I suppose the AP message was a reply to my post but I did not mentioned speech recognition. Perhaps will it be widely used and perhaps not. Not everything that looks promising will also work great.
"Hello?!?!" the earth is calling is my comment about the direct interaction between the computer and the brain.

Perhaps can the linux kernel be used in embedded devices and it is cool but for me is that not the real thing. I think that if linux does not has so many users it deserves is it because many think of it as some kind "elite" system. If the image changed to more cool&fun would also more people want to use it.

quote:The average person speaks ~200 wpm; the average typist 35-45. An exceptional typist only averages about 60. You do the math.

Actually, an average person speaks around 150wpm in the midwest, in the northeast it might be 200wpm, in the south it would probably be closer to around 120. I only know one person who types 150wpm and listening to him type is like listening to a drum roll (around 14 keystrokes per second, including the space bar). I''m a good typist at around 60-65 wpm. In many businesses that I''ve done consulting for, their general office workers (secretarys, accountants) usually type around 90wpm. The only time that dictation is good is for word processors, which only actual management really needs. Secretaries and accountants make more use of applications that require tabs and menus (ever used Macola?).

Yes, dictating would be good, but it''s not practical for business uses. That''s why your programs like Dragon Dictate aren''t all that successful. Most importantly, you don''t want everyone around to hear what you''re dictating to the computer (usually sensitive material, possibly human resources stuff which you definitely don''t want whoever''s walking by to hear you dictating). For home uses, it might be useful, but most of the work that I do at home dictation would still be useless for.

Anyway, back to the topic...

I am starting a project that will begin using FreeBSD during development, but eventually switching over to full BSD with an Oracle database. We would stick with FreeBSD, but we will need more power than it can really provide. It will be a client/server thing, with the client running on M$ OSs.

quote:Original post by Martee
quote Oluseyi: I''ve never had the opportunity to use FreeBSD, but I plan to be doing some significant OS research in the near future as I start messing around with homebrew embedded devices
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Cool! If you don''t mind me asking, what sort of deices are you thinking of?

Sorry, been meaning to respond to this but hadn''t got round to it...

I''m planning to start fooling with transmissive communication devices, starting short range limited spectrum and then expanding outwards. The eventual objective is to implement a unified transceiver for telephony, IP and TV/radio. It will require separate receptors for TV and radio, but the telephony/internet transceiver could be rolled into one as it''s just a question of sorting packets. Embedding Linux into this device would allow for some processing to be offloaded from client devices.

I''m toying with the idea of a packet-based national telephone network. I know that the US network is rather developed (though showing age and design limitations), but the inertia is too great (telephone networks here will migrate/evolve rather than "switch"). However, in developing countries where there is a lot less infrastructure in place, switching to packet-based telephony would allow them to catch up with the developed world and would be cost-effective for them. It would also link remote spots that are generally inaccessible due to lack of roads and difficult terrain. Being packet-based, it would reduce the need for dedicated connections as well as power consumption ("only send when there''s data" can cut transmission by up to 30%), making it possible to run compact systems off of solar cells. My intended test country would be Nigeria (I''m a US/Nigerian dual citizen).

And that''s just one of them (devices).

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Thanks to Kylotan for the idea!

In answer to the original question... I use FreeBSD a lot. I maintain a bunch of FreeBSD-based firewalls for various clients, a FreeBSD-based mail server (5,000 clients on it and it barely breaks a sweat), FreeBSD-based database servers (PostgreSQL and MySQL), and I keep a FreeBSD desktop machine next to my WinXP work machine for development purposes. I wouldn''t entirely recommend it for regular desktop use (although I''d take it over Linux any day of the week because of the ports collection and logical layout), but for server work its pretty hard to beat.

quote:Although it doesn''t have the huge support and packages which linux has, on the whole it seens to be a sturdy OS.

what about ports?!
it tends to work a lot better than the horrible apt-get that seems to break itself all the time (not just my experience, but maybe I should just stop trying to do everything by hand)

/Mikael Jacobson

Oh yeah the FreeBSD Ports rocks!
It''s so easy to use and maintain.
Check out this for info on the ports system.