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Old 10-27-2001, 04:33 PM   #3
Demosthenes
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Join Date: Mar 1999
Location: Random
Posts: 997
The stuff I have seen with Bluetooth is pretty neat. For example, an office building can be wired for cell phone use. An employee with a company cell phone can use it anywhere in the building and it will be directed through the office intranet or whatever and charge the business. As soon as that employee steps outside of the building, it seamlessly transfers his signal to the nearest tower and begins charging his personal account. For commercial enterprises, this is a good idea; for residental homes, this is a great idea. I personally hate cell phones. The fact that we have so many satellites in orbit that it is a wonder we can see the stars and still they charge you for time is as ridiculous as the people who charge you to access other people's hard drives (ie internet). I am an advocate for a different kind of "free" speech. Still, if I could use a cell phone as a normal cordless and have it charged to my standard AT&T, MCI, Sprint, etc account when I am around the house and then have it act as a normal cell phone when I leave the perimeters of my home, then I would consider buying one. As for bluetooth having problems, what is error free anymore?

I think it will be a long time before any sweeping changes occur with civilian technology. Such a rapid wide scale change is rare. The only such change I can think of, is the proliferation of the internet itself. In ten years it has gone from next to nothing, to a who knows how many million/billion/trillion dollar industry. Many countries are ahead of the US in this department for two reasons. One: They are much smaller, both geographically and demographically. Second: They are skipping all the intermediate technologies. The US has already paved the technological road. Why build hundreds of telephone poles when a single cell tower will suffice? As for a list of networking technologies, search Scientific American. They have all the late-breaking and experimental technologies. In my opinion, many of them will never leave the University laboratories.

Respectfully,

Demosthenes
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