The article indicates a 1:5 upload:download ratio. Would this be because most plans have e.g. 1mbit up : 10mbit down throttling (or similar) ?
I find it interesting that they could increase their upload speeds with minimal performance hit, or would that take away their argument against level 3?
If the PNG on the Slashdot article is derived from the linked source article then I am concerned that it may not be representative of the actual research as the source article offers the image as a JPEG - which will almost certainly have degraded the image quality.
I have used both Open Office and MS Office over the years, and my only gripe is that I've learnt excel shortcuts and native behavior and Calc does everything a bit different which is very frustrating.
I've searched before but not found an easy to apply plugin or config file update that will make Calc act like Excel (DEL to clear a cell, CTRL SHIFT + to insert a row etc.). This would really make may day if someone could suggest such a solution.
GUARD #1: Halt! Who goes there?
ARTHUR: It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle
of Camelot. King of the Britons, defeator of the Saxons, sovereign
of all England!
ARTHUR: I am. And this my trusty servant Patsy.
We have videoed and photographed the length and breadth of the land in search of knights
who will join me in my court of Camelot. I must speak with your lord
and master.
GUARD #1: What, on film?
ARTHUR: Yes!
GUARD #1: You're using SD cards!
ARTHUR: What?
GUARD #1: You've got two SD cards and you're RAIDing
'em together.
ARTHUR: So? We have ridden since the snows of winter covered this
land, through the kingdom of Mercea, through--
GUARD #1: Where'd you get the SD cards?
ARTHUR: We found them.
GUARD #1: Found them? In Mercea? The SD card is Asian!
ARTHUR: What do you mean?
GUARD #1: Well, this is a temperate zone.
ARTHUR: The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin
or the plumber may seek warmer climes in winter yet these are not
strangers to our land.
GUARD #1: Are you suggesting SD cards migrate?
ARTHUR: Not at all, they could be carried.
GUARD #1: What -- a swallow carrying a SD Card?
ARTHUR: It could grip it by the lock switch!
GUARD #1: It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple
question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a 1 pound
SD Card.
ARTHUR: Well, it doesn't matter. Will you go and tell your master
that Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here.
GUARD #1: Listen, in order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow
needs to beat its wings 43 times every second, right?
ARTHUR: Please!
GUARD #1: Am I right?
ARTHUR: I'm not interested!
GUARD #2: It could be carried by an African swallow!
GUARD #1: Oh, yeah, an African swallow maybe, but not a European
swallow, that's my point.
GUARD #2: Oh, yeah, I agree with that...
ARTHUR: Will you ask your master if he wants to join my court
at Camelot?!
GUARD #1: But then of course African swallows are not migratory.
GUARD #2: Oh, yeah...
GUARD #1: So they couldn't bring a SD card back anyway...
[click click]
GUARD #2: Wait a minute -- supposing two swallows carried it together?
GUARD #1: No, they'd have to have it on a line.
GUARD #2: Well, simple! They'd just use a standard creeper!
GUARD #1: What, held under the dorsal guiding feathers?
GUARD #2: Well, why not?
Aggregates your two DSL ISPs and 2 cable modem ISPs so you can get to youtube , hulu, netflix AND facebook through one easy Ethernet connection! Eliminate that pesky unplugging and cable mess!
Any suggestions for an andriod app that can quickly do a security audit (assuming the API's allow it)?
I'm thinking that it would list in table form all the installed applications (the rows) with all the security access types (columns) with all the cells checked or unchecked. This would allow an "at a glance" review of all the apps without having to navigate into the management of each one.
Electronics aren't as easy to custom-make as mechanical parts. Especially vector screens aren't something you can make with your standard workshop equipment.
I would argue that a projector screen ($50), a bright Semiconductor visible laser ($10) and a home made "MEMS" device (small mirror with X, Y analogue control) driven with appropriate analogue circuit could be used as a modern stand in ($100-200).
That said, a Desktop level performance ARM chip is something that hasn't been done yet,
It has been done. I used to own a RISC PC desktop with 200Mhz StrongARM CPU at the time x86 PC's were maxing out with 90MHz Pentium. Other than in FP applications it ran laps around the Intel chips of the time. It is also worth noting the StrongARM was in a plastic package with no heatsink as it dispated so little heat.
Ultimately the platform stalled at this CPU achievement and Intel eventually caught up and surpassed (on the speed front anyway). I often wonder if (the lack of speed bumps to StrongARM for a very long time) had anything to do with Intel taking over the design/manufacture.
Since the have licensed the arcitecture and the instruction set they are in the position of starting grouond up on ARM isntruction set compatible design and/or (heavily) modifying the exiciting core design. As the poster above pointed out they must have a need that is not serviced by the exisiting SOC comunity.
The prime candidate (IMO) is something in the Xbox3. After being burned by not controlling the CPU and GPU designs chipset parts for the Xbox1 they had tighter control on the Xbox2 (360) with thier own 3 core Power PC design.
With Sony continuing to leaverage the cell co-processors maybe MS wants something similar. It is not too far fetched that the next gen xbox could be a 3+core power pc with ARM derived co-processors (like CELL). The advantage is that compiler support is mature and developers are very familiar with ARM architecture so getting the most out of the cores would not be the steep learning curve that cell has had. ARM cores take up very little space compared to modern Intel/AMD x86 chip designs and typically have small levels of cache. Could easily fit a 4-6 core power PC and 20+(?) ARM cores on a modern process comparable in size to existing Xbox2 CPU die.
Disclaimer : I own some ARM shares.
'As yet, there's also no way of downloading [Google] maps to a memory card for offline navigation, so you could have major problems in areas without a 3G signal'
That should be corrected to "without any signal". I successfully start a route plan and use google nav on my N1 in locations that only have GPRS. It actually seems faster than loading a full screen map view. Probably because the route data and "on route" maps are "vector" rather than bitmap.
Always makes me think of "Understanding Space and Time" by Alastair Reynolds, which can be found in one of his books of short SciFi stories "Zima Blue and Other Stories". Not to spoil the plot but it is one mans struggle with an near eternity of discovering fundamental laws beneath fundamental laws until his "brain" is so big it has to be "scaffolded" to prevent gravitational collapse.
I used to used to get my parents to buy Norton for their home PC and remote support them. But if the years subscription was up they wouldn't have the latest protection until I was around to do the upgrade.
I eventually went free as Norton started causing more problems than it was supposed to solve. Originally I rolled out AVG but that too had yearly requirements to upgrade. I switched all the family members I support a few months ago to the microsoft solution and "it just works", having the definitions and program updates rolled into the windows update has saved a lot of hassle. It being low resource usage is also a major plus. Everyone is happy.
...I wish 3rd party software would integrate into the windows update system, it would save a lot of bother (and pop-us, nag screens and update checking tasks loaded at startup).
I deiced on a house before the sheet rock went in. So I had Coax and Cat5 routed to every room (x2 for the office). Usually in different locations at my best guess of where a TV and a PC/telephone might be. It was well worth it. In hind-site I would have put more than one run to a room (e.g. opposite walls to cover more layout possibilities). I might have even put more cat5 in for other applications such as serial, IR routers, sensors / hacks, USB extenders etc.
I'm using some of the cat5 for phone, some for mixed phone (2 conductors) +100 Mbit/s (4 conductors) network and some for Gigabit. Everything terminates to a handy spot in the basement where I have punch down panel and a switch and the incoming phone line for the cat5 runs and a amp+splitter for the CATV.
I would like this. Some options I could work with: Extensions to current CD/DVD/Bluray ISO formats, new version of "ZIP" files and a new version of True Crypt files. If done in an open standards way I could be somewhat confident of support in many years time when I may need to read the archives. Obviously backwards compatibility with earlier iso/file formats would be a plus.
For the kids set up their login accounts as non-administrator so they can't install anything (same for irresponsible adults).
All users get their own account and password. So no easy click route to admin.
Screen saver set to
Set up the PC (including all the programs they need and all their email accounts set up) then do a system image to a DVD set or HD that you keep safe - much quicker to reinstall the PC that way.
Auto windows update and install and auto virus killer scans and updates.
Cross loop or some other desktop sharing session to help remotely.
When ever vising them take 10 minutes out of the visit to sit down at the PC to check virus and auto updates are still in effect and ask them for any issues they've been having.
Repeat offenders who demand admin rights (and then proceed to mess up their pc again and again) get longer and longer waits for the "repair".
Those who have demonstrated responsibility get treated to hardware upgrades and help with setting up new/additional software they might enjoy.
I checked some US electrical codes, have you? I get back to my original point GFI is NOT mandated on EVERY outlet. As a result every house in the USA I have been in has a majority of sockets without GFI and based home inspection (including 2 homes less than 5 years old).
The problem is people don't hook up ground adapter.
I've never seen it done by anyone I've visited in an old houses, so it stands as a serious safety issue.
A possible solution is to ban the adapters, mandate that all sockets be 3 prong, make it illegal for electrical companies to start new service on a house (or transfer of service) unless the house electrical conforms to the new minimum standard (how it is done in the UK).
I would be very interested to see the stats of death per capita due to electrical shock in the home for USA and UK. You should of course, weight if possible the number of capita that have home electrical service (including generators for remote locations), though I expect it to be in the 90%+ for both countries so negligible impact on the raw death stats. I found some world wide country data but UK wasn't on the list.
Although this could descend into types of political governance, it may be argued that the minimum level of electrical safety could be raised in the USA such as mandatory GFI on all outlets on new home builds. As it stands it is not mandated so only fair to compare worst (and common) case US situation to the UK situation.
I have not seen appliances without dedicated ground pin and wiring. I have seen devices with metal cases or significant conductive parts acceptable to people that do not have a dedicated ground pin e.g. lamps. IIRC in the UK any device that has a conductive case parts requires a dedicated ground pin wiring to prevent shock in the event of internal mis wiring or internal wiring breaks/shorts to case.
As a British person living in the USA I notice that the majority of my sockets outside kitchen and bathroom are not GFI protected (either at the socket or the fuse panel) and that most appliances do not use an Earth Pin.
I also am in awe that socket adapters are legally sold that convert non earthed sockets into earthed sockets and light bulb sockets into earthed sockets, the safety implications are huge. I think it is a fair assessment to use 110V non earth sockets as many home have them.
I also notice that no appliance I own in the USA uses insulation on the live pins of the plug to prevent accidental shocks when the plug is slightly out of the socket, none of the sockets contain safety shutters and that 110V cords to high wattage appliances such as vacuum cleaners get warm and the lights change brightness when I switch such appliances on and off. IMO the British home electrical system is much better than the USA system and I have tried to view it impartially over the years.
Why does every console seem to be a complete , from scratch, design. Why couldn't the next Xbox 360 be evolutionary. Upgrade the 3 core PowerPC chip to a 4-6 core at higher clock rate. Upgrade the ATI GPU to the correpsoding latest tech.
That way the developers could hit the ground running with slightly modified dev tools and "A" rated titles could be available very early on in the consoles life which helps decide a "victor".
Like wise sony could do the same, I am under the impression that cell was designed to be modular, so how about 2-4 of the latest die shrunk cells int eh next console with latest nvidia GPU tech.
Slashdot Mirror
The article indicates a 1:5 upload:download ratio. Would this be because most plans have e.g. 1mbit up : 10mbit down throttling (or similar) ?
I find it interesting that they could increase their upload speeds with minimal performance hit, or would that take away their argument against level 3?
If the PNG on the Slashdot article is derived from the linked source article then I am concerned that it may not be representative of the actual research as the source article offers the image as a JPEG - which will almost certainly have degraded the image quality.
I have used both Open Office and MS Office over the years, and my only gripe is that I've learnt excel shortcuts and native behavior and Calc does everything a bit different which is very frustrating. I've searched before but not found an easy to apply plugin or config file update that will make Calc act like Excel (DEL to clear a cell, CTRL SHIFT + to insert a row etc.). This would really make may day if someone could suggest such a solution.
[wind]
[click click]
ARTHUR: Whoa there!
[click click]
GUARD #1: Halt! Who goes there?
ARTHUR: It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle
of Camelot. King of the Britons, defeator of the Saxons, sovereign
of all England!
ARTHUR: I am. And this my trusty servant Patsy.
We have videoed and photographed the length and breadth of the land in search of knights
who will join me in my court of Camelot. I must speak with your lord
and master.
GUARD #1: What, on film?
ARTHUR: Yes!
GUARD #1: You're using SD cards!
ARTHUR: What?
GUARD #1: You've got two SD cards and you're RAIDing
'em together.
ARTHUR: So? We have ridden since the snows of winter covered this
land, through the kingdom of Mercea, through--
GUARD #1: Where'd you get the SD cards?
ARTHUR: We found them.
GUARD #1: Found them? In Mercea? The SD card is Asian!
ARTHUR: What do you mean?
GUARD #1: Well, this is a temperate zone.
ARTHUR: The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin
or the plumber may seek warmer climes in winter yet these are not
strangers to our land.
GUARD #1: Are you suggesting SD cards migrate?
ARTHUR: Not at all, they could be carried.
GUARD #1: What -- a swallow carrying a SD Card?
ARTHUR: It could grip it by the lock switch!
GUARD #1: It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple
question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a 1 pound
SD Card.
ARTHUR: Well, it doesn't matter. Will you go and tell your master
that Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here.
GUARD #1: Listen, in order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow
needs to beat its wings 43 times every second, right?
ARTHUR: Please!
GUARD #1: Am I right?
ARTHUR: I'm not interested!
GUARD #2: It could be carried by an African swallow!
GUARD #1: Oh, yeah, an African swallow maybe, but not a European
swallow, that's my point.
GUARD #2: Oh, yeah, I agree with that...
ARTHUR: Will you ask your master if he wants to join my court
at Camelot?!
GUARD #1: But then of course African swallows are not migratory.
GUARD #2: Oh, yeah...
GUARD #1: So they couldn't bring a SD card back anyway...
[click click]
GUARD #2: Wait a minute -- supposing two swallows carried it together?
GUARD #1: No, they'd have to have it on a line.
GUARD #2: Well, simple! They'd just use a standard creeper!
GUARD #1: What, held under the dorsal guiding feathers?
GUARD #2: Well, why not?
Nonsense, you obviously use European and African swallows to represent 0 and 1's.
Aggregates your two DSL ISPs and 2 cable modem ISPs so you can get to youtube , hulu, netflix AND facebook through one easy Ethernet connection! Eliminate that pesky unplugging and cable mess!
Any suggestions for an andriod app that can quickly do a security audit (assuming the API's allow it)?
I'm thinking that it would list in table form all the installed applications (the rows) with all the security access types (columns) with all the cells checked or unchecked. This would allow an "at a glance" review of all the apps without having to navigate into the management of each one.
Electronics aren't as easy to custom-make as mechanical parts. Especially vector screens aren't something you can make with your standard workshop equipment.
I would argue that a projector screen ($50), a bright Semiconductor visible laser ($10) and a home made "MEMS" device (small mirror with X, Y analogue control) driven with appropriate analogue circuit could be used as a modern stand in ($100-200).
That said, a Desktop level performance ARM chip is something that hasn't been done yet,
It has been done. I used to own a RISC PC desktop with 200Mhz StrongARM CPU at the time x86 PC's were maxing out with 90MHz Pentium. Other than in FP applications it ran laps around the Intel chips of the time.
It is also worth noting the StrongARM was in a plastic package with no heatsink as it dispated so little heat.
Ultimately the platform stalled at this CPU achievement and Intel eventually caught up and surpassed (on the speed front anyway). I often wonder if (the lack of speed bumps to StrongARM for a very long time) had anything to do with Intel taking over the design/manufacture.
Since the have licensed the arcitecture and the instruction set they are in the position of starting grouond up on ARM isntruction set compatible design and/or (heavily) modifying the exiciting core design. As the poster above pointed out they must have a need that is not serviced by the exisiting SOC comunity.
The prime candidate (IMO) is something in the Xbox3. After being burned by not controlling the CPU and GPU designs chipset parts for the Xbox1 they had tighter control on the Xbox2 (360) with thier own 3 core Power PC design.
With Sony continuing to leaverage the cell co-processors maybe MS wants something similar. It is not too far fetched that the next gen xbox could be a 3+core power pc with ARM derived co-processors (like CELL).
The advantage is that compiler support is mature and developers are very familiar with ARM architecture so getting the most out of the cores would not be the steep learning curve that cell has had.
ARM cores take up very little space compared to modern Intel/AMD x86 chip designs and typically have small levels of cache. Could easily fit a 4-6 core power PC and 20+(?) ARM cores on a modern process comparable in size to existing Xbox2 CPU die.
Disclaimer : I own some ARM shares.
With the enormous caveat that:
'As yet, there's also no way of downloading [Google] maps to a memory card for offline navigation, so you could have major problems in areas without a 3G signal'
That should be corrected to "without any signal". I successfully start a route plan and use google nav on my N1 in locations that only have GPRS. It actually seems faster than loading a full screen map view. Probably because the route data and "on route" maps are "vector" rather than bitmap.
Is there any work on OpenGL hardware acceleration paths for use of chrome, firefox etc. on non Windows platforms?
What hardware acceleration of web page rendering could/will android and chrome OS use? (OpenGL ES?)
Always makes me think of "Understanding Space and Time" by Alastair Reynolds, which can be found in one of his books of short SciFi stories "Zima Blue and Other Stories". Not to spoil the plot but it is one mans struggle with an near eternity of discovering fundamental laws beneath fundamental laws until his "brain" is so big it has to be "scaffolded" to prevent gravitational collapse.
A great read- highly recommended.
I used to used to get my parents to buy Norton for their home PC and remote support them. But if the years subscription was up they wouldn't have the latest protection until I was around to do the upgrade.
...I wish 3rd party software would integrate into the windows update system, it would save a lot of bother (and pop-us, nag screens and update checking tasks loaded at startup).
I eventually went free as Norton started causing more problems than it was supposed to solve. Originally I rolled out AVG but that too had yearly requirements to upgrade. I switched all the family members I support a few months ago to the microsoft solution and "it just works", having the definitions and program updates rolled into the windows update has saved a lot of hassle. It being low resource usage is also a major plus. Everyone is happy.
I deiced on a house before the sheet rock went in. So I had Coax and Cat5 routed to every room (x2 for the office). Usually in different locations at my best guess of where a TV and a PC/telephone might be. It was well worth it. In hind-site I would have put more than one run to a room (e.g. opposite walls to cover more layout possibilities). I might have even put more cat5 in for other applications such as serial, IR routers, sensors / hacks, USB extenders etc.
I'm using some of the cat5 for phone, some for mixed phone (2 conductors) +100 Mbit/s (4 conductors) network and some for Gigabit.
Everything terminates to a handy spot in the basement where I have punch down panel and a switch and the incoming phone line for the cat5 runs and a amp+splitter for the CATV.
I would like this. Some options I could work with: Extensions to current CD/DVD/Bluray ISO formats, new version of "ZIP" files and a new version of True Crypt files.
If done in an open standards way I could be somewhat confident of support in many years time when I may need to read the archives. Obviously backwards compatibility with earlier iso/file formats would be a plus.
...that should be screen save set to 5 min interval with log-on screen on wake up.
For the kids set up their login accounts as non-administrator so they can't install anything (same for irresponsible adults).
All users get their own account and password. So no easy click route to admin.
Screen saver set to Set up the PC (including all the programs they need and all their email accounts set up) then do a system image to a DVD set or HD that you keep safe - much quicker to reinstall the PC that way.
Auto windows update and install and auto virus killer scans and updates.
Cross loop or some other desktop sharing session to help remotely.
When ever vising them take 10 minutes out of the visit to sit down at the PC to check virus and auto updates are still in effect and ask them for any issues they've been having.
Repeat offenders who demand admin rights (and then proceed to mess up their pc again and again) get longer and longer waits for the "repair".
Those who have demonstrated responsibility get treated to hardware upgrades and help with setting up new/additional software they might enjoy.
Yes I am aware how the GFI outlets casacde. However the protection does not reach to other circuits from the fuse box/pannel.
I checked some US electrical codes, have you? I get back to my original point GFI is NOT mandated on EVERY outlet. As a result every house in the USA I have been in has a majority of sockets without GFI and based home inspection (including 2 homes less than 5 years old).
The problem is people don't hook up ground adapter.
I've never seen it done by anyone I've visited in an old houses, so it stands as a serious safety issue.
A possible solution is to ban the adapters, mandate that all sockets be 3 prong, make it illegal for electrical companies to start new service on a house (or transfer of service) unless the house electrical conforms to the new minimum standard (how it is done in the UK).
I would be very interested to see the stats of death per capita due to electrical shock in the home for USA and UK. You should of course, weight if possible the number of capita that have home electrical service (including generators for remote locations), though I expect it to be in the 90%+ for both countries so negligible impact on the raw death stats. I found some world wide country data but UK wasn't on the list.
Although this could descend into types of political governance, it may be argued that the minimum level of electrical safety could be raised in the USA such as mandatory GFI on all outlets on new home builds. As it stands it is not mandated so only fair to compare worst (and common) case US situation to the UK situation.
I have not seen appliances without dedicated ground pin and wiring. I have seen devices with metal cases or significant conductive parts acceptable to people that do not have a dedicated ground pin e.g. lamps. IIRC in the UK any device that has a conductive case parts requires a dedicated ground pin wiring to prevent shock in the event of internal mis wiring or internal wiring breaks/shorts to case.
As a British person living in the USA I notice that the majority of my sockets outside kitchen and bathroom are not GFI protected (either at the socket or the fuse panel) and that most appliances do not use an Earth Pin.
I also am in awe that socket adapters are legally sold that convert non earthed sockets into earthed sockets and light bulb sockets into earthed sockets, the safety implications are huge. I think it is a fair assessment to use 110V non earth sockets as many home have them.
I also notice that no appliance I own in the USA uses insulation on the live pins of the plug to prevent accidental shocks when the plug is slightly out of the socket, none of the sockets contain safety shutters and that 110V cords to high wattage appliances such as vacuum cleaners get warm and the lights change brightness when I switch such appliances on and off. IMO the British home electrical system is much better than the USA system and I have tried to view it impartially over the years.
Why does every console seem to be a complete , from scratch, design. Why couldn't the next Xbox 360 be evolutionary. Upgrade the 3 core PowerPC chip to a 4-6 core at higher clock rate. Upgrade the ATI GPU to the correpsoding latest tech.
That way the developers could hit the ground running with slightly modified dev tools and "A" rated titles could be available very early on in the consoles life which helps decide a "victor".
Like wise sony could do the same, I am under the impression that cell was designed to be modular, so how about 2-4 of the latest die shrunk cells int eh next console with latest nvidia GPU tech.