Does a company really have the power to decide who and what can be developed for a piece of hardware it makes?

Maybe; that question is very similar to the legality of jailbreaking and such.

Does a company really have the power to decide who and what can be developed for a piece of hardware it makes?

Mostly indirectly. A company can control:

• Who gets to use their development libraries
• Who gets to market products using their trademarks ("for the kinect")
• Possibly (and this is pure speculation), contractual agreements with retailers and consumers provide Microsoft with other rights.

I thought this was part of American "First Sale" doctrine?

First Sale relates to resale rights, and (AFAIK IANAL) probably not much else. See wikipedia.

So, Microsoft can't stop you and your friends from making a non-distributed, privately used sex game for the kinect using entirely your own software and not distributing that game publically (of course, good luck with that.) If they can, that's bogus and your concerns about slippery slopes and the ability to limit freedoms are probably more justified.

All in all, I don't see much problem with this. History proves that if Microsoft gets too restrictive, both free and proprietary solutions will provide viable alternatives to those of us concerned with freedom.

markets are determined, more and more, not by investors' perception, but by investors' perception of investors' perception.

It's blackboard, but without patent trolling and general suckage.

physiologically, you can't tell the difference.

From what I understand, this is not true. The reason is that you eye can notice a larger amount of green/blue combinations than the RGB combinations are capable of creating.

I enjoy the irony of the post -- there are two questions posted in the summary -- "is it hype" and "is it real." Answering no to both is perhaps appropriate to point out something along the lines of "it doesn't matter."

But I think a better single answer to both questions is "yes." That is, yes -- adding the pixel changes things. But yes, it is hype (in the sense that the difference isn't meaningful.)

The purpose of introduction the Y is to increase the colour gambit. Theoretically, more colors = more "realistic" images. I think that if you can notice the difference between a picture and the actual object (not in terms of dimension, but in therms of the actual colors) then it's likely that a larger colour gambit would be beneficial.

"Unless someone comes up with a tool...you won't be seeing Flash dying anytime soon."
"with HTML5 as an emerging standard, Adobe is now going try to make the best darn-tootin' tools for creating HTML5 content"

Well then, I guess HTML5 has already won...

"Segmented Keyboard for Portable Computer System" here

This one was. I had one for a few years. If you don't want to carry around a laptop, but want to have a full keyboard, the sj-series keyboards were great.

The summary indicates that this new method does not require a scripting language (which is the point -- still provide some access to an application for non-javascript browsers and/or paranoid users.) Given this piece of information, the methods you describe would not be consistent with what the author of this application is doing; therefore, this is something new (or at least not 'not new' because of the prior implementations you've described.) Of course, we're all speculating because of the slashdotted article.

In my opinion, this is going to make google's spreadsheet application a viable alternative to some uses of excel. God knows Apps Script is easier to use than excel macros.

Don't get me wrong, there are some things that excel will always be used for, but google spreadsheets have so far been just useless enough without outside manipulation that most people have turned the option down.

So it's going to run Linux?

Seems as if slashdot has entirely missed the point. The goal isn't to maliciously take down AT&T's networks, it's to demonstrate that either 1) AT&T is charging for services it's not capable of offering, or 2) that AT&T claims that the iPhone/3G users strain the network is hogwash.

I'm curious, how do you determine your meta-mod status?

I find it sort of ironic that the people who are most convinced that cops are corrupt power-mongering jerks tend to be the most likely to put themselves into a contentious position with police.

Most of the time, if you see a person who you this is Bad and Has A Gun, you would tend to stay out of their way.