IT companies can't make smart houses

Hi, I read your recent article in the column net.wars you have at www.theinquirer.net. I am an architect so I just wanted to drop you a line and say that most of the features that you would like in a "smart" - " modern" dwelling like sound and heat insulation , either from the outside or from a room to another room , are already doable.

Also movable walls are doable too, they just cost more than plain old standard brick walls. The problem usually with such kind of designs is not the original idea , or the implementation, but finding the experienced workers to do stuff like that.

All you need is good, sane, by-the-book design and of course ...the one item that everyone would like more of, money.

So as a last note , I don't think that many IT companies can offer a really "smart" house , but just an IT enhanced one. They should better leave the really "smart" part of the house to the people who can do it , like for example here.

with respect
Dounas Theodore
Architect Engineer AUTh
Greece

PS . I am in no way affiliated with MIT or anything...

I'm all WiMAXed out

Re: Wi-Fi, WiMAX dead and gone, fibre pundits say

Ed, er Mike, (and Wil too),

"Fibre to the home is the buzzword." Good. I'll be happy to pay out several hundred dollars for the installation and the usual ~$50 per month. Well? Let's go. Hurry up. I'm waiting... By the way, we live in the woods and it'll take many km of fibre to reach our little neighbourhood of a half-dozen houses. We're reportedly out of reach of DSL and there is no Cable TV in the area. Dial-up is the pits... More likely is that I'll be signing up for IP by satellite in the very near future, once it is available (see www.wildblue.com).

As I mentioned in a previous letter, Wi-Max will have advantages (duh!) over fibre in servicing the mobile market. This includes the stereotypical laptops in the coffee shop or in the park, Internet Radio in cars (!), and eventually Wi-Max + VoIP as a supercheap replacement for cell phones (!). Obviously the arrival of IPv6 is perfectly timed. Wi-Max will be a Really Big Thing and will probably 'take down' traditional radio broadcasting and (hopefully) the cell phone bandits as well.

More fibre in our Internet diet is still a Very Good Thing. But which part of wireless (i.e.. mobile) didn't they understand?

Cheerio.

Jeffy

10 alternative uses for an USB stick

Hey Mike,

You can also "use" it for breaking the fall for your laptop.

My 128M usb stick stuck out of the back end of my laptop as it went hurdling to the floor. It totally broke the fall, ejected itself from the USB port in the mean time, thereby saving my 3GB harddisk from dying (which was important), and only breaking off the USB connector off of itself :). The connector was soldered back on (did it myself, gotta do that better some other time), and it just worked again. Looks silly though, a USB stick with the connector at a 70 degree angle.

Might be able to send you a photo :)

Greetings,
Peter Bindels

The INQUIRER guide to marketing English

I was in awe yesterday when I noticed some batteries near the check-out line at my local supermarket.

"Ultra Super Heavy Duty"
1 2 3

Yeah. READ: "These batteries are so damn crappy we have to rely on three adjectives hoping you won't catch on".

Also the fact that they came in packs of fifty kind of backfired whatever they were trying to pull.

Jess

Sugar fuel cell developed

I remember discussing this with clients twenty years ago! A guy at Kings, London published something in Nature? around that time, although ACC 'Alf' Tseung had suggested it another twenty years earlier. The application was always self-evident. There are (at least) three problems:

The power levels are exceptionally low Depletion of blood oxygen in this way may have unforseen consequences, especially for sick patients Bio systems tend to incompatible with electrochemical hardware, including membranes, due to the march of the killer proteins, enzymes, etc. - ie strong surface blocking by adsorption. Innovation cannot entirely be ruled out, however.

DGL

Google agrees to Chinese censorship

Hi Mike,

I don't think there is greater or less evil. It's basically bad or not and lets leave details to politicians and philosophers. Ok, they said:

"It said that if the company displayed results from sites the Chinese government blocks, computer users would end up clicking on links that lead nowhere.

So now a Chinese person searches with Google and he get's filtered content, so he might not even know that his government filtered out some sites articles whatever. If Google would not filter out content, then he at least would know (if smart enough), that something is wrong, and let's not forget Google cache, where you can access unavailable articles/pages.

And who is Google to decide who can see what? They at least should bring up a note that content is filtered by China's government, but not simply remove it from results. I personally would like that some stuff is hidden, would not you?

Guess not very constructive but oh well...

Regards,
Vilius, Lithuania