You missed his point. Microwaves create heat when they hit water, which can be demonstrated by any kitchen microwave. There is water in the atmosphere. Therefore, beaming microwaves through a water-rich atmosphere can create heat.

Attracting users and app developers go hand-in-hand and clearly Microsoft's slow start in mobile markets has crippled their ability to compete in the current standard phone market. They need something that sets their product apart from iOS and Android, and I agree that HoloLens could be that something. Add a more seamless integration of Windows mobile units and desktop and some competitve pricing for units and Microsoft could become attractive again. In particular for businesses who are largely wedded to Windows already and only support iOS/Android/Blackberry mobile systems because they have to. I'm not ready to say this will usher in another Microsoft hey-day like the late 90's, but I agree it's very foolish to count them out.

That's a funny post, but it misses the real point, which is speeds like that over mobile networks can compete with traditional land-based ISP speeds. These are some of the first hints at a massive shift in how consumers will access the internet and ISPs will operate in the not-so-distant future. Last month Verizon quietly announced that they weren't going to lay any more fiber optic cable and are selling some fiber networks to third parties because their wireless networks were much more profitable, which is probably true, but it's only part of the story. If you consider various reports like this about the potential for 5G you can read between the lines of Verizon's statement; they know the future of home internet is very likely going to be wireless and want to be ready.
(Reference: http://tech.slashdot.org/story... )

Which really is ironic, because over the past 5 years or so I have streamed many many more songs through Pandora [and Slacker/Milk Music] than I have listened to songs on standard radio. I'm 34 years old, so I'm sure younger demographics are streaming more than me. I've even attended some concerts and bought a couple old fashioned CDs because of new things I heard streaming. It would make more sense for artists and studios to pay Pandora.

That said, I wouldn't want to turn the tables here because I think it would just lead to the same old studios/artists with the biggest pockets controlling what music is available for streaming, just like standard radio.

If you look in the right places you'll find a few dinosaurs still walking around and competing at the top... Jim Beam (1795), Colgate (1806), DuPont (1802), Barclays bank (1690; and seventh largest bank in the world today), Caterpillar Inc. (1925, quite young really, but would have been hanging out with your GM example). Many of the major oil companies trace their roots back to or even before the Standard Oil monopoly was dissolved in 1911. Japan, Germany, and England have companies that are over over 1000 years old still running today in some form or another.

Agreed Google still has the best search engine. I hate when 3rd parties try to sneak their search engines onto my PC or phone. However, I don't mind Bing terribly as a search engine, but I seem to get more relevant results with Google.

FWIW, Bing's mapping is definitely better than Google's though. In particular the birdseye angled aerial images are awesome and allow you to see all four sides of structure, instead just a roof, with surprisingly good resolution too. I regularly inspect properties for work, and I use Bing's map tools to scope them out before I see them in person.

Exactly. And even in poor rural countries mobile networks often have better coverage and are more reliable than land-based communications, so having this technology on a mobile device may increase the utility for doctors and aid workers in rural areas. They could easily transmit the data to nearby hospitals, to patient families, or safer cloud data storage options.

Or you could get the same effect by balancing your checkbook in MS Excel in front of a background of stars. The brutality of gameplay depends your personal finances.

If a company faces a problem that could result in them losing customers and sales, then they have the right to create a corporate policy for their employees that protects the entire company and all of the other employees who work there. In Disney's case if the wider public thinks by going to a Disney park they risk getting seriously sick, beyond the typical cold or flu, it could result in lost customers and sales. If Disney has to lay other people off due to lost sales related to the choices of ignorant anti-vaxxers, then who is the victim?

There's no way around the fact that whether or not people vaccinate is a public health concern more than an individual rights concern. This issue has to stop being framed as an individual choice/freedom issue, because one person's bad choice can adversely effect too many other people's health and finances who did not make the same choice. Our disfunctional gov't is impotent against this fringe of ignorant anti-vaxxers, but if there's any hope, it's that private companies will apply common sense health policies to protect their employees, their customers, their image, and their bottom line profits, which will also benefit the greateer public good.

To establish Cloud City...preferably before Blly Dee Williams passes away.

I disagree and I can prove my point with real numbers: http://store.steampowered.com/...

That shows over the course of one day approximately 4 to 7 millions users log into Steam ALONE. The actual number of worldwide gamers only goes up from there and it's a largely uptapped market. Current tournament viewership isn't even close.

I get it, but what you don't seem to get is that tournament viewers are still a small sliver of the potential pie. 400k viewers for CSGO Dreamhack is great, amazing even, but there are many more millions of worldwide gamers. That's Valve's target market.

Those numbers would still pale in comparison to the millions of worldwide casual gamers that is a mostly untapped market.

I don't think tournament streaming is good analogue to Steam's streaming service either. Tournaments are big one-time events, which get a lot of attention, but the event and any revenues generated from it quickly come to an end. Valve integrating streaming into Steam is an attempt to have game streaming a regular part of casual gamers every day lives, which is how they could tap into previously unrealized markets. Those are very different business models.

I'd like to see statistics for what percentage of all gamers watch tournaments, because my strong suspicion is tournament viewers are and probably always will be a niche market - a very profitable niche for some companies, but niche nonetheless. The much bigger piece of the pie will be getting the vast majority of casual or "average" gamers to get on board with streaming and I think streaming integration with Steam could potentionally open up that larger market.

Agreed that it's bad for Twitch/Amazon in the short term. But it's also going to bring many new users into game streaming/viewing. Because there are people like me who have zero interest in streaming from Twitch or other third party, however I will surely at least check out an integrated game streaming service directly from my own network of Steam friends. More people in the market and general buzz about streaming, could mean more growth opportunities for Twitch/Amazon even if they do lose some users to Steam initially.