22:30 megaflops amounts. A phone for gaming is/was 0.5 to 1.2 teraflops; a game console now is 4 to 12 teraflops. Early super computers 200 mega flops.
Great talk Prof Harvey. I've tried to avoid owning a mobile phone, or rather a mobile phone owning me, by way of making sure that all the people who matter to me and who i matter too, are all in shouting distance....(joke).
Great lecture, thank you. To address the Today programme issue raised by one of the questioners. The lack of reliability of calls is mainly due to the increased used of audio over IP services such as FaceTime and Skype in the pursuit of better quality. The issues are more to do with poor Wi-Fi connectivity in contributors’ homes rather than cellular network issues. Whether the increase in quality is worth the risk of losing the caller is debatable. I recently retired as the technical manager for BBC radio news programmes and reliability of VOIP calls was a constant theme. The fact that cell networks handle calls in a much more robust way than home Wi-Fi handles VOIP means that a normal call should be preferable to VOIP but it wasn’t seen that way by programme makers who wanted better quality so as to closer match that of the studio. Contributors on the phone are at a disadvantage as listeners instinctively think that better quality audio gives more weight to the points being made.
21:30 I got it wrong. I think because of how disappointing the actual experience is... P.S. My phone spent three seconds reorienting it's screen while I wrote this brief message.
Umm, no: One square kilometer is 1 km x 1 km. On the other hand, 333 m x 333 m is *_one-ninth_* of a square kilometer! 🤣 So Prof. Harvey overestimated the number of devices the system is required to support by a factor of 9. Of course, that's assuming that the members of the standards committee didn't get similarly confused when using the metric system. 😜 If you aren't used to the metric system, I can see how you might mistakenly assume that 1 km² is 1 k (m²), that is, 1,000 m². Of course, as the SI standard makes clear, the correct interpretation is 1 (km)², which is 1 (1,000m)², which is 1,000,000 m². 1 million devices in an area of 1 million square meters averages to 1 device every square meter. Not too bad. But wait. If Prof. Harvey thought that 1 km² is 1,000 m², then he made another mistake by going for 333 m, which is 1/3rd of 1,000 m, rather than its square-root, which is about 32 m. That would mean Prof. Harvey expected a device density that's 1,000 times of what the standard actually supports! 1 million devices in a 32 m x 32 m = 1,000 m² area. Hmm. That's 1,000 devices every square *meter.* Wow. (BTW, the standard also makes it clear that both the comma "," and the period "." are DECIMAL separators. Neither should be used for separating thousands. However, because I'm writing this comment in English, I used the English convention: Comma to separate groups of 3 digits, and the period as a decimal separator.) Not to worry though. As you said, the majority of your online audience is in the US, where they can't use the metric system, can't do math, or both.
Absolutely right. Well they say no lecture is complete without a mistake! Shall we just assume that the ITU got it right? So that’s one million devices per square km. Could have been worse - I got the speed of light wrong in a previous lecture and that was embarrassing.
Thank you Professor Harvey, and also to Gresham College, for a worthwhile and illuminating lecture.
Gresham College, I don’t know where I would be without your lectures.
Brilliant lecture. So enjoyable to watch and I'm chuffed to see there are more to watch by Professor Harvey and more upcoming!
Thanks for another informative lecture. Lots of information. I learned a lot from listening to the lecture.
22:30 megaflops amounts. A phone for gaming is/was 0.5 to 1.2 teraflops; a game console now is 4 to 12 teraflops. Early super computers 200 mega flops.
Great talk Prof Harvey. I've tried to avoid owning a mobile phone, or rather a mobile phone owning me, by way of making sure that all the people who matter to me and who i matter too, are all in shouting distance....(joke).
Great lecture, thank you. To address the Today programme issue raised by one of the questioners. The lack of reliability of calls is mainly due to the increased used of audio over IP services such as FaceTime and Skype in the pursuit of better quality. The issues are more to do with poor Wi-Fi connectivity in contributors’ homes rather than cellular network issues. Whether the increase in quality is worth the risk of losing the caller is debatable. I recently retired as the technical manager for BBC radio news programmes and reliability of VOIP calls was a constant theme. The fact that cell networks handle calls in a much more robust way than home Wi-Fi handles VOIP means that a normal call should be preferable to VOIP but it wasn’t seen that way by programme makers who wanted better quality so as to closer match that of the studio. Contributors on the phone are at a disadvantage as listeners instinctively think that better quality audio gives more weight to the points being made.
highly interesting, thanks.
Great title.
21:30
I got it wrong. I think because of how disappointing the actual experience is...
P.S.
My phone spent three seconds reorienting it's screen while I wrote this brief message.
Umm, no: One square kilometer is 1 km x 1 km. On the other hand, 333 m x 333 m is *_one-ninth_* of a square kilometer! 🤣
So Prof. Harvey overestimated the number of devices the system is required to support by a factor of 9. Of course, that's assuming that the members of the standards committee didn't get similarly confused when using the metric system. 😜
If you aren't used to the metric system, I can see how you might mistakenly assume that 1 km² is 1 k (m²), that is, 1,000 m². Of course, as the SI standard makes clear, the correct interpretation is 1 (km)², which is 1 (1,000m)², which is 1,000,000 m².
1 million devices in an area of 1 million square meters averages to 1 device every square meter. Not too bad.
But wait. If Prof. Harvey thought that 1 km² is 1,000 m², then he made another mistake by going for 333 m, which is 1/3rd of 1,000 m, rather than its square-root, which is about 32 m. That would mean Prof. Harvey expected a device density that's 1,000 times of what the standard actually supports!
1 million devices in a 32 m x 32 m = 1,000 m² area. Hmm. That's 1,000 devices every square *meter.* Wow.
(BTW, the standard also makes it clear that both the comma "," and the period "." are DECIMAL separators. Neither should be used for separating thousands. However, because I'm writing this comment in English, I used the English convention: Comma to separate groups of 3 digits, and the period as a decimal separator.)
Not to worry though. As you said, the majority of your online audience is in the US, where they can't use the metric system, can't do math, or both.
Absolutely right. Well they say no lecture is complete without a mistake! Shall we just assume that the ITU got it right? So that’s one million devices per square km. Could have been worse - I got the speed of light wrong in a previous lecture and that was embarrassing.