World: r3wp

QNX can be made to run on printers ;-)

Maybe Tao Group moved away from Elate and now consentrate on the 
"intent" part of it!?

hum looking up Tao... to refresh my mind... its been sooo long.

Elate seem to be called intent-RTOS now.

QNX is cool. Maxim - I thought you were talking QNX :-) I saw QNX 
demo by Dan Dodge in Cologne Amiga show 1998 - it was breath taking 
- imo the best mikrokernel architecture around ... Kernel just 75KB, 
everything else runs dynamically in user space ...

QNX is now owned by Harman International (Kardon)

IIRC it can even multithread code with no threads within the source! 
 sort of because of the way it distributes processing.  IIRC each 
operation is a single call and if the kernel detects that it can 
push a few ops in parralel it sends all of them at once... so single 
process code can actually run on multiple CPUS with no programing 
on your part.

its also the reason you can multithread on several machines so smoothly... 
it only sends individual opcodes through the wire!

that is what I remember of the tech demo a while back.

(I wasn't there... just what was explained)

http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/17969/page2/

hehe seems a bit like my AWE concept I shared with Ammon a while 
back... Adaptive Work Environment.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Looks nice all told, 'cept maybe the square shape doesn't lend itself 
to ear->mouth contours...

That is to say, as a PDA or iPod variant, it looks great.  As a phone, 
it looks like a brick.

i guess they assume people use a separate headset...

though, basically all cell phones I have used today are bricks.

the flip ups have a better ergonomy in this regard, since they leave 
both sides at an angle...

but mordern phones don't really care about proximity... the mix is 
designed to capture sound linearily within a foot AFAIK.

I would like wireless headset that recharges from teh phone when 
put in the phone, the phone recharges when placed anywhere on my 
center panel of my truck, or my desk.

Aren't there crystal radios which require no batteries ?

Why couldn't the phone send out a weak radio signal which a crystal 
radio headset picks up ?

duh.. that would be a one way conversation. :)

sorry, I didn't think that through !

: ) No worries.  Good point, one could always have a Whole car Tesla 
Coil LOL

Would that still be a car ? I think the nature of the car would have 
changed if you did that.

No, but it would be heavy, since you would hauling around a giant 
spool of cooper wire.  So it might only get 3MPG, but hey, your headset 
would not need batteries!

But if you're gonna do that, you might as well take advantage of 
the huge magnetic field made possible by the coil. Perhaps it could 
be a form of locomotion.. :)

Roads should be built of rare earth magnets.

It does not work that way.  You would have to have a giant coil in 
the ground, and the car would be the object (creating a magnetic 
field).  In fact this is the way street lights know when to change. 
 There is a coild of copper in the ground.  You might notice octagonal 
cuts in the ground even in Australia where they place these.

If the road was made of magnets, then when you dropped your pen knife, 
you could not pick it back up.  The ground would quickly be covered 
in paperclips and screws.

(sorry, I just realized you were writing tongue in cheek).  I'm working 
on a technical paper, and was in "literal mode")

Sensors could sense the car's magnetic field, then switch on the 
opposite polarity in the ground magnet, so magnets are only powered 
when there is a car nearby.

(only half tongue in cheek.)

That is possible, but so expensive it would be better to have minimin 
wage works carry you to work and to the market.

They can fan you too.

If you are hot...

That's so last millenium, though.

You've got to have floating magnets involved somehow !

True, but cheapper than magnets...and more fun really.

The Germans are working on it....I hear it is getting cheaper, but 
still not cost effective even for a monorail.

I wonder about those stories sometimes.

Also, you still have to have a giant power source, and it would not 
be availble everywhere, so you still need to bring power with you.

Microwave dishes on the top of skyscrapers beam power down to where 
it's needed on the roads below.

So that works for the city....

Actually that does not work, for a lot (insert misc. dead humans 
and animals in line of site here) reasons.

Maybe a beam which converges to a focal point under the ground, passing 
weakly through objects above.

Never mind the power - surely rare earth magnets can be kept in opposite 
polarity ? In the ground, in the car. So the car floats above the 
ground. A fan powered by push-bike pedals moves the car through the 
air like a hovercraft.

nah, let's just use antigravity. :P http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060325232140.htm

Aha! Looks very interesting :)