If you had a structural geology class in the last 15 years there's a good chance you spent many hours with the Bree Creek Quadrangle exercises.

It's not mentioned in the article, but even if initial prices are too high to attract most home-owners, it could still be an attractive option for businesses with solar systems, they would just have to scale it up for their purposes. Particularly since many electric power companies are not reimbursing private solar power producers as well as they used to.

Batteries are not 100% efficient at storing and transmitting their charge, so you might not find much if any savings in your electric bill with overnight charging. If there is savings, then you have factor in how long it will take for that to give you a return on the investment and any long-term maintenance costs.

Funny, but completely misses the point. The real news here is that mobile data speeds are going to start competing with traditional wired home ISPs in the near future. Verizon has already stated they are not laying any more [expensive] new fiber cables to focus on their mobile services. You can read between the lines. As for pricing, the market will figure that out for sure. Consider this very real possibility: what if a mobile provider had a 5G [or next-gen] cell tower in a suburban area and offered everyone within range to combine their home ISP and mobile phone data into one competively priced package? I think many people would jump on that.

Still think I'm full of it? Consider this... my parents live in a very rural area and do not have access to cable or DSL lines, but they get their home internet through a "Wi-Fi" tower ISP located on a hill couple miles from their house. It's not as fast as DSL or cable, but it's big improvement over dial-up they had used prior. That sort of technology is only going to improve.

So, if beaming this energy back to the earth in microwaves will cook everything in the airspace between the transmitter and collector, how does this help combat global warming? There is water in the atmosphere afterall that I presume would be warmed by micro waves passing through it, much like a glass of water in a kitchen microwave. Has anyone calculated those residual heat effects of beaming lasers/microwaves through our atmosphere? My gut says there would be excess heat transmitted directly into our atmosphere derived from converted sun rays that would have normally bounced harmlessly off the Earth's atmosphere or even missed the planet entirely. I'd love for my gut to be proven wrong though if someone has that data.

You missed his point. Microwaves create heat when they hit water, which can be demonstrated by any kitchen microwave. There is water in the atmosphere. Therefore, beaming microwaves through a water-rich atmosphere can create heat.

Attracting users and app developers go hand-in-hand and clearly Microsoft's slow start in mobile markets has crippled their ability to compete in the current standard phone market. They need something that sets their product apart from iOS and Android, and I agree that HoloLens could be that something. Add a more seamless integration of Windows mobile units and desktop and some competitve pricing for units and Microsoft could become attractive again. In particular for businesses who are largely wedded to Windows already and only support iOS/Android/Blackberry mobile systems because they have to. I'm not ready to say this will usher in another Microsoft hey-day like the late 90's, but I agree it's very foolish to count them out.

That's a funny post, but it misses the real point, which is speeds like that over mobile networks can compete with traditional land-based ISP speeds. These are some of the first hints at a massive shift in how consumers will access the internet and ISPs will operate in the not-so-distant future. Last month Verizon quietly announced that they weren't going to lay any more fiber optic cable and are selling some fiber networks to third parties because their wireless networks were much more profitable, which is probably true, but it's only part of the story. If you consider various reports like this about the potential for 5G you can read between the lines of Verizon's statement; they know the future of home internet is very likely going to be wireless and want to be ready.
(Reference: http://tech.slashdot.org/story... )

Which really is ironic, because over the past 5 years or so I have streamed many many more songs through Pandora [and Slacker/Milk Music] than I have listened to songs on standard radio. I'm 34 years old, so I'm sure younger demographics are streaming more than me. I've even attended some concerts and bought a couple old fashioned CDs because of new things I heard streaming. It would make more sense for artists and studios to pay Pandora.

That said, I wouldn't want to turn the tables here because I think it would just lead to the same old studios/artists with the biggest pockets controlling what music is available for streaming, just like standard radio.

If you look in the right places you'll find a few dinosaurs still walking around and competing at the top... Jim Beam (1795), Colgate (1806), DuPont (1802), Barclays bank (1690; and seventh largest bank in the world today), Caterpillar Inc. (1925, quite young really, but would have been hanging out with your GM example). Many of the major oil companies trace their roots back to or even before the Standard Oil monopoly was dissolved in 1911. Japan, Germany, and England have companies that are over over 1000 years old still running today in some form or another.

Agreed Google still has the best search engine. I hate when 3rd parties try to sneak their search engines onto my PC or phone. However, I don't mind Bing terribly as a search engine, but I seem to get more relevant results with Google.

FWIW, Bing's mapping is definitely better than Google's though. In particular the birdseye angled aerial images are awesome and allow you to see all four sides of structure, instead just a roof, with surprisingly good resolution too. I regularly inspect properties for work, and I use Bing's map tools to scope them out before I see them in person.

Exactly. And even in poor rural countries mobile networks often have better coverage and are more reliable than land-based communications, so having this technology on a mobile device may increase the utility for doctors and aid workers in rural areas. They could easily transmit the data to nearby hospitals, to patient families, or safer cloud data storage options.

Or you could get the same effect by balancing your checkbook in MS Excel in front of a background of stars. The brutality of gameplay depends your personal finances.

If a company faces a problem that could result in them losing customers and sales, then they have the right to create a corporate policy for their employees that protects the entire company and all of the other employees who work there. In Disney's case if the wider public thinks by going to a Disney park they risk getting seriously sick, beyond the typical cold or flu, it could result in lost customers and sales. If Disney has to lay other people off due to lost sales related to the choices of ignorant anti-vaxxers, then who is the victim?

There's no way around the fact that whether or not people vaccinate is a public health concern more than an individual rights concern. This issue has to stop being framed as an individual choice/freedom issue, because one person's bad choice can adversely effect too many other people's health and finances who did not make the same choice. Our disfunctional gov't is impotent against this fringe of ignorant anti-vaxxers, but if there's any hope, it's that private companies will apply common sense health policies to protect their employees, their customers, their image, and their bottom line profits, which will also benefit the greateer public good.

To establish Cloud City...preferably before Blly Dee Williams passes away.