There are several problems with it. To begin with, no one wants to pay to play on a server he doesn't know. On top of that, if this is meant for everybody providing payments towards the server, this won't work too well because microtransactions aren't there yet. PayPal, credit cards etc will eat up tons from the transactions. Unless, of course, they make xbox360/ps3 like "wallet" and you can only top it up with like 20 dollars minimum. I still don't see the point.

Why are you interested in some jedi stuff when you could be having sex and a real nice girlfriend?

Because I'm a huge asshole.

That's the same reason for why people always cry about changes in Facebook or Slashdot interface. They feel homeless.

"PHP, JavaScript, Python and Ruby".. not convincing. Even C# and .NET are better languages than those (it really is). And give me back C/C++ or Assembly any day. But those 'examples' are worst of all.

Yeah, that was supposed to be within 10 years. :-)

Why don't anyone give NASA money to develop and build space elevator or think about colonization.

Japan will have the worlds first fully capable space elevator in 2012. They are highly needed. Is US going to leave behind Japan in technology?

Anyone rarely does anything just for its sake. There's always some ultimate goals. As a become adult, programming became means of getting money and helping with business. When I was a kid, programming enabled me to make games and sandboxes that weren't otherwise available. I did some great things too.. but I never wanted to program "just for the sake of it". I wanted the results of that programming. Even if that meant a little fun sandbox game made by me.

It's not just computers, this is true for everything. Everyone does something for a reason. For me, programming was a way to create the games and sandboxes I dreamed of and enjoyed. I never really even finished anything, but I had my mind going around the AI and the general gameplay mechanics. Especially when I was waiting for bus or doing something other boring stuff. But, I was never really fascinated about computers or programming *per se*. I was interested at what those techniques could give me.

So rather than trying to educate programming, computer history or other boring stuff, try to tell what fun stuff you can do, or whatever he would be interested at. Everything else will come later, and the kids will either pick it up themselves or ask, if they want to.

Google funds Firefox (and other browsers, none the less) because it brings them revenue. Note that these are always revenue share contracts with Google and browser makers. Google cares about getting users because users bring them money. On top of paying revenue share to competing browsers, they are also paying shareware authors and OEM's to bundle Chrome with their apps and PC's. A quite adwarey and shady tactic.

99% percent of Google's revenue is derived from its advertising programs. Their main products are fully closed source and proprietary. They provide software as a service and cloud hosting, and that is what they're always going to do. It's what most slashdotters hate, but not when it's about Google.

Is it because they offer something for "free"? Their contributions to open source are minimal at best. In fact, their contributions towards open source hurt open source and web standards. Google is by far the only company still fighting against H.264 (the better product) because they have a competing product they would like to see more use for. They are so desperate to get into the social network spying game that they actually made it required to make Google+ profile when you're creating new Google account.

Put it other way, they will continue closing services that didn't turn into immediate profit. They will continue to buy out firms just to close them down the line. Sometimes they buy them because the idea might be good or for some business reason (like Google Earth, Android and YouTube), but many times they also buy out competitors because they would be a good competitor to Google and they don't want that to happen.

Remember that Google's "low, shitty guidelines and standards" advertising side arm is called DoubleClick, which certainly has a "funny" history.