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Yesterday, the Honolulu Advertiser published an article about digital TV conversion. On 17 February 2009, US television stations will stop broadcasting analog television signals. On that date, anyone in the US who uses an antenna to receive their television signal on their analog television will need a digital converter box to receive broadcast signals. Cable and satellite subscribers have or will get converter boxes as part of their service agreement. All televisions manufactured for sale in the US after 1 March 2007 are required to have a digital tuner, so these models don’t need a converter box. The AP has an article with additional details.

I’ve discussed the FCC’s 700 mHz auction on 18 March 2008 and 30 January 2008. When the analog television channels are abandoned, AT&T, Verizon and other companies will use those frequencies for mobile phone and data services.

The US Department of Commerce has a web site with information on the DTV conversion, as does the FCC. Government regulators and consumer activists fear that cable and satellite companies will use digital television to scare up new subscribers. Another AP article states that Hispanics are the ethnic group most likely to lose television service after the conversion, even as the Federal government gives away several million coupons for digital converter boxes. Hawaii has a diverse population, and getting the message out in multiple languages will be challenging. I expect to see more articles in the local papers, especially in early 2009, even though the Advertiser claims that only 5.5% of the state’s television viewers rely on broadcast signals.

Digital TV converter boxes won’t turn an old analog set into a higher-definition TV, of course. These boxes have a digital TV tuner that passes its output to an analog TV on channel 3 or 4, like a video game console would do.

Yahoo reports that broadcasters will be required to run public service advertising, in an effort to notify viewers well before the cutover. The coupon request page uses reCAPTCHA – the same system I use to screen out spam comments on this blog.

From ChipChick and Engadget comes information on a solar-powered Bluetooth headset. Bluetooth headsets need a battery to power the radio, but it’s usually a low-wattage affair. The Iqua Sun 603 uses a small solar panel that on the exterior side of the headset to trickle charge the battery. It looks like an ideal headset for the sunny tropics, but it’s not available yet in the USA. Price is £40 in the UK.

My current headset is the Jawbone. It’s not solar-powered – the charger uses a proprietary cable that has a USB jack on one end and the headset plug on the other. The Jawbone’s best feature is sound quality. It does a very nice job of eliminating background noise in the user’s vicinity. It looks good, too. I’ve seen some really ugly headsets in the last couple of years.

Courtesy of BoingBoing, here’s a photo of at least five different electrical outlets that are available at each seat in a European conference room.

It’s not just the power outlets that are different. The outlets provide different voltages and frequencies of alternating current (AC), depending upon the standards. This Wikipedia article has a good discussion that I used to develop a key for the above photo. Going from left to right:

1. Type G or BS 1363: 240v, 50 hZ. Used in the UK, Singapore and South Africa
2. Type E: 220v, 50 hZ. Used in France, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, and other European countries.
3. I have no idea what standard the third plug uses.
4. Type J or SEV 1011: 250v, 50 hZ. A Swiss model.
5. Type B, NEMA, PBG: 120v, 60 hZ. The standard 3-pin plug used in the US and Canada. Japanese plugs look similar, but use 100v and 50 hZ.
6. Again, I have no clue which plug this might be.

Every couple of months, someone asks me about a power issue. It might be electric plugs, battery life or power adapters. International travelers sometimes learn a hard lesson about voltage. If an outlet supplies too little voltage, the device will not work well or at all. This is a common issue for European visitors to Hawaii, as our 120v outlets provide only half the power that a European device might need it.

If the outlet provides too much voltage, the device might start smoking or burning. American visitors to Europe sometimes encounter this issue when they force a 12ov Type B plug into a 220v or higher European outlet.

I’ve long thought that the standard USB type A connector might become a standard electrical connector for low-power devices. USB usually provides only 5v of direct current (DC) at 100 or 500 milliamperes. That’s either 1 or 2.5 watts, so USB only useful for charging or running small devices.

DC is the common standard for batteries, and is also used inside almost every electronic device. Batteries have a limited lifespan, even when recharged.

But USB is an international standard, so more and more digital cameras, mobile phones and small devices use this interface for charging. Better yet, perhaps some company will start offering USB power outlets that can be installed directly into a wall.

This map from StrangeMaps.com and BigPicture.com relabels each of the 50 United States with countries that have similar gross domestic products (GDPs). GDP is the market value of all goods and services produced in a country within a year. Of course, we can find similar figures for each of the 50 states.

Hawaii is world famous, not a world economic power

For example, Nigeria’s GDP of US$82 billion is about the same size as the state of Hawaii, which is also 39th on a ranking of the 50 states and DC.

New Zealand’s GDP of US$99 billion is comparable to the District of Columbia. Yes, the nation’s capital city has a bigger economy than the entire state of Hawaii.

New Jersey is comparable to Russia (US$733 billion), so there’s the number five slot.

Texas is number two: it matches up to Canada, which is the #10 country at US$1.08 trillion.

In the number one slot: California, which matches up to France’s GDP of US$2.15 trillion.

As noted in the article, a map based on per capita GDP would look very different. Most of the US states have smaller populations than their GDP equivalents.

Thanks to Boing Boing for links!

Rob Pegoraro announced this morning that his newspaper, the Washington Post, will replace the Fast Forward newsletter with a blog called Faster Forward.

Fast Forward was started as an e-mail newsletter in 1995. The Post’s mail system couldn’t support a mailing list, so the writers used an external e-mail address.

The article about the blog also includes a brief discussion of RSS, which the Post is using on its web sites. See my earlier posts on http://billso.com/2007/01/23/whats-all-this/ and http://billso.com/2006/09/23/what-is-rss-2/