Re: BANDWIDTH: Take back the spectrum!

Eugene Leitl (eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)
Tue, 17 Nov 1998 20:47:32 +0100

my inner geek writes:

> it's time for private management of the spectrum. Who the hell needs

Last time I looked spectrum was still a valuable resource, protected by legal enforcement. There should be room for low-power spread-spectrum grass-routed cellular which looks indistinguishable from noise (remember CryptNet?), but such infrastructure needs a minimal coverage threshold to be interesting and its hardware be a commodity item to be affordable while being violently opposed by telco and information provider oligopolies. Also, we need something along the lines of ATM for a matrix, while distinctly suboptimal TCP/IP still reigns supreme.

That HDTV is very dead I certainly can agree with. As to streaming video, the global bandwidth is not yet adequate. Unless arrested at protocol level (pay by packet), xDSL will push further bandwidth clogging, and thus will require a yet another networks upgrade. And after streaming video there will come a yet another resource hog, I am certain.

> Maybe a 1600x800 (or 2048x1024) computer monitor or low-cost HMD?

Have you noticed that both VR/AR and HMDs are ailing, as does the magickal wearable? Such a coincidence. According to the wear-hard list, several novel HMDs are in the pipeline, but then, they are in the pipeline for half a decade at least. Boooring.

> See http://www.i-glasses.com/products.html
>
> I pray for a 32 or 64-bit multiprocessor Linux kernel based on
> Michael Lorrey's parallel DSP computers. And for a nice Wavelet

DSPs don't have virtual memory, which most Linux flavours require. A multiple-DSP machine needs a message-passing nanokernel architecture, which Linux certainly ain't. Instead of using multiple processors, possibly on-die, there is still a fatal (software-artefacted) trend towards monolithic monster processors to be observed, whether vanilla PC or DSP. On the long run, OSses are obsolete, anyway. On the really long run, even the difference between software and hardware will be nivellated.

> codec that's based on open standards. We can even ask SONY or
> Panasonic to mass produce "The Digital WalkMan", a receive only
> cellphone that plays streaming media over the wireless web.

With a high-speed wireless modem can do that with a wearable, today. A receive-only unit is not flexible enough by far. Moreover, watching movies while crossing street does not exactly appear to be a healthy occupation.

ciao,
'gene