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Comment Jinx Factor (Score 1) 292

I highly doubt with the name "Titanic" permanently etched in people's minds for over a century as a name synonymous with one of the most horrific disasters in history, that anyone would want to sail aboard the Titanic II, even if it avoids icebergs or other dangers. And yet another product built in China? (My God, what's NOT built in China now?) Not proudly made by the British at the Southampton shipyards like the original? That would have better followed the tradition, if that's what all this is about. The British have been proud for centuries of their navy and their shipbuilding. And no TV or Internet on a modern-day cruise ship? How much is this privilege going to cost? No thanks, I'll choose Disney or Royal Caribbean if I ever go on a cruise. FAIL.

Comment Stop the automatic videos and audio clips! (Score 2) 155

This would be a step in the right direction, but I wish website designers would stop the practice of having videos and audio clips play automatically when you load the page, without warning (it almost jolts me out of my chair every time). And the audio mute button next to the video isn't good enough, not after it's already scared the bejesus out of you.

Comment Of course it's about money (Score 1) 353

"The report found a much simpler reason: money." You think? DUH!!! I've always known that. It's BS that these big ISP's don't have the bandwidth to handle the data flow. The biggest ones definitely have the manpower and infrastructure to constantly upgrade and improve their networks, which is what they should be doing anyway with all the obscene amounts of $$$ we keep paying them. This is especially important for the mobile carriers (they're ISP's too, they serve Internet content), because more and more computing is being done over the smartphone and tablet now, and the wireless plans are mostly the ones with the data caps, right? My home ISP service is still unlimited access (unless I've just been grandfathered in with my two-year price protection plan). Anybody happen to know if Time Warner Road Runner service went to data capping?

Comment Wireless Carriers (Score 2) 151

I wonder if this would apply to the wireless (cell phone) carriers as well. I mean, recently I watched one hour of a movie on my smartphone (and yes, I watched it using my data plan because the nearest free wi-fi wasn't capable of handling the kind of bandwidth required for streaming video -- that's something that's got to change, too), and that one time of viewing ate up close to 1 GB of my 4 GB plan. Sure, in this case it was entertainment, and I could have used more discretion, but what if it was an instructional video I had to see in the field for my job, and there was no [fast, reliable] wi-fi around? What's the point of moving forward in technology with the ability to stream video to mobile devices if the data plans are all severely limited in that respect? What, so people are always expected to wait until they're in a spot with [again, fast and reliable] wi-fi, which is usually indoors, to be able to see any kind of video on their mobile devices? What a crock! The wireless carriers need to get it together and get back to unlimited data plans with a ton more bandwidth. We pay a hell of a lot of money for these plans (and are often locked into them for two years); the least they can do is upgrade their networks to fit the times -- not only with fancy bell-and-whistle features like 4G LTE (and I do appreciate the faster speeds, mind you!), but also more BANDWIDTH so they don't have to impose these ridiculously low data caps for tons of $$$. We Americans pay some of the highest rates for cellular service in the civilized world.

Comment Not there yet (Score 1) 544

I'm afraid the day will one day come when machines WILL be able to have enough artificial intelligence to do ALL the jobs we now do. I shudder at the thought of...robot doctors(!)...robot lawyers(!)...robot real estate agents(!)...but then again, maybe the robots at McDonald's will actually get your order right(!!)...Eventually, all you developers/programmers will be out of a job, too, according to this premise, because the machines will program the machines, better than you, I'm sorry to say. But I wouldn't worry too much, folks. Computer voice recognition still isn't there, so computers aren't all that intelligent just yet.

Comment Cell phones won't work (Score 1) 445

I can agree on the corporate IM, Skype, etc., anything that uses the hardwire LAN, but cell phones? Forget it. Until they figure out a way to make the reception consistently reliable inside steel-and-concrete buildings, they're useless. (And no, we didn't get budget approval for repeaters or femtocells in our building.) On top of that, I'm in a unique situation in my building that's even worse -- we recently moved into a newly renovated building that used to be a downtown bank. Guess where they placed some of our offices? In the vault! Yes, that's right. The architects in their noble wisdom decided somehow that they needed to spend a quarter million dollars just to cut apart one section of bank vault wall and convert it into office space by putting drywall and ceiling in it. Cell phones are DEAD in that whole area. Whatever you use in there, it's got to be wired, not wireless. And, because I work for a local government, I'm lucky we've caught up in technology in any way. We have dedicated phones, but they're at least Cisco VoIP phones, for what it's worth (model 7965). Overall, I'm pleased with the technology and facility that we have; it's a LOT nicer than what we recently came from (the old place was a 60-plus year old typical government dump of a building, you can imagine).

Comment It's not the bulk of what takes up phone power (Score 1) 110

If you ever go into your settings to see battery usage, you'll notice it's not the radios or the amplifiers, it's the *display* that uses the vast majority of the battery power. Sure, we need to get more efficient radios, but let's really go after getting the display technology much more power efficient, while at the same time coming up with a much more efficient battery technology than lithium ion or lithium polymer. Graphene and other battery technologies in the works look promising.

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