Hellooo Internet everywhere. Can't find a good AP for your cheap WiFi card? Plug in your cell phone and surf the net at ~56k speeds for only $10+whatever you're paying your cellphone provider.
I find this quite amazing. It's like a landline that's always with you [as in calls are basically free and unlimited]. You're in the mountains or on the countryside with your shitty P233MMX laptop and you wanna see what's cooking on Slashdot, there you go.
Only issues that still need to be cleared up:
Let's take an average celly carrier, like Rogers AT&T in Toronto and the GTA. I'm not sure if they offer free mobile-to-mobile service, as I remember asking for such a thing when I signed up with them. I also remember going out of my "home" area and calling in the GTA from Barrie, it was apparently treated as long distance [even though that number was in my "home" area]. Point is, I'm not sure you can call other mobiles for free anywhere, like say those mobiles are in a different area code. And if you can't... that'd suck. The point of paying the $10/month would no longer justify itself.
But it's a good concept. Cheap too. If your cellphone provider doesn't rape you in the process.
... I'd really like it if someone (I don't care who) made a cheap CD player with a couple of MB of flash ROM [or something similar], so people can upload their own decoders for whatever format they wish to use the player with... it'd be insanely successful with the public (and I'll buy it as well), as people could shove on OGG, MPC, MP3Pro, anything they want to use, they just port it [with instructions and maybe a dev kit given by the manufacturer, of course]. Oh, and battery life. No huge backlit battery-consuming LCDs with uber displays. I've got a Panasonic SL-SX420. The LCD has cracked partly. Not like I needed it anyway. All I need to see is what track number it is, and that's it. Plus, in winter, say you're walking to school. The liquid in the LCD takes more energy to refresh as minutes/tracks change on the display), consuming your battery. The only useful features would be a small graphical equalizer, volume up/down, lock, play, stop, next, and back. That's all I need.
Yes, I realize it's only my view, and someone else might have a completely different view. But then again, I'm just saying what I'd like introduced to the market.
An ultra-slim CD player, with insanely low battery usage, the basic controls, a nice EQ, and an USB port so we can flash our decoders on. All for less than CAN$150:)
Ahh, dreams...
Slashdot Mirror
Hellooo Internet everywhere. Can't find a good AP for your cheap WiFi card? Plug in your cell phone and surf the net at ~56k speeds for only $10+whatever you're paying your cellphone provider. I find this quite amazing. It's like a landline that's always with you [as in calls are basically free and unlimited]. You're in the mountains or on the countryside with your shitty P233MMX laptop and you wanna see what's cooking on Slashdot, there you go. Only issues that still need to be cleared up: Let's take an average celly carrier, like Rogers AT&T in Toronto and the GTA. I'm not sure if they offer free mobile-to-mobile service, as I remember asking for such a thing when I signed up with them. I also remember going out of my "home" area and calling in the GTA from Barrie, it was apparently treated as long distance [even though that number was in my "home" area]. Point is, I'm not sure you can call other mobiles for free anywhere, like say those mobiles are in a different area code. And if you can't... that'd suck. The point of paying the $10/month would no longer justify itself. But it's a good concept. Cheap too. If your cellphone provider doesn't rape you in the process.
... I'd really like it if someone (I don't care who) made a cheap CD player with a couple of MB of flash ROM [or something similar], so people can upload their own decoders for whatever format they wish to use the player with... it'd be insanely successful with the public (and I'll buy it as well), as people could shove on OGG, MPC, MP3Pro, anything they want to use, they just port it [with instructions and maybe a dev kit given by the manufacturer, of course]. Oh, and battery life. No huge backlit battery-consuming LCDs with uber displays. I've got a Panasonic SL-SX420. The LCD has cracked partly. Not like I needed it anyway. All I need to see is what track number it is, and that's it. Plus, in winter, say you're walking to school. The liquid in the LCD takes more energy to refresh as minutes/tracks change on the display), consuming your battery. The only useful features would be a small graphical equalizer, volume up/down, lock, play, stop, next, and back. That's all I need. Yes, I realize it's only my view, and someone else might have a completely different view. But then again, I'm just saying what I'd like introduced to the market. An ultra-slim CD player, with insanely low battery usage, the basic controls, a nice EQ, and an USB port so we can flash our decoders on. All for less than CAN$150 :)
Ahh, dreams...