Where "massive" means half the size of Pakistan or Nigeria. How about "Medium sized country built on volcanoes has 10% geothermal power"? I'm guessing you wouldn't care ffor "Geothermal useless for 90% of volcanic island's energy needs".

That's right. Conservatives don't have some personal grudge against silicon. The big difference between republicans and democrats is that republicans tend to make policy decisions based on calculations while democrats base theirs on wishes. Democrats say "wouldn't it be great if ...". Republicans say "yeah that'd be great but here in reality the numbers just don't work."

See for example my own Slashdot posts regarding solar. I, a conservative, have pointed out that once you factor in the costs of batteries, etc., solar just doesn't make sense. Now that the cost for panels is half of what it was, solar makes more sense in more situations. Lead batteries that last three years before becoming expensive toxic waste are still a problem, so solar is still a long way from being good as the primary energy source for most people, but it now makes sense for some people.

T
The other thing conservatives have pointed out is this recurring pattern:
" Green" company is failing, unable to compete.
Green company donates $1 million to Obama.
Obama gives $100 million of OUR money to Green Inc.
Executives of Green take $20 million bonuses.
Green shuts down.

That's bribery and graft. Graft with a green label on it is still graft and it's unacceptable. It just so happens that this administration called their graft system "Clean Energy and Recovery".

> Also, their sample size of 2000 is extremely small compared to a population in a country. I don't believe it effectively works as they claim, but they put this news out just to get attention from public.

Oh certainly. This about the fourth Slashdot article on it and we've been doing it for years, so it's in no way new. Three years from now they'll announce their chickcaptcha idea, which we launched on 5,000 production sites 18 months ago.

We have data on millions of logins. I gave you two examples, then explained we have data on millions.

We ran this in "logging only" mode on a major network of web sites for two years before we started including it in the "accept or decline" decision, so we have millions of records in the database. Here's what those millions of records say:

For attempts that would have tripped this parameter, had it been switched active, those same attempts normally tripped other time-tested parameters. The other parameters have been tested for sixteen years on tens of thousands of sites - we know they work. The newer keyboard and mouse parameters give results that agree with the results from the known-good parameters.

Since you're asking about sample size, the sample size of our known good parameters is on the order of 2-3% of all web logins.

> Think of this not as a way of identifying an individual, but of screening out those who are obviously NOT that individual.
> This problem is _much_ easier to solve.

Absolutely. What we do with Strongbox, anyway, is start with "this person is claiming to be _____". Then we can start checking various parameters. Rather than list of our exact parameters and algorithm, I'll stick with the analogy:

Does the height match?
Does the weight match?
Does the age range match?
Does the race match?
Does the clothing style match (skater vs. biker vs banker)?
Does the hair length match?
Does the hair style (curly, straight, etc.) match?
Does the hair color match?
etc. or about 12-15 parameters.

Note that none of the parameters listed above is extremely selective. But let's say each parameter can reject 75% of imposters. Here's the result after each test:

Test 1: 25.00 % of imposters remain.
Test 2: 6.25 % of imposters remain.
Test 3: 1.563% of imposters remain.
Test 4: 0.391% of imposters remain.
Test 5: 0.098% of imposters remain.
Test 6: 0.024% of imposters remain.
Test 7: 0.006% of imposters remain.
Test 8: 0.001% of imposters remain.
Test 9: 0.0004% of imposters remain.
Test 10: 0.0001 % of imposters remain.
Test 11: 0.00002% of imposters remain.
Test 12: 0.00000% of imposters remain.

After 12 tests, 99.99999% of imposters have been caught by one of the broad tests, none of which are all that specific.

> Even though one could have similar typing style, I doubt that it is always the same on every keyboard.

Several numbers can be used to describe "typing style". Some of those numbers are remarkably consistent.
In other respects, you end up with two profiles, ie John on his iPad" and "John at his desk".
Those match up with other parameters like OS patch lvel, browser version, plugins, etc. You, on your ipad,
type in a certain way, on a certain version of the device, using a certain browser with certain plugins, etc.
Most likely, the identity thief is in a different country, using a different browser on a different patch level, and types differently.
So we can say "John should be either type at about interval 52 iPhone 2 in Idaho on AT&T, or type about 78 on a HP desktop connecting with Comcast, again in Idaho.

> If this authentication system can detect that, it is great; otherwise, it could be a big failure instead.

For Strongbox, this aspect is neither perfect nor a failure, but is one parameter that's considered. Very much like considering someone's height and weight when trying to recognize your spouse. You can see someone from far away and if the height and weight don't match, that's not your spourse. If the height matches, the weight matches, the skin tone matches, the clothing style matches, the hair length matches, the hair color matches, the hair style (curly, straight, etc.) matches, and she says "hey baby", that's probably your spouse.

If you hadn't tried it, you'd think that might be a problem. In fact, it's not.

I've been sick, I've been injured. My COO has been sick a lot. We log in to systems using Strongbox maybe four times per day.
Four times per day times about 400 days = 1600 logins for each of us. We haven't been locked out based on keyboard and mouse yet. Looking at millions of user logins, the keyboard and mouse indicators closely track the other indicators we use. By that, I mean if the real user scores 41-52-07 and they are in the US, when see a log in attempt with a score of 24-92-18 that attempt will come from China.

Different devices really aren't a problem. It's a lot like recognizing your family members while they are wearing different outfits. A twenty-something black lady, pregnant, with medium length braids sitting in my couch is probably my wife. Without my glasses my vision is 20/100 but I could almost always distinguish an intruder vs. my wife. Most likely, an intruder would look nothing at all like my wife.

  That's a good analogy for how we use this type of technology in Strongbox. We start with the fact that they claim to be John or whoever the account holder is. We don't have to identify who they are, just whether or not they look like John. Certain characteristics of his typing style are pretty consistent across different keyboards. We combine that with location, browser choice, etc. to see if the person claiming to be John probably is actually John or not.

"A new record" is false because while the unpublished raw score for the Tesla was 5.4, the same unpublished raw score for the Ford Mustang was 6.2.

Or maybe not. Since it's unpublished, I, you and Elon Must don't know if it's a record high or an A-.

Inverse square would apply if it were radiative (far field) and omnidirectional.
Inductively coupled coils that are also harmonically tuned get the best of both inductive and radiative fields.

>charging would have to be via beamed RF energy instead of magnetic induction.

At low frequencies or short distances they are almost the same thing. "Near field" is within about a wavelength or two, which at 30 Mhz is about 10 meters. So there's not really a hard cut off between induction and RF, more of a large gray area where you can say "this range generally behaves more like an inductor". There's no reason an "inductive" charger can't be tuned for charging devices within six to ten feet - anywhere in the room.

"If this were the case" - if what were the case? If our devices helped us out in those awkward moments?

It is a valuable skill to have. Not all of us have it. Some of us are more skilled in relational calculus. A moment ago, a coworker stopped by my office. We have apparently worked together via email, but never met in person. I had NO idea what we worked on. When she said "thanks for all your help on that" I had no idea what she was talking about. An onscreen reminder of our last email or two would have been welcome.

I saw the sarcastic GP of your post as its parent.

Some commenters seem to be missing the important point that it presents SUGGESTIONS - it doesn't send an automated reply as if it were from you.

The other day I ran into an acquaintance a I hadn't seen in a while. I had not kept in touch, and I don't remember what's going on in other people's lives, anyway, so I had no idea what to say. (Ie "sorry to hear about your mom" or "how do you like the new job?"). Had I heard any news about him and his family lately?

I remarked to my wife that it would be cool if I had something like Google glass with an app that would automatically (and quickly) pull up his last three Facebook posts to give me a clue. Not INSTEAD of genuine human interaction, but to help jump-start a conversation.

Might they move a few hundred meters across city lines to save $4 million X 20 years = $80 million. Yes!

This is very visible where I live, in Bryan / College Station, Texas. A large portion of both cities is within a mile of the border between them. Driving through the area, it's obvious which city has traditionally been friendly to businesses and which hasn't. The College Station side has new towers being built a couple hundred feet from the empty, decaying buildings in Bryan. A few years ago Bryan figured it out and is now attracting new investment. The downtown Bryan area has switched from hookers and gangs to restaurants and boutiques, but most of the city is still suffering from the fact that businesses preferred College Station for so many years.