Integrity? On the Internet?

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That's a technicality that is irrelevant. The parent post is correct-if they storm an embassy over something so trivial, then a whole lot of risk is now transferred over to diplomats trying to keep dangerous situations in other countries from blowing up. As soon as something goes awry, nations will have to pull their diplomatic personnel out instead of trying to work through the problem. Otherwise, they run the risk of seeing their people killed in embassy attacks.

We're not blaming the tools, we're blaming the system and the policies.

So enjoy your helicopter/private jet?

If we achieve full automation, there is no risk on the highway. Also, in what way could you possibly be achieving any "drastic" travel time reductions? With fully automated travel on the highway, significantly higher speeds would be achieved. So, again, what is the point of going airborne then?

I just can't see how the math works for this. With fully automated highways/cars, you could approach 100mph or more with safety. The average commute in the US (which is more than in Europe or most other parts of the world) is 16 miles. So, at 100mph on roadways, even allowing for streets where that would not be practical, we are still looking at about 10 minutes travel time. In a flying car, you would again be looking at similar speeds, though perhaps a little greater, while using about twice the fuel. Allowing for travel in a straight line, plus about a minute for combined ascent/descent, maybe you'd reduce that to 7 or 8 minutes. Cool, we've spent twice as much on fuel (not to mention an undoubtedly higher upfront vehicle cost) to save ourselves 30 minutes a week. If you can afford that, and truly feel that your time is worth that kind of money, then congrats for being in the extreme minority of the population, and why the fsck are you still working?

This is perfectly viable IF it is fully automated. But if we reach the point of full automation (and we're damn close to it thanks to Google), why bother with flying anyway? What is there to save? Oh sure, you could theoretically have a shorter distance, but the extra fuel you'd use up by flying instead of driving negates whatever you might have saved in the overwhelming majority of use cases.

Actually, you'd get caught simply because the transmitter you need to do this isn't small enough to hide.

If hacking Curiosity is all that is required for a ticket to Mars (one way or otherwise), the line of geeks scrambling to hack it will be a mile long.

So, still no intelligent life. Bummer.

In strictest terms, yes, those are discrete models. However, the ipad 2/iphone 3gs/4 are "last years" models. That's the difference - Apple is not actively developing multiple models at the same time the way that the other phone manufacturers do, such as Galaxy S, Galaxy Note, etc. Apple has one line of phone, one line of tablet (maybe two starting next month if the rumors are true, though).

It certainly makes sense to continue producing an older version of the phone/tablet to offer at a lower price if you can continue making a profit that way--no engineering has to be wasted on it. Unlike the duplication of effort that exists when you have multiple different phones and tablets being designed at the same time.

I think that MS/Sony/Nintendo are starting to recognize that 5-6 years is about the max they can push a console before sales begin to dry up dramatically. The PS2 was an anomaly, simply because it had a near-monopoly on the market for so long, meaning a huge number of exclusives. In the current generation, there aren't enough exclusives on any one console to hold people over. If the PS3/360 can drop to the impulse-buy level of $100-$150, it might bring a little life back into sales, but for right now, I think most people are either set with what they have, or would rather wait for the next generation.

What do you mean "when"? China is already engaged in massive cyber-espionage with us.

Marketing isn't just about how much money you throw at it - your ads have to actually be good. The WP7/Bing ads have been awful.

Not sure if you're being serious, but I'm fairly certain you can't just start/stop massive electrical plants like that. They're not designed for the stresses of it, and it's likely that you'd not see any significant fuel savings as a result.

640x800 seems low, but you're talking about a screen that is half the size (or less) of a modern cell phone - I suspect that, even being only an inch or two from your eye, you won't be making out individual pixels very easily.

If done right, a pair of AA batteries will last in a wireless keyboard/mouse for nearly a year, so it's not as dramatic an issue as you might think. I still can't see many offices using these by default, but no doubt consumers will like them.