact, 50 years. If the data turns out to be usable through the years than this will turn out to be invaluable. The film industry currently has a crisis on their hands where more and more "garbage" video of sets when no filming is going on and alternate scenes, interviews and all the things we see on the "extra features" sections on those fancy new blu-ray and DVD discs. They need some way to safely and easily store that media for many, MANY years before the common media supports it, and it the discs last 50+ years? This will be a boon. Especially if damaged discs turn out to be as easily recovered as is theoretically possible. The only x-factor will be whether the discs from the first generation of reader/writers is compatible with future generations. If they are? This is a winner.
Now all you have to do is not panic if these pages get slashdotted... just... DON'T... PANIC.
Get firefox, Noscript, and adblock plus. Block all the tracking websites! I have "google-analitics.com" (it's frightening how many websites have this embedded, even those without ads) "googlesyndication" "doubleclick" and lots of other on my "untrusted" list. Makes me 20% less paranoid.
Managed to get it to run on my machine (Debian). Gave me root access just as promised. Funny though that I still can't run administrative functions (like ifconfig) without running them with an absolute path (little comfort though).