So is this thing based on Tivo technology, or is it something else entirely? And if it's something else, what does that say about Sony's relationship with Tivo and Tivo's future?
I own two Tivo boxes, and wouldn't give them up for anything. Unless I see something better, of course...
When you're talking about cable, you're talking more than one revenue model.
The cable company provides conventional commercial channels as a distributor; you're paying them for the convenience of having clear reception without an antenna, not for the content. The commercial channels derive no revenue from the cable company... in fact, they tolerate them at best.
So-called "premium" cable channels, such as HBO and Showtime, are another matter. They don't have commercials, and depend entirely on fees from the cable companies, plus revenues down the line from resale and licensing of their original programming. In other words, they're heavily dependent on quality programming... and it shows. While a lot of it is junk, there's much more interesting stuff on HBO and Showtime than you'll see on network TV.
Time and time again I see people squawking loudly about their shows being cancelled, pre-empted, or just fucked with. There will be a call for a letter-writing campaign, loud declarations that the TV execs "just don't get it", and much lamentation.
Television isn't free. Every minute of commercial TV is a transaction exactly equivalent to buying a loaf of bread. What people don't seem to get is that the purpose of TV isn't to entertain the masses... the purpose of TV is to sell audiences to sponsors. The sponsors are the consumers; the audience is just part of the product.
Once you understand this, all the seemingly stupid decisions about cancellations and the like become much clearer. OK, they still suck, but at least they're clear.
Yeah, the HP-01 (photo). I worked for HP in 1981, a couple of years after the watch was buried for good. A number of heads rolled at HP over that fiasco.
Not that it was a bad idea... just executed rather poorly.
On the plus side, you could use the current time and date in a calculation to do sorta-cool time-based stuff; one example that HP gave was an application that did a real-time, continuous calculation of the lightspeed signal delay of a space probe on its way to Mars.
On the minus side... who needs to do that sort of stuff on a regular basis? And the watch was huge (1.6" x 1.8" x 1/2"), weighed 6 oz (almost 1/2 lb.!), and used a battery-eating LED display just when LCD's were becoming common. The thing had two sets of batteries... one that powered the clock and another that powered the display, and was typically replaced every 3-6 months. HP actually sold a gadget that held spare batteries and could be used to unscrew the case for replacement. The keys were tiny and recessed, requiring a stylus, which HP thoughtfully engineered into the watchband.
Finally, of course, HP had no idea how to distribute the thing. They tried to sell it through jewellers, but botched the job, since they had no idea how the watch business worked. The watch retailed for as much as $800... and don't forget, these were 1978 dollars... you could buy a Rolex for less!
Not surprisingly, they didn't sell well. By 1981, they had given up, and blown out the remaining inventory to HP employees at hugely discounted prices. Alas, I was a mere part-timer, and in any case arrived too late to buy one.
Mercedes models don't come with the usual shiny, metal things. The "key" is actually a vaguely key-shaped RF and IR transmitter. A small traditional metal key is buried inside it, and can be used to unlock the door in case of a failure... you have to pry a plastic cap off the hidden keyhole on the door. The emergency key won't start the car.
Actually, the Mercedes "key" uses both RF and IR. There's an IR transmitter on the business end of the key, and an IR receiver on each door handle of my C230. The receivers are normally used to open and close the windows and sunroof from outside the car by pointing the remote and pushing one of the buttons. I've never had a problem with the RF receiver, so I don't know if it'll unlock the car solely through IR.
Apparently the key also communicates with the ignition system through IR... there's something that looks like an IR receiver in the well where you insert the key.
Sure, it's just like a Treo. Except for the operating system, the screen, the UI, the battery life, the MP3 player, the camera, the SD slot, the lack of a keyboard or flip cover... should I go on?
It's as much like a Treo as a Porche is like a bicycle. By your logic anything handheld with both PDA and phone functions is a Treo clone.
I own a Treo. It's a little early to tell, but my initial impression is that I'd much rather own one of these things.
Yeah, if your watch runs really fast. I own a Treo 180, and don't get me wrong... I like it. But if you get more than two or three hours of talk time, you're not using a Treo. Standby time varies depending on signal strength, but I figure that I'd get about 40-50 hours if I didn't recharge it daily.
Cute, but did you bother looking at the site? There are two fuel options... pressurized hydrogen tanks for industrial use (with some potential for explosion), and low-pressure hydride cannisters for small-scale and residential use. It's pretty much impossible to coax an explosion out of hydrogen entrained in a hydride.
A word means whatever general usage says it means. It's generally understood that the expression "ant-semitic" means "One who discriminates against or who is hostile toward or prejudiced against Jews."
The etymology of the word may imply something else, but that's irrelevant.
I've had a Pronto for two or three years now. Not badly executed... it suffers from a lack of tactile feedback, though. You have to LOOK at the panel before you tap a command, as opposed to a conventional remote where you can FEEL the button.
My housemate has one of the Sony devices... it's incredibly difficult to program, but usable once you've managed it.
Combine this with fuel-cell power packs, which is now approved by the DoT and is already in use on some airlines (BA), this means....
You're confusing state-of-the-art hydrogen fuel cells with plain old zinc-air batteries.
Those itsy-bitsy-run-for-days-on-alcohol fuel cells aren't available commercially yet. The Electric Fuel product is not what everyone else thinks of as a fuel cell, despite the marketing hype; it's a zinc-air battery, a technology that's been around for many years. Many hearing aids use them. You can buy their batteries in many electronic stores, together with adapters that connect them to cellphones and PDAs; I have one for use with my Treo.
Once you open the package, the battery runs for a limited time. You can stick it back in the package to "suspend it" for a while, but it cannot be recharged, and the capacity isn't much higher than most conventional batteries. When it's dead, you throw it out, like an alkaline battery.
Compare this with a micro fuel cell that uses hydrogen extracted from alcohol... they're expected to run many hours, and when they die, you "recharge" them by feeding them more methanol.
The article mentions that it's a "deuterium flouride" chemical laser. I wasn't surprised that flourine is involved, but why deuterium? Why wouldn't hydrogen do? Deuterium's chemical properties are the same as those of plain old H, I though.
It took a little poking around, but I found an explanation of how this thing works... looks like deuterium gets them a longer wavelength that travels through the atmosphere better.
Whatever the reasons are, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near that thing while it's fueled. Raw flourine is incredibly nasty stuff, and the hydrogen flouride exhaust is really awful, too... it dissolves in water to form hydrofluoric acid, which is reactive enough to eat glass (you have to keep it in teflon bottles). I hope they're not discharging it into the atmosphere!
I'm sure there are a dozen other comments pointing out that this is an old concept... but none seem to have mentioned this particular version. Many years ago (late 50's, I believe) a Rand physicist by the name of Robert Salter came up with something that sounds a whole lot like this supposed "news". He called it the Planetran, and it's popped up in the press and fiction many times. It's even made an appearance in some very strange recent articles about the so-called "shadow government".
I understand the situation quite well; I simply don't like it. AT&T's decision makes sense from a business standpoint, but it's anti-consumer.
Furthermore, if you care about roaming, you aren't going to get a GSM phone anyhow from any of the existing providers, because AFAIK, they don't support analog, which is the only service which is fairly universally available in the U.S.
I've had cellphones of one kind or another since 1985., and changed products many times. I've used every technology available in North America; I've had service from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Cellular One, Sprint, T-Mobile, Bell Mobility, Cantel and a couple that are more obscure. I'm quite aware of what works and what doesn't. Until a couple of years ago you would have been right... analog service was about all you could count on. However, that's improved a great deal recently... I travel for business weekly, use a T-Mobile GSM digital-only phone, and I've been satisfied with the coverage. About the only large region where I have coverage trouble is Vermont, which is very poorly served in general.
As I understand it, the US Federal Communications Commission now has a much more relaxed attitude towards legacy analog service, and may approve its discontinuation in some areas in the near future. AT&T and Cingular are the leaders in analog networks, and they're abandoning their combo analog/TDMA product line in favor of GSM-only handsets. Sprint and Verizon still offer analog/CDMA combos, but their newest and fanciest products are CDMA-only (and Sprint charges a stiff roaming fee for analog use). It appears that analog coverage is not that much of an issue anymore... if you're going to go without analog service anyhow, why not use a technology that works outside the US, and that allows you to own several handsets and switch among them at your convenience?
I wish I were that lucky. I just received a PP presentation file for a forthcoming product enhancement, and (I am not making this up) it's seven hundred and seventy-eight slides long. Kill me now. Please.
Screen is not touch-sensitive; dialing phone is very difficult without opening the screen and using the keyboard
Organizer integration with PC is poor... can't synchronize
Rated at only 60 hours of standby time
T-Mobile has only one plan that supports the Sidekick, with too few minutes and unlimited data as a temporary promotion
Can't move SIM to a different GPRS phone if the mood strikes you... if the SIM is provisioned for the Sidekick, T-Mobile won't allow any GPRS traffic if the phone is in a different device
I don't know if the Pogo is the answer to any of these issues, but the Sidekick is too limiting for me.
After you find out how much they charge for a megabyte of GPRS bits, it doesn't matter anyway.
That's changing very rapidly... Sprint recently announced very attractive pricing for data over their 1XRTT CDMA network, and T-Mobile has responded with a price slash on GPRS service. It's still too expensive, but it's a big improvement on their earlier price structure.
Besides, isn't the Pogo still a circuit-switched data device? The web site said that GPRS will be "coming soon".
They're idiots, from the consumer's point of view, because they're further complicating an already complex problem. It looks like they'll be the only people using the 850 Mhz band; that means that you're going to have to buy a handset made for them and them alone, which may or may not work outside North America (depending on how many other bands it supports). This negates one of the best features of GSM phones... the ability to buy a phone from almost any vendor and use any network's SIM card. Any move that reduces choice while potentially keeping prices high is a bad one, in my opinion.
I'm sure that from AT&T's point of view it's a stroke of genius... it allows them to retain iron-clad control over the type and brand of handsets used on their network.
From the specs: Modem: Dual band GSM/GPRS module (900/1800MHz)
Oh, well. GSM networks in North America run on 1900 Mhz (except, apparently, for some segments of AT&T's new GSM network that use 850 Mhz. Idiots.). That rules out Pogo-ing over here.
Pity. I was looking forward to using this toy as a cheap alternative to the Sidekick, which T-Mobile has managed to cripple (they've arranged matters so that you can't use the same SIM in a Sidekick and another GPRS device).
I don't know what went wrong with Andromeda. It's got an interesting premise, rich backstory, nice effects, surprisingly intelligent use of real terminology (I like the way that they compute short-range distance in terms of light-seconds)... yet somehow it just doesn't ever come together for me. The dialog is flat, the acting is wooden, the characters are cardboard cutouts. Why is it so bad?
Slashdot Mirror
I own two Tivo boxes, and wouldn't give them up for anything. Unless I see something better, of course...
Apparently a Ringworld movie is in development, though nothing has been heard about it since the end of 2001.
When you're talking about cable, you're talking more than one revenue model. The cable company provides conventional commercial channels as a distributor; you're paying them for the convenience of having clear reception without an antenna, not for the content. The commercial channels derive no revenue from the cable company... in fact, they tolerate them at best. So-called "premium" cable channels, such as HBO and Showtime, are another matter. They don't have commercials, and depend entirely on fees from the cable companies, plus revenues down the line from resale and licensing of their original programming. In other words, they're heavily dependent on quality programming... and it shows. While a lot of it is junk, there's much more interesting stuff on HBO and Showtime than you'll see on network TV.
Oh, the BBC is quite different, I agree. But read my post again... I was describing COMMERCIAL television, not public or government TV.
Television isn't free. Every minute of commercial TV is a transaction exactly equivalent to buying a loaf of bread. What people don't seem to get is that the purpose of TV isn't to entertain the masses... the purpose of TV is to sell audiences to sponsors. The sponsors are the consumers; the audience is just part of the product.
Once you understand this, all the seemingly stupid decisions about cancellations and the like become much clearer. OK, they still suck, but at least they're clear.
On the plus side, you could use the current time and date in a calculation to do sorta-cool time-based stuff; one example that HP gave was an application that did a real-time, continuous calculation of the lightspeed signal delay of a space probe on its way to Mars.
On the minus side... who needs to do that sort of stuff on a regular basis? And the watch was huge (1.6" x 1.8" x 1/2"), weighed 6 oz (almost 1/2 lb.!), and used a battery-eating LED display just when LCD's were becoming common. The thing had two sets of batteries... one that powered the clock and another that powered the display, and was typically replaced every 3-6 months. HP actually sold a gadget that held spare batteries and could be used to unscrew the case for replacement. The keys were tiny and recessed, requiring a stylus, which HP thoughtfully engineered into the watchband.
Finally, of course, HP had no idea how to distribute the thing. They tried to sell it through jewellers, but botched the job, since they had no idea how the watch business worked. The watch retailed for as much as $800... and don't forget, these were 1978 dollars... you could buy a Rolex for less!
Not surprisingly, they didn't sell well. By 1981, they had given up, and blown out the remaining inventory to HP employees at hugely discounted prices. Alas, I was a mere part-timer, and in any case arrived too late to buy one.
Mercedes models don't come with the usual shiny, metal things. The "key" is actually a vaguely key-shaped RF and IR transmitter. A small traditional metal key is buried inside it, and can be used to unlock the door in case of a failure... you have to pry a plastic cap off the hidden keyhole on the door. The emergency key won't start the car.
Apparently the key also communicates with the ignition system through IR... there's something that looks like an IR receiver in the well where you insert the key.
It's as much like a Treo as a Porche is like a bicycle. By your logic anything handheld with both PDA and phone functions is a Treo clone.
I own a Treo. It's a little early to tell, but my initial impression is that I'd much rather own one of these things.
Yeah, if your watch runs really fast. I own a Treo 180, and don't get me wrong... I like it. But if you get more than two or three hours of talk time, you're not using a Treo. Standby time varies depending on signal strength, but I figure that I'd get about 40-50 hours if I didn't recharge it daily.
Cute, but did you bother looking at the site? There are two fuel options... pressurized hydrogen tanks for industrial use (with some potential for explosion), and low-pressure hydride cannisters for small-scale and residential use. It's pretty much impossible to coax an explosion out of hydrogen entrained in a hydride.
A word means whatever general usage says it means. It's generally understood that the expression "ant-semitic" means "One who discriminates against or who is hostile toward or prejudiced against Jews." The etymology of the word may imply something else, but that's irrelevant.
My housemate has one of the Sony devices... it's incredibly difficult to program, but usable once you've managed it.
You're confusing state-of-the-art hydrogen fuel cells with plain old zinc-air batteries.
Those itsy-bitsy-run-for-days-on-alcohol fuel cells aren't available commercially yet. The Electric Fuel product is not what everyone else thinks of as a fuel cell, despite the marketing hype; it's a zinc-air battery, a technology that's been around for many years. Many hearing aids use them. You can buy their batteries in many electronic stores, together with adapters that connect them to cellphones and PDAs; I have one for use with my Treo.
Once you open the package, the battery runs for a limited time. You can stick it back in the package to "suspend it" for a while, but it cannot be recharged, and the capacity isn't much higher than most conventional batteries. When it's dead, you throw it out, like an alkaline battery.
Compare this with a micro fuel cell that uses hydrogen extracted from alcohol... they're expected to run many hours, and when they die, you "recharge" them by feeding them more methanol.
Or for repairing a broken duck.
Personally, I prefer using DUCT tape for most applications, including removing warts. Doesn't work all that well for taping ducts, though.
And those tanks full of flourine and deuterium will make a hellacious bang if they're hit... and thoroughly poison the surrounding area.
It took a little poking around, but I found an explanation of how this thing works... looks like deuterium gets them a longer wavelength that travels through the atmosphere better.
Whatever the reasons are, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near that thing while it's fueled. Raw flourine is incredibly nasty stuff, and the hydrogen flouride exhaust is really awful, too... it dissolves in water to form hydrofluoric acid, which is reactive enough to eat glass (you have to keep it in teflon bottles). I hope they're not discharging it into the atmosphere!
I'm sure there are a dozen other comments pointing out that this is an old concept... but none seem to have mentioned this particular version. Many years ago (late 50's, I believe) a Rand physicist by the name of Robert Salter came up with something that sounds a whole lot like this supposed "news". He called it the Planetran, and it's popped up in the press and fiction many times. It's even made an appearance in some very strange recent articles about the so-called "shadow government".
Furthermore, if you care about roaming, you aren't going to get a GSM phone anyhow from any of the existing providers, because AFAIK, they don't support analog, which is the only service which is fairly universally available in the U.S.
I've had cellphones of one kind or another since 1985., and changed products many times. I've used every technology available in North America; I've had service from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Cellular One, Sprint, T-Mobile, Bell Mobility, Cantel and a couple that are more obscure. I'm quite aware of what works and what doesn't. Until a couple of years ago you would have been right... analog service was about all you could count on. However, that's improved a great deal recently... I travel for business weekly, use a T-Mobile GSM digital-only phone, and I've been satisfied with the coverage. About the only large region where I have coverage trouble is Vermont, which is very poorly served in general.
As I understand it, the US Federal Communications Commission now has a much more relaxed attitude towards legacy analog service, and may approve its discontinuation in some areas in the near future. AT&T and Cingular are the leaders in analog networks, and they're abandoning their combo analog/TDMA product line in favor of GSM-only handsets. Sprint and Verizon still offer analog/CDMA combos, but their newest and fanciest products are CDMA-only (and Sprint charges a stiff roaming fee for analog use). It appears that analog coverage is not that much of an issue anymore... if you're going to go without analog service anyhow, why not use a technology that works outside the US, and that allows you to own several handsets and switch among them at your convenience?
I wish I were that lucky. I just received a PP presentation file for a forthcoming product enhancement, and (I am not making this up) it's seven hundred and seventy-eight slides long. Kill me now. Please.
Monochrome 240x160 screen
Screen is not touch-sensitive; dialing phone is very difficult without opening the screen and using the keyboard
Organizer integration with PC is poor... can't synchronize
Rated at only 60 hours of standby time
T-Mobile has only one plan that supports the Sidekick, with too few minutes and unlimited data as a temporary promotion
Can't move SIM to a different GPRS phone if the mood strikes you... if the SIM is provisioned for the Sidekick, T-Mobile won't allow any GPRS traffic if the phone is in a different device
I don't know if the Pogo is the answer to any of these issues, but the Sidekick is too limiting for me.
That's changing very rapidly... Sprint recently announced very attractive pricing for data over their 1XRTT CDMA network, and T-Mobile has responded with a price slash on GPRS service. It's still too expensive, but it's a big improvement on their earlier price structure.
Besides, isn't the Pogo still a circuit-switched data device? The web site said that GPRS will be "coming soon".
I'm sure that from AT&T's point of view it's a stroke of genius... it allows them to retain iron-clad control over the type and brand of handsets used on their network.
Oh, well. GSM networks in North America run on 1900 Mhz (except, apparently, for some segments of AT&T's new GSM network that use 850 Mhz. Idiots.). That rules out Pogo-ing over here.
Pity. I was looking forward to using this toy as a cheap alternative to the Sidekick, which T-Mobile has managed to cripple (they've arranged matters so that you can't use the same SIM in a Sidekick and another GPRS device).
I don't know what went wrong with Andromeda. It's got an interesting premise, rich backstory, nice effects, surprisingly intelligent use of real terminology (I like the way that they compute short-range distance in terms of light-seconds)... yet somehow it just doesn't ever come together for me. The dialog is flat, the acting is wooden, the characters are cardboard cutouts. Why is it so bad?