>The technology could one day replace remote controls and keyboards and perhaps >help disabled people operate electric wheelchairs, beds or artificial limbs.
Companies such as Cyberlink, http://www.brainfingers.com/ have products that do this for years. I know, because one of the beta testers of my software eLocutor (that allows you to type with one button, http://holisticit.com/eLocutor/elocutorv3.htm) was an ALS patient who used it to communicate. The thing costs about US$ 2000, which is rather steep.
Is this product/technology substantially cheaper? Potentially? I would be very interested in trying out with autistic children, if they find it easier to communicate this way, than via the complex motor movements that speaking demands. Anyone tried this already?
Technology helps in catching criminals too -- the police loves cell phones -- the moment you catch one, his cell phone records lead you to others. The private citizen too can use hidden cameras and the like to fight corruption.
On india-gii@cpsr.org, you will find plenty of people who have been often successfully been campaigning for better policy. The anonymous coward has most likely not been in touch with developments in regulatory reform over the last few years. Serious problems remain (particularly the manner in which spectrum is mismanaged), and people who aren't part of the solution are part of the problem.
Arun
Will US society be expected to give up its mores & values to compete against the global workforce?
gee, how about:
1. expenditure on weapons, and weapons R&D (where the US spends more than the next 15 countries combined, or thereabouts)?
2. agricultural subsidies, which are forcing farmers in Africa to give up their lives?
3. the money Americans spend sueing each other? 4. I could go on about all the money the US wastes on stuff like SUVs, but you get the point...
Ultimately, if Americans wish to earn more than do Indians like me, you'll have to be that much smarter, and there is no denying that Americans are really very smart and technologically savvy (for instance, I was impressed at the quality of discussion about oscilloscopes the other day, http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/28/004123 3 -- trust me, you couldn't get a discussion like that going in India). Yet, even of the little actually spent on education, I read about a study at the university of Chicago, that found that 94% of what is taught is never ever any use in later life.
The US needs to take a good hard look at its "mores and values" and decide which are luxuries it can no longer afford, or indeed might make it an even better place to live in.
besides all the interference problems with unshielded lines, power lines have terrible characteristics for the carriage of data. The line impedance keeps changing, depending on what you switch on and off, and some of these loads are quite massive: a motor, for instance, takes 5-6 times its rated current during startup. Then again, there is lots of thyristor-switched equipment on the line (basically most of your speed-controlled drives) that inject high-frequency noise onto the line. Low-bandwidth apps, such as reading power meters, should be ok. But broadband on a noisy, variable-impedance line? No wonder you only hear about pilot projects here and there: how come none of these projects ever get ramped up into a service delivering broadband to tens of thousands of people in a town?
Then again, when it comes to price, I don't see how anything can compete with WiFi community networks.
Arun
Someone I know had a timer-electrical socket that switched on a motor, which via a gear box, *very slowly* pulled his blanket off! A couple of minutes fighting the vastly superior force of the motor woke him up quite easily (remember that if you decrease the speed using gears, you proportionately increase the force) Arun
Slashdot Mirror
>The technology could one day replace remote controls and keyboards and perhaps
>help disabled people operate electric wheelchairs, beds or artificial limbs.
Companies such as Cyberlink, http://www.brainfingers.com/ have products that do this for years. I know, because one of the beta testers of my software eLocutor (that allows you to type with one button, http://holisticit.com/eLocutor/elocutorv3.htm) was an ALS patient who used it to communicate. The thing costs about US$ 2000, which is rather steep.
Is this product/technology substantially cheaper? Potentially? I would be very interested in trying out with autistic children, if they find it easier to communicate this way, than via the complex motor movements that speaking demands. Anyone tried this already?
Arun
Technology helps in catching criminals too -- the police loves cell phones -- the moment you catch one, his cell phone records lead you to others. The private citizen too can use hidden cameras and the like to fight corruption. On india-gii@cpsr.org, you will find plenty of people who have been often successfully been campaigning for better policy. The anonymous coward has most likely not been in touch with developments in regulatory reform over the last few years. Serious problems remain (particularly the manner in which spectrum is mismanaged), and people who aren't part of the solution are part of the problem. Arun
gee, how about:
1. expenditure on weapons, and weapons R&D (where the US spends more than the next 15 countries combined, or thereabouts)? 2. agricultural subsidies, which are forcing farmers in Africa to give up their lives? 3. the money Americans spend sueing each other? 4. I could go on about all the money the US wastes on stuff like SUVs, but you get the point...
Ultimately, if Americans wish to earn more than do Indians like me, you'll have to be that much smarter, and there is no denying that Americans are really very smart and technologically savvy (for instance, I was impressed at the quality of discussion about oscilloscopes the other day, http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/28/004123 3 -- trust me, you couldn't get a discussion like that going in India). Yet, even of the little actually spent on education, I read about a study at the university of Chicago, that found that 94% of what is taught is never ever any use in later life.
The US needs to take a good hard look at its "mores and values" and decide which are luxuries it can no longer afford, or indeed might make it an even better place to live in.
besides all the interference problems with unshielded lines, power lines have terrible characteristics for the carriage of data. The line impedance keeps changing, depending on what you switch on and off, and some of these loads are quite massive: a motor, for instance, takes 5-6 times its rated current during startup. Then again, there is lots of thyristor-switched equipment on the line (basically most of your speed-controlled drives) that inject high-frequency noise onto the line. Low-bandwidth apps, such as reading power meters, should be ok. But broadband on a noisy, variable-impedance line? No wonder you only hear about pilot projects here and there: how come none of these projects ever get ramped up into a service delivering broadband to tens of thousands of people in a town? Then again, when it comes to price, I don't see how anything can compete with WiFi community networks. Arun
Someone I know had a timer-electrical socket that switched on a motor, which via a gear box, *very slowly* pulled his blanket off! A couple of minutes fighting the vastly superior force of the motor woke him up quite easily (remember that if you decrease the speed using gears, you proportionately increase the force)
Arun