Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12181350

Points: 283

# Comments: 46

BLE is almost and entirely different protocol, albeit implemented on the same chipset, which is running alongside the existing Bluetooth stack on your phone. Nothing in the Bluetooth 4.0 spec reduces the power usage of the Basic Rate and Enhanced Data Rate modes.

In the airline example, the airline wants passengers to be at the gate before they begin boarding so that they can start looking for missing passengers as early as possible. I think we see this technique most often used by low cost carriers, and this is one of the many ways that they are able to turn aircraft around so quickly.

I also remember arguing with my sister about who got to play Commander Keen one day, so our mum blindfolded one of us and had the other shout directions.

Thanks for reminding me, I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it at the time.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10096572

Points: 6

# Comments: 0

1) Cost - if a you only visit an area with a risk of malaria for two weeks every year (which is far more often than most holiday makers), then taking a short course of pills that cost pennies a dose will be cheaper than receiving a vaccine that requires three doses and a booster.

2) Malaria strains - if you've been to multiple places in the world with malaria risk, you may have been given different medication. The first time I went to Cambodia/Vietnam I was given Larium, but the most recent time I took Doxycycline because the NHS no longer recommends Larium for the region. For Iran they recommended Cloroquine, which was significantly cheaper. This vaccine may only fight one strain, leaving you to have to take pills for other destinations anyway.

3) Effectiveness in adults - The article suggests that the vaccine was most effective in children within a given age range, so it may be the case that it simple doesn't work on adults. I have no idea if this is likely or even possible, but it certainly seems plausible to me.

I don't know anything about fighting malaria, but it looks to me like they are giving these vaccines to children to get them through the time when they are most vulnerable, rather than giving them lifelong protection.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q-BH-tvxEg [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rov_Lriqvk

Again, this doesn't help people who are trying to buy for the first time.

I'm dual booting Ubuntu 15.04 and Windows 8.1 as I support software on both platforms. So I'm suffering from the "reboot twice to get working audio" issue and occasional touchpad problems.

I believe that both will be fixed with kernel 4.1.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9544338

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

http://www.atmel.com/products/other/field_programmable_gate_...

I thought that they were looking for the IF (intermediate frequency) being fed back up the antenna cable, but I have no source for that information other than "something my dad once said".

In reality, I'm sure it's like road tax, they check the database of addresses without one against a list of people who own a television. I believe all retailers are required to take a name and address when selling televisions.

Interestingly, SDR is being used for the UK's small scale digital radio station trials this year. Off the shelf SDR hardware appears to be performing well enough at a lower cost than bespoke DAB hardware. Again, this fits in with your base station category.

You're right about timing attacks, I have no idea what I was thinking there. Would they be better for power analysis attacks? I guess if we're concerned about that then we'll end up back at ASICs again.

For example, if 802.11b devices had been built using FPGAs, an upgrade to 802.11g could have been an OTA update. Or a new Bluetooth variant emerges (e.g. BLE) and support could be added to computers and phones overnight.

For these applications it's useful to think of an FPGA as a chip that you can patch, upgrade or reconfigure for new applications. However, looking at it from another angle, we can think of it as software that isn't limited by the CPU architecture.

This second category opens up the possibility of crypto algorithms that don't suffer from the timing attacks that they do on the CPU. Or a video codec that can be designed without having to worry about which extensions the CPU supports.

I'm sure there are much better examples and some of these are bad ideas that would work better on a CPU, but hopefully that gives you some ideas.

Having said that, I'm 100% in favour of open tools. I think the current tools are one of the biggest barriers to the use of FPGAs. I also think that they cause a lock-in effect for developers, which hurts FPGA adoption as a whole.

[1] https://github.com/mossmann/daisho/blob/master/sw/fpga/targe...

I have no idea if this is true, it's probably completely apocryphal, but it's a nice hack if it's true.