Don't forget the /.ers. Expected names: "frist post", "goetse", "get off my lawn" and "insensitive clod"...

The pictures don't show the inside. If the inside bottom is as tortuous as the outside, the cleaning is gonna be a real challenge indeed.

The capacity to become intelligent is.

Of course such an ambitious project seems so extraordinary that 30 years looks like an unattainable ETA. Actually for some people a "conscious" computer is just unrealizable. Because it's too hard to conceive mentally that one day men will talk to a HAL9000? That time will come, and probably sooner than 30 years. What we miss is not the hardware, what we need is the right algorithms.

So smart == anti-social?

Since when Facebook is an IT company?

An ad company: 180 / 6 = 30 sats per letter ; we'll see soon in the sky "Google" in big letters..

- I write in Java because I have to.
- I write in PHP because I choose to.
- I write in C because I can
(originally was Windows/Mac/Linux)

There are many interesting aspects about Multics that deserve to be heard about if not studied. To name a few: the second-dimension access system or protection rings via "ring brackets" that allowed a 'r', 'w' or 'x' access to a "segment"/file depending on the caller (user or daemon) own "running ring". Thus, a lower (higher privilege) ring program would extend its r&|x access via brackets to allow a user to enter that program (a "gate"). For instance the continuums (now forums) were usually running in ring 3, while a simple user was in 4 (the core system was in 0). Multics had also convenient and powerful ACL, accesses provided to user/group-project/login-mode. Using long names or short names for a file(segment)... Studying a bit of Multics helps to realize that most of OSes concepts were already invented ~50 years ago...

MIT Project MAC

Gmail, bottom, right, "recent activity", Details.

If you happen to tap your Apple ID / password in a subway, in a crowded place or under a surveillance camera, and someone can see it, your account is not blocked, it's hijacked... and you know nothing about it! Thanks to iCloud, where is my i* and the like, that someone may see your personal data, where you are at this very moment, and where you go usually etc... As long as he doesn't alter your data, you don't know. It's been a recurring problem with Apple IDs. Google gmail shows a list of recent activity with IP adresses, and warns immediately about suspicious activity, like a connection from a far/different IP. http://www.forbes.com/sites/adriankingsleyhughes/2012/08/04/the-dangerous-side-of-apples-icloud/.

This is due to a (bad) implementation / development strategy. Take Office for instance. What would most companies do to provide a multi-OS/platform software? They create a bunch of system-dependent libraries per system, and at the same time develop a system-in-dependent software that is linked with the proper OS-dependent library for a given system. Thus, any new feature for a system X is also available for system Y.

But when Microsoft implemented Office for Mac (from 2009), they did a fork! Thus two distinct versions co-existed, Office for Windows and Office for Mac, each of them evolving more or less independently - with the outcome Excel developers in particular know (even at the time Mac Office was made available): some functions exist on one system, not the other, some having different parameters ; lack of consistency etc...
On purpose? Malice or incompetence? Wouldn't be surprised that they meet a similar problem with the Surface due to lack of genericity in Windows.

Aren't we told "never assume malice where incompetence will suffice".

A Japanese startup... the first client could likely be Toyota - Toyota is constantly welcoming innovation, and a Japanese startup would prefer to grant such beneficial technological progress to another Japanese company, regardless the amount of money coming from overseas. Japan is known for national preference.

At least thanks to Webkit, Javascript optimization pushed the main browsers (looking at you, IE) to improve dramatically, in the recent past. Developers may now expect a JS application to run as smoothly on webkit as on the latest IEs for instance. This is a huge progress.