I am a fan of Free42. It emulates the HP42s, which only has a 4-element stack so that is a potential limitation. However, it emulates a calculator that was very effective. I had one in the pre-smartphone days. I have it on Android, Windows, and Linux and I stopped looking for other RPN calculators when I stared using it.

I keep hearing about how autonomous vehicles will make Uber profitable. Maybe I'm dense, but I don't see how that works without raising prices.

Currently, Uber pays drivers and drivers cover the expense of their time and vehicles. The "sharing economy" argument is that you are using a vehicle that you already have, so the marginal costs of maintenance, insurance, etc. is small. I don't know the detailed analysis, but I understand that some Uber drivers actually make money while many effectively operate at a loss. This is all with losses at Uber big enough to bankrupt most states.

Now, with autonomous vehicles, someone has to own them. That means you have to purchase them and they will be expensive, especially at first. Then, you have to charge them or put gas in the tank. Next, you have to maintain them. This includes regular maintenance as well as roadside maintenance for the inevitable flat tires, breakdowns, accidents, or whatever. This requires people on location to go to the vehicles with tools and do some work. These people don't work for free. Finally, you need insurance. Maybe fleet insurance has different rates than individuals get, but you still have to be covered for liabilities.

Once you add in all these costs its not clear that this is less than the current scheme. Plus this is a COMPLETELY different business than what Uber operates now. Maybe they could contract much of the out, but then they will have to pay enough so that the contracting companies can operate. Of course, all of this assumes that autonomous vehicles actually work and are ready in a reasonable timeframe.

It has always felt to me that the self-driving car pitch was just a way to buy time and convince investors to give money to Uber.

It's hard to train them, but once they get the hang of vertical take off and landing they are very versatile.

People mention speed when selling 5G because it is easy to understand. MOAR BITS IS BETTER! However, the real advance of 5G (in the sub-6GHz band) is about two other issues: capacity and reliability. The value of capacity is easy to see. Carriers can serve more customers with the same bandwidth. This is key as cellular data use increases. The mmWave bands can give very high capacity. Think of sporting events or concerts (remember those). Reliability is necessary to expand mobile data beyond casual uses. If your video glitches you curse the provider, but life goes on. If your factory equipment losses its connection or you have an airplane or car that is communicating with other vehicles and drops the connection things could be bad. Now, you might say that relying on cellular data for critical systems is folly, but as the networks gets more reliable they will be trusted more. If the power goes out at your home for too long or at the wrong time you could be screwed. Power is reliable in developed countries, but there was a time when it wasn't and it would have been folly to rely on it.

I don't think option 2 will work. Autonomous vehicles cost money. If there are no drivers for them to offload these costs, Uber/Lyft have to purchase, maintain, fuel, and insure these vehicles. Most drivers are currently subsidizing Uber/Lyft by eating these costs.

This assumes autonomous vehicles ever exist, which I also question. The best use for autonomous vehicles so far is as a smoke screen when swindling VCs out of their money.

Since there are no more cars on the road

I had a '95 M3 for a while. It was a great car. It had a steering wheel, gas pedal, brake, clutch. You drive it where you wanted to go, sometimes real fast. WTF is up with all the crap cars come with nowadays? Now get off my lawn!

Super-Collider? I just met her?

I'll create my own health organization ...with blackjack ...and hookers! In fact, forget the health organization!

Sorry for responding to my own post, but I thought of this after I submitted it...

Remember floptical disks?

It turns out they... flopped.

Silicon flash memory improved in power consumption, size, speed, and cost to the point where all the alternatives couldn't compete. Spinning drives and tapes are even becoming niche. The graveyard of promising technologies that couldn't keep up with the performance and/or cost of silicon is very large. I've been hearing about the death of silicon for about 25 years. When that actually happens, it's going to suck.

IOT really stands for Insecurity Of Things

Of course, it will be controlled by Sony. This is a long-range, low data rate cell service you have to pay for. They say "high-speed", but that is relative. From the ETSI Standard on page 15, the highest data rate should is 101.6kbits/s. Any error correction or protocol overhead comes out of that.

Also, from the press release, it looks like you need service.

TOKYO, Japan – October 25, 2018 – ORIX Corporation (“ORIX”), Sony Network Communications Inc. (“Sony Network Communications”), and NEC Networks & System Integration Corporation (“NEC Networks & System Integration”) announced that they have agreed to establish a joint venture aimed at the commercialization of the ELTRES IoT Network Service in Japan.

And,

The joint venture seeks to commercialize the ELTRES IoT Network Service in Japan. Sony Network Communications will be primarily responsible for constructing, operating and managing the network, as well as operating partner programs with companies intending to propose network-based solutions or offer network-based applications. ORIX and NEC Networks & System Integration will sell and provide the ELTRES IoT Network Service to partner companies, customer companies, users, and groups in various fields, and offer user support.

I'm on my way to the bakery, I need to know!

eMachineLearningCloudBlockchainAI-as-a-service.com: We're democratizing social networks for the internet. Our current valuation is $4.5 Billion and our server closet is where the waiters keep their coats.