pdp1144 writes "Sprint PCS launched the first nationwide 3G wireless network today. Code named Vision it will allow wireless data speeds starting at an average of 50 to 70 kbps." The question is, how much? If the data plan is such that you can use up a month's allotment in five minutes of downloading... Simson Garfinkel had a good column on this recently.

kernel_panic writes "Okay, I've been reading up on combining two or more SDSL connections together to give you one big fat pipe, but I haven't seen any references to doing this w/ ADSL. This place even manufactures a nifty little hardware device (ePipe) that combines two WAN ports for the aggregate sum. I've seen the Netopia 7000 Series routers support this capability as well, w/ an add-on card, but all of these places only mention accomplishing this w/ SDSL accounts. I've seen a lot of info on bandwidth load balancing, but I want bandwidth aggregation (inverse multiplexing). Has anyone had any experience doing this kind of thing w/ your Linux/BSD gateway boxen?"

mcwop writes "Apple announced the release of a free FireWire SDK for embedded devices. The kit is not OS-dependent. Is this a response to the release of USB 2.0 or is Apple simply trying to keep a steady stream of FireWire devices coming? What effect will this have on FireWire b? What are the effects on the Open Source community developing FireWire interfaces? Time will tell. Nonetheless this is an interesting development."

An anonymous reader asks: "I'm seriously considering buying a PowerBook. The design is gorgeous and OS X will give me a Unix-based operating system without having to sacrifice main-stream comercial applications. What's holding me back? The trackpad. I'm a fan of the ThinkPad-style joystick, but my Dell laptop came with touchpad drivers that provide useful features like the ability to scroll by sliding your finger along the edge of the pad. That was enough to make me switch to the touchpad on the Dell, but, I can't find anything similar for the PowerBook. I found references to Overdrive, but it appears to only work with USB devices. Are there any other drivers out there that add more functionality to the trackpad? If not, is that because no one has done it yet, or is it because the APIs do not exist to do such a thing? Thanks."

Mr. Jackson asks: "What kind of disk transfer rates (MB/s) do people get in the real world when moving around large (100s MB) files? Either every machine in our building is mis-configured, or our notions about what we were getting are way off. I've tested half a dozen machines, mostly Win2k, some Linux, by just copying a large file and timing it with a watch. 8 MB/s seems to be about average for inter-disk copies. RAID 1 (stripped) got as high as 12 MB/s after fiddling with cache settings. RAID 5 was as low as 2 MB/s. We all thought the numbers should have been around 30 MB/s."

dnxthx writes "According to this ZDNet article the design of the Playstation 3 chip is nearly complete. The PS3 chip will have near "supercomputer capabilities" --- including 1 TFLOP. Reportedly, this chip is being engineered with Linux in mind."

tom asks: "Buying second hand computers you always run a risk. I was wondering if the slashdot readers could suggest a toolbox of (preferably small) tools that you could take along with you on one or two floppy's so you could run some diagnostics on machines you would consider buying. I'm thinking of the checkdisks, benchmark programs, soundcard checks, USB checks etc."

ZaPhY42 writes: "The Bitboys look like they've actually produced some working silicon of their mythical XBA Xtreme Bandwidth Architecture-based graphics card which they were previewing at Assembly 2002. Photos of the card can be found here(1) and here(2). What next? Duke Nukem Forever gets released by 3DRealms? ;)"

Anonymous Coward writes "The Screen Savers are featuring a case mod worth looking at. This article describes how to create a docking station for your PDA out of a PC drive bay. The instructions are little hard to follow but looks feasible and the finished product is pretty slick."

thefalconer writes "Over at the Via Hardware website one of the users there recently posted a very unique case mod that combines all of my favorites into a very cool design. Not only is the case totally transparent, but so are the covers on the hard drives, and it sports a water cooled Dual Athlon XP 2100+ processors. The case and all of the internal mods are entirerly hand made and it looks awesome."

EconolineCrush writes "KVM switches have always been a great way to control multiple machines, and now they're coming with all sorts of cool USB peripheral sharing and audio switching functionality. The Tech Report has a compared a couple of the newest KVM switches from Belkin and IOGear that're worth a look if VNC just doesn't do it for you."

An anonymous reader writes: "InfoSync has an article on DivX for the Zaurus. Finally, you can watch movies on the go!" Between this and theKompany's ogg player, the Zaurus looks cool. It's a little chunkier perhaps, but another reader points out that Archos is now taking pre-orders for its do-everything Jukebox Multimedia device, which might be another option for those seeking a portable anything box.

CrezzyMan writes "From this post on the Newtontalk.net mailing list: Some of you may be interested to know that in the Inkwell section on Apple's website the following original text (straight after the keynote): 'Based on the Newton's 'Print Recognizer'-widely considered to be the world's first genuinely usable handwriting recognition solution-Inkwell's handwriting recognition is highly accurate and extensively tested' has been changed to: 'Built on Apple's Recognition Engine - Inkwell's handwriting recognition is the best in the industry.' Steve must really hate the Newton..." I'd be more likely to consider Inkwell a good technology if I knew it was from the Newton, but I was an actual Newton user. Most people erroneously think the HWR in Newton OS was bad (thanks to The Simpsons!).

An anonymous reader asks: "Many local zoning ordinances prohibit big (6~8 ft) satellite dishes. Is it possible to use many smaller dishes to achieve the same effect as one big dish in picking up C-band transmissions? I know that moving large number of dishes, for satellite tracking purposes, would be a pain but are there any other issues?" Obviously building a satellite array is possible, but what are the engineering issues involved in building such a project? How much space is realistically needed? And, of course, the bottom line: how much would doing something like this cost?

An anonymous reader writes "In this technical article at LinuxDevices.com, Matchbox project leader Matthew Allum introduces his creation Matchbox: a small footprint window manager for PDAs and other resource-constrained embedded devices. Allum recalls why he decided to embark on the project, outlines its key objectives, describes its architecture and unique characteristics, and ponders its future. Cool piece of software; good read."

Full'o'MP3 asks: "Wondering what to do with all those (formerly huge) hard disks on the shelves? Well, so am I. After looking at all sorts of USB enclosures, I remembered that, a long while ago, I saw a description/review/whatever of a small board (around 3" by 4") that essentially had an Ethernet interface on one end, a microcontroller in the middle and an IDE bus on the other end. It was designed only for that purpose, could not even format the hard disks on its own and only supported SMB without any access control, but by golly, I'm looking for about a dozen (or about 1 per 4 disks). Slap them inside old PC cases, fill them with hard disks, and you have a very simple, cheap file server for home or school. I've looked at a lot of embedded Linux and commercial storage stuff, but they are all overkill and require brand new hardware. Anyone have any pointers for this? (Butchering old laptops, iPAQs or similar stuff won't cut it...)" Readers may remember this thread from early May about doing something similar with new hardware. Since this is the "budget version" of the similar question, I felt it was deserving of its own post. How hard would such a device be to build fom old computer parts and hard disks? Details on cheap electronics (like the submittor-mentioned device) that would make this easier would be appreciated.

PizzaFace writes "Personal communication devices always allowed people to communicate easily and to coordinate their plans at the spur of the moment. As PCDs became widespread, they allowed their owners to converge rapidly in large groups, for purposes social or political. Now something else is happening. Ubiquitous PCDs give each owner multiple simultaneous opportunities for communication or convergence. People surf their PCD network from one conversation to another, and physically surf the most promising of the gatherings to which the network invites them. Their web of social contacts is as broad as the globe and as shallow as a cell phone's keystroke. What happens when people become nodes on a network? Joel Garreau reports provocatively in the Washington Post. His sample is skewed by Washington's summer influx of interns, who come from around the country to work for little or no pay in part because they're chasing 'peak experiences,' and who have lots of disposable time and energy, no local roots or tethers, and an unusually large network of like-wired acquaintances." I think the conventional (and most descriptive) term for this behavior is flash crowd.

vortimax writes "Roger Arrick has put up a web page describing his quest to build the ultimate computer chair. It's based on the powered passenger seat from a late-model BMW. Add a power supply, a frame with a working surface, and you've got one unique computer workstation." Nothing like automated lumbar support while you're gam^H^H^H working. Just good luck getting the parts on your own ;)

jpt.d writes "Zettabyte (those who put the SuperDrive in the eMac) have been shut down without detailed explaination. They only say, 'Due to Legal Restrictions we will no longer be able to sell our SuperDrive equipped eMac.' Does anyone have any more details about this?"

selfsealingstembolt writes "Looks like the guys at NASA are trying to combine some existing technologies into a wearable computer. At the moment it is designed as headset combined with a small box to wear at your belt or so. The interesting part is, that they are looking for new technologies at outside sources (companies, educational institutions, ...). The design is still subject to change, but the general idea is great."