I was going to suggest something like this. If you are traveling to a GSM region and are planning on bringing a cell phone anyway, you should really check out phones with keyboards. Most have note apps. Other possibilities (check regions! don't all use same freqs) can be found via Phonescoop (some CDMA included).
Many of these have reasonably decent keyboards. I've seen people hit pretty good WPMs with just their thumbs. Not listed are the Nokia Communicators (9xxx series, sample). They tend to have larger keyboards where touch typing may be possible.
Remember, it may not matter if you can get data connectivity or not. In reality all you seem to care about is text storage. The ability to mail yourself (or a blog) notes is nice though in case something happens to the device.
I'm so getting flashbacks to the TRS-80 Model 100 "laptop" (top picture) I took with me to undergrad. It was actually rather usable - a good keyboard, decent battery life, nearly indestructible. I actually wrote text files for papers on it, dumped them to the mainframe, and proceeded from there. Having said this, the 300 baud modem was a real drag.
Unfortunately, for your needs this is a beast. However, if someone needs a simple 8x40 dumb terminal over a serial port connection, this is a good choice. The keyboard and solid construction were really ahead of their time.
You may not want to install this one just yet. Airport 3.4 has cut range considerably for some people. It's all over the Apple Discussion boards and Apple news sites.
A smart phone like one of the Handspring, (Now Palm One) Treo's plus SMS. Handing one of those out to every deaf person in the states would have to cost less than allowing this fraud to continue.
Doesn't work. My wife and I have been doing this sort of thing in various forms for years. You would not believe the number of problems we've had due to dropped messages, late deliveries, etc. Voice channels are designed for high QOS. Text channels are not. For important calls we always revert to a relay variant. My favorite right now is CapTel.
You're also assuming that deaf people only call other deaf people - which is, of course, not correct.
I think you missed a teensy little point: the IP relay service is funded by TAX DOLLARS and MANDATORY FEES on all phone bills. The big telcos are making profit at our expense
Stop and consider how much the internet has been and still is funded by your tax dollars. Also think about how much telcos are making from this commitment. Now think about the quantity of internet-enabled fraud.
Can you hear me now?
No./. doesn't support audio. It's more like a IP Relay conversation... oh wait, you want to stop those due to wasted subsidization. I guess you don't like/. either. After all, communication here is subsidized too. A quick poll - who's at work?
There are some perfectly legal things they can do to make these calls as poor quality as possible. For example, relay operators are allowed to hand the call off to another operator (e.g., use the bathroom in the middle of a long call, etc). They can also speak the text with long pauses between words, etc. Driving the quality of service for these types of calls down would very quickly make the mark less willing to stay on the line. However, this would give the relay a bad name in the hearing community.
Alternatively, CAs are allowed to deliver a short instruction about the service. One could easily imagine a modification: "Have you ever used the relay before?... No?... (stock explaination, follwed by) Please be aware that some calls placed through the relay are overseas fraud. Operators are not allowed to terminate calls but if you suspect fraud at any time, you may hang up..."
IRS is Federal. Why do they care about state sales tax? Did your cousin tried to deduct it on his Federal tax return?
If it's business related it will show up in the Federal return - especially if it's an equipment purchase with depreciation. I'm actually not sure what led to my cousin running afoul with this or if it was a Fed or State audit. I just know they had to pay a lot of money.
One thing to mention, if you do use these services... is to be POLITE
Also worth noting is the serial nature of TTY conversations. You have to wait for the other person to finish what they are saying before you start. As such, don't interrupt and try not to get into lengthy monologues.
That being said, I would recommend at least listening to the first sentence of the caller before thinking about hanging up.
I cannot stress this enough. It's truly stunning how many people assume relay calls are telemarketing calls. I have to place calls on a regular basis to get on someone's case after they've hung up on my wife three times in a row without waiting to see what the call is about. People like me will ask to speak to your boss and people like my wife will think twice about spending money on your company if you immediately hang up.
That's 200000-700000 people using an older type of tty terminal.
Since this is/. I'll chime in here with some clarifying information. TTYs are not what most/.ers would consider a tty. To communicate with the old, unfortunately almost standard, Baudot style TTY, you need to buy a special modem. Baudot is dog slow (45.45 Baud) and a fast typist can easily out-type the protocol. At the receiving end it is incredibly painful to wait for someone to get through a long sentence. Newer, proprietary, fast protocols (e.g., TurboCode) have removed this bottleneck, but computer compatibility still requires hardware.
This hardware requirement why internet relays are so nice - you can just use a regular computer without messing with extra gear and you can call from just about anywhere. Furthermore, you can now access the internet relays via smartphones and PDAs, thus giving users a truly mobile option.
Imagine how much this could help with the training and racing of serious endurence athletes.
Actually, there are a lot of applications for this sort of thing. So many that there is a company named BodyMedia out there that is selling an armband that does this sort of thing. It's a lot more comfortable and discreet than a waist-worn device. I've had a chance to hold one of these - very light and small.
Without any evidence of a causal pathway it could be that, eg the constantly changing images are appealing to children who eventually develop ADHD.
Have you ever watched Blues Clues? It has got to be the slowest moving show on the planet (insert CSPAN joke here) but little kids adore it. There was a comment in the paper this morning that someone at Sesame Street questioned if there would be a difference for educational shows. Having watched some of these shows, I'd bet Blues Clues and other slow moving and psuedo-interactive ("You see a clue? Where?") shows may be different.
if you are already doing an emergency maneuver that makes it look like you are unsafely changing lanes, would the car put you back into the lane?
When I drove one of these prototypes, it would fight you at first, but ultimately relent and let you overpower the automation. Most of the prototypes I've seen have easy to use kill switches to shut the computer off, but I can't imagine the lawyers letting such a feature hit the market.
Human reaction time can be negative. A computer probably won't be..
Actually, the next generation of adaptive cruise control (or intelligent cruise control, depending on the marketer) is cooperative cruise control. In this mode, cars communicate in real time within their local area on traffic conditions, braking rates, speed, etc and adjust cruise control accordingly.
This has other benefits beyond emergency situations in that this sort of tech will suck up shockwaves in traffic, thus improving dense driving for everyone. There was a simulation paper on this a few years back that showed you didn't even need a majority of the cars to have this for these results.
We had a similar situation when I was at school. Paying to park at the meters for the bulk of the day was more than the parking ticket - which could only be issued once per car per day. The rule became, put coins in the meter if you'll be there less than 4 hours, otherwise, skip it.
Of course, they may have wanted it that way since it requires less labor to process the ticket than it does to haul away all those coins.
Slashdot Mirror
Am I the only one who thinks this is actually a step backwards? Couldn't they have better spent the effort on making it more compatible?
Oh wait...
I was going to suggest something like this. If you are traveling to a GSM region and are planning on bringing a cell phone anyway, you should really check out phones with keyboards. Most have note apps. Other possibilities (check regions! don't all use same freqs) can be found via Phonescoop (some CDMA included).
Many of these have reasonably decent keyboards. I've seen people hit pretty good WPMs with just their thumbs. Not listed are the Nokia Communicators (9xxx series, sample). They tend to have larger keyboards where touch typing may be possible.
Remember, it may not matter if you can get data connectivity or not. In reality all you seem to care about is text storage. The ability to mail yourself (or a blog) notes is nice though in case something happens to the device.
I'm so getting flashbacks to the TRS-80 Model 100 "laptop" (top picture) I took with me to undergrad. It was actually rather usable - a good keyboard, decent battery life, nearly indestructible. I actually wrote text files for papers on it, dumped them to the mainframe, and proceeded from there. Having said this, the 300 baud modem was a real drag.
Unfortunately, for your needs this is a beast. However, if someone needs a simple 8x40 dumb terminal over a serial port connection, this is a good choice. The keyboard and solid construction were really ahead of their time.
MS pioneered it long ago.
Don't you mean innovated it long ago?
You're the 10,000,000,000th person to point out that the 15 gig iPod is only $50 more.
Now to complete the cycle, we are waiting for the 10,000,000,000th person to complain about lack of Ogg support...
You may not want to install this one just yet. Airport 3.4 has cut range considerably for some people. It's all over the Apple Discussion boards and Apple news sites.
"Are you really sure you want to drink Bud?"
A smart phone like one of the Handspring, (Now Palm One) Treo's plus SMS. Handing one of those out to every deaf person in the states would have to cost less than allowing this fraud to continue.
Doesn't work. My wife and I have been doing this sort of thing in various forms for years. You would not believe the number of problems we've had due to dropped messages, late deliveries, etc. Voice channels are designed for high QOS. Text channels are not. For important calls we always revert to a relay variant. My favorite right now is CapTel.
You're also assuming that deaf people only call other deaf people - which is, of course, not correct.
I think you missed a teensy little point: the IP relay service is funded by TAX DOLLARS and MANDATORY FEES on all phone bills. The big telcos are making profit at our expense
/. doesn't support audio. It's more like a IP Relay conversation... oh wait, you want to stop those due to wasted subsidization. I guess you don't like /. either. After all, communication here is subsidized too. A quick poll - who's at work?
Stop and consider how much the internet has been and still is funded by your tax dollars. Also think about how much telcos are making from this commitment. Now think about the quantity of internet-enabled fraud.
Can you hear me now?
No.
Ask what "GA" stands for (Go Ahead, used in TTY conversations).
Other good "deaf centric" questions are:
What city is Gallaudet located in?
Who was Helen Keller? (famous deaf and blind woman)
What was Alexander Graham Bell's job? (teacher of the deaf)
What does ASL stand for? (American Sign Language)
There are some perfectly legal things they can do to make these calls as poor quality as possible. For example, relay operators are allowed to hand the call off to another operator (e.g., use the bathroom in the middle of a long call, etc). They can also speak the text with long pauses between words, etc. Driving the quality of service for these types of calls down would very quickly make the mark less willing to stay on the line. However, this would give the relay a bad name in the hearing community.
... No?... (stock explaination, follwed by) Please be aware that some calls placed through the relay are overseas fraud. Operators are not allowed to terminate calls but if you suspect fraud at any time, you may hang up..."
Alternatively, CAs are allowed to deliver a short instruction about the service. One could easily imagine a modification: "Have you ever used the relay before?
IRS is Federal. Why do they care about state sales tax? Did your cousin tried to deduct it on his Federal tax return?
If it's business related it will show up in the Federal return - especially if it's an equipment purchase with depreciation. I'm actually not sure what led to my cousin running afoul with this or if it was a Fed or State audit. I just know they had to pay a lot of money.
One thing to mention, if you do use these services ... is to be POLITE
Also worth noting is the serial nature of TTY conversations. You have to wait for the other person to finish what they are saying before you start. As such, don't interrupt and try not to get into lengthy monologues.
That being said, I would recommend at least listening to the first sentence of the caller before thinking about hanging up.
I cannot stress this enough. It's truly stunning how many people assume relay calls are telemarketing calls. I have to place calls on a regular basis to get on someone's case after they've hung up on my wife three times in a row without waiting to see what the call is about. People like me will ask to speak to your boss and people like my wife will think twice about spending money on your company if you immediately hang up.
That's 200000-700000 people using an older type of tty terminal.
/. I'll chime in here with some clarifying information. TTYs are not what most /.ers would consider a tty. To communicate with the old, unfortunately almost standard, Baudot style TTY, you need to buy a special modem. Baudot is dog slow (45.45 Baud) and a fast typist can easily out-type the protocol. At the receiving end it is incredibly painful to wait for someone to get through a long sentence. Newer, proprietary, fast protocols (e.g., TurboCode) have removed this bottleneck, but computer compatibility still requires hardware.
Since this is
This hardware requirement why internet relays are so nice - you can just use a regular computer without messing with extra gear and you can call from just about anywhere. Furthermore, you can now access the internet relays via smartphones and PDAs, thus giving users a truly mobile option.
Speaking of which, good luck if they wanted to collect. As the article mentioned, the honor system doesn't work.
Tell that to my cousins who got audited. The IRS nailed them on this since they had made some rather big ticket purchases.
Sounds very much like the Medical Mood Ring.
Or the already commercially available BodyMedia armband.
Imagine how much this could help with the training and racing of serious endurence athletes.
Actually, there are a lot of applications for this sort of thing. So many that there is a company named BodyMedia out there that is selling an armband that does this sort of thing. It's a lot more comfortable and discreet than a waist-worn device. I've had a chance to hold one of these - very light and small.
Without any evidence of a causal pathway it could be that, eg the constantly changing images are appealing to children who eventually develop ADHD.
Have you ever watched Blues Clues? It has got to be the slowest moving show on the planet (insert CSPAN joke here) but little kids adore it. There was a comment in the paper this morning that someone at Sesame Street questioned if there would be a difference for educational shows. Having watched some of these shows, I'd bet Blues Clues and other slow moving and psuedo-interactive ("You see a clue? Where?") shows may be different.
if you are already doing an emergency maneuver that makes it look like you are unsafely changing lanes, would the car put you back into the lane?
When I drove one of these prototypes, it would fight you at first, but ultimately relent and let you overpower the automation. Most of the prototypes I've seen have easy to use kill switches to shut the computer off, but I can't imagine the lawyers letting such a feature hit the market.
Human reaction time can be negative. A computer probably won't be..
Actually, the next generation of adaptive cruise control (or intelligent cruise control, depending on the marketer) is cooperative cruise control. In this mode, cars communicate in real time within their local area on traffic conditions, braking rates, speed, etc and adjust cruise control accordingly.
This has other benefits beyond emergency situations in that this sort of tech will suck up shockwaves in traffic, thus improving dense driving for everyone. There was a simulation paper on this a few years back that showed you didn't even need a majority of the cars to have this for these results.
That project has been kicking around Stanford for decades.
So I take it the professor running it is planning on retiring soon?
We had a similar situation when I was at school. Paying to park at the meters for the bulk of the day was more than the parking ticket - which could only be issued once per car per day. The rule became, put coins in the meter if you'll be there less than 4 hours, otherwise, skip it.
Of course, they may have wanted it that way since it requires less labor to process the ticket than it does to haul away all those coins.
Two significant digits? I think they're putting too much trust in their metrics...
Do you think someone called 911 to report the emergency outage?
Yeah, it went something like this: "911? Can you hear me now?"
But Steve is a just a bit too protective still to license FairPlay.
There is precedent for Apple successfully licensing something of this nature: Firewire.