If someone would cut off another's finger than they would also have to kill that person so that the person could not call customer service and report it. They would also have to get rid of the body so that no one would find it and also report it. They would also have to insure that the victim did not have anybody who cares about them and would also report the fact that they are missing. The risk would far outweigh the benefit even if the victim had zero balance and a few thousand dollars of credit. Most store have video cameras which would give a fair description of the offender to the police. That would happen even if they somehow managed to make a purchase or if they were denied.
Re:Waste of time and source of FUD for Microsoft
on
Dell Offering "Open" PC
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· Score: 2, Interesting
It saves a step as a lot of people buy the Linux machine only to reformat the hard drive and than install a friend's copy of windows OS. Most people have a friend that knows a little about computers or they would not even consider purchasing one.
It says that it will be able to read books. I would think that would mean ocr of any book. One can get leap frog to read special and expensive books already. One can go to the library and get books on tape too. I would hope that it would have speech recognition too. Anything less than that would be boring.
The only true revolutionary announcement would be that they will safely backup all of my data. Google mail already keeps ones mail. All free software is backed up as one just downloads it again if it is lost for some reason. Yahoo instant messaging keeps ones buddy list so one does not lose it and can access it anywhere. It would be nice if firefox could safely keep all personal data(bookmarks, passwords, extensions) in a central location so that just by logging in one could restore all that on any new computer. All software should be that way as one should be able to download a new copy if it is lost for any reason. Total freedom from the loss of a hard drive or the purchase of a new computer would be great. Let's see if they can provide that freedom.
Singularity has happened hundreds of times before. After each time it occurs the central computer(otherwise know as the Matrix) than does a total reboot. After which all knowledge is lost and we restart over again as cavemen. This is the only way we can maintain our sanity and exist for eternity.
If one lives in Alaska and orders a gift for some one in Michigan do they have to pay Michigan's sales tax. I do not see why it would be different from buying it a a local store and than shipping it to them. So why couldn't they just set up a business in Alaska where they would accept orders from people in high sales tax states and than order the products in the no sales tax state. I would think that if they charged 1 or 2 per cent they could make millions.
The only use that the vast majority of people would use these for is movies in high definition. I for one am not going to buy a high definition TV until they are only about twice what I pay for a television today. I can buy a 27 inch for around $200 so they have a lot to go before the masses will buy a high definition television set. By that time I see broadband being 100mbits a second or more so most people will have high definition video on demand and will let the isp figure out which brand of DVD to buy.
IBM has been working on mram for some time now. It is magnetic ram. It is non-volatile memory. It does not lose its state even when power is removed. It could replace all existing memory(rom, flash, hard drive, ram).
I remember when cd drive first came out. They could store 650 million bytes of data and that was compared to the 40 million bytes that the hard drives could store. The hard drives cost about $10 a mega byte too. Now days hard drives are in the hundreds of giga bytes and cost under a $1 a giga byte. Sure one can buy a dvd burner for under a $100 but the cost of a blank disk(rw) are around $1 a giga byte so the entire cost is going to be higher than buying hard drives which are still more reliable and a whole lot faster(both read and write) than optical disks. If they put 20 giga bytes on one disk they need to sell the rw disk for under $10 before I would even consider buying the drive in either format.
This would not work here in Michigan as the only thing we get to read about our schools is the reduction in the number of students and how many teachers will lose their jobs. There is no shortage of math or science teacher here either. I know because I have a math degree and I am retired military. I live in a area where the nearest college to offer a teaching certificate is over 100 miles away. The tuition to get the degree would amount to over $10,000. With no incentive from the job market and a huge bill to get the certificate who in their right mind would make the effort. I retired from the military when I was 48 and it is now 8 years later so I have only 9 years to another retirement so I have given up on the idea.
Everything that uses electricity should be online at least locally. Even the electrical receptacle should have unique address so they can be idenified. The computer should know exactly what is drawing electricity and exactly how much is needed. Any variation would require a remedial action. Every receptacle would not have any current to it until something which has communicated with the circuit breaker with what it is and how much current it requires. Any product that is always plugged in such as a television or a stereo would require a password to work when it has lost power for more than a few seconds. If it does not get that password it just would not function. I would think one could eliminate alot of electricutions and electrical fires. I would also think one could eliminate most of the incentive that some people have to break into other's homes as electronic products would have no resale value without the proper password. They even could be made to report their location to authorities after they have been stolen.
If they can do this with a keyboard than why can't they identify alot more sounds and make something useful. I would think they could identify sounds like a leaky water or gas pipe. I would think they could identify someone calling for help. I would think they could indentify the breaking of glass or someone attempting to break into a house. I would think that they could identify the sound of something burning. With the always on connection of broadband and properly place microphones around the house than maybe the computer could be a life or home safer for many people.
What about using the Air Force's new laser weapon. It would seem that it could virtually slice that airship in half. I was hoping that with this new laser weapon one could drasticly improve on any country's ability to defend itself. I was hoping that countries like Taiwan, Isreal, and South Korea could be able to defend themselfes without any American support. Once all countries realize the futility of launching any kind of an attack on it's neighbor than maybe we could come a little bit closer to a peaceful world.
I thought that flash memory was more difficult to manufacture than normal ram memory. That is if they can make a 16G bit flash memory chip they most certainly should be able to manufacture a 16G bit ddr ram chip.
Did not the hurricane prove how much energy is in the Gulf of Mexico? All we have to do is find a way to use that energy before the hurricane comes along and does it for us. As for increasing population we have more than enough energy and space on this planet. All we have to do is to build underground and with increasing technology we should be able to build everything about 1000 feet below the surface which will be safe from all weather and most disasters with the exception of earthquakes.
There had better be several games on sale that require 20 Giga Bytes of space to play them. That should be at least 10 hours of hd quality video. These games will have to be price at around $50 a piece too. I do not see them able to produce such games economically now or in the near future either. If they have to be online to play the game than the video would be much better if it was also downloaded and therefore drastically reduce the need for any copyright protection scheme.
This technology will not provide a solution to any problems that other technology will do much better. Hard drives are now priced at around 50 cents per gigabyte and with the introduction of vertical recording the price might even go lower. Just go to a wal-mart store and purchase a 160Gbyte hard drive for $90 and that is not even on sale. Video should be kept at the local isp and streamed to the customer when desired. In the long run it will be cheaper and more reliable. As for backup and other data a usb hard drive for backup and even one hard drive will provide way too much space for the average user as I believe that soon all computer programs including the os will be stored at the local isp.
How about having people shop at a virtual store either located at the store or at each customer's home via the computer. Rfid tags would identify each product for a robotic arm to push it on a conveyor belt to be transported to a drop off area where the consumer would pick it up and pay for it. The tags could be designed to be easily removed and reused on the replacement product. I also would place rfid tags on all alcohol and tobacco products and would record all transactions on the computer. If these products show up in the possession of a minor than the person purchasing them would have to explain why. The police would also have a new tool as they could pull up close to a vehicle and remotely check to see if it had any alcohol in it and if there is only teens in the vehicle than stop it for an explanation.
It depends on your definition of free. If one pays $100 on insulating ones house and it save $200 in heating and air conditioning cost than I would say the insulation was more than free as it was a money maker. This will be the case with broadband as it will save more money in other expenses than it will cost.
This weapon would be the greatest self defense weapon yet as it could easily be made transportable so it could fire and than seek out a place to escape any retaliation. Why would we need an air force as we could just line the border with these lasers. I would hope that they could cause a projectile fired from a 16 inch cannon to explode in mid air those freeing South Korea from the threat caused by the North Korean many large cannons placed along the border with the South Koreans. We should get rid of all of our surface fleet as we could place a laser on a submarine and it could surface long enough to fire on targets directed by satellites and than re-submerge. I would hope that we could give them to Taiwan, South Korea and than they could defend themselves without any help from our military. I would hope that this weapon could allow us to withdraw most of our troops stationed abroad.
Services, such as fire protection, house break-in protection, medical alert protection are examples of just a few new services. There is also freeze guard protection for both the house and refrigerator/freezer. Protection from both gas line and water line leaks could also be done. I believe that the savings from these new services will more than pay for any of the expense of providing broadband always on internet service to everyone.
At the time the constitution was written no one could have even imagined any other communications infrastructure. Wi-fi will benefit everyone. It will pay for itself when fully implemented. I am sure it will be used for fire and police protection. It will be used for education. It will also be used for medical protection. It will only be limited by our imagination as to what future services it will provide.
This could change into something much better than either cable or dsl. First one would not have to put in extra wires since most rooms have at least one electrical receptacle. Second it would seem to me that one could put devices that would communicate with the computer anywhere in the house just by plugging it in a receptacle. I would think that one could buy a printer with proper interface and place it anywhere in the house one desires. I hope that one day I could put a speaker/microphone in every room of my house and the computer would take care of security and my health by monitoring the sounds that come from that room. For instance in the kitchen it would be smart enough to hear whenever something is placed on the stove and than remind me if it is not removed in a timely fashion. It would ask me where I am going and what time to expect me back when I left the house and thus know that there should not be anyone in the house at those times. It would be able to call me on my cell phone and make sure I am all right no matter where I am at that moment. It would be great for television as there would be no need for an extra cable as one would only have to plug the television in and receive the content on the same line as the power.
After stating all this I really hope that my natural gas company takes over all of this by putting a fiber cable in the gas line. I was hoping that someone would invent a fuel cell generator powered by natural gas for electricity and thus all utilities could be provided by the natural gas company. I was hope this would happen because there is way too much damage caused to electronic equipment by current spikes induced by lighting strikes.
I think that moore's law has already stopped and someone needs to get it going again. After all the billion bit chip was mass produced in 1999 therefore the 2 billion should have been in 2001 with the 4 billion in 2003 and the 8 billion in 2005. I just hope that they stop making processors with only one on a chip and make the duo processors as cheap as the single ones are today.
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If someone would cut off another's finger than they would also have to kill that person so that the person could not call customer service and report it. They would also have to get rid of the body so that no one would find it and also report it. They would also have to insure that the victim did not have anybody who cares about them and would also report the fact that they are missing. The risk would far outweigh the benefit even if the victim had zero balance and a few thousand dollars of credit. Most store have video cameras which would give a fair description of the offender to the police. That would happen even if they somehow managed to make a purchase or if they were denied.
It saves a step as a lot of people buy the Linux machine only to reformat the hard drive and than install a friend's copy of windows OS. Most people have a friend that knows a little about computers or they would not even consider purchasing one.
It says that it will be able to read books. I would think that would mean ocr of any book. One can get leap frog to read special and expensive books already. One can go to the library and get books on tape too. I would hope that it would have speech recognition too. Anything less than that would be boring.
The only true revolutionary announcement would be that they will safely backup all of my data. Google mail already keeps ones mail. All free software is backed up as one just downloads it again if it is lost for some reason. Yahoo instant messaging keeps ones buddy list so one does not lose it and can access it anywhere. It would be nice if firefox could safely keep all personal data(bookmarks, passwords, extensions) in a central location so that just by logging in one could restore all that on any new computer. All software should be that way as one should be able to download a new copy if it is lost for any reason. Total freedom from the loss of a hard drive or the purchase of a new computer would be great. Let's see if they can provide that freedom.
Singularity has happened hundreds of times before. After each time it occurs the central computer(otherwise know as the Matrix) than does a total reboot. After which all knowledge is lost and we restart over again as cavemen. This is the only way we can maintain our sanity and exist for eternity.
If one lives in Alaska and orders a gift for some one in Michigan do they have to pay Michigan's sales tax. I do not see why it would be different from buying it a a local store and than shipping it to them. So why couldn't they just set up a business in Alaska where they would accept orders from people in high sales tax states and than order the products in the no sales tax state. I would think that if they charged 1 or 2 per cent they could make millions.
The only use that the vast majority of people would use these for is movies in high definition. I for one am not going to buy a high definition TV until they are only about twice what I pay for a television today. I can buy a 27 inch for around $200 so they have a lot to go before the masses will buy a high definition television set. By that time I see broadband being 100mbits a second or more so most people will have high definition video on demand and will let the isp figure out which brand of DVD to buy.
IBM has been working on mram for some time now. It is magnetic ram. It is non-volatile memory. It does not lose its state even when power is removed. It could replace all existing memory(rom, flash, hard drive, ram).
I remember when cd drive first came out. They could store 650 million bytes of data and that was compared to the 40 million bytes that the hard drives could store. The hard drives cost about $10 a mega byte too. Now days hard drives are in the hundreds of giga bytes and cost under a $1 a giga byte. Sure one can buy a dvd burner for under a $100 but the cost of a blank disk(rw) are around $1 a giga byte so the entire cost is going to be higher than buying hard drives which are still more reliable and a whole lot faster(both read and write) than optical disks. If they put 20 giga bytes on one disk they need to sell the rw disk for under $10 before I would even consider buying the drive in either format.
This would not work here in Michigan as the only thing we get to read about our schools is the reduction in the number of students and how many teachers will lose their jobs. There is no shortage of math or science teacher here either. I know because I have a math degree and I am retired military. I live in a area where the nearest college to offer a teaching certificate is over 100 miles away. The tuition to get the degree would amount to over $10,000. With no incentive from the job market and a huge bill to get the certificate who in their right mind would make the effort. I retired from the military when I was 48 and it is now 8 years later so I have only 9 years to another retirement so I have given up on the idea.
Everything that uses electricity should be online at least locally. Even the electrical receptacle should have unique address so they can be idenified. The computer should know exactly what is drawing electricity and exactly how much is needed. Any variation would require a remedial action. Every receptacle would not have any current to it until something which has communicated with the circuit breaker with what it is and how much current it requires. Any product that is always plugged in such as a television or a stereo would require a password to work when it has lost power for more than a few seconds. If it does not get that password it just would not function. I would think one could eliminate alot of electricutions and electrical fires. I would also think one could eliminate most of the incentive that some people have to break into other's homes as electronic products would have no resale value without the proper password. They even could be made to report their location to authorities after they have been stolen.
If they can do this with a keyboard than why can't they identify alot more sounds and make something useful. I would think they could identify sounds like a leaky water or gas pipe. I would think they could identify someone calling for help. I would think they could indentify the breaking of glass or someone attempting to break into a house. I would think that they could identify the sound of something burning. With the always on connection of broadband and properly place microphones around the house than maybe the computer could be a life or home safer for many people.
What about using the Air Force's new laser weapon. It would seem that it could virtually slice that airship in half. I was hoping that with this new laser weapon one could drasticly improve on any country's ability to defend itself. I was hoping that countries like Taiwan, Isreal, and South Korea could be able to defend themselfes without any American support. Once all countries realize the futility of launching any kind of an attack on it's neighbor than maybe we could come a little bit closer to a peaceful world.
I thought that flash memory was more difficult to manufacture than normal ram memory. That is if they can make a 16G bit flash memory chip they most certainly should be able to manufacture a 16G bit ddr ram chip.
Did not the hurricane prove how much energy is in the Gulf of Mexico? All we have to do is find a way to use that energy before the hurricane comes along and does it for us. As for increasing population we have more than enough energy and space on this planet. All we have to do is to build underground and with increasing technology we should be able to build everything about 1000 feet below the surface which will be safe from all weather and most disasters with the exception of earthquakes.
There had better be several games on sale that require 20 Giga Bytes of space to play them. That should be at least 10 hours of hd quality video. These games will have to be price at around $50 a piece too. I do not see them able to produce such games economically now or in the near future either. If they have to be online to play the game than the video would be much better if it was also downloaded and therefore drastically reduce the need for any copyright protection scheme.
This technology will not provide a solution to any problems that other technology will do much better. Hard drives are now priced at around 50 cents per gigabyte and with the introduction of vertical recording the price might even go lower. Just go to a wal-mart store and purchase a 160Gbyte hard drive for $90 and that is not even on sale. Video should be kept at the local isp and streamed to the customer when desired. In the long run it will be cheaper and more reliable. As for backup and other data a usb hard drive for backup and even one hard drive will provide way too much space for the average user as I believe that soon all computer programs including the os will be stored at the local isp.
How about having people shop at a virtual store either located at the store or at each customer's home via the computer. Rfid tags would identify each product for a robotic arm to push it on a conveyor belt to be transported to a drop off area where the consumer would pick it up and pay for it. The tags could be designed to be easily removed and reused on the replacement product. I also would place rfid tags on all alcohol and tobacco products and would record all transactions on the computer. If these products show up in the possession of a minor than the person purchasing them would have to explain why. The police would also have a new tool as they could pull up close to a vehicle and remotely check to see if it had any alcohol in it and if there is only teens in the vehicle than stop it for an explanation.
It depends on your definition of free. If one pays $100 on insulating ones house and it save $200 in heating and air conditioning cost than I would say the insulation was more than free as it was a money maker. This will be the case with broadband as it will save more money in other expenses than it will cost.
This weapon would be the greatest self defense weapon yet as it could easily be made transportable so it could fire and than seek out a place to escape any retaliation. Why would we need an air force as we could just line the border with these lasers. I would hope that they could cause a projectile fired from a 16 inch cannon to explode in mid air those freeing South Korea from the threat caused by the North Korean many large cannons placed along the border with the South Koreans. We should get rid of all of our surface fleet as we could place a laser on a submarine and it could surface long enough to fire on targets directed by satellites and than re-submerge. I would hope that we could give them to Taiwan, South Korea and than they could defend themselves without any help from our military. I would hope that this weapon could allow us to withdraw most of our troops stationed abroad.
Services, such as fire protection, house break-in protection, medical alert protection are examples of just a few new services. There is also freeze guard protection for both the house and refrigerator/freezer. Protection from both gas line and water line leaks could also be done. I believe that the savings from these new services will more than pay for any of the expense of providing broadband always on internet service to everyone.
At the time the constitution was written no one could have even imagined any other communications infrastructure. Wi-fi will benefit everyone. It will pay for itself when fully implemented. I am sure it will be used for fire and police protection. It will be used for education. It will also be used for medical protection. It will only be limited by our imagination as to what future services it will provide.
Why couldn't they wrap the exterior fuel tank on the shuttle so that it would not lose any insulation on take off.
This could change into something much better than either cable or dsl. First one would not have to put in extra wires since most rooms have at least one electrical receptacle. Second it would seem to me that one could put devices that would communicate with the computer anywhere in the house just by plugging it in a receptacle. I would think that one could buy a printer with proper interface and place it anywhere in the house one desires. I hope that one day I could put a speaker/microphone in every room of my house and the computer would take care of security and my health by monitoring the sounds that come from that room. For instance in the kitchen it would be smart enough to hear whenever something is placed on the stove and than remind me if it is not removed in a timely fashion. It would ask me where I am going and what time to expect me back when I left the house and thus know that there should not be anyone in the house at those times. It would be able to call me on my cell phone and make sure I am all right no matter where I am at that moment. It would be great for television as there would be no need for an extra cable as one would only have to plug the television in and receive the content on the same line as the power. After stating all this I really hope that my natural gas company takes over all of this by putting a fiber cable in the gas line. I was hoping that someone would invent a fuel cell generator powered by natural gas for electricity and thus all utilities could be provided by the natural gas company. I was hope this would happen because there is way too much damage caused to electronic equipment by current spikes induced by lighting strikes.
I think that moore's law has already stopped and someone needs to get it going again. After all the billion bit chip was mass produced in 1999 therefore the 2 billion should have been in 2001 with the 4 billion in 2003 and the 8 billion in 2005. I just hope that they stop making processors with only one on a chip and make the duo processors as cheap as the single ones are today.