Published by Robert Pogson March 21st, 2013
in technology.
For most of my life, Africa has been embroiled in frustrating violence sorting out the mess left by european colonialism. The dust is settling, however, and South Africa is joining the BRIC countries in rapid growth in industrialism and modernization of technology. This has an effect that spreads all over southern Africa.
“The growth rate for sub-Saharan Africa is estimated around 5,5 % for 2012; and The Economist of 6 January 2011 predicts that between 2010 and 2015, seven out of the top 10 fastest-growing economies in the world will be African. According to Standard Bank’s research, ICT is one of the factors driving this growth. In 2010, BRICS accounted for 13% of global demand in the ICT sector, with spending of about €328 billion.”
see allAfrica.com: South Africa: Huawei to Share Africa's Technology Vision At Brics Summit in Durban.
Combine that with Nigeria reaching 48 million Internet-connected people and Kenya also racing to spread wireless Internet everywhere and there is a huge emerging market for small cheap computers, rivalling Asia. We are seeing the Digital Divide finally being bridged with small cheap computers, FLOSS and wifi.
- Robert Pogson
Published by Robert Pogson March 21st, 2013
in technology.
I had to smile when I read this article.“A Sydney library is claiming a world first: it’s going to add Apple iPads and Samsung Galaxy tablets to its lending shelves.”
see Council offers free iPads.
I hope this catches on. M$’s EULA forbids the lending of OEM-installed OS from M$… Chuckle. If libraries or other businesses get into lending/leasing small cheap computers, M$’s OS will not be there except a higher cost because M$ always likes to “get value” for every use of its OS. Another failure for the non-Free software players.
It’s not far-fetched. I can see a raft of tablets in doctors and dentists’ waiting rooms, buses and trains with the things built-in to the vehicles. Airplanes are already doing it. Why not everyone else including the family car? Small cheap computers fit everywhere and M$ does not belong.
M$’s business lock-in is about all that will be left in a few years and it is being eaten by the new trend to tablets and thin clients. It’s all good. What the world’s governments couldn’t do, the market is finally getting around to fixing, the Wintel monopoly disease.
- Robert Pogson
Published by Robert Pogson November 1st, 2012
in technology.
“In a rare moment of collaboration, wireless providers AT&T and T-Mobile have agreed to share networks in the challenging days following Superstorm Sandy, allowing customers to use whichever network gets coverage in their areas.”
see AT&T, T-Mobile share networks to help Sandy victims – CNN.com.
Users often find themselves in the dead zones of their ISP. What if they all shared all the time? It’s technically feasible. Maybe a storm will provoke a realization that together we are stronger and more capable than we are divided and competing. The same is true for software. Non-open standards anywhere in IT is stupid.
- Robert Pogson
Published by Robert Pogson September 28th, 2008
in Uncategorized.
Some trolls claim wireless N does not work with GNU/Linux. That may seem plausible in that few drivers were available but ath9k is in Linux 2.6.27 at rc7 and working and some are using it in Ubuntu Intrepid which is alpha.
Status of Project IEEE 802.11n
Standard for Enhancements for Higher Throughput
July 2008, Denver, Colorado, US
TGn Draft 5.0 passed recirculation ballot #129 by an 90% majority (75% required) with 261 votes to approve, 29 not approve, 23 abstain.
All 1112 comments from this recirculation ballot were resolved during this meeting, and the working group approved a recirculation ballot on a TGn Draft 6.0, incorporating these comment resolutions.
The timeline was modified, and now anticipates publication in November 2009 instead of July 2009. The group is targeting September 3-5 for an ad hoc meeting to resolve comments from the recirculation ballot on Draft 6.0.
N, itself, is not necessarily stable so it may not be a good idea to go spend a bunch of money on it until next year, but it is interesting technology. I have booted thin clients on g but n would be much more fun. Lots of products use Atheros chips for n so I think the trolls are wrong. Of course the trolls would reply that one has to build, etc. but they are still wrong. Folks are testing Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex now and other distros have the driver.
Again, the anti-GNU/Linux trolls make a mountain out of mole-hill to stop GNU/Linux but we just tunnel right through. One thing is sure. When 802.11n is ready GNU/Linux will be.
I had a real driver issue yesterday. An old PC refused to boot PXE. It turned out the new batch of Ethernet cards uses a different chip even though it is the same model number… Not a GNU/Linux issue at all. I just made up a copy of my default PXE file for the particular MAC hardware address and added NIC=via-rhine to the boot parameters and we are good to go. The old crate boots much faster than newer machines with XP. Drivers are not a mountain for GNU/Linux, just little bumps.
- Robert Pogson
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