The system in question is developed by a company called Byte Mobile, which was bought by Citrix.
Normally all port 80, and 8080 traffic are redirected to the system, and then rules are run to determine what happens to the traffic, and or code to be injected into the page.
The system is used to help reduce bandwidth, as well as including a better TCP algorithm for use over the radio links, to help cut down lag and retransmissions, because the radio links are notoriously bad, and the standard algorithm doesn't quite cut it.
The system will actively try to down sample both images and video to help reduce bandwidth usage. In the case of video, it also tries to limit the buffered video to no more than X seconds ahead.
And finally, it is also big cache, and it tries to keep the most requested content locally. One of the new features is the ability to 'guess' what video is being viewed inside a HTTPS stream and try to cache it too.
As mentioned above with regards to the Canada telcos inserting iframes or content regarding their data usage and caps, the system can inject any content into the HTML page if it is provided over HTTP. They do this because normally they have no way to contact customers that have tablets, or 3G modems / dongles, to alert them of limits or just to be able to contact them.
How could they not have any way to contact their customers? You need to provide contact information when you sign up for a data plan, don't you?
Even if you accept that the only way for them to contact their users is via their data connection (which, again, doesn't make sense,) there are far less intrusive methods than injecting content into existing pages. For instance, they could send the user to a separate notification page, perhaps with a helpful link to the resource that the user was intending to browse to. No need to mess with (or see) the contents of any pages.
However you have to understand how a lot of the cellular operators function. They don't build much of the systems in house, but buy from large companies like Ericsson, Huawei and so forth. Therefore all their functionality is controlled by those companies.
That being said, the cellular operators don't like to hand out contact information about their customers. All billing is normally done via a MSISDN to a single system that stores a customers credit, and records all billing information. It does not contain any customer details.
I have actually seen a different approach, wherein any messages going to a MSISDN that has been identified as a tablet or modem / dongle, will be redirected to another MSISDN as a SMS or an email address, depending on the customers preferences. All these details were stored in another database.
I was one of the people that decided to fund the project on kickstarter. It might have taken a while, but they have finally delivered, and the build quality is right there with Apple devices.
This is mostly for the people that commented in the wired post that the project looked like vapoware, but they have done an amazing job in building the product.
Been waiting all week for this to come out. I love doing wargames, and have been looking forward to trying out stockfighter for a long time now after reading through all your posts.
So I actually backed this product, and the guys from Bragi are very good about posting updates. I believe they have a deadline of posting an update on the 1st of each month. They always post their progress and include videos with each update showing new features or completion of the current stage.
It also seems that most of the comments are saying its all vapoware. According to the last update, the developer devices are expected to ship next week and the week after. I will gladly post an update when I receive mine.
This is a simple implementation of Variant Symlinks similar to the ones found on FreeBSD. It uses an environment variable, in this case PQ_CURRENT_CHASSIS, to resolve the symlink.
This allows for a single global symlink, that will resolve differently depending on the value of the environment variable set when the process starts.
At the moment the environment variable has been hard coded, as its for another project, but I do intend to update the code later to support custom environment variables in the symlink.
I would be glad to receive any feed back, anything at all. Thanks :)
I am a client of Bemmu's and I can tell you the two weeks don't come fast enough.
In our country, they will send you a notice in the post when a package has arrived. And then you have to go queue at the post office to receive it. However, every week I now find myself queueing at the post office just to see if any candy packages might have arrived.
I think the twice a month deliveries are great as they are still pretty far apart that you aren't sick of them yet. Lately the packages have increased in size and its a good size to make it enjoyable but not put you off sweets for a while.
Bemmu - You mentioned that a lot of people have un-subscribed, is this after you have changed from using an envelope size package to the new larger box?
I didn't think of the box versus letter issue as well. Fetching parcels from my local post office is a 20 minute walk, it can be annoying after a long day of work.
That said, based on the testimony I've seen here I might try a few months and see...
Congrats Bemmu! I love reading these status updates by people such as yourself and patio11.
The other added benefit is that both of you live in Japan, where I hope to one day live, and both of you are running your own companies from there.
Also I am loving the Candy you have been sending lately, so keep up the good work!
It really made me chuckle and is just a great new take on the stock standard comments.