The metaphor itself is a very powerful construct. The article talks about moving files between computers, but the "pointer" could be a much more powerful context-sensitive device. So, when pointing to a computer display, the inference might be "copy this data". When walking around Fry's, pointing at an item might be "deliver more information on this product". Or a similar action in a supermarket might mean "purchase this and deliver to the checkout or my home". The concept is interesting and extensible.
I had a similar idea a while ago (which I guess I should have followed up on), but it wasn't to share files between people. Instead, it would be a go2mypc-like service, where a USB memory-style device is used to tap on the files one wants to be available in a second location. If they fit on the device, then they are transferred to it. The ones that don't get delivered when the USB dongle is connected to a target machine.
Given the Sony approach to a device that has a unique ID that can be tracked through some kind of communication, I don't know why they don't simply take the opportunity to stuff the "pen" with the data. The demo talks about handheld to handheld, so it's not likely to be huge amounts.
In either case, the device is an intermediary, that could be built into anything most people have with them at all times. Cellphone, for example.
In Japan, in any given block the buildings tend to be numbered in the order in which the block was originally populated. So if you're standing in front of 3-10-17, all you know about 3-10-16 is that it's within 200 meters or so in any direction. Only major roads have names, minor roads do not. Dead ends are typically not marked as such. Finally, just in case this all seems trivial, there are buildings totally surrounded by others, with no street access. And this is in a "sensible" city. Some were designed with the entire road system deliberately designed to confuse potential enemies.
Add-ons include a rear-facing camera as a reversing aid for those defeated by mirror-based technology, and a Level 2 & 3 VICS antenna.
VICS supplies real-time traffic congestion, accident and time-to-destination information through roadside or overhead radio beacons dotted all over major roads. VICS-aware navigation systems can then automatically re-route around problem areas.
Apart from the very cute display, Sony is playing catch-up here, though the home cradle is nice: maps can be updated via an internet service that starts in July.
Some systems receive traffic updates via PHS and cellphones in addition to, or instead of, radio. Subscription services provide frequently updated information on speed cameras, mobile speed traps and other inconveniences.
The Sony U70 is a very nice machine, running Windows XP Professional on a 1GHz Mobile Pentium. It's slightly cheaper sibling runs XP Home on a 900 MHz Mobile Celeron. They're great little machines, with a Palm-style folding keyboard. But my favorite is the old U3 which they effectively replace. Since the U3 is about $900 on the used market, I'm thinking of getting one and warming it over with a better HD, etc.
In fact, the only fault with the U series is Sony's determination not to useful-sized hard drives in them. I kinda get tired of my need to purchase Sony stuff because it's all marketing and no customer support, but it certainly looks right when it's sitting on the store shelf.
The OQO is a perpetually delayed unknown, and if their business model includes limiting supply to keep people hankering after it, then I think they're getting it wrong.
Re:Players with 60Gb drives have been out for a wh
on
60GB iPod Coming?
·
· Score: 1
But the interfaces across the entire range are really poor. The NX has six assorted buttons with one or two actions each, a three-action scroll wheel and the interface from Hell. The thing's just not worth the effort.
So you think there aren't already night vision cameras in theaters and on amusement park rides? This is just adding the human element as a visible deterrent.
Sharp model numbers begin or end in SH. Sanyo in SA. Toshiba in T. NEC in N. English-language PDFs of the manuals for several models are also available.
The review didn't mention the 800 series: 801SH and 801SA.
Other goodies: the 601T has T4G 3D accelerator and a TV output jack when playing games. 401D also has a 2MP camera. The 401SH needs a really good signal for TV, and it kills the battery. The 401SA and 801SA have the same type of body sliding mechanism to reveal the keypad, all the others flip.
The latest Sharp models, including the 801SH, have electrical and optical audio, so one can rip direct to the SD card. Unfortunately it's DRM City, so getting music onto the SD card via a computer involves Panasonic's awful SD Jukebox software and one of a small number of card readers.
The 801SA can place videocalls to similar handsets. The 801SH and 801SA use W-CDMA in Japan, and tri-band GSM when roaming internationally.
Finally, the VC701SI is a 3G modem card made by Seiko.
The front panel is plastic with a mirror layer on the back of it, just like the MPIO FL100. The portion over the display is partly transparent. The display simply shines through it. Incidentally, the display is very dim under normal lighting.
And as has been said elsewhere, Jens don't actually manufacture this: it's a standard OEM'd item also available as IOPS and V@MP, for example.
I've had good luck projecting solar images using paper cups, though I don't know how big the image would have to be to see Venus in this instance.
Find the biggest paper cup or popcorn bucket possible, tape thin paper over the top and poke a hole in the base. Point at sun, view image on paper. It's easy enough to teach the kids in the neighborhood when the parents wonder what the strange guy with the paper cup is doing.
If the image isn't large enough, simply pull the paper off and project in the usual way. The paper cup is easy enough for kids to hold. For some reason, flat sheets turn into crumpled useless things when exposed to kids.
Mea culpa. I read the article, marvelled at the lack of slashdottedness, but for some reason totally missed that it was referred to USA Photomap frequently, nay, persistently. Maybe the references to "jogging" set up some kind of interference field.
But it's still worth using USA Photomap to follow the Ridge Route.
This is trivial beyond belief with an outstanding application called "USA Photomaps". I won't provide a link so only the truly interested will track it down.
It downloads Terraserver aerial photos for a selected region at two resolutions, the associated topo maps, and allows seamless zooming/switching between all images and topos.
Check out the Nevada testing grounds for some outstanding pics. I've used the system to plot all the missile silos in the western US: after a while, it's almost possible to guess where they'll be.
Another interesting route is the Ridge Route from Castaic.
A hobby seen in the UK (and I assume, therefore, elsewhere) is to define jogging and cycling routes that draw the outline of an animal or other object on an existing urban road network. Some people have way too much time.
Sony's problem is that it has quite a lot of in-fighting. The hardware divisions can design interesting stuff: the Clie has pushed Palm OS further than Palm would ever have taken Palm PDAs by themselves, for example. Sony pushes the envelope with MD and so on. But, Sony also manufactures both audio and video content, manages pop groups and so on. That side of operations doesn't want any content to be "free" any time whatsoever. I think one can see the market effect of this internal conflict in Sony's paucity of true digital offerings: Sony created and defined the Walkman market, yet it's got what, 2 solid-state music players on the market worldwide? Basically, whatever Sony does, it is forced to use DRM to keep its own divisions happy. So I imagine its Librie offerings will be similarly DRM'd to the point where the products are not sensible purchases for most people.
Philips invented the paper, they work closely with Matsushita, so I'd wait for a Panasonic competitor to hit the market. Matsushita seem to have come up with a lot of neat stuff over the past year, hopefully it's a renaissance that will continue.
"KDDA" should be "KDDI". Interestingly, KDDI beat Docomo to the draw with its 3G service, and it's also the one company in Japan with close ties to Qualcomm. Some parts of KDDI think that's OK, other parts don't. It means they have to pay lip service to BREW, which again is either good if you're a developer in the loop, or bad if you're not.
When I used to leave for work at 6am and the milk arrived at 6:30am, I had "milk cooler" which was like a tall flower pot. I left it by the front door, soaking in a bucket full of water. The milkman would pop it over the bottle he delivered each morning. Neither of us got a Rolex for it, though. Maybe people who make Rolexes don't know about the bleedin' obvious. (And while we're at it, we could wonder who makes their watch movements and, indeed, watch bands. Doesn't leave Rolex with much to do.)
Corel's always been a strange company. They've had products that have had potentially fine futures, but they've ALWAYS been as buggy as hell. I had a company that did wonderful things with Ventura Publisher many years ago, way back when VP was being spun off and relocating to California. It was robust and clearly authored by people who understood publishing. We did some seriously large projects with it, I even wrote a tagging preprocessor for it. We could lay out 1000 pages and it would look pretty good the first time a human opened the document.
Then Corel got ahold of it, and the added feature sets were late in coming but full of promise, but the damn program just never worked. We got accidentally on some kind of instant-updates-at-all-costs program, maybe because I was vocal on Compuserve at the time, so I can't fault Corel on the number of update CDs we received each month. But the thing just didn't work.
Our word processor was WordPerfect. It was wonderful around 5.1. I beta-tested its Postscript drivers and this was in the days when the Apple rep ran away because he couldn't believe a Laserwriter was being driven by a PC through the serial port. We loved WP. Then Corel got ahold of it, and we had to move on to a product that, well, actually worked most of the time. So we went to Word, but it was a struggle because everyone tried to use WP secretly. What's wrong with a "Reveal Codes" option? Nothing. Why doesn't Word have one? Because the people who design it don't use it for creating pretty language. But we simply couldn't keep using WP, because it broke enough files to affect our ability to perform as a publishing house.
We also used Xara, which was cheap and powerful. Bugger me, Corel got ahold of that, too, and killed it.
Corel's the sort of company that one would love to support as a kind of perpetual underdog, but the reality is that there's been something perpetually wrong with their development cycle: stuff just gets buggier, and buggier, and buggier until it's too frustrating to use.
I'm sure there's room for a Wordperfect-like product, but it's a real shame Corel is the vehicle to provide it.
The phones have GPS. The actual positional calculation is offloaded to the network. But non-GPS phones have pretty good accuracy in Japan due to the cell density, anyway.
I did some work on a similar type of game last year, and our main concern was whether we actually wanted people to physically meet each other, so we had virtual object layers superimposed on the city, where each player saw their own personalized layer: two people could be racing towards an object, but each saw the object in a different location.
It's in the instructions for the heating packet for MREs
I actually have several dozen of the things for reasons too stupid to go into. Other warnings include
"vapors released... contain hydrogen, a flammable gas"
and
"when ten or more heaters are used...".
I tested the ten-heater threat model by collecting the 'vapors' in a plastic bag then exposing the contents to a match in a scientifically, controlled manner (i.e. I closed my eyes).
Basically, it's a ten-minute fart with the ability to singe eyebrows and deafen.
Perhaps one problem is that automated system tools that masquerade as supernodes or similar on P2P networks distort the cost/benefit ratio of enforcement, in that it's becoming feasible to go after small-time infringers just as easily as the large-scale infringers. If one regards this as making it easy to prosecute the vulnerable, then it's a problem in that, traditionally, one would go after the targets causing the most harm, because it takes time and effort. Now, one can go after anyone simply because it has good media value, or because one knows the target can't defend itself in any meaningful manner.
Rule by corporate law(yer) is quite a scary concept. The reward for a successful prosecution becomes to easy to attain.
I have 70Mbps VDSL, up from 24Mbps ADSL. Sumitomo's MegabitGear does 70 Mbps, for example, but my kit is NEC. Infineon and others are working on 150 Mbps.
Slashdot Mirror
The metaphor itself is a very powerful construct. The article talks about moving files between computers, but the "pointer" could be a much more powerful context-sensitive device. So, when pointing to a computer display, the inference might be "copy this data". When walking around Fry's, pointing at an item might be "deliver more information on this product". Or a similar action in a supermarket might mean "purchase this and deliver to the checkout or my home". The concept is interesting and extensible.
Given the Sony approach to a device that has a unique ID that can be tracked through some kind of communication, I don't know why they don't simply take the opportunity to stuff the "pen" with the data. The demo talks about handheld to handheld, so it's not likely to be huge amounts.
In either case, the device is an intermediary, that could be built into anything most people have with them at all times. Cellphone, for example.
So basically, you need all the help you can get.
VICS supplies real-time traffic congestion, accident and time-to-destination information through roadside or overhead radio beacons dotted all over major roads. VICS-aware navigation systems can then automatically re-route around problem areas.
Apart from the very cute display, Sony is playing catch-up here, though the home cradle is nice: maps can be updated via an internet service that starts in July.
Some systems receive traffic updates via PHS and cellphones in addition to, or instead of, radio. Subscription services provide frequently updated information on speed cameras, mobile speed traps and other inconveniences.
VICS.
In fact, the only fault with the U series is Sony's determination not to useful-sized hard drives in them. I kinda get tired of my need to purchase Sony stuff because it's all marketing and no customer support, but it certainly looks right when it's sitting on the store shelf.
The OQO is a perpetually delayed unknown, and if their business model includes limiting supply to keep people hankering after it, then I think they're getting it wrong.
But the interfaces across the entire range are really poor. The NX has six assorted buttons with one or two actions each, a three-action scroll wheel and the interface from Hell. The thing's just not worth the effort.
So you think there aren't already night vision cameras in theaters and on amusement park rides? This is just adding the human element as a visible deterrent.
I dunno, my milk and mail was delivered reliably every morning by EV decades ago.
With the move to lower carbon content in modern tires, are they less able to dissipate any static buildup?
Sharp model numbers begin or end in SH. Sanyo in SA. Toshiba in T. NEC in N. English-language PDFs of the manuals for several models are also available.
The review didn't mention the 800 series: 801SH and 801SA.
Other goodies: the 601T has T4G 3D accelerator and a TV output jack when playing games. 401D also has a 2MP camera. The 401SH needs a really good signal for TV, and it kills the battery. The 401SA and 801SA have the same type of body sliding mechanism to reveal the keypad, all the others flip.
The latest Sharp models, including the 801SH, have electrical and optical audio, so one can rip direct to the SD card. Unfortunately it's DRM City, so getting music onto the SD card via a computer involves Panasonic's awful SD Jukebox software and one of a small number of card readers.
The 801SA can place videocalls to similar handsets. The 801SH and 801SA use W-CDMA in Japan, and tri-band GSM when roaming internationally.
Finally, the VC701SI is a 3G modem card made by Seiko.
And as has been said elsewhere, Jens don't actually manufacture this: it's a standard OEM'd item also available as IOPS and V@MP, for example.
Find the biggest paper cup or popcorn bucket possible, tape thin paper over the top and poke a hole in the base. Point at sun, view image on paper. It's easy enough to teach the kids in the neighborhood when the parents wonder what the strange guy with the paper cup is doing.
If the image isn't large enough, simply pull the paper off and project in the usual way. The paper cup is easy enough for kids to hold. For some reason, flat sheets turn into crumpled useless things when exposed to kids.
But it's still worth using USA Photomap to follow the Ridge Route.
It downloads Terraserver aerial photos for a selected region at two resolutions, the associated topo maps, and allows seamless zooming/switching between all images and topos.
Check out the Nevada testing grounds for some outstanding pics. I've used the system to plot all the missile silos in the western US: after a while, it's almost possible to guess where they'll be.
Another interesting route is the Ridge Route from Castaic.
A hobby seen in the UK (and I assume, therefore, elsewhere) is to define jogging and cycling routes that draw the outline of an animal or other object on an existing urban road network. Some people have way too much time.
Philips invented the paper, they work closely with Matsushita, so I'd wait for a Panasonic competitor to hit the market. Matsushita seem to have come up with a lot of neat stuff over the past year, hopefully it's a renaissance that will continue.
"KDDA" should be "KDDI". Interestingly, KDDI beat Docomo to the draw with its 3G service, and it's also the one company in Japan with close ties to Qualcomm. Some parts of KDDI think that's OK, other parts don't. It means they have to pay lip service to BREW, which again is either good if you're a developer in the loop, or bad if you're not.
Aegler S.A. ring any bells?
When I used to leave for work at 6am and the milk arrived at 6:30am, I had "milk cooler" which was like a tall flower pot. I left it by the front door, soaking in a bucket full of water. The milkman would pop it over the bottle he delivered each morning. Neither of us got a Rolex for it, though. Maybe people who make Rolexes don't know about the bleedin' obvious. (And while we're at it, we could wonder who makes their watch movements and, indeed, watch bands. Doesn't leave Rolex with much to do.)
And I had it running on an HP200LX. Wrote a lot of stuff on that combo.
Then Corel got ahold of it, and the added feature sets were late in coming but full of promise, but the damn program just never worked. We got accidentally on some kind of instant-updates-at-all-costs program, maybe because I was vocal on Compuserve at the time, so I can't fault Corel on the number of update CDs we received each month. But the thing just didn't work.
Our word processor was WordPerfect. It was wonderful around 5.1. I beta-tested its Postscript drivers and this was in the days when the Apple rep ran away because he couldn't believe a Laserwriter was being driven by a PC through the serial port. We loved WP. Then Corel got ahold of it, and we had to move on to a product that, well, actually worked most of the time. So we went to Word, but it was a struggle because everyone tried to use WP secretly. What's wrong with a "Reveal Codes" option? Nothing. Why doesn't Word have one? Because the people who design it don't use it for creating pretty language. But we simply couldn't keep using WP, because it broke enough files to affect our ability to perform as a publishing house.
We also used Xara, which was cheap and powerful. Bugger me, Corel got ahold of that, too, and killed it.
Corel's the sort of company that one would love to support as a kind of perpetual underdog, but the reality is that there's been something perpetually wrong with their development cycle: stuff just gets buggier, and buggier, and buggier until it's too frustrating to use.
I'm sure there's room for a Wordperfect-like product, but it's a real shame Corel is the vehicle to provide it.
I did some work on a similar type of game last year, and our main concern was whether we actually wanted people to physically meet each other, so we had virtual object layers superimposed on the city, where each player saw their own personalized layer: two people could be racing towards an object, but each saw the object in a different location.
I actually have several dozen of the things for reasons too stupid to go into. Other warnings include
"vapors released ... contain hydrogen, a flammable gas"
and
"when ten or more heaters are used...".
I tested the ten-heater threat model by collecting the 'vapors' in a plastic bag then exposing the contents to a match in a scientifically, controlled manner (i.e. I closed my eyes).
Basically, it's a ten-minute fart with the ability to singe eyebrows and deafen.
I dunno, there's only 2 wires at the jack though.
Rule by corporate law(yer) is quite a scary concept. The reward for a successful prosecution becomes to easy to attain.
I have 70Mbps VDSL, up from 24Mbps ADSL. Sumitomo's MegabitGear does 70 Mbps, for example, but my kit is NEC. Infineon and others are working on 150 Mbps.