Microsoft has done it before. Most keyboards have two keys to the left and right of the spacebar with their Windows logo on it being the most obvious to the end-user. Not to mention the "designed for:" stickers that have appeared in recent years.
Since they've managed to muscle their way into the common PC hardware, they somehow feel it's their birthright to do the same with the XO.
Maybe if they can't recover quickly enough from the Vista debacle, they'll regain a perspective of their place in the heirarchy of computing.
I realize that it goes against the general Slashdot commenting procedure, but read just a little before commenting on this one, please.
1. Two photos were poorly stitched together, repeating an image of a crater on the combined photo (the crater was photographed twice). 2. Chinese scientists miss the poor stitch job and proclaim they found a new crater. 3. Someone else takes a close look at this "discovery" and points out the error in the stitch job.
The crater wasn't intentionally added, it's a result of trying to align two photos, each taken from a different perspective in which the edges won't completely line up exactly.
I laud your entreprenuerialship, but I'd think you would be entering an already oversaturated market. Free WiFi is rather abundant in urban areas (even just looking only at the legitimately open-access points) where street payphones are found. Wireless providers are starting to come into their own with the pricing of their high speed data services, with WiMax offerings on the drawing board to coexist with their networks in a couple of cases.
If you're thinking that you can serve the wireless VoIP "crowd" that wants an alternative to the wireless providers, I'm afraid that you will find yourself fighting a pretty steep uphill battle to offer service at a cost that's comparable with the alternatives, or at least signing up enough subscribers to "keep the lights on".
Another technical hurdle that would exist is that payphones usually are not located in a manner that would allow for seamless or optimal coverage. While some phones are right out on the street corner, many more are tucked away in the back corners, such as the corridor to the rest rooms. Yet another issue (that I don't have a definitive answer to) is whether or not you could find a way (or negotiate with the ADSL provider) to power an access point from the ADSL line itself. If not, you'd also have to find/maintain electrical service to power the access point. Solar might be a solution for outdoors. Indoors, you might be able to negotiate a deal with the property holder to have access to an outlet at something more reasonable than having a spearate service from the electric company.
As much as I think it would be cool to replace evicted payphones with some sort of access point, I'm hard pressed to see how anyone could make it into, at best, a financially self-sustaining venture.
Quite correct about the antenna size, though a CB whip will probably do the trick. Also, 27MHz isn't so line-of-sight dependent as the 2.4GHz stuff. It penetrates walls a bit easier.
There are six 22MHz blocks in the 700MHz band up for auction. Each bidder bids on one or more 22MHz blocks. Note that the blocks are assigned for different purposes and larger and smaller geographic areas. Block C, for example is for regional uses, and therefore there will be several license winners for that particular 22MHz block, each winner coming away with a region. Block D is a nationwide license, so one winner gets use of that 22MHz block throughout the United States. Overall, there's 1099 available licenses with varying uses, modes, and geographic areas up for auction. The fact sheet gives a little more of a breakdown.
Phones not equipped with an actual GPS receiver typically use something called assisted GPS. This is where the phone gets positioning information from an assistance server (typically located at the cell tower) and location is determined through some combination of tower triangulation and signal timing. Each tower has a good satellite fix and is able to convey relevant information to the handset for the purpose of determining its location (though not as accurately when compared to a GPS receiver on-board the handset).
Are TI's DLP mirror arrays subject to this? Don't know for sure if DLP is presently the largest MEMS rollout (if it is considered a MEMS) to the consumer market right now, but I wonder if anyone has reported mirror failures after a number of longer operating hours?
they'll put the the hardware in the machines to support those countries' cellphone standards
Initially I thought that adding GSM would be no big deal. Technologically, it isn't. What will take more effort is negotiating some kind of agreement with all of those carriers to support the data service, and in a way that's easy for Amazon to digest the price (unless they change their model and have the users pay for data service). Right now, they have a lock-in with one carrier, which helps in keeping the data costs down (and more transparent to their users). Enough comments from cellphone users in Europe (not Asia) seems to suggest that data usage over there is expensive, compared to the U.S. and some parts of Asia. Nonetheless, time will tell.
Point well made. Wonder if Amazon is planning a work-around through the USB port for situations like this? Perhaps a kiosk in the airport gift shop to plug-in and buy a book? A specialized USB WiFi dongle might also be a solution, but it would be up to marketing to show enough of a demand to launch development of the hardware and a firmware update.
I guess for now, owners of this gadget who travel just need to plan ahead.
Take a look at the specs.
This thing doesn't sync, nor use WiFi. Instead, it downloads content through Sprint's wireless 3G network (the same one that their phones use). There is no subscription fee for this (the data service). It will also download newspaper and magazine subscriptions daily (no syncing or need to find a WiFi hotspot).
Perhaps their pricing model is built around including some type of specially negotiated data plan with Sprint that is amortized over the projected lifetime of the device. (Just speculation).
Something that might be worth considering is that a lot of other uses (good or bad) tend to spin off research in one particular field. How many commonplace technologies today are credited with being derived from aerospace research (i.e. "Space Age" technologies)? Though more ominous sounding, there's a number of useful tech ideas that may result from such counter-terrorism research as well. I would agree however, that I'd prefer the primary focus of the initial research to be on something with a more noble cause.
You're right that it's a lot of heat to get rid of for such a small area. TFA is light on the details, but mentions that the system is self-regulating. Makes me wonder if a temperature coefficient is part of this self-regulation. As the temperature goes up, the reaction slows down, and the temperature of the whole thing naturally settles out in some band that's several hundred degrees above ambient. Just a guess on my part. I'd be interested in knowing how robust this self-regulating process is, however, as its degradation or failure would have serious thermal implications as you alluded to.
Well, the cars present much less of a safety problem when they're crawling along instead of going in upwards of 55mph (88kph) past you. Gridlock is working to your advantage.:)
Remember, you don't pay for the electricity going into the motor, you pay for the electricity going into the charging system. So don't forget losses in the charger, battery charge, and battery discharge as part of the equation. The point after you have paid for the energy (at the pump or the meter hanging on the side of your home), you need to consider whatever efficiency losses are encountered before it's performing meaningful work for you.
Well, I guess they could have just said it was "about 1 meter in diameter" but I suppose someone figured that would be pretty meaningless to most Americans since we generally don't use the metric system in this country.
Okay, so a gasoline powertrain is maybe 30% efficient, and a fast-charge battery system is maybe 50% efficient. A slower charging system might be able to get the number up to 75-80%. If you work with the idea that the electric car offers you twice the efficiency, you're still at $1.30/gallon...that's still a ways off from your $0.30/gallon.
Not to mention technologies like motor scooters that can get over 100 miles/gallon(depending on how you drive them) that many people refuse to use
Well, I guess I'm one that currently would refuse to use one because: 1. I have to worry about the aforementioned people driving their SUVs in some careless fashion. 2. Where I live, the weather isn't conducive to using one at least half of the year. Nonetheless, I agree with your points.
Honestly, I'd love to have a job where I could walk or bike to work. The problem is that there's no safe infrastructure in place to make that happen (my place of work is situated on a six-lane boulevard with NO emergency lanes and NO sidewalks). The other problem with biking is it is considered socially unacceptable to show up at work all sweaty and smelly. If you work at a place that offers locker rooms with showers, it's not so much of a problem, but most places of employment lack these amenities.
The electric car does excel in one thing. It's great for short trips and commuting. Gasoline cars are most inefficient and pollute the most during the first couple of miles while they warm up. An electric car doesn't suffer from this problem.
1 Gallon of gasoline is equivalent to 36.7kW-hr. This is my reference.
1 Gallon @ $3.00 or 36.7kW-hr x $0.07/kW-hr = $2.569 A little less expensive, but not quite as cheap as you make it out to be.
Disclaimer: This comparison relies upon an assumption that the efficiency of an internal combustion engine powered car is (very) roughly equivalent to a battery charge and discharge cycle to power an electric motor of an electric car. Yes, an electric motor will be more efficient than an ICE, but you have to count the power going into the battery charger (which will take into account charging losses, battery losses, and discharge losses), not the just the motor, to properly compare costs. To really make a true comparison, you need the miles per kW-hr for the electric to compare with the gasoline equivalent MPG.
As far as automotive tech goes, I am much more interested in hydrogen.
So where do you plan on getting the hydrogen? It doesn't exist naturally on earth.
Steam reformation (currently the most economic method)? Releases CO2 as one of the resulting products from the process.
Electrolysis? Where do you get electricity for this? Coal? CO2 emissions. Solar? Inefficient (as of now). Wind? "costly and unsightly" Nuclear?
The only advantage hydrogen offers is that it can be ultimately converted into mechanical energy through both internal combustion engines and fuel cells producing electricity to power electric motors(read: ELECTRIC CARS).
Just remember, with hydrogen, "the power has to come from somewhere," too.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft has done it before. Most keyboards have two keys to the left and right of the spacebar with their Windows logo on it being the most obvious to the end-user. Not to mention the "designed for:" stickers that have appeared in recent years.
Since they've managed to muscle their way into the common PC hardware, they somehow feel it's their birthright to do the same with the XO.
Maybe if they can't recover quickly enough from the Vista debacle, they'll regain a perspective of their place in the heirarchy of computing.
How about a mistake made while caught up in the exuberance of the moment?
I realize that it goes against the general Slashdot commenting procedure, but read just a little before commenting on this one, please.
1. Two photos were poorly stitched together, repeating an image of a crater on the combined photo (the crater was photographed twice).
2. Chinese scientists miss the poor stitch job and proclaim they found a new crater.
3. Someone else takes a close look at this "discovery" and points out the error in the stitch job.
The crater wasn't intentionally added, it's a result of trying to align two photos, each taken from a different perspective in which the edges won't completely line up exactly.
(obligatory link for the uninformed)
Rorschach Inkblot Test
I laud your entreprenuerialship, but I'd think you would be entering an already oversaturated market. Free WiFi is rather abundant in urban areas (even just looking only at the legitimately open-access points) where street payphones are found. Wireless providers are starting to come into their own with the pricing of their high speed data services, with WiMax offerings on the drawing board to coexist with their networks in a couple of cases.
If you're thinking that you can serve the wireless VoIP "crowd" that wants an alternative to the wireless providers, I'm afraid that you will find yourself fighting a pretty steep uphill battle to offer service at a cost that's comparable with the alternatives, or at least signing up enough subscribers to "keep the lights on".
Another technical hurdle that would exist is that payphones usually are not located in a manner that would allow for seamless or optimal coverage. While some phones are right out on the street corner, many more are tucked away in the back corners, such as the corridor to the rest rooms. Yet another issue (that I don't have a definitive answer to) is whether or not you could find a way (or negotiate with the ADSL provider) to power an access point from the ADSL line itself. If not, you'd also have to find/maintain electrical service to power the access point. Solar might be a solution for outdoors. Indoors, you might be able to negotiate a deal with the property holder to have access to an outlet at something more reasonable than having a spearate service from the electric company.
As much as I think it would be cool to replace evicted payphones with some sort of access point, I'm hard pressed to see how anyone could make it into, at best, a financially self-sustaining venture.
Quite correct about the antenna size, though a CB whip will probably do the trick. Also, 27MHz isn't so line-of-sight dependent as the 2.4GHz stuff. It penetrates walls a bit easier.
Send 'em a can of industrial grade great stuff.
(ducks)
There are six blocks, two 12MHz, one 22MHz, one 6 MHz and one 10MHz.
I'd start more here.
There are six 22MHz blocks in the 700MHz band up for auction. Each bidder bids on one or more 22MHz blocks. Note that the blocks are assigned for different purposes and larger and smaller geographic areas. Block C, for example is for regional uses, and therefore there will be several license winners for that particular 22MHz block, each winner coming away with a region. Block D is a nationwide license, so one winner gets use of that 22MHz block throughout the United States. Overall, there's 1099 available licenses with varying uses, modes, and geographic areas up for auction. The fact sheet gives a little more of a breakdown.
Here are the regions.
My guess is that Google will be going after block D, which is one licensee, with nationwide geographic coverage.
Phones not equipped with an actual GPS receiver typically use something called assisted GPS. This is where the phone gets positioning information from an assistance server (typically located at the cell tower) and location is determined through some combination of tower triangulation and signal timing. Each tower has a good satellite fix and is able to convey relevant information to the handset for the purpose of determining its location (though not as accurately when compared to a GPS receiver on-board the handset).
Are TI's DLP mirror arrays subject to this? Don't know for sure if DLP is presently the largest MEMS rollout (if it is considered a MEMS) to the consumer market right now, but I wonder if anyone has reported mirror failures after a number of longer operating hours?
Just curious.
I guess this puts a new spin on the colloquialism of how much "juice" is left in a battery.
Initially I thought that adding GSM would be no big deal. Technologically, it isn't. What will take more effort is negotiating some kind of agreement with all of those carriers to support the data service, and in a way that's easy for Amazon to digest the price (unless they change their model and have the users pay for data service). Right now, they have a lock-in with one carrier, which helps in keeping the data costs down (and more transparent to their users). Enough comments from cellphone users in Europe (not Asia) seems to suggest that data usage over there is expensive, compared to the U.S. and some parts of Asia. Nonetheless, time will tell.
Point well made. Wonder if Amazon is planning a work-around through the USB port for situations like this? Perhaps a kiosk in the airport gift shop to plug-in and buy a book? A specialized USB WiFi dongle might also be a solution, but it would be up to marketing to show enough of a demand to launch development of the hardware and a firmware update.
I guess for now, owners of this gadget who travel just need to plan ahead.
No, no, no. You've misread the summary. They're talking about granite, not grants.
Okay, I'll promise be "gneiss" in my responses to future posts, and maybe I "shale" dispense with the bad puns.
(ducks)
Take a look at the specs.
This thing doesn't sync, nor use WiFi. Instead, it downloads content through Sprint's wireless 3G network (the same one that their phones use). There is no subscription fee for this (the data service). It will also download newspaper and magazine subscriptions daily (no syncing or need to find a WiFi hotspot).
Perhaps their pricing model is built around including some type of specially negotiated data plan with Sprint that is amortized over the projected lifetime of the device. (Just speculation).
Something that might be worth considering is that a lot of other uses (good or bad) tend to spin off research in one particular field. How many commonplace technologies today are credited with being derived from aerospace research (i.e. "Space Age" technologies)? Though more ominous sounding, there's a number of useful tech ideas that may result from such counter-terrorism research as well. I would agree however, that I'd prefer the primary focus of the initial research to be on something with a more noble cause.
You're right that it's a lot of heat to get rid of for such a small area. TFA is light on the details, but mentions that the system is self-regulating. Makes me wonder if a temperature coefficient is part of this self-regulation. As the temperature goes up, the reaction slows down, and the temperature of the whole thing naturally settles out in some band that's several hundred degrees above ambient. Just a guess on my part. I'd be interested in knowing how robust this self-regulating process is, however, as its degradation or failure would have serious thermal implications as you alluded to.
Well, the cars present much less of a safety problem when they're crawling along instead of going in upwards of 55mph (88kph) past you. Gridlock is working to your advantage. :)
But, does that include the battery system?
Remember, you don't pay for the electricity going into the motor, you pay for the electricity going into the charging system. So don't forget losses in the charger, battery charge, and battery discharge as part of the equation. The point after you have paid for the energy (at the pump or the meter hanging on the side of your home), you need to consider whatever efficiency losses are encountered before it's performing meaningful work for you.
Well, I guess they could have just said it was "about 1 meter in diameter" but I suppose someone figured that would be pretty meaningless to most Americans since we generally don't use the metric system in this country.
Okay, so a gasoline powertrain is maybe 30% efficient, and a fast-charge battery system is maybe 50% efficient. A slower charging system might be able to get the number up to 75-80%. If you work with the idea that the electric car offers you twice the efficiency, you're still at $1.30/gallon...that's still a ways off from your $0.30/gallon.
Well, I guess I'm one that currently would refuse to use one because: 1. I have to worry about the aforementioned people driving their SUVs in some careless fashion. 2. Where I live, the weather isn't conducive to using one at least half of the year. Nonetheless, I agree with your points.
Honestly, I'd love to have a job where I could walk or bike to work. The problem is that there's no safe infrastructure in place to make that happen (my place of work is situated on a six-lane boulevard with NO emergency lanes and NO sidewalks). The other problem with biking is it is considered socially unacceptable to show up at work all sweaty and smelly. If you work at a place that offers locker rooms with showers, it's not so much of a problem, but most places of employment lack these amenities.
The electric car does excel in one thing. It's great for short trips and commuting. Gasoline cars are most inefficient and pollute the most during the first couple of miles while they warm up. An electric car doesn't suffer from this problem.
1 Gallon of gasoline is equivalent to 36.7kW-hr. This is my reference.
1 Gallon @ $3.00 or 36.7kW-hr x $0.07/kW-hr = $2.569 A little less expensive, but not quite as cheap as you make it out to be.
Disclaimer: This comparison relies upon an assumption that the efficiency of an internal combustion engine powered car is (very) roughly equivalent to a battery charge and discharge cycle to power an electric motor of an electric car. Yes, an electric motor will be more efficient than an ICE, but you have to count the power going into the battery charger (which will take into account charging losses, battery losses, and discharge losses), not the just the motor, to properly compare costs. To really make a true comparison, you need the miles per kW-hr for the electric to compare with the gasoline equivalent MPG.
So where do you plan on getting the hydrogen? It doesn't exist naturally on earth.
Steam reformation (currently the most economic method)? Releases CO2 as one of the resulting products from the process.
Electrolysis? Where do you get electricity for this? Coal? CO2 emissions. Solar? Inefficient (as of now). Wind? "costly and unsightly" Nuclear?
The only advantage hydrogen offers is that it can be ultimately converted into mechanical energy through both internal combustion engines and fuel cells producing electricity to power electric motors(read: ELECTRIC CARS).
Just remember, with hydrogen, "the power has to come from somewhere," too.