This would probably be a good place to start.

Actually, there's another product that's even better than Vlingo in my opinion. Voice Actions by Pannous blew Vlingo out of the water on my wife's iPhone 4. She, like a lot of folks, wanted an iPhone 4s, and yes, she mostly wanted it for Siri. Fortunately (in my opinion) the 4S phones were on back order the day she went to get hers, and she didn't feel like waiting so she got the iPhone 4 rather than spend the extra money for the 4s basically just so she could get 1 app.

At first we tried Vlingo, and it was pretty good, but texting by voice was hit or miss especially if there was ANY kind of background noise. We tinkered with the settings several times, but could quite get it right. We tried a few different applications before we gave Voice Actions a try. My wife was pretty skeptical at this point, and had her mind made up that the only way she was going to get the results she wanted was by getting Siri, and was all but convinced that she was going to have to get an iPhone 4S. Well, she was a quick convert once we installed this app. The original free version had a limit of about 500 phrases (or something like that) that it would translate, then you'd have to un-install it and and re-install it, which was a bit of a pain in the ass, but that's since been fixed. There is apparently a paid version that's even better than the free version, but I think my wife is still using the free version (as far as I know anyway).

Here is a YouTube clip of Voice Actions in action if you want to check it out.

While I completely agree that both Yes and Rush should absolutely be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I think that Kiss should be in as well. There is no comparing Kiss with either Rush or Yes in terms of musicianship or songwriting to be sure. But, in terms of showmanship you do have to acknowledge Kiss. I'm not saying they're for everyone, and yes they were over the top but you have to admit that at the time, they were an absolute phenomenon. In the late 70's, you simply couldn't escape Kiss, they were everywhere, and I think that to try to ignore the fact that a rock band from New York City was able to promote themselves into this all consuming cultural force (for better or for worse) is crazy.

In some ways, Kiss really set the bar for bands to really dial up live shows to levels they really hadn't been before. No one had done pyrotechnics like that before, not on that scale. I'm not saying that they invented using flame pots on stage, or wearing make-up, but that they really took some of those theatrics, and raised the bar on creating the "rock star' persona and then inflating it to stratospheric levels. It was an utter exaggeration of every aspect of the characters they had invented.

No, I'm not a die-hard Kiss fan. Yes, I do own a few albums. I was born early enough in the 70's to be just at that perfect age to think that Kiss were almost like superhero's. I dressed up as Gene Simmons for Halloween in the 2nd grade, and the nuns at my Catholic school were friggin' terrified. I think Gene is an arrogant asshat just like everyone else. But, I still have to acknowledge that they certainly had an impact on rock music as an industry. I also think that while some folks like to pretend that they don't know a single Kiss song, get them in a bar and put a few beers in them, and see if they don't sing along to a few bars of "Cold Gin", "Rock and Roll All Night", "Calling Dr. Love", "Heaven's On Fire", "Detroit Rock City", or "Beth".

"The journey of 1,000 miles begins with the first step", Lao-Tzu quote

A strong second on the Pro Audio end here. I know this is a well worn topic that we've all re-hashed several times (much like the often discussed Photoshop vs Gimp topic), but there just isn't anything available on Linux that is going to touch what's available in the Pro Audio world for serious musicians and composers. As far as trying to get Sonar Producer X1 to run under WINE, there's just no way anyone can deal with the performance hit, I don't care what kind of system you're running, or how fast your Audio Interface is. Once you've got some major virtual instruments loaded, and you're making your system really work, there's just no way any kind of virtual machine is going to be able to work for you. Not trying to start another flame war, but I have to say this is definitely one of the reasons that I keep one of my computers on Windows 7 64 Bit.

But, I will say that my other computer is my own hand built server running Debian, with a nice little installation of Ampache which I can recommend highly if anyone wants to stream their own MP3's to themselves at work or to share with their friends/family.

I'm not sure you're following me. You're saying "even the supervisor/inspectors/watchers fall into the 'expected cost' column" as if a contingent of dedicated, on-site Data Center engineers is no big deal. However, the whole boast of this ideology is that they're promoting the idea of NO ONE being in the Data Center, and I'm countering that I do not believe it's do-able on a long enough timeline. I think that there are some aspects that can be done remotely, and I think that there are some services that can be made redundant through the network. I think the model of making the Data Centers themselves redundant to one another makes sense as Google does in their operational model, but even in those cases, I do not think that the idea of operating a Data Center with literally no on-site engineers is a wise idea.

I agree with you that a properly built and maintained DC should be pretty fault tolerant, and in all likelihood, there probably won't be any major issues. But, we all know you have to plan for all those nice little curve balls that just have a way of coming at you. No one expects that one-in-a-million harmonic on the B phase of your incoming Utility feed that takes out your TVSS, which blows the capacitor bank inside it which (unbeknownst to you at the time) was recently changed to a different manufacturer's type which is a MOV type which when presented with just such a situation tends to fail phase-to-phase as opposed to failing open which creates a nasty little arc flash event spraying all kinds of molten copper around the inside of switchgear cubicles, or some other bizarre situation. The point is, weird stuff happens, and when it does, brother you better have people in the building who know what the hell they're doing, and even more importantly, people who know what not to do.

Even if you want to write off those types of situations as the "one in a million" types, you still can't just casually throw in the engineers into the model as if that's insignificant. The whole crux of this idea that the DC of the future is going to be truly un-manned is ridiculous. How in the world can you maintain a Data Center and keep it truly redundant without onsite staff? Anyone who thinks that you can just set up contracts with Liebert, GE and Caterpillar and call it a day either needs some counseling, or they've never tried to manage a DC before. I'm not saying you can't operate a DC like this, you can....for a while. You can also go out and buy a new car, and never do any maintenance on it, and just keep driving it, and everything will be fine.....for a while. (sorry, had to throw in the mandatory car reference there for good measure)

You know, I've seen this idea floated time and time again, and I still have to say that I think this is all smoke and mirrors, at least from an infrastructure perspective. My opinion is that you will never see an industry-wide move toward Data Centers without onsite staffing simply because the risk is far too great. Even in the example you cite above, there is huge liability and potential for disaster. Biometric security devices can fail or be defeated, and all I can say about infrared cameras, microphones, or any other monitoring systems is that while they are an important component to a successful operation, they're not going to do you a whole lot of good if you don't have a skilled engineering presence in the building who is capable of responding quickly when needed. If you have a chiller pipe burst with no one in the building, all you're going to have is some great infrared footage, and perhaps some nice audio of a friggin' electrical disaster while your mechanical contractor races to roll trucks to the site.

Disasters aside, a properly maintained, fully redundant site has so much preventive and predictive maintenance that has to take place in a year, you're going to need an onsite staff to coordinate and facilitate those operations. Even if you have service contracts set up for various systems (i.e. Chillers, UPS, Generators, ATS, STS, etc), you're still going to need an in-house staff to migrate loads as needed to allow various components to be de-energized for service/testing. Someone has to be there to allow vendors access to various areas of the DC and to ensure that everyone is doing what they're saying that they're doing. That is, someone needs to be there to ensure that someone isn't just "pencil whipping" the PM visits on your CRACs, or that someone actually went around and tested ALL of your smoke detector heads above and below the raised floor.....you know, someone to watch the watcher.

I guess my feeling is, while it's tempting for companies to get all excited and get themselves convinced that they're going to save tons of money by running their DCs with no onsite staff, an it just sounds so futuristic and science fiction-ey to imagine a facility being run by remote control, but if you really think about the potential for disaster and the liability, I don't think it's worth it. I think that if anything, someone will try it and will push the issue for long enough, and someone will have a big enough issue that has a big enough impact that makes a big enough story that we can all read about and say "shit, I'm glad that wasn't me", and suddenly, these non-manned DCs will be a thing of the past. I admit, these are just my opinions, and this being Slashdot, you are all of course welcome to disagree to your hearts' content.

You're close, they're in Brazil....that's the big market that EDS was focusing on when HP took over. In terms of emerging IT markets, that's the place to watch. I'd pay attention to Chile too.

Thank you for this comment. It prompted me to click on the 'homepage' link, and now I can finally answer the burning question that's been haunting me for the last few years:

"What ever happened to the guitar player from Faith No More?"

This sounds like playing a 12" vinyl album at 33 1/3 when there's all kinds of dust and scratches on the record. I guess I kind of hoped it would sound...well....interesting in some way.