It's illegal for me to personally buy it (Amazon already shipped me my personal copy, since I preordered it) and sell it to someone in a different region with no markup and drop it in the mail? Since when is that illegal?
While this is yet another technical issue with the ISS, when will this end? I am all for the space program, but there have been some major issues lately."
Going to space is hard. It shouldn't stop us from doing it. Issues will crop up.
Even if you have no landline service, you can dial 911 from a phone plugged in. It's mandated by the FCC. Same way with a cellphone. You can carry a cellphone around with no service, and it will still be able to dial 911.
You're correct. The cost of copper is at a point where it's cheaper to just put towers up and let wireless be the last mile (or several miles, depending on topography).
I have a Blackberry that I use extremely frequently (5000+ minutes a month) as I run a small business and am also extremely active with progressive charity/social groups. When I was growing up (I just turned 25), I couldn't see much use for a cellphone. What's the point? There are landlines everywhere. But as globalization kicks in (I have a client from every continent, including antarctica if you include the NSF), and my clients request (and some demand) to get ahold of me at all hours of the day and night (and they're allowed to for what they pay), a cellphone is essential.
I've found that as long as you're polite with your phone around others, and are religious about putting it on vibrate in the situations that warrant it (movies, church, the opera, college classes at UIC) it provides a huge benefit with little downside.
I've written software for my Blackberry (it's called Hushpuppy) that detects certain cell tower identifiers (the same way Google Maps MyLocation does) and transitions the phone from audible alerts to vibrate and back for when I'm on campus or someplace else I frequent where the phone should be quiet. I'd be glad to give the code to those interested.
Remember, the phone is just a tool, like a hammer, or nmap. It's up to the user to use it correctly.
Even if I was a friend of the IBM legal team, the "holy thunder of God Himself" line (along with the fact that it's *IBMs* legal team) would scare the shit out of me.
To counterfeiters: Prepare to be penny/asset-less.
Maybe they had their google streets view team and google maps team drive around w/ a cell phone w/ gps. It'd be pretty trivial to write an app that polls to see which cells it currently sees and also note the current GPS location.
Even better. Google Maps is doing the reporting. GPS-capable phones are building the database for them just by running.
Re:Wow! This is exactly what I always wanted!!!
on
Google Maps GPS Simulator
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Where does it say that they do that? This would be an extremely stupid idea. They already know EXACTLY where all the towers are and how best to triangulate the signals - they don't need to collect that from Blackberry users. Are you sure someone isn't having you on? Sounds made up to me. Please link to your source.
Mobile towers are placed by operators throughout an area to provide coverage for their users. Each of these towers has its own individual coverage area, usually split into three non-overlapping sections known as "cells." These cells come with identification numbers, but no location information. Google takes geo-contextual information [from anonymous GPS-readings, etc] and associates this information with the cell at that location to develop a database of cell locations. Based on this information, Google uses various algorithms to approximate your location relative to the cells nearest you. The accuracy of this information depends on how big an individual cell is. Thus, areas with a denser concentration of mobile towers allow for a more accurate My Location reading. Additionally, as our database of cell locations continues to improve, so too does the accuracy and coverage of the My Location feature.
I agree that a lot of technological advances come from places like the DoD and NASA. I also agree that a lot of these advances would never come from private enterprise. But then it becomes gray on a tech-by-tech basis. GPS? Of course navigation was going to be big. People didn't see it then, but now it's apparent. This tech is a little different though. I believe it'll be more difficult to find non-military uses for shoving something big from a bomb bay at supersonic speeds. Perhaps it'll come in hander for space technology (assisted vehicle to orbit launches).
My favorite feature of the SR-71 was that it burned bright but flew fast. Stealth may have been limited, but being able to simply outrun ordinances in cruise/above-cruise speeds (without afterburner) is definitely cool.
I believe the metal of choice to build "Rods from God" is tungsten.
I wanted to say you could wrap the tungsten with something else (metal, composite, carbon nanotubes), but there's no need. There goes my "Killer Corn Dogs from Space" idea.
Damn! Ahh, well, the joys of being an early adopter. I can always get the newer edition or just suck it up and get a Garmin bluetooth GPS module and keep it in my bag.
Could we not use the same accelerometer built into the iPhone to detect landscape/portrait changes? Perhaps it's not extremely accurate, but I'd be interested to get my hands on an iPhone for a week or two just to code something up to try to handle inertial navigation to see what the results are.
I just wanted to add, the tower identified information isn't private. The phone has this information the same as it has diagnostic information from the tower on signal strength. Just as your phone can tell the tower signal strength, the tower send back info on how well it can pick up your phone. This is why phones placed near speakers will make the speakers hum when a call is incoming. The tower is commanding the phone to ramp up it's radio to a higher power output (something it doesn't need to know while simply pulling data from the control channel on the tower).
Google getting tower identifier information from the GSM chipset. You can pull it through a programming interface.
BUT! The problem is, those tower identifiers have no geo-location information. So how does Google get it? Easily. The have the MyLocation Google Maps client running on GPS-enabled devices send back GPS coordinates with tower identifier information. As more and more people have the client running, Google gets a bigger database to play with. Once a significant dataset has been compiled, MyLocation data should be much more accurate (although, not as accurate as GPS).
Agreed. My Blackberry Curve uses T-Mobile's HotSpot@Home to tunnel the voice and data over WiFi when available. Even though my phone showed that it was enabled (UMA icon active), MyLocation is still pulling the tower information from the GSM chipset.
How did your Curve come with GPS? Mine comes with the ability to pair to a Bluetooth-enabled GPS receiver, but does not include GPS functionality built in. Sad day =(
If they use the miniature laser-based accelerometers used in Segways, and include them in mass production, the cost wouldn't rise too high.
Re:Wow! This is exactly what I always wanted!!!
on
Google Maps GPS Simulator
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Yes, but people running the MyLocation version who DO have GPS are helping those of us with Blackberry Curves that don't have built in GPS. Google is taking the GPS data, correlating it to the tower identifiers the cellphone is picking up at the time, and building a database for triangulation. Not only can they provide that data to their users, but they then could resell that data like Navteq sells driving direction data.
Slashdot Mirror
It's illegal for me to personally buy it (Amazon already shipped me my personal copy, since I preordered it) and sell it to someone in a different region with no markup and drop it in the mail? Since when is that illegal?
http://code.google.com/
I'll buy it for you and ship it to you if you want. I'm in the US. And I'm not going to hose you. Just a huge Futurama fan.
Going to space is hard. It shouldn't stop us from doing it. Issues will crop up.
Even if you have no landline service, you can dial 911 from a phone plugged in. It's mandated by the FCC. Same way with a cellphone. You can carry a cellphone around with no service, and it will still be able to dial 911.
Oh, snap!
Until Verizon crushes them like they're doing to Vonage. Cell phone companies don't face this problem.
You're correct. The cost of copper is at a point where it's cheaper to just put towers up and let wireless be the last mile (or several miles, depending on topography).
I've found that as long as you're polite with your phone around others, and are religious about putting it on vibrate in the situations that warrant it (movies, church, the opera, college classes at UIC) it provides a huge benefit with little downside.
I've written software for my Blackberry (it's called Hushpuppy) that detects certain cell tower identifiers (the same way Google Maps MyLocation does) and transitions the phone from audible alerts to vibrate and back for when I'm on campus or someplace else I frequent where the phone should be quiet. I'd be glad to give the code to those interested.
Remember, the phone is just a tool, like a hammer, or nmap. It's up to the user to use it correctly.
To counterfeiters: Prepare to be penny/asset-less.
I'm assuming depleted uranium, correct?
Even better. Google Maps is doing the reporting. GPS-capable phones are building the database for them just by running.
http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=81873&topic=12595
How accurate is My Location (beta)?
Mobile towers are placed by operators throughout an area to provide coverage for their users. Each of these towers has its own individual coverage area, usually split into three non-overlapping sections known as "cells." These cells come with identification numbers, but no location information. Google takes geo-contextual information [from anonymous GPS-readings, etc] and associates this information with the cell at that location to develop a database of cell locations. Based on this information, Google uses various algorithms to approximate your location relative to the cells nearest you. The accuracy of this information depends on how big an individual cell is. Thus, areas with a denser concentration of mobile towers allow for a more accurate My Location reading. Additionally, as our database of cell locations continues to improve, so too does the accuracy and coverage of the My Location feature.
I agree that a lot of technological advances come from places like the DoD and NASA. I also agree that a lot of these advances would never come from private enterprise. But then it becomes gray on a tech-by-tech basis. GPS? Of course navigation was going to be big. People didn't see it then, but now it's apparent. This tech is a little different though. I believe it'll be more difficult to find non-military uses for shoving something big from a bomb bay at supersonic speeds. Perhaps it'll come in hander for space technology (assisted vehicle to orbit launches).
I would be interested in seeing how much of the stealth capability is lost when the doors are opened (radar/heat profile).
My favorite feature of the SR-71 was that it burned bright but flew fast. Stealth may have been limited, but being able to simply outrun ordinances in cruise/above-cruise speeds (without afterburner) is definitely cool.
I wanted to say you could wrap the tungsten with something else (metal, composite, carbon nanotubes), but there's no need. There goes my "Killer Corn Dogs from Space" idea.
Damn! Ahh, well, the joys of being an early adopter. I can always get the newer edition or just suck it up and get a Garmin bluetooth GPS module and keep it in my bag.
Could we not use the same accelerometer built into the iPhone to detect landscape/portrait changes? Perhaps it's not extremely accurate, but I'd be interested to get my hands on an iPhone for a week or two just to code something up to try to handle inertial navigation to see what the results are.
I just wanted to add, the tower identified information isn't private. The phone has this information the same as it has diagnostic information from the tower on signal strength. Just as your phone can tell the tower signal strength, the tower send back info on how well it can pick up your phone. This is why phones placed near speakers will make the speakers hum when a call is incoming. The tower is commanding the phone to ramp up it's radio to a higher power output (something it doesn't need to know while simply pulling data from the control channel on the tower).
Google getting tower identifier information from the GSM chipset. You can pull it through a programming interface. BUT! The problem is, those tower identifiers have no geo-location information. So how does Google get it? Easily. The have the MyLocation Google Maps client running on GPS-enabled devices send back GPS coordinates with tower identifier information. As more and more people have the client running, Google gets a bigger database to play with. Once a significant dataset has been compiled, MyLocation data should be much more accurate (although, not as accurate as GPS).
Agreed. My Blackberry Curve uses T-Mobile's HotSpot@Home to tunnel the voice and data over WiFi when available. Even though my phone showed that it was enabled (UMA icon active), MyLocation is still pulling the tower information from the GSM chipset.
How did your Curve come with GPS? Mine comes with the ability to pair to a Bluetooth-enabled GPS receiver, but does not include GPS functionality built in. Sad day =(
If they use the miniature laser-based accelerometers used in Segways, and include them in mass production, the cost wouldn't rise too high.
Yes, but people running the MyLocation version who DO have GPS are helping those of us with Blackberry Curves that don't have built in GPS. Google is taking the GPS data, correlating it to the tower identifiers the cellphone is picking up at the time, and building a database for triangulation. Not only can they provide that data to their users, but they then could resell that data like Navteq sells driving direction data.