The iPad does use WiFi to locate you just like the Touch and the iPhone when unable to get a GPS signal. My iPad had my location with in 200 yards. I live in a small city in Indiana. Those in more urban areas should be just fine.

For short typing in works just fine. For longer typing at least some sort of prop for the lap would be great. I can't wait for my case from Apple to arrive that will give me that ability. The other alternative is a wireless keyboard.

It is fast.

I can't echo CmdrTaco's notion about anonymous mode enough. Even as I started to open the box with my wife and 10 year old son eagerly looking on, I could tell this thing needs a guest mode. Something that just disables access to mail and the keychain.

Awesome device. I think as developers and designers get their hands on this, like the iPhone the value will just grow.

I would really like lightsaber that could actually cut through steel, but that isn't a product either. Like Courier, its just someones idea realized with CGI.

The SDK is under license and does belong to Apple. You are correct that it is not Apple's iPhone once they sell it.

But the SDK and the app store are theirs and you have to play by their rules.

These suits are against companies asserting patent rights over things that the DO NOT own patents for. The basic defense being offered is "I've done it so much, I couldn't possibly pay the penalty. So the only option is to not hold me accountable!" That basically says that if a robber robs enough people he shouldn't be put in prison. (Sort of the like the banks in America.)

This puts a penalty on asserting patent rights all over the place when you don't have them. Asserting a patent right, blocks competitors who might produce the same thing cheaper.

If companies have to pay a penalty for not keeping track of their patent assertions, then they will be more circumspect in asserting them. That means less frivolous patents.

Substantive, meaningful patents actually work well. The problem is incentives to overwhelm the system which is what is currently being done.

Sounds like an iPad can:
* write a report (Pages)
* basics stats work (Numbers)
* PDF annotation - maybe (Preview?) though there are other apps already out that will edit Office docs
* ssh to a more powerful computer (already apps for that)

However, the iPad is not marketed as a computer, unlike a netbook. I see a VERY small number of iPad buyers even knowing what ssh is.

The iPad is NOT for computer users.

The iPad is for people that happen to use computers to get things done.

If you can't understand the distinction, you'll be scratching your head for a long time trying to understand why Apple is selling so many of them. Just like iPods and iPhones before now.

I'm afraid you are limited by a short time horizon. I remember working and computing on systems where 100MB was just as difficult and expensive to deal with as 100PB is today. 2MB was the amount of mountable storage on small systems. Anything larger and you had to go to "big iron".

Real work was done on those small systems and good scientific principles and methods were they key then and the key now.

Just remember that the "laptop" 10 years from now will have over 8TB local SSD.

I operate an archive for the university. 10 years ago when we started it, a 10MB file was considered a pretty big file. Today it is the smallest size file we like to see stored in the archive. We store several PB's and I consider ours a small archive. A 100PB in a few years will be nothing. But those 100Exabyte files... now those will be difficult to work with. It will be "difficult to find hardware capable of storing that much data."

If manned, a ton of payload doesn't leave much for environmentals for a 2 man crew deployed even for a week at a time. The artist has windows which indicates manned flights.

Unmanned and I would be VERY concerned about losing control and it drifting into Pakistan or Russia. Airspace violation, technology theft, the list goes on and on.

Of course even manned flights might suffer the same fate. At least with an unmanned system, you can shoot it down if it floats too close to enemy hands. If it is manned, you will need to consider scuttle options.

with that all secrets are revealed.

Actually it seemed like a little bit of Alien Nation as a setting, with a mix of The Fly, Enemy Mine, ET Mad Max, and Starship Troopers.

A couple of the scenes were so screaming of The Fly (1986) that I thought it was an homage to it.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie and it had me on the edge of my seat until the end. It was such a dark movie that until the end you could see the director going a number of different ways.

I think what made this a really good movie was that the special effects and camera perspectives made it very believable. In most sci-fi the alien is elevated to such a big think that every time they show one it is the central focus. In this, the aliens are not of the focus of most of the shots.