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Welcome to high-speed wireless Internet in almost every major city and regular 1xRTT on most highways. At least, that’s what the marketing literature says. How does it work? Pretty damn good.

I got the unlimited plan and it was pretty fun checking traffic information in Kansas City while driving through reading the latest news on CNN. The speed is fast (typically 700-800 kbps, nearly 1 mbps at times) and latency is only 250-300 ms most of time (that’s overall, compared to say 50ms on a cable modem). I haven’t found a place yet it doesn’t work — Tulsa, Kansas City, Omaha, Minneapolis/St. Paul. Yeah, mostly midwest but I haven’t hit the east coast yet (is there anything there that is still above water?) and the left coast is probably not in my near-term travel plans. But the map shouldn’t lie.

Why Sprint? They support Tulsa (my home area) compared to Verizon that for some reason seems to be everywhere EXCEPT Tulsa. I overlayed the maps and was surprised to see the void over Tulsa/OKC for some reason. Oh well, I’m sure it’s a market issue with some contracts or frequency availability that is blocking them. After all, we can’t get a local CPK either.

Even at 1xRTT on highway 71 south of KC and near St Joseph wasn’t bad, but the slightly better than dial-up speed left me waiting for more than my 5 mbps standard allows. However, the speed of the wireless broadband is more than enough to keep me satisfied for almost anything. I didn’t do any gaming on it yet, but that’s in the pipeline I’m sure.

Oh, and Skype worked like a champ aside from the extra 1/3 second lag on voice compared to regular broadband links. I will say that due to the lack of a true firewall with the wireless connection, I get a bit higher connection quality than I get behind my firewall at home. I haven’t tried video on the wireless yet since my notebook doesn’t have a webcam, but you can imagine I’ll be trying that soon.

Oh, and don’t ask where I’m posting this from, since I believe my seat back is supposed to be in an upright position and my personal items stowed in preparation for ta…..

Check this out: iUbi Blue PMP2500B

Apple needs to get on the ball if they expect to compete with something like this. The feature set is amazing, the screen is a wonderful 480×272 (same as the PSP), codec support is awesome, USB-to-go is crazy cool, and it can record video from a number of sources in MPEG4 30fps. I’m thinking that is going to make for one hell of a personal media system. Oh, and it has Bluetooth support for wireless headphones! And a real powerful headphone amplifier to push serious plugs with some real sound.
That means whatever Apple comes up with better be damn good. I realize it probably won’t matter, but Apple at least needs to match the screen quality. Marketing will be a win for Apple if they take the low road and only support a few formats and really limit the feature set, with that attitude they might be a contender for Bose runner up with inferior products with a quality name.

But we’re talking about Apple, they’ll surely shock us all with the power of the real video iPod that has yet to come. We expect no less from them. But if they churn out some crap that doesn’t have near the feature set for an expensive price tag, they will lose. And with Microsoft rumored to have their own personal portable player coming soon, it would be a shame to see Apple lose some of that wonderful market share they enjoy.

Sorry, somewhat of a rant, but I really want to be able to watch episodes of 24, Alias, CSI, etc. on a portable player while I’m stuck in downtime or bored at work (not as if that EVER happens). And every announcement of a slick new player from somebody other than Apple makes me show a little less love for the company that could.

I panned this when I first saw it, but it’s starting to look like a pretty slick device. Mind you, I despise any previous attempt by Sony to make a computer. They’re just overpriced, under-supported and risky at best. But they do have that Sony Style.

You can see the real deal on the Sony Japan Site.

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Dell has released their new gaming laptop, the M1710. Packed with goodness, including a 512MB 7900 GTX, 666 MHz DDR2, 17″ 1920×1200 display, SATA drives, Audigy HD audio, Core Duo 2.1 GHz, oh the list goes on. So does the price, this monster spec’d out the way I’d like it was $3900. WTF. I’m sure it’s a lot more machine than my XPS Gen 2, but lordy that’s a lot of money. I wonder how many previous gen owners are wondering if the slick silver keyboard is part replacement compatible with the older model. I know I am…

That red is sexy, yo.

Update (reviews added:)

http://www.mobilityguru.com/2006/04/18/dell_xps_m1710/
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2887&review=Dell+XPS+M1710
http://reviews.cnet.com/Dell_XPS_M1710/4505-3121_7-31789682.html?tag=cnetfd.sd
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1950072,00.asp

Wow, this really surprised me since the general public seems to think projects like Carnivore were dead in the water. The NSA is getting a raw feed of all Internet traffic that goes through AT&T’s network. That sure seems like some serious data to process for possible “keyword” and “traffic pattern” flags that could draw the attention of the NSA. In fact, I’m sure this post will end up in there hands to some curious eyes (for no real reason what-so-ever, I have no ill plans for the government).

With a setup like this, AT&T clearly can’t be the only company in bed with the NSA. I would estimate all major providers are forwarding traffic for analysis in these secret rooms…

Original Story

Apple today release a new software product called Boot Camp. Boot Camp will let Intel-based Macs load the Windows XP operating system. This is a huge shift to where Apple is making people seriously consider their hardware now that the OS issue is irrelevant.

Now users can buy a Mac, knowing that they can still use all their Windows software. But, when they feel the need to walk on the wild side to enjoy iLife, iDVD, iTunes, iMovie, GarageBand, and whatever else Apple throws into the sack for free they will be able to do so. I’m so considering the Mac Mini post-August after the release of Leopard. I hate the regular OS upgrades Apple does (and the add-on charge each one requires) so with no immediate need there is no rush. Plus I’m sure more hardware will drop out of the sky.

For those on the fence, this is huge news. In the end, everyone benefits.

For gaming, I use a Dell XPS Gen 2 Laptop. My unit has 2.0 GHz Pentium M, 2GB of ram and a 256MB Geforce Go 6800 Ultra @ 487/1250. The system is great, the display is gorgeous and I’ve had zero problems with it since I got it a year ago.

The details of the new April XPS have been found and its a pretty decent upgrade:

• Duo 2.16GHz
• GeForce 7900 Go GTX 512mb
• 100 GB sata 5400 RPM
• Same Screen/Chassis

So the system has the new Duo from Intel, which should add a nice boost and the hot new video card from nVidia.For me, I’ll pass. I’m waiting for the next one that comes stock with Vista on it. I don’t want to get stuck with something that will not be completely Vista compliant come next year. And my system still plays EQ2 very well, no complaints at all. I sure hope Microsoft requires HD audio with Vista so Dell can’t throw a $2 sound chip in it like they did with the current model.

I was reading lately about DECT, the GSM-style technology for cordless telephones. This technology comes from Europe (Britain if I’m reading it right) and takes advantage of the methods used by GSM (which is almost all mobile networks around the world) to improve the cordless phone quality. It also avoids interference with wireless networks since it operates at 1900 MHz.

Seems like some pretty promising stuff. You can read more about DECT at the Wikipedia.