Moved the Blog

For a while this blog was a mirror of the one I write on TypePad. It was useful to be able to compare the two systems, but TypePad has lots of features not found here, and most of the readers are going there anyway, so I am going to stop posting here for a while.

Please visit the other blog at herot.typepad.com/cherot.

Are Cellphones Safe on Aircraft?

This month's IEEE Spectrum has an article (Unsafe at Any Airspeed?) about the potential for radio frequency (RF) emissions from cell phones to interfere with aircraft naviagtion systems. The primary concern raised by the authors is the effect on GPS-enabled landing systems. While cellular phones do not intentionally emit RF in the GPS band, improperly designed cellphones, or properly designed cellphones operating in close proximity to each other can generate spurious radiation in the 1200-1600 MHz band used by GPS receivers. The authors conclude that at a minimum, the FCC and the FAA need to coordinate their testing and associated rules before removing the current restriction on cell-phone use.

Some interesting facts presented in the article:

• The authors (with the permission of the airlines) carried a specially instrumented laptop on board 37 passenger flights in the US. On each flight they noted at least one case of a passenger making a cellular phone call, including a few during the critcal take-off and landing phases.
• The Samsung SPH-N300 cell phone has been implicated in several "incidents" where the GPS receiver lost satelite lock. Similar problems have been reported with DVD players and other seemingly innocent devices.
• The current FCC prohibition on making phone calls in flight only applies to "cellular phones" which technically means phones operating in the 824-849 Mhz band. "PCS phones" operating in the 1850-1910 MHz band are legal to use during flight. (!) Of course I wouldn't want to try to explain the distinction to the flight crew or the authorities, and given what I read in the article I don't think I would want to use either one of them during take-off or landing.

TED Photos

There wasn't as much photography going on this year at TED as I've seen in previous years, and it took me a while to get my camera out, but I've posted my pictures in a few places.

An edited set is in my Blog Photo Album.
The complete set of pictures, in higher resolution, is in my gallery.
There is also a Flickr photostream.

You can see everyone's TED photos on Flickr using the tag TED2006.

TED 2006 - Days 1 & 2

The incomparable TED conference got off to a roaring start. The theme is ostensibly Technology, Entertainment and Design, and the format is a set of short presentation on an eclectic variety of topics giving people plenty to talk about during the longer than average breaks. Of course a primary benefit is the opportunity to reconnect with old friends and make new ones.

Some things I learned at lunch before the conference started:

Scott Cook sees an opportuity for Intuit to help consumers manage health care the same way it helped them manage personal finance. He also described how QuckBase has quietly become an enterprise-grade version of what Lotus Notes was before it became too complex for mere mortals to use it to build applications.

Jay Walker is trying to figure out how to improve the health care by getting people to take more interest in self-preservation.

Sunny Bates sold her search firm to start something to connect donors to worthy casues.

Some of the interesting talks on the first day:

Robert Wright, author of Non-Zero turned out to be quite an entaining speaker.

Nicholas Negroponte described his One [$100] Laptop per Child project.

Lisa Randall squeezed her book on multidimensional physics into 18 minutes.

Hans Rosling showed some excellent visualizations of
statistics on world health and income.

Al Gore gave an impassioned presentation on global warming, a term which Jay Walker later pointed out needs to be replaced with something more urgent such as "world-wide climate collapse."

Alan Russell showed some vert promising work in tissue regeneration.

Joe Derisi showed how to build your own micro array maker for diagnosing viral infections.

Pictures here.

I've put the best of the photos from Oaxaca here.

If you want to see the complete set, you can go to the gallery.

Where to eat in Oaxaca

La Biznaga
Calle García Vigil #512
+52 (951) 5161800
Interesting and vried menu. Try the mushroom soup.

Casa Oaxaca
Calle Constitución #104A
+52 (951) 5168531
There are two of these, one at the hotel of the same name. This is the other one. A bit pricier than most places and has excellent steaks.

Catedral
Calle García Vigil 105
+52 (951) 516-3285
Upscale.

Las Danzantes
Macedonio Alcalá 403-4
+52 (951) 5011184
Dining room is open to the stars. Becomes a nightclub after dinner.

El Fortin
Down the hill from the Hotel Victoria. Cheap and good.

Manantial Vegetariano
Tinoco y Palacios #303
+52 (951) 5145602
Vegetarian.

Temple Restaurant & Bar
Calle García Vigil 409-A
+52 (951) 5168676
Eclectic menu. Jazz some nights.

Convoq SellASAP in the Wainhouse Research Bulletin

Andrew Davs did a great piece on SellASAP in the Wainhouse Research Bulletin. One quote:

What strikes us about the demo we witnessed, besides the functionality and speed of the application and its integration into both Outlook and SalesForce, is that Convoq’s sales, marketing, and development strategy is taking the company in a new direction, one that really promises to grow the market for conferencing and collaboration by tailoring the application to the needs of specific communities using specific tools.

Oaxaca - photographs

We recently returned from a week in Oaxaca. Photos can be found on gallery.herot.com/~cherot/Oaxaca2006.