This is a solved problem... look at how mobile phones do it. It'd be 100x easier on a desktop, since there's more space. Chrome is already doing this -- just add a search box. Easier than typing in a full url, right?

I think this is sort of the point -- people get notified when they're leaving the app. It's easy to follow links out of the app, because the platform for ALL apps is the web browser.

Again, solved problem.

Put your phone in your pillowcase before you go to sleep, that's what I do. The vibration (both sound and motion) travel through the pillow to your ear/face, while leaving your partner reasonably unmolested. For insurance, put together a ringtone with 4 or 5 seconds of silence at the beginning (so you can discreetly shut off alarm when you wake up) followed by something really annoying (in case you're really out cold), and set the phone to blaring.

you'll be all set! No, of course you won't get fired.

The infrared spectrum is generally broken up into 3 subcategories - shortwave, midwave, and longwave. If you look around a dark room with no windows using a SWIR camera/lens, you won't see anything, because most natural objects (people, walls, basically anything except lights and the cosmos) don't give off SWIR radiation. MWIR and LWIR, however, would still work because pretty much everything gives off radiation at these wavelengths (MWIR is the region of the spectrum which allows one to measure temperature). I suppose you could call this "pitch-black night vision," although I've never heard that anywhere in the IR optics industry.

FIRST is awesome. I was the main programmer/electronics man my junior and senior years of HS (2005 and 2006), it was more fun than any other club/team I did. The competitions are insane, you won't ever find more geeks in one place, heh. The atmosphere is very competitive, but at the same time there's a comraderie between participants and teams. For instance, I helped a team from a neighboring high school with their program, then went out and dismantled (seriously... we got disqualified) their robot a few rounds later.

I live in New Hampshire, where FIRST was founded, so Dean Kamen makes his token appearance/speech (in the same denim shirt) every year. The kids WORSHIP him - it is incredible. I was never particularly fond of him, especially after the segway flopped, but I have to say-- that failure is far overshadowed by the success of FIRST as far as I am concerned.