While it may be the "portable console" with the most emulators, Pocket PCs easily surpass it - if we're talking about hardware with a similar form-factor.
Dan East
Re:Is the space elevator a bit premature?
on
Space Elevator Update
·
· Score: 3, Funny
When somebody has built a 40,000 millimeter bridge across a creek on campus, then we can start to talk about a 40,000 kilometer bridge straight up
They really should try for a 40 meter bridge first, then go for 400 decimeter, before attempting the 40,000 millimeter.
And 22 years ago a two-player video game appeared in the James Bond movie Never Say Never Again (1983) which would shock the losing player through dual metal joysticks. If the player let go they would lose, and the voltage increased as the other player took over their virtual territory (global conquest type game).
Speaking of getting shocked by current flowing from one hand to the other (conveniently placing current flow dangerously close to the heart), anybody see the recent episode of Myth Busters where the assistants rig a fake Ark of the Covenant with an electric fence transformer and had the host grab a hold of the two terminals with his hands? I'm surprised someone didn't get fired (or sued) over that one.
the Jackito (aka Tactile Digital Assistant). You can't help but wonder why in the world someone would buy one of these devices when you can get so much more hardware for less cost. I guess it's a matter of national pride with these "homebrew" products (Jackito = France / Simputer = India).
This is nothing more than a tactic to prop up telco providers because their bubble is about to burst. Given the massive amount of market that cell carriers have already taken from them, large-scale VOIP on the horizon, and competing broadband options (cable for example), it is only a matter of time before their business model fails entirely.
If there's anything that governments are good at doing it's maintaining the status quo. Whether we're talking about an economy that relies too heavily on oil, or something as (seemingly) innocuous as telephone service, governments will always fight against fundamental change or market shifts because it will result in a period of instability.
There's a reason why the connectivity linking the telephone in my house to the telephone system is the same as it was five decades ago when my dad was born (hint - it has nothing to do with free-market or competition).
Excuse my cynicism, but if I have to push a button in the first place, why shouldn't I just press the appropriate button to perform the desired command?
Considering that there isn't any magical alchemy going on behind the scenes, google is in fact pretty boring. The only thing interesting is the scale of the operation.
Dan East
(finally able to post for the first time in two weeks - wonder if anyone else had a problem)
A couple people were discussing the possibility of this exact thing on the notebook forums I host:
I like the idea though, Maybe if they could design a backlight that could just light say 2" around the mouse?
At the time I thought the idea was a bit far-fetched - seems like the HP engineers think otherwise.
When the new OLED technology becomes widespread this capability will be inherit to the display, and be controllable at the pixel-level. A simple color scheme using as much black as possible (ie white text on black) could conserve batteries significantly.
6: I have the right to watch that movie as many times as I want, for as long as the DVD exists (decades).
7: I can watch the movie without some 3rd party knowing I'm watching the movie.
8: I can resell the movie if I don't like it or if I grow tired of it.
9: I can lend the movie to my friends.
10: We can watch 3 different movies in 3 different rooms at the same time without fear of running out of bandwidth.
11: It is easier for my 2-year-old to choose a movie by looking at physical cases than by browsing things virtually in a computer.
12: The movies are explicitly protected by my home-owner's insurance from theft or wholesale damage, because it is tangible. What happens when some.com that you purchases online movie rights through disappears? Who knows.
13: The movie is protected from editing (including censorship, for countries like China). Imagine if the only versions of Star Wars (original trilogy) you could access were the "special editions", because that is the only thing Lucas wants you to see.
Many facts stated in the article cannot possibly be correct:
It feeds on a single AA battery, which according to the company, can sustain for several weeks.
Pretty good battery life for device with "seven processors" and a 320x240 display.
The Jackito measures 140 x 80 x 16 mm
AA batteries have a diameter of 14.5 mm. That leaves less than 1 mm thickness for the case on either side of the battery. The unit would have to be thicker than 16 mm.
a large 4.5 color QVGA LCD fingertip touch-screen
4.5 color? The pictures of the device show what appears to be a black and white screen, so perhaps that is 4 level grayscale.
2.5 MB SRAM
That reduces the capability of the device to legacy Palm-type functionality. How can that compete with new multimedia Pocket PCs with 128 MB RAM that even sport hardware accelerated 3D?
The Jackito is available for sale on www.jackito.com at a list price of 600
$600 for a PDA without a color screen, only 2.5 MB RAM, no integrated WiFi or bluetooth, and is not compatible with either Palm or Pocket PC?
Also Novinit says that the finger's contact area is hundred times larger than that of a stylus and a stylus exerts hundred times more pressure on the screen than a finger.
First, I've never had a problem breaking the screens of my PDAs with the stylus. Second, they are out-right admitting that you can't achieve the same precision using your finger as a stylus. Third, a great deal of the screen is now obscured by something much thicker than a stylus. Finally, assuming the touchpad driver simply uses the center point of the large touch area (ie your thumbprint) as the pointer position, then it is impossible to touch the very edges of the screen, which is where the scroll bars reside.
you can choose the screen type (color or monochrome)...MP3 player...Bluetooth
How can they power a color screen, an MP3 player (ie driving headphones) and bluetooth with a single AA battery?
Apparently, Google may begin manufacturing Mouse pads. According to an anonymous source, Google submitted an order for 150 pads. "Why would Google require so many mouse pads at once? Obviously they wish to study and analyze these pads so they can begin manufacturing themselves".
Another source said that some Google employees have had medical X-Rays as part of their health care screening. No word yet on when Google will begin manufacturing their own X-Ray equipment, but giving the combination of ivy-league graduates, the company-sponsored free-time employees are allowed, and the fact that they run a successful search engine, it is obviously only a matter of time. Look out General Electric!
It's critical that a PDA browser be intelligent enough to fit content to a PDA's display. The bulk of Pocket PCs are 240x320, and only the newest models support 480x640. Anyone who attempts to browse "normal" webpages in their native format on a screen 240 pixels wide will quickly realize that it is completely unusable for most sites.
It sounds like this project is at the "Hey, we got it to render something!" stage. Hopefully it will quickly mature and supplant PIE, just as Firefox is taking away IE's share on desktops.
No, and from responses to previous times this question has been asked (it gets asked at least once every time someone mentions Minimo...), porting to Palm OS 5.x or below would be very hard. There was speculation that Palm OS 6 would make it a bit easier (but it'd still require someone to invest a bunch of time...)
If all you want is tabbed browsing, then try ftxPBrowser. It is a freeware "wrapper" for IE that supports tabbed browsing, full-screen browsing, and a few other enhancements. http://park15.wakwak.com/~ftx/ftxp3e/
eBay specifically states they are not auctioneers. They are a "marketplace" (The World's Online Marketplace (tm)). Selling an item straight-out is a basic premise. When you start talking about an auction, which has much more complex rules and involves concepts like "fairness", there is much more room to cheat bidders.
If eBay does not / will not take responsibility and stand behind their auction system then that burden is placed on the seller. It makes perfect sense to me that a government would have concerns about, and wish to regulate, an online auction system.
When you go to an auction in-person you expect a professional, fair and legal process of selling goods. Just because the auction is online does not mean consumers should lose their rights.
If Ohio requires that auctioneers be licensed, and eBay says that the seller is legally defined as the auctioneer, then that's just tough luck. Maybe this will require eBay to take on a little more responsibility other than making sure their website doesn't go down (oh yeah, and collecting vast amounts of money - they handle that responsibility well enough already).
I received one of these over a week ago. It caught my eye more than the other phishing attempts because, after looking at the html, it did indeed send me to *.ebay.com. However deep in the url was a redirect to an IP address. They are using some mechanism within ebay itself to redirect traffic to other sites.
So this exploit has been in use for a long time (relatively speaking) for the vulnerability to still be unpatched.
They have a pc with an off-the-shelf capture card stuck in it running MythTV. All the talk in the article about computer "guts" spread all over the room got me thinking they were actually doing something new and cutting edge. I'm not sure what this article achieves, beyond lamenting the broadcast flag throughout.
Take a look at the ASM listings. If you're using VC++ then you will have to set the compiler to generate ASM listings in the project settings.
You don't have to know hardcore ASM to be able to compare how good of job the compiler does with examples such as the one you provided (!ptr vs ptr==NULL).
I really don't think this is such a big issue. Now if we're talking about something truly MS-centric, like using Visual Basic to automate something between Word and Excel, then yes, they would be better served with MS products. However since 99% of MS Office users' only use of Visual Basic is to infect their system with worms, it's not a big issue.
Most all of the constructs between X / Windows, MS Office / Open Office, etc are similar enough that a typical person can quickly adjust between the two. In fact, the differences between OO and MS Office apps are no greater than the amount of changes a user experiences when going from an old version of MS office (say 97) to a newer version (like 2000).
My impression is that the lab would be used for educational uses, as opposed to "computer literacy" (ie How to use Microsoft Windows (c))".
As soon as the copyright expires (should be 2015, unless we get a new extension), it will be possible to reprint the book - or publish it online.
So what you're really saying is that if Disney, and the massive lobbying power they wield, goes under in the next decade then that copyright will expire in 2015.
I assume they said that because the article states that any water that close to the equator should have melted by now, unless it was covered by some insulating material such as volcanic ash.
However there is an advantage to finding ice near the equator. If we wish to launch spacecraft from Mars the equator would be the best launching point, for the same reason we launch spacecraft from Earth as close to the equator as possible.
The water could be a potential source of fuel, thus it (assuming it is water) lying close to the equator would be advantageous for that reason.
Slashdot Mirror
While it may be the "portable console" with the most emulators, Pocket PCs easily surpass it - if we're talking about hardware with a similar form-factor.
Dan East
When somebody has built a 40,000 millimeter bridge across a creek on campus, then we can start to talk about a 40,000 kilometer bridge straight up
They really should try for a 40 meter bridge first, then go for 400 decimeter, before attempting the 40,000 millimeter.
Dan East
And 22 years ago a two-player video game appeared in the James Bond movie Never Say Never Again (1983) which would shock the losing player through dual metal joysticks. If the player let go they would lose, and the voltage increased as the other player took over their virtual territory (global conquest type game).
Speaking of getting shocked by current flowing from one hand to the other (conveniently placing current flow dangerously close to the heart), anybody see the recent episode of Myth Busters where the assistants rig a fake Ark of the Covenant with an electric fence transformer and had the host grab a hold of the two terminals with his hands? I'm surprised someone didn't get fired (or sued) over that one.
Dan East
the Jackito (aka Tactile Digital Assistant). You can't help but wonder why in the world someone would buy one of these devices when you can get so much more hardware for less cost. I guess it's a matter of national pride with these "homebrew" products (Jackito = France / Simputer = India).
Dan East
This is nothing more than a tactic to prop up telco providers because their bubble is about to burst. Given the massive amount of market that cell carriers have already taken from them, large-scale VOIP on the horizon, and competing broadband options (cable for example), it is only a matter of time before their business model fails entirely.
If there's anything that governments are good at doing it's maintaining the status quo. Whether we're talking about an economy that relies too heavily on oil, or something as (seemingly) innocuous as telephone service, governments will always fight against fundamental change or market shifts because it will result in a period of instability.
There's a reason why the connectivity linking the telephone in my house to the telephone system is the same as it was five decades ago when my dad was born (hint - it has nothing to do with free-market or competition).
Dan East
Excuse my cynicism, but if I have to push a button in the first place, why shouldn't I just press the appropriate button to perform the desired command?
Dan East
Considering that there isn't any magical alchemy going on behind the scenes, google is in fact pretty boring. The only thing interesting is the scale of the operation.
Dan East
(finally able to post for the first time in two weeks - wonder if anyone else had a problem)
whose bikes travel faster than 761 mph, not being heard by people we are overtaking is already a big problem.
Dan East
A couple people were discussing the possibility of this exact thing on the notebook forums I host:
I like the idea though, Maybe if they could design a backlight that could just light say 2" around the mouse?
At the time I thought the idea was a bit far-fetched - seems like the HP engineers think otherwise.
When the new OLED technology becomes widespread this capability will be inherit to the display, and be controllable at the pixel-level. A simple color scheme using as much black as possible (ie white text on black) could conserve batteries significantly.
Dan East
6: I have the right to watch that movie as many times as I want, for as long as the DVD exists (decades).
.com that you purchases online movie rights through disappears? Who knows.
7: I can watch the movie without some 3rd party knowing I'm watching the movie.
8: I can resell the movie if I don't like it or if I grow tired of it.
9: I can lend the movie to my friends.
10: We can watch 3 different movies in 3 different rooms at the same time without fear of running out of bandwidth.
11: It is easier for my 2-year-old to choose a movie by looking at physical cases than by browsing things virtually in a computer.
12: The movies are explicitly protected by my home-owner's insurance from theft or wholesale damage, because it is tangible. What happens when some
13: The movie is protected from editing (including censorship, for countries like China). Imagine if the only versions of Star Wars (original trilogy) you could access were the "special editions", because that is the only thing Lucas wants you to see.
Dan East
Many facts stated in the article cannot possibly be correct:
It feeds on a single AA battery, which according to the company, can sustain for several weeks.
Pretty good battery life for device with "seven processors" and a 320x240 display.
The Jackito measures 140 x 80 x 16 mm
AA batteries have a diameter of 14.5 mm. That leaves less than 1 mm thickness for the case on either side of the battery. The unit would have to be thicker than 16 mm.
a large 4.5 color QVGA LCD fingertip touch-screen
4.5 color? The pictures of the device show what appears to be a black and white screen, so perhaps that is 4 level grayscale.
2.5 MB SRAM
That reduces the capability of the device to legacy Palm-type functionality. How can that compete with new multimedia Pocket PCs with 128 MB RAM that even sport hardware accelerated 3D?
The Jackito is available for sale on www.jackito.com at a list price of 600
$600 for a PDA without a color screen, only 2.5 MB RAM, no integrated WiFi or bluetooth, and is not compatible with either Palm or Pocket PC?
Also Novinit says that the finger's contact area is hundred times larger than that of a stylus and a stylus exerts hundred times more pressure on the screen than a finger.
First, I've never had a problem breaking the screens of my PDAs with the stylus. Second, they are out-right admitting that you can't achieve the same precision using your finger as a stylus. Third, a great deal of the screen is now obscured by something much thicker than a stylus. Finally, assuming the touchpad driver simply uses the center point of the large touch area (ie your thumbprint) as the pointer position, then it is impossible to touch the very edges of the screen, which is where the scroll bars reside.
you can choose the screen type (color or monochrome)...MP3 player...Bluetooth
How can they power a color screen, an MP3 player (ie driving headphones) and bluetooth with a single AA battery?
Dan East
Apparently, Google may begin manufacturing Mouse pads. According to an anonymous source, Google submitted an order for 150 pads. "Why would Google require so many mouse pads at once? Obviously they wish to study and analyze these pads so they can begin manufacturing themselves".
Another source said that some Google employees have had medical X-Rays as part of their health care screening. No word yet on when Google will begin manufacturing their own X-Ray equipment, but giving the combination of ivy-league graduates, the company-sponsored free-time employees are allowed, and the fact that they run a successful search engine, it is obviously only a matter of time. Look out General Electric!
Dan East
It's critical that a PDA browser be intelligent enough to fit content to a PDA's display. The bulk of Pocket PCs are 240x320, and only the newest models support 480x640. Anyone who attempts to browse "normal" webpages in their native format on a screen 240 pixels wide will quickly realize that it is completely unusable for most sites.
It sounds like this project is at the "Hey, we got it to render something!" stage. Hopefully it will quickly mature and supplant PIE, just as Firefox is taking away IE's share on desktops.
Dan East
http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=6 097
No, and from responses to previous times this question has been asked (it gets asked at least once every time someone mentions Minimo...), porting to Palm OS 5.x or below would be very hard. There was speculation that Palm OS 6 would make it a bit easier (but it'd still require someone to invest a bunch of time...)
Dan East
If all you want is tabbed browsing, then try ftxPBrowser. It is a freeware "wrapper" for IE that supports tabbed browsing, full-screen browsing, and a few other enhancements.
http://park15.wakwak.com/~ftx/ftxp3e/
Dan East
the other 4881 applicants are suing Harvard for posting personal, confidential information on the internet for all to see.
Dan East
eBay specifically states they are not auctioneers. They are a "marketplace" (The World's Online Marketplace (tm)). Selling an item straight-out is a basic premise. When you start talking about an auction, which has much more complex rules and involves concepts like "fairness", there is much more room to cheat bidders.
If eBay does not / will not take responsibility and stand behind their auction system then that burden is placed on the seller. It makes perfect sense to me that a government would have concerns about, and wish to regulate, an online auction system.
When you go to an auction in-person you expect a professional, fair and legal process of selling goods. Just because the auction is online does not mean consumers should lose their rights.
If Ohio requires that auctioneers be licensed, and eBay says that the seller is legally defined as the auctioneer, then that's just tough luck. Maybe this will require eBay to take on a little more responsibility other than making sure their website doesn't go down (oh yeah, and collecting vast amounts of money - they handle that responsibility well enough already).
Dan East
I received one of these over a week ago. It caught my eye more than the other phishing attempts because, after looking at the html, it did indeed send me to *.ebay.com. However deep in the url was a redirect to an IP address. They are using some mechanism within ebay itself to redirect traffic to other sites.
So this exploit has been in use for a long time (relatively speaking) for the vulnerability to still be unpatched.
Dan East
They have a pc with an off-the-shelf capture card stuck in it running MythTV. All the talk in the article about computer "guts" spread all over the room got me thinking they were actually doing something new and cutting edge. I'm not sure what this article achieves, beyond lamenting the broadcast flag throughout.
Dan East
Take a look at the ASM listings. If you're using VC++ then you will have to set the compiler to generate ASM listings in the project settings.
You don't have to know hardcore ASM to be able to compare how good of job the compiler does with examples such as the one you provided (!ptr vs ptr==NULL).
Dan East
I really don't think this is such a big issue. Now if we're talking about something truly MS-centric, like using Visual Basic to automate something between Word and Excel, then yes, they would be better served with MS products. However since 99% of MS Office users' only use of Visual Basic is to infect their system with worms, it's not a big issue.
Most all of the constructs between X / Windows, MS Office / Open Office, etc are similar enough that a typical person can quickly adjust between the two. In fact, the differences between OO and MS Office apps are no greater than the amount of changes a user experiences when going from an old version of MS office (say 97) to a newer version (like 2000).
My impression is that the lab would be used for educational uses, as opposed to "computer literacy" (ie How to use Microsoft Windows (c))".
Dan East
As soon as the copyright expires (should be 2015, unless we get a new extension), it will be possible to reprint the book - or publish it online.
So what you're really saying is that if Disney, and the massive lobbying power they wield, goes under in the next decade then that copyright will expire in 2015.
Dan East
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=degausse _degaussers.htm
http://www.datalinksales.com/degaussers/hard_driv
Dan East
It is not like a Phillips Screwdriver is some exotic tool that is hard to come by.
Plus, if you use a magnetic screwdriver, you can degauss your HDD at the same time!
Dan East
I assume they said that because the article states that any water that close to the equator should have melted by now, unless it was covered by some insulating material such as volcanic ash.
However there is an advantage to finding ice near the equator. If we wish to launch spacecraft from Mars the equator would be the best launching point, for the same reason we launch spacecraft from Earth as close to the equator as possible.
The water could be a potential source of fuel, thus it (assuming it is water) lying close to the equator would be advantageous for that reason.
Dan East