When I took some time to become fammiliar with Mandarin, main goals were:

1. By understanding their grammar I am much better in understanding them speaking English.

2. Using few sentencies helps break some barriers when meeting Chinese.

3. It is fun to learn something new.

Now... A bit later all three goals are OK, it is first time I tried to learn non-indoeuropean language,
and point 3 definitily justifies time spend.

73
s62d

When I saw "book source", latex was expected.
(As I am incompetent artist, I seek latex book sources to take something consistent for my projects)

No, it is done in ASCIIDOC - yet another book making program.

While TeX and LaTeX are old, they are still excellent tools for the job.
What makes alternatives better? What can not be done properly by TeX?

BR
s52d

A year ago italians drove robot cars from Beograd to Shanghai.
In small russian city, policeman tried yo issue ticket to driver-less car,
while they were preparing for some show in the main city square.

Ticket was not issued: maybe policeman was impressed by several italians talking to him (in italian, not russian),
or he just could not find how to fill up the forms...

Nice article about the trip:
VIAC: An Out of Ordinary Experiment - Computer Engineering Group
www.ce.unipr.it/people/bertozzi/pap/cr/iv2011.pdf

Ciao,
Iztok

It happened to my friend. No hands, no legs.

First we fixed phone: after some research with Android (not really Linux) we ended up
with 5 year old bluetooth car installation: the only one where you can make calls without
any keys, just sound.

Computer is next: some tests were made using joystick (manipulated by head movement)
installed on wheelchair. Not really fun.
There are some expensive monitors with build in infrared cameras tracking eye movement.

Any experience on Linux desktop? Any advice what works?

Thanks,

s52d

At home, 1m from my PC.
And you have my home address from elsewhere, of course.

BR
s52d

Yes, GSM system needs to know the cell you are using during a call.
This seems to be known issue: How come phone exchange knows with whom I am talking?
It seems a bit silly to me, really. If cell is not known, connection can not be established.

On top of it: GSM is TDMA system, so it measures distance to the terminal in cca 550m steps.
It is called Timing Advance, it is needed in order to allign all incomming frames on cell receiver.

Now... Somebody looks at Abis (protocol between cell and Base Station Controller).
You can see measurement reports: with a cell, distance, measurement reports you can guess
approximate terminal location during a call. If you have enough neighbour cells.

They overlooked two minor details:
- you do not know whom you locate
- you have to monitor all possible cells
In fact, you have to double complete operator infrastructure: not an easy task.

On top of it: more and more GSM (BSS) is using IP as transport between cell and system,
especially if collocated with HSPA+ or LTE. IPsec is used on this interfaces.

Even operators, who need this data during system tuning and debugging, have problems to get it.
Special test SIM cards, protocol probes after SGW etc are used. Normally, such tests are prepred
and executed on selected cells: getting all data history for all users is beyond reach of most operators.

It is much easier to get my location using different methods, like asking me politely ;-)

BR
s52d

This might be problem if you want mesh network with many (n>2) nodes. They (mostly) want to hear each other.

Anyhow, with 100 dB (10 000 000 000) times stronger transmit signal I somehow doubt if geometry of antennas can be accurate
enough to keep it working with changing temperature, humidity etc. over MHz of bandwith.
Maybe with heavy DSP processing and continuos monitoring?
Compensating for scattering of own signal, and all reflections from surounding objects?

On top of it, we normally use MIMO: so you have to do it on 4 receiving antennas ;-).
Even with MIMO 2by2 we might double channel capacity in perfect (MIMO perfect) radio conditions.

Yes, it is possible in the lab. But mass products?

Ah, back to good old Shannon: just double the bandwith.

73
Iztok

Assuming we have 5 THz of usable bandwith (limited by todays fiber and optical amplifiers),
and applying some technology known from radio for quite some time:

Advanced modulation (1024 QAM): 10 bits/sec
Polarization diversity (or mimo 2*2) by 2

So, 100 Tbit/sec is approximate reasonable limit for one fiber.
There is some minor work to transfer technology from experimental labs to the field,
but this is just matter of time.

Wavelength mupltiplexing just make things a bit simpler:
Instead of one pair of A/D converters doing 100 Tbit/sec, we might use 1000 of them doing 100 Gbit/sec.

In 2010, speed above 60 Tbit/sec was already demonstrated in the lab.

Eh, will we say soon: "Life is too short to surf using 1 Gbit/sec"?

Hi!

In a year or two, most GSM/W-CDMA networks will be upgraded to WB-AMR codecs.
Orange is already using it in Moldova and London, others are testing.
It is marketed as High Definition Voice.

WB-AMR uses 16 kHz sampling instead of classic 8 kHz . Together with better voice compression,
higher quality of voice is using same capacity (say, 12.2 kbit/sec) as we use today.
Of course, PCM is out.
Both sides of connection must support WB-AMR, and everything in between as well,
so for few years it might not be available across different networks.
If one terminal can not use it any more (maybe due to handover to GSM cell not supporting WB-AMR),
fallback to AMR/EFR is made on both sides, using 64k/56k PCM inbetween.

Technology is avaialble for quite same time, but terminal vendors are slowing it down.
Some 20% of all terminals have to support it, otherwise it makes no sense for operator
to buy all SW needed to implement it network wide.

Funny: good old GSM will soon get higher voice quality as ISDN.

73

Yes, it is available in Bled.

I heard this one:
Telekom installers were bringing fiber to the house in the mountain.
Old man asked them: what are you doing? And they answered by telling about internet.
And then he said: Nice, but I would prefer if you bring power lines as well.

BR
Iztok

Just have to notice:
> Yes, it is kinda weird to see Slovenia top the US....

FTTH. Two companies (T-2 and Telekom) are rolling it heavily, we are 8th world-wide in FTTH penetration.

DOCSIS 3.0. It is hard to see TV antennas: some 70% of people are on the cable networks or watch TV/IP.

Whoever is still on ADSL is considered "poor".

But, some 10% of population has no access to broadband.

73 from Ljubljana
Iztok