Luckily or Unluckly for us over the pond, FM transmitters such as these are illegal in the UK.
Here, we cannot have a personal transmitter that works over the normal FM radio band, which is why we have special transmitter/reciever combos that work on the 2.4Ghz band instead (plays major havoc with Bluetooth and WiFi)
If they rat out their customers, they lose Common Carrier status, which is protecting them in the first place.
I think you hit the nail in the head perfectly here. It wasnt for marketing or any other reason, but this.
Loosing common carrier status will be a massive liability for them, and can cause more issues on other fronts.
This will apply to port blocking too. I think if a ISP blocks ports without the customer's consent (ie the customer specifically requesting the blocking of certain ports, eg MS File and Print sharing), the ISP becomes less of a common carrier, and more of a host, and this does haev legal ramifications
maybe putting a lower res version, with a clicky to a highres version, may have helped with the bandwidth, after all, Slashdotters never go past the first page!
for those NOT living in the UK, this is a big thing. Mr Blunket was seen as a "nice guy" by many, however, was responsible for the deterioration of UK civil liberties in the fight against terrorism. Its somewhat ironic that Mr "Nice Guy" Blunket got ousted thansk to abuse of power and sleeze that is the downfall of most ousted MPs here.
Before we met each other... we used to proclaim how hell would freeze over before either of us get married... That was until we met each other...and last month we ended up marrying each other...
IF the climate was to get warmer, and the polar ice caps were to start melting, especially the North Pole, this woudl distrupt the Gulf Stream which hits the UK, and parts of Europe.
The Gulf Stream is what keeps the UK warmer than it should be./ For example, the east part of the UK, is generally colder in the winter than the west parts. My wife's family lives in Portsmouth, and that feels warmer in winter in general to London, on the East.
If the Gulf stream is disrupted, The UK will turn into a scandanavian country, with huge snowfalls, etc (something that contrary to myth, we DONT get much of). So yes, the rest of the world gets warmer, and the UK gets colder...
no they cannot reply actually.. remember, u cannot DOWNLOAD IE anymore!:)
hmmmm
imagine.. they putting out the ad, and people try to download.. only being told that the latest IE is not available for their system, and they will haev to upgrade to XP.. costing money...
Yes GSM is a great system. You are right about the US implementation sucking big time. There are many reasons including:
1) Size of coverage. The US is huge, in terms of coverage, it really cannot be compared to europe, however, a counterexample is Australia, which has a lower density than the US, yet still has a pretty decent GSM system (see point 3)
2) Inefficient CODECS. The GSM standard has three different Codecs, Half Rate (HR), Full Rate (FR), and Enhanced Full Rate (EFR). HR uses Half the bandwidth of FR or EFR, and EFR uses more effiecient compression to get better quality out of the same bandwidth. Europe and the rest of the world tends to use EFR, which gives a sound quality comparable to a landline (in fact, in the early times, GSM operators had to introduce some random noise as phone users where spooked by the clarity). The US for bandwidth and other reasons use HR, which is really an emergancy codec.
3) FRequency. GSM was originally designed around the 900Mhz frequency, as this gives good range. Shortly after, the 1800Mhz frequency was added for city centers, where range is less than 900Mhz, but bandwidth is higher. European phones can switch between bands automatically, even during a call, depending on where you are. This gives a great balence between coverage and bandwidth. When GSM was permitted in US, instead of going with the rest of the world, the US choose 1900Mhz, which gives awefull range for a country the size of the US.
With the rise of popularity of GSM, the US finally permitted a Lower frequency for greater range, but instead of using the worlwide 900Mhz (the most common frequency), they introduced ANOTHER frequency, 850MHZ. This has even greater ramifications. Whilst you can get Tri Band phones that use the 900,1800,1900Mhz frequencies, the 850 and 900 is too "close" to utilise both in the same phone. SO newer American Tri Band phones use 850, 1800, 1900 Mhz, which totally ruin the use of the phone worldwide, since 1800Mhz is NOT so widely adopted, whereas 900Mhz is present in all countries with GSM.
There is some hope though. Canada which also has to utilise the 1900Mhz band, have managed to create a pretty usable GSM network for their main cities. Its still not perfect, and uses an insane number of transmitters, but when i recently visited Canada, I did get a very usable experience on GSM there, using my UK tri Band mobile.
Didnt always have that though, was once poor, and drove an Escort...
DId i ever have problems chatting up the girls? no
Did the car/money help? not really
the key is attitude, personality, and a healthy dose of honesty (if you are looking for a long term). That was what got me my wife, a gorgeous sexy woman, who knows what a Wife should be like (ie not a bitch)
Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox DOES use a HTML file for its bookmarks, and always has.... (search for bookmarks.html in the appropriate folder). You can view it in the browser.
Getting it to work from a network... well shoudlnt be hard to code that..
Something is wrong if competition in any product line continually focuses on security and stability. These design attributes are basic requirements, not advanced features. You won't see advertisements for toaster ovens that say "Now, it explodes less often!"
This is probably a very important quote, and is very true. Us geeks may rant about the security of Firefox compared to IE, its not whats going to help win over users. Its like Bush vs Kerry. Kerry would not win JUST because he was "anti-bush", because thats the nature of opposition.
DV is significantly higher quality than MPEG2 (each frame is stored on DV, without interfram tricks), the drawback is it requires significant more storage, but is much easier to edit (each frame is a keyframe)
Each tape costs me £1.30 ($2.50) for approx 20GB storage. I send the captured video direct via firewire to my comp, with the computer handling the cutlist.
I then edit using MediaStudio, and then render a final AVI, which i send BACK to the camcorder using Firewire to a tape as a long term master. (Tapes are FAR more robust than Recordable DVDs)
Finally, once I am happy with the end result, i would use a transcoder to convert to MPEG2 overnight (i am testing various 2 pass transcoders)
This method, despite being slow, gives better results than a runtime encoded MPEG2 camcorder.
For this reason i will not go for a HD based camcorder, especially for the robustness and cheapness of Tape.
Re:It is not a real CPU , from what I read.
on
A .Net CPU
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
Not quite correct, ALL modern CPU's are based on a type of firmware (read Microcode). Modern Athlons/Pentiums, have multiple RISC units onchip, with a translator intepreting the x86 code.
Your Muvo 4GB is ALSO a HD based player (uses a CF Microdrive inside).
They are actually made by Creative, or at least designed by them, and farmed out to Korea for manufacture.
The MUVO's all appear as USB Mass Storage devices, and actually perform very well (when using USB2.0).
The ZEN and the Jukebox models are the ones that use client software, and only because rumour has it that they were put under pressure by someone (read RIAA), to avoid the devices being used as "sneakernet" P2P, sharing thousands of songs.
However, there are plenty of alternative software to use instead of the Creative Versions, but its still a royal pain in the ass.
I am actually on T-Mobile(UK), and to be honest, its not bad at all...
but given, when i roam in the US, its intresting, coz even though I have a greater choice of service providers, as the phone logs to the strongest signal (not just to one provider), I still get crap reception!
That is actually possible. If Airbus were to introduce small pico transmitters into their planes, the Pico transmitters can shut down voice communications, and only allow GPRS, or GSM subbands (for SMS)
And yes, SMS is MUCH better, not just for discreteness but imaging speaking to someone the following conversation:
You: I am on flight XY123 and i am late into Term..&^*&^* by &*(*&(hours
them: can you repeat that?
you: I am on flight XY^%& and I am late into terminal 3 by ^&* hours
them: can you repeat that
you: I am on flight XY123 and I am late into terminal three by 2 hours.
them: oh ok..... ten minuites later
them: erm can you say that again, i lost the paper i noted it down on.
you: errrrrrrrhhhhhh
whereas a simple SMS is discrete and gets the message across as quick as possible.
In reply to the anonymous coward who blessed us with his insight.
That's got to be bullshit. This person forgot to turn their phone off the entire flight?
Have you been flying much?
Surely after the first SMS arrived it was kinda obvious it was still on. This person, and you, forgot nothing - you turned your phones on in specific and considered defiance of what you had been asked to do.
Whether the person accidently forgot, or intentionally left it on, I am not sure. I DID intentionally turn it on, and i didnt even imply that i did it accidently
I don't know whether there really is a danger to aircraft posed by mobile phones, but you were both being incredibly selfish and shortsighted, IMHO.
I am a pilot, and have been heavily involved in the airline industry, especially nagivation radios. We have tested the effect of Cellphoens across a wide range of Navigational Equipment. Cellphones do NOT seem to affect the Navigational equipment at all. There is already a large amount of radio transmitions bombarding the plane, especially when high up in the stratosphere (from satellites, etc).
the baud rate for communication used on planes is so low, it takes a lot of interference to dilute the messages used in airline electronic communications. In the rare cases where the noise is great enough to dilute the signal, the effect lasts a milisecond, which is very insignificant.
I was actually more suprised that the cellphone actually worked, and logged on a ground station, when you consider it has to log in, then create the roaming agreements, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Luckily or Unluckly for us over the pond, FM transmitters such as these are illegal in the UK.
Here, we cannot have a personal transmitter that works over the normal FM radio band, which is why we have special transmitter/reciever combos that work on the 2.4Ghz band instead (plays major havoc with Bluetooth and WiFi)
So we are safe... for now...
I think you hit the nail in the head perfectly here. It wasnt for marketing or any other reason, but this.
Loosing common carrier status will be a massive liability for them, and can cause more issues on other fronts.
This will apply to port blocking too. I think if a ISP blocks ports without the customer's consent (ie the customer specifically requesting the blocking of certain ports, eg MS File and Print sharing), the ISP becomes less of a common carrier, and more of a host, and this does haev legal ramifications
Then i guess i can stop calling myself a geek.. coz i am definately getting laid! :)
maybe putting a lower res version, with a clicky to a highres version, may have helped with the bandwidth, after all, Slashdotters never go past the first page!
for those NOT living in the UK, this is a big thing. Mr Blunket was seen as a "nice guy" by many, however, was responsible for the deterioration of UK civil liberties in the fight against terrorism. Its somewhat ironic that Mr "Nice Guy" Blunket got ousted thansk to abuse of power and sleeze that is the downfall of most ousted MPs here.
Wrong, XPI's CAN have the same permissions as Active X installers. If you download Java as an xpi, it can install fromt he same xpi file......
Its very similar to the way things work here in the UK...
Canada looks a bit liek America, but works likes UK and other european countries, certainly the best of both worlds.
Actually the fault is mine and my wife's...
Before we met each other... we used to proclaim how hell would freeze over before either of us get married... That was until we met each other...and last month we ended up marrying each other...
sorry folks!
This is very true...
IF the climate was to get warmer, and the polar ice caps were to start melting, especially the North Pole, this woudl distrupt the Gulf Stream which hits the UK, and parts of Europe.
The Gulf Stream is what keeps the UK warmer than it should be./ For example, the east part of the UK, is generally colder in the winter than the west parts. My wife's family lives in Portsmouth, and that feels warmer in winter in general to London, on the East.
If the Gulf stream is disrupted, The UK will turn into a scandanavian country, with huge snowfalls, etc (something that contrary to myth, we DONT get much of). So yes, the rest of the world gets warmer, and the UK gets colder...
no they cannot reply actually.. remember, u cannot DOWNLOAD IE anymore! :)
;)
hmmmm
imagine.. they putting out the ad, and people try to download.. only being told that the latest IE is not available for their system, and they will haev to upgrade to XP.. costing money...
more free advertising for Firefox, eh?
That sucky law has not been enforceable, and in practice, noone gives two monkeys, police included.
This may be a "law", but in all practical terms, it will never work.
as said, people forget passwords, etc.
All it takes is one high court case, observed by our sensationalistic media, and that law will be consigned to the gutter.
Yes GSM is a great system. You are right about the US implementation sucking big time. There are many reasons including:
1) Size of coverage. The US is huge, in terms of coverage, it really cannot be compared to europe, however, a counterexample is Australia, which has a lower density than the US, yet still has a pretty decent GSM system (see point 3)
2) Inefficient CODECS. The GSM standard has three different Codecs, Half Rate (HR), Full Rate (FR), and Enhanced Full Rate (EFR). HR uses Half the bandwidth of FR or EFR, and EFR uses more effiecient compression to get better quality out of the same bandwidth. Europe and the rest of the world tends to use EFR, which gives a sound quality comparable to a landline (in fact, in the early times, GSM operators had to introduce some random noise as phone users where spooked by the clarity). The US for bandwidth and other reasons use HR, which is really an emergancy codec.
3) FRequency. GSM was originally designed around the 900Mhz frequency, as this gives good range. Shortly after, the 1800Mhz frequency was added for city centers, where range is less than 900Mhz, but bandwidth is higher. European phones can switch between bands automatically, even during a call, depending on where you are. This gives a great balence between coverage and bandwidth. When GSM was permitted in US, instead of going with the rest of the world, the US choose 1900Mhz, which gives awefull range for a country the size of the US.
With the rise of popularity of GSM, the US finally permitted a Lower frequency for greater range, but instead of using the worlwide 900Mhz (the most common frequency), they introduced ANOTHER frequency, 850MHZ. This has even greater ramifications. Whilst you can get Tri Band phones that use the 900,1800,1900Mhz frequencies, the 850 and 900 is too "close" to utilise both in the same phone. SO newer American Tri Band phones use 850, 1800, 1900 Mhz, which totally ruin the use of the phone worldwide, since 1800Mhz is NOT so widely adopted, whereas 900Mhz is present in all countries with GSM.
There is some hope though. Canada which also has to utilise the 1900Mhz band, have managed to create a pretty usable GSM network for their main cities. Its still not perfect, and uses an insane number of transmitters, but when i recently visited Canada, I did get a very usable experience on GSM there, using my UK tri Band mobile.
Well said...
I would rather have something that is simple and sounds great, without the waft some "geeky" stuff have. I like my Muvo player, simple, and sweet.
My wife?
:)
smart... good looking... hot... personality... and knows how to be a wife
I am a bastard with money, and a Merc....
Didnt always have that though, was once poor, and drove an Escort...
DId i ever have problems chatting up the girls? no
Did the car/money help? not really
the key is attitude, personality, and a healthy dose of honesty (if you are looking for a long term). That was what got me my wife, a gorgeous sexy woman, who knows what a Wife should be like (ie not a bitch)
Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox DOES use a HTML file for its bookmarks, and always has.... (search for bookmarks.html in the appropriate folder). You can view it in the browser.
Getting it to work from a network... well shoudlnt be hard to code that..
This is probably a very important quote, and is very true. Us geeks may rant about the security of Firefox compared to IE, its not whats going to help win over users. Its like Bush vs Kerry. Kerry would not win JUST because he was "anti-bush", because thats the nature of opposition.
I use miniDV for my entire video capture/editing.
DV is significantly higher quality than MPEG2 (each frame is stored on DV, without interfram tricks), the drawback is it requires significant more storage, but is much easier to edit (each frame is a keyframe)
Each tape costs me £1.30 ($2.50) for approx 20GB storage. I send the captured video direct via firewire to my comp, with the computer handling the cutlist.
I then edit using MediaStudio, and then render a final AVI, which i send BACK to the camcorder using Firewire to a tape as a long term master. (Tapes are FAR more robust than Recordable DVDs)
Finally, once I am happy with the end result, i would use a transcoder to convert to MPEG2 overnight (i am testing various 2 pass transcoders)
This method, despite being slow, gives better results than a runtime encoded MPEG2 camcorder.
For this reason i will not go for a HD based camcorder, especially for the robustness and cheapness of Tape.
Not quite correct, ALL modern CPU's are based on a type of firmware (read Microcode). Modern Athlons/Pentiums, have multiple RISC units onchip, with a translator intepreting the x86 code.
Your Muvo 4GB is ALSO a HD based player (uses a CF Microdrive inside).
They are actually made by Creative, or at least designed by them, and farmed out to Korea for manufacture.
The MUVO's all appear as USB Mass Storage devices, and actually perform very well (when using USB2.0).
The ZEN and the Jukebox models are the ones that use client software, and only because rumour has it that they were put under pressure by someone (read RIAA), to avoid the devices being used as "sneakernet" P2P, sharing thousands of songs.
However, there are plenty of alternative software to use instead of the Creative Versions, but its still a royal pain in the ass.
ALL the Creative MUVO players do the same thing, appear as a thumb drive, including the Muvo^2 which has a nice 4 GB hard disk ;)
Creative ZEN and Jukebox on the other hand........ grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
I am actually on T-Mobile(UK), and to be honest, its not bad at all...
but given, when i roam in the US, its intresting, coz even though I have a greater choice of service providers, as the phone logs to the strongest signal (not just to one provider), I still get crap reception!
That is actually possible. If Airbus were to introduce small pico transmitters into their planes, the Pico transmitters can shut down voice communications, and only allow GPRS, or GSM subbands (for SMS)
..... ten minuites later
And yes, SMS is MUCH better, not just for discreteness but imaging speaking to someone the following conversation:
You: I am on flight XY123 and i am late into Term..&^*&^* by &*(*&(hours
them: can you repeat that?
you: I am on flight XY^%& and I am late into terminal 3 by ^&* hours
them: can you repeat that
you: I am on flight XY123 and I am late into terminal three by 2 hours.
them: oh ok
them: erm can you say that again, i lost the paper i noted it down on.
you: errrrrrrrhhhhhh
whereas a simple SMS is discrete and gets the message across as quick as possible.
Have you been flying much?
Whether the person accidently forgot, or intentionally left it on, I am not sure. I DID intentionally turn it on, and i didnt even imply that i did it accidently
I am a pilot, and have been heavily involved in the airline industry, especially nagivation radios. We have tested the effect of Cellphoens across a wide range of Navigational Equipment. Cellphones do NOT seem to affect the Navigational equipment at all. There is already a large amount of radio transmitions bombarding the plane, especially when high up in the stratosphere (from satellites, etc).
the baud rate for communication used on planes is so low, it takes a lot of interference to dilute the messages used in airline electronic communications. In the rare cases where the noise is great enough to dilute the signal, the effect lasts a milisecond, which is very insignificant.
I was actually more suprised that the cellphone actually worked, and logged on a ground station, when you consider it has to log in, then create the roaming agreements, etc.