Fuel Cells: Japan's Carmakers Are Flooring It [Business Week: Technology]

It's good to see that this is being adopted, but at the same time, the economy of scale issue is a preoblem due to the high cost of some of the current catalysts, specifically platinum.

Personally, I like the idea of the hybrid, with a smooth undercarriage that creates a nice aerodymic profile for the vehicle. That way you have the oomph you need, combined with a vehicle that gets great mileage.

10:36:38 PM    

Cellular/Wi-Fi agile devices collaboration

RatcliffeBlog: Business, Technology & Investing -> Avaya, Proxim and Motorola are collaborating to deliver devices that can connect on cellular or 802.11b/a/g networks, depending on what is available to the user at the moment. Ultimately, this is the direction we'll see all IP networking going, as I've been saying for a while. This is a multi-mode device (with two transceivers, one for cellular and one for Wi-Fi), not true Software Defined Radio that roams across different frequencies and protocols using a single radio, so it is just a step toward the end-point of the evolution of wireless.

As a newly converted Vonage customer, I can't say enough good things about Voice over IP (the voice quality is excellent and the cost rock-bottom). There is no reason to pay a carrier for the use of a switch anymore. The devices described by the companies involved in today's announcement will approach the functionality of a the incumbent carriers' switches, since they will redirect traffic to the the packet network to avoid circuit-switched carriers whenever wireless LAN connectivity is available.

10:29:53 PM    

I don't really understand the point of Brendan O'Neill's essay arguing against the significance of weblogs. [Davos Newbies]

At the time that Gutenberg made his printing press, the impact was not immediate. Literacy was a rare skill to have, but what his tool did was give the masses the ability to have what were painstakingly coded texts in their homes, even the homes of the middle class of that society.

It took time for his device to have an effect becasue not enough people knew how to read, and not enough people knew how to operate his press. Contrast this with now, when most people can operate a word processor as well as email, so they can easily set up and maintain a weblog. The adoption curve on this is much steeper, as the barrier to entry (computer, internet access) is something that most interested parties already have.

What do weblogs do? They give people who have a passion for a subject a means of easily setting up and maintaining a website, no need to hand code the HTML (writing out long hand), and when combined with news aggregators, they can now see all the pamphlets (I think my publishing metaphor just ripped) that any of the other webloggers are putting out.

8:45:03 AM