Cathrine the Great?

Isn't it the brutally honest truth though that statistically, he is far more valuable to society than a convict on death row?

Your main problem seems to be voice recognition, and all that goes with it...no offense, but this area is already getting millions (billions?) worth of research and the professionals can't even make it work...your best bet is probably to wait until someone invents it for other purposes and then adapt it.

I think I would rather know than put my head in the sand.

What kind of question is this? If people will purchase it and the developer can make money on it I don't think an entertainment company has any moral obligation to do delay a product in any way. In good taste? Maybe not, but that wasn't the question.

Which is why Sweden has such a huge problem with poverty?

That is also assuming evolution was somehow a directed thing that always provided a useful mutation. If I started poisoning everyone in my neighborhood with arsenic, I doubt we would see babies being born with an immunity, even if we waited a few hundred years.

The only problem I have is that what do you do with a device that will be 10x13, cannot bend, and costs $300? I love my Kindle 2, but if you make it any bigger it just isn't portable anymore. I think flexible e-ink displays that can roll up/fold might be the salvation of newspapers, but the current style just won't cut it for the mainstream.

I'm all for bringing up issues that can hurt a new system, but what is with the total hostility to new things lately? Has the economy really made people so depressed that things like increased science funding and electronic medical systems (that Slashdot has been pining over for years!) finally start to happen everyone just craps on them? That is the whole problem people, everyone gets negative, no-one wants to spend anything, nothing gets spent and the whole thing keeps going down in flames.

Because I doubt even half of console owners have the broadband pipe to use an online service like that. And many that do have caps. I'm not going to pay $1 per GB for a game on top of what my rental charges. It would probably work in Japan.

Isn't the chemistry of our brain just analogous to software then?

I am pretty sure people are working on cures...but in the meantime why not save lives while we can? I think the hypothetical question you raise, while valid, does not stand up against the weight of human lives.

I know everyone wants to moan and complain about this, but you might try contacting the white house and your congress critters and let them know this is a concern...this is an ongoing matter from a previous administration so don't expect a big 180 degree turn unless you let the new administration know it is a concern. Without being a conspiracy theorist or knee jerker.

I think so many at Slashdot hate Gates because they have some bohemian ideal about the way a company should be run. Bill Gates ran Microsoft like 95% of CEO's run their companies. Slashdot is just more familiar with the details of Microsoft and Bill Gates, so he gets a lot of attention. The above parents points are all about how a for-profit company is trying to generate revenue by locking out the competition...shocking!!! If MS did not do this kind of thing their stockholders would revolt, and be justified in doing so. Welcome to the real world guys.