This reminds me of the recently conducted DARPA Race. Here is the summary: The race, sponsored by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), had offered a prize of $1 million for any vehicle that could complete the course. Thirteen robot vehicles set out on a 140-mile race. Nine traveled less than two miles. The remaining two managed about 7 miles....more than 130 miles short of target!!
Many a times I have wanted this in a car... a device that uses my sprintpcs unlimited mobile internet service and hooks to my treo 600 (has full featured browser) and converts text to speech. So before I head to work, I just get in the car, load a webpage on my phone and plug that device to the car FM transmitter so I can listen to the/. discussion over the radio and still keep my eyes on the road...
The more cumbersome option is to take my laptop with me in car, hack my phone so I can use it as wireless modem with the laptop with 3G fast mobile internet and then use the text to speech software on the laptop....
You could try this. Here's another article (give it some time to load) on it. You can use any portable USB keyboard with it and it has full featured browser and much more and you can plug it into any phone jack to connect to web to send emails etc. Here and here are some features...
Since the site is getting/.ed (just got this error- Warning: Too many connections in/var/amidasimp/includes/connectdb.php on line 4 Cannot Connect to MySQL), I decided to copy and paste from my browser cache: Why Amida? - Innovations Power and Simplicity Built-in The Amida Simputer was built on the premise that a computer is more useful when if it is easy-to-use. To achieve that simplicity however, our engineers have toiled hard. And, introduced a number of innovations, so that you (the user) can have the most versatile, most mobile personal computer in the world. Here are the top ten innovations:
Doodle n' Mail: Amida allows you to scribble on any screen using a stylus, and email it. is the world's first instance of any computer (handheld or otherwise) permitting annotation on every screen
Flip Flip Motion Sensor: Amida is the world's first and only computer that responds to your gestures - eg. you can turn the pages of an e-book with a flick of your wrist
Indian Languages: The Amida Simputer allows you to work and play in the language of your choice
Amida Chikki: Easy way to carry programs, music, movies, pictures...
Connectivity: Amida is the world's first handheld computer to have two USB slots (master and slave. Helps it work well with a range of other devices - Reliance CDMA phones (for Internet connectivity), PCs, digital cameras etc.
Pocket Hercules: The Amida Simputer combines portability and power in a manner that no other handheld in the world does. Check out the specs
Simplicity: The Amida Simputer includes a number of innovations that makes computing simple and enjoyable. If you want to work (and play) with consummate ease, then the world's easiest-to-use computer is for you!
Auto Updates: If you need to update your Amida Software, all you have to do is, open an application called Package Manager, connect to the Internet and tap "Update" - no "Install Managers", no visits to showrooms!
SmartCard Reader / Writer: The Simputer is the world's first computer to have an integrated SmartCard readr / writer. Use it for identification, sharing and security
Personalize: Amida lets you transform its appearance to suit your unique tastes and needs
Amida as coffee-maker: No, Amida does not do this. Not yet, anyway!
Many analysts believe that Gateway ultimately will abandon some or all of its namesake stores in favor of selling products at third-party retailers
I recently bought a gateway M505X laptop at Office Depot. I chose it over eMachines, Toshiba, Sony, Dell and Compaq. It is a great machine and I could just buy it without waiting for it to ship... I have never seen a gateway computer at a besybuy or compusa though...
For some reason, I thought that an alarm device (like a lock) was already in market where you attach the alarm device to the laptop and the other component you keep with yourself. If the distance between you and the laptop exceeds a certain range, the alarm would go off...
The other thing I remember reading a while ago is there is a company that sells this service where if you subscribe to it and if your computer gets stolen, they can track it by IP address and they actually caught someone where you just install their software that secretly pings their server when you get online. The thief didnt format the stolen laptop's hard disk and just started using it. The owner had informaed this company which then went with the IP address to police and these guys caught the thief...
This is not really a/. question. Your local petstore will help you solve this in under $10. Just get any pet repellant spray like bitter apple and spray it on the needed area for a few days. Your pet will the idea that this area/items have the worst taste and it's better to chew on your shoes than to chew on cables sprayed with Bitter Apple....
We've all got years of experience on Linux but running Windows day to day is a big challenge
I got a sweet deal for you. My 68 year old grandma has been using Windows XP for a while and she is pretty good at it. She might give you many useful tips and tricks because when she started a year ago on computers, it took her a long 1 week to get comfortable on Windows XP. Anyway, if you want to find out how she did it, just call her (303-607-7527). She loves to talk to people. She is home all day bored. Caveat: She is in Denver and her number might be long distance for you and once she gets started talking, there is no stopping her!
I read somewhere that American citizens were not allowed to work in India for an Indian owned company. Is this true?
This is Completely FALSE. American work visa system is much more restrictive and requires more minimum qualifications versus Indian system. A commpn aspect of both American and Indian work visa system is that you need to find an employer (job offer) to sponsor your work visa application. Everything else is much more restrictive (like in US, the H1-B worker has to have a bchelor's degree and has to be paid at least the prevailing wage for that kind of job).
I would urge you to do a thorough study of requirements for work visa in US versus work visa in India. You will notice that requirements are much more restrivtive for US work visa.
Try this website for Employment Visa to work in India.
Another website has details (read the "Points to note" section at the bottom of page) of taking employment visa in India.
Intelligence shortcomings, as we see, have a thousand fathers; secret intelligence triumphs are orphans. Here is the unremarked story of "the Farewell dossier": how a C.I.A. campaign of computer sabotage resulting in a huge explosion in Siberia -- all engineered by a mild-mannered economist named Gus Weiss -- helped us win the cold war.
Weiss worked down the hall from me in the Nixon administration. In early 1974, he wrote a report on Soviet advances in technology through purchasing and copying that led the beleaguered president -- detente notwithstanding -- to place restrictions on the export of computers and software to the U.S.S.R.
Seven years later, we learned how the K.G.B. responded. I was writing a series of hard-line columns denouncing the financial backing being given Moscow by Germany and Britain for a major natural gas pipeline from Siberia to Europe. That project would give control of European energy supplies to the Communists, as well as generate $8 billion a year to support Soviet computer and satellite research.
President Francois Mitterrand of France also opposed the gas pipeline. He took President Reagan aside at a conference in Ottawa on July 19, 1981, to reveal that France had recruited a key K.G.B. officer in Moscow Center.
Col. Vladimir Vetrov provided what French intelligence called the Farewell dossier. It contained documents from the K.G.B. Technology Directorate showing how the Soviets were systematically stealing -- or secretly buying through third parties -- the radar, machine tools and semiconductors to keep the Russians nearly competitive with U.S. military-industrial strength through the 70's. In effect, the U.S. was in an arms race with itself.
Reagan passed this on to William J. Casey, his director of central intelligence, now remembered only for the Iran-contra fiasco. Casey called in Weiss, then working with Thomas C. Reed on the staff of the National Security Council. After studying the list of hundreds of Soviet agents and purchasers (including one cosmonaut) assigned to this penetration in the U.S. and Japan, Weiss counseled against deportation.
Instead, according to Reed -- a former Air Force secretary whose fascinating cold war book, "At the Abyss," will be published by Random House next month -- Weiss said: "Why not help the Soviets with their shopping? Now that we know what they want, we can help them get it." The catch: computer chips would be designed to pass Soviet quality tests and then to fail in operation.
In our complex disinformation scheme, deliberately flawed designs for stealth technology and space defense sent Russian scientists down paths that wasted time and money.
The technology topping the Soviets' wish list was for computer control systems to automate the operation of the new trans-Siberian gas pipeline. When we turned down their overt purchase order, the K.G.B. sent a covert agent into a Canadian company to steal the software; tipped off by Farewell, we added what geeks call a "Trojan Horse" to the pirated product.
"The pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines and valves was programmed to go haywire," writes Reed, "to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to the pipeline joints and welds. The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space."
Our Norad monitors feared a nuclear detonation, but satellites that would have picked up its electromagnetic pulse were silent. That mystified many in the White House, but "Gus Weiss came down the hall to tell his fellow NSC staffers not to worry. It took him another twenty years to tell me why."
Farewell stayed secret because the blast in June 1982, estimated at three kilotons, took place in the Siberian wilderness, with no casualties known. Nor was the red-faced K.G.B. about to complain publicly about being tricked by bogus technology. But all the sof
I don't know how good it will be even with the basic encryption used to communicate. If two parties decide that word "x" means "y" and so on and then just use their new language to communicate, it will be very difficult to decipher because most of the real indian talent is either in private industries or in western countries. The people who work in IT for Bombay police etc. probably don't even understand TCP/IP very well..... I believe this will be misused more than really used for anything good for society. More bribes, more bureaucracy, more red tape
This may seem like offtopic but this article is a very interesting read. Please read the link to NY Times article that's in the first para as well. Well here's the article (read it in full if you will)
Another thing which most of us miss out when looking at cheaper cost of programmers in foreign lands is the currency exchange rate. Those programmers are actually very very expensive compared to other labor (look at their national per capita income) in their locale. It is their currency exchange rate that makes them look cheap when we look in dollar terms. Now if you were to become president and say hey, 1 US dollar is equal to 1 Indian rupee from now on, there will be zero outsourcing. Okay, the last sentence was hypothetical but China does have artificially pegged currency exchange rate...
Print this article and keep a copy. Next time your boss catches you sleeping on the job, just show him/her the article and tell him/her that yo are just working on solving the problem
Slashdot Mirror
This reminds me of the recently conducted DARPA Race.
Here is the summary:
The race, sponsored by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), had offered a prize of $1 million for any vehicle that could complete the course.
Thirteen robot vehicles set out on a 140-mile race. Nine traveled less than two miles. The remaining two managed about 7 miles....more than 130 miles short of target!!
Many a times I have wanted this in a car... a device that uses my sprintpcs unlimited mobile internet service and hooks to my treo 600 (has full featured browser) and converts text to speech. So before I head to work, I just get in the car, load a webpage on my phone and plug that device to the car FM transmitter so I can listen to the /. discussion over the radio and still keep my eyes on the road...
The more cumbersome option is to take my laptop with me in car, hack my phone so I can use it as wireless modem with the laptop with 3G fast mobile internet and then use the text to speech software on the laptop....
You could try this. Here's another article (give it some time to load) on it.
You can use any portable USB keyboard with it and it has full featured browser and much more and you can plug it into any phone jack to connect to web to send emails etc.
Here and here are some features...
Since the site is getting /.ed (just got this error- Warning: Too many connections in /var/amidasimp/includes/connectdb.php on line 4 Cannot Connect to MySQL), I decided to copy and paste from my browser cache:
Why Amida? - Innovations
Power and Simplicity Built-in
The Amida Simputer was built on the premise that a computer is more useful when if it is easy-to-use. To achieve that simplicity however, our engineers have toiled hard. And, introduced a number of innovations, so that you (the user) can have the most versatile, most mobile personal computer in the world. Here are the top ten innovations:
Doodle n' Mail: Amida allows you to scribble on any screen using a stylus, and email it. is the world's first instance of any computer (handheld or otherwise) permitting annotation on every screen
Flip Flip Motion Sensor: Amida is the world's first and only computer that responds to your gestures - eg. you can turn the pages of an e-book with a flick of your wrist
Indian Languages: The Amida Simputer allows you to work and play in the language of your choice
Amida Chikki: Easy way to carry programs, music, movies, pictures...
Connectivity: Amida is the world's first handheld computer to have two USB slots (master and slave. Helps it work well with a range of other devices - Reliance CDMA phones (for Internet connectivity), PCs, digital cameras etc.
Pocket Hercules: The Amida Simputer combines portability and power in a manner that no other handheld in the world does. Check out the specs
Simplicity: The Amida Simputer includes a number of innovations that makes computing simple and enjoyable. If you want to work (and play) with consummate ease, then the world's easiest-to-use computer is for you!
Auto Updates: If you need to update your Amida Software, all you have to do is, open an application called Package Manager, connect to the Internet and tap "Update" - no "Install Managers", no visits to showrooms!
SmartCard Reader / Writer: The Simputer is the world's first computer to have an integrated SmartCard readr / writer. Use it for identification, sharing and security
Personalize: Amida lets you transform its appearance to suit your unique tastes and needs
Amida as coffee-maker: No, Amida does not do this. Not yet, anyway!
Save the trees please...
Why? Because after a frustrating tech support call with no real help, some might end up throwing their wodden computer accessories in the fireplace...
Many analysts believe that Gateway ultimately will abandon some or all of its namesake stores in favor of selling products at third-party retailers
I recently bought a gateway M505X laptop at Office Depot. I chose it over eMachines, Toshiba, Sony, Dell and Compaq. It is a great machine and I could just buy it without waiting for it to ship...
I have never seen a gateway computer at a besybuy or compusa though...
What is interesting is that they compared paid firewalls with the free version of Zonealarm instead of using the paid Pro version.....
Donald Trump of Apprentice fame could use some such tricks in the next Apprentice Show coming this fall.....
This might seem like a bad joke but people getting laid off from webmonkey team might make a use of this:
Webmonkey Tips
Aliens are gonna steal the human bones and start cloning on their own planet to make some slaves!!
Aliens are coming
For some reason, I thought that an alarm device (like a lock) was already in market where you attach the alarm device to the laptop and the other component you keep with yourself. If the distance between you and the laptop exceeds a certain range, the alarm would go off...
The other thing I remember reading a while ago is there is a company that sells this service where if you subscribe to it and if your computer gets stolen, they can track it by IP address and they actually caught someone where you just install their software that secretly pings their server when you get online. The thief didnt format the stolen laptop's hard disk and just started using it. The owner had informaed this company which then went with the IP address to police and these guys caught the thief...
wireless power transmision sounds good to me ;)
Dude, it's called as Light. Sun's light is responsible for your energy (light-->plants-->animals-->you)and energy from oil (plants/animals) etc.
This is not really a /. question. Your local petstore will help you solve this in under $10. Just get any pet repellant spray like bitter apple and spray it on the needed area for a few days. Your pet will the idea that this area/items have the worst taste and it's better to chew on your shoes than to chew on cables sprayed with Bitter Apple....
We've all got years of experience on Linux but running Windows day to day is a big challenge
I got a sweet deal for you. My 68 year old grandma has been using Windows XP for a while and she is pretty good at it. She might give you many useful tips and tricks because when she started a year ago on computers, it took her a long 1 week to get comfortable on Windows XP. Anyway, if you want to find out how she did it, just call her (303-607-7527). She loves to talk to people. She is home all day bored. Caveat: She is in Denver and her number might be long distance for you and once she gets started talking, there is no stopping her!
I decided to post in here instead of moderating this discussion because I just saw this today:
Windows XP Service Pack 2 - Security Information for Developers
I read this article on BBC a last week. If you would like to, you can read it here.
CNN also carried a story on this.
Some more news sites that carried this news are
How do homing pigeons navigate ?
Pigeons navigate 'by following roads'
Pigeons take the highway
The homing pigeon's ploy: follow that road
Pigeons home in on the roads
I was a little surprised that out of all the news sites, someone picked it up on Al jazeera... Not that I have anything against any news channel....
I read somewhere that American citizens were not allowed to work in India for an Indian owned company. Is this true?
This is Completely FALSE. American work visa system is much more restrictive and requires more minimum qualifications versus Indian system. A commpn aspect of both American and Indian work visa system is that you need to find an employer (job offer) to sponsor your work visa application. Everything else is much more restrictive (like in US, the H1-B worker has to have a bchelor's degree and has to be paid at least the prevailing wage for that kind of job).
I would urge you to do a thorough study of requirements for work visa in US versus work visa in India. You will notice that requirements are much more restrivtive for US work visa.
Try this website for Employment Visa to work in India.
Another website has details (read the "Points to note" section at the bottom of page) of taking employment visa in India.
You, men of Slashdot, tell me what you would want to recieve for Valentine's day
:-p
I think most "men of Slashdot" would want to have a chick for valentine's day !! Can you help them ?
The Farewell Dossier
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
Published: February 2, 2004
Intelligence shortcomings, as we see, have a thousand fathers; secret intelligence triumphs are orphans. Here is the unremarked story of "the Farewell dossier": how a C.I.A. campaign of computer sabotage resulting in a huge explosion in Siberia -- all engineered by a mild-mannered economist named Gus Weiss -- helped us win the cold war.
Weiss worked down the hall from me in the Nixon administration. In early 1974, he wrote a report on Soviet advances in technology through purchasing and copying that led the beleaguered president -- detente notwithstanding -- to place restrictions on the export of computers and software to the U.S.S.R.
Seven years later, we learned how the K.G.B. responded. I was writing a series of hard-line columns denouncing the financial backing being given Moscow by Germany and Britain for a major natural gas pipeline from Siberia to Europe. That project would give control of European energy supplies to the Communists, as well as generate $8 billion a year to support Soviet computer and satellite research.
President Francois Mitterrand of France also opposed the gas pipeline. He took President Reagan aside at a conference in Ottawa on July 19, 1981, to reveal that France had recruited a key K.G.B. officer in Moscow Center.
Col. Vladimir Vetrov provided what French intelligence called the Farewell dossier. It contained documents from the K.G.B. Technology Directorate showing how the Soviets were systematically stealing -- or secretly buying through third parties -- the radar, machine tools and semiconductors to keep the Russians nearly competitive with U.S. military-industrial strength through the 70's. In effect, the U.S. was in an arms race with itself.
Reagan passed this on to William J. Casey, his director of central intelligence, now remembered only for the Iran-contra fiasco. Casey called in Weiss, then working with Thomas C. Reed on the staff of the National Security Council. After studying the list of hundreds of Soviet agents and purchasers (including one cosmonaut) assigned to this penetration in the U.S. and Japan, Weiss counseled against deportation.
Instead, according to Reed -- a former Air Force secretary whose fascinating cold war book, "At the Abyss," will be published by Random House next month -- Weiss said: "Why not help the Soviets with their shopping? Now that we know what they want, we can help them get it." The catch: computer chips would be designed to pass Soviet quality tests and then to fail in operation.
In our complex disinformation scheme, deliberately flawed designs for stealth technology and space defense sent Russian scientists down paths that wasted time and money.
The technology topping the Soviets' wish list was for computer control systems to automate the operation of the new trans-Siberian gas pipeline. When we turned down their overt purchase order, the K.G.B. sent a covert agent into a Canadian company to steal the software; tipped off by Farewell, we added what geeks call a "Trojan Horse" to the pirated product.
"The pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines and valves was programmed to go haywire," writes Reed, "to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to the pipeline joints and welds. The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space."
Our Norad monitors feared a nuclear detonation, but satellites that would have picked up its electromagnetic pulse were silent. That mystified many in the White House, but "Gus Weiss came down the hall to tell his fellow NSC staffers not to worry. It took him another twenty years to tell me why."
Farewell stayed secret because the blast in June 1982, estimated at three kilotons, took place in the Siberian wilderness, with no casualties known. Nor was the red-faced K.G.B. about to complain publicly about being tricked by bogus technology. But all the sof
I don't know how good it will be even with the basic encryption used to communicate. If two parties decide that word "x" means "y" and so on and then just use their new language to communicate, it will be very difficult to decipher because most of the real indian talent is either in private industries or in western countries. The people who work in IT for Bombay police etc. probably don't even understand TCP/IP very well..... I believe this will be misused more than really used for anything good for society. More bribes, more bureaucracy, more red tape
Try this
If nothing else works, try joining the Apple Developer connection. The link can be found here
When I was an IT consultant, my rate was $65 an hour. But that was 2 years ago..... Now I don't do consulting anymore. Got sick of travel....
This may seem like offtopic but this article is a very interesting read. Please read the link to NY Times article that's in the first para as well. Well here's the article (read it in full if you will)
Who really benefits from outsourcing
Another thing which most of us miss out when looking at cheaper cost of programmers in foreign lands is the currency exchange rate. Those programmers are actually very very expensive compared to other labor (look at their national per capita income) in their locale. It is their currency exchange rate that makes them look cheap when we look in dollar terms. Now if you were to become president and say hey, 1 US dollar is equal to 1 Indian rupee from now on, there will be zero outsourcing. Okay, the last sentence was hypothetical but China does have artificially pegged currency exchange rate...
I use this and as far as PDA is concerned, I use Treo 600
Maybe that was the wish list...
Print this article and keep a copy. Next time your boss catches you sleeping on the job, just show him/her the article and tell him/her that yo are just working on solving the problem