If the iPhone has the feature of returning to a known reference point easily, then I salute that. It's a feature easy to implement, requires no additional hardware, and is not disturbing to seeing customers, so I wonder why is it not implemented in other/all products as well.
Most UIs are confusing for sighted people, too. This is especially true for phones and mp3 players. It is not surprising that they would completely overlook such features. Most manufacturers go for a feature check-list and low hardware cost; the confusing UI can be explained in a poorly translated manual.
The iPhone, with its single touchscreen interface, is not useful for blind people, but certainly, some of the iPhone's more innovative features will be making it into more suitable devices soon.
This is why you need to add another layer. The product has to provide a web server that lists up to date URLs and RegEx patterns, so that even when the site breaks the parsing, it can be fixed and deployed seemlessly before the users' cached data expires.
How about if your door is closed, but when someone rings the doorbell, the door automatically opens? Would you fault people for entering? This is closer to what happens with DHCP.
When I had a landline, I had a very short answering machine message (something like "Leave a message"). This short message played before the telemarketer's auto-dialing machine switched them to the line, so we would constantly get messages from telemarketers assuming we were ignoring them. "Hello, may I speak to Bob?... Hello?... Hello?"
The problem with having a traditional email setup is that most ISPs block outgoing SMTP traffic, even if authenticated. This gets old fast when you have to reconfigure your mail client for every network you connect to.
Let me second the shout out on Pacsafe. They do really good gear - steel mesh bags that are only slightly heavier than regular bags, and which can be locked by a steel cable to objects like radiators.
Now, there's an upside, and a downside. The upside is your gear is safe from somebody just opening your door, swiping something and legging it. The downside it it screams "I HAVE SOMETHING WORTH STEALING" and nothing will survive bolt cutters. So you have to be careful: keep the fact the bag is locked to the radiator fairly discreet for a start. Don't take stupid chances.
Bolt cutters? It looks like my leatherman could cut through that thin cabling (it has a cable/wire cutting notch in the pliers).
Older, more conservative people often think that anything different should be banned or punished. It is a very narrowminded view.
If the people putting up the displays are to be fined for causing panic, what about the whole federal government which is constantly trying to exaggerate the threat to justify their "new powers"?
They also can't be connected to other USB storage devices for file transfers
This is a limitation of USB. Unlike FireWire, it is a client-server bus, so one device has to act as the host. Some digital cameras can do this, and you can plug an iPod into these. With FireWire, it was easier since every device was a peer and could talk to any other FireWire device.
The firewire iPods didn't have this feature, either. Peer to peer file copy is an obvious killer app for a portable firewire storage device, but Apple didn't want to go there.
I know Steve Jobs wants to get you close to your honey, but what about when you want to check out some new artist that one of your buddies is listening to? Sharing an earphone isn't quite as appealing.
By taking an iPod in exchange, you are increasing market share. Without the exchange, that user would be unlikely to buy a Zune. In the simplest case, one user trades up and iPod market share goes from 100% to 50%.
I have had a KuroBox for about 6 months. It is a great little machine. I have debian on mine and I use it for a backup server and a music server (via a usb sound card and mpd). What is nice about the KuroBox over, say, the linksys NSLU2 is that it has an internal IDE connection instead of only USB. This means that you can utilize hard drive power management.
I agree that Neuros is an interesting company that makes interesting products. It however has a way to go before they become a household name. I bought one of their mp3 players a few years back and it was DOA. They wouldn't pay shipping both ways to replace it, so I paid the shipping and just returned it for a refund. I got an iRiver instead. Small companies need to have better customer service to make a name for themselves. Hopefully, Neuros has learned this in the time since my experience, but even if they did, it is still hard to get the bad taste out of my mouth.
65 mph is 1144 inches per second. You should be at least 2 seconds behind the next driver, so in effect you are using about 2500 inches of roadway (0.039 miles). Then, if you run the numbers, for a 60 minute commute (30 each way), you are using $0.22 a day in road costs. This, of course, assumes that your $1,000,000 per lane mile and 20 year life are accurate, along with a roadway full of 65 mph drivers at all times.
I think that the $1M per mile might be too low on average. It certainly seems to be low for the places with higher property values (like the coasts). A 12 ft lane for a mile is about 1.5 acres. I have no idea at even an estimate of what the materials and labor would cost.
Even so, it is unlikely that the cost of the roadway is significant compared to the other costs of driving (fuel, cars, insurance, and car maintenance). Fuel costs for modern cars carrying 2 people (driver and passenger) are comparable to a bus, and I don't think that the mechanical costs for reasonable cars are much more than a bus over time.
If you can swing it, carpooling seems to be the best way to make an impact (low investment, low inconvenience, high gain).
Slashdot Mirror
You might not need emulation for the CPU, but you certainly would need emulation for the other hardware in the DS (like video, input, sound, etc).
The catch is that it is still 128kbps upload.
I think the original poster meant voice feedback.
o wto
I haven't ever used Rockbox, but here are a few related links:
Rockbox Voice Howto:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/VoiceH
Rockbox Installation Tutorial MP3:
http://www.hartgen.org/RockboxInstallIpod.mp3
Most UIs are confusing for sighted people, too. This is especially true for phones and mp3 players. It is not surprising that they would completely overlook such features. Most manufacturers go for a feature check-list and low hardware cost; the confusing UI can be explained in a poorly translated manual.
The iPhone, with its single touchscreen interface, is not useful for blind people, but certainly, some of the iPhone's more innovative features will be making it into more suitable devices soon.
You don't think that watching YouTube or streaming music all day would would raise a flag?
This is why you need to add another layer. The product has to provide a web server that lists up to date URLs and RegEx patterns, so that even when the site breaks the parsing, it can be fixed and deployed seemlessly before the users' cached data expires.
The whole point is to simplify making your data public, posting to the web. Your argument is a non-starter.
It isn't capacitive with PDAs and Tablet PCs. Those are resistive. Laptop trackpads and ipod controls are capacitive. This is optical.
How about if your door is closed, but when someone rings the doorbell, the door automatically opens? Would you fault people for entering? This is closer to what happens with DHCP.
Linux tries to move things that haven't been used in a while to swap so that there is more real memory to use for cache.
This is configurable using the swappiness settings.
When I had a landline, I had a very short answering machine message (something like "Leave a message"). This short message played before the telemarketer's auto-dialing machine switched them to the line, so we would constantly get messages from telemarketers assuming we were ignoring them. "Hello, may I speak to Bob? ... Hello? ... Hello?"
Very amusing.
I had an iBook G4, and a HD activity indicator would have been most welcome. That thing wasn't exactly a speed demon.
The problem with having a traditional email setup is that most ISPs block outgoing SMTP traffic, even if authenticated. This gets old fast when you have to reconfigure your mail client for every network you connect to.
Bolt cutters? It looks like my leatherman could cut through that thin cabling (it has a cable/wire cutting notch in the pliers).
Shapelock?
Older, more conservative people often think that anything different should be banned or punished. It is a very narrowminded view.
If the people putting up the displays are to be fined for causing panic, what about the whole federal government which is constantly trying to exaggerate the threat to justify their "new powers"?
I think lots of media server programs do transcoding on the fly to minimize network and client CPU requirements.
What's even worse is that sometimes closing the window does close the application, but usually not. System Preferences is an example.
The firewire iPods didn't have this feature, either. Peer to peer file copy is an obvious killer app for a portable firewire storage device, but Apple didn't want to go there.
I know Steve Jobs wants to get you close to your honey, but what about when you want to check out some new artist that one of your buddies is listening to? Sharing an earphone isn't quite as appealing.
By taking an iPod in exchange, you are increasing market share. Without the exchange, that user would be unlikely to buy a Zune. In the simplest case, one user trades up and iPod market share goes from 100% to 50%.
Why does FF have its own gigantic memory cache in the first place, instead of letting the OS's disk cache do its job properly?
Seconded. If you multitask applications, you cannot have one application assume that it is the only one needing resources.
I was thinking of a screen that could slide out, like a pocket door. This way, you can leave the screen tucked away when not needed.
I have had a KuroBox for about 6 months. It is a great little machine. I have debian on mine and I use it for a backup server and a music server (via a usb sound card and mpd). What is nice about the KuroBox over, say, the linksys NSLU2 is that it has an internal IDE connection instead of only USB. This means that you can utilize hard drive power management.
I agree that Neuros is an interesting company that makes interesting products. It however has a way to go before they become a household name. I bought one of their mp3 players a few years back and it was DOA. They wouldn't pay shipping both ways to replace it, so I paid the shipping and just returned it for a refund. I got an iRiver instead. Small companies need to have better customer service to make a name for themselves. Hopefully, Neuros has learned this in the time since my experience, but even if they did, it is still hard to get the bad taste out of my mouth.
170 inches?
65 mph is 1144 inches per second. You should be at least 2 seconds behind the next driver, so in effect you are using about 2500 inches of roadway (0.039 miles). Then, if you run the numbers, for a 60 minute commute (30 each way), you are using $0.22 a day in road costs. This, of course, assumes that your $1,000,000 per lane mile and 20 year life are accurate, along with a roadway full of 65 mph drivers at all times.
I think that the $1M per mile might be too low on average. It certainly seems to be low for the places with higher property values (like the coasts). A 12 ft lane for a mile is about 1.5 acres. I have no idea at even an estimate of what the materials and labor would cost.
Even so, it is unlikely that the cost of the roadway is significant compared to the other costs of driving (fuel, cars, insurance, and car maintenance). Fuel costs for modern cars carrying 2 people (driver and passenger) are comparable to a bus, and I don't think that the mechanical costs for reasonable cars are much more than a bus over time.
If you can swing it, carpooling seems to be the best way to make an impact (low investment, low inconvenience, high gain).