You must be new here. Welcome to America.

Interesting idea, however, using a lower resolution sensor leads to a more complicated model. SLAM and other mapping techniques are generally probabilistic based. It depends whether or not they have the processing power and energy to find a viable solution using the Kinect or other visual senors.

There is a large subset of the SLAM community devoted to this, Visual-SLAM; check it out.

Google and the hardware manufacturers are both to blame; Google (for the reasons you stated) and the manufacturers for adding in their 'own' elements departing steadily from vanilla android.

I've seen many comments on /. how Android is amazing, especially since it is fragmented (linux and windows arguments) but this is the worst possible case for the mobile platform, IMHO. Unless of course you don't mind upgrading your phone every 'x' amount of years. Some of us don't have the spare $$ and truly want a device that is current without modding.

Henry Ford would disagree.

Very cool. I'm also interpreting it as better image capture in a natural environment, say 'x' meters below sea levels. Of course light won't reach certain depths but using ROVs scientific crews can always stage sub-sea lighting further away. Or here's a relevant project / application: http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/09bioluminescence/background/lowlight/lowlight.html

I would rather that they focus on quality software, period. I don't understand their frustration of lacking a market share in almost every aspect of consumer technology. IMHO they need to get back to basics.

What I believe he is saying is where are the articles about NASA breakthroughs in science, whether new technology or general discovery? NASA now is just a dinosaur waiting for ze meteors. When the space program first started the 'geniuses' were fresh out of college grads full of innovation; we can all appreciate the fruit of their labor. I dare you to step in any NASA lab (or in fact any gov't research lab) and find that now.

I wouldn't want my tax dollars to be wasted frivolously...but nowadays that's a moot point.

Sadly, you're right. It is a race for second place. That is all it seems Microsoft is good for; releasing products that emulate others (especially if you believe the fanboys)*.

I just don't understand why M$ needs or even wants to have a great search engine. I just want a freakin' better OS.

*Sidenote: I do like the Zune even with all of the bashing here on /. .

As do I.

Now what would really be nice is allowing the public to access NOAA [http://www.noaa.gov/] real-time data from all of their research sites and present it in a manner than Joe Sixpack himself can appreciate (you can from some agencies but not in a nice parse-able format).

The sheer amount of data these labs have / collect is amazing. IMHO if we present this data so 'everyone' can reach it, then maybe we can excite more youngsters in a science based education or career.

Not too quiet. To determine navigation AUVs usually use forms of sonar. That and since this is an "experiment" it should have a pinger - other commercial scientific AUVs do so you can recover if there is a glitch.

"If Windows 7 can't significantly improve that situation, what chance does it have to convince people to move away from Windows XP?"

Not just speed but usability. What features will Microsoft implement that are new and must have (that isn't stolen at least)?

I must say that I've been very disappointed with M$. I never saw a reason to move to Vista (don't care for DX10 and UAC - no thanks) and after playing with the RC1 I'm still wondering what the hell their brainstorming sessions actually do.

I want something new that won't hinder MY use of a computer whether it's visually, the performance, or even backwards compatibility. Why must we upgrade to something they dictate that is a meager step in place, rather than forward?

If anything I can see members of the scientific community establishing a platform similar to this. Scripps already has the Flip-ship ( http://www.sio.ucsd.edu/voyager/flip/ ), NOAA's NWS weather buoys + hurricane forecasting system, and MBARI's MOOS system ( http://www.mbari.org/moos/mooring/mooring.htm ).

This would extend the capabilities for our oceans , especially for real time data and observing trends for global warming. The possibilities, even if a city cannot be established, are still endless.