'They' say it isn't a true memristor because its data deteriorates a bit over time. But ... isn't that true of all other current basic electronic components as well? Capacitors have some leakage, making it a 'bit' a resistor. Inductors do not have a perfect Q. Even at its resonance point some energy is dissipated as heat, dampening the resonance circuit it is part of and making it a 'bit' a resistor as well. Resistors are most of the time at least 'half' a winding on a 'coil'... when alternating current passes through them with a high frequency, they act a 'bit' as an inductor. And they may have a parasitic capacitance with other components near it.

So, what gives if this HP invention is not the 'perfect' memristor. As long as it's close enough, it would do. In other words: if it quacks like a duck...

However ... if you could just use a generic hardware broadcasting device and do all the patent-laden de/encoding in software... You'd have a blast in those large regions of the world where software patents don't hold much sway (Europe, for example... 'though lobbyists try to change that quite vigorously).
And when the U.S. finally learns 'idea' patents only hamper innovation, there won't be a problem at all. It'll be 'just' software ;)

Technical Specifications and Support:

Dual channel, 16 bit, 250 MSPS DAC

Nope ... RX/TX. If you'd read the article by the way, it should have been clear they wanted a SDR that goes both ways. Of course it doesn't really have an amplifier to speak of, so you can't just hook up an antennae to it and expect to work the world. Especially if you want to output multiple signals in multiple bands, as mentioned in the article, things can get very hairy at the transmission end. By the way, good, distortion free, broadband amplifiers aren't cheap as well and come with their own set of problems.

The idea might be nice, an 'open source' spectrum, and for the receiving end it's all fine and dandy. I'm not a proponent, of security through obfuscation/obscurity, so regulation of waves receiving: Governments, just grow up!

But even at low power conditions, for certain frequencies, you don't want to have transmission capabilities in the wrong hands (read: someone who hasn't at least got a a HAM Radio license. A degree in Electronics, Electromechanics, Physics might suffice as well... if it has covered the correct subjects). Things can turn out very nasty even at low power situations. Things like GPS will stop working, or other satellite signals jammed. Many satellites only transmit at an order of 10-100 watts. The amount of signal left when received on earth is miniscule. A little more power and things like Wifi and RC toys/remote controlls/bluetooth will be affected. Digital broadcasting is next I think... including mobile phones and portophone systems there isn't nearly as much robustness in there as there was with the old analogue signals... As they digitized the signals, they could cut bandwith and power requirements... Nice for energy savings and miniaturization of systems but it does mean it can be jammed easier, even if there is overhead in the protocol for error correction. Well .. you'll get the picture.

While I agree this sounds like a better deal for radio enthousiasts than the Ettus USRP and I'll be itching to get my hands on one of these, color me sceptic about the whole low power broadband broadcast 4 noobs vibe the Per Vices founders seem to transmit.

73. PG8W.

Of course, he should be! It's the best thing since sliced bread.

And I should know, being Dutch. What good would sliced bread be without an abundance of cheese?

MP3 player? I want a Pip-boy with 'em tiny tubes!

And a reservation for a room in Vault 101 to go with it.

Well .. PC Perspective had to benchmark this card with some sort of drivers... Guess what; those probably were written by AMD personell. It's already faster than the competitors offering. If it had any major defects they surely would have mentioned it in the article. So if that's total garbage, it can only improve, no?
I'm not that afraid the cards will be usable only as badly designed space heaters. Because apparently that's something they do badly... having a similar thermal envelope as the previous gen cards. The developers of high power PSUs will be the least pleased with this new product :P

Actually I try to filter my adds through adblock to not block the unobtrusive text based adds (which Google became 'famous' for). If this option is able to do the filter work for me instead of me opting out every single add I find annoying manually, I'd actually very much like the option. If it has this as intention, I'm willing to try it out, see if it can get the job done. I can always put back my original filter list, can I?

Maybe ... But if you see the Nominations list, there wasn't even a choice of nominees this year. Unlike last year where there were several 'minor' Epic Fails, this year there Could Only Be One(tm). It was the Epic Fails of Epic-est Fail-ness. And Sony rightfully got credited for it.

Disclaimer: I'm a bit biased of course, who isn't? The last Sony item I bought was a 'high quality' headphones a year ago that broke within a couple of months due to material fatigue that broke the braces that connected the ear cups with the head band. Well ... nothing some epoxy can't handle. It's still semi-usable. However, it's not that experience that put me off spending money on anything Sony related since (Except, maybe, through the optical media standards they co-developed).

Could it possibly be, the Netherlands still have plenty brick and mortar bookshops and no Amazon, because Dutch and Flemmish language books can't be sold for a price below a publisher set, government regulated sales price, unless a book is more than 3 years old or is 'damaged'?
Amazon can't sell those books for bargain prices on the Dutch and Flemmish market because they will be hauled to court and possibly put out of business. Brick and mortar bookshops don't compete on prices (they can compete on service of course) and the only discount shops we know contain titles over 3 years old and those 'damaged' books (which sometimes happens not by accident, if the publisher and author want to sell of part of their stock quickly/cheaply).

I do buy at Amazon, by the way. But only for English-original titles. Amazon.co.uk no longer includes shipping charges to many parts of Europe, when ordering for 25+ GBP and their prices are altogether reasonable for books and audiovisual media. No import duties and a harmonized VAT system ordering from within Europe by the way.

Well ... I dare to contend that. It didn't happen with LotRO.
A Free to Play player there can reach the level cap entirely without paying a single cent (although it will be a helluva grind because you basically have to level on monsterkills and the epic questline or you have to do every deed in the areas you have full access to on, on at least three characters to get all the 'virtual currency' for free to buy off the most annoying restrictions and all quest packs)
They have (limited to one message every 5 seconds or so) use of all the chat channels. Goldselling is prevented by a 2 gold per character level cap (which is sufficient to be able to do almost everything in game except buy a house or a special reputation horse mount or the expensive stuff on the auction houses) They can buy on the AH what they can afford but not sell on it.
They can unlock quest packs and all the other stuff that differentiates them and subscribers by single payments of a 'virtual currency' (Turbine points) which you can buy with hard cash OR by actually playing the game. And if you spend real money(tm) at least once (subscribe for a month, for example, of buy virtual currency once) most of the restrictions on your account are broadened or completely lifted. (5 gold cap, ability to sell 5 items on the auction per character, no more chat restrictions, etc.)
I think that kind of restrictions give people plenty of ways to play for 'free' and still be a contributing character, unlike what I read about the WOW Free to Play options. Also I have alts who level through the starter areas at the moment and do not notice an increase in goldselling and chat spamming. I do notice an occational ninja-fellowship-invite and the odd 'rude' player but not noticably more if you keep in mind how many more people are actually playing in those starter areas nowadays.
In the kin I'm in (the second oldest on that server; Iluvatarian Knights, Gilrain) there are a couple of free to play players and they start to notice some really annoying restrictions only when they are already half way to the level cap. Then they can decide if it's worth their money to skip a bit of grinding or start an extra character and get enough 'virtual currency' that way to pay for quest packs. Also it opened the way for those of us willing, to experiment with a second account without immediately spending for a second subscription. We also have a multiboxer in our kin who has (beside a couple of subscriptions) a free-to-play multibox account group. He runs great barrows with six rune-keepers for the fun of whatever multiboxers percieve as being fun (it's not my thing :P ).
Each of them have different reasons not to pay for a subscription. It might shock you how many people can't get a creditcard (or simply can't afford to spend any money at all) and thus can't easilly subscribe but have tons of free time to spend on a game. Underaged, people with low income, people with variable income, people paying off debt (who don't have access to their own bank accounts), people who don't have access to their own accounts for other reasons (which can be plenty), people in countries with a 'difficult' financial relationship to the USA, people in countries with an alltogether 'difficult' relationship to the USA. And then there are ofcourse the people who very much like to play ... a few hours in the month, when they have a day off between working and raising their kids. They are never gonna pay a whopping 15 dollars/month for a subscription but they might once in a while invest in a quest pack. And lastly there are also people who are not willing to pay anyways on principle.
I don't know what Turbine made after making LotRO free to play, but the rumours say it's a tidy sum and it did make the servers and especially the starter areas a lot more lively.

Religion at its lowest, human level have everything to do with morality. Whether it's a fixed set of morals passed down to you from previous generations or the interaction of you with your fellow human beings which makes you learn that being a social being has its benefits for you as much as for anyone else, or preferably both. It gives you a reference of judgment you can build upon even if you later reject that religion for whatever circumstance. In that sense, being brought up with a certain religion is indistinguishable from being brought up with a less (or non-) religious but similar system of beliefs and morals like Buddhism, Socialism or Humanitarianism. Your parents/teachers give you this system of morals and eventually you base your own system of morals on what you have been thought mixed with your own experiences. If you're a 'good' human being (sorry for my use of the word 'good' here ... for lack of a better word) that means when you're grown up you have been able to evolve your own personal system of morals because you have been given the chance to do so, working from that base that was passed down to you, to something you can live comfortably with both yourself and with all human beings you interact with.
Religion at its lowest, human level, I think is an extremely good thing (now I do mean good as GOOD!) whether some of its believes are rather fantastical and unscientific or not.
It's only when things get institutionalized and people who are supposed to be shepherds turn out to be wolfs that things go horribly wrong. But I honestly think that's something that can happen with any social system of beliefs and morals.

Disclaimer: I've been brought up in a non-strict roman catholic belief system. My parents left me lots of room for individual choices, which does include I haven't been seeing a church inside for years, 'though I was a very active member (as in helping find texts for the masses as part of a liturgy group) and still think of those years fondly. I turned away at a time the conservative forces began squashing laymen influences as I got the impression human interaction and constructive dialog about hot moral topics was becoming less and less a priority. I do still value the christian moral core though, so I'm probably quite biased.

For that, they invented TPM, HDMI and various other consumer experience impeding technologies.
If you can demand the whole chain is signed -bios, operating system, drivers and display hardware (via HDMI)- you can make 'sure' (unless an exploring and fearless hacker shows otherwise - risking a criminal offense per DCMA) the movie is only played when you want to. And I think the MPAA won't allow TV tuner hardware to decode this 'premium' content before they 'cum in their mandatory TPM wet dream'.