On TechRepublic: Cracking Open the Apple iPhone 3G

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>> Hola.

>> It's CNET Live, Brian Cooley and -

>> Tom Merritt.

>> - Tom Merritt.

>> I'm Tom Merritt.

>> How are you? Good to see you, Brian Cooley.

>> Good to see you Brian.

>> Nice to meet you.

>> Yeah, nice to meet you.

>> I've seen you on CNET Live.

>> You want my card?

>> You're very good.

>> Thank you, you too.

>> Forty two, good number.

>> Yeah. That's the answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything.

>> Of course. And we've got answers almost that good for your questions when you call 888-

>> We're just gonna answer everything with forty two today.

>> Not nearly that good. 888-900-CNET.

>> When you call, Cheryl will pick up the line and you'll get a chance to chat with Cheryl.

>> Uh-huh, there's Cheryl.

>> Get you all set up and prepared to come on the show live, and we'll try to answer your questions.

>> Right before we dig into those, to our own personal shame, let's show you a couple of Things we Crave. ^M00:01:09 [ music ] ^M00:01:13 [ background music ]

>> These are some of our favorite things from the Crave blog at crave.cnet.com. This is actually something I'm not craving any longer, I actually have it. It's called Fring.

>> Fring.

>> Which is a voiceover IP application for the iPhone. Allows you to make internet calls if you're at a Wi-Fi. You can put this on the iPod Touch also. But the key is you have to jail break your iPhone. So you have to bust your warranty. You have to go and do something like -

>> Right.

>> - Xyphone or something from the iPhone dev team, like Ponage. Jail break your iPhone so you can put third party apps on it. But if you do, you get this you know, it's got a full dialer right on there.

>> Looks good.

>> It's got a bunch of, you can make Skype calls, you can make SIP calls, that's the internet -

>> Yeah.

>> - protocol, and you can also do Google Talk, or ICQ -

>> Yeah.

>> - voice. You can also do some chatting, you can Twitter on here, which I know you like.

>> Oh great.

>> But it's a really cool looking dialer.

>> Yeah, great interface.

>> Go look in app, and hopefully they'll translate this to the actual legitimate iPhone apps once Apple -

>> Yeah, the new -

>> - unveils those -

>> The new approval program -

>> - some time this summer.

>> - instead of creaking along with the SDK and all that.

>> Exactly. So Fring -

>> Fring.

>> You can go take a look at it at Crave, or I think it's at fring.com.

>> Do you remember Frings from Jack in the Box?

>> Oh that's right.

>> They were French fried onion rings mixed.

>> French fried rings, I'd totally forgotten about those.

>> They were great.

>> Those were tasty too.

>> Okay, I've got something not nearly as tasty, but it's kind of cool. This is more of a concept of what's coming for Bluetooth headsets. It's adding Ybrey [assumed spelling] technology to give you what's called a hybrid headset. So Bluetooth today, yeah what a name, Ybrey, makes no sense. I don't know what it stands for. But it is a very lower power short haul wireless. Like Bluetooth, but instead of battery life measured in a few days perhaps with a current Bluetooth headset, then you got to charge it or battery it again, this could be measured literally in a year of standby time. Uses a little button cell like you might use for a hearing aid, and extremely lower power. One tenth, or less the power consumption of Bluetooth.

>> That's very attractive, but there are no phones that support it yet. Right?

>> That's the little hitch.

>> You got to wait for a phone to come out.

>> I don't know of anything you can use this, again this is a concept product that came out at a medical device conference because they're looking to use it in medical devices right away.

>> But you think the phones will come out to support it?

>> Yeah, and I think also a lot of home automation is gonna come out with this stuff.

>> All right.

>> So you can build mesh networks of things in your house.

>> Nice.

>> That's gonna build up the install base of the chip technology.

>> Little Ybrey.

>> It's got to be a tiny -

>> It's kind of a Bluetooth'ish type thing.

>> Yeah, it's thirty foot ranged like Bluetooth, so it's the same idea, but a lot less power. That could be the next big thing, so look for those hybrid headsets. Coming soon.

>> Shall we get to some telephone calls?

>> Let's do it.

>> As that is what we are supposed to do.

>> Where do we go first?

>> Let's start right at the top. In England, Matthew.

>> Hey, how's it going?

>> We're doing well, how are you? Where are you calling from?

>> I'm calling from Woodmouth [assumed spelling].

>> Oh very nice, thanks for making the long trek through the phone lines.

>> Yeah.

>> What's your question toady?

>> Okay, well for my computing [inaudible] Microsoft Access. But the school has these really ancient versions of Microsoft Access, meaning like Access 2003 or something.

>> Okay.

>> And uses really ancient [inaudible] it's .mdb. So unfortunately I can't seem to get it to work on my [inaudible] because there's no version of Access for a Mac.

>> Have you tried to open it in Appleworks yet?

>> I'm running an Intel Mac.

>> Ah, okay. Don't have Appleworks. You know what, you could try, try downloading, do you have Open Office for Mac?

>> I've tried that but it doesn't open .mdb files.

>> It doesn't open the .mdb file. All right, I'm out of options, you got anything Brian?

>> Yeah, .mdb is, boy.

>> It's kind of old. I'm sure there's something out there that'll do it, I'm just not aware of it.

>> Yeah, see getting away from the old app of the old Apple suite is the, Appleworks would have been your sneaky way in. Let me see if I got one other one here that might do it. Well, couldn't File Maker open an .mdb? I could have sworn that File Maker would, do you have File Maker on your Mac?

>> I've actually never heard of it before.

>> File Maker is a very popular database, originally I want to say was a favored Mac database, it's now popular on all platforms. You mighit want to go grab a, I don't know if they have one, but I'm pretty sure you can get an evaluation version of File Maker. Install that, use that to interpret the .mdb, and then you know, spit it out as a comma separated or whatever you want to do to move onto a different platform. But that might be your missing link is File Maker. Cause that is a very contemporary program to Access over the years. I'm pretty sure it has .mdb import, at least there's a good chance. So try that out, okay?

>> Only other solution I saw was people saying get a Microsoft computer and export it as comma separated, and then you could open it -

>> Right.

>> - as a comma separated file. That's kind of a hacky workaround that requires you to have access to a Windows machine.

>> Right. If you have access to Windows [inaudible] that's the way to do it. But otherwise try File Maker, I'm sure you can find a demo version to play with just long enough to open this file and spit it out as something else.

>> Next call.

>> Good luck with that.

>> Carson, California. Matthew on the line. Thanks for calling, what can we help you with?

>> I'm doing pretty good, how are you guys doing?

>> We're doing great.

>> Doing great.

>> Still waiting for files, but oh well. Okay.

>> Me too.

>> I've got a question here. I'm trying to understand RAID a little bit. Now I originally said RAID zero but I really guess I meant RAID one. Now RAID one makes it that copy. So let's say I build my next computer that has RAID built in, like well whatever, it has RAID built in and I turn it on and have two hard drives. Now does that make an absolute exact copy to where the first one died? The first one died, I replaced it with a second one, would everything be there? The exact OS and everything?

>> Yeah. That's the way, it'll mirror the drive bit for bit, pretty sure bit for bit, it's an image that's going to be constantly kept up. Now it may not be in absolute real time. I think it'll depend on the RAID chipset you're using, whether it's doing it every single bit that is written, or if it's doing it when it has a moment, in computer think, to do some overhead maintenance. But that's the idea.

>> Anybody who doesn't know out there, RAID is redundant array of independent disc, so there's -

>> Expensive discs, yeah.

>> But it allows you to see multiple disc drives as one disc drive.

>> Yeah.

>> And so there's different types of RAID.

>> Well that's type one. Yeah, RAID zero that you mentioned first, which is probably not what you're looking for, is striping, so you have an AB, so every other bit goes to the other drive. You do that for greater speed. It's often done on systems where you're editing video. You've got to move a lot of data. One drive can't keep up with the flow, so you bounce it, ABABABAB. So bit one goes here, bit two, bit three, bit four, bit five, bit six. That's striping. But you want mirroring, which is RAID one. There's another RAID that does mirroring as well, but the most common mirroring is RAID one. And yeah, you should basically have a fail proof system when you do that. I mean this has been used in banks and critical applications for decades. That's one of the reasons they came up with that architecture. And it's really good. I used, all my backup servers are all rate one machines -

>> You know -

>> - never lost a bit.

>> I used RAID as a workaround once in an old Dell that didn't have the right SATA connector.

>> Yeah.

>> So I had a RAID thing that had SATA connectors that would fit into the Dell's connector.

>> Yeah.

>> And then I just did a RAID array of one disc, and replaced the drive with a much bigger drive.

>> Always a different way to slice the onion, courtesy of Doctor Tom Merritt.

>> Yeah.

>> From the man who loads -

>> Not practical.

>> - Linux on a pen drive. Coming up we'll be talking to Michelle Kaufman, an architect who's leading a revolution in the design, construction, and most importantly the affordability of energy efficient, friendly homes. That's coming up.

>> But first, sure you've heard of hybrid cars, what about fuel cell forklifts? Take a look at the forklift of the future. ^M00:09:10 [ music ] ^M00:09:14 [ background music ]

>> I'm riding one of the hottest green vehicles in Silicon Valley today, the methanol powered forklift. Michael Kinelis for News.com here, at Orja Protonics [assumed spelling], a startup in Sunnyvale that makes a power system for one of the fastest growing vehicle markets around. This Toyota forklift contains a methanol fuel cell created by Orja. The fuel cell continually charges the battery, and the battery powers the forklift. The fuel cell however, can also power the forklift on its own.

>> Best forklift I've ever ridden.

>> Who cares? Warehouse owners.

>> If you look at the day in the life of a forklift, you would start the morning, three, four, five hours into the shift, the forklift operator [inaudible] off the batteries.

>> Drivers have to bring in their rigs mid-day to huge charging stations to swap their batteries. That takes a lot of real estate and a lot of space at places like Wal-Mart and Target and Costco.

>> With this you could go two shift operation if that's what the -

>> Really?

>> - customer demands. Or you could go three shift operation.

>> A lot of companies have tried to bring fuel cells to market for years, but they've been mostly looking at cell phones and small electronics. Orja's trick is that they are doing it for a big honking system like this.

>> Here's the fuel tank.

>> Okay.

>> And you connect, you just drive past a refueling station, and in less than two minutes this is filled up, off you go.

>> Here's how it works. Methanol, which is wood alcohol, is mixed with oxygen and then run through a catalytic membrane in this blue box. The reaction rearranges all the atoms and produces water, carbon dioxide, and electrons. The electrons are then fed into the batteries, which is that yellow box.

>> Today I think there are about a million and a half electric forklifts in the U.S. existing.

>> Really?

>> So how come it's taken so long for fuel cells to hit the market?

>> It's the scientist syndrome. Engineer has to develop what the customer wants. [ background music ]

>> I'm Michael Kinelis for News.com.

>> Yeehaw, Doctor Kinelis, no one like him. Okay, let's talk to Michelle Kaufman. Eco friendly architect and home designer who's doing some very different things with making the home of the future that has such a light green footprint, but also doing it in a way you can actually afford. Hi Michelle.

>> Hi there.

>> Now people hear about these new advanced homes that are so you know, low emissions, low energy consumptions, sustainable, yada yada ya. But you always see rich people who read Dwell magazine affording them. Can this be done in a way that is affordable to all of us?

>> Exactly. That's really the mission of our work, is to make thoughtful, sustainable design that's accessible. Because if it's only for the wealthy, what's the point?

>> It's not gonna scale.

>> Exactly. And it needs to be for everyone. So we're doing that through using pre-fabricated technologies, so that way we can bake in all the green aspects -

>> Yeah.

>> - as well as doing single family as well as multi-family where we can mix in market rate and affordable units.

>> Okay, so you can do those kind of below market rate developments and such, as well as single family homes. It all works this way. Now pre-fab you mentioned is how you do this. You've got a plant near Seattle.

>> Exactly. So we do modular construction, which is one type of pre-fabrication.

>> Yeah.

>> That's building volumetrically, but it's very different than manufactured, because modular is build to site build code.

>> Yeah.

>> It's shipped as a series of completed boxes, with all the electrical, mechanical, finishes, then assembled on a permanent foundation. Once it is, it's considered real estate and you don't ever have to talk about [inaudible].

>> So this is not a mobile home in the world of titling and all that.

>> Not a mobile home.

>> It's a real house. Okay, that's key.

>> Exactly, it's key.

>> Cause you can't sell or get mortgages, or do lots of stuff with what's considered a movable property.

>> Exactly. So this is really different. And this is getting to the point of the fact that we use automation and technology in almost every other industry to bring good design to [inaudible].

>> Right, right.

>> But we've been building buildings the same clunky way for hundreds of years.

>> We're out there with a hammer and nails still -

>> Exactly.

>> - sawing. Yeah, here's one of your homes here, a demonstration that you did after it's been put together. I mean this is a beautiful home.

>> Yes.

>> This is not a trailer, by no stretch.

>> No sir, no. And with this technology we're able to achieve fifty to seventy five percent less waste.

>> Wow.

>> Plus we can really -

>> That's a big difference.

>> - do everything in the factory where we can install the solar -

>> Yeah.

>> - we can install all of the technology there.

>> See, it's like an automobile assembly line or a computer assembly line, where it's really being done with precision, as opposed to a guy with a pencil behind his ear, woo woo woo woo.

>> Exactly.

>> Sawing stuff on site. Now other technologies you use inside the house, monitoring is becoming big. What does that mean in an e-house?

>> So we do energy metering, which means it provides a dashboard, kind of like my Prius.

>> Yeah.

>> Where then our clients can see in real time their energy use in terms of gas, power, and also water. So that way they have the information at hand to be able to adjust accordingly to use less.

>> Yeah.

>> Still taking hot showers every day, but doing it in a way where you can use less.

>> Now if I have a portable hand-held device, an iPhone or what have you, and I want to be able to run my home, we're getting to that point aren't we?

>> Yes, yes, exactly. So what we're doing also is hooking it up to things like iPhones. So that means if you're leaving your house for the weekend, you don't have to leave on your heating or cooling system that you normally would because you want it -

>> Yeah.

>> - warm or c

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