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Category: Technology

FIC/OpenMoko Neo v1 July 9, v2 October

06/07/2007

I’ve been watching this phone like a hawk for some time, because it’s open standards across the board; i.e. both the software and hardware are – generally speaking – open.

This might not solve the horrendous problems mobile power users have to deal with overnight – proprietary connectors, proprietary synchronisation, etc – but in time it might just provoke the Symbians and the Nokias of this world to pull their heads out of their asses and realise that, really, proprietary is a dirty word; and that there’s plenty of money to be made out of compatibility. And, you know, happy customers.

There was always a slight worry that this might be another Optimus Maximus, but it looks now like that might not be the case, as the developers tell us that 400 first generation handsets are ready to ship in China, and another 600 are on the way. The price seems a bit cheeky at $300, and we don’t have much of a spec to go on, but remember this is a SIM-free Linux-based phone. The possibilities are endless.

That’s the first generation phone though, the next generation is slated for October and that currently has a price tag of €450. Ok, it’ll have 802.11b/g WiFi and upgraded hardware, but there’s no mention of a 3G radio – the 1st gen is 2.5G – and again, we still don’t know what the final OS will look like. I’m not sure I’m going to want to lash out that kind of money, after just spending a hefty whack of dosh on a Treo 680.

Hopefully they’ll spot this nasty hole in their spec before the 2nd gen handset is finalised, and I’ll be watching OpenMoko’s YouTube channel for a half-decent video of the handset in the meantime. Hopefully it’ll be pornographic enough for me to be naughty and actually buy one. And hopefully, fingers crossed, it won’t be another Sharp Zaurus.

FIC Neo

IBM 704

11/06/2007

IBM 704

Shorpy: This network of black magnetic beads, smaller than a postage stamp, is one of a number of input-output “memory” units in the new “704” electronic calculator built by International Business Machines. This particular “memory” unit of the 704 instantaneously strips all information off a slow-moving punch card, stores the data momentarily in the form of magnetic charges, and passes along the individual items, one at a time, to a lightning-fast calculating section, which can handle around 10 million operations an hour, theoretically replacing 3,000 hand-operated adding machines. Orders are in for over thirty 704’s, which I.B.M. will rent at some $20,000 a month each.

Web-Advertised Houses Generate Higher Prices

09/06/2007

This is a US story so the differences might not be as stark in Ireland, but there’s no doubt in my mind that if a seller puts some time and imagination into the process, it will still be appreciable. In the example cited. using a realtor rate of 6%, that difference is a whopping $12,225.

(I don’t say “whopping” very often, but that really is whopping.)

Geek table quiz anyone?

30/04/2007

I think this may have been done before, but what the hell. Anyone up for it? I’m thinking questions like “do you know who CmdrTaco is” and “what’s his real name so, brainbox”? In Cork for preference, but I’d travel if the majority were in some other god-forsaken town that thinks it’s the capital of Ireland.

Gimme some feedback first, and if all goes well I can take questions and answers by email, what with me being a lazy bastard an’ everthing. If you have a blog pass it on please, nobody reads mine and I have a tshirt to prove it.

UK War drivers arrested

18/04/2007

This kind of bollocks drives me demented. In separate incidents, a man and a woman “received a caution for dishonestly obtaining electronic communication services with intent to avoid payment”. How are they avoiding payment when they’re simply using a publicly-available connection? It’s the clueless dickwad that left his or her connection open that should be locked up. Their rig is probably spewing out all sorts of shite anyway, we should at least do them for littering.

Join me in Tangler

30/03/2007

Much to the consternation of my old-school techie friends, I’ve always been a big fan of forums. I think I came to the Internet too late – relatively speaking – to appreciate the whole “why download the interface” thing, even in eircom-bitrate Ireland

Of course these days we have AJAX, and we’re rightly reverting to downloading the interface once and only pushing data to users when it’s needed. That’s what Tangler is essentially about, although the lads in charge are trying to peg it more as a social app.

I’d like to spend some time on there and try it out properly, but I’d prefer to do so with people I know, so if you’d like to try it too, send me an email at tmp56@perm.it and I’ll send you an invite. If you’re already there, join me in Ireland please.

Nixie tube take-apart

23/03/2007

Nixie tubes, like, totally rock. If you ever want to treat me to something nice, don’t mind the Amazon wishlist, buy me a nice nixie clock!

427759534_79c31959c0.jpg

Social Networking Creating DNS Performance Issues

10/03/2007

An interesting, non-obvious look at how social networking sites, and to a lesser extent web 2.0 websites are affecting Internet performance.

CircleID: A typical MySpace profile page is a rich assortment of images and blogs posted from friends. Users can post videos and flash-based content, as well as links to favorite songs in MP3 files. In most cases, each of these content pieces is stored in a separate DNS domain. For example, each image belonging to a friend is retrieved from a distinct URI. This means that retrieving and displaying a profile page may require hundreds of DNS lookups in the background—compared to ten or so lookups for a ‘standard’ B-to-C web page.

MySpace is one of the most visited sites on the Internet. Each of those page downloads may account for ten times or more the amount of DNS traffic of a typical web page visit. Here is an important clue to the recent, unusually high increase in DNS traffic. And, alas, there is more to the story than meets the eye.

Because DNS queries are very small and generally very efficient, I don’t think this is a major problem, but it should lead to innovation in the space.

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