Did you also see my page here: http://slacy.com/names where I’ve made a very simple web interface into this info? That one has both male and female lists, as well as a really big “all” list. You can find a link to that list here: http://slacy.com/names/index.php?name=robert&type=male&n=14 , but it’s not grouped by gender. Does your 50k name list separate male from female?

I have a spreadsheet of about 50,000 baby names- and I want to get the similar soundprints for comparison. Could you point me in the right direction- Im farily technical- I know PHP etc- but looking into Aspell was pretty overwhelimg- I couldnt pinpoint documentation on SoundPrints.

Perhaps you have a script you could share? I’d be happy to share my database of 50,000 names with you.. either way… if you are interested. My database also has orgins and name meanings.

please let me know.

me [@] kerrymann.com

The product adaptation rate in the states might be suffering a bit right now.

CPU: 100+x more Mhz (16Mhz -> 1.6GHz, at a minimum), with actual MIPS increases far beyond that. If you compare MIPS & Multi-core, this hits nearly 1000x for desktop processors.
DIsk: 14,000x more bytes (70MB -> 1TB)
Memory: 1,000x more bytes (4MB -> 4GB)
Display: 10x more pixels, at best (commercially available tech)

And, by the way, several phones (Nexus One, Moto Droid) have a 300dpi screen. (480×854, 3.7″ diagonal). Of course 300dpi desktop displays are available from specialized manufacturers, but even Apple, the display King, tops out at 2560×1600, and most mid-high end consumers will be buying at 1920×1200 and 24″ in size.

The only rationalization I can make for the “display gap” is for bits per pixel. In 1990 it was 1024×768x8 (8-bit color mapped) and my netbook has accelerated 24-bit graphics, an increase of 3x in “bytes per pixel” or “display bytes per screen”.

A fair estimate would be:

1990: 1024×768 @ 8bpp = 786,432 bytes
2010 hypothetical 100x increase: 5800×4400 @ 24bpp = 76,560,000 bytes

And, assuming 300dpi, this display would be 19 inches wide, 14.6 inches tall, which is a very reasonable size for a desktop display.

“Why is my A/V receiver such a mess?”

Have you ever listened to wireless headphones? Notice the quality? That’s why A/V still requires cables. As far as standard is concerned, most receivers have a split wire per speaker. How would this be any different using USB cable? USB cables are much thicker, and (IIRC) lose signal faster than analog copper wire. The max length of a USB cable is 16 feet — most folks need more than that for a proper surround-sound environment (http://www.usb.org/about/faq/ans5)

“Batteries that last for months or years for portable electronics. This would be more about power consumption than storage, but still feels like batteries have stagnated.”

Batteries are constantly advancing. If you tried to power an old device with a modern battery, you would get the longevity results you are expecting. Basically, we are in a chicken-and-egg situation with the battery, where a better battery comes along and someone will find a way to spend more CPU cycles. Nothing new here (same goes for memory, disk space, storage media etc)

“Super high resolution displays. In 1990, my main computer was an IBM PS/2 with a 16Mhz i386 processor, 4MB RAM, and a 15″ CRT screen that was 1024×768. In 2009, I bought a new computer (netbook) that runs at 1.6GHz (100 times faster) 2GB RAM (500 times more) with a screen that was 1024×768 (the same size!). Why doesn’t my screen have at least 10x the pixels that it did in 1990?”

In 1990, your computer took up your entire desk. You now have more power, storage, memory, a flicker-free screen (an important fact most people overlook) in a form factor that is at least 100x smaller than your 1990s-era computer. Form factor is why you cannot have a bigger resolution, there is only so much space to cram the technology required for larger resolutions, and only so much people are willing to pay for (remember, netbooks target the low-end computing market). If you wanted to take up your entire desk, you could buy a 30″ screen – or hell, even two 30″ – each of which would give you 2560 x 1600 resolution (taking Apple’s cinema display as an example). By the way, anyone remember how much a 15″ 1024×768 display cost back in 1990??

“Video on demand for everything.” One word: Money. ISPs are fighting tooth-and-nail against network neutrality because streaming video costs money (among other reasons, like monopolizing content-delivery). In the US with our all-you-can-eat internet plans, we sometimes forget that bandwidth actually costs money.

“Better locks for my home.”

So you would rather carry a bunch of electronics in your pocket that can run out of battery than carry around a single key (hardly a “lump of metal”)? You still will have to carry *something* in your pocket, and who really cares what it is then? What happens when the power goes out? What about security concerns? Lock-and-key is a simple solution that worked remarkably well for the last few centuries, and I don’t really see a need to change to an (untested, unproven) electronic model. Cars are a good testbed, but it’s by no means easy or cheap or reliable to switch to electronic locks.