What it comes down to is that google has incredibly profitable aspects of their company that allow them to fund the more futurescape products. Certainly there are patents and other fringe economical benefits to these. But in the end, every technological revolution starts small. Lots of prototypes and mistakes untile the groundwork is layed for others to build on. In the past this has been hobbyists and garage tinkerers. Google is creating this same environment with real money and time thrown to help speed up the whole system. In the end, they are trying to certainly guide the future on their terms but also, they are trying to do the rest of us a freaking service by getting the awesome stuff here sooner. Say what you will about google's motives, but I do feel like they are trying to improve the world while they dominate it.

Over 100, so lets say there are 150. That's only one every 600 words for a 90,000 word book; basically it's only once every page and a half that it even occurs. Is it really that big of a deal? Not to mention fantasy tends to used the hyphen pretty regularly in names/places. It really just seems an odd thing to attack and try to minimize by the distributor. My guess is that they had one issue and now is just creating other issues. Silly amazon being silly as usual.

I would say this would be an optional secondary method would be neat. However, I could see people forgetting about their physical copies (and then losing them) that could naturally lead to issues when the batteries died or they travelled out of state - where they might not accept electronic copies.

And this would be a concern about phone privacy. Because by handing it unlocked with the intent to let them view content, you're basically handing them keys to the castle for any information on you phone. Which is why I'd see this only ever being a secondary option for the forseeable future.

Also, I'd like to see how this could handle when the car was being operated by not the owner. Some sort of temporary driving permission would be pretty cool.

It's definitely a neat idea, but the legal implications are definitely an issue

I've always thought that it's great to have an extra monitor be portrait. But I'm just too old school to commit my primary monitor to it (also I deal with a lot of tables/spread sheets of many columns. I'd prefer to see an entire entry than a few columns of many entires. But in the end it's all on what you do and how you do it.

Most of what I've done with the Pi tends to have at least some sort of basic audio output. It's rather nice to just push it out of the 1/8" rather than convert from the HDMI. I guess I should have put a disclaimer in there -> [for my needs]

I'm torn over forcing audio out of HDMI. Though to keep the cost down, you have cut some things to add others. This is definitely a neat little board and would be great for a mini test cluster. But I feel like Pi still has that prototyping advantage. But I definitely am glad to see some similar priced alternatives in the market.

I feel like the subscription make sense with with high cost, high upgrade products. For example, the Adobe Create suite was brilliant to go to subscripotion. The master collection is a couple thousand dollars and is really only worth buying when it first comes out, because when they upgarde versions you stuck with the old stuff. However a subscription lets you get a for 50/month and you always have the latest goods.

But with a core operating system, I could just seeing it being a major problem. Though even if they do it, at least provide a rent or buy option.

Typically, you're buying the license to use it, not the actual software itself. Buying an entire piece of software is a much more costly proposition.

I see where you're coming from, but it'd be better than the political and weird stuff that comes up. I see it as there's no real difference between which commercials show up on Cartoon Network or any other kids oriented network. Just playing to the primary demographic.

I'm really glad Google are taking this on. This is just a challenging age group because so much mental/cognative development occurs in this time. Something that is increadibly informative for a 7 year old can quite uninteresting to a 10 year old. Finding a way to make it instructive, intuitive, and generally usefull without alienating age groups will be challenging. I'm curious what they come up with.

The problem with COBOL is that while there is definitely need, it's still a niche market. I feel like this article was more focused on what popular languages could make you money. The reason COBOL is valuable is because it isn't popular.

I mean once they have the encrypted data... it has everything they need. It's not the Apple or Google's fault that the police can't comprehend encrypted data.

The real questions is, what can't be open source :o

In essence, it's just inventory control. There are quite a few companies that make systems like this (my company uses a few for small tooling parts). I see this being relevant for small fab shops or similar who don't have the capital to invest in the larger, more unified system - but still have an issue with misplaced tools. So they make DIY system using a prototype board and some basic sensors. In the end, this is a very basic prototype that is more of a proof of concept than a practical prototype. And definitely using a bunch of tablets could be a hassle in many places (though I'm sure Intel has them sort of just lying about for everyone). So a badge RFID/barcode scan or keypad would probably do nicely for entry and some sort of automatic unlocking/locking mechanism is naturally required. Also, I could definitely fool some silly little optical sensor with dark tape or a small piece of paper - so I think in the long run, you'd have to improve on that. But all in all, it's a clever little solution.