Good point. But...
Practically all DVD-player (in Germany in my case) I know off, accept NTSC-DVDs and output them as NTSC or PAL60 (modified PAL with 60Hz, accepted by most TVs). It's not really an advertised 'feature', because normally nobody uses it (as long as you're not an anime fan, or your player is modified to be region-free, and you're importing american DVDs), so I would imagine it's not too hard to implement.
Does anybody know if 'Q' can handle PAL-discs?
Does this modification work for european games, too?
This would be interesting, because Europe and Japan share the same DVD-Regioncode (RC2). So, while this won't help american players much, it might be very interesting fo european ones.
That's why you don't use email, and just call people, right? And all these instant messaging (ICQ, AIM, etc.)... Who needs that, if you can just call all the people? Man, why didn't you tell us before? We would have never used this stupid SMS-stuff, if we just had known...
Oh wait, the reason European users won't do that is because they pay PER CALL.
??? Ever been to europe? Every provider I know of, charges per minute. Actually it's often cheaper to speak for 1-2 minutes than to send an SMS (which is somehow ridiculous...).
SMS is surely not the most efficient form of communication, but often it's really convenient. It's pretty much as useful as all the instant-messaging services which are so popular right now, only that you can use it whereever you are...
1) CDMA works. TDMA and GSM are fundamentally broken. GSM's encryption is crackable real-time using COTS hardware. CDMA's isn't (yet).
That's why AT&T and co. would never switch to GSM, right? CDMA may be the more sophisticated technology but GSM just works. Everywhere...
2) Billing per-minute still sucks, but sucks much less than per CALL. Most calls are less than 2 minutes, so you don't get raided too bad in the US. And besides, roaming charges are quickly becoming a thing of the past, and now most providers are including bucketfuls of minutes, even in their cheap plans...
See above. What about paying for incoming calls/messages? Another thing often forgotten in price-comparisions US-Europe, is the base fee, charged every month. It's usually much higher in the US.
3) Coverage is good. I have no problem making a call no matter where I go (my provider is VZW).
I had a very different experience in the US. And judging from the other comments I'm not the only one...
4) KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid. I don't want SMS on my phone. Don't want spinning 3-d wingdings. Don't want to read my email from the phone.
So, what? I want all that stuff. I use SMS, I get my email to the phone and I actually use WAP (over GPRS). And most of the people I know do so, too. And now?
If I want to read my email wirelessly, then build me an 802.11b network everywhere. Don't make me do it from a phone!!
Yes, I'm dreaming of stuffing my laptop in my pockets, too... Show me the technology, that puts 802.11b-receivers in cell phones without running out of battery too fast. Then show me how to deploy it for nationwide coverage. And finally show me how to make it scale to the user numbers of cell-phone systems.
Summary: Just because you think phone-messaging is stupid doesn't mean, everybody feels that way. And judging from the user numbers in europe and especially asia, a lot of people do seem to like SMS...
Well, SuSE stands for 'Software- und System-Entwicklung' (software and system-development). So the first 'S' should be pronounced like in 'software'. The 'u' is like the 'oo' in boot, mood, etc. The second 'S' is a soft one, something like in 'zee'. The 'E' is similar to the 'a' in adrenalin, anarchy, abbreviation, arrested, elegant, anyway...:-)
But: If you don't know what the abbreviation stands for, you would speak the first 'S' like the second: Soft. That's how I pronounce it and everybody else I know (I'm german.). Something like 'Zoo-Za'.
We have a working landline phone/data network. Japan and Europe do not.
*sigh* I really want to know, who started spreading this argument in the US... Ain't it funny, that I used to hear the exact opposite over here? American local loops are old and unreliable, because telecom companies can't make money from them (because of unmetered access) and thus don't maintain them very well...
I've just been to the US and the phones worked fine, so I know that the above statement isn't true, but the same holds for your statement.
I can't speak for Japan and all of Europe, but here in Germany more than half of all fixed-lines are ISDN (and therefore end-to-end digital) some ares have fiber to the home (and amusingly enough cannot get a DSL-connection because of that...). Deutsche Telekom is the second largest supplier of DSL-accounts in the world (after Korean Telekom... Korea has unbelievable DSL-adoption rates!). Similar facts hold for most other european countries...
IMO the reason for the low cell-phone adoption rates in the US is, that the whole system is far too complicated. Too many standards, incompatibilities and bad reception in too many areas (two friends couldn't get net access within a Las Vegas casino. That's a public spot! Neither Verizon nor Sprint worked...). Also the american telcos didn't manage to attract younger people with customized offerings (here 74% of the 12-19 years olds have cell phones. They produce a large share of the telcos's revenue.).
btw: Whoever says 2.5G is unnecessary, hasn't administered his server over a GPRS-phone and a palm-pilot running an ssh-client, while waiting for the bus, like I did today...;-)
Europeans just wouldn't understand - Texans really, truly do drive pickup trucks instead of cars, even if they rarely have a passenger and never haul a bigger load in them than a bag of grocery shopping; roughly half the *software dvelopers* in our company drive one (empty of course) to work every day.
You're absolutly right: I don't understand that! I've been to Austin in january and will be there for the next three months and I've seen all those SUVs. Here in Germany I drive a MCC Smart, a car that is 2.5m long and 1.5m wide and that fits in every parking space (will be available in america next year IIRC). Those kind of cars are becoming quite popular here. Okay, you don't have too like small cars, but why is it, that americans have to have all these big off-roader and pickups? They're loud, don't fit into parking spaces, cost a lot and suck gas faster than you can refuel... As you said, I don't understand. That was one of the mysteries about the US remaining unlifted for me during my stay there...
Well, that's not true. I know that Switzerland has the service already running, and I'm pretty sure, that other countries do as well. Here in Germany at least two carriers are going to start the common, widespread use of GPRS within the next two weeks (Viag: 24.1. and T-Mobil: 1.2.).
Well, I guess your friend and your sister-in-law haven't been here for quite some time now. By now you get ISDN with all features AND a DSL-Line with FREE internet traffic (no static IP, though) for roughly $50. And there are providers promising better rates for the near future.
As for ISDN: It's not about the speed (64kbit/s per channel, but you'll get DSL for data-connections), but for the two channels, the better speech quality, connection speed (i.e. time to connect) and the whole bunch of features it has (blocking, rerouting, callback, 10 numbers, caller id, 3-way conferencing,...).
It's true that we still have to pay for speech calls, but it's really not too much.
Err..., what was the original topic again? (It's kind of funny, that every discussion about telecommunications comes up with this US-Europe baits, but I couldn't resist...)
If you're not going to use software written by a Scientologist, or written by a crony of Bill Gates, that should be your own wacky individual choice to make.
Well, that's exactly what this case is all about: choice. If you want to use Win2k, you get the defragmentation program, if you like it or not. The german government wants to use Win2k (no comment about this), but they don't want to use software written by a company, that is effectively ruled by Scientology. So they "discussed" that with MS, and now MS offeres them the choice to de-install the defrag-program.
What's the problem with that? It's not like the program gets wiped out of all Win2k-distributions in germany. If you want to use it, use it. German government doesn't want to...
Although I usually don't answer to trolls...
At least you should get the facts right, before you make wrong conclusions. Norway is not part of the EU, never has been. Therefore it was never asked about the Euro and can't bail out.
Maybe you're referring to the referendum in Denmark, but they didn't bail out, just decided not to join. However their currency is bound to the Euro anyway...
Slashdot Mirror
Although the english pages don't carry that many news-items, you should definitely check it out. Heise is a great source for IT-related news.
Good point. But...
Practically all DVD-player (in Germany in my case) I know off, accept NTSC-DVDs and output them as NTSC or PAL60 (modified PAL with 60Hz, accepted by most TVs). It's not really an advertised 'feature', because normally nobody uses it (as long as you're not an anime fan, or your player is modified to be region-free, and you're importing american DVDs), so I would imagine it's not too hard to implement.
Does anybody know if 'Q' can handle PAL-discs?
Does this modification work for european games, too?
This would be interesting, because Europe and Japan share the same DVD-Regioncode (RC2). So, while this won't help american players much, it might be very interesting fo european ones.
In GSM phones SMS are stored on the SIM-card. Remove the card and your phone works again. Use another phone to delete the message from the card.
Inconvenient, but not impossible.
That's why you don't use email, and just call people, right? And all these instant messaging (ICQ, AIM, etc.)... Who needs that, if you can just call all the people? Man, why didn't you tell us before? We would have never used this stupid SMS-stuff, if we just had known...
Oh wait, the reason European users won't do that is because they pay PER CALL.
??? Ever been to europe? Every provider I know of, charges per minute. Actually it's often cheaper to speak for 1-2 minutes than to send an SMS (which is somehow ridiculous...).
SMS is surely not the most efficient form of communication, but often it's really convenient. It's pretty much as useful as all the instant-messaging services which are so popular right now, only that you can use it whereever you are...
1) CDMA works. TDMA and GSM are fundamentally broken. GSM's encryption is crackable real-time using COTS hardware. CDMA's isn't (yet).
That's why AT&T and co. would never switch to GSM, right? CDMA may be the more sophisticated technology but GSM just works. Everywhere...
2) Billing per-minute still sucks, but sucks much less than per CALL. Most calls are less than 2 minutes, so you don't get raided too bad in the US. And besides, roaming charges are quickly becoming a thing of the past, and now most providers are including bucketfuls of minutes, even in their cheap plans...
See above. What about paying for incoming calls/messages? Another thing often forgotten in price-comparisions US-Europe, is the base fee, charged every month. It's usually much higher in the US.
3) Coverage is good. I have no problem making a call no matter where I go (my provider is VZW).
I had a very different experience in the US. And judging from the other comments I'm not the only one...
4) KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid. I don't want SMS on my phone. Don't want spinning 3-d wingdings. Don't want to read my email from the phone.
So, what? I want all that stuff. I use SMS, I get my email to the phone and I actually use WAP (over GPRS). And most of the people I know do so, too. And now?
If I want to read my email wirelessly, then build me an 802.11b network everywhere. Don't make me do it from a phone!!
Yes, I'm dreaming of stuffing my laptop in my pockets, too... Show me the technology, that puts 802.11b-receivers in cell phones without running out of battery too fast. Then show me how to deploy it for nationwide coverage. And finally show me how to make it scale to the user numbers of cell-phone systems.
Summary: Just because you think phone-messaging is stupid doesn't mean, everybody feels that way. And judging from the user numbers in europe and especially asia, a lot of people do seem to like SMS...
Well, SuSE stands for 'Software- und System-Entwicklung' (software and system-development). So the first 'S' should be pronounced like in 'software'. The 'u' is like the 'oo' in boot, mood, etc. The second 'S' is a soft one, something like in 'zee'. The 'E' is similar to the 'a' in adrenalin, anarchy, abbreviation, arrested, elegant, anyway... :-)
But: If you don't know what the abbreviation stands for, you would speak the first 'S' like the second: Soft. That's how I pronounce it and everybody else I know (I'm german.). Something like 'Zoo-Za'.
btw: The emphasis is on the 'u'.
Your're using the wrong network. Viag charges 9 Pfennig per 10kB, which is roughly the same as Voicestream...
I agree, however, that it's still too much!
*sigh* I really want to know, who started spreading this argument in the US... Ain't it funny, that I used to hear the exact opposite over here? American local loops are old and unreliable, because telecom companies can't make money from them (because of unmetered access) and thus don't maintain them very well...
I've just been to the US and the phones worked fine, so I know that the above statement isn't true, but the same holds for your statement.
I can't speak for Japan and all of Europe, but here in Germany more than half of all fixed-lines are ISDN (and therefore end-to-end digital) some ares have fiber to the home (and amusingly enough cannot get a DSL-connection because of that...). Deutsche Telekom is the second largest supplier of DSL-accounts in the world (after Korean Telekom... Korea has unbelievable DSL-adoption rates!). Similar facts hold for most other european countries...
IMO the reason for the low cell-phone adoption rates in the US is, that the whole system is far too complicated. Too many standards, incompatibilities and bad reception in too many areas (two friends couldn't get net access within a Las Vegas casino. That's a public spot! Neither Verizon nor Sprint worked...). Also the american telcos didn't manage to attract younger people with customized offerings (here 74% of the 12-19 years olds have cell phones. They produce a large share of the telcos's revenue.).
btw: Whoever says 2.5G is unnecessary, hasn't administered his server over a GPRS-phone and a palm-pilot running an ssh-client, while waiting for the bus, like I did today... ;-)
You're absolutly right: I don't understand that! I've been to Austin in january and will be there for the next three months and I've seen all those SUVs. Here in Germany I drive a MCC Smart, a car that is 2.5m long and 1.5m wide and that fits in every parking space (will be available in america next year IIRC). Those kind of cars are becoming quite popular here.
Okay, you don't have too like small cars, but why is it, that americans have to have all these big off-roader and pickups? They're loud, don't fit into parking spaces, cost a lot and suck gas faster than you can refuel...
As you said, I don't understand. That was one of the mysteries about the US remaining unlifted for me during my stay there...
Well, that's not true. I know that Switzerland has the service already running, and I'm pretty sure, that other countries do as well. Here in Germany at least two carriers are going to start the common, widespread use of GPRS within the next two weeks (Viag: 24.1. and T-Mobil: 1.2.).
As for ISDN: It's not about the speed (64kbit/s per channel, but you'll get DSL for data-connections), but for the two channels, the better speech quality, connection speed (i.e. time to connect) and the whole bunch of features it has (blocking, rerouting, callback, 10 numbers, caller id, 3-way conferencing,
It's true that we still have to pay for speech calls, but it's really not too much.
Err..., what was the original topic again? (It's kind of funny, that every discussion about telecommunications comes up with this US-Europe baits, but I couldn't resist...)
Well, that's exactly what this case is all about: choice. If you want to use Win2k, you get the defragmentation program, if you like it or not. The german government wants to use Win2k (no comment about this), but they don't want to use software written by a company, that is effectively ruled by Scientology. So they "discussed" that with MS, and now MS offeres them the choice to de-install the defrag-program.
What's the problem with that? It's not like the program gets wiped out of all Win2k-distributions in germany. If you want to use it, use it. German government doesn't want to...
Although I usually don't answer to trolls...
At least you should get the facts right, before you make wrong conclusions. Norway is not part of the EU, never has been. Therefore it was never asked about the Euro and can't bail out.
Maybe you're referring to the referendum in Denmark, but they didn't bail out, just decided not to join. However their currency is bound to the Euro anyway...