... is a significant part of the reason why the rest of the US (and other country such as China) are overworked, overstressed, in bad general health and overweight.
(Most Europe also has meal brake. That doesn't only include our giant bankrupcy generator (Greece), but also countries like Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia...)
Does BLU produce also dual-radio dual-SIM (where it's not 1 single radio alternating between 2 SIMS, but each SIM being constantly connected to the network through its own pipe) ?
If that's the case, there wouldn't be much that Apple could realistically patent that wouldn't be prior art by the company you mention.
On the other hand, given the warchest of Apple and the amount of lawyers they can afford, it's not a sure thing that BLU will be able to claim prior art before being driven to the ground.
but Project Ara always seemed like a cool but infeasible concept to me because it's completely impractical and incompatible with how smartphones are made and sold,
Yet, Fairphone 2 smartphone are already on the market.
Okay, they are not as modular as Project Ara.
Project Ara wanted some kind of "universal bus for absolutely everything", and the end user able to plug whatever the fuck he wanted.(You want to plug 3 screens on your phone ? You're welcome !)
Fariphone 2 is much more simplistic - the phone is made of a few module which are more or less documented and standised (meaning that they could make a later camera module with better specs, or a connector module with USB-C instead of micro USB, etc... as long as it used the same pogo pins), and leaves a standard connector for 3rd parties and hacker to abuse with USB and charging pogo pins. (A little bit more evolved but reminiscent of the Jolla concept of a modular "Other Half" back-cover and available I2C pins and RFID antena for the hacker to play with).
But maybe that's why project Ara has folded, while Fairphone2 are on the display of a shop in my neighborhood. The former was over complex piece of technology that would require a huge leap in technology to solve a problem that not too many people on the market cared about. The latter was a baby step, just one level above the Fariphone1 (which was simply an end-user reparable smartphone). Surfing on the same repairable argument that was the success of the previous model, while incrementing over it (now because it's standardised module, the smartphone won't be fucked once the online shop runs out of replacement part - like screens for Fairphone1 - they could just produce another module as long as it follows the same spec) Okay you can't still randomly replace module, like throwing the camera module to put an extra battery in (different pinouts, unlike the "single bus to rule them all" of Ara) and if you really want an extra screen on the back of your only option is the USB pogopins. But it enabled Fairphone to make a real device that actually ships.
If you carefully read what's written on the back cover of your phone, there's probably "Made in China" written there. And your brand is probably some random unknown no-name asian brand (that has been already successfully flooding the Indian market for the part decade).
Whereas that one is going to have "Designed in California" written in it (or maybe even "Assembled in the USA" because that's where they do the finally "assembly step". Like slaping the logo on the back). And it's brand that has successfully brainwashing the masses into thinking that it must be inherently better because there's the image of a fruit on it.
(The fact that the circuit board of both phones were soldered by the same poor over-worked quasy-slave employed at some chinese subcontractor does never come into play)
And IRL, lots of people have already done in the past. Tons of asian hardware maker.
Random example: The Jolla C, produced in partnership with the Indian company "Intex" has dual-SIMs The Fairphone 2, also features dual-SIMs.
It just happens that most of these are produced in countries that don't give a shit about intellectual property (e.g.: China) And probably none of those have been produced in the US (the two example I cited are European. Finnish and Dutch respectively).
So Apple will probably the first to *patent* it, in the USA. (And they'll have the necessary budget to finance the necessary amount of lawyers to get it happen). And will probably manage to have their marketing department persuade the sheeple that they invented it. (Like they did with portable music player, pocket-sized computers, etc.)
This class of treatment is usually about growing some special-purpose "designer" white cells that are able to kill the cancer while leaving the almost similar looking rest of the body intact.
Growing such designer cells requires tremendous lab resources.
We still need some revolutions similar to how Oxford Minion and CRISPR/Cas9 brought their capabilities to the masses.
(for the TL;DR version of people who don't want to plow through dozens of PubMed articles: - basically these "cure any cancer" methods consist of growing specially designed immune cell that are specific for the cancer and only will attack it while leaving the body intact. - Achieving it requires a whole university complex of genomics, proteomics, culture-cell growing and selection, etc. and is in the range of million-worth per cure. - In addition the the cost and the facilities it doesn't even *scale* beyond a few experimental patients - even if 50 billionaires decided to throw the money, the could only be cured one at a time)
But the general proof of concept works.
And perhaps one day, after a few "Oxford Minion" and "CRISPR/Cas9"-like revolutions down the line, new technology might get developed that brings this out of the "designer medicine for the most outrageously wealthy elite" domain and bring it within reach of normal people.
(Well maybe "normal people who live in countries featuring a decent public health system". Sorry for you USA... maybe you could try to flee to one of those evil-communist countries like Canada or most of Europe ?)
Interestingly, not on TGVs which are among the most common high speed trains in Europe (470 trains). These trains have power cars at both ends.
On the other hand, German ICE (InterCity Express) and Swiss ICN (InterCity Neigezug) both use the "no power cars / each wagon with an electric motor" configuration (though not on 1st class wagons in the swiss case to diminish noise). - This gives them tremendous power enabling them to climb steeper slopes than normal powercars (which is useful in hilly pre-Alpine regions) - This gives them very efficient regenerative braking (In switzerland, two train coming down from the Lötschberg tunnel can entirely power one train climbing up to it).
I've also seen it on Czech Pendolinos. I seem to remember that Austria's ÖSB has also such configuration, but I'm not 100% sure.
But funny that you mention: seems indeed that the French TGV are almost the only high speed trains not doing it.
The headphone jack isn't just a hole though, it has electronics that take up space in the internals which manufacturers want to use now for other things.
Common ! - Other manufacturer are managing to still cram an audio jack into their competing smartphones - Smartphone are getting *wider* with *larger screen* each generation. In theory they should have *more room* for electronics. - The "other things" might not be as useful as marketing would like you to think (Apple's taptic engine was the excuse for removing their jack). - The only reason that manufacturer are lacking space is because they have launched themself in a competition for the thinest device possible. By trying to shave a few mm of thickness, they are losing critical space. This has already cost Apple their bendgate (less thickness = less mechanical resistance) and caused Samsung a few exploding batteries (not enough space for battery expansion).
In other words: I manufacturer weren't competing for the first company to release a phone thin enough so you can cut cheese with it, they would have plenty of space to keep a phone jack, add their useless new features AND have bigger batteries with better life.
I get why people want to hold onto this legacy port, it's a well established piece of tech that has been tired and true and remained unchanged for decades but to say that there's a pen hole so a headphone hole is the same thing isn't really accurate
The total volume of a pen, is still bigger than the volume of small compact jack connector and the tiny DAC feeding it.
No the real excuse is getting a way to sell either extra dongles (audio-out to USB-Otg or Apple Lightning) or expensive accessories (force you to buy Bluetooth Wireless earphones. Or wired phones with custom plugs).
so the traffic light will cater to whats best for the person in the $100k luxury car but the kid in the beater has to be at a disadvantage on teh public right of way?
Nope. The traffic light still waits all the same for every one. The only difference is that the driver of the luxury car gets the privilege of having the wating counter of the traffic light directly displayed on their dashboard. (And the car will be able to shut down and restart the engine during the wait on its own if it is economic to do so).
- it's done by one of your French companies. - the newer Zoe platform features a 44kWh battery that should be okay for 200+ km between charges (rated for 125km/h). (the previous one had a 22kWh battery, rated for 125 km. I still manage to get ~100 km out of the Zoé of the local Car Sharing copmany even when I'm driving like an idiot). - you can either buy just the car and rent the battery (and the car comes rather cheap between 15'000 and 25'000+ EUR depending on the options), or you can add ~8'000 EUR and buy your own battery.
Hybrids motors are extremely complex and that comes at a a cost. (you basically got both disadvantages of an ICE engine - complex delicate mechanical device combined with the disadvantage of an electric drive - big expensive complex battery and ancillary electronics ; also an electric motor which, although cheap, is much bigger than the standard alternator of an ICE. And on top of that, a slightly more complex transmission - specially on hybrid that can do both serial and parallel hybrids). Because of this complexity, cost is never going to go down that much. It's a nice stop-gag technology to diminish smog problems, but electric drive is the long term solution. (Specially in a country like France that doesn't rely much on fossil energy to produce its electricity).
Electric cars - outside of the expensive battery and its electronics - can be even a bit cheaper : - the car tends to be much lighter for better efficiency. Depending how it's done it might drive the price slightly up (Tesla and their space alloys) or down (the newer 44kWh Zo is lighter than the older one, without being more expensive). - an electric motor is dead simple and much cheaper than the mechanical complexity of an ICE (it's just a glorified spool of wire, attached to a fixed ratio gear. That's why Tesla can afford to slap a 2nd one on their 4-wheel drive vehicle (the xx"D" series), and that's why most european high speed train can afford electric motors on each of their wagon.) (This is opposed to energy storage. On a gaz powered car, energy ist stored in a glorified jug with a cap and a tap. Whereas an electic car require a complex chemistry in the battery and complex electronic to control both the charging of the car, and the power delivery to the motor).
Cost of batteries is going down, as car companies invest in mega-factories - Tesla is building one in Texas, Renault is building one in France - and as the demand for lithium batteries increases in modern technology (laptops, lithium-powered power tools, etc.). Network of charger is increasing. Mennekes connector is becoming standard accross Europe. Tesla is building their own network of superchargers. In France I've seen chargers in Highway rest areas. In Switzerland, nearly all parkings in big cities have charging spot. European countries burn a lot less fossils to produce electricity. (France relies on its nuclear power, Switzerland has endless supply of hydro-electric. Northern Europe is developping green sourse like solar, etc.)
In an emergency, you're supposed to be able to break a car's side windows.
I supposed the "sun-cooked" guy had passed out (alcohol ? heat shock, while he was asleep ?) before realising he should get out of the car.
I'm more surprised that the thief didn't try to break out of the car. But, on the other hand the lock has happened while he was napping inside the car, so he might not have realised what had happened and did not release he should run away as fast as possible before the police arrives.
I would be much more worried about the remote disabling of the car : - was some form of owner's access required in order to do the disabling ? (i.e.: the owner's second fob is needed in order to validate the instruction to lock and ignore the stolen fob ?) - or does any sufficiently high executive at BMW have the power to shut down any random car ?
Also : is the remote access limited to very simple instruction (locking doors and revoking fobs - which as mentioned above shouldn't be dangerous except under special circumstances) or can the car be remotely shut down while it is driving ?
has anyone actually demonstrated this is feasible,
As mentionned above, Myriad's Alien-Dalvik has and is the official commercial solution powering the Jolla Phone in my pocket (and what I use with countless android apps). I think I remember that this was also the official solution use by BlackBerry back when they offered Android Apps support on their (non-android) OS. This was also a solution considered for HP/Palm's webOS... but the whole platform went belly up before commercial deployment.
SFDroid is another solution for SailfishOS, but opensource and thus used successfully by the community ports (e.g.: on Fairphone 2). I haven't tested this one.
Shashlik is yet another one, but I don't know how far they've reached.
WSL is what microsoft tried, but unlike the above, they weren't successful (and recycled it into the form that we now know of).
is it legally possible (would Google lock out such an OS)?
Technically possible : - yes, I'm doing it, and countless of other sailfish OS users.
Legally possible : - murky. In theory Google requires a commercial license between them and the phone constructor, in order to allow them to use the full commercial "Google Play" experience (as opposed to simply using the opensource android).
e.g.: As Jolla has never secured such a license (and the fact that it runs on a completely different OS might probably contradict the usual terms about the "google experience") the Alien-Dalvik installation on Jolla phones doesn't come with Google Play, but with Aptoid (and optionnally Yandex). By default they activate a couple of repositories containing a few apps that have been curated and known to work good on the phones.
In practice: - Google has never done anything against end-user sideloading Googe Play Store into their phones (be it Cyanogen-modded, running Alien-Dalvik, etc.) And you could understand clearly why : - They DO have interest going against crappy no-name chinese clone-makers, because it might degrade the perception of their Google Play brand. - They HAVE NO interest going against en users. On the contrary: As this is end-user installed, Google don't need to go at great length to insure support (I might have found 1 or 2 applications that don't work on my phone). And as it is an *apps store*, google can earn tons of users who are happy to install paid content on their phone (There's at least a couple of games that I've paid). So google has very strong monetary incentives to let users keep installing Google Play Store on unlicensed platforms.
Actually, the technology HAS BEEN used in computer mice. (which do not use that much power, and thus the lower energy density of older supercaps wasn't such a big deal).
of course, the supercap is small in order to fit into a computer mouse. last I've heard about these (a couple of years ago), the mouse would charge literally in seconds, and could be used for a couple of hours in a go.
So if you leave the mouse on its charging craddle for a few seconds whenever you make yourself a coffe (or go to the toilett, or even just stretch your legs) you never have an empty mouse. (as opposed to a mouse with a lithium battery, which won't be fully charged that fast enough)
They were not general purpose computers that smartphones are now.
They were the exact precursor of smartphones now : they were general purpose computers, on which you could install tons of additional apps to extend functionality. (with SDK and documentation provided by Palm).
After PSION with their EPOC OS (ancestror of Nokia's SymbianOS), Palm's PalmOS was the next big eco-system that saw big development of 3rd party apps. It is dwarfed by the current Android and iOS apps ecosystems, but back then it was quite an achievement.
You could find and install game, web browser, email client, GPS/Nav software, console emulators, some very domain-specific apps (Epocrate, a medical drug database started its life on PalmOS), etc.
or it's going to be a slider, which have proven to have mechanical problems
3rd party have successfully designed keyboard which are magnetic slide. (No mechanical parts. Just carefully aligned magnet that accept 2 stable positions. Either the keyboard stuck to the back of the smartphone, or stuck in "slide out position" with the keys available for typing and the pogo-pins aligned with the contacts).
I you don't want the keyboard, you just remove it (un stick it). This of course requires the availability of pogo-pins. Jolla's phone and Fairphone's phone 2 were both designed with extra pins so that 3rd parties could invent such gadgets.
Android OS and access to the Google Play store.
Technically, only the "access Google Play store" part is important. It just happens that Android OS is the most straight-forward solution to run Android Apps, but...
Going with a non-Android OS is doomed to failure, because of the apps;
...unless this non-Android OS also runs android apps. Like the Alien-Dalvik engine available inside the Sailfish OS - for whose development Nokia already paid, until Elop decided to drop that R&D team (who subsequently formed Jolla)
Firstly, Android is Linux. But in the sense meant here, no.
I think the parent poster might be referring to GNU/Linux. Android does use the Linux Kernel, but slaps a completely different user space atop of it. (Mostly written in "I Can't Believe it's Not Java(tm)" in addition a few core libraries replaced with alternatives that have non-GPL licensing, like the Bionic C library).
Bringing another OS into play in a market that is sewn up by two major players is pretty much guaranteed to fail
...except if that 3rd OS does run the Apps of one of the 2 major players. Which is exactly what *Windows* failed to do (Android apps never got supported, at least the technology got recycled into WSL) Which is where HP/Palm's WebOS bid on the wrong horse (They counted on compatibility with classic PalmOS apps. It did make sense back when they started designing webOS - as PalmOS used to be a major platform back then. But didn't make any sense as webOS smart phones go released - as Android had became the main platform).
At the end of the day, end-user don't care that OS their smartphone run. They only care if they can play the same games/use the same chat app as everybody else. Thus it's the app availability which is the most important. As long as your OS can run Android Apps and tap into its vast eco-system, you're golden.
and I really don't see what a Linux phone would do for the average consumer.
Lower spec requirement, as proven by Sailfish OS. Thus : - either being able to run on lower-spec smartphones (and that's the reason while SFOS is being considered by some 3rd party developpers) - and in theory should able to have more headroom on flagship specs smartphones.
A few other advantages (Turing Industries apparently found it easier to secure).
Do really think Nokia/HMD Global should waste millions of Euros in R&D to develop a Linux phone distribution just to satisfy a handful of nerds?
In practice, they *ALREADY WASTED THESE EUROS*. Then Elop sacked the R&D team, who went to create Jolla and develop SailfishOS. The Linux OS already exist. Nokia already paid for it. It would be a bad business idea not to at least consider using what they've already paid to develop.
This is "conspiracy plot"-level of hypothesis, but maybe is this remotely linked to Huawei desire to get a bigger part of the smartphone pie and wanting to be more present? Sure, Samsung get more publicity around their note 7 than any other exploding lithium battery, now the usual corruption scandal suddenly starting to surface the media more prominently... This bad publicity, among other, surely serves Huawei's goals. Might simply be simply happy coincidences. Might be some influencial chinese people pulling a few strings.
Technically Skype was supposed to use RC4 (which is completely crappy so it doesn't work).
In practice, Skype specially since the Microsoft buyout isn't opposing 3rd party clients. (e.g.: there's a 100% opensource Purple/Pidgin/Adium plugin that relies on the web.skype interface and works on Linux) (And in practice Skype heading toward the direction of packaged webapps anyway. Just don't mind the current incompatibility between microsoft's ORTC and the rest of the universe' WebRTC)
Which means you could use an encryption layer such as OTR over it between any compatible client.
(Some of which are entirle opensource stacks : eg.: Pidgin + WebSkype plugin + OTR - thus verifiably encrypting and provably secure. Meanwhile, WhatsApp is entirely closed source and puts as much efforts as possible to kick out and perma-ban any attempt at alternative client. So yes, they have *announced* that they use Axolotl / Silent Circle-style encryption but you have to *trust* them. No way to control if encryption is properly used at all. Nor whether WhatsApp hasn't been forced by government to but a hidden backdoor)
So, all things said, WhatsApp only supports iOS and Android officially too, like everyone else.
And although they started as a variant of Jabber/XMPP, WhatsApp has been extremely active in trying to shut down and perma-ban any attempt at a 3rd party client.
How about phone manufacturers spend the extra dollar that it costs to put in the trivial circuitry necessary so that you can apply almost any voltage, current, or polarity to the device without it going up in smoke?
Well....
I. "...but how will Marketing be able to insist that this year's phone is 0.5mm thinner than last year, and 0.25mm thinner than the competition (and accidentally also be able to cut cheese)". (a.k.a.: The Apple Audio Jack stupid excuse)
II. "...but then this noname phone will cost 1 dollar more than the competition and the sheeple will rush to the cheapest shit available which WON'T be us anymore". (a.k.a.: The shitty excuse of most cheap low quality chinese electronics)
III. "...what is this 'protection circuitry' you're speaking about ? I can't understand your mumbo jumbo. What... ? 'How I got there... ?' Last week I was soldering vacuum-cleaner's control boards, and because I am apparently able to yield a soldering iron, my brother-in-law recruted me because his neighboor got an humongous order for this latest popular wireless smart-gizmo and suddenly needs more people to fullfill all these orders as the speed at which their are coming. And this gizmo is so popular and trending right now, that there's so much money to be made!... What you ask... ? 'What I've been doing before vacuum cleaners ?' Well my 3rd cousin taught me to use a soldering iron because he needed to fullfill a batshit crazy huge amount of order on these 'Hover-board'-thingy and apparently, because I'm a bit handy (was sewing jeans the week before)."
(a.ka.: The horrendous 'but it is so cheap' excuse of any shitty gadget that has become hugely popular overnight. Too much popular for it's own good. See: Hoverboards recently, see laptop batteries in the early 2000s, etc.)
IV. "...to actually try to conquer them by economically bankrupting them by selling them critically important equipement that is buggy..."
(a.k.a.: actually doesn't happen *that much* in China because "there's so much money to be made!!!". But actually was believed by USA during the cold war and they hoped that they'll manage to pull such a trick on the URSS, as if the URSS would never know and hire tons of cheap labor to debug the the flawed equipment. And as if the URSS would be able to bankrupt themselves on their own due to other circumstances)
Slashdot Mirror
... is a significant part of the reason why the rest of the US (and other country such as China) are overworked, overstressed, in bad general health and overweight.
(Most Europe also has meal brake. That doesn't only include our giant bankrupcy generator (Greece), but also countries like Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia...)
Hmmm... interresting...
Does BLU produce also dual-radio dual-SIM (where it's not 1 single radio alternating between 2 SIMS, but each SIM being constantly connected to the network through its own pipe) ?
If that's the case, there wouldn't be much that Apple could realistically patent that wouldn't be prior art by the company you mention.
On the other hand, given the warchest of Apple and the amount of lawyers they can afford, it's not a sure thing that BLU will be able to claim prior art before being driven to the ground.
but Project Ara always seemed like a cool but infeasible concept to me because it's completely impractical and incompatible with how smartphones are made and sold,
Yet, Fairphone 2 smartphone are already on the market.
Okay, they are not as modular as Project Ara.
Project Ara wanted some kind of "universal bus for absolutely everything", and the end user able to plug whatever the fuck he wanted.(You want to plug 3 screens on your phone ? You're welcome !)
Fariphone 2 is much more simplistic - the phone is made of a few module which are more or less documented and standised (meaning that they could make a later camera module with better specs, or a connector module with USB-C instead of micro USB, etc... as long as it used the same pogo pins), and leaves a standard connector for 3rd parties and hacker to abuse with USB and charging pogo pins.
(A little bit more evolved but reminiscent of the Jolla concept of a modular "Other Half" back-cover and available I2C pins and RFID antena for the hacker to play with).
But maybe that's why project Ara has folded, while Fairphone2 are on the display of a shop in my neighborhood.
The former was over complex piece of technology that would require a huge leap in technology to solve a problem that not too many people on the market cared about.
The latter was a baby step, just one level above the Fariphone1 (which was simply an end-user reparable smartphone). Surfing on the same repairable argument that was the success of the previous model, while incrementing over it (now because it's standardised module, the smartphone won't be fucked once the online shop runs out of replacement part - like screens for Fairphone1 - they could just produce another module as long as it follows the same spec)
Okay you can't still randomly replace module, like throwing the camera module to put an extra battery in (different pinouts, unlike the "single bus to rule them all" of Ara) and if you really want an extra screen on the back of your only option is the USB pogopins.
But it enabled Fairphone to make a real device that actually ships.
If you carefully read what's written on the back cover of your phone,
there's probably "Made in China" written there.
And your brand is probably some random unknown no-name asian brand (that has been already successfully flooding the Indian market for the part decade).
Whereas that one is going to have "Designed in California" written in it (or maybe even "Assembled in the USA" because that's where they do the finally "assembly step". Like slaping the logo on the back).
And it's brand that has successfully brainwashing the masses into thinking that it must be inherently better because there's the image of a fruit on it.
(The fact that the circuit board of both phones were soldered by the same poor over-worked quasy-slave employed at some chinese subcontractor does never come into play)
And IRL, lots of people have already done in the past.
Tons of asian hardware maker.
Random example:
The Jolla C, produced in partnership with the Indian company "Intex" has dual-SIMs
The Fairphone 2, also features dual-SIMs.
It just happens that most of these are produced in countries that don't give a shit about intellectual property (e.g.: China)
And probably none of those have been produced in the US (the two example I cited are European. Finnish and Dutch respectively).
So Apple will probably the first to *patent* it, in the USA. (And they'll have the necessary budget to finance the necessary amount of lawyers to get it happen).
And will probably manage to have their marketing department persuade the sheeple that they invented it.
(Like they did with portable music player, pocket-sized computers, etc.)
This class of treatment is usually about growing some special-purpose "designer" white cells that are able to kill the cancer while leaving the almost similar looking rest of the body intact.
Growing such designer cells requires tremendous lab resources.
We still need some revolutions similar to how Oxford Minion and CRISPR/Cas9 brought their capabilities to the masses.
Saddly,
that's currently what it seems.
(for the TL;DR version of people who don't want to plow through dozens of PubMed articles:
- basically these "cure any cancer" methods consist of growing specially designed immune cell that are specific for the cancer and only will attack it while leaving the body intact.
- Achieving it requires a whole university complex of genomics, proteomics, culture-cell growing and selection, etc. and is in the range of million-worth per cure.
- In addition the the cost and the facilities it doesn't even *scale* beyond a few experimental patients - even if 50 billionaires decided to throw the money, the could only be cured one at a time)
But the general proof of concept works.
And perhaps one day, after a few "Oxford Minion" and "CRISPR/Cas9"-like revolutions down the line, new technology might get developed that brings this out of the "designer medicine for the most outrageously wealthy elite" domain and bring it within reach of normal people.
(Well maybe "normal people who live in countries featuring a decent public health system". Sorry for you USA... maybe you could try to flee to one of those evil-communist countries like Canada or most of Europe ?)
... that neither country would knowingly carry out hacking for commercial advantages.
So doing it for political or military advantages is fine?
No, the keyword here was knowingly,
but you probably didn't manage to catch it over the noise of NSA and MSS both laughing their asses out together.
Interestingly, not on TGVs which are among the most common high speed trains in Europe (470 trains). These trains have power cars at both ends.
On the other hand, German ICE (InterCity Express) and Swiss ICN (InterCity Neigezug) both use the "no power cars / each wagon with an electric motor" configuration (though not on 1st class wagons in the swiss case to diminish noise).
- This gives them tremendous power enabling them to climb steeper slopes than normal powercars (which is useful in hilly pre-Alpine regions)
- This gives them very efficient regenerative braking (In switzerland, two train coming down from the Lötschberg tunnel can entirely power one train climbing up to it).
I've also seen it on Czech Pendolinos.
I seem to remember that Austria's ÖSB has also such configuration, but I'm not 100% sure.
But funny that you mention: seems indeed that the French TGV are almost the only high speed trains not doing it.
The headphone jack isn't just a hole though, it has electronics that take up space in the internals which manufacturers want to use now for other things.
Common !
- Other manufacturer are managing to still cram an audio jack into their competing smartphones
- Smartphone are getting *wider* with *larger screen* each generation. In theory they should have *more room* for electronics.
- The "other things" might not be as useful as marketing would like you to think (Apple's taptic engine was the excuse for removing their jack).
- The only reason that manufacturer are lacking space is because they have launched themself in a competition for the thinest device possible. By trying to shave a few mm of thickness, they are losing critical space. This has already cost Apple their bendgate (less thickness = less mechanical resistance) and caused Samsung a few exploding batteries (not enough space for battery expansion).
In other words: I manufacturer weren't competing for the first company to release a phone thin enough so you can cut cheese with it, they would have plenty of space to keep a phone jack, add their useless new features AND have bigger batteries with better life.
I get why people want to hold onto this legacy port, it's a well established piece of tech that has been tired and true and remained unchanged for decades but to say that there's a pen hole so a headphone hole is the same thing isn't really accurate
The total volume of a pen, is still bigger than the volume of small compact jack connector and the tiny DAC feeding it.
No the real excuse is getting a way to sell either extra dongles (audio-out to USB-Otg or Apple Lightning)
or expensive accessories (force you to buy Bluetooth Wireless earphones. Or wired phones with custom plugs).
so the traffic light will cater to whats best for the person in the $100k luxury car but the kid in the beater has to be at a disadvantage on teh public right of way?
Nope. The traffic light still waits all the same for every one.
The only difference is that the driver of the luxury car gets the privilege of having the wating counter of the traffic light directly displayed on their dashboard.
(And the car will be able to shut down and restart the engine during the wait on its own if it is economic to do so).
Go buy a Renault Zoé instead.
- it's done by one of your French companies.
- the newer Zoe platform features a 44kWh battery that should be okay for 200+ km between charges (rated for 125km/h).
(the previous one had a 22kWh battery, rated for 125 km. I still manage to get ~100 km out of the Zoé of the local Car Sharing copmany even when I'm driving like an idiot).
- you can either buy just the car and rent the battery (and the car comes rather cheap between 15'000 and 25'000+ EUR depending on the options), or you can add ~8'000 EUR and buy your own battery.
Hybrids motors are extremely complex and that comes at a a cost.
(you basically got both disadvantages of an ICE engine - complex delicate mechanical device
combined with the disadvantage of an electric drive - big expensive complex battery and ancillary electronics ; also an electric motor which, although cheap, is much bigger than the standard alternator of an ICE.
And on top of that, a slightly more complex transmission - specially on hybrid that can do both serial and parallel hybrids).
Because of this complexity, cost is never going to go down that much.
It's a nice stop-gag technology to diminish smog problems, but electric drive is the long term solution.
(Specially in a country like France that doesn't rely much on fossil energy to produce its electricity).
Electric cars - outside of the expensive battery and its electronics - can be even a bit cheaper :
- the car tends to be much lighter for better efficiency. Depending how it's done it might drive the price slightly up (Tesla and their space alloys) or down (the newer 44kWh Zo is lighter than the older one, without being more expensive).
- an electric motor is dead simple and much cheaper than the mechanical complexity of an ICE (it's just a glorified spool of wire, attached to a fixed ratio gear. That's why Tesla can afford to slap a 2nd one on their 4-wheel drive vehicle (the xx"D" series), and that's why most european high speed train can afford electric motors on each of their wagon.)
(This is opposed to energy storage. On a gaz powered car, energy ist stored in a glorified jug with a cap and a tap. Whereas an electic car require a complex chemistry in the battery and complex electronic to control both the charging of the car, and the power delivery to the motor).
Cost of batteries is going down, as car companies invest in mega-factories - Tesla is building one in Texas, Renault is building one in France - and as the demand for lithium batteries increases in modern technology (laptops, lithium-powered power tools, etc.).
Network of charger is increasing.
Mennekes connector is becoming standard accross Europe.
Tesla is building their own network of superchargers.
In France I've seen chargers in Highway rest areas.
In Switzerland, nearly all parkings in big cities have charging spot.
European countries burn a lot less fossils to produce electricity. (France relies on its nuclear power, Switzerland has endless supply of hydro-electric. Northern Europe is developping green sourse like solar, etc.)
Future is in electric cars.
Just add some UserMode Linux kernel, just to have the full GNU/Linux stack for extra geek points.
In an emergency, you're supposed to be able to break a car's side windows.
I supposed the "sun-cooked" guy had passed out (alcohol ? heat shock, while he was asleep ?) before realising he should get out of the car.
I'm more surprised that the thief didn't try to break out of the car. But, on the other hand the lock has happened while he was napping inside the car, so he might not have realised what had happened and did not release he should run away as fast as possible before the police arrives.
I would be much more worried about the remote disabling of the car :
- was some form of owner's access required in order to do the disabling ? (i.e.: the owner's second fob is needed in order to validate the instruction to lock and ignore the stolen fob ?)
- or does any sufficiently high executive at BMW have the power to shut down any random car ?
Also : is the remote access limited to very simple instruction (locking doors and revoking fobs - which as mentioned above shouldn't be dangerous except under special circumstances) or can the car be remotely shut down while it is driving ?
has anyone actually demonstrated this is feasible,
As mentionned above, Myriad's Alien-Dalvik has and is the official commercial solution powering the Jolla Phone in my pocket (and what I use with countless android apps).
I think I remember that this was also the official solution use by BlackBerry back when they offered Android Apps support on their (non-android) OS.
This was also a solution considered for HP/Palm's webOS... but the whole platform went belly up before commercial deployment.
SFDroid is another solution for SailfishOS, but opensource and thus used successfully by the community ports (e.g.: on Fairphone 2). I haven't tested this one.
Shashlik is yet another one, but I don't know how far they've reached.
WSL is what microsoft tried, but unlike the above, they weren't successful (and recycled it into the form that we now know of).
is it legally possible (would Google lock out such an OS)?
Technically possible :
- yes, I'm doing it, and countless of other sailfish OS users.
Legally possible :
- murky. In theory Google requires a commercial license between them and the phone constructor, in order to allow them to use the full commercial "Google Play" experience (as opposed to simply using the opensource android).
e.g.: As Jolla has never secured such a license (and the fact that it runs on a completely different OS might probably contradict the usual terms about the "google experience") the Alien-Dalvik installation on Jolla phones doesn't come with Google Play, but with Aptoid (and optionnally Yandex).
By default they activate a couple of repositories containing a few apps that have been curated and known to work good on the phones.
In practice:
- Google has never done anything against end-user sideloading Googe Play Store into their phones (be it Cyanogen-modded, running Alien-Dalvik, etc.)
And you could understand clearly why :
- They DO have interest going against crappy no-name chinese clone-makers, because it might degrade the perception of their Google Play brand.
- They HAVE NO interest going against en users. On the contrary: As this is end-user installed, Google don't need to go at great length to insure support (I might have found 1 or 2 applications that don't work on my phone). And as it is an *apps store*, google can earn tons of users who are happy to install paid content on their phone (There's at least a couple of games that I've paid).
So google has very strong monetary incentives to let users keep installing Google Play Store on unlicensed platforms.
Actually, the technology HAS BEEN used in computer mice.
(which do not use that much power, and thus the lower energy density of older supercaps wasn't such a big deal).
of course, the supercap is small in order to fit into a computer mouse.
last I've heard about these (a couple of years ago), the mouse would charge literally in seconds, and could be used for a couple of hours in a go.
So if you leave the mouse on its charging craddle for a few seconds whenever you make yourself a coffe (or go to the toilett, or even just stretch your legs) you never have an empty mouse.
(as opposed to a mouse with a lithium battery, which won't be fully charged that fast enough)
focused products that addressed a specific need.
They were *marketed* for specific needs...
They were not general purpose computers that smartphones are now.
They were the exact precursor of smartphones now :
they were general purpose computers, on which you could install tons of additional apps to extend functionality.
(with SDK and documentation provided by Palm).
After PSION with their EPOC OS (ancestror of Nokia's SymbianOS),
Palm's PalmOS was the next big eco-system that saw big development of 3rd party apps.
It is dwarfed by the current Android and iOS apps ecosystems, but back then it was quite an achievement.
You could find and install game, web browser, email client, GPS/Nav software, console emulators, some very domain-specific apps (Epocrate, a medical drug database started its life on PalmOS), etc.
or it's going to be a slider, which have proven to have mechanical problems
3rd party have successfully designed keyboard which are magnetic slide.
(No mechanical parts. Just carefully aligned magnet that accept 2 stable positions. Either the keyboard stuck to the back of the smartphone, or stuck in "slide out position" with the keys available for typing and the pogo-pins aligned with the contacts).
I you don't want the keyboard, you just remove it (un stick it).
This of course requires the availability of pogo-pins.
Jolla's phone and Fairphone's phone 2 were both designed with extra pins so that 3rd parties could invent such gadgets.
Android OS and access to the Google Play store.
Technically, only the "access Google Play store" part is important.
It just happens that Android OS is the most straight-forward solution to run Android Apps, but...
Going with a non-Android OS is doomed to failure, because of the apps;
...unless this non-Android OS also runs android apps.
Like the Alien-Dalvik engine available inside the Sailfish OS - for whose development Nokia already paid, until Elop decided to drop that R&D team (who subsequently formed Jolla)
Firstly, Android is Linux. But in the sense meant here, no.
I think the parent poster might be referring to GNU/Linux.
Android does use the Linux Kernel, but slaps a completely different user space atop of it.
(Mostly written in "I Can't Believe it's Not Java(tm)" in addition a few core libraries replaced with alternatives that have non-GPL licensing, like the Bionic C library).
Bringing another OS into play in a market that is sewn up by two major players is pretty much guaranteed to fail
...except if that 3rd OS does run the Apps of one of the 2 major players.
Which is exactly what *Windows* failed to do (Android apps never got supported, at least the technology got recycled into WSL)
Which is where HP/Palm's WebOS bid on the wrong horse (They counted on compatibility with classic PalmOS apps. It did make sense back when they started designing webOS - as PalmOS used to be a major platform back then. But didn't make any sense as webOS smart phones go released - as Android had became the main platform).
At the end of the day, end-user don't care that OS their smartphone run.
They only care if they can play the same games/use the same chat app as everybody else.
Thus it's the app availability which is the most important.
As long as your OS can run Android Apps and tap into its vast eco-system, you're golden.
and I really don't see what a Linux phone would do for the average consumer.
Lower spec requirement, as proven by Sailfish OS.
Thus :
- either being able to run on lower-spec smartphones (and that's the reason while SFOS is being considered by some 3rd party developpers)
- and in theory should able to have more headroom on flagship specs smartphones.
A few other advantages (Turing Industries apparently found it easier to secure).
Do really think Nokia/HMD Global should waste millions of Euros in R&D to develop a Linux phone distribution just to satisfy a handful of nerds?
In practice, they *ALREADY WASTED THESE EUROS*. Then Elop sacked the R&D team, who went to create Jolla and develop SailfishOS.
The Linux OS already exist.
Nokia already paid for it.
It would be a bad business idea not to at least consider using what they've already paid to develop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Who needs a homing beacon to find it again ?
Just ask the pigs from the pig-pen where it fell...
This is "conspiracy plot"-level of hypothesis, but maybe is this remotely linked to Huawei desire to get a bigger part of the smartphone pie and wanting to be more present?
Sure, Samsung get more publicity around their note 7 than any other exploding lithium battery, now the usual corruption scandal suddenly starting to surface the media more prominently...
This bad publicity, among other, surely serves Huawei's goals.
Might simply be simply happy coincidences. Might be some influencial chinese people pulling a few strings.
Technically Skype was supposed to use RC4
(which is completely crappy so it doesn't work).
In practice, Skype specially since the Microsoft buyout isn't opposing 3rd party clients.
(e.g.: there's a 100% opensource Purple/Pidgin/Adium plugin that relies on the web.skype interface and works on Linux)
(And in practice Skype heading toward the direction of packaged webapps anyway. Just don't mind the current incompatibility between microsoft's ORTC and the rest of the universe' WebRTC)
Which means you could use an encryption layer such as OTR over it between any compatible client.
(Some of which are entirle opensource stacks : eg.: Pidgin + WebSkype plugin + OTR - thus verifiably encrypting and provably secure.
Meanwhile, WhatsApp is entirely closed source and puts as much efforts as possible to kick out and perma-ban any attempt at alternative client.
So yes, they have *announced* that they use Axolotl / Silent Circle-style encryption but you have to *trust* them. No way to control if encryption is properly used at all. Nor whether WhatsApp hasn't been forced by government to but a hidden backdoor)
WhatsApp in the meantime is there on many more platforms.
Of which most are soon-to-be-deprecated (like S60, BlackBerry, etc. basically anything that isn't iOS nor Android)
Or are nothing more than a glorified remote viewer-over-html (for Windows/Mac OS X/Linux) and needs to be used together with the phone app.
So, all things said, WhatsApp only supports iOS and Android officially too, like everyone else.
And although they started as a variant of Jabber/XMPP, WhatsApp has been extremely active in trying to shut down and perma-ban any attempt at a 3rd party client.
How about phone manufacturers spend the extra dollar that it costs to put in the trivial circuitry necessary so that you can apply almost any voltage, current, or polarity to the device without it going up in smoke?
Well....
I. "...but how will Marketing be able to insist that this year's phone is 0.5mm thinner than last year, and 0.25mm thinner than the competition (and accidentally also be able to cut cheese)".
(a.k.a.: The Apple Audio Jack stupid excuse)
II. "...but then this noname phone will cost 1 dollar more than the competition and the sheeple will rush to the cheapest shit available which WON'T be us anymore".
(a.k.a.: The shitty excuse of most cheap low quality chinese electronics)
III. "...what is this 'protection circuitry' you're speaking about ? I can't understand your mumbo jumbo. What... ? 'How I got there... ?'
Last week I was soldering vacuum-cleaner's control boards, and because I am apparently able to yield a soldering iron, my brother-in-law recruted me because his neighboor got an humongous order for this latest popular wireless smart-gizmo and suddenly needs more people to fullfill all these orders as the speed at which their are coming. And this gizmo is so popular and trending right now, that there's so much money to be made!...
What you ask... ? 'What I've been doing before vacuum cleaners ?' Well my 3rd cousin taught me to use a soldering iron because he needed to fullfill a batshit crazy huge amount of order on these 'Hover-board'-thingy and apparently, because I'm a bit handy (was sewing jeans the week before)."
(a.ka.: The horrendous 'but it is so cheap' excuse of any shitty gadget that has become hugely popular overnight. Too much popular for it's own good.
See: Hoverboards recently, see laptop batteries in the early 2000s, etc.)
IV. "...to actually try to conquer them by economically bankrupting them by selling them critically important equipement that is buggy..."
(a.k.a.: actually doesn't happen *that much* in China because "there's so much money to be made!!!".
But actually was believed by USA during the cold war and they hoped that they'll manage to pull such a trick on the URSS, as if the URSS would never know and hire tons of cheap labor to debug the the flawed equipment.
And as if the URSS would be able to bankrupt themselves on their own due to other circumstances)
And some people are going to look at the situation and switch to iPhones because "at least they don't have this problem."
I appreciate your ironic use of quotes. As if no other smartphone in the whole known universe has ever exploded.