Word up! If Microsoft really wanted to take over this market, they'd take the phone out of their superphone and just make it super. Seriously, imagine a device you could use just like a phone but without the carrier (e.g., AT&T, Verizon, Vodaphone). Not just some WiFi/Skype thing, but a 5G, video call, LEO satellite, wireless system with global coverage and no 'pay per second' or 'pay per bit' usage charges. Call it a "Microsoft fucks the carriers." That would sell BILLIONS.

I celebrate every time we make it around the galaxy. The first celebration was when I was born, and I hope to live until the next one.

It's a business, and you never eat where you shit.

. . . then you don't need it. America has been undergoing an awakening over the past decade, discovering that it doesn't need a lot of things, like a middle class or IT. It also doesn't need a fast food industry or Viagra, but that's another post. Corporate America, which has become the new first class, has discovered they don't need Americans -- from manual laborers to retail clerks to discovery lawyers. Soon they will discover that they don't need America. Downsizing, a popular term of the last century, is now the national motto. There are now only three areas of employment in America with a future -- (1) morticians, (2) tax preparers for the rich, and (3) military personnel (we need somebody to keep the nukes fresh). Everybody else should consider a career as an illegal alien in China.

In a decade, this will be merely commercial grade, and corporations will use it to track their employees. Some people will actually like giving up their anonymity in exchange for a modicum of security. Eventually, everyone will be tracked all the time. Of course, there will be HUGE abuses, as usual. The abuses will not stop it from happening; you know that even as much as you hate to know it.

Senator Joe Lieberman is not running for re-election.

Today, how many people prefer watching television, browsing the web, or listening to their iPod over talking to their spouse or their kids? Now, image that the television, Internet, or iPod were REALLY personal and engaging and understood the viewer and responded thoughtfully and never hassled. If there is money to be made, then it will happen eventually. Now, that is cynical.

They will be better than humans. They will know more, speak many languages, understand a huge range of contextual references, always be current, never act in a way that makes them seem rude, and even be charming. Most real humans will greatly prefer talking to them than to other humans. I'm not sure when, but some of us will live long enough to see it.

Why should they dumb down? Machines taking over the world have to start somewhere; why not in your pocket?

Just crack their admissions system and approve your application. While you're at it, give yourself a scholarship.

This will get swept under the rug. The lawyers will say that a box of paper records is nothing compared to this -- Sutter Health laptop stolen with unencrypted records of 4 million patients. The defense of saying "but I didn't do nearly as badly as the other idiot" actually works (just ask Stalin about his Hitler excuse). Seriously, the medical industry has worked for decades to make it immune from legal liability, and their efforts have been very effective.

Sony did a great job of winning the battle between blueray and HD-DVD, but lost the war. With the mandatory DRM, high cost of media (especially rewritable), and "wait till we cover our costs" business model for the next generation, the polycarbonate disc has now lost out to flash memory and streaming media the same way that iLink (a.k.a. Firewire or IEEE1394) lost to USB, HDMI, and Ethernet. DVD still dominates because of those blueray constraints, but DVD's limited capacity is starting to squeeze it out just as it happened for the floppy disc.

P.S. I know it is not spelled 'blueray' but didn't want to get a trademark notice from Sony for using it in this post.

Then tie it to your pit bull
Wire it to your Tasser
Plant an IED in it
Take off the muffler
Wrap it in 30' of 13/16" continuous length XIP IWRC wire rope and 18-pound Kryptonite lock
Leave it parked in the most public place, climb a nearby tower with a sniper rifle, and pick off the first five people who try to take it.

Word will get around.

Is sounds like an insecticide they use on cockroaches that prevents them from reaching puberty and, therefore, unable to breed.