Re:What's the deal with GPS on cell phones?
on
Wireless Positioning
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I am no expert, but I think the reason they have GPS is this:
Some cell phones use a time modulation technique to fit multiple users on a small frequency range that was allotted to them. This technique involves shifting parts of your signal in the sub-microsecond range (I dont actually know how fast the shifts occur), and as such require very precise timing (if not the tower and phone would not be in sync I suppse). GPS is the most logical way to achieve this, as GPS sat's transmit the current time as well (each GPS sat has an atomic clock on board).
So, they use GPS to get extremely accurate times, which are then used for what I can only describe as their 'ninja-foo' signal manipulation to fit many users in a rather limited frequency space.
I think people are against this for a simple reason: National fingerprint databases are seen as 'ok' due to the fact that fingerprints are useless beyond simple identification. A fingerprint can be compared against another for a match, and that is it, the print contains no other information. DNA, on the other hand, has substantially more information embedded in it than a fingerprint. Moreover, DNA technology is still evolving. Who knows what we can learn about a person from their DNA in 5 or 10 years. The possible misuse of such a database is substantial, and still largely unknown (Though the possible inappropriate uses are increasing by the day).
The biggest question, however, is what purpose does this serve? DNA seems to do the exact same thing as fingerprints, except we tend to leave it everywhere we go, making it harder to mask. Will the day come when convictions are based purely on DNA evidence? How will the police filter the criminals DNA from all the other samples found at a crime scene (say a hotel room)? DNA should be used in conjunction with other evidence when pursuing a case, it should not be the entire case against a suspect.
Is the advantage of DNA evidence over fingerprints sufficient to outweigh the invasion of personal privacy experienced by the public? Given the current lack of transparency in this government, I would say no; the opportunity for misuse is to great.
One feature of Niagara that I cannot seem to find any reference to now is their claim that it reduced iowait by up to 80% (I read about it in an IEEE publication about a year ago). If this features works as advertised (even if it delivers substantially less than 80%), it alone would be sufficient to set this chip heads above any of AMD's or Intel's offerings. It is still very early to compare Niagara to the existing x86_64 chips.
Overall, it looks as if Sun is positioning itself to be more mobile than they were in the past. They are persuing a few different chip designs (some incorporating outside technology), and have some promising products on the horizon. I think countin Sun (or SPARC) out just yet would be premature to say the least.
Many people are quick to say that if (l)unix 'were more like OSX' it would be better. While I agree that OSX is a nice operating system, has a good set of utilities and built-in programs, and provides a nice, friendly user interface, the same results could not be achieved in (l)unix.
The reason Apple is able to devote time to making the GUI pretty, or creating these great applications is the limited hardware base they support. Mac OSX has nowhere near the hardware support provided by Linux or Windows. Don't get me wrong, the PowerPC architecture is great, however, the lack of other options concerns me. I personally try to avoid vendor lock-in as much as possible.
I personally would like to see better vendor support (Ie ATI ).
Also, while competition is great, it would be nice if the main windowing systems (KDE or Gnome [QT Vs GTK])were more compatible with each other (or we just choose one). Being able to run QT apps in GTK without loading all the extra KDE nonsense would be nice....
Last note, greater standardization would be good too. Choosing *one* package management system that could be deployed across all dristros would be nice (Perhaps incorporate the best of the existing package management systems into one, cross distro system). It would make it easier for developers (only one package to make), admins (got a few different distros? ), and the general public (if more people use this utility, chances are a greater portion of those people will donate money, time, or other resources to the project).
The W3C is an interesting idea, but *it* may not be the best idea. First of all, having a central organization setting standards does *not* mean those settings will be followed. Take, for instance, CSS. The standards are clearly defined by the W3C, however creating CSS documents that look exactly the same across IE and Gecko browsers is not easy. Moreover, people complain that getting features into the kernel takes a long time already, adding bureaucracy will only increase the delays....
Excellent points are made in many of these replies, and what we need is to take the best of everything; the clean GUI of OSX, the standardization provided by a consortium including industry vendors, greater vendor support, and unify some of our efforts.
Competition is good, but only so long as it does not ultimately make the users life more difficult.
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I am no expert, but I think the reason they have GPS is this: Some cell phones use a time modulation technique to fit multiple users on a small frequency range that was allotted to them. This technique involves shifting parts of your signal in the sub-microsecond range (I dont actually know how fast the shifts occur), and as such require very precise timing (if not the tower and phone would not be in sync I suppse). GPS is the most logical way to achieve this, as GPS sat's transmit the current time as well (each GPS sat has an atomic clock on board). So, they use GPS to get extremely accurate times, which are then used for what I can only describe as their 'ninja-foo' signal manipulation to fit many users in a rather limited frequency space.
I think people are against this for a simple reason:
National fingerprint databases are seen as 'ok' due to the fact that fingerprints are useless beyond simple identification. A fingerprint can be compared against another for a match, and that is it, the print contains no other information.
DNA, on the other hand, has substantially more information embedded in it than a fingerprint. Moreover, DNA technology is still evolving. Who knows what we can learn about a person from their DNA in 5 or 10 years. The possible misuse of such a database is substantial, and still largely unknown (Though the possible inappropriate uses are increasing by the day).
The biggest question, however, is what purpose does this serve? DNA seems to do the exact same thing as fingerprints, except we tend to leave it everywhere we go, making it harder to mask. Will the day come when convictions are based purely on DNA evidence? How will the police filter the criminals DNA from all the other samples found at a crime scene (say a hotel room)? DNA should be used in conjunction with other evidence when pursuing a case, it should not be the entire case against a suspect.
Is the advantage of DNA evidence over fingerprints sufficient to outweigh the invasion of personal privacy experienced by the public? Given the current lack of transparency in this government, I would say no; the opportunity for misuse is to great.
One feature of Niagara that I cannot seem to find any reference to now is their claim that it reduced iowait by up to 80% (I read about it in an IEEE publication about a year ago). If this features works as advertised (even if it delivers substantially less than 80%), it alone would be sufficient to set this chip heads above any of AMD's or Intel's offerings. It is still very early to compare Niagara to the existing x86_64 chips.
Overall, it looks as if Sun is positioning itself to be more mobile than they were in the past. They are persuing a few different chip designs (some incorporating outside technology), and have some promising products on the horizon. I think countin Sun (or SPARC) out just yet would be premature to say the least.
Many people are quick to say that if (l)unix 'were more like OSX' it would be better. While I agree that OSX is a nice operating system, has a good set of utilities and built-in programs, and provides a nice, friendly user interface, the same results could not be achieved in (l)unix.
The reason Apple is able to devote time to making the GUI pretty, or creating these great applications is the limited hardware base they support. Mac OSX has nowhere near the hardware support provided by Linux or Windows. Don't get me wrong, the PowerPC architecture is great, however, the lack of other options concerns me. I personally try to avoid vendor lock-in as much as possible.
I personally would like to see better vendor support (Ie ATI ).
Also, while competition is great, it would be nice if the main windowing systems (KDE or Gnome [QT Vs GTK])were more compatible with each other (or we just choose one). Being able to run QT apps in GTK without loading all the extra KDE nonsense would be nice....
Last note, greater standardization would be good too. Choosing *one* package management system that could be deployed across all dristros would be nice (Perhaps incorporate the best of the existing package management systems into one, cross distro system). It would make it easier for developers (only one package to make), admins (got a few different distros? ), and the general public (if more people use this utility, chances are a greater portion of those people will donate money, time, or other resources to the project).
The W3C is an interesting idea, but *it* may not be the best idea. First of all, having a central organization setting standards does *not* mean those settings will be followed. Take, for instance, CSS. The standards are clearly defined by the W3C, however creating CSS documents that look exactly the same across IE and Gecko browsers is not easy. Moreover, people complain that getting features into the kernel takes a long time already, adding bureaucracy will only increase the delays....
Excellent points are made in many of these replies, and what we need is to take the best of everything; the clean GUI of OSX, the standardization provided by a consortium including industry vendors, greater vendor support, and unify some of our efforts.
Competition is good, but only so long as it does not ultimately make the users life more difficult.