Comment Re:Very important first step (Score 1) 301
Hmmmm... all my years working as an IC designer and all I have been creating is magic smoke??? Cool!
Thanks for making me smile.
Hmmmm... all my years working as an IC designer and all I have been creating is magic smoke??? Cool!
Thanks for making me smile.
Hey - Missing Option - I cut and paste from Encyclopedias!
Problem is, the scissors I got don't have a paste button!
Do Post-It Notes Count?
Seriously, Two invaluable things of the information age - Wiki type materials, and Topic Specifc Forums.
Forums that have common interests are invaluable to have - and, I am not talking about SlashDot type forums,
but those forums where everyone there is involved in a common area and has knowledge to share.
If you really want to use optical communocation you might as well go infrared so you don't need to see it, similar to your TV remote.
Then you have all the problems (visible light or infrared) of orientation, line of sight and similar.
Hopefully the creator of this gadget has not quit their day job.
utterly stupid.
water is suicide - distilled, lab grade whatever...
As an EE I have done a little too much "suicide testing" of devices.
cold freeze you should be able to survive, the battery might need replacement, but the chips will survive.
If you want to dunk a phone into a fluid and see it survive you need to use something like 3M's Fluorinert
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorinert
Neat stuff - you can take a computer (No disk drive) and put it in fluid and it still keeps on running while totally immersed in the fluid.
I went out as an independent contractor about 9 years back. My health care coverage has tripled in that 9 years, part of that is getting older and the big part of it is raising rates. (the big chunk is heatlh coverage rates thru the roof)
Oh, and I am healthy so I could get coverage. Forget it if you are sick. Presently costs me over $400/month, and the first $7500 isn't covered.
America encourages starting your own business and being an entrepreneur? Right, sure, utter BS - most people are captive to their corporate coverage, and don't realize there is a problem till they retire or try to go out on their own.
Support Obama and his efforts to get reform (of any form) in place. - And don't blame Democrats for a failure to pass this bill, at least they are trying to make something happen, rather than just saying "no"...
Rant machine off...
The re-purchase of silicon at many levels is a pretty common thing. Somebody comes out with a good memory chip and the world buys wafers of the chip from the other vendor. Or in a final package, or pays for their name on the outside of the package.
I have had several experiences with foundries taking a design, fabricating it for me, and then 6 months to a year later a "sister organization" comes out with a chip that looks pretty bloody similar. Then, when you do a tear-down of the competitor's chip (nitric acid and a microscope) and you find your design inside the thing. Lawsuit time if you can, but what usually happens is some form of licensing agreement.
What I would question here is what testing of the chip was done after it was assembled. Test time costs a lot of money to do, and anything that can be done to reduce that is a common strategy. Sometimes they do "blind package assembly" (no testing at the wafer level) and do testing just after final assembly.
In this case it sounds like they are doing blind assembly, and shipping out with no final test either. A shoddy way to cut costs.
the amateur astronomer understands that Pluto is noting more than an asteroid with a big ego
The attitude gets even bigger when its closer to the sun than Neptune.....
How would you like to be demoted?
This is old news, and just a variation on a theme -
As somebody who does this sort of stuff for a living - now they need to get around the IEC-60601 compliance and the FDA before they could introduce it in the USA.
http://www.devicelink.com/mddi/archive/03/09/015.html [devicelink.com]
Something similar is in the works for hospital use:
http://www.soterawireless.com/main/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=55&Itemid=18 [soterawireless.com]
That goes out over WiFi inside a hospital.
Also - Bluetooth LE (Low Energy) is designed for this application and there are a bunch of "health monitors either int the works, or already out there for this:
http://mobihealthnews.com/2577/continua-picks-zigbee-bluetooth-le-for-health-devices-sensors/ [mobihealthnews.com]
Blood Glucose monitors using this technology have been around for a while:
http://www.dexcom.com/default.aspx [dexcom.com]
Now if you want exciting - research into electronic eyes, electronic ears and neural pacemaker for people with epilepsy are kind of interesting. Google them and you will find them.
Got your Borg Implants?
As somebody who does this sort of stuff for a living - now they need to get around the IEC-60601 compliance and the FDA before they could introduce it in the USA.
http://www.devicelink.com/mddi/archive/03/09/015.html
Something similar is in the works for hospital use:
http://www.soterawireless.com/main/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=55&Itemid=18
That goes out over WiFi inside a hospital.
Also - Bluetooth LE (Low Energy) is designed for this application and there are a bunch of "health monitors either int the works, or already out there for this:
http://mobihealthnews.com/2577/continua-picks-zigbee-bluetooth-le-for-health-devices-sensors/
Blood Glucose monitors using this technology have been around for a while:
http://www.dexcom.com/default.aspx
Now if you want exciting - research into electronic eyes, electronic ears and neural pacemaker for people with epilepsy are kind of interesting.
Got your Borg Implants?
"storing data on rust is where the similarities end"
Ferrous oxide tape and disk drives haven't been used in new media in over 20 years (30?)
What cave have you been hiding in?
I actually know somebody who did exactly that. Yes! at Apple! No Joke!
As an EE doing circuit simulations, I often get outputs that are pretty big (over 100GB does happen) but the simulations take multiple days to run and you are collecting all kinds of data in the process (think all the currents and voltages in a 1000 transistor circuit, at 10femto sec intervals and running for long periods)
But thats on the Linux box...
hmmm...
On the PC?
Debbie Does Dallas - that runs about 2-3GB I think...
Insert appropriate Monica Lewinsky and/or blue stained dresss joke here...
Loran C is good to about 30 feet - I have a Loran C system in my boat in addition to GPS
I'm always looking for a new idea that will be more productive than its cost. -- David Rockefeller