While it does that, it should make Windows 8 the first release that breaks with the past by moving all legacy technologies into a sandbox a la what OS X originally did.

Doing so would likely break many of the duct-tape and hot-glue bodge-jobs holding together a slew of mission-critical legacy applications. For example, I've worked at four very big financial institutions and interacted on a daily basis with various systems of a dozen others. And I've noticed something they all have in common. Their "legacy" systems were built decades ago and connected to via an assortment of terminal emulators such as Attachmate, Hummingbird, and others I only dimly remember by their gaudy splash-screens. In fact, the workstation image contains several different terminal emulators as some systems only work properly with a specific version or brand. Some even have funny little wrapper-programs that run on top of these terminal emulators.

And then there are some other applications developed in-house or by a hired third party that present a whole new interface, connect to different databases, yet still interact with the terminal emulators in unclear and often bizarre ways.

And what web-apps there are only work properly in IE6. Maybe IE7 if they're lucky.

And then there are the Excel macros . . .

How would you sandbox these applications without breaking all the tenuous and shoddy linkages that hold the whole house of cards together?

It's easy to say "screw 'em, shoulda coded right in the first place" but a major financial institution isn't going to roll out a new operating system that forces them to redevelop large swaths of their legacy application base without a damn good reason. These same banks have been "working on" migrating away from legacy apps for the better part of two decades and all they have to show for it are a couple of web apps and thin graphical veneers shoving commands through a terminal emulator and ridiculous piles of shockingly retarded Excel macros. They'd just as soon stick with what they have.

You lose power steering and anti-lock brakes, which can still make things considerably more dangerous and control of the car more difficult. But that's not really the main issue. The main issue is it's a silly analogy.

^Steven Colbert, that is.

And that's a key difference between science and faith. To steal a little from Steven, scientists shouldn't "believe the same thing on Wednesday that they believed on Monday, regardless of what happened on Tuesday." That's not how science works.
If a researcher discovers something surprising, the next steps are confirming their results and measurements were accurate and are repeatable. Then experiments can be devised to test why this might be so.
Nobody should do much believing in science. String Theory, Dark Matter and Dark Energy aren't things to be believed. They're just potential and incomplete explanations for what might be going on. The next step is trying to devise experiments to detect these things and/or test the implications.

Between Apple, Google, RIM & HP/Palm all using WebKit, it looks poised to become the dominant mobile browser engine. If that happens, I think MS may swallow their pride and follow suit. Why keep spending money on their own engine just to play catch-up? It could be a wise business decision in the near future.

I never thought so. I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a glass of mineral water and a glass of distilled in a blind taste test. If you're curious, go buy a jug at your local supermarket. They're only $0.79 / gallon (sometimes less) around here.

While they're not manufactured in the USA, EU, or Japan; another "not Chinese" company is HTC--maker of many widely available Android and WinMo phones. Their headquarters and manufacturing facilities are in Taiwan.

Not much, really. P != NP was the widely expected answer, it was just an unproven assumption. The fields that are affected have been proceeding as if P != NP was correct.

Check out Blindsight by Peter Watts. Aliens come to snuff us out because we essentially wasted their time with our endless radio chatter.

Internals are a bit disappointing. Why are they only putting a 624Mhz processor in their new flagship device? HTC, Apple, Moto & Samsung are all using 1ghz ARM variants in their flagship phones--with higher speeds and dual core phones on the near horizon.

I'm a total Android fanboy, mind you, but I'd like to see one or two of the "late comers" actually make a splash. Symbian and Palm are basically dead, HP might revive WebOS, but I doubt they'll pull it off. However, we still have WP7, BB6 and MeeGo on the horizon. Competition is good. I'm hoping history doesn't repeat itself like it did in the PC wars and we end up with a duopoly again. I think it's still early enough in the game that new entrants can still get a good share of business. Not to mention, people are much more fickle with their phones than their computers. During the PC wars, computers were serious investments that people expected to last several years. Phones are much more "disposable" and people replace them every year or two with something new and shiny. Hopefully that's enough to keep the market competitive and innovative.

Even if the tech gets to a point where Joe-Bob can buy a 5,000 watt solar array at Wal-Mart for $999, he won't be able to install it permanently in a safe manner, because you're still dealing with 5,000 watts. It becomes nothing more than a fuel-less generator. Mounting it permanently on his roof, tying it in to his household wiring and setting up a grid-tie net-metering arrangement will still take the work of professionals.

Of course, we may someday get to a point where the process is simplified and routine enough that installation costs might approach something like putting in a tankless water heater, gas lines or satellite dish.

Sorry, $33,500 as quoted by Chevy.

After the subsidy, the Chevy Volt is something like $35,000. That's within reach of the upper middle class at least. And it's quite affordable if leased ($350/mo).

(Source)

I don't know about the fakester accounts, I doubt it upset that many people. The damage was already done by their inability to scale up. That's ultimately what did Friendster in. Well, that and the fact that MySpace had plenty of iron on hand to handle the deluge of Friendster refugees.