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Hardware

Toshiba Bluetooth Portable Storage Device 170

Posted by timothy from the are-you-listening-cupertino dept.
An Anonymous Coward writes: "Toshiba has announced a new portable storage device, Bluetooth Pocket Server, that can be used as a HTTP/FTP wireless server. This device with a 5GB of data can hold up to 37 hours of MPEG-4 moving images. You can read the press release on the Toshiba web site. Now while walking you can be a human web server..."
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Toshiba Bluetooth Portable Storage Device More

Toshiba Bluetooth Portable Storage Device

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  • I know I shouldn't... (Score:5, Funny)

    by TheConfusedOne ( 442158 ) <the,confused,one&gmail,com> on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @10:57AM (#3401701) Journal
    Imagine a cluster of guys all named Beowolf walking around with these...

  • Next on Slashdot!: (Score:4, Funny)

    by Telastyn ( 206146 ) on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @10:58AM (#3401708)
    WarDriving for WaReZ.

  • How helpful! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Chairboy ( 88841 ) on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @10:59AM (#3401716) Homepage
    It's awfully kind of these posters to tell us how many hours of MPEG-4 'Moving Images' can be stored on 5GB. Seeing as how hard it is for this readership to understand 5 GB in other terms....

  • I can see it now... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mysticalfruit ( 533341 ) on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @10:59AM (#3401720) Homepage Journal
    Your walking along and suddenly the RIAA police run by and tackle some kid for pirating over the air waves.

    Or better yet, you'll go on a warez site and the instructions will be like..

    "Goto the mall, stand in front of the Orange Julius and make the 'pirate sign' in the air. Your download will commence shortly aftwards."

  • In the future . . . (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Boxen will be spread over a few feet with bluetooth cpus, gpus, monitors, and cd drives all physically disconnected. And crackers may not 0wn your cpu, but if they get your hard drive, you're still screwed.

  • Transfer rates? (Score:3, Informative)

    by questionlp ( 58365 ) on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @11:00AM (#3401726) Homepage
    I wonder what kind of transfer rates one can get with that thing, since it is limited to the speed of the Bluetooth connection.

    The storage unit would be a nice add-on for those with a Pocket PC 2002 device and a BT card (or in the case of the iPaq 3870, which has BT built-in) as you could just sit the drive on a table or in a jacket pocket and listen to MP3s or even watch (shrunken versions) of Anime or movies with PocketDiVX.

    • Bluetooth transfer speed is 1Mbps

      • Actual transfer rate. (Score:4, Informative)

        by juuri ( 7678 ) on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @11:31AM (#3401927) Homepage
        Maximum transfer rate is asynchronous 732.2/57.6kbps. Sync is around 433kbps. So don't expect to be transfering lots of data around. This is still plenty fast enough though for DiVX movies.
        • Thanks for the info... even at 400kbps async (interference, distance and the BT chip/controller factored in), that would still be able to stream a DiVX and MP3 files fairly nicely.

          I wonder if they will include a USB (either 1.1 or 2.0, preferrably 2.0) port on the device for faster data transfers from a laptop or a desktop. I'd hate to have to sit around and transfer 4-5GB of files via BT :)

    • Re:Transfer rates? (Score:2, Informative)

      by DdJ ( 10790 )
      I wonder what kind of transfer rates one can get with that thing, since it is limited to the speed of the Bluetooth connection.
      It's interesting to note that they tell you to hook up USB if the bandwidth of the thing is too slow for you. That should tell you something significant about the transfer rate you get in practice.
  • Hook it up to your Bluetooth GPS, and have your own "where am I today?" web server. Or a bluetooth web-cam for "what am I doing today?"
    • Hook it up to your Bluetooth GPS, and have your own "where am I today?" web server. Or a bluetooth web-cam for "what am I doing today?"
      As far as the GPS is concerned, it depends on if you are using a Microsoft OS on the host machine; if so, then it's "where we (Microsoft) want you to go today?". On the paranoid side, think of the possible uses by the RIAA/MPAA... not only do they know that you are serving illegally ripped/copied media files, but they can track every move you make :)

  • Cool.... a new iPod perhaps? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bake ( 2609 ) on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @11:01AM (#3401737) Homepage
    Can't wait for some kid to walk with one of those into CompUSA and rip Office X without even plugging into the computer:)
    • better yet, the kids standing across the street with a high gain yagi getting office X.

      I can see it now, there going to start installing bluetooth scramblers (they'll just call it "bluecavity") in public places to prevent remote theft...

  • I wanna be a Bluetooth Radio Station (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BeBoxer ( 14448 ) on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @11:02AM (#3401739)
    What I think would be really neat is a simple radio protocol for Bluetooth. That way, I could "share" whatever tunes I happen to be listening to on my MP3 player with the people around me. Other folks on the bus or whatever could "tune in" to see what I was listening to, or I could check out what other people are listening to. It wouldn't even have to include download capability, just a stream of whatever is going to my headphones.
    • try that and instead of a bluetooth radio station, you'll be a black-eye radio station. if Ms. Rosen gets her way. I mean, that would be public performance... unless of course you were listening to copylefted or otherwise free (un-copyrighted) tunes.

    • Re:I wanna be a Bluetooth Radio Station (Score:5, Informative)

      by Merlynnus ( 209292 ) on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @11:15AM (#3401835)
      Bluetooth? How about FM broadcast, so that anyone around you with a FM radio can tune in?

      It already exists, and it's cheap. When I got my SlimX MP3 player, I also got a Link-It [kimawireless.com] which is a personal FM transmitter, with a range of a few dozen feet, weighing a few ounces, and only a few inches in size. You can buy them for about $30 US from various places, including here [mp3playerstore.com].

      Excellent for listening to MP3s in the car.

      A>
      • Yeah, as long as you never get that stupid FM transmitter from radio shack. See a little thing they didn't think of when they made an analogue tuner [with no display!]. The FM band on most radios is done in 200khz steps [or something like that] so you can never get the crappy shack tuner near the 200khz boundary.

        POS...

        Tom
      • Thank You!
        I have been looking for a cheap PLL based fm tuner. The cheapest one I had found was like $75 and that was for a kit form! That absolutly rocks, I think I will go and order an iPod and one of these this aternoon after I tell the misses =0
    • I often hear what's streaming to the headphones of other bus riders because they play it loud enough for everyone to hear.

  • Just imagine this at the next G8 meeting... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Saint Aardvark ( 159009 ) on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @11:02AM (#3401742) Homepage Journal
    A protestor goes to the front of police lines and videotapes them. The camera is seized, but there's no tape inside. It's too late to stop the news from getting out; the group's been mirroring the contents of her pocket server the whole time, and are busy putting that up on their website in real time.

    Or alternatively, one police car is designated the "friendly face" -- it's got a camera and one of these inside. The police are busy mirroring its movies/images in real time, to show the world that the protestors are getting out of hand and the police are doing their best to keep things cool.

  • Your pocket catches on fire because of the latest version of the Nimda virus..

    • bwahahaha (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Your pocket catches on fire because of the latest version of the Nimda virus..

      OMG your sense of humor is amazing!! Still ROTFLMAO!!!
      Because it's a poke at Microsoft... and then you suggest that if you have an IIS server in your pocket, and because IIS is vulnerable to things like Nimda, that it will actually combust!! hahahahahahahah
      Where you do come up with this stuff?? Bwhahahahahahahahahah
      I haven't read anything this fresh and clever in a long time! Bravo! Bravoooo!!!!

      • Re:bwahahaha (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        It seems the pot is calling the kettle black.

        Let's make a list of the literary devices you've used in your attempt at humour:
        1. Sarcasm

        Let me guess: when lunchtime came at school, you went home so mommy could make you a sandwitch. You had some time to kill, so you visited Slashdot and tried to "shake it up" with your keen wit (easily duplicated by sed).
  • "Hey, the file server was down for the last hour, do you know what happened?"

    "Oh, hey, sorry, I had it in my pocket when I went out for lunch."
  • Now while walking you can be a human web server...

    So how long do you think it'll be before Professor Warwick [slashdot.org] really does become a human web server?

  • Just a thought....

    a bluetooth iPod.... Download songs
    without even bothering to plug in... be a walking radio station... play your ipod
    music through your stereo where the ipod serves the music and acts as a remote control...

    eewwww..... bluetooth ipod beow---
    • Cool idea, but from what I've read, the transfer rates on bluetooth are pretty poor (less than USB). Is this correct?

      The cool thing about the iPod (aside from iTunes) is the firewire port: you would still want to plug in to upload music, especially of any quantity. This is one reason why USB-based MP3 hd players suck so hard: transferring more than 100mb of data over USB is incredibly tedious.

      m-
      • Cool idea, but from what I've read, the transfer rates on bluetooth are pretty poor (less than USB). Is this correct?

        Slow transfer rates would still be fun. You don't need to transfer lots of data fast, maybe just a song or two at the same speed that the song plays.

        A bluetooth MP3 player would probably be the most fun if it did streaming MP3 files... you could broadcast your own little theme song that people on the street could pick up... or you could trade music back and forth with someone as some sort of whimsical communictation. This could be a lot of fun.

        I keep thinking of "I'm gonna get you sucka" where the guy walks around with a band following him playing his theme song.

        And it could probably stream MP3 files to a stereo system.... an iPod would make a really neat stereo remote control.

        Ever been at one of those 50's diners with the little jukebox on every table... you could now bring your jukebox music with you and put a quater in just to have access to the speaker system...

        You could also turn it around and have multiple music channels in a restaurant that could be picked up via a bluetooth device.

        Sure probably none of this is very practicle, but it sure seems like fun to me :) And it would be a funny way for wearable computers to take off...

  • This isn't a foolish as it may sound... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @11:07AM (#3401785) Homepage Journal
    Consider this hypothetical example:

    I have my Citizen/IBM Linux watch - not a lot of internal storage there, but it is my display device.

    I have the Toshiba storage device - there's all my disk space, tucked into my jacket pocket where it is out of the way.

    I have my cell phone, in an outside pocket. There's my Internet connectivity.

    Now, I can check if I have mail by looking at my watch. If I need to read it, I can either view it on my watch, if it is short, or on the phone, if it is longer (I assume the phone has a larger display than the watch).

    My tunes are in the storage device, and played via the watch or phone (and headphones, natch).

    If I have my digital camera, I now have GIGs of storage to save the pics to.

    Sounds like a good thing to me.
    • okay... now i'm getting a funny mental image of someone walking around with all that gear...

      how many pockets would you need anyway? I think it's time for a neural implant so you can just think about whether you have mail or not and you'll know instantly...

    • Then they'll just compress all that into one mini device.
      • I hope not. One of the great problems with truly moblie (and wearable) objects is the struggle between portability and interface.

        For example, my watch is very good at what it does. However, that screen is going to be way too small to do any long reading (email) or data entry (composing email).

        You could do voice recognition, but you still have to worry about a screen.

        "Fine," you say, "what about small screens that attach to your glasses?"

        Well, I, for one, do not want to have to wear one of those at all times just to see if I have new mail, especially if I have something convinient like a watch already on my wrist.

        The point is that a few (but not too many) extremely portable objects is much more flexible than just one integrated product.

        I currently have both a cell phone and a Visor. I have a cord to connect the two together to check my email and things like that (the Visor's screen being much better than the cell, obviously).

        There are times, however, when all I need/want on me is my cell phone. Having an integrated device, like the Treo, will mean that I still have to carry around a fairly bulky device. Why? Because the Treo is going to have its size dictated by its screen.

        I would prefer to have several small things that are very good a what they do and all work together seamlessly.

        "Plug and play" without the "plug." I have a hard drive/computer in my wallet, a watch capable of minor alerts (like CallerID and mail alerts). I decide to email someone, so I pick up a keyboard and the devices automatically recognize it and accept wireless input from it. To see the input, I attach a glasses monitor (or a tiny projector) and the other parts see it and imeediately begin to use it as a display.
    • My tunes are in the storage device, and played via the watch or phone (and headphones, natch).

      My tunes are in an iPod and also played via headphones. No watch or phone required. No wireless snooping or hacking of my devices or my activities. I win.
    • How about bluetooth headphones?

      (Do they exist yet?)
    • And image using Nextlink Bluespoon [nextlink.to] wireless headsets to listen to your mp3s - each headset weights only 10 grams, yet runs for 8 hours - crazy!

      Btw: If you have questions about this headset, head over to this forum [esato.com], where one of the creators regularly answers questions.

  • I can see it now... (Score:5, Funny)

    by rleyton ( 14248 ) on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @11:10AM (#3401805) Homepage
    Soon, there will be more than just FTP/HTTP... Imagine it...

    telnet girlfriend
    Trying 192.168.23.45
    Connected to girlfriend
    Escape characters are 'Football'.
    What do you want? rm /dev/complaints
    What do you want? mknod 5 12 /dev/do_the_washing_for_me_love
    What do you want? mknod 5 13 /dev/happy_to_let_you_surf_til_late
    What do you want? cat /proc/wallet | grep 'enough_for_a_pizza' | mail me@me.com
    rm: cannot open `/proc/wallet': Permission denied. You are barred from the house until further notice.

    Warning! Liberties quota exceeded.
  • and we will all belong to the world wide awareness !

  • too much stuff (Score:1, Insightful)

    by pandrew ( 233890 )
    My only problem, is I already have a pda, cell phone, and other random things strewn about in my pockets at any given time. Now, i have to carry a device to let me store all the things i use?

    why don't they just make the next Jornada series with bluetooth and 5 gig storage built in?

    (oh and I don't think carrying a hard drive while its spinning is a great idea: that would be the day I decide to do jumping jacks and I scratch my precious server!)
  • This would be perfect for going into CompUSA and stealing software, much better than an iPod.

  • What about battery life... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    We're assuming that it's a portable device, so it must use batteries, correct?

    5Gibibytes is neat stuff, but it's useless if it'll only spin for 2 hours at a time.
    • I assume that it uses the same 1.8" hdd as the iPod, the iPod gets ~10-12 hours of play time, this includes periods of spinning the disk and the power to keep the ram refreshed, the mips core running to decompress the music etc. I'm not sure what affect spinning the hdd full time would have but I would bet it would get ~6-8 hours for just the drive. p.s. karma's at 50 don't bother to mod me up.

  • Think of the Spy oppertunities (Score:5, Funny)

    by warpSpeed ( 67927 ) <slashdot@fredcom.com> on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @11:23AM (#3401875) Homepage Journal
    Two agents walk up to a park bench and sit. Never talking, exchanging anything or touching. They sit for 1/3 hour while the secrets are copied from one to the the other. (and if they are double agents the transfer will be bi-directional) Then they get up an leave.

    Man, the CIA and FBI will hate that. You honor in this video we see now non-descript men in a park doing, umm, nothing...

    • you forgot about the dog with the implants sitting next to them intercepting everything.

    • Two agents walk up to a park bench and sit. Never talking, exchanging anything or touching. They sit for 1/3 hour while the secrets are copied from one to the the other. (and if they are double agents the transfer will be bi-directional) Then they get up an leave.

      Man, the CIA and FBI will hate that...

      I know this was supposed to be a joke, but seriously - do you think the various Three-Letter Agencies aren't going to try and surveil all this data somehow?

  • ...so now I can be a victim of the /. effect anytime, anywhere?

    m-

  • Bluetooth is too slow (Score:4, Informative)

    by Mr.Sharpy ( 472377 ) on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @11:24AM (#3401886)
    If I remember correctly, bluetooth 1.1 comes in with a transfer rate of about 720Kbps and only works in about a 10m radius (for devices, access points have longer ranges). At that rate, It would take about 16 hours to copy 5GB of data to or from the device. So unless you plan on standing close to somebody for a quite a while, the mental images of swapping mp3 collections or walking for warez can be put on hold for now.

    Now if they will support Bluetooth 2, the situation improves...

    • The device also have a USB port for large data transfert.

      The bandwidth is twice what required for viewing the MPEG4 movies (I assume the 37 hours of MPEG4 in the PR and the 16hours needed to copy all the stuff).

      So it's more than enough for listening/viewing content.

      • "The device also have a USB port for large data transfert."

        USB (USB1.0) isn't any faster...
    • "So unless you plan on standing close to somebody for a quite a while, the mental images of swapping mp3 collections or walking for warez can be put on hold for now. "

      Hardly. If I wanted some cool stuff off your computer, does that mean I want everything on your computer?

      You're my friend. We hang out for a half hour. That's time enough for 38 MP3 tracks, or 133 megs of whatever. A few days later, we hang out again. Swapping continues.

      If you lose the 'must have everything now" mentality, this becomes pretty useful, especially if it happens automatically in the background whenever you're within range of a like-minded wearer. I could see people using these things in class, on the subway, or in traffic. At the end of the day you check out what your hip-scanner picked up for you.

      Keep in mind that not all valuable files are as big as MPEG4 streams or MP3 collections. Back in the day, 500K of porn jpegs would get you through the day, and that would only take six seconds to transmit.
  • Although it would be nice, I think I'd rather not wait for Bluetooth's slow-ass transfer rate for all my songs.

    Last i knew it was around 1.5Mb/sec, which is around USB speed, correct? (I'm so not-up-to-date with this). MacSlash had a discussion about it a while ago when Apple announced Bluetooth support and everyone agreed putting 802.11b for Airport support would be much better, although much more power consuming.

    If Bluetoth can get teh trqansfer rate up then it would definately be worth it... anyone care to elaborate?

  • But can you WATCH those MPEG4s? (Score:5, Informative)

    by chill ( 34294 ) on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @11:27AM (#3401907) Journal
    Speeds for Bluetooth spec out at under 1 Mbps, depending on range, obstacles, etc. At an average speed of 750 Kbps, could you watch an MPEG-4 encoded video clip at a decent resolution on a handheld? (Hmmm...that OQO [oqo.com] has Bluetooth built in.) Check out the specs on Bluetooth [networkcomputing.com].
    • Correct. The best rate is 768/56k. And that is the *BEST* rate, if there are no other users etc.
      With a DigiAnswer PC card, the best you can hope for is 115k on a Bluetooth LAN connection (why you ask? probably because it does it via some kind of virtual serial connection).
      And seriously, would you want to download 5GB on 768k, much less 115?
    • That sounds about right and this is just why Microsoft wants Bluetooth dead. The lower power handhelds ( read PalmOS-based, Symbian, cell phone ) can support the power requirements of Bluetooth but not 802.11. The WinCE and Linux based handheld pocket PC's already have huge battery systems and can better support the requirements of 802.11.

      Wonder why MS is holding back Bluetooth support and running full steam with 802.11....

      I would much rather have a Bluetooth enabled small/cheap cellphone, ear piece/mic, and PDA instead of a large/expensive single device that does a poor job at everything. Having my desktop Bluetooth enabled or Tivo or one of these servers at the house or office would rock. Bluetooths short range also will keep snooper close enough to get caught or at least seen.

      It looks like 2002 WILL be the year of Bluetooth.

      Awesome!

      LoB
  • Remember the story a few months back about the kid who walked into a story and copied the MAC version of MS Office off a store display computer by hooking in his portable device. Well now they'll be no wires to give him away. Now I realize PC software isn't as easy to copy installed versions of but there is a wealth of data now available to be copied without giving yourself away with any obvious wires.

  • USB? (Score:2)

    by Triv ( 181010 )
    In business, stored presentation data can be transmitted to a BluetoothTM-enabled printer or projector without the need of an intermediary PCs. When large volumes of data do have to be transferred to a PC, an integrated USB port can be used to optimize the speed of the transaction.

    What, no firewire? I understand that it's s'posed to be wireless in the first place, but since they DO include a wired interface you'd think they'd use the fastest available one.

    triv
    • Well hopefully it would be USB 2.0. Just about as fast as firewire. Backward compatible with USB 1.0 and 1.1. It would work on just about everyone's pc or mac.
  • now with a cell phone, the storage and a PDA u can d some SETI number cruching anywhere u want!

    oh, and another thing if u could develop a program that's like kazaa etc. and as soon as someone comes close to u and has something that's on ur dl list it would atomatically start transferring, or it would tell what's avilible where u are and u could choose...wouldn't that be sw33t?!

    --tzan
  • Creative could have one-upped this if they had put Bluetooth in the Nomad Jukebox 3. More HDD space...longer battery life...now with Bluetooth for wireless headphones == a very Good Thing(tm).
  • Think of events such as the Olympics, where there are absolute choke holds on disseminating information outside of their contracts. Think back to the two recent Olympics, where they had teams of people scouring the net for the slightest trace of anything "unauthorized," such as amateur video clips, early reporting of scores, etc. This little bugger has the potential to run rings around that! Think of it - watching an Olympic event over the net in real time, not having to wait for NBC or whomever to run it when they feel like! WooHoo! The possibilities are endless!
  • Maybe in the future young people will have interactive outfits in the form of jewellery that contains lots and lots of data. You express yourself by draping yourself into a landscape of multimedia experiences. Like you could have Ultravox play when somebody pushes you on the shoulder, Encyclopedia Britannica "playing" from one of your knees to show your interest in encyclopedial knowledge, and a live cam view at the back of your neck of the view from a mountaintop in the Himalayas. Bluetooth could work as an aura, or a perfume. A perfume is supposed to consist of three components, a basic scent, a middle scent and a top scent. You could do that with different ranges on your Wi-Fi. Because That is who you are!

    And the girl's Google sensors feel you are nearby...

    /jeorgen

  • But first we'll need androids, town crier types, shouting out: #1 Sim City 10,000 #2 Photoshop 9 #3 ... And a queue of people following behind.
  • Brings a whole new spin to the idea that someone could walk off with you computer
  • Just point at a vendor table and be able to see their website.

    Even better, being able to point at a prospective new hire at a job fair and call up their resume.

    (Not to mention having all /. users have their Usernames and kharma ratings built in so you can see your friend/foe rating on line-of-site)
    Tim

  • Picture (Score:4, Informative)

    by joeku ( 63792 ) on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @11:54AM (#3402070)
    O'Grady has a pic of it. Nice and clean design I might add.

    http://www.powerpage.org/story.lasso?newsID=9274

  • pshaw (Score:2)

    by tps12 ( 105590 )
    This device with a 5GB of data can hold up to 37 hours of MPEG-4 moving images.

    This is a hoax. There is no such thing as a "moving image." Such a thing would be as much an absurdity as a carriage which moves under its own power, or heavier-than-air flight, and is the stuff of science fiction.

  • hmmm (Score:5, Funny)

    by teslatug ( 543527 ) on Wednesday April 24, 2002 @12:15PM (#3402263)
    Is that 5GB of porn in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? ;)
  • I figured with better transfer rates, better range, and A LOT MORE equpiement, someone would have made something like this for WiFi. I'd buy one. Stick it in your briefcase while using your laptop on your desk, plenty cheap data storage. And why not? make it nice and cheap using a slow 20 giger and your set.

    whatever
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Hello? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by fungus ( 37425 )
    Did I miss something or it has been easy to build a wireless ftp/http server for quite a long time? Bluetooth is slow and has a short range, while a laptop with a 802.11b network card can hold way more than 5 gigabytes, is way faster, and has an operating range very longer.

    Now imagine if every kid on the block had a laptop with a wireless network card in their backpack, swapping clips taken from the "security" x10 wireless cameras around the neighborhood with a p2p application.
  • If someone were walking aroung with AR goggles on (see recent articles here and on k5) you could broadcast an enhanced version of your appearance to them. You could appear in their vision as any object you chose, even animated. This brings Flash to a whole new level!

  • are you guys sure this isnt just another iPod hack?

  • Cool !! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Tha_Zanthrax ( 521419 )
    Now we can slashdot real people !!!

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