IBM has/had key patents in this area for decades, and offered wireless office networking from ceiling-mounted LED lamps about 30 years ago. Some of those patents were apparently used in the first wireless PC keyboard--for the PCjr (aka "Peanut")--the second version of which was actually a very nice wireless keyboard. I'm assuming IBM's patents in this area are what kept other optical wireless keyboards and networking gear off the market. -bernieS

The brilliant phone phreak Joe Engressia (RIP) legally changed his name in NYC to Joybubbles (no last name, just Joybubbles.) So why can't Boomer Matthews change his name to Boomer the Dog? It's really important to him (no joke) as was Joe's strong desire to be Joybubbles. Who does this hurt? The judge who turned down Boomer's request own had a specious argument -- the name change would constitute a threat to public safety! "Consider the following example," Judge Folino wrote, "Petitioner witnesses a serious automobile accident and telephones for an emergency medical response. The dispatcher on the phone queries as to the caller's identity, and the caller responds, 'This is Boomer the Dog'. It is not a stretch to imagine the telephone dispatcher concluding that the call is a prank and refusing to send an emergency medical response." Of interest to Slashdot readers, Boomer is a brilliant radio engineer, and one of few people who is practiced in the dying art of the precision cutting and grinding of quartz crystals for use in electronic oscillators. He's also a great guy personally if you ever had the good fortune of knowing him. -bernieS

Um, our guys did *not* use an HP-48 calculator on Apollo-Soyuz, they used an HP-65 (w/mag card programmer!) The HP-48 wasn't introduced until 1990, a decade and a half later. -bernieS

I have an older CDMA handset that can be put into test mode by entering **DEBUG and Send, which then displays (among many other things) the nearest cellsite's Latitude and Longitude. It's not the exact handset location, location, but it is useful data. Google's HTC handset is GSM, not CDMA. Do GSM cellsites broadcast their location?

The Pennsylvania criminal statute on wiretapping provides an exception if the communications being recorded is of someone committing a felony. But that seems like a muddy exception. What if the DA decides not to prosecute the person you believed was committing a felony? Or if the recorded person is found not guilty or is let off for some other reason? It seems like you're on the hook then. What if two parties in PA surreptitiously record each other, each one successfully trying to get the other to admit they're doing felony wiretapping by recording the other? Do they both get off? -bernieS

Ahh...but my SYM-1 had way more class than your KIM-1. WUMPUS, anyone?