The quality of the teachers is important when learning.

That's seriously kind of interesting, actually: It makes me wonder if decades from now software developers will be few and far between, designing the AI algorithms for modern programs while the rest of us find work as software tutors, training those programs to do their business function.

...before Microsoft embraces and extends this format?

I hope so, actually. So long as the core works on both and its open, I'll be happy. Web designers have been waiting for this for years, but its going nowhere without IE support.

But the stereoscopic googles are out there. http://www.i-glassesstore.com/ig-hrvpro.html This would be cool with a couple of small cameras outside the goggles, so you can overlay your view with data. I could see a whole new kind of video game, where you play out in the real world with things nobody else can see (except fellow players) of course you'd look schizophrenic, buy hey, that'd be half the fun.

Lol! You may as well...I mean I feel like the article is missing some fundamental things: "eco-pawprint" equivalent to SUVs? Dogs are natural creatures, part of the environment. If they have a big impact its from the fuel burned to produce and move their artificial food around. Don't blame the dogs for that...

I agree. The core issue is living sustainably. You can buy time with more energy or food, but if the core ideas of living within our means isn't addressed, there will be problems with that too.

I personally think its just a matter of time though. In the big scheme of things the industrial revolution is still a new thing, and it takes cultures a long time to adjust. But in time they do, in fact with time all living things tend toward an equilibrium with their environment, us humans included. The real question is what that eventual equilibrium will look like, and the advent of cheap fusion would dramatically change that outcome. Its really the difference between a large scale return to more agrarian living and the Jetsons. So it really is exciting news if somebody pulls it off.

That's a really great post. It reminds me that any OS which grants their users freedom for their apps to do what they like also grants the freedom for some app running on them to do bad things, whether it effects the OS or not. It will always be like that.

The only solutions I can think of are to 1) create programming languages that result in really secure code through lots of input restrains etc. 2) create a lot of transparency to see what's going on. And even those don't do enough: A language with too much checking will be slow (Java has a much better security name in this department than C for instance) and while seeing if my machine is sending mystery emails out to my friends would be good, what kind of transparency lets me "see" a buffer overflow caused by a Flash movie writing arbitrary code???

but I am doubtful that they'll do much else besides foster Microsoft-centric development of tools and programs

I think you hit the nail on the head there. I honestly think its more of a cultural thing that a strategic one though: whenever Microsoft tries to reach out and diversify, the lower level Microsoft culture makes the whole thing collapse back in on itself. A perfect example is Silverlight. Here is a project where Microsoft had every reason to create universal plugin, a Flash killer, which they alone held the development tools to, as Adobe controls Flash development tools. So they handed it on a platter to the Mono project, who rushed to make the moonlight plugin. But then you install moonlight, and go to the sample sites, only to see that the web devs actually block moonlight because its not Microsoft Silverlight, they won't even let Moonlight try and render it. So Silverlight is yet another thing you can't really install on a site for the world wide web, where you can have an expectation of all viewers accessing the content as you can with Flash.

The relevance of the entire project is diminished by the "Microsoft only" culture of the lower level devs even at the expense of Microsoft. To be honest, I think a dose of open culture may be just what the doctor ordered for these guys, and it may be that the higher ups know it, thus this Foundation. Just a guess. :)

I love my little low power cheap FoxConn r10-s4 barebones ($130, newegg) but the critical issue with netbooks is largely ignored: how easily do they break? IF somebody makes one with an aluminum case and the right padding inside so you can beat it up and spill things on it, I'm sold. Otherwise they've missed the whole point of cheap portable computers: You take them into places ad situations you wouldn't take others.

Exactly. This is what drives me bonkers about the current system: Its about getting everybody to accept the crap you have, rather than improving what you have. If we took the time to overhaul our patent system so it was so good it really created prosperity, the world would accept it overnight.

Its easy to get a 570x increase with parallel cores. You will just have a GPU that is 570 times bigger, costs 570 times more and consumes 570 times more energy. As far as any kind of real break through though, I'm not seeing it from the information at hand.

There is something worthy of note in all this though, which is that the new way of doing business is through massive parallelism. We've all known this was coming for a long time, but its officially here.

To which government are you referring? The sad reality is that it only takes one government to exploit a new technology negatively, and if it gives them the edge to do so, you can bet the US will follow suit, no matter how good are original intentions are. Looking at the way nuclear weapons have effected us over the last half century, I think I'm being pretty level headed in fearing new arms races and their effect on humanity: There is already so much historical precedent for that happening.

You are missing some larger trends here. Its true that the Internet, GPS etc. Came from the military and went to civilian hands, but that was then, this is now. Our entire post 9/11 reality has been about "what happens when the middle ages guy gets the nukes" and the thinking about technology passing into civilian hands is changing dramatically with that. The other factor is moving from a time when more competition over resources is coming, we can rely less on limitless expansion. Call me a pessimist, but I think it looks pretty grim.

I just saw an interview with him last night, where he discussed full power computers the size of a blood cell, us mapping out our minds for the good of all, etc. It reminded me of the utopian 1950s vision of the space age, where we'd all be floating around space circa 2001: Its not going to happen.
First he's ignoring some physical limitations, such as with the size of computers, but that's not even the main issue. The main issue is that he's ignoring politics. He's ignoring the fact that technologies which comes into existence get used by existing power structures to perpetuate their rule, not necessarily "for the good of all". Mind reading technology he predicts won't be floating around for everybody to play with, it will be used by intelligence agencies to prop of regimes which will scan the brains of potential opposition, consolidating their rule. Quantum computers, given their code breaking potential, won't be in public hands either, but rather will strengthen surveillance operations of those who already do this stuff.

In other words, this technology won't make the past go away any more than the advent of the atom bomb made middle ages Islamic mujahadeen go away. Rather it will combine with current political realities to accentuate the ancient political realities of haves and have not that date back to ancient times.

"I've got to own up to my mistake. Ultimately, it's important for this administration to send a message that there aren't two sets of rules -- you know, one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes," Obama said on NBC's "Nightly News with Brian Williams."

There's nothing inconsistent about his position: Daschle, and Corporate CEOs alike aren't exempt from paying the same taxes everybody else does.

"Whether you get your browser from Microsoft or get it from Mozilla foundation, your Office from Microsoft, or your office from some Open Office foundation, doesn't matter. In all cases there's some other body that ultimately controls the direction of the software."

Yeah, unless you are willing to write your own software. Then it matters very much whether or not you have the source code.