Thank you for pointing that out!!! I was wondering why so many folks missed that obvious point.
I used to work for a wireless engineering firm from 1990 to 1997. I was around when PCS was being planned. At the time, there was alot of debate about exactly what PCS would be. One of the big ideas was the ability for the phones to communicate directly to each other if the 2 cell phones were close enough. Since the PCS providers could not make money off such phone calls, that idea seemed to fade away. I can pretty much guarantee that you will never see true peer-to-peer services on a wireless phone. The PCS and cellular companies will do everything they can to keep phones with that functionality off their networks.
It's funny that you should mention the morons who blast their mega-bass systems when they cruise down the road, because that drives me nuts, too. But, I've thought of a way to get back at some of them.
I know that many of those morons are playing CD's, but at least some of them are just blasting the radio. It should be possible to create a device which listens to what is coming out of their speakers and searches the airwaves to determine which radio station the morons are listening to. You could then broadcast a piercing shrill on the same frequency as the radio station they are listening too. They would certainly turn down the radio very fast. Or, if you are not as mean as I am, you could just broadcast a strong, flat signal, so they (and everyone else) would hear nothing out of their radio. Or you could broadcast a really embarassing song that noone in their right mind would blast, like an old Barry Manilow song or something:-)
A similar, fairly recent find is the controversial "pyramids" found off the coast of Japan. There are many web sites about this site, but a pretty decent one can be found at http://www.lauralee.com/japan.htm.
There is a lot of debate about whether these structures are man-made or natural. Either way, there are some pretty cool pictures:
I recently had to become a bit of a VoiceXML expert for a project at work. From what I have seen, using VoiceXML for talking web sites is actually not what most people are using it for. VoiceXML is used primarily for automated phone transactions. If you have ever called your bank or credit card company to get your balance or conduct some other type of transaction, then you know the type of phone system that I am talking about. If that system was capable of voice recognition, chances are that it was programmed using VoiceXML. VoiceXML is also quite capable of making outbound calls; it is conceivable that you might start receiving completely automated telemarketer calls in the next couple of years.
I wrote my own VoiceXML app which prompted you to say your name and the name of someone whom you wanted to get ahold of and the system would hunt down that person on various devices (e-mail, AIM, pager, telephone, SMS, fax, etc.) and let that person know that you are looking for them. It worked unbelievably well and VoiceXML made the voice recognition part of it trivial. And if you need a VoiceXML solution, I would strongly suggest that you consder Voice Genie (www.voicegenie.com).
You are very right. And as long as there are no repercussions, there is nothing to discourage companies from abusing regular schmoes. How about taking away all of their registered domains for 6 to 12 months?
I worked in the wireless industry as an engineer when the idea of PCS first emerged. At that time, everybody had their own definition of what a PCS network looked like. One recurring part of that definition was that PCS phones would be able to connect to one another in a point-to-point fashion if the two PCS phones were close enough to one another. Of course, such a scheme would bypass the phone company and would decrease the PCS companies profits, so this idea seemed to just sadly disappear. And since the FCC did not impose a protocol standard on the PCS industry, point-to-point calls would have only worked between phones using compatible technologies.
I've often wondered if it would be possible to copyright the (C) copyright symbol, or register the (R) registered trademark symbol and then telling people that they can no longer use those symbols. Anybody every tried?
How about getting a patent for the business process of using the patent process to protect a minor or obvious invention for the purpose of stifling legitimate competition? You could then send cease and desist letters to all of the companies who use bogus patents to step on open source developers or kick around small companies with cool software or other products.
I'm with the first guy....I use Tomcat at home and found the configuration of Tomcat 3.x very difficult and non-intuitive. Granted, Sendmail is worse, but it takes many years of hard work and dedication to make configuration files as hard to work with as Sendmail. I can't wait to get my hands on Tomcat 4.0.
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Thank you for pointing that out!!! I was wondering why so many folks missed that obvious point.
I used to work for a wireless engineering firm from 1990 to 1997. I was around when PCS was being planned. At the time, there was alot of debate about exactly what PCS would be. One of the big ideas was the ability for the phones to communicate directly to each other if the 2 cell phones were close enough. Since the PCS providers could not make money off such phone calls, that idea seemed to fade away. I can pretty much guarantee that you will never see true peer-to-peer services on a wireless phone. The PCS and cellular companies will do everything they can to keep phones with that functionality off their networks.
It's funny that you should mention the morons who blast their mega-bass systems when they cruise down the road, because that drives me nuts, too. But, I've thought of a way to get back at some of them.
:-)
I know that many of those morons are playing CD's, but at least some of them are just blasting the radio. It should be possible to create a device which listens to what is coming out of their speakers and searches the airwaves to determine which radio station the morons are listening to. You could then broadcast a piercing shrill on the same frequency as the radio station they are listening too. They would certainly turn down the radio very fast. Or, if you are not as mean as I am, you could just broadcast a strong, flat signal, so they (and everyone else) would hear nothing out of their radio. Or you could broadcast a really embarassing song that noone in their right mind would blast, like an old Barry Manilow song or something
A similar, fairly recent find is the controversial "pyramids" found off the coast of Japan. There are many web sites about this site, but a pretty decent one can be found at http://www.lauralee.com/japan.htm. There is a lot of debate about whether these structures are man-made or natural. Either way, there are some pretty cool pictures:
http://www.lauralee.com/japan/japan1.htm
http://www.lauralee.com/japan/japan2.htm
I recently had to become a bit of a VoiceXML expert for a project at work. From what I have seen, using VoiceXML for talking web sites is actually not what most people are using it for. VoiceXML is used primarily for automated phone transactions. If you have ever called your bank or credit card company to get your balance or conduct some other type of transaction, then you know the type of phone system that I am talking about. If that system was capable of voice recognition, chances are that it was programmed using VoiceXML. VoiceXML is also quite capable of making outbound calls; it is conceivable that you might start receiving completely automated telemarketer calls in the next couple of years.
I wrote my own VoiceXML app which prompted you to say your name and the name of someone whom you wanted to get ahold of and the system would hunt down that person on various devices (e-mail, AIM, pager, telephone, SMS, fax, etc.) and let that person know that you are looking for them. It worked unbelievably well and VoiceXML made the voice recognition part of it trivial. And if you need a VoiceXML solution, I would strongly suggest that you consder Voice Genie (www.voicegenie.com).
You are very right. And as long as there are no repercussions, there is nothing to discourage companies from abusing regular schmoes. How about taking away all of their registered domains for 6 to 12 months?
I worked in the wireless industry as an engineer when the idea of PCS first emerged. At that time, everybody had their own definition of what a PCS network looked like. One recurring part of that definition was that PCS phones would be able to connect to one another in a point-to-point fashion if the two PCS phones were close enough to one another. Of course, such a scheme would bypass the phone company and would decrease the PCS companies profits, so this idea seemed to just sadly disappear. And since the FCC did not impose a protocol standard on the PCS industry, point-to-point calls would have only worked between phones using compatible technologies.
I've often wondered if it would be possible to copyright the (C) copyright symbol, or register the (R) registered trademark symbol and then telling people that they can no longer use those symbols. Anybody every tried?
How about getting a patent for the business process of using the patent process to protect a minor or obvious invention for the purpose of stifling legitimate competition? You could then send cease and desist letters to all of the companies who use bogus patents to step on open source developers or kick around small companies with cool software or other products.
I'm with the first guy....I use Tomcat at home and found the configuration of Tomcat 3.x very difficult and non-intuitive. Granted, Sendmail is worse, but it takes many years of hard work and dedication to make configuration files as hard to work with as Sendmail. I can't wait to get my hands on Tomcat 4.0.