A quick google search for "Autonomous Audi TTS hardware" turned up these articles, offering various details on the hardware used:
http://sun.systemnews.com/articles/143/2/feature/22601
http://www.audiusanews.com/newsrelease.do;jsessionid=2CB13CF6B9E286A75E8E2B1663E63318?id=1589
http://www.topspeed.com/cars/audi/2010-autonomous-audi-tts-pikes-peak-ar92542.html

My original point was that, no matter how much we'd love to bash MS, there isn't a more viable OS to run on this device on the market today. Even Linux would have the same limitations from a GUI standpoint. I would prefer to see these devices shipped with Win7 (or Linux de jour) and eventually drive development of a touch based OS than have them not ship at all. I am intrigued and excited about the direction of the "iPad class" of hardware. I use my iPod touch for easy email and web access when the laptop is too bulky or a hassle to haul around the house. I am not a fan of the Apple approach, however. Anything that drives competition and the development of this class of device should be praised and noted.

Is there an OS that is better suited for this device? I am not aware of any OS developed for a touch computer interface that isn't a phone, save for the iOS.

Using the Kindle, iPad, or any other electronic device is not going be wildly accepted by the college crowd. I find it hard to imagine studying without being able to mark in the book, fold pages, constantly flip through entire sections, or any of the features that make physical books great. Not to mention resale of DRM is non-existent.

There is only one cable co in the area, and they don't run past the city limit. As for Sat links, the cost/benefit isn't effective.

Where I live, DSL is a new commodity. For a long while I was using my cell as an only means of internet connectivity. There are still many areas that have no DSL (or equal) available. I'm sure they are among a minority, however it is still an unfortunate situation.

Go buy a carabiner. Spend more than $10, preferably climbing grade. Cheap ones will break or the cheap coating will rub and stain your clothes.
Buy 3 key rings:
Ring 1: Outer Door, Inner Door, POBox, Main mode of transport and office
Ring 2: GF keys
Ring 3: Roof, Secondary modes of transport
Buy a key rack and keep ring 2 and 3 there. When you need them, clip them. The biner will make adding / removing sets of keys easy. You can clip it to your belt, pack, bike, etc. After a bit, you will get used to the weight and not having it will remind you to grab them. As the number of rings grows, you can tag / color code them for easy reference.

Wouldn't this still be vulnerable to man in the middle? I suppose you could manually update the DNS tables, but the ISP can still redirect your internal DNS record updates to their servers. IANADNSGuru, so correct me if I'm wrong.

My US ISP recently started doing this (windstream.com). This was done without any real notice and turned on by default. Granted, there is a link in the redirected search results to turn it off.

EverQuest? Anyone?

I can use Lipsum too! http://www.lipsum.com/

Seems like a toll system would work well here. No expensive tracking devices, no retrofitting, and it creates more jobs.
Sure, you wouldn't get to toll 100% of the traffic, just the major veins of traffic, but that should more than offset the losses. Seems to work in other states, why not here?

I used to be the sole person in an "IT department" for a small company (>15 computers). I was constantly bombarded each month with requests for justifying my time billed to the company. I eventually had enough of being looked at as a burden to the company rather than an asset. I began classifying the tasks I was responsible for and how much time I spent on each task over a 6 week period. (Tech support, web design, application development & maintenance, software support, pc repair, etc.) After researching the cost to outsource each of those tasks, I extrapolated that to cover a one year period. The cost of my yearly pay was well under the cost of having someone else come in to do those things. I ended up giving monthy reports on where my time was being allocated, but the overal view towards my position was changed.