Monday, September 29, 2003

 
Bye bye cellphones ?

The race to stick the boot in further to the ailing telecoms companies has really hotted up. This companyhave a product that allows you to use any PC or Pocket PC on the net (which has mike and speaker) to make phone calls to any other. Specifically, from a PDA with wireless internet. (but no actual "mobile phone" facility). For example, sat in an airport or coffee shop that offers a wireless internet lounge, you can use an iPaq PDA device as a cellphone and phone the office. You have not even touched the phone companies lines, and the only charge is the fee for getting on the net. Then if you need to call someone outside your company, you route the call through your company's own exchange and pay landline rates from back at base. Similarly, incoming landline calls to the office from customers (when you are on the road) will route to your PDA through the internet.

Bizarrely, in the US (where this thing has been launched) many of the coffee shop wireless hotspots are actually run on a paid fee basis by the same cellphone companies that this will hurt. So they're basically beating themselves up !

I love the free market !

Wednesday, September 24, 2003

 
Please say again, over

Using a standard mobile phone as a walkie talkie is the latest craze in the US. The new technology is a sort of voice over IP instant messaging system, and comes with a small monthly fee as long as you already have a data enabled phone (which comes with a large monthly fee). The idea is you just push to talk (like a walkie talkie) rather than dialling up and waiting for them to answer.
But why ? The latency, time delay and "only 1 speaking at a time" drawbacks would drive me nuts.
But then I'll never make a good consumer - my phone doesn't even have a camera.

(In fact my battered cell phone doesn't even have all of its keys anymore but that's no reason to shell out on a new one...)

Sunday, September 21, 2003

 
Time to get a new mattress

I was pretty shocked to read that cashpoint machines will soon be powered by Windows.
Just what do these clowns have to do before the world stops trusting them ?
Even more unusual is the idea that they might sell soft drinks through an ATM too. Personally I think there are far more pressing things for a 24 hr ATM to sell, especially when the pubs and late night pharmacies have closed...

Friday, September 19, 2003

 
Plug and Pray

" Small company successfully sues Microsoft" sounds like a great underdog story but the actual implications of this are going to make a whole load of things more difficult. Time to ask if that sexy "flash" animation on the company website was actually a good idea ?

Sunday, September 14, 2003

 
CD/DNA

Have you ever looked at a free "front of a magazine" CD (or else one whose music is simply abominable) and wondered if there wasn't something useful to be done with unwanted disks ? They don't make particularly good coasters (though a friend hangs them in his garden to stop local deer eating plants).
Well here's something pretty cool. Click here to read how a crowd have come up with a way to make DNA testing arrays by inkjet printing reagents onto a CD. When the thing to be tested (i.e. a blood sample) is placed on the CD, allowed to react, and washed off, the resulting errors in the music indicate the results of the test.
Pretty cool, and remarkably cheap.

Friday, September 12, 2003

 
Think you're not rich ?

If you go to this website you can enter your salary and find out how you compare income-wise to the rest of your fellow earthlings.
Sobering ...

Thursday, September 11, 2003

 
Rapid proof of principles

Click here to read about a "3d printer" that is supposed to lay down electronic circuits integral to the object being created.
If we really can lay down solid objects from software with a variety of materials, what comes next ?

Can you imagine a 3d photocopier ?
One that actually made full colour objects with circuits inside and moving actuators. Cool.

Could people at office Christmas parties sit still on the glass for long enough ?

Wednesday, September 10, 2003

 
Bored

I'm just bored of MS security holes now. Not even angry or disgusted, just bored. Even the "Critical Update Notification Tool" doesn't provoke a grin.
As they say here in the US, "Enough already".

Friday, September 05, 2003

 
All is fair...

Interesting how the very first email that my new McAfee Spam filter blocked was one infiorming me about a Norton product....

Thursday, September 04, 2003

 
Park Life

Recently in the news is the new Toyota that can park itself.
What struck me is that this is a labour saving device that misses the point. I can park the car easily, but I want to avoid the pain of finding a space.

So what I think is needed is a car with a good search algorithm for a Sainbury's car park. Maybe a periscope for finding spaces. Maybe it despatches a remote drone that streaks away under the lines or parked cars. Maybe it learns where the spaces are at a particular time of day based on lazy shoppers habits, and the heat profile of the recently parked engines as it cruises up the first aisle.

Perhaps instread of robot wars we need international competitions where teams of engineering students compete to design the ultimate space finding robot family estate. Once there are 3 competing cars loose in the car park racing each other to the space, strategy certainly changes. (See the Nike "musical chairs" TV ad).

If all the cars in the parking lot had "near neighbour sensing" and wireless ethernet then they could maybe all help each other out in finding the spaces. You wouldn't need 100% of them to play, just a few. Lets define a standard for this now so all future cars of all makes can act like one big community !
Imagine a long stay airport car park where the cars reshuffled themselves as required to ensure the next one out was near the door. What would that look like from the air when in progress ?

What if the cars mutinied one day ?

Random musings. No more.

March 2003 ♥ April 2003 ♥ May 2003 ♥ June 2003 ♥ July 2003 ♥ August 2003 ♥ September 2003 ♥ October 2003 ♥ December 2003 ♥ January 2004 ♥