It is likely that there is an excellent reason that this idea is simply stupid, but I am not a wireless/radio expert by any means: it occurs to me that broadcasting the same information simultaneously on two bands and comparing them on reception would make error-checking very easy and more reliable. It would require greater processing requirements, admittedly, but probably not anything that would really be inhibitive. Is this used already, and I just don't know, or is it not possible for some reason?
Per hour? I can understand the four-minute minimum time, but if the PP2000-i becomes popular doesn't it seem strange to have such long potential access times? I mean, sure, anyone else wanting to use it could either whine until you get off or beat you into submission, but it's a lot easier to spend more time than you intended on the net than talking to someone in a public place. Unless you have a large bank of consoles, I can envision some rather unpleasant scenes.
These phones seem to run a specialised operating system, which is logical enough. Setting up a system whereby people could plug their laptops in would be convenient, but (correct me if I'm wrong) would it not be somewhat difficult while also hugely increasing the potential for security holes and general abuse? I think that the general point AT&T had in mind was quick and easy net access for luzers; they probably expected the nerds and geeks to keep on using their airports/cellphone modems etc.
It strikes me that something with an LCD panel is begging someone to smash it in, and keyboards are a lot more fragile than your average payphone number pad. I realise that AT&T are intending to position these devices in airports etc, but even in locations such as these with a lot of supervision, surely there would be a lot more maintenance involved than with a normal public phone. The article doesn't seem to specifically mention vandalism, but if AT&T intend to market the 2000-i more widely at some stage, it could become a problem. I am, of course, speaking from a somewhat uninformed viewpoint, since I live in New Zealand and not America.
I am wondering if IBM is also conducting as much research into solid-state storage solutions as they are into disk-based ones. We are eventually going to reach a point where we cannot store any more data per unit area of disk, and we are also going to reach the stage where reading these units of data will be unfeasibly slow using magnetic heads attached to a moving arm. This time is likely to come sooner rather than later, and the problem needs to be addressed. When one has a 500 TB hardrive, but the disk IO is only 500 MBps, it will start to become problematic, and at the moment the fact that a hardrive requires a spinning disk is also limiting computer design in terms of both data buses and case appearance. A laptop must have a certain amount of space for a hardrive (although it is debatable whether solid-state drives would be any smaller, one must assume they would surely become so), and those motors take a lot more power than a solid-state media is likely to consume. So, while advances like pixie-dust are great in the short term, what is being done in the long term to create a fully CMOS-based computer, where the only mechanical movement is the fans?
Disclaimer: This is not a troll. Please don't read it as one; what I say in this post is not a joke.
This isn't a problem that is going to apply to many people, but I thought it would be interesting to mention nonetheless: due to a birth defect I do not see with binocular vision, and therefore would be unable to use this monitor.
I was born nearly blind in my left eye, and have approximately 16/20 vision, for which I wear corrective glasses. However, while I can see well enough out of both eyes now, when I was young I did not have vision in my left eye during the period where the brain becomes accustomed to fusing the signals from each eye into one, three dimensional image. Therefore I have always, and always will (short of major neurosurgery far beyond current technology), be able to see three dimensions only as you see them in Unreal or Quake on a CRT or LCD monitor. Flat. I can see out of both eyes, but my right eye is dominant while my left eye acts almost like peripheral vision, and takes over automatically if I look left, or if my right eye is covered. I can consciously switch between eyes, in which case one of my eyes will drift off to stare over your shoulder when I'm looking at you (very disconcerting apparently), but I cannot switch between them fast enough to construct a true three-dimensional image.
The point of saying all that is to explain why I cannot use 3D glasses to watch green and red movies, and similarly could not see these nice new nifty LCD panels as if they had depth. In fact, I would probably see a really blurry and horrible picture that would make my eyes water. Not being able to use 3D panels wouldn't normally be a problem for me, because I wouldn't know what I'm missing when it comes to seeing a game in 3D -- to me, Unreal on a normal LCD is as 3D as anything else, except that the shadows and perspective I use to judge distance etc are displayed with pixels, not in real life. However, it would be a bit of an issue if these screens ever became mainstream, since I work in IT, among other things. Since I'm the only person I have ever met with this condition, it's unlikely to cause any serious trouble, but it sounded like something interesting to add. Has anyone else heard of people who have monocular vision, or have monocular vision themselves?
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It is likely that there is an excellent reason that this idea is simply stupid, but I am not a wireless/radio expert by any means: it occurs to me that broadcasting the same information simultaneously on two bands and comparing them on reception would make error-checking very easy and more reliable. It would require greater processing requirements, admittedly, but probably not anything that would really be inhibitive. Is this used already, and I just don't know, or is it not possible for some reason?
Per hour? I can understand the four-minute minimum time, but if the PP2000-i becomes popular doesn't it seem strange to have such long potential access times? I mean, sure, anyone else wanting to use it could either whine until you get off or beat you into submission, but it's a lot easier to spend more time than you intended on the net than talking to someone in a public place. Unless you have a large bank of consoles, I can envision some rather unpleasant scenes.
These phones seem to run a specialised operating system, which is logical enough. Setting up a system whereby people could plug their laptops in would be convenient, but (correct me if I'm wrong) would it not be somewhat difficult while also hugely increasing the potential for security holes and general abuse? I think that the general point AT&T had in mind was quick and easy net access for luzers; they probably expected the nerds and geeks to keep on using their airports/cellphone modems etc.
It strikes me that something with an LCD panel is begging someone to smash it in, and keyboards are a lot more fragile than your average payphone number pad. I realise that AT&T are intending to position these devices in airports etc, but even in locations such as these with a lot of supervision, surely there would be a lot more maintenance involved than with a normal public phone. The article doesn't seem to specifically mention vandalism, but if AT&T intend to market the 2000-i more widely at some stage, it could become a problem. I am, of course, speaking from a somewhat uninformed viewpoint, since I live in New Zealand and not America.
I am wondering if IBM is also conducting as much research into solid-state storage solutions as they are into disk-based ones. We are eventually going to reach a point where we cannot store any more data per unit area of disk, and we are also going to reach the stage where reading these units of data will be unfeasibly slow using magnetic heads attached to a moving arm. This time is likely to come sooner rather than later, and the problem needs to be addressed. When one has a 500 TB hardrive, but the disk IO is only 500 MBps, it will start to become problematic, and at the moment the fact that a hardrive requires a spinning disk is also limiting computer design in terms of both data buses and case appearance. A laptop must have a certain amount of space for a hardrive (although it is debatable whether solid-state drives would be any smaller, one must assume they would surely become so), and those motors take a lot more power than a solid-state media is likely to consume. So, while advances like pixie-dust are great in the short term, what is being done in the long term to create a fully CMOS-based computer, where the only mechanical movement is the fans?
This isn't a problem that is going to apply to many people, but I thought it would be interesting to mention nonetheless: due to a birth defect I do not see with binocular vision, and therefore would be unable to use this monitor.
I was born nearly blind in my left eye, and have approximately 16/20 vision, for which I wear corrective glasses. However, while I can see well enough out of both eyes now, when I was young I did not have vision in my left eye during the period where the brain becomes accustomed to fusing the signals from each eye into one, three dimensional image. Therefore I have always, and always will (short of major neurosurgery far beyond current technology), be able to see three dimensions only as you see them in Unreal or Quake on a CRT or LCD monitor. Flat. I can see out of both eyes, but my right eye is dominant while my left eye acts almost like peripheral vision, and takes over automatically if I look left, or if my right eye is covered. I can consciously switch between eyes, in which case one of my eyes will drift off to stare over your shoulder when I'm looking at you (very disconcerting apparently), but I cannot switch between them fast enough to construct a true three-dimensional image.
The point of saying all that is to explain why I cannot use 3D glasses to watch green and red movies, and similarly could not see these nice new nifty LCD panels as if they had depth. In fact, I would probably see a really blurry and horrible picture that would make my eyes water. Not being able to use 3D panels wouldn't normally be a problem for me, because I wouldn't know what I'm missing when it comes to seeing a game in 3D -- to me, Unreal on a normal LCD is as 3D as anything else, except that the shadows and perspective I use to judge distance etc are displayed with pixels, not in real life. However, it would be a bit of an issue if these screens ever became mainstream, since I work in IT, among other things. Since I'm the only person I have ever met with this condition, it's unlikely to cause any serious trouble, but it sounded like something interesting to add. Has anyone else heard of people who have monocular vision, or have monocular vision themselves?