Re: We already have...
Indeed - and a British startup at that. I met them at last year's MWC and they seem to have the right idea, though it was early days for them as a commercial concern.
84 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Nov 2010
I'm on O2 UK PAYG tariff, with bundled data and text but no minutes. It's now cheaper to make calls when roaming Europe than it is when at home.
A couple of years ago, they introduced a £2/day for 25MB plan in apparent response to EU rates. The previous week that same day's data would have cost £75.
Both are a win for consumers, at least as far I'm concerned. It almost, but not quite, means not worrying about the cost of usage whilst in the EU.
With that in mind, local breakout is surely an insane scheme - with massive complication, even just from a marketing PoV - to address something that isn't really a problem.
I understood your post perfectly well, thank you. However I wouldn't be so sure about the timeline for pure drive-by-wire.
We're already happy with throttle-by-wire, with no override except gearbox neutral or engine off, themselves sometimes computer controlled. In circumstances that induce sufficient brake fade, failure could result in an unstoppable car.
We're happy with ABS, which if it desires will release the brakes, no matter how hard you push the pedal.
We're also quite happy with modern aviation.
NCAP responds to the state of the art as much as it dictates it, and the state of the art responds to manufacturing costs. If early implementations like Sensotronic in the Mercedes E class hadn't made a mess of confidence in it, we might be some way closer now. Let's just hope they sort the security by then.
It's true that steer or brake by wire aren't in mainstream existence, yet. However, the attack isn't about taking away your input - it's about providing an extra one. Supposing an attacker could actuate an EPAS motor, I don't fancy my chances trying to fight or rather recover it. It might be physically easy to overcome in theory, but at any speed you'd better be quick about it.
Stability control systems brake individual wheels, even uncommanded by the driver, and of course ABS releases them. Why those things wouldn't be a sole and closed responsibility of the system-specific control unit, I don't know, but from the sounds of the story the whole system is badly thought through.
Telematics companies don't seem to have much of a job hiding their kit away. Once hooked up, there's no other indication that a device is connected. How you get it there is an issue, but the recent BMW theft saga was a good example of how you can get to the OBD system without a lot of trouble (in that case, to program a new key)
That a standard production car can or ever should be steered, braked or accelerated by OBD commands is ridiculous.
Germany is interesting in this context. As I understand it, which is poorly, German rent rates are regulated by the government, with even better tenant protections. Independently of that, many countries and cultures don't have the same aspirations to property ownership as the UK does, and therefore the rental model is seen as the norm. Not necessarily right or wrong, just how it is.
If the lack of an IT angle ever becomes too pressing, why not have these stories automatically generated? Take any arbitrary unpleasant conservative viewpoint, stir in some further right wing takes on economics, and bravely leap forth to present a logically-untroubled conclusion of some collective good. You can probably even use the whole idea to pay less tax.
Our street has exchange-only lines, and unsurprisingly you can't have FTTC if there's no C. BDUK are also supposed to be funding some of that work, which again is apparently uneconomical for BT Openreach to do themselves. However it's clear as mud what they're actually going to aim for, never mind achieve.
No, it's more than showboating. Enough people are saying it, and I believe that they are having business level discussions. The operators are doing it in coalitions too. What comes out of the other side is another matter - NTT DoCoMo were battling Apple for years, just trying to ship iPhones with certain things preinstalled.
Anecdotal, but a few years ago at MWC et al, at the mention of iOS, everyone would shrug and say, 'no point discussing anything there'. Now those people are starting to say, 'well, we have contacts at Apple, and nothing yet, but we've started discussions'. Of course, try it for yourself and you get repeatedly pointed at some risible developer programme, but maybe things are slowly shifting away from pure Jobsian possessiveness.
Facebook Home though? Ha. I'm surprised that this is even allowed on Android, including the Chat Heads overlay thing from Messenger. I'm sure they've thought about it, but current API permissibility is different to being a long term acceptable characteristic of the platform.
Steve Jobs PBUH once said to me, 'Trashbat my love, I'm dying now, but if I could leave just one gift to this world, it's that my overly restrictive platform limitations will one day prevent the exploitation of vulnerabilities in the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System', and then - alas - he did die, but he was wrong wasn't he, because of horrible Android, Android, weeing on his grave.
DPI or pattern analysis combined with traffic shaping probably does the job. So does qualified limitation of the offered data allowances, not certifying or not retailing the devices, or indeed blocking BIS altogether. It just depends on the balance of revenue from BIS users in general versus the revenue lost by offering those services (e.g. voice) themselves. That BB VoIP apparently only works over Wi-Fi may (partly) represent such a stance having been taken.
In that case, the answer to the question of 'what does a mobile network actually offer?' is presumably 'a mobile network'.
To point out the obvious: the network operator holds the keys to the kingdom, especially right now. The operator can knock BBTM VoIP on the head any time it likes, whereas BBTM can't circumvent the operator because they don't have any infrastructure at the edge. At least, that's how it is for now. It doesn't always work this way - sometimes the product (e.g. first generation iPhone) declares what the customer *will* have, but RIM aren't really in a position to dictate anything these days.
I don't think we should be ashamed of joint projects. Whatever you think of the often awful politics and economics, Jaguar, Tornado and Typhoon are - in engineering terms - endeavours we can be proud of, in that they are very good aircraft put together by talented engineers.
In the last few years both this and other areas like civil aviation have been cheaply sacrificed for ...I don't even really know what, some attempted political gain. JSF and the other recent projects of note carry very little forward for Britain's future; just some temporary jobs and cost savings.
It wasn't inevitable: the other side of the coin would have been greater involvement in Airbus/EADS, which is apparently not mutually exclusive to US sales, and would appear to have far greater long term returns.
Some years ago, not long after shedding its BAe moniker, BAES had to make a decision between pursuing American interests in partnership with Lockheed et al, or collaborating more closely with the Europeans, in particular EADS.
It chose the former. Since then it has made significant efforts to divest itself of at least two things: aerospace, and British manufacturing. Both have been relatively successful.
Whilst there are many things wrong with the supermerger, a negative impact on Britain is not necessarily one of them. BAES already does that itself.
IF this system manages to be safe at a mere six metre separation. What is the actual stopping distance from 50mph? Let's say that a load falls off another truck (like an MoD tank did a few years ago) and the lead lorry hits it, stopping almost dead. I'd bet that all cars in that convoy hit something. I don't imagine that six metres is the intended long term implementation, but who knows.
Inter-vehicle negotiation would be the best thing to solve what you discuss, i.e. automatic, destination-based lane changes that are calculated to keep traffic flowing without having to second guess what other people are going to do or let you do. Maybe some kind of retro-fittable protocol based on light signals would help...
For obvious reasons, the party line is never, ever going to be, 'it's OK to break the law sometimes'. However, dogmatic fundamentalists amongst them aside, it preaches a methodology concerned with applying appropriate behaviour for the context. Sometimes, and hopefully only in an emergency rather than routinely, that appropriate behaviour may not be legal. This will not be shouted from any rooftops but if you privately discuss it with observers/assessors you may find some sensible concessions.
As any good driver knows, there's not much value in being legally and morally correct when you're in the hospital or the ground.