Jeez... Thanks for the info. That's kind of disturbing to hear.

I like 'free reboots', haven't heard that one before. I'll trade you my recently-coined 'spontaneous hardware upgrade', used to describe a sudden failure of old hardware with no direct replacement. ;)

These sound remarkably like the cheap Chinese tablets you can find on DealExtreme. I was wondering when a big brand was going to start slapping their name on them.

The $100 price-point is actually a bit of a deal, since that's basically what that 'tier' (The quad cores and 1024 displays) costs from DealExtreme, but I presume you're getting HP warranty and support with these. So not bad!

I bought four different 7-inch tablets in their $65-$80 price range during a half-off sale last May. My favorite is the ICOO ICOU7W.

Its specs:
800x600 screen, the 4:3 aspect being one of my favorite features, because I use it primarily for reading.
1.0GHz Allwinner A13 (Single core)
512mb of RAM
Mali-400 GPU @ 350MHz
8gb of internal storage, plus a microSD slot. (They all have microSD slots)
802.11b/g/n
Front-facing camera
Android 4.0.4 (I could probably update it, but haven't felt the need.)
3000mAh battery, 2A DC fast-charge jack*

On sale, I paid a whopping $36.45 for it. ;)

Only bad things I can say about it are no OTG on the USB port, and no bluetooth...but mostly it's the missing OTG that's a letdown. There's also no GPS which is a little bit of a bummer. Only one of the tablets I bought had GPS; the Erani E70. For some absurd reason, the MK808 'Android TV' stick I bought for $25 also had GPS. (I mean, really?!)

*It's funny, because under full load-- playing HD video, screen brightness up all the way, using the wifi, etc. --normal USB can't actually charge faster than you're discharging... So the 2-amp DC jack is handy for when you're using it in bed or something. I have no idea if the USB port is capable of fast-charging from fast-charge capable ports... I haven't tried it, but I just got a 10,400mAh portable USB battery from Jackery... If it can't, I'll have to make a USB to DC jack, so I can fast-charge through the DC jack using the 2-amp output USB port on the Jackery battery.

The lack of an OTG-enabled USB port is usually a bigger issue than a lack of bluetooth.

I bought four uber-cheap Chinese 7-inch tablets, and none had bluetooth...which never really bothered me. Though it was a shortcoming on the one I gave to my father; It had poor sound (Badly-placed speaker or something), and he would've preferred to be able to use bluetooth headphones like he does with his PC.

Mostly it was the fact that two out of the four didn't have OTG functionality on their USB ports that was the real shortcoming, because it meant no interfacing with little gadgets, or using it as a terminal for my tinkering.

These HP tablets sound like re-branded cheap Chinese tablets. Just a tier up from mine, because they put in extra for the quad cores.

Man, having never heard of this guy before, I was rather sympathetic and thinking "Man, finally a use for all those FBI-confiscated Bitcoins" until that last part about Tim McVeigh... Then all I could think was "Uh...wow, screw this asshat."

If I'm not mistaken, in addition to absolute gun control, Japan also practices what we need here in the states; bullet control. i.e. it would basically be impossible for him to acquire ammunition in the first place. So, while manufacturing what is ostensibly a firearm in the eyes of the law is almost certainly illegal in Japan, might it not have been more prudent to wait and see what he intended to do?

I see three possible outcomes they missed by not waiting:

1. 1. He had a buyer who wanted a disposable gun, and they could've nabbed the buyer, too.
2. 2. He wanted to use the guns, and had a connection that could get him ammo, and they could've nabbed the connection.
3. 3. Absolutely nothing; He did it to see if he could. They still bust in and confiscate the guns and everything, but having had time to analyze the situation, maybe charge him with a lesser offense, or at least not parade him around in front of the cameras.

Of course, being Japan, that last one is just as unlikely as the first two-- except not as ludicrous --because the police, as much as the media, like to turn just about any crime above a purse-snatching into a spectacle simply to show that they're doing their jobs.

At any rate, I hope they show some restraint in prosecuting him. Barring any further evidence, he just seems to be a nerd/tinkerer who wasn't thinking about what he was doing, but didn't intend any harm. (And no harm was done.)

These 'mini gaming PCs' seem kind of ridiculous... I mean, it's not even a real computer, it's like some piece of absurd custom hardware.

Last year on Black Friday, I hit up Newegg for a $70 Biostar A68I-350 Mini-ITX AMD Fusion mobo w/soldered-on APU, bundled with 8GB of G.Skill DDR3 1600 RAM. (Basically they were giving me the $40 RAM for free.) I really only intended to use it as a computer for a CNC setup... But it turned out to be such a great media PC and general gaming machine-- just about anything but the most demanding games would run reasonably well at 720p (In other words, the bulk of the non-FPS contents of my Steam account) --that I set it up next to my bed as a secondary media PC and internet terminal.

I even put it in this great little IN WIN case (IW-BQ656T) about the size of a couple of books.

It's a shame the board seems to be discontinued, or I'd have bought like two more...

Anyway, as I was saying... If I can get that much system for so little, I wonder why portable uber gaming rigs using REAL HARDWARE aren't a thing. I mean, you don't really see 'gaming-oriented' Mini-ITX motherboards out there, do you? (Well, I haven't, at least.)

I used to have an unopened box of Memorex 8-inch floppy disks, still shrink-wrapped and everything, but I lost it in a move. :( We had a typesetter, and it took the 8-inch floppies. I'm the kind of unabashed nerd who revels in possessing those kinds of 'artifacts'.

Giving away Nexus 7's seems hard to explain away. I mean, I tried to think of any reason why they might have wanted to give them all 7" Android tablets, like maybe an interesting way of distributing a multimedia press kit or something, but that could have just as easily been handled by $75 Chinese-made Android tablets.

That did make me think that that'd be pretty cool though; imagine buying a bunch of modestly-spec'd 7" Android tablets from China wholesale, and using them as giveaway items to distribute really dynamite multimedia presentations.

I actually picked up FOUR 7" Android 4.x tablets from DealExtreme for ~$35 each last year, during a half-price sale...and I doubt they'd let even such a sale as that rob them entirely of profits... So I imagine if you're a company buying tablets like that wholesale, you can get some pretty sweet deals, AND get them all custom-branded.

I've always been able to switch it on and off just fine, even after spending the vast majority of the past 15 years sitting at a computer, on the internet.

I skim through things at great speed when they don't really interest me, or I'm mostly looking for specific pieces of information, but it's never prevented me from being able to change gears and linearly read something...

And I'm not by any stretch of the imagination a patient person (or particularly disciplined, for that matter) so it's certainly not because I'm making a conscious effort *not* to skim when I read linearly.

The guy's obviously a jackoff with a toy quadcopter who shouldn't be flying it over peoples' heads.

Forget $1k setups, even a properly-configured $100 Chinese flight controller would've RTL'd when he lost control. There's absolutely no excuse.

Sadly, no one in the media is going to make note of the fact that this guy is a jackoff, so it's just "Some schmuck with a commercial drone injures athlete, story at 11!" and the rest of us are-- once again --one step closer to being branded terrorists or something.

What I meant is that if the focus of the Rift's development shifts, or it tries to encompass the capabilities needed for both... There's bound to be tradeoffs or compromises. And when that happens, usually everyone loses.

Cameras (And it would have to be plural if it were to keep stereo vision) would add weight and bulk to the front, never good for an HMD. There's also price considerations...especially if they somehow come up with the perfect camera solution and create a product that's the best of both worlds... I'd expect the price to increase by 50%, at minimum. Whereas right now, at the pricepoint of a high-end GPU or a monitor, I think it's about perfect for what it is and will probably ensure very good sales.

(And that's not even taking into account the fact that Facebook might try jacking up the price anyway, even on the devkits, just to turn a profit.)

According to the information on the website, the camera pictured with 'DK2' is used to augment the head-tracking system.

At any rate, being that it looks like a pretty standard little webcam thing, I can't imagine it would provide any suitably high quality video to the wearer, which would be a step backwards in AR, or at the very least, standing still. I mean, the point is to overlay the Augmented Reality over something near as good as you see without the device, or better, no? (Besides, one camera? No stereo.)

But obviously, the USB accessory ports offer the opportunity for something to be developed down the road. Off the top of my head, it occurs to me that someone (Not me since I can't afford a devkit) could come up with something based on the guts of two of those Chinese keyfob cameras, with 120-degree sensor/lens modules mounted to the front of the Rift at IPD. I got one for FPV flight with a quadcopter, and for a $50 camera that easily fits in the palm of your hand it shoots pretty damned good 720p video.

I really don't see how the Augmented Reality application and Virtual Reality gaming markets overlap, beyond the need for a head-mounted display. The Rift would have to have cameras to do AR and that would entirely warp its purpose.

Though I'm certainly open to the idea of it as an add-on, since it looks like DevKit2 (Which I want one of so badly to experiment with drone telepresence and stuff) has USB accessory ports on it...I could see attaching something like a stereoscopic Kinect to the front. But I think everything's screwed if the hardware gets redesigned to try and serve two very different purposes.

The kind of people who actually would have the means, motivation, and wherewithal to do this probably face at least as much risk and danger in their everyday hobbies and activities. (Serious tinkerers and the like who play with electricity, fire, chemicals, metalworking tools, lasers, plasma cutters, etc. day in and day out.)

It's when the technology goes 'As Seen On TV' and Joe Six-Pack can buy himself an "Easy-peasy dew-it-yerself brain-zappery kit" that the question of safety truly becomes relevant.

Can you think of a better way to force us to stop being so goddamn lazy and actually expand out into space?