My company does a lot of work for the US Department of Defense in this area. The biggest problem in that we face is that there are no standards yet. One vendor's tags can't be read by another vendor's interogators. So in order to set up an end-to-end supply chain system, DoD has had to stick with one company, Savi and his proprietary,expensive, and closed system.
Supply chain management within DoD would realize huge improvements with something like a universally readable active tag. With Microsoft and Wallmart into the action, hopefully, some standards will emerge
I, too have been unhappy with DircWay. I live in the country outside of any hope of cable, wireless, any other normal broadband connection. So I was an early adoptor of DirecPC. It was a satellite modem connected by a USB port. I connected the modem to a Win2K server on a three computer home network. The whole setup worked remarkably well less the latency. If low latency is a requirement, then Direcway is not an option. As I recall, I had a few growing pains but a couple of calls to customer support quickly resolved any issues
Then DirecTV morphed to DirecWay and the cost went from $19 to $50 for the minimum service. I took a deep breath and ordered the new hardware. I followed the instruction to a letter but could not get a strong signal. (I had very few problems with the older system and had no problem getting a signal. The few problems that I had were related to hooking up the network.) So I called customer support expecting the same quality help I got earlier. I learned that they had outsourced thier support to India!! I spent about 15 hours over the next week trying to get a signal and never could. I even hired a tree trimmer to get rid of a few branches that seemed to get in the way. My whole experience was nothing but frustration. I wrapped the whole mess up and put it in the closet. I could never get hold of an American support person to explain my problem and request "professional installation."
Reluctantly, I went back to dial-up. I am hoping that DirecWay gets thier socks pulled up. I am very anxious to hear about other/. readers. If I had to do this over again, I would not opt for user installation. Customer support was so poor, I was wondering what would happen if I had networking problems and not just signal problems.
I was part of a contracted three-man software development
team that supported the Marines in Mogadishu, Somalia during Operation
Restore Hope in 1993. We were there to make sure that a PC-based software application
that provided deployment and redeployment support operated properly.
Our office was out of the US Embassy. Unfortunately the
Embassy had been gutted so there was no furniture, no windows, no plumbing, and
no air conditioning. There was just
concrete walls and ceilings. Our toilet facilities consisted of a public plywood
outhouse with half barrels beneath the seats. Once a day, the barrels would be
collected and some diesel fuel thrown in. The contents would then be burned,
usually upwind. The smoke added to the smell of decomposing flesh since the
Somalians buried thier dead under piles of loose rock. Many nights there would
be firefights on the other side of the embassy compound wall to add to our joy
and excitement. The sand was as fine as talcum powder and blew
everywhere. It eroded our keyboard contacts and so we needed to make field repairs to
keep up and running. We slept in general purpose tents at the embassy
golf course that was nothing but sand since the irrigation system
had been looted. We got showers about once a week and laundry even less
frequently. We had to deal with dengue fever and quinine resistant malarial
mosquitoes. Thank God I was young, then.
All that said, it was an experience of a lifetime. We
modified the Marine system to work with all four Services and that application
is still around today. (Ported from Clipper to PowerBuilder/Sybase though) Gave me a
real appreciation for the work that our Service men and women go through on a
daily basis. We were only there for six weeks and it seemed like a lifetime.
The Service people were there for months.
I, too wish our British comrades well but must agree with
the poster. The problem seems to be that once they get something right, they
hold onto the design. I offer two examples.
One only needs to
look at how long the MG and the Austin Healy remained unmodified to determine
that the Brits are averse to changes.
A British company that I mercifully don't remember placed a
bid on the US Marines request for proposal for the Light
Armored Vehicle.The specification
for turret speed of turning was very demanding in that it had to be very fast
to get on target quickly but also capable of very, very slow movement to aim
properly. The British company used an electric turret motor. They provided a
detailed explanation of why the turret speed could never meet both the high and
the low speeds at the same time. While the source selection committee agreed
with the Brits, they also rejected the design. The whole rest of the world
(including the Brazilians and the Eastern Europeans) had long ago switched to hydraulic motors that could easily
meet and exceed the turret speed specifications.
Hopefully, older technology will be sufficient for this
present trip.
What the community needs is to organize along the lines of
the take no prisoners and scorched earth policies of the NRA and ABATE-IL.
The NRA, with a few million committed members has managed to hold onto the
Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights. ABATE of Illinois, with only a handful
of members has maintained a no-helmet law for the state. Whether you agree with
these grass-roots organizations or not, they are extremely effective. Both have legislative alerts (here
and here) and
the NRA has a "contact
your lawmaker" page. Does anyone know of similar organization(s) that fight
for sanity for file sharing ($150,000 per song is not sane)? Am not sure if the
Electronic Freedom Foundation is focused
enough. I would like to join and support an effective organization.
Alternatively, I would be happy to join with others to found such an
organization. Instead of whimpering and complaining, it is time that we joined
(or formed) a strong counterbalance to the RIAA. It is, in fact, time to do
something both with our time and money. Until we do, the RIAA or the MPAA will
simply do what they want.
I have been working with the Department of Defense (DoD) Automatic Identification Technology (AIT - As in Barcoding and RFID - http://www.dodait.com) off and on for the last 10 years. The current state-of-the-art for DoD AIT is the Savi active tag (http://www.savi.com)at about $100 a pop. Active tags have a battery, a lot of memory, and some sophisticate programming to allow reliable distance reads (several hundred yards).
Recently, much work has been going into passive tags. Passive tags have very limited memory, a read range of a few inches, and no battery, but relatively cheap. The tags reflect energy from the reading device. The main challenge with passive tags is that they tend to step on each others' signal when read. In addition, the very limited range makes them (for now) about as useful as barcodes.
These obstacles will probably be overcome in time. A clear read range of about several feet,a memory of around 64 bytes, and a cost in cents would revolution transportation and distribution. The vision is to be able to walk into a store, throw your purchases into an intelligent cart, and walk out the door. The cart would keep track of your purchases and a door reader would read the inventory off the cart. Your identity would come from a smart card on your person. Your checking account would automatically debited and you are done.
Obviously there is much room for misuse of this technology. The main problem will be tying you to your purchases. However, if you make retail purchases now and pay with a credit card, there is a record somewhere of everything you have purchased. I pay for almost everything with cash now.
Passive tags will not be readable from any distance for the foreseeable future in my estimation. A simple "kill" box at the register or doorway is very possible, however. The only concern that I have now is the same as with barcodes. Paying for purchases with a credit card leaves an electronic record of everything that is bought.
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My company does a lot of work for the US Department of Defense in this area. The biggest problem in that we face is that there are no standards yet. One vendor's tags can't be read by another vendor's interogators. So in order to set up an end-to-end supply chain system, DoD has had to stick with one company, Savi and his proprietary,expensive, and closed system.
Supply chain management within DoD would realize huge improvements with something like a universally readable active tag. With Microsoft and Wallmart into the action, hopefully, some standards will emerge
I, too have been unhappy with DircWay. I live in the country outside of any hope of cable, wireless, any other normal broadband connection. So I was an early adoptor of DirecPC. It was a satellite modem connected by a USB port. I connected the modem to a Win2K server on a three computer home network. The whole setup worked remarkably well less the latency. If low latency is a requirement, then Direcway is not an option. As I recall, I had a few growing pains but a couple of calls to customer support quickly resolved any issues
Then DirecTV morphed to DirecWay and the cost went from $19 to $50 for the minimum service. I took a deep breath and ordered the new hardware. I followed the instruction to a letter but could not get a strong signal. (I had very few problems with the older system and had no problem getting a signal. The few problems that I had were related to hooking up the network.) So I called customer support expecting the same quality help I got earlier. I learned that they had outsourced thier support to India!! I spent about 15 hours over the next week trying to get a signal and never could. I even hired a tree trimmer to get rid of a few branches that seemed to get in the way. My whole experience was nothing but frustration. I wrapped the whole mess up and put it in the closet. I could never get hold of an American support person to explain my problem and request "professional installation."
Reluctantly, I went back to dial-up. I am hoping that DirecWay gets thier socks pulled up. I am very anxious to hear about other /. readers. If I had to do this over again, I would not opt for user installation. Customer support was so poor, I was wondering what would happen if I had networking problems and not just signal problems.
I was part of a contracted three-man software development team that supported the Marines in Mogadishu, Somalia during Operation Restore Hope in 1993. We were there to make sure that a PC-based software application that provided deployment and redeployment support operated properly.
Our office was out of the US Embassy. Unfortunately the Embassy had been gutted so there was no furniture, no windows, no plumbing, and no air conditioning. There was just concrete walls and ceilings. Our toilet facilities consisted of a public plywood outhouse with half barrels beneath the seats. Once a day, the barrels would be collected and some diesel fuel thrown in. The contents would then be burned, usually upwind. The smoke added to the smell of decomposing flesh since the Somalians buried thier dead under piles of loose rock. Many nights there would be firefights on the other side of the embassy compound wall to add to our joy and excitement. The sand was as fine as talcum powder and blew everywhere. It eroded our keyboard contacts and so we needed to make field repairs to keep up and running. We slept in general purpose tents at the embassy golf course that was nothing but sand since the irrigation system had been looted. We got showers about once a week and laundry even less frequently. We had to deal with dengue fever and quinine resistant malarial mosquitoes. Thank God I was young, then.
All that said, it was an experience of a lifetime. We modified the Marine system to work with all four Services and that application is still around today. (Ported from Clipper to PowerBuilder/Sybase though) Gave me a real appreciation for the work that our Service men and women go through on a daily basis. We were only there for six weeks and it seemed like a lifetime. The Service people were there for months.
I, too wish our British comrades well but must agree with the poster. The problem seems to be that once they get something right, they hold onto the design. I offer two examples.
One only needs to look at how long the MG and the Austin Healy remained unmodified to determine that the Brits are averse to changes.
A British company that I mercifully don't remember placed a bid on the US Marines request for proposal for the Light Armored Vehicle.The specification for turret speed of turning was very demanding in that it had to be very fast to get on target quickly but also capable of very, very slow movement to aim properly. The British company used an electric turret motor. They provided a detailed explanation of why the turret speed could never meet both the high and the low speeds at the same time. While the source selection committee agreed with the Brits, they also rejected the design. The whole rest of the world (including the Brazilians and the Eastern Europeans) had long ago switched to hydraulic motors that could easily meet and exceed the turret speed specifications.
Hopefully, older technology will be sufficient for this present trip.
What the community needs is to organize along the lines of the take no prisoners and scorched earth policies of the NRA and ABATE-IL. The NRA, with a few million committed members has managed to hold onto the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights. ABATE of Illinois, with only a handful of members has maintained a no-helmet law for the state. Whether you agree with these grass-roots organizations or not, they are extremely effective. Both have legislative alerts (here and here) and the NRA has a "contact your lawmaker" page. Does anyone know of similar organization(s) that fight for sanity for file sharing ($150,000 per song is not sane)? Am not sure if the Electronic Freedom Foundation is focused enough. I would like to join and support an effective organization. Alternatively, I would be happy to join with others to found such an organization. Instead of whimpering and complaining, it is time that we joined (or formed) a strong counterbalance to the RIAA. It is, in fact, time to do something both with our time and money. Until we do, the RIAA or the MPAA will simply do what they want.
Recently, much work has been going into passive tags. Passive tags have very limited memory, a read range of a few inches, and no battery, but relatively cheap. The tags reflect energy from the reading device. The main challenge with passive tags is that they tend to step on each others' signal when read. In addition, the very limited range makes them (for now) about as useful as barcodes.
These obstacles will probably be overcome in time. A clear read range of about several feet,a memory of around 64 bytes, and a cost in cents would revolution transportation and distribution. The vision is to be able to walk into a store, throw your purchases into an intelligent cart, and walk out the door. The cart would keep track of your purchases and a door reader would read the inventory off the cart. Your identity would come from a smart card on your person. Your checking account would automatically debited and you are done.
Obviously there is much room for misuse of this technology. The main problem will be tying you to your purchases. However, if you make retail purchases now and pay with a credit card, there is a record somewhere of everything you have purchased. I pay for almost everything with cash now.
Passive tags will not be readable from any distance for the foreseeable future in my estimation. A simple "kill" box at the register or doorway is very possible, however. The only concern that I have now is the same as with barcodes. Paying for purchases with a credit card leaves an electronic record of everything that is bought.