Apparently a team from National Instruments integrated an iPhone into an old car and programmed it to drive the vehicle!
http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/11/16/how-to-drive-a-car-with-an-iphone/
I can't see if it's controlled remotely by another phone, or if it's coordinates are just programmed into the iphone app. I'm guessing they're just programmed in. But I can't wait for the business model of remote controlled demolition derbies. It's gonna be like robot wars full scale. Maybe the army should look into an army of $300 remote controlled cars to mow down enemies in wars instead of multi-million dollar UAVs.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Chinese and International Cyberspying
In the past 1.5 years I'd say, I've seen a very large increase in the number of articles dealing with international cyberspying occurring against US companies and the government in general. Especially in the case of the Chinese, I almost see no reason for them not to engage in this kind of warfare. When we develop multi-trillion dollar technology, the Chinese and other governments would much rather spend 1billion to employ the brightest minds and break into our systems to take this information. I'm not a big conspiracy theorist....it just makes sense.
The thing that always amazes me with technology is the fact that with so many things, this included, it pays more to spend 1million a year on a very bright hacker then it does to spend 100k/yr on 50 mediocre hackers. I feel like this applies not only with hacking but with high tech finance and research as well.
I just hope that our own country realizes the implications of this turn of events and is ramping up their own team of high tech combatants. We are in the information age, and that is exactly the advantage we need to hold over the next millenium.
related article->http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125616872684400273.html
The thing that always amazes me with technology is the fact that with so many things, this included, it pays more to spend 1million a year on a very bright hacker then it does to spend 100k/yr on 50 mediocre hackers. I feel like this applies not only with hacking but with high tech finance and research as well.
I just hope that our own country realizes the implications of this turn of events and is ramping up their own team of high tech combatants. We are in the information age, and that is exactly the advantage we need to hold over the next millenium.
related article->http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125616872684400273.html
Monday, October 12, 2009
Phone dilemma (IPhone, Android, Blackberry)
So my phone account is finally up this month and I am going back to my smartphone ways. I miss them. I use to carry around a treo and before that a palm pilote along with a cell phone, but the last time I had a Palm Treo, I ended up breaking like 3 of them and got tired of buying more of them. Plus it had trouble correctly synching up to my computer, which annoyed me. Needless to say, smartphones have come a long way since.
However, I don't know which way to go. I've read many articles comparing them. I actually think I would like the business aspects of the Blackberry. But I'm afraid that my desire for apps through the Apple store for Iphones will be too great. I think that any phone would be ok as long as there is an open development network, which Iphones seem to have (thousands of apps). However, I've actually heard that their development is very complex and not very open. I think that the developers are having trouble because the language closely resembles something like C (which I'm personally better with) then Java. But Java is what many people learn and develope with, well, not nec. java, but higher level languages as oppose to C, which you still "touch" memory, etc.
I have heard AT&T is difficult to get reception compared to Verizon. I live near Philly now, so i don't think it'll be much of a problem. It was more when I was out in the boonies of lower Delaware that people had a problem.
Anyway, I like the idea of andriod and think google will become a frontrunner past Iphones in the next few years, but I don't know/see them there yet. I need some advice. Help me pick a phone. I will be stuck with this phone for 2 years after all....
However, I don't know which way to go. I've read many articles comparing them. I actually think I would like the business aspects of the Blackberry. But I'm afraid that my desire for apps through the Apple store for Iphones will be too great. I think that any phone would be ok as long as there is an open development network, which Iphones seem to have (thousands of apps). However, I've actually heard that their development is very complex and not very open. I think that the developers are having trouble because the language closely resembles something like C (which I'm personally better with) then Java. But Java is what many people learn and develope with, well, not nec. java, but higher level languages as oppose to C, which you still "touch" memory, etc.
I have heard AT&T is difficult to get reception compared to Verizon. I live near Philly now, so i don't think it'll be much of a problem. It was more when I was out in the boonies of lower Delaware that people had a problem.
Anyway, I like the idea of andriod and think google will become a frontrunner past Iphones in the next few years, but I don't know/see them there yet. I need some advice. Help me pick a phone. I will be stuck with this phone for 2 years after all....
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
www.23andme.com DNA analysis
So I've been looking at www.23andme.com's DNA analysis service for a while now and I think I may finally treat myself as I find myself getting old and gray (26)... and wondering what I'm going to eventually die from.
Of course, I'm half kidding. As I am from a divorced family tree (broken limbs everywhere), I'm also interested in things such as heritage. But the main interest in my attempt to use this service is to know what I'm likely to die from. It's sad that although I know fear is so widely used to sell things, this company does not seem to push that factor, but I still feel drawn to it. For anyone who doesn't know, I believe Google bought that company a few years ago and it has since lowered the price. Although the price still stands at $399 for a test.
Does anyone know of a coupon or special offer for the test? I saw that if you have a medical problem you might be able to get a discount, but I'd rather not wait for IBS or some other BS medical condition like ADD to allow me to get a discount. Should I wait? Should I do it at all? I await your comments and thoughts on the subject.
Of course, I'm half kidding. As I am from a divorced family tree (broken limbs everywhere), I'm also interested in things such as heritage. But the main interest in my attempt to use this service is to know what I'm likely to die from. It's sad that although I know fear is so widely used to sell things, this company does not seem to push that factor, but I still feel drawn to it. For anyone who doesn't know, I believe Google bought that company a few years ago and it has since lowered the price. Although the price still stands at $399 for a test.
Does anyone know of a coupon or special offer for the test? I saw that if you have a medical problem you might be able to get a discount, but I'd rather not wait for IBS or some other BS medical condition like ADD to allow me to get a discount. Should I wait? Should I do it at all? I await your comments and thoughts on the subject.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Pew Science Knowledge Quiz
Just took a science quiz that says I'm "better" than 90% of the public :). Its always gratifying to have someone else tell you what you already know :P.
Seriously though, the twelve questions on the quiz should be easy to anyone that has even a remotely passing interest to anything science related, i.e. everything.
After you get your score you can also look at the results broken down by age, education, and gender demographics, which not surprisingly show college graduates as having the highest average score. Not to say that college is required to understand the questions, the next highest average score was the age group 30-49.
Take the quiz and see how well you do.
Seriously though, the twelve questions on the quiz should be easy to anyone that has even a remotely passing interest to anything science related, i.e. everything.
After you get your score you can also look at the results broken down by age, education, and gender demographics, which not surprisingly show college graduates as having the highest average score. Not to say that college is required to understand the questions, the next highest average score was the age group 30-49.
Take the quiz and see how well you do.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Space Exploration
For the past several week I've been watching a show called Defying Gravity on Hulu. Its on ABC Sundays at 10 but I keep forgetting to set the Tivo. Its set in the future, 2050 I think, and its about a crew flying around the Solar System in a state of the art space ship complete with faux gravity. I read somewhere someone compared Defying Gravity to being like Grey's Anatomy in space and I could see that with the character development, but its also similar to LOST. Throughout all of the episodes so far there has been some underlying alien influence pushing the crew to it's hidden purpose.
The aspect that I want to talk about though isn't the technology or to review the show, its to talk about the organization that is running everything. ISO. International Space Organization. Its an ambitious flight around the solar system where the crew is mainly seemingly American with a Latina, a Russian, and an Israeli so people might be excused for thinking its a NASA mission if they didn't pay close attention. I don't know exactly how its International in the show but I think that its a good idea. With the recent problems NASA is having with its budget and future programs I don't think anybody could be hurt by having a more international space exploration cooperation. There are quite a few countries with experience sending satellites into orbit, but only three that have been capable of sending humans into space; US, Russia, and now China. I know the ISS is international, but the US has had to pay for a good chunk of it. Thats not to say that we shouldn't have because we could. But if there were a true international space body (organization, cooperation, something) maybe it could have been built faster and/or cheaper.
What I'm thinking of wouldn't need to necessarily replace NASA, ESA, JAXA or the others but could be a kind of behind the scenes money/mission allotment group. If somebody has an idea for a new kind of satellite the group could see which space agency has the most experience with the type of technology as well as the ability to launch it into space and the money to accomplish the mission. The money issue though I would think would be the biggest hurdle. I was thinking that the member countries could pay the international body a percentage of their GDP (or whatever measure is used for something like this). Then after the payment, all member countries could have access to any data collected from missions under the body. That would leave more developed countries like the US paying more because they are able, but it would also help less developed countries gain access to science and technology that they may not have been able to otherwise.
An international body of this kind, along with the private companies now attempting space flight, could bring the cost of space missions down to the point where agencies wouldn't have to cut corners or stop funding missions while they are still capable of producing good science. As far as I can tell this would be beneficial to many, if not everyone, while harming no one.
As an aside, last week was the last episode of Defying Gravity on ABC Sundays at 10 because they want to move it. A lot of times for a genre series this signals the shows imminent demise. However, the show is developed or produced or paid for by a group of international sources. So even if ABC decides to stop showing it, Defying Gravity might be picked up and continue to air somewhere else. Which for my sake I hope happens, at the very least I would love find out what Beta is and what it wants.
The aspect that I want to talk about though isn't the technology or to review the show, its to talk about the organization that is running everything. ISO. International Space Organization. Its an ambitious flight around the solar system where the crew is mainly seemingly American with a Latina, a Russian, and an Israeli so people might be excused for thinking its a NASA mission if they didn't pay close attention. I don't know exactly how its International in the show but I think that its a good idea. With the recent problems NASA is having with its budget and future programs I don't think anybody could be hurt by having a more international space exploration cooperation. There are quite a few countries with experience sending satellites into orbit, but only three that have been capable of sending humans into space; US, Russia, and now China. I know the ISS is international, but the US has had to pay for a good chunk of it. Thats not to say that we shouldn't have because we could. But if there were a true international space body (organization, cooperation, something) maybe it could have been built faster and/or cheaper.
What I'm thinking of wouldn't need to necessarily replace NASA, ESA, JAXA or the others but could be a kind of behind the scenes money/mission allotment group. If somebody has an idea for a new kind of satellite the group could see which space agency has the most experience with the type of technology as well as the ability to launch it into space and the money to accomplish the mission. The money issue though I would think would be the biggest hurdle. I was thinking that the member countries could pay the international body a percentage of their GDP (or whatever measure is used for something like this). Then after the payment, all member countries could have access to any data collected from missions under the body. That would leave more developed countries like the US paying more because they are able, but it would also help less developed countries gain access to science and technology that they may not have been able to otherwise.
An international body of this kind, along with the private companies now attempting space flight, could bring the cost of space missions down to the point where agencies wouldn't have to cut corners or stop funding missions while they are still capable of producing good science. As far as I can tell this would be beneficial to many, if not everyone, while harming no one.
As an aside, last week was the last episode of Defying Gravity on ABC Sundays at 10 because they want to move it. A lot of times for a genre series this signals the shows imminent demise. However, the show is developed or produced or paid for by a group of international sources. So even if ABC decides to stop showing it, Defying Gravity might be picked up and continue to air somewhere else. Which for my sake I hope happens, at the very least I would love find out what Beta is and what it wants.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Femtocells and Wireless Carriers
After seeing David's post on femtocells, I thought I would add my 2 cents in. I've read about femtocells in my tech reading travels before, and to me they sound like a good idea. As long as you're internet connection is good you'll always have guaranteed cell phone coverage at home. But for wireless companies they must sound like a war drum coming from just over the hill.
Think about it, if you asked most people they probably think that cell phones signals and the internet are two separate things. But if people are using these femtocells in their homes because they don't get regular coverage from their wireless providers they might start to think, "Hey, why do I pay this company $200+ a month for a family plan when most of the time I don't even get a signal when I need it, when I could just use the internet?"
This is all fine and dandy when your at home and maybe even work, but what about when your out and your car breaks down? Now a lot of newer cars have onstar so they don't really have to worry but not everyone does. And since its rare to see a pay phone much anymore, you need a cell phone. That's the one thing that the wireless companies have going for them right now, they put all these towers up all over the place so people could carry a phone around with them and call whoever they wanted. This is also the one thing that could bring them down. New phones like the iPhone are able to use a wifi connection when its available instead of using a cell tower. I don't know how much it cost to put the towers up and connect them to networks but I would imagine it was quite a bit, and they are probably still trying to get their money back. So they charge you for things like text messaging when it doesn't cost them a thing for you to send it. Heres a link to an article over at wired about a New York Times article where they talk about how text messages are sent.
With new stuff coming out like Google Voice, I think wireless companies are going to be in for some rough times in the coming years if they don't be careful. The one thing that could almost crush the companies over night would be ubiquitously available wifi that they weren't providing. Cell phones are basically tiny screened computers so there's no reason for them to be tied to cell phone towers when there's perfectly good wifi that it can tap into. With the ability to make free calls over the internet with things like Skype where you get comparable if not better call quality for free, why would you want to keep paying companies that keep raising costs year after year as technology gets smaller and cheaper? As more and more cell phones do everything on the internet, cell phone use will transition away from connecting to towers to using city wide available wifi. And as more and more cities start offering city wide wifi, the drums that the wireless carriers hear will keep getting louder.
Edit:When I started this I didn't really mean it to be a diatribe against wireless providers or quite as long as it turned out to be.
Think about it, if you asked most people they probably think that cell phones signals and the internet are two separate things. But if people are using these femtocells in their homes because they don't get regular coverage from their wireless providers they might start to think, "Hey, why do I pay this company $200+ a month for a family plan when most of the time I don't even get a signal when I need it, when I could just use the internet?"
This is all fine and dandy when your at home and maybe even work, but what about when your out and your car breaks down? Now a lot of newer cars have onstar so they don't really have to worry but not everyone does. And since its rare to see a pay phone much anymore, you need a cell phone. That's the one thing that the wireless companies have going for them right now, they put all these towers up all over the place so people could carry a phone around with them and call whoever they wanted. This is also the one thing that could bring them down. New phones like the iPhone are able to use a wifi connection when its available instead of using a cell tower. I don't know how much it cost to put the towers up and connect them to networks but I would imagine it was quite a bit, and they are probably still trying to get their money back. So they charge you for things like text messaging when it doesn't cost them a thing for you to send it. Heres a link to an article over at wired about a New York Times article where they talk about how text messages are sent.
With new stuff coming out like Google Voice, I think wireless companies are going to be in for some rough times in the coming years if they don't be careful. The one thing that could almost crush the companies over night would be ubiquitously available wifi that they weren't providing. Cell phones are basically tiny screened computers so there's no reason for them to be tied to cell phone towers when there's perfectly good wifi that it can tap into. With the ability to make free calls over the internet with things like Skype where you get comparable if not better call quality for free, why would you want to keep paying companies that keep raising costs year after year as technology gets smaller and cheaper? As more and more cell phones do everything on the internet, cell phone use will transition away from connecting to towers to using city wide available wifi. And as more and more cities start offering city wide wifi, the drums that the wireless carriers hear will keep getting louder.
Edit:When I started this I didn't really mean it to be a diatribe against wireless providers or quite as long as it turned out to be.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Femtocell's Future
I've just heard of these devices called Femtocells which seem to be used as something related to minature cell phone towers that can be added by individuals. I remember always seeing those cell phone boosters that go on the back of phones and at first I thought they were talking about them, as they're trying to recieve a signal in buildings, but then upon reading further, I realize they function sort of like a cell phone tower does, except it takes the signal and sends it out through the wifi network.
I'm guessing that the cell signal is stronger then the wifi network and that's why they do this. Otherwise, I'm thinking that they should just have the cell phones use wifi when it's available to transmit the voice/data over the network instead of through the cell carrier. But I'm sure the cell phone companies want all the data going through them as that's how they get paid, haha.
None the less, I don't see why the cell companies don't just team up with Cisco and automatically install this cell in their routers. Or at least have only a slightly more expensive version that does. I mean, with the diminishing cost of supply that tech has, it should lower the expense of the devices to very cheap and then they can boast that there is service at more points then any other company, etc. I'm probably missing something about it. There's probably an issue with people using other's wifi networks and the fact that if the network's secure it might not works. Maybe I'm just misreading the article. Either way, I think this topic deserves some discussion.
I read the initial article at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125115911718255359.html
I'm guessing that the cell signal is stronger then the wifi network and that's why they do this. Otherwise, I'm thinking that they should just have the cell phones use wifi when it's available to transmit the voice/data over the network instead of through the cell carrier. But I'm sure the cell phone companies want all the data going through them as that's how they get paid, haha.
None the less, I don't see why the cell companies don't just team up with Cisco and automatically install this cell in their routers. Or at least have only a slightly more expensive version that does. I mean, with the diminishing cost of supply that tech has, it should lower the expense of the devices to very cheap and then they can boast that there is service at more points then any other company, etc. I'm probably missing something about it. There's probably an issue with people using other's wifi networks and the fact that if the network's secure it might not works. Maybe I'm just misreading the article. Either way, I think this topic deserves some discussion.
I read the initial article at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125115911718255359.html
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