Yeah, I bought a palm pilot and then one month later they announced the color version. I'm not getting bit by that again. I'll just wait for the color this time.
I think it will be a while for a color Kindle. Admittedly I skimmed the article, but they sound vague about when E-Ink will have a color version available. On one hand, they're saying the color version screen will be available at the end of the year, but then they say:
X: What can you tell me about your technical ideas for creating better color displays? Is adding color simply a matter of tweaking the company’s existing microcapsule technology, or do you have to go back to the drawing board and approach it in an entirely new way?
SP: Even if we slightly describe it, we will probably reveal stuff that we are not ready to talk about. There is more than one approach, and exactly which one we will choose in the future, we don’t know.
So they haven't picked an approach yet? That doesn't sound like they'll have something ready in the next nine months.
The question of when they would have color technology has been bandied about by E-Ink since their inception. I read back in 2005 that Intel Capital invested in E-Ink with the hopes of getting a color-capable version and customers have always been asking for it. A color version is something they've been struggling to bring to market for a while. If they're still trying to figure out approaches, they could be a minimum of 1 years away for a prototype, and even longer for a color Kindle available in volume.
So, in short, if you want a Kindle, don't wait for the color version. Or just buy an iPad:-)
I tell a lie though. The Apple iPad isn't really $499. Just adding a power cord to the iPad will cost you $29.00. No, I'm not making that up. Really, Apple, you couldn't throw in a power cord? Shame on you.
This guy doesn't know what he is talking about. According to the tech specs 10 watt USB power adapter is included in the box.
Are we reading the same page? The 10 watt USB power adapter is listed under "iPad Accessories". You have to pay extra for it.
I think it's an accessory if you want to buy a second one. The tech specs page says that a 10W USB power adapter is included in the box.
Moreover, with lawnmowers, some weight is a good thing.
There are some things where people associate weight with quality(expensive watches, bar glasses, pens, etc). A low weight lawnmower may be associated with being cheap and flimsy. So having the battery weigh more is actually a good thing for the lawnmower. There's probably an optimal point where you want the lawnmower to weigh enough so it feels sturdy (and stays where you put it), but not so heavy that an average person finds it unwieldy.
In contrast, with a consumer electronic device where lighter is always better and any weight from the battery is a bad thing. So the manufacturer has to spend more money to try to get the battery to way less.
I think the spokesperson from Sony showed Mr. Ockenden a lot of patience in actually answering his question, rather than just calling him an idiot for comparing laptop and lawnmower batteries, which was fully within his rights to do.
I imagine there's also some lifespan and related warranty issues.
Laptops see a lot of use and the batteries are probably going through nearly continuous discharge/charge cycles. In contrast a lawnmower would be used maybe weekly or power tools that would be used intermittently. There's probably some relationship to the number of times the battery goes through a charging cycle and the additional cost. Note that even if both items have a 1 year warranty, the fact the laptop's battery goes through more frequent charge/discharge cycles and more frequent use, the risk of a failure requiring a replacement is higher likely resulting in some additional warranty costs that need to be considered.
I think the original author should have thought through his rant a bit more before he posted it.
Strictly speaking, SMS has more in common with voice than the regular data traffic (email, http, etc). SMS travels across the digital control channel within the broadcast messages for the voice channels. Within the core of the network, it's transported on the SS7 network, which is the control network used for voice. So it is segregated from regular data.
IMS-based instant messaging will adapt fine to a 4G network, but there has to be some sort of standardized SS7 and IP gateway mechanism for the IMS network. It's not hard, but it's easier for operators if there's a reference that the operators can use.
Clearwire deployed a proprietary broadband wireless access network based on Nextnet's technology. Nextnet was later bought by Motorola, who is a major infrastructure vendor for WiMAX, and Clearwire, as part of their merger with Sprint Xohm, will be switching to WiMAX.
WiMAX has two major variants: those based on the IEEE 802.16-2004 standard (called 16d or fixed WiMAX) and those based on the newer IEEE 802.16e-2005 (called 16e or mobile WiMAX) standard. There have been some small, limited build-outs of 16d, but 16e is destined to be much bigger, and that's why this is a big deal.
Sprint has been the primary backer of 16e because they acquired a lot of 2.5 GHz unpaired spectrum from their Nextel acquisition. With the launch of Sprint's Baltimore network, they've proven that a large, citywide network can deliver on the promises of WiMAX. This is a huge step forward for mobile broadband wireless access.
There are lots of words that marketing drones create that are irritating, but "webinar" has a purpose.
A webinar -- in the context my company uses it -- is more like a web-based seminar. Both a seminar and a webinar are targeted to an external audience (outside the company), have a moderator (usually a third party person), and may be hosted by more than one company. A webinar is more expensive than just a regular "web presentation" since there's some logistics involved (hiring a third party to set it up and manage it, managing invitation lists, having an operator manage who joins the bridge, etc.), but it's not nearly as expensive as a seminar.
A webinar is different from a web presentation in that the seminar (or webinar) are intended to be informative speaker-lead discussions for a relatively open audience. A web presentation would be more generic, and could encompass an internal meeting, a sales presentation, or something else.
So I think "webinar" is reasonable because it conveys a specific, useful meaning.
There are also questions about WiMAX's actual range following a messy Australian rollout, although the vendor there claims the Australian service provider under-provisioned the network."
To provide some context here -- since they used Airspan's equipment, the Australian operator probably deployed the older variant of WiMAX, based on the IEEE 802.16-2004 standard (called 16d or Fixed WiMAX). The majority of the industry on the other hand has shifted to the newer 802.16e-2005 standard (mobile WiMAX). Fixed WiMAX is essentially a near line of sight technology, not intended for non line of sight or mobile applications.
Mobile WiMAX uses a different physical layer than 16d, and it supports radio features to improve link robustness (such as convolutional turbo coding) and smart antenna technologies (2x2 MIMO to increase capacity and beam forming to increase cell range). In short, you can't gauge the performance of a mobile WiMAX network based on the results from a 16d network. The results I've seen in trials have matched radio propagation estimates fairly well, with the range being roughly what you see you traditional 2G/3G cellular -- 0.5 to 2 miles for non line of sight conditions. I've heard anecdotally of longer ranges of up to 30 miles for line of sight.
The rest of the industry has been fairly pleased with the performance of WiMAX during trials and early market deployments. Consider the number of service providers spending capital dollars to deploy. The WiMAX Forum recently announced there are more than 300 service providers deploying WiMAX in 118 countries worldwide. With Sprint's XOHM network going commercial later this year, we should have a better understanding of the benefits of WiMAX in a few months. The biggest concern I've heard of is the lack of devices today, but hopefully that will be alleviated late this year or early 2009.
Knowing how to use a computer doesn't make an expert on software patent reform or IP reform. McCain doesn't have to be an expert on IP issues. No president has to be. However, in the information age, to have a computer illiterate president seems dangerous. What if the president couldn't read? Would you trust that person to make decisions about freedom of the press or on book burning?
No, the McCain *campaign* is not a stranger to technology. McCain most definitely is a stranger to technology I agree -- a person who doesn't know how to use a computer and clearly is uninterested in using one is the wrong choice to lead 21st century America.
I think it's an interesting contrast that Barack Obama knew that a bubble sort is a bad way to sort a million 32-bit integers. Although I think it's necessary, I'd hate to see a debate on technology between the two candidates.
On second thought, maybe I'd love to see one. They could have Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens moderate!
I just checked my iPhone, and the world clock says New Delhi is 2007/12/31, rather than 2008/01/01. The regular calendar that handles appointments is unaffected since all my appointments are showing up in 2008 correctly.
I assume that this surprise (not bug) in the world clock is because the iPhone is so cool that we will no longer be advancing years beyond the year 2007. 2007 will be henceforth referred to the "year of our iPhone". Changing from our current B.C./A.D. system to this now A.i.P. calendar system is the real news.
It's always helpful to look back to see what the naysayers were saying back in the day. Business Week's Cliff Edwards said back in 2001 in an opinion piece titled "Sorry, Steve: Here's Why Apple Stores Won't Work":
Problem is, the numbers don't add up. Given the decision to set up shop in high-rent districts in Manhattan, Boston, Chicago, and Jobs's hometown of Palo Alto, Calif., the leases for Apple's stores could cost $1.2 million a year each, says David A. Goldstein, president of researcher Channel Marketing Corp. Since PC retailing gross margins are normally 10% or less, Apple would have to sell $12 million a year per store to pay for the space. Gateway does about $8 million annually at each of its Country Stores. Then there's the cost of construction, hiring experienced staff. "I give them two years before they're turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake," says Goldstein.
At the time, people didn't realize that the iPod was going to be so successful, but clearly the retail store was an important step for Apple. This opinion piece illustrates one of the problems of business experts who opine about a single step in a strategy, without having the vision to see how it fits into the whole. So Apple's gamble seems to have paid off. Here's to Apple sticking to a plan and seeing it through.
> You do know that they proved this like 60 years ago right
Yeah, but what made it cool was that the experiment could be repeated by a regular guy with surplus stuff from Ebay.
"If you have one clock... you are peaceful and have no worries," says Van Baak... "If you have two clocks... you start asking, 'What time is it, really?'"
Well, maybe not a regular guy, but you get the idea.
For more information the NPR program This American Life did an episode called "What's in a Number?," which was on The Lancelet study and the methodology of how they did their estimate. Very fascinating to listen to if anyone is interested in statistics and how this kind of work is done.
> Contracts must be a two way street to be legally binding.
Great point!
I've had a lawyer explain to me about this as well (but I'm not a lawyer). If a contract looks too "one-way", then it can be ruled invalid. So there must always be some give and take in a contract, and it can't look like one party is taking advantage of the other side.
Good lord! What happened to Slashdot over the weekend? Why did a story from this conservative "news" site even get posted here?
For future reference: rational people do not refer to prominent Democrats as "communists". That's completely ridiculous and contributes nothing of value to polite discourse. The quote you listed is completely out of context. If you don't like Hillary Clinton, fine. But there's no reason to resort to name calling.
I, for one, do not welcome our conservatives overloads who call their political opponents traitors, communists, socialists, or un-American.
> Apple customers, those that pay money to apple for the right to use their products as intended, > actually prefer the hardware lock-in because of what they gain from it.
That's right. One reason why Apple has been able to put out five OS releases compared to Microsoft's one iteration is that they only have to worry about a subset of hardware combinations.
R&D resources are limited, and I would rather Apple spend their R&D resources on adding more features to my Mac (i.e., developing more features for Mac OS X) rather than spending their resources to regression test hundreds or thousands of PC-style perturbations. So, if Apple supported third party PCs, existing Mac users (and those users who want a "premium experience") would lose. I think that Apple's growing market share means that their model is working.
Moreover, laptops make up a majority of computer sales these days, and they're smaller and more precise than a desktop. Thus the idea of a computer not being upgradable (I'm assuming far fewer people upgrade their laptops than upgraded their desktops) and being more of an appliance is becoming more the norm these days. That means the idea of supporting plain vanilla PCs make even less sense.
> Personally, I think the feature set of the Xbox should put it in the "current generation" (or generation 7 as you call it), rather than the last generation.
> Integrated network connectivity, not a plug-in widget to provide it
The PS2 has built-in Ethernet
> Online service to assist in the hosting of multiplayer games
PS2 games have this on a per game basis, but nothing that requires a subscription. Microsoft definitely changed the model by offering this, but note that Sony didn't follow suit for the PS3; they still don't charge. The subscription service part of the XBox is the main reason I'm not interested.
> HD video quality support (HD being designed as "higher than 280p")
The PS2 supports 480p for some games and even 1080i (for some parts of Gran Turismo).
So the PS2 meets many of the requirements you set up.
As for the other features, I think those are a matter of choice for the console, rather than elements of a "next gen console" (or 7th generation console). We could set up other requirements that exclude the XBox 360. For example, one could say that integrated next generation media (i.e., Bluray) is a requirement, as the Xbox 360 only supports HD-DVD as an add-on.
It's probably simplest to categorize console's generations by their release year, since that's one of the pure objective ways of doing it.
> The funny thing is, another name for WiMax that was being commonly slung around was, get ready for it, 4G
It's all marketing after a while.
Sprint referred to WiMAX as 4G, mostly to differentiate against people like AT&T who are looking to do UMTS and HSPA. GSM's version of 4G mobile is LTE (making HSPA something like 3.5G), while CDMA's version is UMB (formerly EVDO Rev C). So by Sprint calling WiMAX 4G, they make it sound like it's further ahead than CDMA2000 and GSM. It's not much different than Microsoft calling the new XBox, the "XBox 360" to avoid a poor comparison to PS3 (if the XBox had been called "Xbox 2", as one would expect).
Most people (who aren't pushing marketing) have settled on WiMAX as being "pre 4G", with the 4G version of WiMAX being based on 802.16m, sometimes called WiMAX Enhanced. In any case, 4G isn't expected until sometime between 2009-2011, so there's lot of time for new names to be coined.
> Scary to think that a team of grown, (presumably) reasonable adults can be convinced to kick down your door > and point a gun in your face just because a random report on a computer screen says so--with absolutely no > confirmation at all from an superior or actual living person involved in the case.
The alternative could be worse. If I had made the call and someone for real had been shot, I wouldn't want the police calling me back, and asking, "hey, are you *sure*?" The police have to err on the side of doing their jobs or it doesn't help to have a 911 system at all.
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> I hope she brings Fox the same integrity and good business sense that she brought to HP.
I'm sure we will.
Now we'll finally get the answer to the question "Which is harder? Running a first rate company into the ground, or being a Bush economic policy apologist?"
For those of you keeping score at home, in this corner, we have the person who helped bring down HP's stock by more than 50% and missed earnings targets. In the other corner, we have the economic policy that turned $250 billion budget surpluses under Clinton into $300 billion budget deficit in just two years!
> When are phased array digital radio networks going to be cheap, fast and reliable enough that "spectrum" is no longer a bottleneck?
Phased arrays in the terms of beam-forming are part of the WiMAX Forum profiles, but service providers have been slow (until recently) in requiring it in the base stations (the feature is mandatory for the end devices).
The industry is talking about adopting Spatial Multiplexing (allowing for the same channel to be targeted to specific users in 3D space), which will improve the data rate even more, allowing sector bandwidth to increase to 100 Mbps or more. However, since access spectrum is a constrained resource, I don't think you'll ever get to the point of not needing licensed spectrum and eliminating the FCC.
It's kind of like the highways. You can widen them, but you'll never eliminate the traffic since the number of commuters will increase since the highways allow people to move further away from the city.
No, there's too much of a risk that someone will think that Dr. Who or those simpletons the Grinch was ripping off actually care about this tempest in a teapot.
It would make more sense if Slashdot started a section specifically for stories like this. They could combine it with stories about changing alliances among pre-teen girls at our local Junior High School and which C-list celebrities are feuding with their former cast members. They could even reuse the OMG Ponies theme.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I bought a palm pilot and then one month later they announced the color version. I'm not getting bit by that again. I'll just wait for the color this time.
I think it will be a while for a color Kindle. Admittedly I skimmed the article, but they sound vague about when E-Ink will have a color version available. On one hand, they're saying the color version screen will be available at the end of the year, but then they say:
So they haven't picked an approach yet? That doesn't sound like they'll have something ready in the next nine months.
The question of when they would have color technology has been bandied about by E-Ink since their inception. I read back in 2005 that Intel Capital invested in E-Ink with the hopes of getting a color-capable version and customers have always been asking for it. A color version is something they've been struggling to bring to market for a while. If they're still trying to figure out approaches, they could be a minimum of 1 years away for a prototype, and even longer for a color Kindle available in volume.
So, in short, if you want a Kindle, don't wait for the color version. Or just buy an iPad :-)
From the Article:
I tell a lie though. The Apple iPad isn't really $499. Just adding a power cord to the iPad will cost you $29.00. No, I'm not making that up. Really, Apple, you couldn't throw in a power cord? Shame on you.
This guy doesn't know what he is talking about. According to the tech specs 10 watt USB power adapter is included in the box.
Are we reading the same page? The 10 watt USB power adapter is listed under "iPad Accessories". You have to pay extra for it.
I think it's an accessory if you want to buy a second one. The tech specs page says that a 10W USB power adapter is included in the box.
Moreover, with lawnmowers, some weight is a good thing.
There are some things where people associate weight with quality(expensive watches, bar glasses, pens, etc). A low weight lawnmower may be associated with being cheap and flimsy. So having the battery weigh more is actually a good thing for the lawnmower. There's probably an optimal point where you want the lawnmower to weigh enough so it feels sturdy (and stays where you put it), but not so heavy that an average person finds it unwieldy.
In contrast, with a consumer electronic device where lighter is always better and any weight from the battery is a bad thing. So the manufacturer has to spend more money to try to get the battery to way less.
I think the spokesperson from Sony showed Mr. Ockenden a lot of patience in actually answering his question, rather than just calling him an idiot for comparing laptop and lawnmower batteries, which was fully within his rights to do.
I imagine there's also some lifespan and related warranty issues.
Laptops see a lot of use and the batteries are probably going through nearly continuous discharge/charge cycles. In contrast a lawnmower would be used maybe weekly or power tools that would be used intermittently. There's probably some relationship to the number of times the battery goes through a charging cycle and the additional cost. Note that even if both items have a 1 year warranty, the fact the laptop's battery goes through more frequent charge/discharge cycles and more frequent use, the risk of a failure requiring a replacement is higher likely resulting in some additional warranty costs that need to be considered.
I think the original author should have thought through his rant a bit more before he posted it.
Strictly speaking, SMS has more in common with voice than the regular data traffic (email, http, etc). SMS travels across the digital control channel within the broadcast messages for the voice channels. Within the core of the network, it's transported on the SS7 network, which is the control network used for voice. So it is segregated from regular data.
IMS-based instant messaging will adapt fine to a 4G network, but there has to be some sort of standardized SS7 and IP gateway mechanism for the IMS network. It's not hard, but it's easier for operators if there's a reference that the operators can use.
Clearwire deployed a proprietary broadband wireless access network based on Nextnet's technology. Nextnet was later bought by Motorola, who is a major infrastructure vendor for WiMAX, and Clearwire, as part of their merger with Sprint Xohm, will be switching to WiMAX.
WiMAX has two major variants: those based on the IEEE 802.16-2004 standard (called 16d or fixed WiMAX) and those based on the newer IEEE 802.16e-2005 (called 16e or mobile WiMAX) standard. There have been some small, limited build-outs of 16d, but 16e is destined to be much bigger, and that's why this is a big deal.
Sprint has been the primary backer of 16e because they acquired a lot of 2.5 GHz unpaired spectrum from their Nextel acquisition. With the launch of Sprint's Baltimore network, they've proven that a large, citywide network can deliver on the promises of WiMAX. This is a huge step forward for mobile broadband wireless access.
There are lots of words that marketing drones create that are irritating, but "webinar" has a purpose.
A webinar -- in the context my company uses it -- is more like a web-based seminar. Both a seminar and a webinar are targeted to an external audience (outside the company), have a moderator (usually a third party person), and may be hosted by more than one company. A webinar is more expensive than just a regular "web presentation" since there's some logistics involved (hiring a third party to set it up and manage it, managing invitation lists, having an operator manage who joins the bridge, etc.), but it's not nearly as expensive as a seminar.
A webinar is different from a web presentation in that the seminar (or webinar) are intended to be informative speaker-lead discussions for a relatively open audience. A web presentation would be more generic, and could encompass an internal meeting, a sales presentation, or something else.
So I think "webinar" is reasonable because it conveys a specific, useful meaning.
To provide some context here -- since they used Airspan's equipment, the Australian operator probably deployed the older variant of WiMAX, based on the IEEE 802.16-2004 standard (called 16d or Fixed WiMAX). The majority of the industry on the other hand has shifted to the newer 802.16e-2005 standard (mobile WiMAX). Fixed WiMAX is essentially a near line of sight technology, not intended for non line of sight or mobile applications.
Mobile WiMAX uses a different physical layer than 16d, and it supports radio features to improve link robustness (such as convolutional turbo coding) and smart antenna technologies (2x2 MIMO to increase capacity and beam forming to increase cell range). In short, you can't gauge the performance of a mobile WiMAX network based on the results from a 16d network. The results I've seen in trials have matched radio propagation estimates fairly well, with the range being roughly what you see you traditional 2G/3G cellular -- 0.5 to 2 miles for non line of sight conditions. I've heard anecdotally of longer ranges of up to 30 miles for line of sight.
The rest of the industry has been fairly pleased with the performance of WiMAX during trials and early market deployments. Consider the number of service providers spending capital dollars to deploy. The WiMAX Forum recently announced there are more than 300 service providers deploying WiMAX in 118 countries worldwide. With Sprint's XOHM network going commercial later this year, we should have a better understanding of the benefits of WiMAX in a few months. The biggest concern I've heard of is the lack of devices today, but hopefully that will be alleviated late this year or early 2009.
I think it's an interesting contrast that Barack Obama knew that a bubble sort is a bad way to sort a million 32-bit integers. Although I think it's necessary, I'd hate to see a debate on technology between the two candidates.
On second thought, maybe I'd love to see one. They could have Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens moderate!
> It'd be kind of nice if instead of the usual "Republicans are evil" flamefest...
Anyone else think it's funny when someone pleads for a "time out" on behalf a professional demagogue?
Just checking...
I just checked my iPhone, and the world clock says New Delhi is 2007/12/31, rather than 2008/01/01. The regular calendar that handles appointments is unaffected since all my appointments are showing up in 2008 correctly.
I assume that this surprise (not bug) in the world clock is because the iPhone is so cool that we will no longer be advancing years beyond the year 2007. 2007 will be henceforth referred to the "year of our iPhone". Changing from our current B.C./A.D. system to this now A.i.P. calendar system is the real news.
Happy Year 1 A.i.P. everyone!
At the time, people didn't realize that the iPod was going to be so successful, but clearly the retail store was an important step for Apple. This opinion piece illustrates one of the problems of business experts who opine about a single step in a strategy, without having the vision to see how it fits into the whole. So Apple's gamble seems to have paid off. Here's to Apple sticking to a plan and seeing it through.
Yeah, but what made it cool was that the experiment could be repeated by a regular guy with surplus stuff from Ebay.
Well, maybe not a regular guy, but you get the idea.
> There is the Lancet source.
For more information the NPR program This American Life did an episode called "What's in a Number?," which was on The Lancelet study and the methodology of how they did their estimate. Very fascinating to listen to if anyone is interested in statistics and how this kind of work is done.
> Contracts must be a two way street to be legally binding.
Great point!
I've had a lawyer explain to me about this as well (but I'm not a lawyer). If a contract looks too "one-way", then it can be ruled invalid. So there must always be some give and take in a contract, and it can't look like one party is taking advantage of the other side.
Good lord! What happened to Slashdot over the weekend? Why did a story from this conservative "news" site even get posted here?
For future reference: rational people do not refer to prominent Democrats as "communists". That's completely ridiculous and contributes nothing of value to polite discourse. The quote you listed is completely out of context. If you don't like Hillary Clinton, fine. But there's no reason to resort to name calling.
I, for one, do not welcome our conservatives overloads who call their political opponents traitors, communists, socialists, or un-American.
> Apple customers, those that pay money to apple for the right to use their products as intended,
> actually prefer the hardware lock-in because of what they gain from it.
That's right. One reason why Apple has been able to put out five OS releases compared to Microsoft's one iteration is that they only have to worry about a subset of hardware combinations.
R&D resources are limited, and I would rather Apple spend their R&D resources on adding more features to my Mac (i.e., developing more features for Mac OS X) rather than spending their resources to regression test hundreds or thousands of PC-style perturbations. So, if Apple supported third party PCs, existing Mac users (and those users who want a "premium experience") would lose. I think that Apple's growing market share means that their model is working.
Moreover, laptops make up a majority of computer sales these days, and they're smaller and more precise than a desktop. Thus the idea of a computer not being upgradable (I'm assuming far fewer people upgrade their laptops than upgraded their desktops) and being more of an appliance is becoming more the norm these days. That means the idea of supporting plain vanilla PCs make even less sense.
> Personally, I think the feature set of the Xbox should put it in the "current generation" (or generation 7 as you call it), rather than the last generation.
> Integrated network connectivity, not a plug-in widget to provide it
The PS2 has built-in Ethernet
> Online service to assist in the hosting of multiplayer games
PS2 games have this on a per game basis, but nothing that requires a subscription. Microsoft definitely changed the model by offering this, but note that Sony didn't follow suit for the PS3; they still don't charge. The subscription service part of the XBox is the main reason I'm not interested.
> HD video quality support (HD being designed as "higher than 280p")
The PS2 supports 480p for some games and even 1080i (for some parts of Gran Turismo).
So the PS2 meets many of the requirements you set up.
As for the other features, I think those are a matter of choice for the console, rather than elements of a "next gen console" (or 7th generation console). We could set up other requirements that exclude the XBox 360. For example, one could say that integrated next generation media (i.e., Bluray) is a requirement, as the Xbox 360 only supports HD-DVD as an add-on.
It's probably simplest to categorize console's generations by their release year, since that's one of the pure objective ways of doing it.
> The funny thing is, another name for WiMax that was being commonly slung around was, get ready for it, 4G
It's all marketing after a while.
Sprint referred to WiMAX as 4G, mostly to differentiate against people like AT&T who are looking to do UMTS and HSPA. GSM's version of 4G mobile is LTE (making HSPA something like 3.5G), while CDMA's version is UMB (formerly EVDO Rev C). So by Sprint calling WiMAX 4G, they make it sound like it's further ahead than CDMA2000 and GSM. It's not much different than Microsoft calling the new XBox, the "XBox 360" to avoid a poor comparison to PS3 (if the XBox had been called "Xbox 2", as one would expect).
Most people (who aren't pushing marketing) have settled on WiMAX as being "pre 4G", with the 4G version of WiMAX being based on 802.16m, sometimes called WiMAX Enhanced. In any case, 4G isn't expected until sometime between 2009-2011, so there's lot of time for new names to be coined.
> Scary to think that a team of grown, (presumably) reasonable adults can be convinced to kick down your door
> and point a gun in your face just because a random report on a computer screen says so--with absolutely no
> confirmation at all from an superior or actual living person involved in the case.
The alternative could be worse. If I had made the call and someone for real had been shot, I wouldn't want the police calling me back, and asking, "hey, are you *sure*?" The police have to err on the side of doing their jobs or it doesn't help to have a 911 system at all.
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> I hope she brings Fox the same integrity and good business sense that she brought to HP.
I'm sure we will.
Now we'll finally get the answer to the question "Which is harder? Running a first rate company into the ground, or being a Bush economic policy apologist?"
For those of you keeping score at home, in this corner, we have the person who helped bring down HP's stock by more than 50% and missed earnings targets. In the other corner, we have the economic policy that turned $250 billion budget surpluses under Clinton into $300 billion budget deficit in just two years!
Sounds like a perfect match.
> When are phased array digital radio networks going to be cheap, fast and reliable enough that "spectrum" is no longer a bottleneck?
Phased arrays in the terms of beam-forming are part of the WiMAX Forum profiles, but service providers have been slow (until recently) in requiring it in the base stations (the feature is mandatory for the end devices).
The industry is talking about adopting Spatial Multiplexing (allowing for the same channel to be targeted to specific users in 3D space), which will improve the data rate even more, allowing sector bandwidth to increase to 100 Mbps or more. However, since access spectrum is a constrained resource, I don't think you'll ever get to the point of not needing licensed spectrum and eliminating the FCC.
It's kind of like the highways. You can widen them, but you'll never eliminate the traffic since the number of commuters will increase since the highways allow people to move further away from the city.
> tag this whocares
No, there's too much of a risk that someone will think that Dr. Who or those simpletons the Grinch was ripping off actually care about this tempest in a teapot.
It would make more sense if Slashdot started a section specifically for stories like this. They could combine it with stories about changing alliances among pre-teen girls at our local Junior High School and which C-list celebrities are feuding with their former cast members. They could even reuse the OMG Ponies theme.