+1

Still tempted to find one of those watches!

I'm wondering if this is a swatch stealth viral advertising campaign!?
Or just the ramblings of a mad man...

I'm just wondering when we'll start getting the pen/digitiser as well, the TOS version uses a Pen for input where the TNG version is button based, and possibly touch, though I cant remember seeing anyone using it that way in the show...

Though the "station", in TNG, are all 'touch screen', so I'd assume the PADD's are also capable...

But lets not forget the first non-fictional tablet was the IBM Thinkpad Slate, 1992...

Me, it's only when an update requires a reboot, so not even monthly these days. Touch-wood, but I haven't had a 'crash' in years!

I use Win7 on a velociraptor for my desktop, when waking from sleep mode the screens often take longer to 'wake up'.
A regular boot, is less than a minute.

It's a different issue with laptops though, using 'hibernate' mode, rather than 'sleep ' and the combination of lots of memory can still be slowish without an SSD.

The slowest boots and shutdown have got to be when using a 'remote desktop', i.e. syncing your desktop with a server over a network...

I call the death of needing to boot up!

I'll be playing the nintendo version rather than the zynga one; ya gota watch out for these Skinner Boxes!

But in all seriousness, there will be good and bad examples of gamification, the ones that are tied to "rewards programs" will probably be as numerous as the "entertainment based" title, and there will be people that take it to the point of neglect, it's human nature...

Imagine what's going to happen when "Augmented Reality Glasses" become available and where all playing games 24/7...

Perhaps we need to make games to make people addicted to being "more functional"...

If you haven't read the book, you should, it will "open your mind"...

The "Primer" is an awesome concept, and I'm sure we'll see something like that someday...

It's been a while since I read it, but isn't the main concept that "When a child can learn at their own pace, from a high-quality source, their potential can be maximised, regardless of socio-economic factors".

And that, "It wont be long before AI is teaching our children, and it will be smarter, more knowledgeable and more patient than the best human teacher", and that will create a device bigger divide between the generation than, say, the Internet has today...

It would only be Gamification if the desire to learn was fueled by the achievements, rather than the joy of understanding and as presented in the book, and the outcome of that 'knowledge is power'...

You've got to wonder why a body of governance that is responsible for advising parents as to the suitability of media for their children, think that they are entitled to prevent adults from enjoying media specificity created for an adult audience. Completely overstepping their authority if you ask me.

If you look at the list of modified titles and non-released games, dew to the lack of a +18 classification, none of the games are anywhere near justifying a Not Classifieds, so why prevent adults from playing these games?

Is it that they think parents will still but these games anyway?
Anyone who values the classification system will abide by it, and anyone else, well, it's not as if they don't have the right to buy it, and make that assessment for themselves, because at the end of the day, it's just an advisory...

While I acknowledged that the iphone was an evolution, it was as much deevolutionary as evolutionary, there where, and still are huge aspects to the platform(PocketPC) that still are not present in the Apple or Android equivalents, the only area that was at all impressive was the pretty interface, and that was a no brainer, if Microsoft didn't walk away from the PocketPC market, it would have come...

There where a few PocketPC device towards the end that had graphic chips, so it could do all the snazzy stuff we all expect today. That was the big change, and apple was right to wait for them to "make the push", it's just a shame that MS never released a Graphic and UI centric version of PocketPC, things might have been different.

You've got to ask why they did though, I wonder if MS has regained that market share with Phone 7 they enjoyed with PocketPC; Some wheeling and dealing you'd have to suspect...

And it's not that good(the UI), certainly nothing evolutionary about it, it's essentially the same interface as the PocketPC, but with tweening animation of the transitions...

The one thing Apple did to was advertise the bugger out of it! Now every pleb want a shiny apple device, it obviously make people "feel" good to have one, but that's just coz your mate has has one, and emperor Steve ordains it on your box every day!

But in all seriousness, I'm not saying the PocketPC was better than today's, devices, but for their time, they where much more impressive. And yes it was a cobbled together solution, a showcase of what could be done, and yes, I still had a regular mobile, but seriously, no one reacts to a iPhone like they did when they first saw the iPaq, its common place today, and everyone has one!

But back to my point, at the end of the day, if a product is really better, they shouldn't need to mess with their competitors...

Cant find a link, but the original IBM slate was out around then, and that was a fully fledged pc.

Of course all new ideas are built on the shoulders of old ideas, and there was a lot of precedence, you could say Gene Roddenberry inverted the concept...

While I agree with your point, I'm not sure whether the general public being interested in space is really the issue; there are always areas of the public that are deeply interested in the space program, from kids to scientists, but if TV rating are governing these projects, we're all doomed!
At the end of the day, all the cool and interesting things about space, are, at best 'the fat', and at worst just a guise for what really drives the space program...

The aspect of issue that I think merits most consideration is that the military has driven the space program from day one. All the infrastructure that allowed NASA to do what they do/did, is derived from things that really aren't cool; von Brawn knew what I'm talking about. And I'm not talking politics or political affiliations... We may never have gotten to space if he had been more concerned where they 'landed', ask anyone who was in London in the 40's.

But I digress, as far as Chinas new role, and the Space Shuttles retirement goes, it's a good thing, and a sign of progress. And anyway, don't forget, the cia has a bigger budget for space than nasa's entire budget, and has had for a long time; the US is not really 'loosing' capacity.

So, when you say "alternatives like warfare", when talking about space and the budgets required, it's got to be an issue of "Hot" or "Cold" warfare, rather than alternatives to.

But I do concede that the budgets for space are a pittance to the cost of what we see as war today; I heard that in the past two years, the US has spent more than the entire nasa budget since inception.

It is nice too see that the ISS has provided a platform for everyone to work together though, and who knows, maybe one day a scientific body might take control of these budgets, and we might get some real science done!!

What I find most amusing about this move by the a-word company, is that they are trying to take down the company that started this whole handheld revolution!

Back in 2000(yes 11 years ago!), I had(and still have) a Compaq iPaq, with a PCMCIA sleeve, containing a GSM card and a IBM Microdrive, it made calls, could play mp3s and video, and surf the web and email, it was incredible! I wasn't the only person in the world at the time with a similar set-up, I'm sure, but seriously, how many years later did the a-word company release their devices?

Todays devices are more compact, the battery life has been sorted and the screens are better too, but in terms of what could be done with them, even back then, it was a more capable, and less limited device; and guess who actually made it, that right HTC...

So, apple copies HTC's ideas(and a few people who could 'see' the potential of such a device), claims that they came up with it, try's to prevent the guys who came up with the ideas originally from selling their products, all while trying to create monopolies around every service that some hard working kid proves works...

What ever happened to free competition and regulators preventing monopolies, rather than helping them...

Land of the free, my arse!
How about, land of the lobbyist and advertising budget!

Ditch the crutch and learn HTML/CSS/Javascript.

Personally, I use Context among other... It's not the most complete and it could use a win 7 overall, but its got tabs, code hi-lighting and it's much more streamlined compared to notepad++.

And use Firebug... WYSIWYG in an editor is pointless when your delivery medium is a web browser, its not the same thing...

Me too; anyone who has lived in Sydney will know that "the Australian Funnel Web Spider" is often found in swimming pools, similar deal, they look like black marbles at the bottom of the pool. And yes they are deadly and yes they can bite under water! And to bust another myth, they can also climb stairs(carpeted). We has about 4 a year in the pool.

Also have to add: remember the VR command interface used at the human city, from the second matrix, that was cool too, in a productive way. ;)

Every time I add another monitor, I think I should have done it ages ago...

Currently I have 3x24" in portrait, but I'm considering integrating another into the desk(under the keyboardish), and two mini projectors for the walls(its a corner desk, so half a C.A.V.E.). And when the next gen of high-dpi and thin-bezel panels are out(cost effective), I'll upgrade the 24"s.

Also, if your talking productivity, also add a wacom, to your list; 1:1 mapping of your displays means no-more looking for the cursor, no picking up the mouse, and if you ever have to do graphics(as well as code), it's an invaluable tool.

The only thing that's really missing from my setup(i.e. not available yet), is a wireless tablet screen(with full hardware graphic acceleration). Like a Wacom Cintiq but wireless; ideally a 12-14UX wireless, with more rez.
I want to be able to take my desktop to meeting, the couch, etc...

And while on the subject, a HUD(I'll need glasses someday) is probable inevitable too!

This is cool news! When I first got deep into physics, I often considered the ideal of; "a hot air balloon floating(not) around an earth without an atmosphere", and "would the balloon be dragged around the plaint as it rotates(by gravity)?", now I feel satisfied that know the answer!

Which leads to the next n question:

If you took our solar system and placed it at the most significant Lagrange point between two galaxy's, would our understanding of physical constants change? ;) And also the intermediary step of Lagrange point between two stars too of course...

So my next fav. question is, "Do black-holes frame drag at a predictable rate(when compared to the Earth and Sun)?"

And, rinse and repeat the original experiment under those condition.
At the end of the day, an experiment is only as accurate as the instrument used to measure it; this steps it up a notch!