The average user doesn't want to become us. They want to get stuff done and not have to think about the underlying application or hardware or even HOW they are getting their tasks accomplished.

I have both lines of my cell phone account on the DNC list. Just because it's a cell phone doesn't mean you can't list your number on DNC.

The company's called rapiscan. I use the pun all the time when flying, guess it doesn't come across well in text.

I mean, there is this (emphasis mine):

But aside from that, and perhaps it's my unfamiliarity with the proposal, I don't see any indication that this is trying to end the practice of treating everyone like a criminal.

CTRL-L or Command-L on a mac. They aren't getting rid of the URL bar, they are simply hiding it by default. I'm going to assume that similar to the tabs on top thing in Firefox4, there will most likely be a configuration you can change to show it by default.

We're piloting putting OO.org on our thin clients in a computer lab we manage at SF State (California). The thin clients have four things on them, total: Firefox, Chrome, IE, and OO.org. Everything else can be used via remote desktop, but we rarely get anyone who needs anything other than a browser and open office.

http://www.google.com/newproducts/ has a list of all of the google products out there, and even lets you filter by area of interest or search.

San Francisco is a bit of a bubble, politically. There are things that happen here that would not fly anywhere else in the state.

The Wii has parental controls, and the way they handle multiplayer online stuff anyway, there is pretty much no way for people to contact other people using the Wii online.

This is actually starting to happen on my campus. Right now we have one set method of providing online courses through a learning management system (moodle) and a pilot of streaming the video and slides or providing downloadable audio podcasts of lectures. We are piloting another system this coming fall that should be more scalable.

The problem is a bit two-fold. My department has been tasked with managing and supporting all of these applications. We have a skeleton staff as it is, and with the budget cuts it's getting harder to justify the money to hire student assistants (even through financial aid). Right now I've been placed in charge of mapping out our help desk for these applications with three students and myself doing the support work for 1,700 faculty and way too many students (about 30,000? I don't remember the number). College departments are coming to us to put materials online because they cannot afford paper. They have no interest in actually progressing and moving into the 21st century, but are forced to digitize materials due to lack of funds. If it were up to some of these departments, we'd still be using chalk on slates.

The other part of the problem is actually maintaining the systems. We have three system administrators who have to balance time with supporting the servers running the applications and our internal office networks. These people, unfortunately, also get "borrowed" by whatever department on campus needs to supplement their IT staff (or lack thereof) when doing academically related projects. All of this with a shrinking budget and absurdly high expectations from the University.

All this talk and movement of materials online is great. It provides more access to students exactly in your situation that would prefer learning at his or her own pace and time. Our campus is a major commuter school and apparently 80% of our students work on top of full loads of classes, with something like 60% of those working full time. Being able to do course materials (for the most part) without coming on to campus is a big plus. However, people also need to realize that doing this also shifts the pain of funding books monetarily onto departments that are already stretched to capacity.

I think you need this