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User: Jozer99

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  1. Re:Nikola Tesla? on Wireless Power Recharging Nears Fruition · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes, but the problem was that if you got close enough to the changing station, it would charge you, in the form of 40000000 kajillion volts. They were also monsterously ineffecient, his test models that could power an acre with usable amerage were the size of light houses. Nowadays, we also know that having that much EMI around constantly will give you cancer in short order. What this company is probably doing is called inductive coupling. This is a relatively simple phenomina. When you have lots of electrity running through a coil, then you place some more wire inside the coil, current is generated in the second coil. This is not a long range effect, so don't think that when you walk in your front door your cell phone and laptop will start charging. It would be more of a "place the device on the special box, no plugging it in" kind of thing. My question is how much power it uses. Induction is much weaker than conduction, so it seems like a laptop that requires 30W of power to recharge would need 1000W to run through the charging mat. I wonder how much more people are willing to pay on their electric bills so they don't have to plug their laptops into the power adapter every day.

  2. 4 Cells? on A Look Into The Cell Architecture · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In the article, they say the PS3 will have 4 Cells each running at 1.6v with 85W heat disipation!!! If that is true, they are not only going to need at least a 500W power supply (maybe significantly more), but also to get rid of 340W of heat! How is this going to fit under my TV?

  3. What to add on Closed Digital Cameras - Does Anyone Care? · · Score: 1

    How much could you add to your camera? An extra picture format? It just does not seem worth it for hardware worth only a couple of hundred dollars that will be obsolete in 2 weeks and hopelessly outdated in 2 months. Plus, XBox got hacked because a large number of people have an XBox. How many people do you know with the exact same model digital camera as you?

  4. Re:Why aren't vendors responsible on MyDoom Strikes Again · · Score: 1

    This kind of post is WAY to common. The reason that Microsoft is not getting sued is because their product is not defective in the sense that you think it is. Some products are clearly dangerous, such as baby toys that have sharp edges, ect. However, you don't sue Toyota when your car needs new spark plugs, because as a complex mechanical device, failure of certain parts is ineveitable. Lets say that Toyota has 10,000 parts, max. Windows XP has over 1TB of source code. If we conservatively assume 5 lines of code per KB, that works out to over 5 billion lines of code. Crashes and weaknesses are to be expected. They fact that they attempt to fix them as fast as possible is a point for them. Remember there is no law requiring 90% of computers to use Windows, people, companies, and governments use it because at the moment, it is the easiest path. Right now it seems that Linux is making great gains on that, but Windows is still the king, for now.

  5. Re:The nice thing about APIs is there's so many of on Avalon Preview Released for XP · · Score: 1

    It was in joint developement by Microsoft, DEC and others for almost a decade, but there were not versions available to the public until years later, when Microsoft took over the project completely and released Windows NT 3.2 (I think that was the first public version, I know 3.5 and 4.0 sold much better).

  6. Re:it would still be awesome using grayscale on Wireless Bluetooth Sunglasses · · Score: 1

    But since it is using ambient light AND color, anything you displayed would just look like whatever you are looking at, distorted. I doubt that you could comfortably read characters like that, and if you could, it would be nausiating.

  7. Re:Too bad... on MyDoom Strikes Again · · Score: 1

    We do, its called a learning curve. The best way to keep losers from using computers is to make it so losers CAN'T use computers! I would like to thank Microsoft and the open source/linux community for making giant leaps in this direction, and countering the regression caused by Macs.

  8. Re:MP3 Player built in? on Wireless Bluetooth Sunglasses · · Score: 1

    A HUD would be hard to do with bluetooth. Remember that you have only 768kbs MAXIMUM bandwidth. How high quality of the video would that create with handheld hardware. Also, another limitation is that HUDs have to either have very large lense systems or be 4-5" from your eye to be in focus. Sunglasses will never be able to do that, unless they are able to create a display techonoly that can defocus.

  9. Re:More really old "news" on Airbus Launches 800 Passenger Jumbo Jet · · Score: 1

    It is definitely not new news, but where are they getting the 800 passenger quote? All of their links, plus research on google shows 555 passengers max. Now they might be able to do 800 seats if they are all third class, but there is the limitation of luggage space; a 1st class traveller has the same ammount of luggage as a 3rd class flyer. There is only so much room in the hold.

  10. Re:The nice thing about APIs is there's so many of on Avalon Preview Released for XP · · Score: 1

    Wow, you were using Windows NT graphics APIs in January 1990? Wow!!!! You must be pretty darn connected to get copies of OSs before they were released or even writen!

  11. Re:64bit is new in OS X Tiger?! on Looking Ahead to Tiger, Powerbook G5s · · Score: 1

    No. No Mac OS has been sixty four bit yet. Remember the big boing sound heard across the net when Panther came out and ran only in 32 bit mode? Basically, the 64 bit extensions of the G5 are not used by much, especially the OS. I think the main reason is that Apple does not have the resources to maintain 2 separate versions of OS X, one for G3s and G4s, and one for G5s. Microsoft does however. If you want true 64 bit computing on a G5, use a linux distro.

  12. Re:Bodes well for Tiger-candy on iBook? on Apple Releases Mac Mini · · Score: 1

    You have this confused. It is Quartz Extreme that provides the eye candy (if you mean the animations on the desktop). This is simply Apple's reality distortion field-warped version of OpenGL. Quartz Exreme requires a card with hardware OpenGL support, as well as a special driver. The drivers are available for all new Macs, but not for some older ones and some 3rd party cards. The Radeon 9200 is certainly fast enough to run Quartz, comes from a major manufacturer, and is the default card on an Apple system. You can bet that this supports Quartz Extreme. At school, I use 700Mhz eMacs running Panther. They run QE just fine, even with their gForce2 MX graphics and 256 MB of RAM (in fact QE is about the only thing that runs smoothly on these machines, they are in dire need of a RAM upgrade). Remember, although this machine is low end now, about a year and a half ago, a G4 tower with a single 1.25 GHz processor and a Radeon 9200 was going for well over $2000.

  13. Re:Headless Alternative for Less on Apple Releases Mac Mini · · Score: 1

    This is insanely overpriced, a poor example. If you notice, they are charging over $350 for the case alone. Building one of these with parts from MiniITX.com would cost half as much. $100 for case and PS, $120 for the MB, Processor, graphics, ethernet and sound, then standard pries for everything else off of froogle.

  14. Re:Headless Alternative for Less on Apple Releases Mac Mini · · Score: 1

    Store more than 40 gigs of data, for one.

  15. Re:Except a PC is in your house, not your garage on Adding Pizazz to Your RAM · · Score: 1

    I will personally guarentee you that Apple will NEVER EVER come out with combo RAM/Displays. (And if they did, you can bet they would be a heck of a lot more expensive then these are).

  16. Re:from the B-F-D dept on Adding Pizazz to Your RAM · · Score: 1

    I think it would make a lot more sense to stick the LED display somewhere you might actually use it, like on the front of the case. Even if you have a window, no one gets down on their knees to peer at their RAM to find out how much physical memory they have free. A bigger heatsync makes much more sense. BTW, a giant wing on a Mercury Sable looks much worse than on a Civic (I learned this from what is parked in my neighbors driveway).

  17. Re:Where to go? on Biggest Identity Thief Ever Gets Put Away · · Score: 1

    Why not go the Apple way? Get an iLife, with almost all the features of a regular identity, and a bargin at $99! It make be more expensive then a regular identity with less features, but it looks so much cooler!

  18. It makes me sad on Biggest Identity Thief Ever Gets Put Away · · Score: 1

    It makes me sad that no one who's identity was stolen will ever see a dime. I am going to write angry E-Mails to the government with all of my identities.

  19. Re:Small Form Factor PCs? on iPod Shuffle, Mac Mini, iLife '05, iWork · · Score: 1

    So far, Macs have proved a pitiful platform for any Tivo-like program. There are just no tuners out there, and no software either. A Mini-ITX box with compariable specs would have a PCI slot for a tuner card WITH hardware MPEG2 Encoder. For $500, it would come with a 15" or 17" monitor.

  20. Re:Perfect Terminal on iPod Shuffle, Mac Mini, iLife '05, iWork · · Score: 1

    Thats one crazy expensive X Terminal.

  21. Re:I dont understand on Belkin Offering Pre-802.11N Products · · Score: 1

    True, but if you are the kind of bleeding edge geek who would actually consider purchasing networking equiptment that came out even before the standard was ratified, then an 802.11g card would be worse than useless to you, and would go out in the trash along with your hopelessly outdated P4 Extreme Edition 3.2 GHz, your Radeon 9800XT Pro, your slow 8x DVD burner, and your measly 19" LCD monitor. I wish people like this lived near me.

  22. Depends on PCs For A Workshop Environment? · · Score: 1

    It depends how much you want to do. The whole closet thing and wireless keyboard is a good idea, but it is hard, since most houses don't have a computer sized closet next to the garage or basement. I would personally buy an old industrial computer. They are suprisingly cheap on eBay. You can get ultra-rugged sealed ones used for outdoor equiptment monitoring with a PII in them for chimp change, since they are large, ugly, and limited in expansion, nobody really wants them. As for monitors and keyboards, sawdust and metal shavings get EVERYWHERE anyway, so no solution is going to work very well. I would say pick up the cheapest keyboard you can, and get a waterproof covering for it. You can google for them, they are used for public computer kiosks, ect... The monitor is trickier. An LCD would probably be less prone to damge from sawdust, since you can seal off all the holes on it, unlike a CRT. However, as mentioned previously, sawdust will find its way in anyway, and the expense of replacing an LCD may be less than that of buying 4 cheap CRTs. If you wanted to put lots of effort into it, you could build a sealed plexiglass box for the monitor, and have a little poker to turn it on or off, and sealant of some kind around the holes where the power and video cables come out. If you don't need video, just text, I have heard that old DEC VT1000s are damn near indestructable. In the instruction manual, it even says to put the keyboard through your dishwasher if it gets too dirty!

  23. Re:I dont understand on Belkin Offering Pre-802.11N Products · · Score: 1

    Manufacturers rarely develope their chips to do one thing only. They are basically semi-specialized processors, for the most part. A firmware upgrade will allow them to add features like encryption and other similar features, but not things like new frequencies which has to do with the antennas and tuners. So as long as the changes are minor, then the cards will likely be upgradeable. If they change the channel frequencies slightly (to avoid interference) then the cards are $120 shims.

  24. Re:I dont understand on Belkin Offering Pre-802.11N Products · · Score: 2, Informative

    Its not a trademark, but an IEEE standard. To make a product labeled to support a standard that actually doesn't is false advertising, which is an offense.

  25. Re:Real-world speed, though on Belkin Offering Pre-802.11N Products · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I would hope it is faster than the US Robotics 108 and 125 Mbs stuff. They actually add about 500 Kps to your bandwidth. :(