People misuse MS-Word to create monstrosities of crap that cannot be edited.Companies use its bizaro features to make unalterable files and forms that defy logic.However, it can also be used to create actual documents using styles and formatting that lets people get work done. Google Docs is a poor substitute (I have a Chromebook and tried). None of the office tools I've seen are perfect and none ever will be.
I' like to see tools that use descriptive formatting as SGML intended, but every application of SGML since its introduction has been made by document professionals that are worse than Word. XML sucks.
Back in my college days 1969+, we had Arthur C Clark as a featured speaker one year for the Science Fiction series. Yes it was a long time ago when he did such things.
One of his comments at a time when oil costs were rising, OPEC was rising, and the idea of global warming was just being introduced...
He mentioned that then new research suggested that oil could be used to make proteins and therefore it was a possible food or meat substitute. Hence he suggested we should be eating oil and not burning it. That is all I remember form his talk. So, now we are going to eat bugs. Maybe we fry them in petroleum?
That is all I remember from the speech. Leonard Nimoy also spoke one year and told us how he created the Vulcan greeting hand gesture. Another event featured Gene Roddenberry who told us why he hated Tucson, Az and had bad guys come from it in a Star Trek episode. Good memories all. Fast forward 40+ years and they still make Star Trek movies, Star Trek is on MeTV, and Leonard Nimoy is on Fringe. Some how it all fits together.
Many years ago there was a standard in development called Open Document Architecture (ODA - ISO 8613) which defined a compound document standard which never became mainstream. Adobe's PDF was a proprietary product which became a mainstream standard encompassing content and presentation. The features described for a PDF are things some users will find a benefit. Good. What is upsetting is that these features are opaque. I don't know if everything dreamed of for ODA is in PDF, but PDF has solved many exchange problems with documents.
SGML (ISO 8879) offered a transparent document architecture which has been fragmented into HTML, XML, and its derivatives. A good set of SGML like tools should accomplish all of what is buried in a PDF but with transparency. We often confuse products, tools, standards,and technology and use the wrong product's technology as a tool. For example, I been given Microsoft Word DOCX files which would not work properly in Open Office and which could have been delivered as a PDF form or a simple DOC file.
There is nothing wrong with making the PDF file so powerful and providing simple tools (the reader) for people to open them. To me, the argument is over transparency. I may want to know what is inside a document that is being hidden from me. That is a matter of trust. The issue being addressed is trust and can we trust the PDF.
This looks like an application specific front end (with compass) like APRS works for ham radio.
See aprs.fi and enter the call sign of a ham radio equipped with a GPS (like the Yaesu VX-8R).
It just opens the door to anyone and maybe adds a friends list.
Faxes and modems can work reliably over VOIP if the on ramp uses V150.1 Modem Over IP. I am familiar with an application that depends on this and it works quite well with our modem equipped devices.
Cisco has a gateway with V150.1 and it works well.
I do not expect this to be widely implemented until people demand it once they know it can work.
I have helped develop a VOIP phone and I always considered them a dumb idea for all but big installations for government and business. Made no sense for home users. But...
I just switched to VOIP this month after wondering for years why I am paying both land line and broadband. So, I cut out Verizon. The cost savings are marginal. Am not using FIOS or Verizon for broadband.
VOIP quality and reliability are maybe just ahead of that for the cell phone. So we do pay as much as the market will bear for lessor, but more convenient service. All I got for the switch is more phone features that would otherwise be priced a la carte by the phone company. What you used to get with POTS was high reliability, which will be and is being eroded over time as companies like Verizon push people to FIOS and provide no support to land line maintenance. The street side termination box for Verizon is often closed (by their people) with wires dangling outside of it. It always amazed me that my phone would still ring.
The security of the POTS line is history. Everyone is on their own.
Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. -- Steinbach