Recent Comments:
Nintendo thwarting Wii modders with epoxy-locked chips; Wii Backup Loader abandoned {Engadget}
Sep 19th 2008 12:49PM This kind of thing is not new. They used to use epoxy way back in the 1980's to try to stop modifications of satellite receivers (the old analog Big Ugly Dish kind) and the old analog cable boxes that could be modified to get free HBO etc. Of course it didn't work. Instructions for removing the epoxy circulated and even special tools to chip it away without damaging the components.
I have no doubt it will happen again and this will turn out to be useless.
HTC Touch Diamond launching on Sprint in September for $299.99? {Engadget}
Aug 19th 2008 5:47PM Does anyone know if it has USB host? I've been looking everywhere and can't find a definitive answer
Water-powered clock is here to save the environment {Engadget}
Jul 15th 2008 10:38AM It is a "salt water battery" the salt water causes corrosion on the electrodes which are made out of materials like copper and zinc or magnesium or something. These materials are reactive enough in salt water to generate a small electro-chemical reaction. The salt water is not where the energy comes from, it's the electrodes. The electrodes will eventually wear out, so really those are the batteries. It's likely it will take a long time for them to wear out though.
Using salt water for the reaction is going to create a really low-power battery because it's not reactive enough for a reaction like in most batteries. However, clocks like this only need a tiny tiny amount of energy (which is why a wrist watch can last years on a button cell battery). So it is enough to power the clock. It's kinda like those "potato clocks" if you have ever seen those.
The energy comes from the electrodes, which took energy to refine because these materials are not generally found in nature because they are so prone to corroding.
Water-powered clock is here to save the environment {Engadget}
Jul 15th 2008 10:34AM Or...
You could do one better and instead of buying a clock online that you need to have shipped to you and fill with drinking-quality water and salt, until the electrodes wear out (which by the way took energy to refine the materials for)..
You could just buy a feakin wind-up clock. You know they've made those for centuries and you can still get them. They don't even contain any "e-waste" issues because they're made of gears and cogs.
Better yet... get an old one at a flea market or something and re-use it, thus eliminating the packaging issues and energy used to make a new one.
Having an electronic, blister-packed clock shipped on a FedEx aircraft to your home and then throwing out the packaging and putting water in it completely negates any potential gains for the enviornment it creates many many times over.
Sprint to sell off assets due to subscriber defections? {Engadget}
May 13th 2008 11:19AM Sprint has a good network with high broadband penetration, some of the best 3G service in the United States. Their coverage is good and their phones are compatible with Verizon so they have unrivaled coverage with plans that have a roaming agreement between the two carriers.
When they bought Nextel they got access to a lot more spectrum and a network which was already popular and had a great push-to-talk feature.
Sprint has everything going for it. This is a classic case of mismanagement and blunders by the company. They have failed to integrate the Nextel features into their phones and create phones on the Sprint network that are cross compatible with Nextel PTT, even though they stated from the beginning that would happen. They have not utilized the new spectrum as they should. They have not provided the kind of choices for new phones that customers expect. They do not have any plans for phasing out iDen and transitioning to a unified network.
They have only themselves to blame for not thriving.
FCC's broadband over power lines expansion hits major snag {Engadget}
Apr 28th 2008 10:29PM It's not just ham radio. BPL is a horrible idea that interferes with damn near everything. The phone company uses twisted pair copper cables to deliver DSL and they are limited in speed. The cable company uses coax to deliver a lot more data (not just internet, but TV and multiple data channels for multiple customers). They use coax. The inner wire carries the signal and the outer is a shield.
The power companies want to pump broadband data through old aluminum wires that carry electricity. Zero shielding. It's not just bad for ham radio but mass deployed it leaks RF energy all over the place. Wireless cameras, AM radio, FM radio, television, cordless phones and potentially wifi could be affected
The reason it's more of a concern to hams is that HF radio is more likely to be effected than higher frequencies. However, for AM radio, HF radio used by Ham and world shortwave service, BPL could wipe out the whole chunk of the spectrum. This can also effect emergency communications.
BPL is a bad bad bad idea.
DISH Networks teams with Alcatel-Lucent for DVB-SH trial in US {Engadget}
Apr 24th 2008 7:51PM It will likely be a local test. There can be hybrid DVB-SH systems where there is satellite but also teresterial transmitters (kinda like satellite radio). I bet they'll probably do it locally with ground transmitters and if the devices cut it they'll go all the way with the launch.
DISH Networks teams with Alcatel-Lucent for DVB-SH trial in US {Engadget}
Apr 24th 2008 6:46PM I'd imagine it would be some time before they come out with a full blown DVB-SH service because the Dish Network (Echostar) satellites are currently Ku and Ka band transmitters which are designed for fixed point reception with a satellite dish. These are not suitable for handheld devices because you need a high gain directional antenna.
Therefore, unless they have a capability they have not published on one of their satellites (which I doubt) they won't be able to deploy the system until they launch a suitable satellite with L-band or S-band high power beam coverage for use in the DVB-SH format.
It'll likely be a while (more than a year) before they get the can get a launch lined up.
Interesting though.
MSV shows off L-Series satellite phone prototype {Engadget}
Apr 6th 2008 11:27PM What satellite system do they intend to use? There are only a few which allow for handheld phones: Irridium, Globalstar and Thuraya come to mind. None of those are exclusive to North America (Thuraya isn't even avaliable in North America). The only one I can think of in North America is the M-Sat system but that's a bit old and getting depreciated. It's a standard array GEO system so no handhelds either.
Census Bureau goes forward with plans to ditch PDAs {Engadget}
Apr 3rd 2008 4:47PM PDA's seem like they would be a natural way to do a task like this which is entry of lots of basic data on the fly. Too bad the government is too damn incompetent to make it work.
As for the contractor: Why exactly are they NOT paying the three billion dollars and the Government is?
There's generally only one thing worse than the government for getting things done and that's government contractors who are awarded a massive contract with almost no peneltites for not ever getting the work done. I can't say I'd blame them though. If someone handed me a billion dollars and said "This is the money for doing (insert big complicated task). but we don't actually care if you do it or not. Feel free to drag your feet for a few years and then just never get it done. Actually, if you do that you get some more money." That would be hard to pass up for anyone
