You may have cell coverage in your area, but not high speed cell coverage. The cellular phone companies have several networks in co-existance. There is the old digital voice network, which covers pretty much the entire USA. The newer fast data networks are mostly covering only urban and dense suburban areas right now. I would seriously doubt that you would be in a high speed area with so low a population not even Cable TV is around. Now, these cell modem cards can work on the old network, but their speed is going to make your 17,700 baud modem seem like a dedicated T1 line. Also, even if you were in a coverage area, cellular modems are rediculously expensive. Besides the $200 for the modem, you need a basic service plan ($50 a month) plus an unlimited data package (another $50 a month).
GPS units are WAY better than regular maps. You get a color (in most cases) version of the map on the screen, and no guesswork as to where exactly you are now or how fast you are approaching the next turn. I agree that most of the online mapping services are more geared towards providing printed out text instructions, their maps are not particularly usefull, especially if printed on a low quality inkjet or and monochrome laser printer.
Ya! Lets kill all those pesky platforms. For instance, Windows has a 90% market share. Kill everybody else off, and have them expend their efforts on making that more secure. Oh wait, its closed source. In truth, basically everyone who works on open source does so because they want to, and not just do right by the community, but on a certain project. For instance, if Linux dropped DEC Alpha support, for the most part, the DEC Linux community would not all see the light and switch to maintaining x86 stuff, they would simply stop being participants, since their interest was not longer a platform. In the most extreme cases, all the jilted people get so angry they abandon the community and fork their own version of whatever software their are crazy about (cough cough BeOS).
Its all well and good until someone feels cheated by a real bank, and defrauds their site. Justice is best handled by an organized police force. To bad no such thing really exists on the internet.
If you have to ask, wireless stuff may not be for you. Honesly, how much is going to be between the mouse and the receiver. A desk, a CPU? If you have to type through a concrete bunker, get a high powered radio solution, or a cord.
Really? I have tested my year old Microsoft Wireless Desktop pretty throughly. The mouse works to almost exactly 6 feet before the tracking gets iffy, then another 2 feet before there is no signal at all. I couldn't figure out the keyboards range, because it worked perfectly all over the room I was in (at max about 15 feet from the computer).
As little power as bluetooth uses, the protocols that some products use are even more low power. Bluetooth is a great protocol, but for a mouse, it does not necissarily make sense. To save power, most wireless mice enter a standby mode after a couple of seconds of inactivity. In the same way, the keyboard actually shuts off after each keystroke. This is not really possible with Bluetooth, since it is a general purpose protocol and there is lots of handshaking and keepalive packets being sent back and forth. Another problem was that no one ever really got the installation down. Bluetooth devices have to go through a device mating procedure that binds them to your computer, so if someone else walks into the room with a bluetooth enabled laptop, their cursor does not start flying all over. Basically, at best, this involved a 5-10 minute process of pushing pinholes on the mouse and keyboard and entering security keys in an installation wizard. It was just a lot of hassle.
As to laggy pointers, that probably the computer, not the mouse. Radio waves travel almost the speed of light, while there is more lag than with a wired mouse, you would be hard pressed to detect the difference with an atomic clock. A slow computer, however, will have a laggy pointer with even the nicest wired mouse. Don't discount the 27Mhz stuff completely, it has some nice features. Bluetooth definitely has it on range though. If I gave many presentations, I would definitely purchase a bluetooth set.
I have a no-name wireless mouse and keyboard and a nice Microsoft set, and both had no problem with pressing multiple keys of using both the mouse and keyboard at once. Needless to say, the expensive Microsoft set is much nicer in other ways than the no name, in terms of keyboard feel, and the mouse's sensitivity. What kind of wireless keyboard and mouse were these? It seems like such an easily overcomeable problem, what kind of company would release a product like that?
It has the most in common with the "G5", Apple's term for the IBM PPC970, which is a scaled down IBM Power 5 Processor. Basically, it lacks the ginormous cache of the Power 5, and some of the random do-dads of the PPC970, but gaining some other ones that help with graphics (vector processing stuff). It is the same basic 64 bit processor as the G5 and Power 5, and could probably run Mac OS X or a *nix if the other hardware was right. The interesting thing is that there are three of them on one chip, sharing one L2 cache.
What is his teenager doing on this computer? I have a Windows XP SP2 box with a basic firewall, running Firefox, and I get MAYBE 2 or 3 spyware programs per month. Is she running an unpatched ME machine with no firewall directly connected to the internet? Honestly, someone that high up should either hire someone to make his PC reasonably secure, or have the butler run Ad-Aware for him.
Yes, but then the car performs better for the price. Imagine this: A $249 6800 (I haven't actually check ed the prices today, but don't have a spaz, I am just trying to prove a point) performs about half as well as the $499 6800 Ultra. That makes sense, twice the price, twice the performance. Now, unlock the pipelines, and the 6800 is now the same as the 6800 Ultra, but with a slightly lower clock and slower RAM. Now you have 80% of the performance with 50% of the price, and sales of your top card drop. Now, the top of the line card always has a high profit margin, because people who need the extra 0.2 FPS in Doom 3 don't worry too much about price. Now, if you raise the price on the 6800 to compensate for the increased performance, 80% price for 80% performance, you are now stealing sales from the 6800GT. And then there is a gap in you lineup, the middle of the line card is missing.
It is a 64 bit PPC processor with 32k L1 cache per processor, and 1 MB L2 cache that is shared between the 3 cores, and can stream directly to the graphics card (???). Other than that, the details are under wraps. Its a PPC, so one assumes that it has the same instructions as the PPCs in Macs and some embedded computers. All processors are separate, but on the same die, so it is all on one chip.
No it doesn't. The processors may be the same, which helps with some code, but it still has new and propriatary IDE, USB, Infrared, Graphics, and sound systems. The early dev kits are limited in terms of how they resemble the XBox 360, but they give developers a chance to START developement before the real hardware is available to them. They have plent of porting to do to get it to work once the final hardware arrives.
Windows XP has opened up new horizons for me. The NTFS file system allows me to store more tahn 40 GB of PoRn on each disk partition. Thank you! Wanna shake my hand?
Whats the big deal? The console needs an OS, but it does not really matter which it has, since the game runs most of its own stuff, and the OS is used for relatively little compaired to a general purpose PC. So, the Xbox people had a choice. And since they DO WORK for Microsoft, why not use a kernel based on their OS? A modified NT kernel makes as much sense as a Linux or BSD kernel, and this way they do not have to buy expensive IDE kits and learn new stuff, they can use MS's inhouse expertese and software.
What would you run on it? The XBox was cobbled together from basically off the shelf hardware. 4 years down the line, and we still haven't gotten everything working with Linux yet. The XBox 360 has NO OFF THE SHELF HARDWARE. You would need to reverse engineer the processor, graphics processor, RAM, filesystem, and system bus, not to mention audio, usb and IR controllers. I won't even go into the rights management system, which I imagine can only be stronger than on the original XBox (2048 bit encryption key needed to boot the XBox 1) Then you would have to write your own APIs and compilers for accessing said devices. I don't think the OS is the biggest problem in terms of hackability right now.
Why can't Apple use Intel PowerPC chips. PowerPC processor designs can be liscenced from IBM, and there are several manufacturers, limited mostly by demand (well theres Apple, then theres...um...). If Intel can make PowerPCs cheaper and faster than IBM (not very hard to do, we are talking about IBM here) more power too them. On the other hand, perhaps this is only to scare IBM into lowering its prices and producing chip orders on time.
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You may have cell coverage in your area, but not high speed cell coverage. The cellular phone companies have several networks in co-existance. There is the old digital voice network, which covers pretty much the entire USA. The newer fast data networks are mostly covering only urban and dense suburban areas right now. I would seriously doubt that you would be in a high speed area with so low a population not even Cable TV is around. Now, these cell modem cards can work on the old network, but their speed is going to make your 17,700 baud modem seem like a dedicated T1 line. Also, even if you were in a coverage area, cellular modems are rediculously expensive. Besides the $200 for the modem, you need a basic service plan ($50 a month) plus an unlimited data package (another $50 a month).
Quick! Somebody buy another server and break the tie!
GPS units are WAY better than regular maps. You get a color (in most cases) version of the map on the screen, and no guesswork as to where exactly you are now or how fast you are approaching the next turn. I agree that most of the online mapping services are more geared towards providing printed out text instructions, their maps are not particularly usefull, especially if printed on a low quality inkjet or and monochrome laser printer.
Ya! Lets kill all those pesky platforms. For instance, Windows has a 90% market share. Kill everybody else off, and have them expend their efforts on making that more secure. Oh wait, its closed source. In truth, basically everyone who works on open source does so because they want to, and not just do right by the community, but on a certain project. For instance, if Linux dropped DEC Alpha support, for the most part, the DEC Linux community would not all see the light and switch to maintaining x86 stuff, they would simply stop being participants, since their interest was not longer a platform. In the most extreme cases, all the jilted people get so angry they abandon the community and fork their own version of whatever software their are crazy about (cough cough BeOS).
Its all well and good until someone feels cheated by a real bank, and defrauds their site. Justice is best handled by an organized police force. To bad no such thing really exists on the internet.
If you have to ask, wireless stuff may not be for you. Honesly, how much is going to be between the mouse and the receiver. A desk, a CPU? If you have to type through a concrete bunker, get a high powered radio solution, or a cord.
Really? I have tested my year old Microsoft Wireless Desktop pretty throughly. The mouse works to almost exactly 6 feet before the tracking gets iffy, then another 2 feet before there is no signal at all. I couldn't figure out the keyboards range, because it worked perfectly all over the room I was in (at max about 15 feet from the computer).
As little power as bluetooth uses, the protocols that some products use are even more low power. Bluetooth is a great protocol, but for a mouse, it does not necissarily make sense. To save power, most wireless mice enter a standby mode after a couple of seconds of inactivity. In the same way, the keyboard actually shuts off after each keystroke. This is not really possible with Bluetooth, since it is a general purpose protocol and there is lots of handshaking and keepalive packets being sent back and forth. Another problem was that no one ever really got the installation down. Bluetooth devices have to go through a device mating procedure that binds them to your computer, so if someone else walks into the room with a bluetooth enabled laptop, their cursor does not start flying all over. Basically, at best, this involved a 5-10 minute process of pushing pinholes on the mouse and keyboard and entering security keys in an installation wizard. It was just a lot of hassle. As to laggy pointers, that probably the computer, not the mouse. Radio waves travel almost the speed of light, while there is more lag than with a wired mouse, you would be hard pressed to detect the difference with an atomic clock. A slow computer, however, will have a laggy pointer with even the nicest wired mouse. Don't discount the 27Mhz stuff completely, it has some nice features. Bluetooth definitely has it on range though. If I gave many presentations, I would definitely purchase a bluetooth set.
I have a no-name wireless mouse and keyboard and a nice Microsoft set, and both had no problem with pressing multiple keys of using both the mouse and keyboard at once. Needless to say, the expensive Microsoft set is much nicer in other ways than the no name, in terms of keyboard feel, and the mouse's sensitivity. What kind of wireless keyboard and mouse were these? It seems like such an easily overcomeable problem, what kind of company would release a product like that?
It has the most in common with the "G5", Apple's term for the IBM PPC970, which is a scaled down IBM Power 5 Processor. Basically, it lacks the ginormous cache of the Power 5, and some of the random do-dads of the PPC970, but gaining some other ones that help with graphics (vector processing stuff). It is the same basic 64 bit processor as the G5 and Power 5, and could probably run Mac OS X or a *nix if the other hardware was right. The interesting thing is that there are three of them on one chip, sharing one L2 cache.
I can turn a 3Com chipset 10/100 Ethernet card into a TV Wonder HD with some tin foil and a pair of earbuds. Beat that!
What is his teenager doing on this computer? I have a Windows XP SP2 box with a basic firewall, running Firefox, and I get MAYBE 2 or 3 spyware programs per month. Is she running an unpatched ME machine with no firewall directly connected to the internet? Honestly, someone that high up should either hire someone to make his PC reasonably secure, or have the butler run Ad-Aware for him.
Yes, but then the car performs better for the price. Imagine this: A $249 6800 (I haven't actually check ed the prices today, but don't have a spaz, I am just trying to prove a point) performs about half as well as the $499 6800 Ultra. That makes sense, twice the price, twice the performance. Now, unlock the pipelines, and the 6800 is now the same as the 6800 Ultra, but with a slightly lower clock and slower RAM. Now you have 80% of the performance with 50% of the price, and sales of your top card drop. Now, the top of the line card always has a high profit margin, because people who need the extra 0.2 FPS in Doom 3 don't worry too much about price. Now, if you raise the price on the 6800 to compensate for the increased performance, 80% price for 80% performance, you are now stealing sales from the 6800GT. And then there is a gap in you lineup, the middle of the line card is missing.
I turned my 6800 into a Radeon 9700 Pro with my 1337 sk1lz!
Ok. You code, and I will keep you supplied with hot pockets and Jolt.
It is a 64 bit PPC processor with 32k L1 cache per processor, and 1 MB L2 cache that is shared between the 3 cores, and can stream directly to the graphics card (???). Other than that, the details are under wraps. Its a PPC, so one assumes that it has the same instructions as the PPCs in Macs and some embedded computers. All processors are separate, but on the same die, so it is all on one chip.
No it doesn't. The processors may be the same, which helps with some code, but it still has new and propriatary IDE, USB, Infrared, Graphics, and sound systems. The early dev kits are limited in terms of how they resemble the XBox 360, but they give developers a chance to START developement before the real hardware is available to them. They have plent of porting to do to get it to work once the final hardware arrives.
Windows XP has opened up new horizons for me. The NTFS file system allows me to store more tahn 40 GB of PoRn on each disk partition. Thank you! Wanna shake my hand?
Please say this is a firmware upgrade to my $50 DVD+-RV drive.
Simple solution: Write an HTML rendering toolbar that allows you to view webpages!
Would probably use more power. Thats 8 USB to Flash controllers and assorted overhead.
Whats the big deal? The console needs an OS, but it does not really matter which it has, since the game runs most of its own stuff, and the OS is used for relatively little compaired to a general purpose PC. So, the Xbox people had a choice. And since they DO WORK for Microsoft, why not use a kernel based on their OS? A modified NT kernel makes as much sense as a Linux or BSD kernel, and this way they do not have to buy expensive IDE kits and learn new stuff, they can use MS's inhouse expertese and software.
What would you run on it? The XBox was cobbled together from basically off the shelf hardware. 4 years down the line, and we still haven't gotten everything working with Linux yet. The XBox 360 has NO OFF THE SHELF HARDWARE. You would need to reverse engineer the processor, graphics processor, RAM, filesystem, and system bus, not to mention audio, usb and IR controllers. I won't even go into the rights management system, which I imagine can only be stronger than on the original XBox (2048 bit encryption key needed to boot the XBox 1) Then you would have to write your own APIs and compilers for accessing said devices. I don't think the OS is the biggest problem in terms of hackability right now.
What was that sound?
Oh, Bram Cohen's plausible deniability flying out a window...
Why can't Apple use Intel PowerPC chips. PowerPC processor designs can be liscenced from IBM, and there are several manufacturers, limited mostly by demand (well theres Apple, then theres...um...). If Intel can make PowerPCs cheaper and faster than IBM (not very hard to do, we are talking about IBM here) more power too them. On the other hand, perhaps this is only to scare IBM into lowering its prices and producing chip orders on time.