You think that will run on the netbook that he owns?

Well, if it can run on the notebook s/he owns, s/he can simply use the default Apple speech synthesizer, which probably works just as well as anything that runs under GNU/Linux/BSD. Unfortunately, for visually impaired people, MS Windows is probably still the best platform for running graphical applications (i.e. applications that haven't been specially written for blind users).

For users not tied down to using graphical programs like LibreOffice, there are pure console or command line programs like emacspeak and edbrowse, both of which are written by programmers who are themselves visually impaired.

The author of edbrowse, a program inspired by the classic Unix "ed"-itor, has this to say about screen-reading programs:

I believe, and I am in the minority on this one, that totally blind users should employ command-line applications, rather than pasting a screen reader on top of full-screen programs. Manipulating the cursor via speech is irreparably inefficient. To this end I have written a combination editor + browser + mail client that is command-line interactive. You type something and the computer responds. There is no screen, anywhere, ever.

It looks to me more like a way for HP to phase in a product without taking too much of a risk (burning their bridge to Microsoft before they've erected their skyway to the cloud).

Remember how for the longest time Microsoft continued to developed DOS while they were trying to perfect their Mac System clone called "Windows"? Until Win 95 came out, Windows was one mess of a barely good enough graphical interface.

Ditto for Google and their seemingly perpetual "Beta" offerings.

I suspect HP's first goal is to develop product awareness. When enough people are aware, they have the option of using WebOS as their one and only desktop operating system. Of course, this all depends on the positive reaction that WebOS would get from the tech media or social networks. If they market it correctly, then they just might beat Google to the first widely deployed Internet-centric (aka cloud, App-based, network) computer.

Microsoft might have to shoot itself in the foot to compete, as it chooses between maintaining lock-in support for its cash cow Office suite or developing an App-based OS.

Sadly, some people thought they were voting for a non-right-wing party. Now that the curtain has fallen they are realizing that indeed every politician comes from the same party now.

Maybe this is something the ruling elite of de facto one-party states[*] can learn from. By alternating at the top, they could give the people the illusion of regime change without jeopardizing their own privileges.

In a one-party system, there's only one party to blame when things go bad (an economic downturn or a disastrous war). With two parties, you can play good cop/bad cop with popular discontent by installing the other party. It's only important that neither party would seek an end to their mutual political privileges but would only clash on the numeric details (a 5% vs. 10% tax cut).

[*] Countries where only one party officially exists or where one party overwhelming dominates each election.

Without "piracy" and the other gray stuff (hint: also begins with a "p"), the Internet would be a far less interesting place. (I hate the "p" word when used for unlicensed digital duplication. Real piracy is something far more terrible than losing one's copy monopoly.)

.. if you've read the summary, that is. Looks like it's sourced from a P2P forum/social news site.

Wrong. The day before the end of mankind. Womankind will figure out a way to clone themselves and rule the world.

You should have included a link for Traveller. Am I right to assume that you were playing (OMG!) a CPU-free RPG?

China says it will step up administration of the Internet this year

If politically, the US is a nation of lawyers, then, as a single-party state, the PROC is effectively a nation of administrators. The US Congress might debate about network neutrality, but in China all issues pertaining to the Internet are viewed as problems of administration (management). China, Inc. makes more sense than the old Japan, Inc.

The PC World article references a downloadable PDF translation of Premier Wen's report to the National People's Congress from the Wall Street Journal. The part about administering the Internet comes from a section titled "Vigorously enhancing cultural development".

We will develop the press and publishing, radio and television, film, literature and art and archives. We will step up the use and administration of the Internet. We will deepen reform of the cultural management system and actively push forward the transformation of cultural institutions that are operating as commercial entities into real businesses.

The word "administration" occurs at least 15 times throughout the document, chiefly in the construct "social administration" and goes well with an image of Wen as some sort of company president or CEO delivering his annual stockholders' (party) report.

Geek note: The ~3 MB PDF appears to be a series of scanned pages overlaid upon the OCR'ed text version of the document. So you can actually cut and paste the text.

You forgot the amount of data that mankind wants to keep grows and no end is in sight [...]

Maybe it's about time we develop a form of neural compression, a system that would compress whole files based on their similarity to other files. I know, the most "efficient" (in terms of size not speed) compressors already do this using pattern-based dictionaries. But here we apply the dictionary to the entire filesystem or maybe even across a distributed filesystem with a built-in version control mechanism that works like DNA, discarding aberrations like American Idol while retaining the good stuff (performances of the Bolshoi Ballet and the later Beatles).

Okay, for this to be a reality, we need to get 3-D printing down to at least the cellular, if not molecular, level. (Would quantum uncertainty effects render this impossible?) But this is a nice idea, cleverer than the idea of a Star Trek style transporter. It would be the 3-D equivalent of faxing a letter. Unlike "beaming", 3-D "faxing" does not imply the destruction and subsequent recreation of the original. A 3-D fax produces copies.

This raises a moral dilemma. If I fax myself, let's say, to Alpha Centauri, who then is the real Me, the spaceman or the one who stayed behind? Do I have the right to kill(switch) my other self (the one who stayed behind)? Would I be guilty of murder? Would it even count as suicide? Or could it simply be a form of hi-tech amputation or surgery, getting rid of an unnecessary body (part)?

As yet, it has still not happened for tablets of the same spec as the iPad - the Xoom is as close as anyone has come and it is still more/about the same give or take.

The same-spec'ked iPad clone is probably a tough act to clone. But does a tablet have to be as feature-"full" as the iPad? Is this the vaunted Steve Jobs distortion field?

Outside the US, there are already sub-$100 tablets with resistive touch screens. Some even come with unofficial "Android" operating systems (i.e. not blest by Google).

I see no reason why a company can't undercut the iPad by half and still make a slim profit. For a long time, a certain software company managed to earn billions by making crappy knock-offs of Apple's then flagship Macintosh systems. When can another company or companies do the same for a generic tablet XPerience?

True, their "resource usage" isn't high for a project of this sort. However, just think of all the other cool stuff they can make, at even lower cost, that can inspire young people. I mean, think of robots and self-replicating 3-D printers, stuff that the young people themselves could clone, even at a cruder and smaller scale.

Here, it's mostly watch and learn, as you yourself have pointed out:

they're touring schools and colleges doing presentations, along with a full size replica of the car

And they're likely to be more inspired by the video of a space plane soaring up to the heavens or a space probe touching down on the Moon. If I were a child, I'd definitely be more inspired at the site of a walking and dancing 2-foot high "toy" robot than the immobile mock-up of the world's supposedly fastest car.

This discovery simply extends the idea that restful activities like reading promote sleep better than do physically and mentally demanding activities like heavy exercise. Of course, working yourself to (physical and mental) exhaustion may have the same effect as lying in bed and reading a book.

The interesting thing about regular robots is that they're supposed to control themselves

I'm not sure what you mean by regular robot. But there are precedents for remotely controlled robots, both in science fiction and real life. E.g. the battle droids of the Trade Federation in the Star Wars prequels appear to be remote controlled:

"These droids would blindly obey orders spoken to them by their commanders or transmitted to them from an orbital Droid Control ship. The efforts of Bravo Squadron, and Anakin Skywalker in particular, destroyed the Droid Control Ship, thereby rendering the army useless."

The droids may have had some sensory autonomy but were largely "mindless", pretty much like a phone "app" whose data processing back end is in the cloud.

The robonaut that was sent up to the ISS is basically a telepresence device, a telerobot if you will. And of course there are the unglamorous industrial robots that are all tools and arms.

The Geminoid family, a series of ultra-realistic androids, each a copy of a real person, has a new member

A bit realistic perhaps, but definitely not ultra. I've bothered to actually watch the fine video, and the movements are still on the near side of the creepy valley. As for its classification as an android, really, it's not even a talking head, just little more than an animated wax dummy, able to blink and sigh but incapable of a decent conversation. The main use I see for this is in big budget Hollywood movies where you have to blow up your star actor. But CG can service that department fairly well already.