I find it hard to believe that there is only one patent involved in the Segway.
As mentioned in the Yahoo article, "the basic ideas incorporated in the Segway scooter are the same: a computer processor to detect minute shifts in balance to keep the machine upright on two parallel wheels." That is hard to refute (at least according to the patent dates), but yes, they do differ in actual implementation.
As mentioned, the gyroscope is a lot different from using an outrigger or pendulum sensor, and that's probably what distinguished the Segway from Yamafuji's enough to justify a patent.
But that's just implementation (as is the transmission). The basic idea is still Yamafuji's.
If I were Kaman, I'd swallow my pride, admit that Yamafuji invented the thing first and buy his patent for a buck. This would prevent anyone else from implementing the Segway differently (for instance, with a pendulum, accelerometer, or mere tilt-switch) and trying to market it even in the US.
Rather, the Segway patent can't be for the parallel wheel bicycle since that's what Yamafuji's patent is (prior art). So Kaman better have that patent if he wants to protect himself from cheap Taiwanese/Chinese knock-offs that don't use such expensive things as transmission systems, solid-state gyroscopes and redundancy.
I figure that Yamafuji is doing the decent thing: he realizes he hasn't done anything to capitalize on the patent and Kaman may very well deserve it, so the way to save face for essentially giving away a potentially lucrative patent is to seek recognition from his peer.
Laptops have everything integrated and to upgrade anything, if possible, you have to buy it from the manufacturer (namely the CD/DVD/whatever).
The Shuttle SV24 allows you to use one PCI card, a 5-1/4" bay and your choice of processors (okay, maybe not _any_ processor, but still, you have more choice than with most laptops). You're not stuck with the relatively low-res display that the laptop has and you can use your preferred monitor, keyboard and mouse. It's also nice to have the keyboard disconneced from the display so you can get a more ergonomic setup.
Yeah, if you've got a USB keyboard and mouse, you don't really have to worry about that, but then you'll need to get a hub. And you can plug your external monitor into the laptop, but why spend the money on a laptop anyway? For the built-in UPS/battery?
No, Tom's Hardware has it right- the only problem with the Shuttle design is the integrated graphics (and possibly the audio too), but for most people, that's a pretty reasonable compromise for a small unobtrusive system.
Yeah, I'd like to wait and see what might come out with the nVidia GeForce chipset in the Flex-ATX form factor.
Interestingly, notice how no one cares about where to put a floppy drive?:)
Only a slide show? Was this not running Windoze, Linux or any other established OS that would have been easy enough to have any sort of interactive window once the I/O was working?
Personally, I'm put off by the "the first tablet computer" claim on the web page. In just recent memory is the IBM Transnote- no removable keyboard, but the screen can be flipped around so that it's a tablet computer, it has the usual stuff- Win2k, ethernet, modem, Type II PC card slot, IrDA, USB, etc. About the only problem with the thing is the small 10.4" 800x600 screen (and okay, the power- 600 PIII, 100MHz FSB, etc)
3Dfx wants to substantially reduce its costs in order to best conserve its resources. These cost-cutting measures include a reduction of substantially all of the company's workforce by early next year so that the comapny provides the highest return to our creditors, shareholders, and employees.
So, they're laying off everybody in order to preserve the stock value for the employees?
Palm is doing things right by stripping the interface down to its barest essentials, if only by not giving you enough screen real estate. Instead of making things cluttered, developers have to decide what to show on the screen and what to hide in menus. If they had more pixels to work with you'd have WinCE's attempt at duplicating a Windoze desktop UI.
Yes, they might be able to squeeze a bit more pixels onto a Palm screen, but then shrinking it down will just make things worse. For instance, the M-100 is a smaller screen and gets enough complaints from people with poor eyesight like me. What happens when you try to shrink that 160x160 pixels onto something as wide as a cell phone? Either you get a cell phone as wide as the Qualcomm PdQ or you get something just barely navigatable. Now just imagine trying to squeeze all the information that you can fit into 320x320 pixels on something like a cell phone screen.
No, now that there's a decent code base for this resolution and there are enough developers who have the experience optomizing programs' UI for that, the transition to physically smaller screens will be much easier.
It's sort of the arguement about code bloat- nowadays people don't really worry about a program's footpring since memory is cheap, but fast, compact code is still vital, not just on the Palm platform, but also almost any embedded platform- which the Palm could become.
No, the USB is not in the Visor cradle- in fact, it's more that the RS-232 is in the Visor serial cradle.
If you take apart your Visor, you'll notice a Philips USB chip hiding in there. Sorry, I don't have a Visor around right now to figure exactly which chip it is.
Instead the serial Visor cradle converts from the TTL level (0-5v) serial from the bottom of the Visor to RS-232 levels (+/- 6 to 15v).
No, the Palm USB cradle is the one that converted from serial (at whatever speeds the OS could manage) to USB.
Okay, whoring for kharma, there's also the San Jose Mercury News article that points out Palm's investment in OLEDs for color displays. And if the OLEDs can be made like something like an inkjet printer, that's where the poor 160x160 pixel screen works to an advantage- they won't need to refine the printing process all that much.
Then maybe a color screen would be fine. Right now with my Palm IIIc, I either have the backlight at minimum (indoors) or maximum (any kind of sunlight).
Yes, the criticisms of the whole optics of the thing are valid. I too would mod that comment up.
Now, as for
consumers must possess a little ring that adjusts the optical device in their standard CD, CD-Rom and DVD machines; it's sort of like the plastic gizmo that snaps into a 45-rpm record
as mentioned before, even with a center support, you'll still get flutter on the outer edge. I believe any search on variations of "rotating travelling wave" will yield some information. One interesting thing being that the travelling wave can even move counter to the rotation of the CD, if I remember my Exploratorium exhibits correctly.
As for the optics of it, just a quick search on "CD laser optics" ("I'm Feeling Lucky")finds this site that points out that
The polycarbonate itself is part of the optical system for reading the pits.
Maybe the polycarbonate isn't really needed, maybe it's just icing on the cake for robustness. If you do the math on one of the illustrations from the afore mentioned page, if the polycarbonate weren't there, the CD, instead of being 1.2mm thick, would have to be (let's see, cotan(27degrees) times 1/2 of 800microns is 785microns less than the regular 1.2mm thickness- duh, I could've assumed the angle was 30degrees and made things much easier) 0.4mm thick. That's not quite 1/5 the regular CD thickness- I guess the other 1-1/2mm comes from the reinforcing ring/plate you'd have to glue the whole floppy CD to.
Okay, someone else pointed out that the bournelli (sp?) effect could be used to keep the disc from fluttering by keeping it flying just a little bit above the read head, but is it really going to work with a head of unknown geometry and possible with other flat surfaces around? Like CD trays, caddies, slot feed mechanisms, etc.
Not that I'm disparaging the product even before it comes out (but I guess I am), it seems like it would be a nice trick to be able to make it work in almost any CDROM drive. I'd wish the company luck, but I'm afraid of where technology will lead- my no-name peripherals are already cheaply made- can you see getting your drivers and documentation on a floppy CD that won't even last a week on my desk. Admit it- you leave your CDs in a dusty pile too. Can you imagine if you had to reinstall?
And I thought we were through with the idea of disposable DVDs when Divx (the first one) died.
Yeah, I have this problem when hitting sites owned by large companies (ie: MS or AOL). The problem is that since the companies are so large, their web pages and cookies span a couple of domains and screw things up.
Re: Mattel and the Learning Company
on
Mattel Spyware
·
· Score: 1
As has already been mentioned, Mattel has a new CEO as of May 17. But the story of Mattel and the Learning Company isn't over yet- because the purchase of the Learing Company has caused so many problems (especially to the bottom line), Mattel is trying to get sell the Learning Company.
Incidentally, from the report I read, TLC only lost $206 million last year (vs. the $1.1 billion total mentioned in a previous posting)
However, will Mattel stop screwing up? It depends on what they decide to do even when the new CEO, Robert Eckert, says, "It's clear consumers have become more adept at new technology...We need to capitalize on the opportunities that creates." I wonder how they'll capitalize on these opportunities?
It almost sounds like they're copying the "Apple way": Use 68k, get some market share, license partners, switch to RISC, and then drop your licensees. Oops, got that "license partners" part in the wrong place.
Anyway, if they were really silly, Palm could adopt an Apple-like fat-binary: create a file type of something like "fatb" for it, "rapp" for the StrongARM-only code, leave "appl" for the Dragonball applications and let the device figure out what it can run. I figure the other file types are merely databases so they don't need to change.
So you say that anyday now we should expect Palm to drop all their lisencees?
Interestingly, this IPO filing occurs on the same week that they even have their _only_ product in the retail channel (not counting direct mail-order/web sales).
Supposedly Handspring has a few other products in the pipe (from an interview when the Visor was initially avilable). Maybe they need the cash from an IPO to follow through with them. Though I would think that it really woudn't be that hard for them to get most any VC that they need.
Why making the stuff contract by gluing the stuff together in a fanfold shape? Again, that's like stacking discs of the stuff, but it's one piece so wiring it together is easier (especially if you do an even number of folds, you'll have different electrodes on either end).
For more force, just use a wider sheet. Or just bundle them up cut in square bunches and run more in parallel if you needed more force- that way if it did short out one bundle, you'd still have some muscle action, albeit a bit weaker. You might need to wrap an insulator around each of the individual bunches so they don't short together.
Slashdot Mirror
I can see that the word of mouth advertising is going to take a long time.
I guess this is why product lifecycles are so short.
I find it hard to believe that there is only one patent involved in the Segway.
As mentioned in the Yahoo article, "the basic ideas incorporated in the Segway scooter are the same: a computer processor to detect minute shifts in balance to keep the machine upright on two parallel wheels." That is hard to refute (at least according to the patent dates), but yes, they do differ in actual implementation.
As mentioned, the gyroscope is a lot different from using an outrigger or pendulum sensor, and that's probably what distinguished the Segway from Yamafuji's enough to justify a patent.
But that's just implementation (as is the transmission). The basic idea is still Yamafuji's.
If I were Kaman, I'd swallow my pride, admit that Yamafuji invented the thing first and buy his patent for a buck. This would prevent anyone else from implementing the Segway differently (for instance, with a pendulum, accelerometer, or mere tilt-switch) and trying to market it even in the US.
Rather, the Segway patent can't be for the parallel wheel bicycle since that's what Yamafuji's patent is (prior art). So Kaman better have that patent if he wants to protect himself from cheap Taiwanese/Chinese knock-offs that don't use such expensive things as transmission systems, solid-state gyroscopes and redundancy.
I figure that Yamafuji is doing the decent thing: he realizes he hasn't done anything to capitalize on the patent and Kaman may very well deserve it, so the way to save face for essentially giving away a potentially lucrative patent is to seek recognition from his peer.
Laptops have everything integrated and to upgrade anything, if possible, you have to buy it from the manufacturer (namely the CD/DVD/whatever).
:)
The Shuttle SV24 allows you to use one PCI card, a 5-1/4" bay and your choice of processors (okay, maybe not _any_ processor, but still, you have more choice than with most laptops). You're not stuck with the relatively low-res display that the laptop has and you can use your preferred monitor, keyboard and mouse. It's also nice to have the keyboard disconneced from the display so you can get a more ergonomic setup.
Yeah, if you've got a USB keyboard and mouse, you don't really have to worry about that, but then you'll need to get a hub. And you can plug your external monitor into the laptop, but why spend the money on a laptop anyway? For the built-in UPS/battery?
No, Tom's Hardware has it right- the only problem with the Shuttle design is the integrated graphics (and possibly the audio too), but for most people, that's a pretty reasonable compromise for a small unobtrusive system.
Yeah, I'd like to wait and see what might come out with the nVidia GeForce chipset in the Flex-ATX form factor.
Interestingly, notice how no one cares about where to put a floppy drive?
Yeah, well that supports the Register's story Broadband Canada outperforms broadband US
Only a slide show? Was this not running Windoze, Linux or any other established OS that would have been easy enough to have any sort of interactive window once the I/O was working?
Personally, I'm put off by the "the first tablet computer" claim on the web page. In just recent memory is the IBM Transnote- no removable keyboard, but the screen can be flipped around so that it's a tablet computer, it has the usual stuff- Win2k, ethernet, modem, Type II PC card slot, IrDA, USB, etc. About the only problem with the thing is the small 10.4" 800x600 screen (and okay, the power- 600 PIII, 100MHz FSB, etc)
So, they're laying off everybody in order to preserve the stock value for the employees?
Palm is doing things right by stripping the interface down to its barest essentials, if only by not giving you enough screen real estate. Instead of making things cluttered, developers have to decide what to show on the screen and what to hide in menus. If they had more pixels to work with you'd have WinCE's attempt at duplicating a Windoze desktop UI.
Yes, they might be able to squeeze a bit more pixels onto a Palm screen, but then shrinking it down will just make things worse. For instance, the M-100 is a smaller screen and gets enough complaints from people with poor eyesight like me. What happens when you try to shrink that 160x160 pixels onto something as wide as a cell phone? Either you get a cell phone as wide as the Qualcomm PdQ or you get something just barely navigatable. Now just imagine trying to squeeze all the information that you can fit into 320x320 pixels on something like a cell phone screen.
No, now that there's a decent code base for this resolution and there are enough developers who have the experience optomizing programs' UI for that, the transition to physically smaller screens will be much easier.
It's sort of the arguement about code bloat- nowadays people don't really worry about a program's footpring since memory is cheap, but fast, compact code is still vital, not just on the Palm platform, but also almost any embedded platform- which the Palm could become.
No, the USB is not in the Visor cradle- in fact, it's more that the RS-232 is in the Visor serial cradle.
If you take apart your Visor, you'll notice a Philips USB chip hiding in there. Sorry, I don't have a Visor around right now to figure exactly which chip it is.
Instead the serial Visor cradle converts from the TTL level (0-5v) serial from the bottom of the Visor to RS-232 levels (+/- 6 to 15v).
No, the Palm USB cradle is the one that converted from serial (at whatever speeds the OS could manage) to USB.
Okay, whoring for kharma, there's also the San Jose Mercury News article that points out Palm's investment in OLEDs for color displays. And if the OLEDs can be made like something like an inkjet printer, that's where the poor 160x160 pixel screen works to an advantage- they won't need to refine the printing process all that much.
Then maybe a color screen would be fine. Right now with my Palm IIIc, I either have the backlight at minimum (indoors) or maximum (any kind of sunlight).
As for the optics of it, just a quick search on "CD laser optics" ("I'm Feeling Lucky")finds this site that points out that The polycarbonate itself is part of the optical system for reading the pits.
Maybe the polycarbonate isn't really needed, maybe it's just icing on the cake for robustness. If you do the math on one of the illustrations from the afore mentioned page, if the polycarbonate weren't there, the CD, instead of being 1.2mm thick, would have to be (let's see, cotan(27degrees) times 1/2 of 800microns is 785microns less than the regular 1.2mm thickness- duh, I could've assumed the angle was 30degrees and made things much easier) 0.4mm thick. That's not quite 1/5 the regular CD thickness- I guess the other 1-1/2mm comes from the reinforcing ring/plate you'd have to glue the whole floppy CD to.
Okay, someone else pointed out that the bournelli (sp?) effect could be used to keep the disc from fluttering by keeping it flying just a little bit above the read head, but is it really going to work with a head of unknown geometry and possible with other flat surfaces around? Like CD trays, caddies, slot feed mechanisms, etc.
Not that I'm disparaging the product even before it comes out (but I guess I am), it seems like it would be a nice trick to be able to make it work in almost any CDROM drive. I'd wish the company luck, but I'm afraid of where technology will lead- my no-name peripherals are already cheaply made- can you see getting your drivers and documentation on a floppy CD that won't even last a week on my desk. Admit it- you leave your CDs in a dusty pile too. Can you imagine if you had to reinstall?
And I thought we were through with the idea of disposable DVDs when Divx (the first one) died.
Yeah, I have this problem when hitting sites owned by large companies (ie: MS or AOL). The problem is that since the companies are so large, their web pages and cookies span a couple of domains and screw things up.
Incidentally, from the report I read, TLC only lost $206 million last year (vs. the $1.1 billion total mentioned in a previous posting)
However, will Mattel stop screwing up? It depends on what they decide to do even when the new CEO, Robert Eckert, says, "It's clear consumers have become more adept at new technology...We need to capitalize on the opportunities that creates." I wonder how they'll capitalize on these opportunities?
-mark
Anyway, if they were really silly, Palm could adopt an Apple-like fat-binary: create a file type of something like "fatb" for it, "rapp" for the StrongARM-only code, leave "appl" for the Dragonball applications and let the device figure out what it can run. I figure the other file types are merely databases so they don't need to change.
So you say that anyday now we should expect Palm to drop all their lisencees?
Interestingly, this IPO filing occurs on the same week that they even have their _only_ product in the retail channel (not counting direct mail-order/web sales).
Supposedly Handspring has a few other products in the pipe (from an interview when the Visor was initially avilable). Maybe they need the cash from an IPO to follow through with them. Though I would think that it really woudn't be that hard for them to get most any VC that they need.
-mark
Why making the stuff contract by gluing the stuff together in a fanfold shape? Again, that's like stacking discs of the stuff, but it's one piece so wiring it together is easier (especially if you do an even number of folds, you'll have different electrodes on either end).
For more force, just use a wider sheet. Or just bundle them up cut in square bunches and run more in parallel if you needed more force- that way if it did short out one bundle, you'd still have some muscle action, albeit a bit weaker. You might need to wrap an insulator around each of the individual bunches so they don't short together.