Do you have source material for these statistics? I'm actually not being a pedantic jerk, but I am interested in this and would like to get more info. Yes I has the Google, but I don't think I've seen the material you're referencing.

About an order of magnitude more expensive too... (My 2 cents, ymmv, etc.) I'm curious as to see if HP is going to snap up a couple other "security" companies so HP can be a "security company" like Intel with McAfee, EMC with RSA, and IBM with ISS? What's the price tag on Symantec these days?

If you're going to bring up Hancock, please allow me to mention Simon. Paul Simon that is - who of course predicted this technique back in 1986 in "The Boy in the Bubble."

Need some reminding,
"These are the days of lasers in the jungle,
Lasers in the jungle somewhere,
Staccato signals of constant information"

OK so this is a poor attempt at humor. Couldn't help it - as soon as I read TFA, I got this stupid song ripping through my head.

to say that I flee our new robotic overlords! I figure that this can only mean that both the Mayans and John Cameron were partially correct. The end of days will happen in December 2012 like the Mayans predicted, but it will be due to Skynet achieving self awareness, not any kind of cosmic alignment. I have to admit it is sort of sad to see that mankind will be hunted down by terminators constructed from small Danish building blocks, and not the cool steel cyborgs depicted in the films.

We've got armadillos in our trousers! (Armadillos in danger of extinction? I doubt it, though they are leprous little buggers... http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1306/is-it-true-that-armadillos-carry-leprosy

Printed newspapers, while not quite dead yet, certainly appear to be at risk for extinction in my lifetime due to the Internet. Many of the local and regional papers have closed, and the ones that remain are slim shadows of what they were just a couple years ago. (USian perspective, your global village mileage may vary). Vinyl records remain, but (my opinion, I may be wrong) this is a niche medium for some audiophile cranks and collector and has been entirely surpassed by CD, DVD, and MP3. Verging on being pedantic, but 78 records, 8-track tapes, Betamax, regular cassette tapes, 8mm home movie cameras, all of these technologies are essentially dead. OK, so these are incarnations of media, not media types per se.

I'd also suggest that a number of service oriented industries are also taking a severe pounding and may eventually go away entirely - businesses like video rental stores, travel agencies and insurance agencies spring to mind.

Question: What is your process to determine that every computer you've ever owned has never been compromised by malware? Are you doing some kind of checksum on system function and monitoring each inbound and outbound network packet? Not all malware generates a big red flashing skull on your screen. The malware that operates quietly and gives no indication you have a problem is the stuff you need to worry about. Malware frequently actively attacks anti-virus software on top of this; leading to an increasing frequent discussion with users or level 1 support folk along the lines of "what do you mean this machine is infected, the AV didn't pick anything up!" We find these surreptitious infections through layers upon layers of analysis, with many tools watching what's going on. I don't think you can make that kind of definitive statement even if you are running AV software.

The internet turned me into a newt!

Why is Theora more susceptible to submarine patents, or indeed granted patents that simply have not yet been enforced, over the technology of h264?

One aspect to this is programming the mind itself.

To some extent we already do this naturally with our learning and memory forming cognitive capabilities. Simple programs are easily written to our minds.

THINK ABOUT YOUR BREATHING
YOU ARE NOW BREATHING MANUALLY

It will take time to build a language in which we can program more complex behaviors, but I have no doubt it is possible.

Nothing unusual with Oracle killing the fun.

Happy to oblige :)