James Schmitz' ComWeb is a sort of Multimedia Internet. His stories are currently reprinted by Bean Books. The ComWeb system is used in Schmitz "Hub" Universe, which is covered in vol. one to four ("Telzey Amberdon", "TnT: Telzey and Trigger", "Trigger & Friends" and "The Hub: Dangerous Territory").
I think the Telekom people didn't tell you the full truth. They own all telephone lines, and maybe cable TV (not anymore), but as far as I know, they NEVER owned the power lines.
The Telekom dreams of possessing all lines. Well, let 'em dream. Someone who thinks it owns the color magenta, the letter T, and, additionally, the right to "black pages" ('cause they use the term "yellow pages") should be kept in a straight-jacket anyway.
That'll be RWE Powerline. I don't think this is a product for the masses. I've been at their stall on CeBIT this year. Ah, well. first they let me wait for ten minutes, 'cause I don't wear a suit. But that's not relevant here.
The point is, I asked, if they could wire up a house with about 70 tenants (student home). They told me the wire doen't have the capacity.
If I got them right, the cable has a capacity of 2MBit/sec, which all people who are connected to the same junction box have to share (I think that's about 500 to 1000 at my place, so...).
Speech recognition is currently not about efficiency compared to a keyboard. It is just a great tool for those with special needs. If you have a thoroughly trained system you might just be able to dictate as fast as normal speech.
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Germany _is_ different from the USA. Germans - both native and migrant - have a different mindset. Including me :)
Do you also do systems administration?
James Schmitz' ComWeb is a sort of Multimedia Internet. His stories are currently reprinted by Bean Books. The ComWeb system is used in Schmitz "Hub" Universe, which is covered in vol. one to four ("Telzey Amberdon", "TnT: Telzey and Trigger", "Trigger & Friends" and "The Hub: Dangerous Territory").
There's a web site covering Schmitz, as well as Randall Garrett and Howard L. Myers: . Don't miss Guy Gordon's essay "That certain something", to quote him: 'Here is Schmitz, in 1970, describing business being done "on internet time".'. In "TnT" there's an additional sentence, missing in the online essay: 'And his "ComWeb" may be the best presagement of the Internet in all of science fiction.'.
Those stories are a good read, even if you don't use them for your course;)
Robert
The link is http://www.rwe-powerline.de.
I think the Telekom people didn't tell you the full truth. They own all telephone lines, and maybe cable TV (not anymore), but as far as I know, they NEVER owned the power lines.
The Telekom dreams of possessing all lines. Well, let 'em dream. Someone who thinks it owns the color magenta, the letter T, and, additionally, the right to "black pages" ('cause they use the term "yellow pages") should be kept in a straight-jacket anyway.
That'll be RWE Powerline. I don't think this is a product for the masses. I've been at their stall on CeBIT this year. Ah, well. first they let me wait for ten minutes, 'cause I don't wear a suit. But that's not relevant here.
The point is, I asked, if they could wire up a house with about 70 tenants (student home). They told me the wire doen't have the capacity.
If I got them right, the cable has a capacity of 2MBit/sec, which all people who are connected to the same junction box have to share (I think that's about 500 to 1000 at my place, so...).
Oh well, so I will have to go with DSL.
Speech recognition is currently not about efficiency compared to a keyboard. It is just a great tool for those with special needs. If you have a thoroughly trained system you might just be able to dictate as fast as normal speech.