There's no reason you couldn't transmit data from the human subject to a remote humanoid robot on the battlefield.
We already have very good ways to transmit data from a human subject to a machine, using all kinds of controllers (the most common is probably a steering wheel). We don't need to do it directly from the brain.
Yes you can dispute automatic radar ticket in France. However, if you get disconnected by the HADOPI, you can only dispute it after they disconnect you, which is an obvious violation of basic rights.
My guess is that as soon as they start to actually disconnect people (which as not happened yet, AFAIK), someone will fight this, and win, and the HADOPI will collapse.
Sure, it might get down to $20-30 million by our lifetime
Actually, Virgin Galactic already sells tickets for 200,000$.
Man, I'm glad I live in a country where I can have an unlimited data plan for 19 EUR, with a public IP adress (not a fixed address, though), mostly no filtering, and I can use any damn phone I want with any OS I want. Granted, the country is small (Luxembourg) so the cost of operating the network is kinda lower, but still...
Anyway, I'm not sure how they could tell the difference between my smartphone and my PC: my smartphone is a N900, which runs a Linux TCP/IP stack, and mostly the same programs as a desktop Linux: I routinely use ssh, empathy (for VoIP), ping, and nmap on the phone, and sometimes I run OpenVPN and rtorrent (not necessarily together).
Status-quo for PCs as of lately - the entire lazy uninspiring market just trails Apple, who, as much as I dislike the whole flashy iDesign, have been the only true innovators for years now.
The netbook was a good innovation IMHO (small, light and cheap, with just enough power for daily needs), and it certainly didn't come from Apple.
I would have to guess you're woefully uninformed about the tax structure in the US. About 50% of the population (on the low-income side) pays zero income tax - including your "black mother of three" - in fact she probably gets the "earned income credit", which is a chunk of "free money" - courtesy of those who do pay taxes. The top 1% of earners pays 38% of income tax (yes, right now with the Bush cuts in effect). The top 10% of earners pay just under 70% of the total income tax collected.
Income tax is not the only tax. I don't know much about the tax structure in the US, but my guess is that if you look at the total taxation (at least include sales tax), your will get completely different results...
According to the Tax Foundation, the top 40% earn 62.5% of the income and pay 71.2% of the total taxes. That does not seem disproportionate to me. (Full disclaimer: I'm French, therefore I'm a communist to you).
The main intended use is for classrooms.
The keyboard and screen would be permanently in the room, and each student brings it's own computer. Using this approach, students can have complete control over the computer (i.e. root access). Agreed, you could achieve similar results with a bootable USB stick, and permanent computers in the classroom, but with this approach students can plug the computers to the TV at home, even if they don't have access to a real computer (they still need to buy a keyboard, but that's pretty cheap.)
And by the way, the website says it has an SD slot, and there will be a version including an Ethernet port.
What the gods would destroy they first submit to an IEEE standards committee.
