came here to say the same thing. A cheap android phone is certainly a good way to go.

Rumor has it that the iphone 5 has a different dock connector......

My previous post suggests a 'modularised' interface into the car. Think of a card that slides into the car that has the Cars interface on one side, and the phone interface on the other. - these can be changed / upgrade to support technologies as they evolve.

The phone interface could be ANY of the following: iphone jack, andriod jack, windows phone jack, HDMI, Bluetooth X, Audio Jack, USB X, whatever - you chose when you buy the car and can purchase as aftermarket accessories.

The car side interfaces the car's display, steering wheel buttons, speakers, microphone, power and (GPS) antenna, and perhaps controls for the seat, interior lights etc. (but not safety critical services.)

This is why the car should support *integration* with phones and not *duplicate* phones functionality. Connectivity should be in the most future-proof possible way. This could be mic and headphone jack, USB (for charging), & Bluetooth.

Let the phone do the hard work and provide a means of integrating the phone.

You might need to modularise the interface so it can be swapped out every few years as the 'standard' phone interfaces change.

Wow... i just read that article. The parallels are very very clear.

first ray trace...

now where is a decent link.

is that because you're waiting for the Judge to say "Show me on the doll where she touched you?"

Exactly. In other countries they refer to the 'sharing' as the illegal part. Here in NZ it appears to be the 'downloading'. Does that mean if I watch 'RayWilliamJohnson' on youtube he can have my internet cut off?

How am I to know whether the person who posted the video has the rights to post it, or not?

If they're talking about 'sharing' then it's certainly not very clear in their education campaign.

how about putting the effort into autonomous vehicles....

+1 insightful.

After watching the plinket reviews you referenced, I purged the 1-3 movies from my collection. I now realize just how bad they are.

  I still enjoy 4-6 though.

The Mr Hackett was destined to become a hacker...

....researchers have found that people named Dennis are more likely to become dentists. An article, “Why Susie Sells Seashells by the Seashore,” finds that in the U.S. population the names Jerry, Dennis, and Walter rank 39th, 40th, and 41st among male first names. But in the national directory of the American Dental Association there are close to twice as many Dennises (482) as Walters (252) and Jerrys (270). “Similarly, people whose names begin with ‘Geo’ (e.g., George, Geoffrey) are disproportionately likely to do research in the geosciences (e.g., geology).”

http://www.freakonomics.com/2009/04/24/yes-part-ii/

Here in New Zealand we don't really have Cable TV (except a couple of smaller areas). Sky TV (similar to DirecTV) has the whole Pay-TV thing sewn up.

However there is a free to air digital service called Freeview that broadcasts on satellite (PAL 576i) and terrestrial (1080i).

Sky has all the movie channels and all the sport as well as the standard Free-To-Air (FTA) channels, and Freeview has only the FTA channels with a couple of extra's. Sky costs about $100 a month and has only just added a DVR to their service (DVR's didn't really exist in NZ till a couple of years ago).

All the US web based services are blocked, so no HULU or Netflix, and no equivalent services. A couple of the networks have 'TV on demand', but their offerings are very limited. I can completely understand why people here in NZ torrent shows and movies. However a recent three strikes law has just been introduced....

My setup is a mythtv media centre with two satellite freeview tuners (to avoid program conflicts), and we find there are enough *good* shows to get us through the week. If I want to watch the latest Burn Notice, Chuck, or Doctor Who, I am resorted to either get them from iTunes (if they're even offered to our 'region'.) or 'find' them.

Oh yeah, about the internet connection. I pay $70 base rate just for the 6Mbps privilege (does include a $15 VOIP phone line), then $1 per GB of traffic on top of that. So if I use 30GB of traffic costs me $100 bucks. (~USD$70)

So if you haven't picked up on it yet, we're shafted down here. (So quit your whining).

If any of you work for Hulu or Netflix, please bring your catalog and come on down to open your store here....

I've seen pre-pay phones in the 'claw' game at the cinema.

Wait till someone registers $firstname$lastname.xxx .... of their least favorite politician. When they come along and say "hey you're domain squatting my name" you can make sure there is heaps of publicity about them wanting to register their .xxx domain.

this will have absolutely no unintended consequences and certainly wont be abused [/sarcasm]

sounds like a job for Watson - or at least a slightly modified version.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_(artificial_intelligence_software)

I guess they could re-use that hand which is currently used to press the buzzer to, say, feel your balls when you opt out of the x-ray.

just back-up during the 'visible' time. Does provide some limitations for an immediate restore, but better than driving to Austin to get the tapes......