Since the N900 doesn't even have the correct hardware to run Meego, I don't see how they could possibly claim that.
What makes you think that?
MeeGo Hardware adaptation project for the N900 - Nokia as founding member of MeeGo project is using N900 as the ARM reference platform of MeeGo at the moment. This means that we have an active project that focuses to make a MeeGo hardware adaptation for the N900. The goal of the project is thus to open as much N900 specific drivers as possible in MeeGo scope.
As I understand it the drivers/hardware support of Meego are being developed for the N900, since it's the most suitable ARM device available. There's already a Meego alpha available for the N900, but there's no UI (just a shell). If you look at this diagram, it looks like only the OS-level components are being implemented by Nokia for the N900.
Not counting computer, Windows, Labview and Matlab.
If anything, someone concerned with the cost would try to exclude the last two, as they alone make it more expensive than "high-cost" radars.
Replace Windows with Linux, and Matlab with Octave. There's probably a FOSS alternative for Labview as well. It's fairly safe to say that most people have access to a computer (presumably also how they got access to these instructions), especially since he didn't specify what kind of hardware you'd need to run this - an decade old PC would probably be more than enough.
The point is if you know someone with reasonable engineering skills and you can raise a few thousand bucks, you can build this stuff.
If nothing else, this has significant ramifications for asymmetric military conflicts...
Something tells me that those "asymmetric military conflicts" are such because they don't have anyone with reasonable engineering skills - what they do have is people who can follow instructions to make stuff, and people who can find instructions for said stuff.
I am also an N900 owner. While Meego won't be officially supported on the N900, it's worth noting that the N900 remains the reference platform for it. Additionally, the community support for Maemo is unbelievably good; I wouldn't be surprised at all if the N900 port of Meego remains an active community project for years. This is partly because most of the people who own N900s are geeks, and because the N900 is completely open (there are a plethora of custom kernels available for use on it). tldr: Having a completely open device with no offical support is way better than having a closed device with official support.
Given a crowd of ~30 people, compare the damage 1 guy with a knife can do to the damage done by 1 guy with a gun. If someone points a gun at me, I have no other choice but to run/dodge. If someone points a knife at me, he has to get close enough for me to counter him (and even if all I can do is stop him from attacking me, a 2nd person could restrain him). What I will concede is that banning guns in a country that already has them will have a negative effect in the short term. But if you compare a country that doesn't have guns (or requires a permit to own one with restrictions associated with storage, etc.) to one that does, you'll find that the damage done in violent crimes is far, far less. The only problem is how to transition between the 2.
The thing is, most people don't use email on their phones, which means it won't be set up. A far simpler and more powerful solution would have been to put a small HTTP server into the printer, so that you could upload documents to print via a HTTP POST form and even specify scaling, no. of copies, etc.
Obviously fining the members of botnets is impractical. A better idea would be to require the ISPs to disconnect them, although you'd have to be very specific about what they were allowed to monitor.
It seemed to me that the summary (didn't RTFA) was arguing for a single shared account for mobile devices, possibly since the SIM card (and it's sockets) was not designed for extremely frequent exchanges between devices. If this is correct, then the solution is obvious: clone the SIM card. Or are there some legal/technical reasons that this wouldn't be feasible?
With this announcement of shipping chipsets, how long until HTC makes a super smartphone?"
The term you are looking for is 'netbook'. I mean seriously, how could you an improve a device like the N900 (600 MHz ARM Cortex-A8) with more processing power? The interface of such a device is just too limited to push it like you would a laptop (unless you want to carry around Folding@Home with you), since the screen is just too small to look at more than one thing at once.
That's only if they stick to the conventional model. Consider a BitTorrent-esque solution: the provider supplies 1 copy of the content over 3G, and the various clients share it over WiFi. While the popularity of individual series would be too low for it to work, it could work for the major TV stations if watching a program from 1 channel meant acting as a node for all programs on that channel. It would require a very high population density though, and I doubt that there will ever be that many people who want to stream broadcast TV over 3G - given the (likely extortionate) cost, people are much more likely to broadcatch the content on their main PCs and sync the portable device before they leave.
It's like watching about 36 minutes of high definition YouTube video (if you could actually do that over 3G).
I'm not one to defend AT&T, but only an idiot would do that. iPhones have a 320x480 display, which isn't even 360p (Youtube's lowest video quality). The iPad has a 1024x768 display, which is capable of 480p at 16:9 or 720p at 4:3 (which is practically non-existent). In short, anything in excess of 480p is a complete waste, so it's incredibly disingenuous of you to use HD video as the benchmark.
//Sat on a flight beside an MS engineer, told him the biggest problem I had was an annual reformat/reinstall. He said he did the same thing(?!?). He also suggested I install VMWare, as it eases the annual reinstall process considerably.
I prefer creating an image of the system after I've done a clean install, install all my programs, etc. Turns a few days work into a 1 hour restoration process + updates.
That's probably because there isn't enough demand for video calling - most people don't even know that it can be used, and even if they did the majority of people don't have phones which support it. Even then, it just isn't that useful, beyond a certain cool factor. Then there's the major disincentive to use it: the cost of a video call will be significantly higher than that of a conventional call. Not to mention the lack of 3G coverage, etc. I'm guessing the only reason we now have video calling for skype/gtalk is that they are 3rd party components, so anyone with enough time could implement it. 3G video calling would have to be implemented by Nokia, and the cost of doing so just isn't justifiable.
I recently switched and have been happy. I got 12/2 business class with 5 static IPs for $69/month, free installation and it was all up and working within FOUR DAYS OF ORDERING.
Performance has been great, and it beats the shit out of the 1.5 I was stuck with on DSL forever.
That's why - from what I've heard, Comcast's business customers get completely different treatment to their residential customers.
This is what I don't get - how is possible for the carriers to dictate what OS the phone runs? My N900 gets updates from Nokia's servers, either directly or via a PC. Android is supposed to be open, so how exactly does the carrier fit into this?
Slashdot Mirror
Since the N900 doesn't even have the correct hardware to run Meego, I don't see how they could possibly claim that.
What makes you think that?
MeeGo Hardware adaptation project for the N900 - Nokia as founding member of MeeGo project is using N900 as the ARM reference platform of MeeGo at the moment. This means that we have an active project that focuses to make a MeeGo hardware adaptation for the N900. The goal of the project is thus to open as much N900 specific drivers as possible in MeeGo scope.
http://wiki.meego.com/Meegodict
As I understand it the drivers/hardware support of Meego are being developed for the N900, since it's the most suitable ARM device available.
There's already a Meego alpha available for the N900, but there's no UI (just a shell).
If you look at this diagram, it looks like only the OS-level components are being implemented by Nokia for the N900.
...kids finding out about stuff on the Internet. I mean, we all turned out fine, didn't we? ;)
http://www.xkcd.com/598/
Not counting computer, Windows, Labview and Matlab.
If anything, someone concerned with the cost would try to exclude the last two, as they alone make it more expensive than "high-cost" radars.
Replace Windows with Linux, and Matlab with Octave. There's probably a FOSS alternative for Labview as well. It's fairly safe to say that most people have access to a computer (presumably also how they got access to these instructions), especially since he didn't specify what kind of hardware you'd need to run this - an decade old PC would probably be more than enough.
The point is if you know someone with reasonable engineering skills and you can raise a few thousand bucks, you can build this stuff.
If nothing else, this has significant ramifications for asymmetric military conflicts...
Something tells me that those "asymmetric military conflicts" are such because they don't have anyone with reasonable engineering skills - what they do have is people who can follow instructions to make stuff, and people who can find instructions for said stuff.
I am also an N900 owner.
While Meego won't be officially supported on the N900, it's worth noting that the N900 remains the reference platform for it. Additionally, the community support for Maemo is unbelievably good; I wouldn't be surprised at all if the N900 port of Meego remains an active community project for years. This is partly because most of the people who own N900s are geeks, and because the N900 is completely open (there are a plethora of custom kernels available for use on it).
tldr: Having a completely open device with no offical support is way better than having a closed device with official support.
When was the last time someone waited in line for a Microsoft product?
15 years ago? Yeah that's about right.
--
BMO
When was the last time Microsoft had a product worth waiting in line for? 15 years ago? Yeah that's about right. ;-)
When was the last time it was possible to stand in line for a Linux product?
Forget Atom and the legacy x86 - where're the ARM servers?
The Australian Pirate Party. Not sure what there chances of actually getting in are, but I doubt we'll be disappointed with their policies.
(e.g. posting some calculations that uses lots of symbols and few words ends up being flagged unnecessarily).
I agree, though for calculations I'd like to see support for TeX implemented.
Given a crowd of ~30 people, compare the damage 1 guy with a knife can do to the damage done by 1 guy with a gun. If someone points a gun at me, I have no other choice but to run/dodge. If someone points a knife at me, he has to get close enough for me to counter him (and even if all I can do is stop him from attacking me, a 2nd person could restrain him).
What I will concede is that banning guns in a country that already has them will have a negative effect in the short term. But if you compare a country that doesn't have guns (or requires a permit to own one with restrictions associated with storage, etc.) to one that does, you'll find that the damage done in violent crimes is far, far less. The only problem is how to transition between the 2.
The thing is, most people don't use email on their phones, which means it won't be set up. A far simpler and more powerful solution would have been to put a small HTTP server into the printer, so that you could upload documents to print via a HTTP POST form and even specify scaling, no. of copies, etc.
Obviously fining the members of botnets is impractical. A better idea would be to require the ISPs to disconnect them, although you'd have to be very specific about what they were allowed to monitor.
It seemed to me that the summary (didn't RTFA) was arguing for a single shared account for mobile devices, possibly since the SIM card (and it's sockets) was not designed for extremely frequent exchanges between devices. If this is correct, then the solution is obvious: clone the SIM card. Or are there some legal/technical reasons that this wouldn't be feasible?
With this announcement of shipping chipsets, how long until HTC makes a super smartphone?"
The term you are looking for is 'netbook'.
I mean seriously, how could you an improve a device like the N900 (600 MHz ARM Cortex-A8) with more processing power? The interface of such a device is just too limited to push it like you would a laptop (unless you want to carry around Folding@Home with you), since the screen is just too small to look at more than one thing at once.
I for one would love to have a full-size passively cooled laptop with low-energy processor and screen.
Not sure about passively cooled, but take a look at this: http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/ (very detailed specs available on site)
That's only if they stick to the conventional model. Consider a BitTorrent-esque solution: the provider supplies 1 copy of the content over 3G, and the various clients share it over WiFi. While the popularity of individual series would be too low for it to work, it could work for the major TV stations if watching a program from 1 channel meant acting as a node for all programs on that channel.
It would require a very high population density though, and I doubt that there will ever be that many people who want to stream broadcast TV over 3G - given the (likely extortionate) cost, people are much more likely to broadcatch the content on their main PCs and sync the portable device before they leave.
It costed US$0.30
I'm not normally a grammar nazi, but you really do have to draw the line somewhere. 'Cost' is already in the past tense.
It's like watching about 36 minutes of high definition YouTube video (if you could actually do that over 3G).
I'm not one to defend AT&T, but only an idiot would do that. iPhones have a 320x480 display, which isn't even 360p (Youtube's lowest video quality). The iPad has a 1024x768 display, which is capable of 480p at 16:9 or 720p at 4:3 (which is practically non-existent).
In short, anything in excess of 480p is a complete waste, so it's incredibly disingenuous of you to use HD video as the benchmark.
* Resolutions are courtesy of Wikipedia.
//Sat on a flight beside an MS engineer, told him the biggest problem I had was an annual reformat/reinstall. He said he did the same thing(?!?). He also suggested I install VMWare, as it eases the annual reinstall process considerably.
I prefer creating an image of the system after I've done a clean install, install all my programs, etc. Turns a few days work into a 1 hour restoration process + updates.
That's probably because there isn't enough demand for video calling - most people don't even know that it can be used, and even if they did the majority of people don't have phones which support it. Even then, it just isn't that useful, beyond a certain cool factor. Then there's the major disincentive to use it: the cost of a video call will be significantly higher than that of a conventional call. Not to mention the lack of 3G coverage, etc.
I'm guessing the only reason we now have video calling for skype/gtalk is that they are 3rd party components, so anyone with enough time could implement it. 3G video calling would have to be implemented by Nokia, and the cost of doing so just isn't justifiable.
You have to love Australia. That particular manoeuvre is illegal there
Yes, because it's not like each state implements their own traffic laws ~
Is Comcast that bad?
I recently switched and have been happy. I got 12/2 business class with 5 static IPs for $69/month, free installation and it was all up and working within FOUR DAYS OF ORDERING.
Performance has been great, and it beats the shit out of the 1.5 I was stuck with on DSL forever.
That's why - from what I've heard, Comcast's business customers get completely different treatment to their residential customers.
N900 is a quad-band phone - it supports 1900 MHz. Look at the connectivity section of the sidebar on Wikipedia.
Provided that they allow non-Apple/Google devices and sell Apple/Google devices independently of plans, there should be nothing wrong with it.
This is what I don't get - how is possible for the carriers to dictate what OS the phone runs? My N900 gets updates from Nokia's servers, either directly or via a PC. Android is supposed to be open, so how exactly does the carrier fit into this?