Remainders – Things We Didn’t Post

@Brian Lam: I actually had a shitty Netgear router years back that I had to trash after the router would lock up anytime I downloaded too fast. (The RMA replacement was equally as bad as the original, and my customer service experience was HORRIBLE, so I will never buy Netgear product again.)

Granted, the real issue was the router's poorly written firmware, not the hardware. I'm sure the router was quite capable from a hardware standpoint. This of course encouraged me to start using 3rd party firmware and I haven't looked back.

Anyway, I have no intention of defending whether this ASUS router is any good or whether the press release is or is not bullshit. I'm simply saying that the press release doesn't actually claim to support 300,000 concurrent connections. It instead claims to support "300,000 sessions", and while they don't go on to explain what that means, it *is* clear from the context that they aren't talking about concurrent connections.

drumist

@drumist: the article you linked to is actually the bullshit press release. when was the last time your router failed you because it wasn't fast enough?

@AreWeThereYeti: Lets break out the calculator.. if the average computer can get up to 1000 to 2000 connections (as per the post above), then this thing can handle 150 - 300 users (depending on how many connections each are using). So, you may want to look into your definition of "worlds largest Coffee Shop" cause 150 isn't much, especially if you have the Wireless wide open, so you aren't just tending to clients, but neighbours as well.

ASUS does NOT claim that the router will support 300,000 concurrent active connections. (The article linked to even says 'sessions' which is a very vague term.) Instead, the router apparently has some sort of built-in torrent download manager (i.e., router will download files while your computer is off). This article is a little more in-depth: [www.hitechreview.com]

drumist

I love how the term StormTrooper has become so accepted after Star Wars. Prior to that, if kids wanted to play StormTroopers they would have to dress in gray overalls and do Heils every 5 minutes.

Perhaps I am insane... But the reason that the iPod "Nano" was named that was for it's relatively small size factor in relation to the other iPods, right? So doesn't it defeat the purpose to make the screen and scroll wheel bigger? Why not just call it the new "iPod Classic"...

Timothy Collins

Admiral! There be koi here!

@keepitgreen: But I still doubt that even the world's biggest coffee shop with the world's biggest downloaders would get anywhere near 300,000 connnections. My PC can probably run 1000 command shells. Who cares.

AreWeThereYeti

@Jack: > your an idiot

Clearly flamebait... but... one last nugget of technical expertise: all computers are going through one IP address and internet connection, which still limits it to ~65k. ISPs use multiple routers with multiple IPs to handle the huge number of connections they work with.

@FalconFour: Your an idiot. Giz said it obviously wasn't for one computer. We understand your godlike tech ego needs a stretch, but do it somewhere else please.

You know there are only 65,536 connections even theoretically possible in TCP/IP, right? The highest port number is 65535 and I don't even think there is a "port 0", let alone the countless ports in use by system services. Each connection needs a randomly assigned port number for NAT routing to work properly.

tl;dr: Asus is full of carp. Maybe they're related to that other story.

@redkamel: Mmm, tasty koi...

Hello Mister Walrus

you mean, I can control my ipod when I am in another dimension?

redkamel

@redkamel: dang I was going to add, some people value dogs too, and koi are much more peaceful, quiet, and long lived. And you dont have to pick up its poo.

redkamel

some koi are worth 1000s of dollars.

redkamel

You've never been to Asia, have you? Here in Taiwan (the home of Asus), those wireless routers are everywhere... Bandwidth's not really much of a problem over here, where the infrastructure is light-years ahead of most of the rest of the world... Hundreds of people DO crowd coffee shops for "free" wireless internet, and most of them are browsing/downloading/online-gaming/etc....

keepitgreen

@Wilson Rothman: Only thing I can think of is maybe they're thinking gestures are getting more ubiquitous, to the point that people start wanting and/or expecting it on the iPod as well?

@pantsonfireliarliar: This whole "application" thing is precisely what bothers me about it. Is it some kind of controller for a multi-app platform? If so, why? Apple already has made great headway in a straight-up multi-touch interface—why do they need to go and invent a complex "multi-dimensional" touch interface that competes with it? The patent is cool, but the resulting Apple product that would benefit from it, that's a black hole.

All I want now is a new iPod Classic. I've been holding out since mine died in April, and it's been hard. Even with an iPhone.

I hope they come in in September.

@blash: From the patent, it sounds like they're translating the iPhone gestures over to the iPod. So it's a way to define swipe and pinch gestures.

One interesting thing they mention is potential power savings if an application knows it won't need the entire scroll wheel sensor, ie if it only supports linear movement for swipe gestures, it turns off unused parts of the sensor wheel.

The whole point of the original Clickwheel/iPod interface was that if you had never picked up an iPod before, you could figure out the entire device within 5 minutes with the possible exception of being able to turn it off. Don't see how that would work here with a "multidimensional" version. So here's 2 things to keep in mind:

1) Don't fix what ain't broke
2) Lots of patents by Apple and similar companies never make their way into actual products.

my 2c.

blash