Sure it isn't as easy to install a new hard drive into an iPod as it is to install one into a desktop, but it's not some mystical ritual. Hell, if is easier to upgrade or replace an iPod than it is for a lot of laptops I've seen.
Mac zealot troll?
Uhh, yeah right. Though it wouldnl't be too bad if what I said was mac zealosy- makes Mac users a lot more mild and intelligent than the kind of crap we see from Windows and Linux zealots...
Uhh, it's not an "off the shelf IDE" drive. It is an off the shelf PCMCIA ATA drive. You can buy a replacement- or even an upgrade- at a number of computer stores. I bought one for use in my PDA- cheapest 2 GB in PDA storage you can get, only US$70.
If it's "off the shelf" why are you asking about a replacement?
well hell, we should just kill all scientists. i mean, they all contribute to most environmental problems in one way or another. they put out waste, drive cars, live in buildings, use computer which were manufactured with very dangerous methods, etc etc.
A PDA should be using a database as it's central store as it is. CE already includes a database system, though the SQL CE has more features. The NewtonOS and PalmOS both do very well by having a database at their core. I don't care if it's a sql-based relational or object database, it just makes more sense.
The PDA is a chance to start over. With different OSes and CPU archs, compatibility isn't a big deal as it is on the desktop, where it has held back development for years. A chance to do it from the start again, and do it right.
Something seems off in the world when MS is pushing relatively innovative ideas (database file system,.NET) and the OSS world is what is stuck in some sad desire for psychological backwards compatibility. After years of making fun of MS for doing it, so many Zaurus and Linux PDA developers are content to be guilty of the same crime. That said, at least OpenZaurus has the balls to be going with sqllite for data storage, though they've made no huge push toward it.
Works fine for me on a 400 MHz PXA255'd XScale. It's running WinCE.NET 4.1, which includes the.NET CF. I've never used SQL CE, I've used the built-in db system. You must be working with older software, PPC2k or 2k2. Things move forward- yeah, it's a bitch, but would you have us all writing code in assembler instead?
If your company has any other.NET CF jobs, send 'em my way- I'd be happy to do some consulting.
As a longtime user of PDAs, Newton, WinCE and Zaurus, I feel I can safely say for most apps, MySQL is pretty sucky on the Z. It wastes precious resources on the Zaurus- especially precious considering how much the setup- Linux+Qtopia- eats up as it is. Far worse than CE.
I can't say I've used this particular MS SQL for CE product- but I have used the built-in database, which allows happy queries. As well as SQLlite on the Zaurus. Both seemed a lot faster and provided more enjoyable solutions for me, the developer, than MySQL running on a PDA did. In the case of both SQLlite and the built-in CE db I wrote some scripts to do synching over the network with the server running on my desktop, but it wasn't much work, and the drop in resources wasted between this solution and running MySQL more than made up for it.
If you want a MySQL port to CE, you could try it yourself. See Rainer's ported software, along with tips and a compat library for porting Unix/Linux apps to CE. Because of his library and what it has meant for the CE community, I use a CE palmtop instead of the C760- for me, there are a ton more useful, well-adapted Unix ports for CE than there are for the Zaurus. Granted, I'm a traditional man- I want the classics like LaTeX, emacs, and the like. I could build any artbitrary linux package for my Z pretty darn quick, but would have to put a ton of energy writing an interface that didn't blow. Which most OSS devs for the Z really don't do- they just hand you a CLI app and say "see! you can run N on the Z! oooh!"
No, you're reading it wrong. See how he mentions getting data from SQL Server on a "local network," and then use the SQL CE server from when you're away from said local network. You know, like when you're out of the office, away from the office LAN or wifi network. You use the built-in server for the time you're away- the latency and bandwith issues are moot. You come back to work the next day with the new data you collected and new data from the mothership- you sync and that's that.
It's not a new approach- it's been used and proven for years. I use it, though not with MS SQL/SQL CE.
Heh, that's what I was thinking. The fact that it serves databases out to apps and uses real-live SQL seem to be the most important features. I'm sure it doesn't do any of the fancy-pants enterprise stuff of MS SQL or DB2 or Oracle, but it is still an SQL... server.
I don't know about you, but there is no way I'm going to be running what your average DOS PC was running 10 years ago on my PDA, in the area of OS, networking/web or databases. Sorry.
SQL is nothing new. What is so scary about having an embedded SQL server for CE, Linux, etc? There are number of them, it's not like MS thought of it.
We could go back to running DOS database apps. Paradox! dBase! YAY! Knock your socks off, do as ye will- but I want a more modern platform, with a more modern API and language setup.
Saw a video a few months back of new research (teddy is old) having to do with using sketches to draw out a physics simulation. written in Java. IIRC, done at MIT's Oxygen lab. Anyway, it was incredible- the guy draws a ramp. Draws a box at the top of the ramp, adds wheels. hit go and the whole thing is played out at 1 G in the way it would here on earth. I would knife someone to get a hold of that. Ok, maybe not that, but yeah, it'd be great.
you love sims like this? I find it pretty doubtful you've ever used a sim like this in any "home version." this isn't simfarm. it like doesn't have any snazzy openGL renderings of planets being born, one star system at a time, making a picture of the galaxy you can zoom around in by holding down the control- and meta-keys as modifiers of axis. It's a big and ugly number crunching beast that spits out some probabilities. fun, if you know what the numbers mean, but mostly worthless to an outsider.
though i suppose someone could write a GUI front end that just takes the probability matrix it spits out and generate a random solar system based on the numbers, along with total mass, etc etc. But I could do that now with some guesses at the numbers and it wouldn't be much different...
What more do you have in science than inference from known data? What more do scientists have than making a conclusion from the data, having that conclusion challenged with new data and then forming something new?
Sorry, but some of us aren't willing to just sit on our hands, isolating ourselves from the universe or our natural surroundings.
Plenty of humanity is pompous, yes- including a lot of non-scientists. A real scientist may be pompous in his personal life, but in his view of science, no. Any scientist that thinks she knows everything isn't a scientist but some sort of goofball who thinks she is.
Astronomers, astrophysicists and other scientists have a lot of data on what makes up the universe. They take this and plug it into a simulation. It's far from perfect, but how else are we going to get answers other than plugging away, putting forth some ideas, and then refining them?
Note usage of the word "suggests" in literature like this. That is what they mean. So often people with non-scientific brains can't think along the lines of uncertainy, seeing their world as a composite of blacks and whites. When they see that a simulation "suggests" that water worlds are relatively common they take it to mean that some bunch of know-it-all whitecoats are proclaiming to the world that we'll find one earth-like world in every solar system.
I'm not quite sure. I originally heard of this game in some magazine when it came out. I think it's either "Avenging Angel" or "Eternal War," two games that sound roughly like what I'm thinking of.
Christ, it's even worse than I thought- "Noah has gotten bored and decided it would be fun to stop feeding the animals. Consequently, the animals have organized a mutiny against him..." If that isn't blasphemous, I don't know what is!:)
Kind of funny in the review of "Forgiveness," when they ask why no one can make a good game based on mythology of the western world- but they talk about Norse mythology games which are good. Which west is Mr. Awful talking about? Last time I checked, Europe was very much part of the Western world...
I imagine such a show would actually be pretty damn boring. Granted, I've never been a senator, but I have listen to senate and house sessions, and those can be pretty damned boring. I'm sure they could edit enough stuff out to make it interesting, though. It'd be neat to have such a program for your own representatives- see which way they vote, see what they do in a day, etc etc. You could both become a smart electorate and be entertained. A lot more fun than putting real work into paying attention to the issues....;) But still prolly too much work for most americans.
I can't speak of the quality of this game, but it reminds me of some others. It's tough to guess whether or not this EoT game is a super-christian game or if it's just a clever and whacky idea... If I were a super-xian I'd think the idea blasphemous, but so much of what fundamentalists do seems blasphemous to me, so *shrug*.
Yes, the games. I love wierdo christian games. I remember a game a friend of mine had for his SNES, which sat somewhere between Wolf3d and Doom in its 2.5D quality... You played Noah, and you had to go around shooting your animals and some evil demons who were trying to prevent you from rounding up your animals. Of course, it wasn't real shooting; you were using a slingshot and you shot out pellets of food with a bit of tranq in them. Why the evil demons would eat these without question is beyond me; must've been holy water in them or something. Heh. That friend- his youth group was always letting them know of xian versions of various fun stuff- new, popular music, video games, etc. "Hey guys! This is like Doom, but Christian!" I'll never forget when he came to middle school one day, excited off his little weak feet- "Hey guys! You gotta check out this new band!" We were always very wary of any music he was trying to push, but he put the last nail in his cross when he said: "yeah, this band rocks- they're just like Green Day, but christian!!" heh.
Then there was an FPS a few years back (5?) that was for christians. You played either an angel or a demon, you picked your path at the beggining of the game, good or evil. You spend the whole game battling the opposite side- I believe it was the battle for the throne, for control over heaven, the revolt of Lucifer. Anyway, the best part is that if you choose the side of evil, you can't win. You can invest a hundred hours in the game to play out its story mode, but at the end- an inch from winning- you loose. Because you're evil, and they're christian.:)
People who aren't interested in politics wouldn't be interested in the game.
A game about politics wouldn't be for the kind of folks who are really interested in the world's real politics. There are tons of folks who would like games full of political intrigue and all the other not-boring political stuff. Think of political novels, not the real world.
People who are interested in politics tend to have strong views, and wouldn't be interested in modulating them to score points.
Again, this is a game, not the real world. A game would allow those with errant political views to acually succeed, unlike the real world where they fail. I repeat: we're talking about a game. There's no reason where someone could make modern republicanism work- at least in the altered rules of a video game.
The people who are interested in changing their opinions to win approval are already running for office in reality.
*sigh* Do you play games? Did Risk fail because anyone who would like such a game would just go play real wargames in the military? Did Quake and other FPS fail because everyone became a murderer or soldier? Did SimCity fail because everyone just got their own town and became mayor? No, no, and no.
One of the reasons people love games like this is because it gives them an alternate universe where they can do what they can't in the real world. Sure, I could put a lot of time, money and energy into running for City Council in my town- but I'd probably loose, at least the first time. At this stage in my life, I don't have the desire to run or the desire to pump in all of my time, money and energy into running for some public office. A game like this would afford some of the "fun" of politics with a tiny fraction of the time, money, and energy.
No problem. I prefer WinCE myself, for a number of reasons (more well ported/adapted unix tools than for the Zaurus, which is backwards!), but getting some Linux or NetBSD action on the Smartbook shouldn't be all that hard. On a list I'm on- Yahoo! Groups HandheldPCs - the topic of the Smartbook has come up a few times. A few people really want them, I imagine details on how to get one will pop up eventually too there.:)
Yes, depending on your location or calling habits and the like, a mobile may be cheaper than a landline. A mobile is cheaper for most Europeans than a landline, and it's no wonder they're so popular there.
Yeah, I make very few LD calls. If I made more, if a substantial part of my phone bill were made of them, I may end up with a cell phone. I rarely travel, and even when I do. would prefer to be out of contact.:)
I have two roomates. and we'd have to have three cell phones and some whacky calling plan. A hassle, and more than our landline.
However, I would like cell network service. And I may end up with that for my PDA, the t-mobile $30/mo for unlimited data. tastie!
Indeed. A bit higher than I had thought, though not a surprise. Definately not expensive, super-duper-smartphones. No, the US doesn't have too many mobiles, but what do you expect when landlines are so cheap and mobiles aren't worth it yet for everyone? I don't have a mobile, and won't until I can get one for cheaper than my landline and with as much convenience.
I think you're confusing China and India with more affluent Asian nations. Yes, darn near everyone in Japan has a cell phone. But in China or India? What the hell are you thinking, man! Plenty of those people don't have electricity at all, let alone a really expensive cell-phone with a really expensive tiny hard drive.
How cheap do you think these tiny drives will be? The same HD space in a bigger drive (esp if second hand) is a fraction of the cost. Seems to me that older technology would be for the "poor man's computer," rather than the newest and most expensive stuff.
Mr. Trash Can Head is quite right. Back when I bought my 2 GB PCMCIA HD (same kind as in the iPod) most of the larger sizes- 5, 10 and 15 GB at the time- it cost more or the same to buy just the PCMCIA HD than it did to buy open an iPod, rip out the drive, and be on my merry way. In the end, I didn't have the money for much more than the 2 GB, which was a piddly $70.
By the way, IIRC, the size of the disk they're talking about is 2-3 GB.
A SD or SmartMedia disk of 2-3 GB? That would be far more than an iPod, far more than the 30 GB iPod. Though if you already had a means to play MP3s- in my case, my PDA- I'd rather have the CF or SD card, provided it was super damned expensive, which it would be and will be for a number of years.
That said, unlike most PDAs, I have the option of using USB devices to hook up to it. Maybe I'll just buy an iPod and use it for MP3ing and data storage.:)
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Sure it isn't as easy to install a new hard drive into an iPod as it is to install one into a desktop, but it's not some mystical ritual. Hell, if is easier to upgrade or replace an iPod than it is for a lot of laptops I've seen.
Mac zealot troll?
Uhh, yeah right. Though it wouldnl't be too bad if what I said was mac zealosy- makes Mac users a lot more mild and intelligent than the kind of crap we see from Windows and Linux zealots...
Uhh, it's not an "off the shelf IDE" drive. It is an off the shelf PCMCIA ATA drive. You can buy a replacement- or even an upgrade- at a number of computer stores. I bought one for use in my PDA- cheapest 2 GB in PDA storage you can get, only US$70.
If it's "off the shelf" why are you asking about a replacement?
a troll? Wow, good work guys.
the phrase "toungue in cheek" and word "sarcasm" come to mind.
well hell, we should just kill all scientists. i mean, they all contribute to most environmental problems in one way or another. they put out waste, drive cars, live in buildings, use computer which were manufactured with very dangerous methods, etc etc.
they must pay for their crimes!
Because people are pigheaded. Ignorant. etc.
.NET) and the OSS world is what is stuck in some sad desire for psychological backwards compatibility. After years of making fun of MS for doing it, so many Zaurus and Linux PDA developers are content to be guilty of the same crime. That said, at least OpenZaurus has the balls to be going with sqllite for data storage, though they've made no huge push toward it.
A PDA should be using a database as it's central store as it is. CE already includes a database system, though the SQL CE has more features. The NewtonOS and PalmOS both do very well by having a database at their core. I don't care if it's a sql-based relational or object database, it just makes more sense.
The PDA is a chance to start over. With different OSes and CPU archs, compatibility isn't a big deal as it is on the desktop, where it has held back development for years. A chance to do it from the start again, and do it right.
Something seems off in the world when MS is pushing relatively innovative ideas (database file system,
Flat files are so 1950s.
Works fine for me on a 400 MHz PXA255'd XScale. It's running WinCE.NET 4.1, which includes the .NET CF. I've never used SQL CE, I've used the built-in db system. You must be working with older software, PPC2k or 2k2. Things move forward- yeah, it's a bitch, but would you have us all writing code in assembler instead?
.NET CF jobs, send 'em my way- I'd be happy to do some consulting.
If your company has any other
As a longtime user of PDAs, Newton, WinCE and Zaurus, I feel I can safely say for most apps, MySQL is pretty sucky on the Z. It wastes precious resources on the Zaurus- especially precious considering how much the setup- Linux+Qtopia- eats up as it is. Far worse than CE.
I can't say I've used this particular MS SQL for CE product- but I have used the built-in database, which allows happy queries. As well as SQLlite on the Zaurus. Both seemed a lot faster and provided more enjoyable solutions for me, the developer, than MySQL running on a PDA did. In the case of both SQLlite and the built-in CE db I wrote some scripts to do synching over the network with the server running on my desktop, but it wasn't much work, and the drop in resources wasted between this solution and running MySQL more than made up for it.
If you want a MySQL port to CE, you could try it yourself. See Rainer's ported software, along with tips and a compat library for porting Unix/Linux apps to CE. Because of his library and what it has meant for the CE community, I use a CE palmtop instead of the C760- for me, there are a ton more useful, well-adapted Unix ports for CE than there are for the Zaurus. Granted, I'm a traditional man- I want the classics like LaTeX, emacs, and the like. I could build any artbitrary linux package for my Z pretty darn quick, but would have to put a ton of energy writing an interface that didn't blow. Which most OSS devs for the Z really don't do- they just hand you a CLI app and say "see! you can run N on the Z! oooh!"
No, you're reading it wrong. See how he mentions getting data from SQL Server on a "local network," and then use the SQL CE server from when you're away from said local network. You know, like when you're out of the office, away from the office LAN or wifi network. You use the built-in server for the time you're away- the latency and bandwith issues are moot. You come back to work the next day with the new data you collected and new data from the mothership- you sync and that's that.
It's not a new approach- it's been used and proven for years. I use it, though not with MS SQL/SQL CE.
Heh, that's what I was thinking. The fact that it serves databases out to apps and uses real-live SQL seem to be the most important features. I'm sure it doesn't do any of the fancy-pants enterprise stuff of MS SQL or DB2 or Oracle, but it is still an SQL ... server.
Where is the download for CE? Or a port to the .NET CF? .NET != Compact .NET ; just like KDE !- Qtopia and PersonalJava 1.2 != J2EE 1.4.
I don't know about you, but there is no way I'm going to be running what your average DOS PC was running 10 years ago on my PDA, in the area of OS, networking/web or databases. Sorry.
SQL is nothing new. What is so scary about having an embedded SQL server for CE, Linux, etc? There are number of them, it's not like MS thought of it.
We could go back to running DOS database apps. Paradox! dBase! YAY! Knock your socks off, do as ye will- but I want a more modern platform, with a more modern API and language setup.
Saw a video a few months back of new research (teddy is old) having to do with using sketches to draw out a physics simulation. written in Java. IIRC, done at MIT's Oxygen lab. Anyway, it was incredible- the guy draws a ramp. Draws a box at the top of the ramp, adds wheels. hit go and the whole thing is played out at 1 G in the way it would here on earth. I would knife someone to get a hold of that. Ok, maybe not that, but yeah, it'd be great.
you love sims like this? I find it pretty doubtful you've ever used a sim like this in any "home version." this isn't simfarm. it like doesn't have any snazzy openGL renderings of planets being born, one star system at a time, making a picture of the galaxy you can zoom around in by holding down the control- and meta-keys as modifiers of axis. It's a big and ugly number crunching beast that spits out some probabilities. fun, if you know what the numbers mean, but mostly worthless to an outsider.
though i suppose someone could write a GUI front end that just takes the probability matrix it spits out and generate a random solar system based on the numbers, along with total mass, etc etc. But I could do that now with some guesses at the numbers and it wouldn't be much different...
What more do you have in science than inference from known data? What more do scientists have than making a conclusion from the data, having that conclusion challenged with new data and then forming something new?
Sorry, but some of us aren't willing to just sit on our hands, isolating ourselves from the universe or our natural surroundings.
Plenty of humanity is pompous, yes- including a lot of non-scientists. A real scientist may be pompous in his personal life, but in his view of science, no. Any scientist that thinks she knows everything isn't a scientist but some sort of goofball who thinks she is.
Astronomers, astrophysicists and other scientists have a lot of data on what makes up the universe. They take this and plug it into a simulation. It's far from perfect, but how else are we going to get answers other than plugging away, putting forth some ideas, and then refining them?
Note usage of the word "suggests" in literature like this. That is what they mean. So often people with non-scientific brains can't think along the lines of uncertainy, seeing their world as a composite of blacks and whites. When they see that a simulation "suggests" that water worlds are relatively common they take it to mean that some bunch of know-it-all whitecoats are proclaiming to the world that we'll find one earth-like world in every solar system.
I'm not quite sure. I originally heard of this game in some magazine when it came out. I think it's either "Avenging Angel" or "Eternal War," two games that sound roughly like what I'm thinking of.
Christ, it's even worse than I thought- "Noah has gotten bored and decided it would be fun to stop feeding the animals. Consequently, the animals have organized a mutiny against him..." If that isn't blasphemous, I don't know what is! :)
Kind of funny in the review of "Forgiveness," when they ask why no one can make a good game based on mythology of the western world- but they talk about Norse mythology games which are good. Which west is Mr. Awful talking about? Last time I checked, Europe was very much part of the Western world...
I imagine such a show would actually be pretty damn boring. Granted, I've never been a senator, but I have listen to senate and house sessions, and those can be pretty damned boring. I'm sure they could edit enough stuff out to make it interesting, though. It'd be neat to have such a program for your own representatives- see which way they vote, see what they do in a day, etc etc. You could both become a smart electorate and be entertained. A lot more fun than putting real work into paying attention to the issues.... ;) But still prolly too much work for most americans.
I can't speak of the quality of this game, but it reminds me of some others. It's tough to guess whether or not this EoT game is a super-christian game or if it's just a clever and whacky idea... If I were a super-xian I'd think the idea blasphemous, but so much of what fundamentalists do seems blasphemous to me, so *shrug*.
:)
Yes, the games. I love wierdo christian games. I remember a game a friend of mine had for his SNES, which sat somewhere between Wolf3d and Doom in its 2.5D quality... You played Noah, and you had to go around shooting your animals and some evil demons who were trying to prevent you from rounding up your animals. Of course, it wasn't real shooting; you were using a slingshot and you shot out pellets of food with a bit of tranq in them. Why the evil demons would eat these without question is beyond me; must've been holy water in them or something. Heh. That friend- his youth group was always letting them know of xian versions of various fun stuff- new, popular music, video games, etc. "Hey guys! This is like Doom, but Christian!" I'll never forget when he came to middle school one day, excited off his little weak feet- "Hey guys! You gotta check out this new band!" We were always very wary of any music he was trying to push, but he put the last nail in his cross when he said: "yeah, this band rocks- they're just like Green Day, but christian!!" heh.
Then there was an FPS a few years back (5?) that was for christians. You played either an angel or a demon, you picked your path at the beggining of the game, good or evil. You spend the whole game battling the opposite side- I believe it was the battle for the throne, for control over heaven, the revolt of Lucifer. Anyway, the best part is that if you choose the side of evil, you can't win. You can invest a hundred hours in the game to play out its story mode, but at the end- an inch from winning- you loose. Because you're evil, and they're christian.
People who aren't interested in politics wouldn't be interested in the game.
A game about politics wouldn't be for the kind of folks who are really interested in the world's real politics. There are tons of folks who would like games full of political intrigue and all the other not-boring political stuff. Think of political novels, not the real world.
People who are interested in politics tend to have strong views, and wouldn't be interested in modulating them to score points.
Again, this is a game, not the real world. A game would allow those with errant political views to acually succeed, unlike the real world where they fail. I repeat: we're talking about a game. There's no reason where someone could make modern republicanism work- at least in the altered rules of a video game.
The people who are interested in changing their opinions to win approval are already running for office in reality.
*sigh*
Do you play games? Did Risk fail because anyone who would like such a game would just go play real wargames in the military? Did Quake and other FPS fail because everyone became a murderer or soldier? Did SimCity fail because everyone just got their own town and became mayor? No, no, and no.
One of the reasons people love games like this is because it gives them an alternate universe where they can do what they can't in the real world. Sure, I could put a lot of time, money and energy into running for City Council in my town- but I'd probably loose, at least the first time. At this stage in my life, I don't have the desire to run or the desire to pump in all of my time, money and energy into running for some public office. A game like this would afford some of the "fun" of politics with a tiny fraction of the time, money, and energy.
I wasn't thinking of the cities so much as the quite populated rural areas. I've no doubts that everyone and his mom has a mobile in the big cities.
No problem. I prefer WinCE myself, for a number of reasons (more well ported/adapted unix tools than for the Zaurus, which is backwards!), but getting some Linux or NetBSD action on the Smartbook shouldn't be all that hard. On a list I'm on- Yahoo! Groups HandheldPCs - the topic of the Smartbook has come up a few times. A few people really want them, I imagine details on how to get one will pop up eventually too there. :)
Yes, depending on your location or calling habits and the like, a mobile may be cheaper than a landline. A mobile is cheaper for most Europeans than a landline, and it's no wonder they're so popular there.
:)
Yeah, I make very few LD calls. If I made more, if a substantial part of my phone bill were made of them, I may end up with a cell phone. I rarely travel, and even when I do. would prefer to be out of contact.
I have two roomates. and we'd have to have three cell phones and some whacky calling plan. A hassle, and more than our landline.
However, I would like cell network service. And I may end up with that for my PDA, the t-mobile $30/mo for unlimited data. tastie!
Indeed. A bit higher than I had thought, though not a surprise. Definately not expensive, super-duper-smartphones. No, the US doesn't have too many mobiles, but what do you expect when landlines are so cheap and mobiles aren't worth it yet for everyone? I don't have a mobile, and won't until I can get one for cheaper than my landline and with as much convenience.
Heh. haha. and heh again!
I think you're confusing China and India with more affluent Asian nations. Yes, darn near everyone in Japan has a cell phone. But in China or India? What the hell are you thinking, man! Plenty of those people don't have electricity at all, let alone a really expensive cell-phone with a really expensive tiny hard drive.
How cheap do you think these tiny drives will be? The same HD space in a bigger drive (esp if second hand) is a fraction of the cost. Seems to me that older technology would be for the "poor man's computer," rather than the newest and most expensive stuff.
Mr. Trash Can Head is quite right. Back when I bought my 2 GB PCMCIA HD (same kind as in the iPod) most of the larger sizes- 5, 10 and 15 GB at the time- it cost more or the same to buy just the PCMCIA HD than it did to buy open an iPod, rip out the drive, and be on my merry way. In the end, I didn't have the money for much more than the 2 GB, which was a piddly $70.
:)
By the way, IIRC, the size of the disk they're talking about is 2-3 GB.
A SD or SmartMedia disk of 2-3 GB? That would be far more than an iPod, far more than the 30 GB iPod. Though if you already had a means to play MP3s- in my case, my PDA- I'd rather have the CF or SD card, provided it was super damned expensive, which it would be and will be for a number of years.
That said, unlike most PDAs, I have the option of using USB devices to hook up to it. Maybe I'll just buy an iPod and use it for MP3ing and data storage.