I must agree with a few others here: this is not a big deal. I am surprised more/. readers are not familiar with the multitude of vendors of 802.11 (wireless ethernet), both DSSS and FHSS; and with the rapid adoption of this technology by forward-looking ISPs. I work for a small ISP in Maine, and this is one of the main services we offer.
Our vendor, Breezecom, offers modest security and increased reliability through frequency hopping, performs extremely well in most all conditions, and makes relatively cheap (compared to the monthly cost of a T-1) hardware. They make many different antennas, depending upon the user's gain needs, from pizza-box sized to PCMCIA-sized (bringing wearable wireless ether one step closer to commodity level).
To refute an earlier post, though we do not charge anywhere near the fee mentioned in the article, we do not lose money on this service. The reality of [multi-]community-wide wireless ether is that rarely does any one customer come close to saturating his bandwidth. When an access point becomes overused, it is a simple matter to set up another on a different network and provide more bandwidth.
Re:A new kind of cat burglary
on
Beaming Money
·
· Score: 1
Any digital money scheme worth its salt will encrypt its transactions. e.g., Alice wants to send Bob money, unaware that Edgar is standing nearby, eavesdropping on Alice's IR transmission; it shouldn't be useful to Edgar, because Alice has (likely using a public-key encryption algorithm) encrypted it for Bob and for Bob only. Given suitable encryption elsewhere in the system (credit card transfers, email transactions, etc.) this should be fairly secure.
Of course, I still don't want my money going down the toilet if my Palm III resets or gets lost or dies...
Lets see. How will the corporate world take this? People working in apps like excel and word doing regular business kind of work and all of a sudden an add jumps up for some super sale at Walmart. It looks like a major distraction. Some people will actually click on those banners, and maybe get sidetracked. If I was a business owner, I sure as hell would rather pay a flat fee for some software than have adds jump up which will distract my employees.
>... > Another thing that they need is to get rid of > their arrogant attitude about everything and > making rediculus/frivilous claims in attempt > to boost public appearance.
Excellent suggestion! Rob, other/. admins reading this? Anybody want to volunteer to incorporate this into the slashdot codebase? points to self: "Not it!" (I would but I have a busy course load this quarter.
To the dear Anonymous Coward that posted this, please go read some Nietsche (specifically, his writings on God, morality, and ethics in Also Sprach Zarathustra)and then come back to discuss this. People need no moral or ethical "code" to follow; that is, unless they are weak-willed or need others to think for them.
Slashdot Mirror
What is this God Coffee you speak of? Would you be so kind as to share the recipe with the Slashdot crowd?
Our vendor, Breezecom, offers modest security and increased reliability through frequency hopping, performs extremely well in most all conditions, and makes relatively cheap (compared to the monthly cost of a T-1) hardware. They make many different antennas, depending upon the user's gain needs, from pizza-box sized to PCMCIA-sized (bringing wearable wireless ether one step closer to commodity level).
To refute an earlier post, though we do not charge anywhere near the fee mentioned in the article, we do not lose money on this service. The reality of [multi-]community-wide wireless ether is that rarely does any one customer come close to saturating his bandwidth. When an access point becomes overused, it is a simple matter to set up another on a different network and provide more bandwidth.
Of course, I still don't want my money going down the toilet if my Palm III resets or gets lost or dies...
Lets see. How will the corporate world take this? People working in apps like excel and word doing regular business kind of work and all of a sudden an add jumps up for some super sale at Walmart. It looks like a major distraction. Some people will actually click on those banners, and maybe get sidetracked. If I was a business owner, I sure as hell would rather pay a flat fee for some software than have adds jump up which will distract my employees.
> ...
... *COUGH*Pentium III*COUGH*
> Another thing that they need is to get rid of
> their arrogant attitude about everything and
> making rediculus/frivilous claims in attempt
> to boost public appearance.
*COUGH*Intel*COUGH*
Excellent suggestion! Rob, other /. admins reading this? Anybody want to volunteer to incorporate this into the slashdot codebase? points to self: "Not it!" (I would but I have a busy course load this quarter.
Next on Rob's list of things to do should be automatic mirroring of sites linked from Slashdot...
In the immortal words of Holly from Red Dwarf: "We are talking April, May, June, July, and August Fools here..."
How appropriate that Holly was featured recently in User Friendly, don't you think?
To the dear Anonymous Coward that posted this, please go read some Nietsche (specifically, his writings on God, morality, and ethics in Also Sprach Zarathustra)and then come back to discuss this. People need no moral or ethical "code" to follow; that is, unless they are weak-willed or need others to think for them.