Weapons can have all of the safety features in the world, but the ultimate safety feature will always be the person holding the weapon. If the person in question takes a weapon, loads a round, points it at someone, takes aim, and pulls the trigger none of these measures will matter.

No one talks about suing GM because a distracted driver causes a 10 car pile up. No one wants to sue Ford if they fail to get the oil changed. They can, but they will never find a judge willing to take that case. In these cases, we make the car owner not the company, responsible.

Am I calling for weapons bans? No. If the safety features prevent accidental shootings, good. Limited magaines -- infeffective. Ever see "The Outlaw Josey Wales?" Clint Eastwood's character had multiple revolvers and plenty of firepower. As assault weapons ban? No. CnC milling machines and 3D printers have never been cheaper. If you can buy the steel, you can make the weapon. Heck you can invent your own designs.

Plus banning something for the good of society never works. Alcohol in the 30s and narcotics in the 60s both created enormous criminal empires with the resources of a small country. In the case of narcotics, they have threatened the governments of Columbia and Mexico. Heck diamonds destroyed major parts of Africa and they are legal AND highly regulated. People were enslaved just to mine diamonds so First World people could look pretty and thugs could make war.

Oddly enough, that's probably what "Made in the USA" means.

What if moral machines are built, along the Three Laws and one invents a "Zero" rule overriding the others allowing these machines to decide what is best for humanity? What if these machines decide that mobility and independent thought are the most dangerous things humans may possess?

What if they don't make Three Law moral machines, and your car decides you're a jerk for slamming the door every morning?

Age has its value, but yeah some fields and companies value youth over all else. These companies tend to change over time as the founders age or they burn out. Does Elon Musk hire a bunch of fresh out of school engeineers to build his rockets or would he hire a mix of ages and talent? What about Google? Has the average age gone past 25 yet? If it hasn't, it will. If you find yourself past the golden age in an industry, look towards new skills and new avenues. Become the leader who gets those hyper cafinated sponge bobs to gell and produce.

Good and valid points. Let's hope Steam is successful as a linux platform and M$ doesn't manage force Linux off of the desktop/laptop.

I want gaming on Linux to work, not be releated to failure because a few pundits get all twisted up over the license. We have not-free drivers and free-as-in-beer software. Even the GPL license has fallen off in popularity over BSD and Apahce licenses. If Valve makes gaming on Linux work AND brings hadrware vendors into the Linux fold, it will be worth it. Free software has its place. Free tools made Linux possible. Free tools enabled Apple's app explosion. If it works, few will care or look at the end user agreement unless it hinders product use.

Bring it on Valve! More power to ya!

Read up on climate change. Even the detractors will admit, climate changes and has changed throughout history. I'm not fool enough to think the swapping light bulbs, buying a hybrid, and paying carbon taxes will halt all climate change or even reverse the current trend. But it will and is cutting our dependence on imported energy. I'll even take a page from the Keanu Reves movie The Day the Earth Stood Still. Humanity only evolves when we stand on the precipice. I'm confident that humanity will move when threatened. Europe evolved over thousands of years of war to become the EU. Do they still have long and deep seated hatreds? Yes. Yugoslavia anyone? But the idea of another war on conquest is unthinable. Plus they have the United States and the UK to handle the things they'd rather not handle.

So like recycling, green tech will and is come of age. It won't be due to government action, taxation, or some grand crusade. It will happen because those that figure out how to make money with green tech will also make green cheap. Today, most alluminum comes from recycling not boxite. That happened because junk yard owners bought up money loosing recycling businesses and made it profitable. The same will happen with rare earth metals, solar, nuclear, led bulbs, batteries, battery charging, and a host of other products that have yet to be invented. So if you want to save the world, don't look to the Al Gores who preach the nanny state and salvation through taxation and regulation. Buy prodcuts that are actually green, not those that simply claim greeness. Waste less. Learn to eat off a whole chicken for a few days by cooking and making leftovers. When you buy durable goods, buy quality. Something you won't want to replace next year. Care for the things you purchase. A well maintained car driven once per day in a long errand and appointment running loop releases less carbon than a $50K hybrid driven on a dozen short trips, plus you have more time for yourself and less of it on the road.

Oprah Winfrey is an evagelist for many things. Women, African Americans, etc. But techno-punditry is not one of them. Like most consumers, she buys an iPad or the Surface base on an emotional connection to the product. Provided using it isn't painful. An Italian super car may be made of carbon fiber this and titanium that, but driving one to the store? Painful.

Read the post. Oprah isn't gushing over Microsoft. She's gushing over the Surface tablet, a Microsoft prodcut. Which I have to admit looks pretty cool, even if the interface isn't as smooth as I'd perfer. "Charms" indeed.

Woz is right. Again. Apple is more worried about marketshare, hence the patent lawsuits. The old Apple would crank out a new iPhone so superior to the Samsung Galaxy III, it would be pulled from the shelves in disgrace. Apple's "desktops" are mere suped up laptops with a big screen, sans battery. Their workstation product is years out of date, and the base of creative people will (or have) moved on. Jobs' useless fight with Adobe didn't help matters. The botched Final Cut Pro release didn't help either. Granted, Windows 8 presents a huge departure in terms of interface and software compatability but it's available in all sorts of platforms. Heck Surface/Windows RT run on ARM. ARM!

Apple's recent OS releases are more tiny steps. Nothing that greatly enhances usability or packs a "wow" factor. The iPhone 5 has 4G, which most iPhone 4 and 4s users thought they already had thanks to some cleaver AT&T marketing.

Face it. We have slick user interfaces. We have app stores. We have baked in search. We have free email. We have file sharing and sync. We have cross platform browsers and (some) cross platform apps with syncing preferences. We have clamshell laptops. We have smartphones with large screens and larger non-cellular call making tablets. Most don't care about mobile data on tablets. What's left? A shiny(er) interface and a click on membrane keyboard? Sigh.

The big thing for M$ is the wider adtoption of touch. Something which Apple has not included in the Air or in the iMac. Windows 8 will run on hardware that puts all of Apple's hardware to shame. Even if a lot of these users carry iPhones. They want to render video and blast CGI monsters with ever increasing speed and realism. Something you have to watch and wait for on Apple. Something you can achieve on Windows with a video card swap. So in spite of Steam coming to OSX, it isn't the cash machine it is on Windows. Unless the ARM-based Apple future rumors are true (and the results are 'Think Different' awe inspiring), I see Apple becoming a consumer electronics vendor. Like GE, Samsung, and Audiovox. Only with a 80s Sharper Image type of sheen.

Drivers, installed base, drivers, familiar windows interface, drivers, most users can barely power their machine on much less install linux, drivers, forget installing linux software...see comment before the last comment, drivers, lack of vendor support, and drivers.

Oh did I mention drivers?