When we start talking about setting and breaking distance records using any type of RF, atmospheric conditions will undoubtedly play a factor. A phenomenon known as Tropospheric Ducting can redirect a short wavelength signal back down to earth, allowing further than line of sight communication.
While this would be great for setting communication record, it would not allow for long-term reliable communication.
There are several things you can do to get more out of your battery.
If you have a variable speed CPU like the AMD Ahtlon XP-M then you can use SpeedSwitchXP (or similar) to force it to run at the slowest speed. For the tasks you mention 500 MHz is plenty of power.
Rip your DVD to the HDD and play it from there.
Disable WiFi and Bluetooth even if they aren't actually connected. They will continously ping looking for other devices, which does hurt battery life. Most notebooks have a keyboard shortcut to disable it.
One of the most useful utils is MobileMeter. This app will show the amount of current your notebook is currently consuming, so you can play with various settings (like backlight intensity) and see the exact affect it has on power consumption.
Finally, what's wrong with using a spare battery? Modern notebooks can hibernate and resume in less than a minute, which is trivial downtime to swap batteries.
The article doesn't mention anything about exploiting security holes. I get the impression that the virus spreads using any standard file transfer method. Obviously it could also spread over IrDA file transfer, but that doesn't mean it somehow exploits a weakness in that connectivity.
Also, why bother looking for and exploiting security holes when you've got ActiveSync? It allows the host PC full access to the Pocket PC filesystem, including the ability to execute programs. I would be far more afraid of a standard Windows virus / worm that decides to wipe out all the data on my Pocket PC when I ActiveSync than an actual Pocket PC virus.
Creating a Pocket PC virus is a trivial matter. It uses the PE format, so I'm sure it would be very simple to adapt virii to infect Windows CE files - basically just a recompile of the virus source to XScale / ARM (assumming it is not in x86 ASM).
Windows CE is actually more secure than Windows XP because the majority of the OS is in ROM. Those files are protected at the file system level - it is not even possible to read or copy the files, let along modify them.
After an infection one could always do a hard reset to quickly have a clean device that is at least usable.
Also, the amount of damage that could be inflicted would be moderate because most PDAs are synchronized with a host PC. So the information on the PDA is essentially backed up multiple times a day.
The real concern would be a virus that could propogate over multiple platforms running different processors. This is one reason to be afraid of.NET / C# bytecode.
Technology has changed drastically since the 80's when I used to play Laser Tag, Photon, etc. These days you can buy fully programmable microcontrollers (Microchip PIC16F628A) for less than $2 a pop. I'm currently in the middle of a couple different IR projects with microcontrollers, so the potentials of this type of project are fresh in my mind.
I would create the entire thing from scratch, as opposed to modding existing equipment. The circuit would be extremely simple (a PIC, a transistor, a few resistors, IR emitters and detectors, and push buttons for firing, reloading, resetting, etc).
You could either just use IR LEDs, or get emitters that already modulate at some frequency. If you also encode data on your carrier then you could enable options like friendly fire, varying weapon damage, etc.
Some ideas that come to mind:
Use FM RF transmitters to relay all data back to a central data collection point to show game progress real-time.
Use an IR transmitter modulated with a special code to reset each player. This would reduce cheating.
Similar to above, use an IR transmitter (with a different code) that can be used to heal people. This unit could be placed in a fixed location, or you could have a medic type player that only has a weak weapon.
Use virtual ammo, implemented as above. Once your weapon is out of ammo you have to pick up additional ammo, which recharges your weapon.
Just like Medics in TFC, you could allow medics to infect enemy players. If a player is infected then they constantly emit a signal that would infect their teammates. Anyone infected will gradually loose health until they die. This could be implemented with a couple weak IR transmitters directly on the player. Of course medics on your own team can heal infections.
Put a IR receiver in the weapon and not just on the player. Thus if it is possible to shoot at someone, it is possible to be shot. That has always been my biggest gripe about laser tag - people holding their gun around a corner where you can't see their sensor.
I could go on and on, but I suppose that's enough rambling for now.
To expand your supermarket / www analogy, imagine if your son bought a candy bar and found it really contained cigarettes. That is the state of porn content on the web.
Not quite. Although it could be considered free speech to put up billboards with pornography on them, or wallpaper the outside of your house with it, there are other standards that must be applied. When it comes to the public environment it is not "anything goes". Since it is solely the parents' responsibility, as you claim, are parents to blindfold their children every time they leave their home, since in your world anything goes?
Looking at the pinout to the cartridge, it appears up to 1 MB is addressable.
The address bus is 10 bits, selectable to represent the high or low byte of the address.
2 ^ 20 = 1048576 bytes
Not too shabby.
(Well, I tried to post the pinout since their website is responding very slowly, but Slashdot wouldn't accept it - "Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Please use fewer 'junk' characters.")
If the scientists could obtain a duplicate Dino they could subject it to varying amounts of sulfur, etc, in a controlled environment. Then based on the changes that occur to the on-site Dino (everything from color changes to actual melting of plastic), they could roughly determine the amount of chemicals it was exposed to. It should at least be useful to know when a particularly large venting has occurred.
For example the pigment used to make the collar green may be particularly susceptible to fading when exposed to a certain kind of acid, etc.
The article contains several misleading statements. Bochs is not a Windows 98 emulator (nor is it a DOS emulator). It is an x86 emulator. Running Windows 98 within the emulator is just a way of showing off what it can do. Much better than boring VGA text mode screenshots of DOS, which would not have gotten mention here at SlashDot.
However ATI did comission me to port GLQuake to Pocket PC to conform to OpenGL ES. However the source code is not available (as we have not distributed - only demoed - the binary).
I'm the guy who ported Quake, and Quake 2, and Wolfenstein 3D. I've also written a 3D engine (Varium) for the platform from scratch. I've been coding Windows CE since version 1.0 in 1997.
Any Pocket PC model can can provide at least 20 MB of RAM, even my first generation iPaq 3630. Now of course any files the end user stores in the main memory will reduce the amount of Program Memory available. So maybe that's what you're talking about.
Pocket Quake requires around 10 MB of free Program Memory, and most people have no problem at all running it. Pocket Quake II allocates a single 20 MB chunk of Program Memory for its heap.
Your "More than 4 megs and you are bound to have problems" is extremely inaccurate. My 3 year old Pocket PC 2000 iPaq 3630 can even run Quake II (albeit at only 4 FPS).
I'm very surprised China made such an announcement. It is typical of communist governments to try and cover up information that would portrait their country in a negative light. The SARS outbreak in China is a perfect example of this policy.
Considering the timeline (2010 for a lunar orbiter, 2020 for an unmanned lander, etc), China could have easily sat on this news for a number of years and let things fizzle out quietly.
I would think that water contaminated with algae and bacteria would end up clogging the pores in the pot, greatly reducing the rate of evaporation (and thus the overall cooling effect).
How is this redundant? This post was made 8 minutes before the post rated Insightful that referred to the Edward Tufte PowerPoint story SlashDot covered before.
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Gomail is probably already in use, but Goomail is more fitting I think.
Dan East
When we start talking about setting and breaking distance records using any type of RF, atmospheric conditions will undoubtedly play a factor. A phenomenon known as Tropospheric Ducting can redirect a short wavelength signal back down to earth, allowing further than line of sight communication.
While this would be great for setting communication record, it would not allow for long-term reliable communication.
Dan East
There are several things you can do to get more out of your battery.
If you have a variable speed CPU like the AMD Ahtlon XP-M then you can use SpeedSwitchXP (or similar) to force it to run at the slowest speed. For the tasks you mention 500 MHz is plenty of power.
Rip your DVD to the HDD and play it from there.
Disable WiFi and Bluetooth even if they aren't actually connected. They will continously ping looking for other devices, which does hurt battery life. Most notebooks have a keyboard shortcut to disable it.
One of the most useful utils is MobileMeter. This app will show the amount of current your notebook is currently consuming, so you can play with various settings (like backlight intensity) and see the exact affect it has on power consumption.
Finally, what's wrong with using a spare battery? Modern notebooks can hibernate and resume in less than a minute, which is trivial downtime to swap batteries.
Dan East
id Software has faithfully released the full source code to each of their titles once the game is a couple generations old.
I wonder if this will affect the release of the Doom 3 source a few years from now? Can patented code be released under the GPL?
Dan East
Anyone know what the white cable lying on the ground that goes completely across the frame in picture 2 (as11-40-5905.jpg) goes to and from?
Dan East
The article doesn't mention anything about exploiting security holes. I get the impression that the virus spreads using any standard file transfer method. Obviously it could also spread over IrDA file transfer, but that doesn't mean it somehow exploits a weakness in that connectivity.
Also, why bother looking for and exploiting security holes when you've got ActiveSync? It allows the host PC full access to the Pocket PC filesystem, including the ability to execute programs. I would be far more afraid of a standard Windows virus / worm that decides to wipe out all the data on my Pocket PC when I ActiveSync than an actual Pocket PC virus.
Dan East
Creating a Pocket PC virus is a trivial matter. It uses the PE format, so I'm sure it would be very simple to adapt virii to infect Windows CE files - basically just a recompile of the virus source to XScale / ARM (assumming it is not in x86 ASM).
.NET / C# bytecode.
Windows CE is actually more secure than Windows XP because the majority of the OS is in ROM. Those files are protected at the file system level - it is not even possible to read or copy the files, let along modify them.
After an infection one could always do a hard reset to quickly have a clean device that is at least usable.
Also, the amount of damage that could be inflicted would be moderate because most PDAs are synchronized with a host PC. So the information on the PDA is essentially backed up multiple times a day.
The real concern would be a virus that could propogate over multiple platforms running different processors. This is one reason to be afraid of
Dan East
Technology has changed drastically since the 80's when I used to play Laser Tag, Photon, etc. These days you can buy fully programmable microcontrollers (Microchip PIC16F628A) for less than $2 a pop. I'm currently in the middle of a couple different IR projects with microcontrollers, so the potentials of this type of project are fresh in my mind.
I would create the entire thing from scratch, as opposed to modding existing equipment. The circuit would be extremely simple (a PIC, a transistor, a few resistors, IR emitters and detectors, and push buttons for firing, reloading, resetting, etc).
You could either just use IR LEDs, or get emitters that already modulate at some frequency. If you also encode data on your carrier then you could enable options like friendly fire, varying weapon damage, etc.
Some ideas that come to mind:
Use FM RF transmitters to relay all data back to a central data collection point to show game progress real-time.
Use an IR transmitter modulated with a special code to reset each player. This would reduce cheating.
Similar to above, use an IR transmitter (with a different code) that can be used to heal people. This unit could be placed in a fixed location, or you could have a medic type player that only has a weak weapon.
Use virtual ammo, implemented as above. Once your weapon is out of ammo you have to pick up additional ammo, which recharges your weapon.
Just like Medics in TFC, you could allow medics to infect enemy players. If a player is infected then they constantly emit a signal that would infect their teammates. Anyone infected will gradually loose health until they die. This could be implemented with a couple weak IR transmitters directly on the player. Of course medics on your own team can heal infections.
Put a IR receiver in the weapon and not just on the player. Thus if it is possible to shoot at someone, it is possible to be shot. That has always been my biggest gripe about laser tag - people holding their gun around a corner where you can't see their sensor.
I could go on and on, but I suppose that's enough rambling for now.
Dan East
Unfortunately its even worse than that.
To expand your supermarket / www analogy, imagine if your son bought a candy bar and found it really contained cigarettes. That is the state of porn content on the web.
Dan East
Not quite. Although it could be considered free speech to put up billboards with pornography on them, or wallpaper the outside of your house with it, there are other standards that must be applied. When it comes to the public environment it is not "anything goes". Since it is solely the parents' responsibility, as you claim, are parents to blindfold their children every time they leave their home, since in your world anything goes?
Dan East
It turned 48 and 65 into very special numbers for so many of us.
Dan East
Um, a PDA (Pocket PC) running FPSEce can run most PS1 games full speed.
Dan East
Looking at the pinout to the cartridge, it appears up to 1 MB is addressable.
The address bus is 10 bits, selectable to represent the high or low byte of the address.
2 ^ 20 = 1048576 bytes
Not too shabby.
(Well, I tried to post the pinout since their website is responding very slowly, but Slashdot wouldn't accept it - "Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Please use fewer 'junk' characters.")
Dan East
If the scientists could obtain a duplicate Dino they could subject it to varying amounts of sulfur, etc, in a controlled environment. Then based on the changes that occur to the on-site Dino (everything from color changes to actual melting of plastic), they could roughly determine the amount of chemicals it was exposed to. It should at least be useful to know when a particularly large venting has occurred.
For example the pigment used to make the collar green may be particularly susceptible to fading when exposed to a certain kind of acid, etc.
Dan East
The article contains several misleading statements. Bochs is not a Windows 98 emulator (nor is it a DOS emulator). It is an x86 emulator. Running Windows 98 within the emulator is just a way of showing off what it can do. Much better than boring VGA text mode screenshots of DOS, which would not have gotten mention here at SlashDot.
Dan East
Pocket Quake uses Quake's software renderer.
However ATI did comission me to port GLQuake to Pocket PC to conform to OpenGL ES. However the source code is not available (as we have not distributed - only demoed - the binary).
Dan East
I'm the guy who ported Quake, and Quake 2, and Wolfenstein 3D. I've also written a 3D engine (Varium) for the platform from scratch. I've been coding Windows CE since version 1.0 in 1997.
Any Pocket PC model can can provide at least 20 MB of RAM, even my first generation iPaq 3630. Now of course any files the end user stores in the main memory will reduce the amount of Program Memory available. So maybe that's what you're talking about.
Dan East
Pocket Quake requires around 10 MB of free Program Memory, and most people have no problem at all running it. Pocket Quake II allocates a single 20 MB chunk of Program Memory for its heap.
Your "More than 4 megs and you are bound to have problems" is extremely inaccurate. My 3 year old Pocket PC 2000 iPaq 3630 can even run Quake II (albeit at only 4 FPS).
Dan East
I'm very surprised China made such an announcement. It is typical of communist governments to try and cover up information that would portrait their country in a negative light. The SARS outbreak in China is a perfect example of this policy.
Considering the timeline (2010 for a lunar orbiter, 2020 for an unmanned lander, etc), China could have easily sat on this news for a number of years and let things fizzle out quietly.
Dan East
Schneier half-jokingly warns not to let airport security find out about this
I don't know about you, but I would be more concerned about keeping this information from fundamental Islamic extremists than from airport security.
Dan East
...is the default resolution of a Pocket PC (QVGA), not 200x320.
Dan East
So how is this thing supposed to determine if Granny is is a diabetic coma verses taking a sound nap?
Dan East
I do find that statistic a bit hard to believe. Especially when you consider the amount of information residing on terraserver, google, etc.
Dan East
I would think that water contaminated with algae and bacteria would end up clogging the pores in the pot, greatly reducing the rate of evaporation (and thus the overall cooling effect).
Dan East
How is this redundant? This post was made 8 minutes before the post rated Insightful that referred to the Edward Tufte PowerPoint story SlashDot covered before.
Dan East