Here we go again: people thinking that "embedded system" means a PDA.
A digital thermostat is an embedded system. It certainly doesn't require linux or 100K of RAM to implement this.
A major aspect that is often overlooked is that something like a 100K of RAM is worth maybe $5 whereas a couple of meg is going to seriously out price that. Now, consider building a 100,000 units. That extra cost becomes very significant.
I think it was already mentioned, but power consumption can be a major issue; ie. more RAM sucks more power. Not a good idea for battery powered apps.
Agreed. The biggest obstacle to any human endevour is that little sticky note in the front of the brain that says, "Can't,...too difficult."
One often doesn't know what is down some path until one actually walks that path. The genius aspect is in intelligently pruning side paths that are 'likely' of little value.
Actually, this has been possible for a long time (i.e. 10 years or so). The only differences now are that there are single FPGA chips that can accomodate the entire design, and that there are also some fairly mature Open Source cores available.
There's another direction to consider: digicams. I've been waiting two years since jpeg2k was ratified for digicams to start providing it.
The fact is that the wavelet based compression allowed by jpeg2k maintains far better detail than basic jpeg. The detail retention of basic jpeg is horrid. Consider a forest scene with lots of small detail. The 8x8 DCT used in basic jpeg destroys fine detail like small branches and leaves.
On the other hand, wavelet based compressors like jpeg2k essentially scale the compression area down to better match the detail of the image in a particular spot.
I also suspect that due to the better retention of detail, you'll likely see many commercial web sites convert to it. I've seen enough of online catalogs that are unreadable due to crappy image compression.
tunnel vision. There is a huge number of general computing devices that will never see a single bit of Hollywood's or the music industries content. So, how can anyone seriously propose adding cost and the threat of criminal offense?
This is equivalent to saying that all hammers must be registered for a fee since they could be used to create knock off sculptures. "What? An unregistered home made hammer...why you must be a crook!"
To be honest, Hollywood & the music industry has gotten so silly about digital content issues that I'm ready stop consuming it. I find that most of the content is worthless beyond the basic cost of production...not to mention artistic & entertainment value.
The cost of consumption is not cheap either as I can look at my CD collection and quickly witness several thousand dollars worth of purchases. Movies & music are expensive to produce? Well, movies can be, but have you ever noticed how vibrant and full of life a low cost production is with a good script, producer, and cast? Beats the "refined" stuff hands down. Music is not expensive to produce, period. A studio with a couple hundred grand of equipment more than pays for itself even considering the human costs. Advertising....nearly free with the internet if used with any decent amount of marketing savvy.
This actually reminds me of Sega's push to have games downloaded via cable. The costs of which were so much lower than building cartridges and packaging them, and storing them and shipping them....all this when their profit margins were already well into the sinful range.
And what about embedded systems? Some of my hobby materials will have to be registered or include content protection? What? A microcontroller being used to control a robotic servo....phhhhft.
Now, Hollywood & the music industry both have every right to make a buck and protect that right. Lets face it though, this is not the way to go about it. I don't mind paying for content, but I have slowed my CD purchases alot due to high prices alone. Note too that I have no mp3's either.
In the end, my prediction is that the next big "internet" wave will be the Open Content movement as artists, creators, and consumers get sick of the moguls.
That's a crock. Do you know how many features there are on VCR that are never utilized by the vast majority of users?
Besides, computing comes down to, "does it do what you need it to do?" I've known people to use C64's for word processing long after their 'death dates'....if it does the job, then it's a viable solution.
For me, Microsoft can do some jobs for me, but to be honest most of my computing needs are far better answered by a Unix based system that not only has a powerful set of tools, but makes more effecient use of the existing H/W platform.
Security?!? Ha. It took Microsoft 15 years to realize and/or declare that premptive multitasking was a useful concept. Although, technically there should be more security breaches on Unix, there aren't...the reason? Ease of attack. Not that causing something like a buffer overflow is rocket science, but it is slightly more involved than emailing an attack agent via MS's Outlook.
When Microsoft can truly address the needs of a technical/power user then come on back and maybe I'll drop those twits a nickle for their annoyingly unstable product...o' right...it's [finally] reasonably stable....phhhft.
BTW, can I port and recompile Windoze (whatever (tm)) to run on a compact PCI embedded system?
100% agree. Just wanted to add that anyone having access to the raw device can scan _whatever_ they want. So, if our little 'secret' filesystem has any identifiable structure then it is readily made insecure.
Personally, I think strong custom encryption and a compact flash disk makes more sense for very sensitive info.
Write your MP and protest. My MP actually holds riding referendums on important issues and follows through on the constituants wishes.
Don't buy CD's or videos. These are not life and death requirements for a viable life.
A few years back there was such an uproar over one of the cable companies introducing negative option billing. More uproar than any vital issue has ever gotten in recent history here in Canada! The lesson? The populations of N.America are already owned by the media companies as people can't seem to live without their media fix, so maybe a media tax is appropriate.
Food for thought: Health food may not be particularly better for you, it might just be what you are not eating that makes the difference. -> Apply to your media habits.
You are correct to a degree, but only for some types of S/W systems. For example, my word processor is artfully designed for me to intuitively make the most out of it's capabilities. Great, but it crashes due to sloppy, 'artful' practices. Ok, it's a word processor, I lose a bit of work...annoying, but not critical.
Now for the systems that I hope were not designed in a purely 'artful' manner: Aircraft control systems, my microwave oven, the telecom switches that connect me to emergency services, chemical/nuclear process control systems, automotive control systems, traffic light control systems, fire control system on a smart bomb, nuclear attack early warning systems, pacemaker control system, computerized medical equipment (life support, anaylsis equipment...etc.), electronic infrastucture for commerce...etc..
These are all S/W application areas that demand an engineered solution. That means that the system performs the required functionality correctly, meets the required level of reliability, and does not perform unintended actions in either normal or extrordinary circumstances.
Artistic qualities do play a role in design & implementation, but it is not the only quality required to build & test such systems.
Could you imagine someone 'artistically' testing such a system? "Well, the system 'felt' right...I think we should ship it." "Oh, it failed! It killed 300 people! Tsk."
Items like thermostats, and even toothbrushes (see the Braun 3D electric jobby). There are lots of low power and low spunk MCU's like the Atmel's AVR's (actually a fair kick to them), and PICs, TI's MSP's, Intel 8051, Motorola 68HC16...etc all the way to highend embedded PowerPC's.
What else? Radar, industrial/process control, X10 appliances, test equipment, audio equipment, robotics control, noise cancellation systems, ovens, humidifiers, Christmas tree lights, radios...etc.
Exactly, if americans lose civil liberties because of this then the terrorists win. You know, and I know that there are oportunists in america, as anywhere, that will take advantage of the heavy psychological weight that this tragedy carries with it.
An example that makes me wonder, and correct me if I'm wrong as I'm canadian, but doesn't your president sign a little piece of paper every 6 months or so declaring that the USA is at war....simply to meet the requirements for having an active national militia?
So, to say that temporarly suspending some rights is ok, and they'd be reviewed...is a farce.
The other thing too is that no matter what you do, terrorism can strike. The reason for this is that it often utilizes a high level of lateral thinking which simply bypasses most of the expected approaches and thus limits the benefits of most new security measures. Though, this should not stop the tightening of things like airport security.
Obviously it is easy to rant on, but to give up an ounce of that which you value most nationally is simply to sigh in defeat.
1) If you haven't made an effort to instill quality according to your definitions then you shouldl; i.e. skip management at this stage.
2) If you haven't proposed a workable way to achieve better quality then do so highlighting the benefits and the costs.
3) Unless you've done (1) & (2) then you are no where near the point of needing to make an stand.
4) Due to things like TV we've managed to dumb down consumers to the point where most of them haven't a clue what a quality item is. Look at what advertising is based on: sex and flash.
I've worked on both ends of the spectrum. The ones that don't push quality either don't understand the issue or truly don't care. The other side of the coin is a development environment so anal you'll be jumpin' to do a hack. 8)
Personally, I'd try (1) since really all you have to do is clean up the existing code that you keep reusing.
Actually, combining a load of these processors in an array arrangement with a similar framebuffer memory arrangement would be a blitzkrieg fast image processing machine.
Don't believe me....look up work on bit-serial processors and the AIS-5000 (I think that was the system name)...I saw a demo years ago...768 bitserial processors doing image processing tasks on x-ray images for an airport screening system.
More processors are used in embedded systems than there ever will be in desktops.
Though I would have to add that Forth is not a very maintainable language...if a monkey can't read it...then ye olde monkey won't understand it either.
8) Wow, that's shrewd! I'd have to say that you've been smoking too much 'law' and 'rational' thought! 8)
I would highly recommend John Ralston Saul's book, Voltaire's Bastards. It highlights the limited use of rational thought/arguments to meet any end. It also shows how this has been used historically.
I noticed that the article did not mention which technology was at issue. Working in telecom I know AT&T has sued companies for use of ADPCM with some success.
Sad really as ADPCM is a true no-brainer...it's just the running difference between samples. So, let's see, we need to reduce voice sample dynamic range...hmmmm a signal that is basically smooth with no/few huge steps....well the differences would be smaller in magnitude (and thus take fewer bits to store)...lets check that one out!
Ok, sarcasm aside, AT&T basically got this patent because...why? Well, they were basically the 1st in the problem space....certainly not for some grand insight to a problem.
Although free codecs are certainly beneficial to society...I would argue that things like mp3 are not simple or obvious solutions...perhaps the basic concept is, but certainly not the research and implementation that made it a _working_ concept.
Blah blah blah....what's all this mean?!? Well, I'll simply answer that with a quote from the movie, RepoMan, (while talking on a payphone...)
"I..I can't understand you....I'm using a scrambler..."
caio
Wireless is available in the rural regions of Ottawa...and is spreading. About $50/month (basic fee + $10 radio rental) for a 2Mb/s connection....though I have yet to see the fine print other than a 10GB monthly through put limit.
This service is provided by Storm. BTW, there is an installation cost of $400. This is still better than the satellite services which still require a phone line for the uplink (pathetic solution).
Wrt. fuel cells: People should be made aware of the big players that are jockying for position in the future hydrogen markets. The big oil companies are amoung them as they think ripping hydrogen from all those cheap hydrocarbons that they pump from the ground is a nice way to go. Most methods proposed for supplying large quantities of hydrogen to the car-fuel cell market is dirty itself. As such a large amount of CO2 is still produced and some of the metheds are almost as dirty as current gasoline usage.
Readers should do a little research into this if they are truly concerned about the environmental side effects of modern transportation.
Cheers,
tius
Slashdot Mirror
Here we go again: people thinking that "embedded system" means a PDA.
A digital thermostat is an embedded system. It certainly doesn't require linux or 100K of RAM to implement this.
A major aspect that is often overlooked is that something like a 100K of RAM is worth maybe $5 whereas a couple of meg is going to seriously out price that. Now, consider building a 100,000 units. That extra cost becomes very significant.
I think it was already mentioned, but power consumption can be a major issue; ie. more RAM sucks more power. Not a good idea for battery powered apps.
Yadda yadda.
Right, not! Your system happens to be an embedded flight control system where any bug may cause a fatal event.
Agreed. The biggest obstacle to any human endevour is that little sticky note in the front of the brain that says, "Can't,...too difficult."
One often doesn't know what is down some path until one actually walks that path. The genius aspect is in intelligently pruning side paths that are 'likely' of little value.
Actually, this has been possible for a long time (i.e. 10 years or so). The only differences now are that there are single FPGA chips that can accomodate the entire design, and that there are also some fairly mature Open Source cores available.
There's another direction to consider: digicams.
I've been waiting two years since jpeg2k was ratified for digicams to start providing it.
The fact is that the wavelet based compression allowed by jpeg2k maintains far better detail than basic jpeg. The detail retention of basic jpeg is horrid. Consider a forest scene with lots of small detail. The 8x8 DCT used in basic jpeg destroys fine detail like small branches and leaves.
On the other hand, wavelet based compressors like jpeg2k essentially scale the compression area down to better match the detail of the image in a particular spot.
I also suspect that due to the better retention of detail, you'll likely see many commercial web sites convert to it. I've seen enough of online catalogs that are unreadable due to crappy image compression.
tunnel vision. There is a huge number of general computing devices that will never see a single bit of Hollywood's or the music industries content. So, how can anyone seriously propose adding cost and the threat of criminal offense?
This is equivalent to saying that all hammers must be registered for a fee since they could be used to create knock off sculptures. "What? An unregistered home made hammer...why you must be a crook!"
To be honest, Hollywood & the music industry has gotten so silly about digital content issues that I'm ready stop consuming it. I find that most of the content is worthless beyond the basic cost of production...not to mention artistic & entertainment value.
The cost of consumption is not cheap either as I can look at my CD collection and quickly witness several thousand dollars worth of purchases. Movies & music are expensive to produce? Well, movies can be, but have you ever noticed how vibrant and full of life a low cost production is with a good script, producer, and cast? Beats the "refined" stuff hands down. Music is not expensive to produce, period. A studio with a couple hundred grand of equipment more than pays for itself even considering the human costs. Advertising....nearly free with the internet if used with any decent amount of marketing savvy.
This actually reminds me of Sega's push to have games downloaded via cable. The costs of which were so much lower than building cartridges and packaging them, and storing them and shipping them....all this when their profit margins were already well into the sinful range.
And what about embedded systems? Some of my hobby materials will have to be registered or include content protection? What? A microcontroller being used to control a robotic servo....phhhhft.
Now, Hollywood & the music industry both have every right to make a buck and protect that right. Lets face it though, this is not the way to go about it. I don't mind paying for content, but I have slowed my CD purchases alot due to high prices alone. Note too that I have no mp3's either.
In the end, my prediction is that the next big "internet" wave will be the Open Content movement as artists, creators, and consumers get sick of the moguls.
YACCY - Yet Another Car Chase; Yawn...
That's a crock. Do you know how many features there are on VCR that are never utilized by the vast majority of users?
Besides, computing comes down to, "does it do what you need it to do?" I've known people to use C64's for word processing long after their 'death dates'....if it does the job, then it's a viable solution.
For me, Microsoft can do some jobs for me, but to be honest most of my computing needs are far better answered by a Unix based system that not only has a powerful set of tools, but makes more effecient use of the existing H/W platform.
Security?!? Ha. It took Microsoft 15 years to realize and/or declare that premptive multitasking was a useful concept. Although, technically there should be more security breaches on Unix, there aren't...the reason? Ease of attack. Not that causing something like a buffer overflow is rocket science, but it is slightly more involved than emailing an attack agent via MS's Outlook.
When Microsoft can truly address the needs of a technical/power user then come on back and maybe I'll drop those twits a nickle for their annoyingly unstable product...o' right...it's [finally] reasonably stable....phhhft.
BTW, can I port and recompile Windoze (whatever (tm)) to run on a compact PCI embedded system?
100% agree. Just wanted to add that anyone having access to the raw device can scan _whatever_ they want. So, if our little 'secret' filesystem has any identifiable structure then it is readily made insecure.
Personally, I think strong custom encryption and a compact flash disk makes more sense for very sensitive info.
There's lots that people can do!
Write your MP and protest. My MP actually holds riding referendums on important issues and follows through on the constituants wishes.
Don't buy CD's or videos. These are not life and death requirements for a viable life.
A few years back there was such an uproar over one of the cable companies introducing negative option billing. More uproar than any vital issue has ever gotten in recent history here in Canada! The lesson? The populations of N.America are already owned by the media companies as people can't seem to live without their media fix, so maybe a media tax is appropriate.
Food for thought: Health food may not be particularly better for you, it might just be what you are not eating that makes the difference.
-> Apply to your media habits.
Cheers.
You are correct to a degree, but only for some types of S/W systems. For example, my word processor is artfully designed for me to intuitively make the most out of it's capabilities. Great, but it crashes due to sloppy, 'artful' practices. Ok, it's a word processor, I lose a bit of work...annoying, but not critical.
Now for the systems that I hope were not designed in a purely 'artful' manner: Aircraft control systems, my microwave oven, the telecom switches that connect me to emergency services, chemical/nuclear process control systems, automotive control systems, traffic light control systems, fire control system on a smart bomb, nuclear attack early warning systems, pacemaker control system, computerized medical equipment (life support, anaylsis equipment...etc.), electronic infrastucture for commerce...etc..
These are all S/W application areas that demand an engineered solution. That means that the system performs the required functionality correctly, meets the required level of reliability, and does not perform unintended actions in either normal or extrordinary circumstances.
Artistic qualities do play a role in design & implementation, but it is not the only quality required to build & test such systems.
Could you imagine someone 'artistically' testing such a system? "Well, the system 'felt' right...I think we should ship it." "Oh, it failed! It killed 300 people! Tsk."
Last word; Programming != S/W engineering.
I'm glad to see that someone mentioned this.
Items like thermostats, and even toothbrushes (see the Braun 3D electric jobby). There are lots of low power and low spunk MCU's like the Atmel's AVR's (actually a fair kick to them), and PICs, TI's MSP's, Intel 8051, Motorola 68HC16...etc all the way to highend embedded PowerPC's.
What else? Radar, industrial/process control, X10 appliances, test equipment, audio equipment, robotics control, noise cancellation systems, ovens, humidifiers, Christmas tree lights, radios...etc.
Exactly, if americans lose civil liberties because of this then the terrorists win. You know, and I know that there are oportunists in america, as anywhere, that will take advantage of the heavy psychological weight that this tragedy carries with it.
An example that makes me wonder, and correct me if I'm wrong as I'm canadian, but doesn't your president sign a little piece of paper every 6 months or so declaring that the USA is at war....simply to meet the requirements for having an active national militia?
So, to say that temporarly suspending some rights is ok, and they'd be reviewed...is a farce.
The other thing too is that no matter what you do, terrorism can strike. The reason for this is that it often utilizes a high level of lateral thinking which simply bypasses most of the expected approaches and thus limits the benefits of most new security measures. Though, this should not stop the tightening of things like airport security.
Obviously it is easy to rant on, but to give up an ounce of that which you value most nationally is simply to sigh in defeat.
Cheers, and may a sane balance be found.
1) If you haven't made an effort to instill quality according to your definitions then you shouldl; i.e. skip management at this stage.
2) If you haven't proposed a workable way to achieve better quality then do so highlighting the benefits and the costs.
3) Unless you've done (1) & (2) then you are no where near the point of needing to make an stand.
4) Due to things like TV we've managed to dumb down consumers to the point where most of them haven't a clue what a quality item is. Look at what advertising is based on: sex and flash.
I've worked on both ends of the spectrum. The ones that don't push quality either don't understand the issue or truly don't care. The other side of the coin is a development environment so anal you'll be jumpin' to do a hack. 8)
Personally, I'd try (1) since really all you have to do is clean up the existing code that you keep reusing.
Cheers!
Actually, combining a load of these processors in an array arrangement with a similar framebuffer memory arrangement would be a blitzkrieg fast image processing machine.
Don't believe me....look up work on bit-serial processors and the AIS-5000 (I think that was the system name)...I saw a demo years ago...768 bitserial processors doing image processing tasks on x-ray images for an airport screening system.
More processors are used in embedded systems than there ever will be in desktops.
Though I would have to add that Forth is not a very maintainable language...if a monkey can't read it...then ye olde monkey won't understand it either.
Cheers,
Tius
8) Wow, that's shrewd! I'd have to say that you've been smoking too much 'law' and 'rational' thought! 8)
I would highly recommend John Ralston Saul's book, Voltaire's Bastards. It highlights the limited use of rational thought/arguments to meet any end. It also shows how this has been used historically.
Cheers
I noticed that the article did not mention which technology was at issue. Working in telecom I know AT&T has sued companies for use of ADPCM with some success. Sad really as ADPCM is a true no-brainer...it's just the running difference between samples. So, let's see, we need to reduce voice sample dynamic range...hmmmm a signal that is basically smooth with no/few huge steps....well the differences would be smaller in magnitude (and thus take fewer bits to store)...lets check that one out! Ok, sarcasm aside, AT&T basically got this patent because...why? Well, they were basically the 1st in the problem space....certainly not for some grand insight to a problem. Although free codecs are certainly beneficial to society...I would argue that things like mp3 are not simple or obvious solutions...perhaps the basic concept is, but certainly not the research and implementation that made it a _working_ concept. Blah blah blah....what's all this mean?!? Well, I'll simply answer that with a quote from the movie, RepoMan, (while talking on a payphone...) "I..I can't understand you....I'm using a scrambler..." caio
Wireless is available in the rural regions of Ottawa...and is spreading. About $50/month (basic fee + $10 radio rental) for a 2Mb/s connection....though I have yet to see the fine print other than a 10GB monthly through put limit. This service is provided by Storm. BTW, there is an installation cost of $400. This is still better than the satellite services which still require a phone line for the uplink (pathetic solution).
Wrt. fuel cells: People should be made aware of the big players that are jockying for position in the future hydrogen markets. The big oil companies are amoung them as they think ripping hydrogen from all those cheap hydrocarbons that they pump from the ground is a nice way to go. Most methods proposed for supplying large quantities of hydrogen to the car-fuel cell market is dirty itself. As such a large amount of CO2 is still produced and some of the metheds are almost as dirty as current gasoline usage. Readers should do a little research into this if they are truly concerned about the environmental side effects of modern transportation. Cheers, tius