Here's a picture of the drone!

Just because there is something worse in comparison doesn't mean that what they're doing isn't still bad.

Instead of settling for the lesser of two evils, we should be condemning ALL evils.

Think of what powerful and expensive hardware will be required to run a monitor set at native resolution with pixels in this scale.

A lot of us DO want to jump out, but they've put a lid on the pot.

While the video looks impressive at first, since this is an unusual way of displaying video and tracking user input, I didn't see them doing anything that you couldn't do with a touchscreen.

The video shows a lot of sliding and manipulating images (rotating, zooming, pinching, etc) but I noticed that they were only controlling the X and Y axes. I kept hoping that they would rotate something in the Z axis or perhaps place a 3D object behind another, but it was just one of the typical "sort through a bunch of photos" demos that we've seen many times before.

I know that this isn't the final version, but I don't see how something like this would be useful until it can actually track and utilize that third dimension. Right now it looks flashy and may lead to a true 3D display, but this seems to be a 2D screen suspended in mist with motion tracking. It certainly isn't going to be portable like a tablet, and the wavering display isn't going to be as good as a proper screen. The 200ms of input lag is rather unimpressive as well.

I would absolutely love to have a good 3D display with true 3D motion tracking, even if it led to me having gorilla arms. We've come a long way, but we've still got a long way to go as well.

Ron Paul Comes Out Against SOPA; Joins Other Elected Officials Saying No To The Great Firewall Of America

It's good to know that some people in government are unhappy with this. I didn't know Paul's stance on internet issues before, but now I know that he's against crap like this.

Of course something nifty is coming out! I hear that the upcoming Osborne system is going to be pretty good! I've already cancelled my order for their existing computer...

It doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere in the article, but does anyone know which "Open Source software" was removed? They claim that the software sped up infringing downloads, so I wondered if it was a file sharing program or download accelerator or something along those lines. This company would happily claim that the entire internet in general is bad because it helps people download infringing content.

If this were merely a test, it would be done in the early morning when most people are asleep, so that it doesn't disrupt programming schedules.

I believe that the fact that it's being done when people are likely to be watching means that this is not just a test but a drill. Expect more "tests" like we have with the existing emergency alert systems.

What bothers me is that the government seems to have a way to cut off most television broadcasts if it chooses. They may start with emergencies, but technically they could use it to provide "important announcements" of a non-emergency nature. For example, they might also have an "alert" during a political debate, cutting off the broadcast when a candidate unfavorable to those in power starts to speak. With this system, at least we know why the revolution will not be televised.

In all seriousness, I don't truly believe that the above WILL happen, but I wouldn't put it past the US government. If you give someone a shiny new toy that gives them more control then they will want to play with it.

I've used Windows Speech Recognition as well, but that isn't quite what I was thinking of. You still can't ask it questions and have it give you meaningful answers, and you can't tell it to remind you call someone back tomorrow at noon or anything like that.

Hopefully the interest in Siri and similar things will create more interest in speech recognition in general, and then the programs and services will start to appear elsewhere.

Since this speech recognition and processing is available on phones (with processing done in the cloud if I recall correctly), is there anything similar for desktops? I know there are speech recognition programs, but the ones I've seen don't answer questions in a similar manner to Siri, nor do they go out and search the web for the local weather or whatever.

Why limit this to phones? I have a desktop with a good microphone. I want to run an app where I can speak in natural language and get results in text\voice or perform actions such as setting reminders. If the processing is done remotely, I can assume that it's harder to tie that in with desktop applications than with proprietary phone apps, but I still don't see why it can't be done on some level.

I've seen Google Voice search, but that only works for Google searches, on Google's page, and it requires Chrome. If you ask it a question, it's just going to bring up a list of search results. Obviously that's pretty limited. I've also seen programs like Dragon NaturallySpeaking, but that seems to be mainly for dictation and program control, and it doesn't go online to fetch information. It certainly doesn't provide answers to questions that it's asked.

So what's currently out there or being developed for the desktop? The mobile world seems to be getting all the cool toys lately. I know that we can use keyboards for data input much more easily on a desktop system, but that shouldn't be any reason not to have alternatives.

If a company came out with a speech program\service that was able to connect local programs with the web using something other than a phone, I'd happily pay for the product.

Thanks! I haven't installed it yet, but this looks just like what I wanted. I'm glad that I'm not the only one annoyed by this "feature" in 7.

THIS. This is one of the most irritating things I've found with Win7, despite it being quite good in other ways. Does anyone know if there's a secret registry setting, 3rd party program, or ANY other way to get back that "floor-to-ceiling" look of the Start menu instead of that annoying scrollbar? Not only does the current version take longer to search through, but it makes it more difficult and time-consuming to drag and drop shortcuts into there.