I think the problem is that because we're so used to 24 fps on theatrical motion pictures, going to 48 fps can be quite jarring, since everything looks so much "clearer" that you have to rethink set design, costume design and even the use of special effects to be less obtrusive at 48 fps. (Indeed, this became a huge issue with Peter Jackson's "Hobbit" trilogy because everything looked TOO clear.)

The late Roger Ebert liked the 48 fps "Maxivision" analog film format, but that idea never took off due to need to use a lot more physical film and the increased stress of running a film projector at twice the speed of regular projectors. But with modern digital movie cameras, 48 fps is now much more viable.

While it's great to get super-fast Internet, we may run into a big problem soon: many web server farms may not have the bandwidth capacity to handle many millions of users who have above 100 megabit/second download speed Internet access at the "last mile" connection. It's going to require a major upgrade of content delivery networks to handle much faster connection end users.

I think people forget that the Mount Aso volcanic caldera is NOT small, and there is the constant threat of a major eruption there. There is a chance--though small--that Mount Aso could erupt with the force and volcanic ash output of Mount Pinatubo in 1991--a scale of eruption that could seriously affect the Japanese economy and could even substantially cool the Earth like what Pinatubo's huge ash output did.

The problem with diesel engines is simple: it's ungodly expensive to make a diesel engine just as clean as a gasoline engine. For example, the Daimler-Benz "BlueTec" system that uses common-rail direct fuel injection, a sophisticated particulate filter, and urea gas injection into the exhaust stream to break down the NOx gases for easier catalytic converter removal costs a lot of money per car, to say the least.

Besides, with battery technology rapidly improving, we may soon have 400 to 500 km per charge range electric cars without the need for a big an heavy battery pack, which means electric vehicles are now very viable for commuter cars.

I think because Windows 10 defaults to the Desktop UI on laptop and desktop computers, it is the true successor to Windows 7 in the corporate world. Indeed, I expect Windows 10 to cause a major uptick in PC sales because people familiar with Windows 7 and earlier could pick up Windows 10 a lot faster.

I think pretty much everyone who knew Cook at the time he was hired at Apple 16 years ago knew of his sexual preference. Indeed, today's announcement ended the "open secret" of his personal life that was pretty much known to everyone in Silicon Valley and the financial community that regularly dealt with him since the late 1990's.

As such, it should just be a "yawn," but alas, all those Internet trolls showed up and turned it into something where we can't have a civil discourse. (shaking head)

The QR code scanning is why this idea will completely fail. Not only will you be completely dependent on the cellphone camera doing a proper capture of the QR code (good luck with that!), but QR codes are easily hacked, as Alibaba found out the hard way with Alipay, which the Chinese government shut down.

Personally, I think CurrentC may never make it out of test stage for the following reasons:

1. It requires you to supply driver's license, Social Security number, and bank account information to store on CurrentC servers "in the cloud." Given the problems with iCloud lately, no thank you!

2. The use of optical QR codes is a BAD idea. People forget QR codes can be hacked rather easily, as Alibaba found out the hard way when it was tried with Alipay.

3. The process of paying using CurrentC is unnecessarily complex compared to Apple Pay, Google Wallet and Softcard's NFC solutions, which could make it very easy to make a mistake and the payment may not go through under CurrentC.

4. Given the problems mentioned above, there's a good chance banks and credit unions may NOT allow savings and checking accounts to be linked to CurrentC. And that will end the project almost immediately.

Just wait until the Surface Pro 3 gets updated to Windows 10 by this time next year. Suddenly, the Surface Pro 3 (or whatever successor is on the market by October 2015) will be a hot-selling item for corporate users.

What you saw is very common at "kaiten sushi" restaurants in Japan. In many parts of Tokyo, those "kaiten sushi" restaurants use touchscreen terminals for ordering that not only display in Japanese, but English, Chinese and Korean, too.

That's why in Japan, NFC payment systems work more like prepaid cards--for example, you have to load an amount of money into your Rakuten Edy account before you can use it to make NFC payments through the Osaifu-Keitai system (Rakuten Edy is accepted at most convenience stores in Japan). This isn't like Apple Pay, where payments are directly from your credit or debit card account.

Having spent several thousand dollars in co-pay for dental work in my lifetime, this is why I don't drink sodas anymore--the carbonation in the soda actually accentuates the highly corrosive quality of the sugar in the carbonated drink. That's why I drink mostly iced tea nowadays on hot summer days.

....Because none of them had the type of test pilot experience necessary for the Mercury program in the USA or the Vostok program in the Soviet Union..

We forget that at the time of the start of manned flights in 1961, it was an extreme unknown on how well an astronaut would handle a spacecraft in Earth orbit. As such, both the Americans and Russians chose trained test pilots, who had the ability to calmly handle any dangerous situation during a test flight. And in those days, only men met that qualification. It wasn't until the middle 1970's that both the Americans and Russians--based on their spaceflight experience--finally figured out how to choose females to become astronauts/cosmonauts on something besides a publicity stunt.

I think areas highly suited for solar power generation--southwestern USA, around the Mediterranean Sea, much of the Middle East, and much of Australia--will be the areas where rooftop solar panels and large-scale solar power plants start to dominate in terms of power generation. Mind you, they may be competing against future forms of nuclear power, especially if the technology for molten-salt nuclear reactors fueled by thorium-232 dissolved in molten fluoride salts become practical.

Sendai--because it has littler precipitation in winter--is one of the better locations for a solar power plant. But any further north--such as from Morioka north to Aomori--you start getting in a lot of winter snow, and that is a huge impediment to efficient solar power operations. The Sea of Japan side from Kanazawa to the Tsugaru region is not that great, either, given you can get huge snowfalls in winter.

In short, the complex geography of Japan makes solar power not so great, especially with areas of intense winter snows. But western Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu are perfect for solar power on a truly large scale.