Obviously 2nd graders are not going to understand technical terms they're not familiar with (or are familiar with but misunderstand their meaning), but I'm shocked to see how many people commenting on this question underestimate the intelligence of 2nd graders. When I was a child I had been using computers since before I was in kindergarten; back then there were still many people back then who didn't have computers at home. If they hadn't encountered computers at home, they were certainly exposed to them in school. Nowadays, computers are ubiquitous in homes, and that's not counting other electronics that generations of Americans have grown up with. Kids are familiar with computers because they're a fact of life.

Personally I'd love to talk to kids about computers, because they'll be eager to learn and will have lots of questions because they are aware of the fact that computers are present in their lives and that they have gaps in their understanding. You just have to give them simple and clear explanations so that they can establish their general knowledge more, and don't delve into really specific technical issues or nuanced examples (I know we love to do that, but restrain yourself). Tell them a little bit about what computers do, why they're important, what programming has to do with computers, and why programming is important. I'm sure they'll eat it up as long as you don't bore them with overly lengthy explanations. It's just like talking to any adult who is not familiar with computers, except the children will comprehend more and learn faster than a computer-illiterate adult would (don't be surprised when the kids get what you're saying but their teacher doesn't). Kids are biologically equipped with learning super powers--use that to your advantage.

Tablets are really not as useless as some skeptics are claiming. Mobile phones, the harbinger of tablet computing, proved that people like/want/prefer touch screen interfaces. Laptops with touchscreens are nothing new; we've had tablet laptops for more years than I can count, but the tablets that are currently booming in the market are possibly because of technological advances which allow devices that are lightweight, use less power, are more powerful, smaller/slimmer, have nice screens, multitouch, integrated cameras, and so on. It's an effective combination that is starting to become more affordable.

Does everyone need one? I guess not, but they make great entertainment devices, and they can be used for a number of productivity applications. If you like to write a lot you really do need a keyboard, but for those times there are tablets with wireless or attachable keyboards that pretty much solve that problem. I can definitely see these things merging with "foldable laptops with touchscreens," but at the same time nixing the keyboard just gives it a slight edge on portability and ease of use.

People use tablets for pretty much the same things we've been seeing people use them for in Star Trek decades ago. It's a device that you can easily grab and go, use to look up information, check messages, carry digital books on, watch videos, carry it to and fro, and show things on it to others. You can carry it with you everywhere, throw it in a bag, use it to snap photos of things and upload them somewhere, take voip (voice and video) conferencing calls, and who knows.. maybe one day touchscreen keyboards will be ergonomic enough to actually type on, although as a touch typist myself, those days seem far off.

Tablets right now have amazing games and they're great to watch movies on (normally I can't stand portable movie devices).

Also, I've worked in companies that needed tablet devices. For example, we had many workers that had to walk around the building and scan/photograph items and look them up in a database, where they would have to manipulate records for the item. We already had the database and network infrastructure in place, but we needed tablets badly. One employ was carting a full sized laptop around, while others had to visit terminals set up all over the place, and other employees were equipped with cheap digital cameras that they'd have to take back to their desks in order to upload the photos to the database.

In other jobs I worked with people who always had to carry briefcases with them full of documents, notes, references, and things like that which simply could have been digitized, but it would have been awkward for them to hold a laptop when doing things like delivering speeches or having ad hoc meetings without meeting facilities. Some of them did used laptops but it was a sluggish and inelegant solution.

Let's face it... tablets are not workstations; they're not trying to replace your workstation or laptop (ie mobile workstation). They are excellent utility devices. I can even imagine that one day it will be common for living rooms to have tablets that are used as control consoles for household functions like controlling lights, the thermostat, your tivo, etc. Kids can use tablets to read storybooks, interact with educational material, carry lessons and homework too and from school, and so on. If laptops suck at doing these things now it's because the software isn't developed yet, but the hardware has pretty much arrived.

Personally I think it's too late for Sprint to drop Android... too much of their business depends on it. iPhone will definitely bring some business, but not enough business to drop an entire line of their most successful phones.

It's pure Google :)

Thanks dad

Hell yeah

Everyone seems all doom and gloom about the news, but I think there may be a (slight) potential opportunity in buying a $99 tablet, even if HP doesn't support it.

It seems likely that somehow, some way webOS will live on. HP might continue to develop the software and license it out to any hardware manufacturer that wants to use it, or HP might sell it off to a company that wants to develop it. Among the hacker community there seems to have been a lot of interest in webOS, and I don't see that interest declining. As long as there are users, some kind of niche market will exist, and interest in the platform may continue to grow over time. If HP/whoever-buys-webOS plays its cards right, they might be able to gain a little extra traction by squeezing a couple years out of the original Touchpad device before software development eventually exclusively supports a future hardware platform. For example, Mac OS X for a time ran on old G4 Macs; everyone wanted to upgrade to the new system, and eventually, after a time, they had to buy new hardware to stay current--and they liked it!

Because webOS is apparently so hackable, the user community could probably keep it up to date if they had access to future versions of webOS whether or not the Touchpad device is officially supported by it or not. Perhaps future versions would somehow be supported on the device, but if not I still see some opportunity. Some people out there are still using BeOS (which, ironically, belongs to the company that now owns Palm OS), and that's pretty much dead; people just love it and want to keep using it. New software still gets written for it, and there is a vibrant effort to build an open source clone. People love webOS too, and it already relies heavily on open source software to boot.

Secondly, look at Amiga. Can anyone say honestly say that Amiga is still alive? And yet, the OS was last updated in 2010. That's not bad!

I'm by no means a console fanboy or gaming nut. I grew up playing video games and still do. I was skeptical about buying into the current generation of consoles, but I purchased a PS3 Slim shortly after the price cut. In the prior years I hadn't played any recent games because I didn't have any recent console, nor did I ever purchase PC gaming hardware (a regular desktop was always good enough for me). It's a slick device and well worth the money; I'm really glad I bought it. Since then I got more into gaming and purchased a couple other consoles and a high end video card for my latest desktop. Most of my game time is still on the PS3, and I would recommend it to anyone who had to pick just one thing.

Also it's not just good for games. It's possibly the most well rounded general entertainment device I've ever owned. It makes the big HDTV in my living room come alive with on demand downloadable content, streaming movies and shows, blu-ray films, and whatever else a person could want from a home entertainment center. It's good at what it does and does it quickly and efficiently with great audio and video quality. Basically you're getting a lot of bang for your buck, because the PS3 has the equivalent functionality of 3 or 4 other devices that would require a high upfront cost and be more of a hassle to deal with. It's ironic considering how skeptical I was before I even thought about buying one, and I don't much like Sony, but after all is said and done, it's an awesome product.

I am a PC user and I totally agree with you

This is pretty much a non-issue. I've never seen the variety of applications and software available for Linux hurt Linux. In fact, more software, more projects, and more support is always better. Sure, some projects slow down, some fizzle out or just die, and some are engaged in constant ideological battles with each other, but I fail to see how this hurts the ecosystem as a whole. If anything the varies conflicts drive progress, since for every dead project 10 new projects come alive, and for every ideological battle a third concept emerges. The diversity and varied potential is a great boon for developers and even power users.

End users could not care less about things like GNOME vs KDE; they'll just use whatever you put in front of them, and if they ever get around to trying the other and want to switch, they can go ahead and switch at their leisure. And switch back! It doesn't hurt end users at all because all end users have to do is get their software from a vendor that chooses for them. Look at the success for Android; did the Linux software ecosystem cost Linux a shot at handsets/tablets? No. A vendor took Linux, packaged it with whatever software they desired, and delivered to the customer. Easy-peasy.

Linux communities can fight among themselves all they want. The fighting just makes us stronger and is a testament to the vibrancy of the community. How would Linux get any better if all debate ceased and differing viewpoints were silenced?

I don't care how many times the triforce spins. Seriously.

Do them a favor and put FreeBSD on it. Configure it beforehand so everything works; they won't even be able to figure out how to break it, and if they can even manage to do that, then they'll have learned enough to fix it.

My dad recently got an ASUS TF101. The things are dirt cheep and first class Android tablets (Nvidia Tegra 2, 10" screen, latest Android, micro SD, HDMI out). All the apps are there, and the games are amazing. I'm still curious about the Touchpad, but it kind of seems pointless now.

That article was written in February. I read the other day that the Kindle app is already out.

Are free economic times good for bad software?