So they replaced pixels with a two-dimensional grid of sqare vectors that scale in width and height to grid width(or height) divided by the number of square vectors on the grid?

Actually just skimmed TFA and it looks like they have an interesting model - they separate the three channels and then fit vector "contours" around the different levels of brightness for each channel. The finer you need control, the more contours you add and the more explicitly you define the the polygons. Looks like a promising, workable solution.

In other words, he's using a slit camera to make photo finish images (but with the subject something other than finish lines). Technology is being repurposed for a potentially interesting effect, but not technically revolutionary.

Almost anything you can do or use today has an open source option. You have open source options for everything from your operating system to your chat app. You can read open source textbooks, cookbooks and encyclopedias. You can even build an open source airplane or brew your own free beer (free beer as in free speech, not free beer as in free beer).

Given all these options, what part(s) of your life would you be unwilling to open source? Your children's education? Vaccines? A pacemaker? If so, what would your test be for deciding that a closed-source option is the only choice?

"Down there," said Golg, "I could show you real gold, real silver, real diamonds."

"Bosh!" said Jill rudely. "As if we didn't know that we're below the deepest mines even here."

"Yes," said Golg. "I have heard of those little scratches in the crust that you Topdwellers call mines. But
that's where you get dead gold, dead silver, dead gems. Down in Bism we have them alive and growing.
There I'll pick you bunches of rubies that you can eat and squeeze you a cup full of diamond-juice. You
won't care much about fingering the cold, dead treasures of your shallow mines after you have tasted the
live ones of Bism."

"My father went to the world's end," said Rilian thoughtfully. "It would be a marvellous thing if his son
went to the bottom of the world."

No go with a Bold 9900 - the "Load Mobile site anyway" link doesn't even work. Disappointing but not a big loss - die OS7, die.

Works well and looks great on a PlayBook. Actually might prefer this layout to the full version!

Unless the MRI can show the brain as a series of miniature illustrations, these guys are about 121 years late to the game. But maybe that's just my approbativeness showing...

If your accountant is using Excel to run your books that means it's time to get a new accountant.

And before the internet it was all done with photocopiers, fax machines, (to a much lesser extent) VCRs and (even more rarely) BBSs. People used to keep binders full of these things at their desks. Before photocopiers showed up it was done via mimeograph, and one assumes that before that people were tracing boobs through eight layers of carbon paper.

Just as porn is at the forefront of all consumer technology, any office technology gets immediately co-opted for cartoons, kittens and breasts.

They already did that. It was set in New York and starred Sarah Jessica Parker.

Sounds like the same "private" information that every candidate and party has access to during the election campaign and on election day. Not sure about the birth date, but everything else is definitely on the voter registration and tracking printouts used by poll clerks and by party scrutineers during the election.

My firm is still heavily e-mail, but that's changing with Lync and, to a much lesser extent, Yammer. Looking forward to a time when these alternate options improve the SNR on email so it's only the important stuff that makes it to the in box.

A lot of short conversations happen over Lync, and the screen sharing/audio features are great when the team is spread all over the country/globe. The audio capabilities leave a lot to be desired, however. IM ports were blocked as recently as a few years ago so this is a big advance.

Yammer has a lot of potential, but you need to filter out the "It's my first day" and "I like ice cream" comments. It works best to build communities of interest, and lets junior folks get involved in the information flow. Plus, it has the potential to really shorten feedback loops and keep FYI stuff off email. Here's hoping that M$ does a good job of integrating the functionality of Yammer into Outlook and SharePoint.

For the legacy options, I get about three phone calls a year on my office phone that aren't spam or a group broadcast. I'd really prefer if they just routed the land line right to email. We also have a fax machine somewhere for those odd times you need to file an affidavit or buy a house.

The only snail mail I ever get is trade pubs and brochures, and that makes me a heavy user. I dropped a pile of Christmas cards in the office mail for my junior staff and I was still getting the odd thank you email reply in June.

Toronto Hydro already does this in the downtown core - 6 km2 of coverage using utility poles:
http://www.onezone.ca/

As long as Amazon forces the sellers to honour the price, then I don't see a problem. Pure market forces will balance the risk/reward for dynamic prices - if one or two consumers get lucky, then that's the cost of doing business.

The biggest mistake that the exchanges made following the flash crash was to cancel the errant trades - if you fuck up the pricing, you need to deal with the consequences. Getting rid of downside risk removes half the equation and blocks any incentive to play smart.

This is a RIM problem, not an industry problem. RIM's sales are way down because their technology is outdated and they can't get their shit together. If it were an industry problem we'd be seeing reduced volumes and purchase prices across the board. By that measure Huawei's success is a more accurate harbinger of what's to come.

Can't help but think that RIM's current situation is a lot like what Apple faced with Copland back in the mid-90s. After several years of trying to build their own next-gen system they gave up and purchased NeXT, which we now know as OS X. After numerous OS delays and corporate near-death experiences they finally launched OS X Public Beta in 2000. Given that 90% of current Mac users never touched Classic, there is little shared memory for the bloated, buggy mess that was Mac OS 6-9.

RIM was in the same place two years ago, with a nasty software stack and no ecosystem. They responded by buying QNX. Even with the latest delays they are still going to from purchase to market faster than Apple did with OS X. Same fundamental problem, same solution, dramatically different outcomes.