On Feb 24, 7:49*pm, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:
Jonathan wrote:
"William Mook" wrote in message
....
On Feb 23, 8:34 pm, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:

You mean you guys actually ...pay...for laptop Internet service?

I already pay for Internet service on my google phone, so I simply
use that as a router/tether. *Free /unlimited/ down/up loads either
wireless or through usb. I use a netbook btw, not a clunky, hot
heavy and battery-hungry laptop.

Really, what provider do you have? I'm genuinely curious since most that
advertise "unlimited" actually in the small print limit you to typically 5GB
a month.


Yes, unlimited in my case is 2.5 Q-bit per month for the $12 per month
fee, and 0.5 Q-bit per month for the $1 per month fee and 0.1 Q-bit
per month for the $1 per year fee. 0.1 Q-bit per month is about
1,250x larger than your 100 Gbyte rate.


It's only a matter of time before phones and laptops become one
in the same. When that finally happens, we can have the temerity
to consider this the computer-age. We're not there yet imho.

Eh, I like to keep them separate. *A phone is too small for an effective
laptop and a laptop is too large to be an effective phone.

This is a platform issue. Change the platform, and what is effective
and what is not changes. In 1988 Hans Moravec spoke of 'magic
gloves' and 'magic glasses' that provide interactive capabilities with
computer systems. Today's screen based GUIs will be displaced with
3DEUIs (three dimensional environment user interfaces) - where
touchpads are replaced with magic gloves, screens are replaced with
magic glasses, keyboards replaced with speech recognition.

Today's Google Earth & Sketchup will be replaced with seamless
realtime interactive Virtual Overlay Experience (VOX). So, a laptop
is replaced by a pair of glasses and gloves. A cell phone is replaced
by a headphone and microphone set. (a collection of microphones in a
collar and in the gloves and glasses operate together for noise and
echo cancellation using advanced software - as well as active noise
suppression in the earpieces) The headphone/glasses/gloves
combination is equipped with solid state optical gyros and
accelerometers as well as GPS so that precise orientation and
positioning of the head and hands is known by the system at all
times.

Basically, just as many wear a blue-tooth earpiece today, folks in the
near future will wear a set of eyeglasses that project UHDTV-3D images
into each eye, while allowing visibility of the surrounding
environment through the glasses. So, virtual images will float in
space around the user at convenient locations. Gloves allow the user
to reach out and manipulate items in the 3D environment without
obstructing the real world around them. Voice interaction replaces
keyboard interaction, while gesture reading is raised to new levels.

This wearable product will not be recognizable as a laptop or handset
as we now know them. Outward looking cameras along with inward
looking cameras - and mapping software allow people to virtual
conference - by mobilizing face models of users in remote locations in
real time. So, a camera located in the magic glasses pick up eye
orientation, eyelid opening, even mouth movement - and despite the odd
angles of the camera, the computer maps that in real time to a facial
model in real time, and animates that model in real time for
distribution to others in their virtual overlay experience. So, folks
can appear before another and talk with them naturally, then disappear
after the conversation. This can happen even while you're driving our
car. A person can appear in the empty passenger seat next to you, and
you have to turn your head to hear them and see them - while you can
turn your head back to the road to tend to driving for example.

The point of all this is the handset/laptop paradigm is a function of
our limited ideas about what constitutes a platform - such platform
paradigms themselves are due for fundamental shifts in approach -
along the lines I've described.


s

--
Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.