Slashdot Mirror

O Foleo, Foleo! wherefore art thou Foleo
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;

What happens is you pay them $129 and they install a new one. http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/15/macbook-air-battery-replacements-129-free-install/

Breaking news: replacement batteries are $129 with free install.

Not sure I'd trust one of those just now. No one is really talking about MTBF and I've heard that eventually they turn into a Read Only device.

Am I the only one who thinks they are researching this just to figure out the best spots to install
these babies.

Consoles are actually an excellent example of the fact that people who buy cheap systems will avoid paying for software unless they absolutely have to. If this wasn't the case, then they wouldn't have increasingly complex internal DRM systems, there wouldn't have been enough of a market for "mod chips" that bypass said DRM systems for them to exist, and the console manufacturers wouldn't have regarded those "mod chips" as enough of a threat to their licensing revenue to bother doing everything in their power to prevent them being manufactured, sold, or installed.

Here are some links which show (a) piracy flourishes when people can bypass a system's internal DRM, and (b) all three major console manufacturers take this threat very seriously indeed:

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/28984/Piracy-drive-threatens-Nintendo-DS
http://www.thetanooki.com/2007/11/26/r4-chip-costing-nintendo-millions-in-ds-software-sales/
http://www.playnoevil.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/1355-Nintendos-success-is-breeding-Piracy-Problems.html
http://www.gamersevolved.com/nintendo-ds-tries-to-put-stop-to-piracy.html
http://www.gamingbits.com/content/view/2884/2/
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/emergingtech/0,1000000183,39161307,00.htm
http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/05/sony-busts-down-mod-chip-retailer-with-9-mil-lawsuit/
http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2003/07/31/sony-wins-australian-mod-chip-case
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/4407.cfm
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/13847/532/
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/3401.cfm
http://www.news.com/2100-1040-962797.html
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=6042
http://www.geek.com/three-people-facing-charges-for-xbox-piracy/

There are countless other similar links that prove how reluctant people are to pay for software on any low-cost platform if they can find a way of not doing so.

Someone hasn't been paying attention

1) Something tells me it's far more likely that Toshiba is trying to find something to do with their extra parts. They manufacture it, too, since Sony sold them the fab. IBM is not a sole-source supplier for Sony.

2) Some yield loss, especially with a chip the size of Cell, is expected. No chip will ever yield 100% (it's not worth the engineering effort to get there). So to presume that the sale of a product like this indicates "problems" is a false assumption. Since it's statistically likely that the failures occur in an SPE (due to their size) and it seems like Cell has the ability to individually control which SPEs are active, this makes great sense, as an incremental sale of a product that would otherwise not be sold.

Just got mine, it's smaller than the OLPC, with a nice lightweight Linux OS. This is a great little machine with a QWERTY keyboard that is actually usable (typing this on it now) VGA out, 3 USB 2 ports, multi-card reader, full version of Firefox and OpenOffice, etc.

Endgadget's writeup gives a few more details. The plastic sheet you referred to does in fact work via induction.

Or the screen of this display. http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/08/more-details-about-alienwares-awesome-curved-dlp-display/

Speaking of which, is there any word on how hard it would be to get android on an iphone?

http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/01/iphone-processor-found-620mhz-arm/

Now is your citation of -$30 per copy speculation, or do you have actual information to that effect?

Maybe we really have got to the stage where a cool-sounding concept and a pretty website is an indicator of an imaginary product... But a little research before publically labelling a young company a vapor vendor might be nice.

Too bad that:

http://lunapark6.com/usb-hdtv-tuner-stick-for-windows-linux-hauppauge-wintv-hvr-950.html

won't be of much use as an off-the-air device (the coax part will still be useful) by the time the government OTA switch-kill happens.

I can't WAIT til Meraki:

http://meraki.com/

http://www.dailywireless.org/2007/03/05/meraki-rocks-the-casbah/

http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/03/meraki-mini-wifi-router-also-does-mesh/

rolls out in SF. I wonder what the consumer-pricing tiers will be, though, when they go full-active instead of technology demonstrator to the Bay Area (or SF).

Honestly, I don't think cable is worth $50+ per month. It's nice enough to be able to go to the library. If SF main cuts off public (2 or 3 hour) internet access, I'll just go to San Jose State/MLK Library. There, they don't even make you get a library card and sign into some lame-ass, per-day, time-restrictive crap that SF does. For such a liberal city, San Fran is trounced by SJ when it comes to allowing the public to surf and download. I downloaded about a GB of upgrades in under 55 minutes at SJSJ/MLK's (DSL?) connection.

The conspiracy-theorist-bug in me makes me think comcast and t-moble have a bug up their asses and don't want SF tampering with their their business models. I think they've paid off somebody to limit patron access. Even if you only go to SF Main 2 times a week, once your day's two or 4 hours is up, that's it, unless someone else with time on that day generously gives you access on their card. Of course, that's risky, sharing time to a stranger.

Does anyone know if SFSU allows the public to come in and surf via one's own laptop? I know SJSJ/MLK is a special case: it's university and county/city sharing, not private like campus-students only.

So what about a 15.4" WUXGA mounted close enough to fill your FOV? I know Gizmodo has covered[1] the paper-release of a 7.1" 1080p display; how physically small of a display with how many what-sized pixels do we need to attain in order to realize your HMD with a human-esque field of view? And when can I have two of them for simulated 3d?

-theGreater.

[1]. http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/17/sanyo-epson-announce-7-1-inch-1080p-lcd-by-far-the-worlds-smal/

Region coding is optional for HD DVD and can be enabled at any time.

About the 51Gb disks:
"James Armour from Toshiba's optical storage division at CeBIT this year, and were told that although the third layer would be harder to read, and generate more data errors"

Oh, and Sony and TDk have been working on a 200GB blu ray disc.

I'm sure there's more inaccuracies in your post, but I really didn't read much after the points above...

I think that's the real problem with CES. I paged through a list of new products yesterday night, and nothing really stood out as new and innovative, just a bunch of mediocre upgrades. New lines of LCDs, Laptops, iPod docks galore. The only things that were kind of interesting were a curved display from alienware, and a game called Guitar Wizard, basically Guitar Hero with a real guitar.

Companies would probably be more excited about CES if they had something a bit more interesting to launch than new lines of iPod docks and larger digital picture frames.

I think that's the real problem with CES. I paged through a list of new products yesterday night, and nothing really stood out as new and innovative, just a bunch of mediocre upgrades. New lines of LCDs, Laptops, iPod docks galore. The only things that were kind of interesting were a curved display from alienware, and a game called Guitar Wizard, basically Guitar Hero with a real guitar.

Companies would probably be more excited about CES if they had something a bit more interesting to launch than new lines of iPod docks and larger digital picture frames.

I think that's the real problem with CES. I paged through a list of new products yesterday night, and nothing really stood out as new and innovative, just a bunch of mediocre upgrades. New lines of LCDs, Laptops, iPod docks galore. The only things that were kind of interesting were a curved display from alienware, and a game called Guitar Wizard, basically Guitar Hero with a real guitar.

Companies would probably be more excited about CES if they had something a bit more interesting to launch than new lines of iPod docks and larger digital picture frames.

The cost factor of Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD wasn't really on the consumer end. It's on the manufacturing end.

So then as neither of us are manufacturers, who cares? Since that cost was hidden in the absolute sense to us, why not in fact even prefer the retailer who has lower margins? In the end the costs go down to equivalence, and the margins may stay somewhat lower to entice people away from DVD.

Some of the movie studios didn't want to make the investment for Blu-Ray, hence the creation of HD-DVD.

Ha Ha ha! You mean Toshiba wanted the majority of royalties from HD discs just like DVD and managed to club Universal (and eventually Paramount) into joining the mad scheme. Never pull a war carriage with just one horse, I say.

HD-DVD wins if it can build a large userbase quickly.

It lost the entire year in sales. Last month in the time where player prices were at the cheapest for HD-DVD, Blu-Ray standalone sales (leaving out the PS3 which is insane all by itself but I'll grant that concession) were greater than HD-DVD - to the extent that even Toshiba's own figures for YTD player marketshare(scroll about midway down, look for the pie chart) showed Blu-Ray players with a lead for the year whereas just months prior the situation was reversed! Not only did Blu-Ray player sales pick up, they went at such a clip as to *catch* up.

Form both the Toshiba and Microsoft CES keynotes, not a peep of any news that would have helped HD-DVD much even before Warner took out the wind from their sales and the water they were sailing on. Toshiba hardly mentioned HD-DVD at all (focusing on LCD TV's) and Microsoft didn't mention HD-DVD once! What exactly is the magical force that will keep HD-DVD going past this point - with the media generally declaring HD-DVD dead the consumers will believe that as well, and start not buying HD-DVD products and media in droves. There's already a hint Target is dropping HD-DVD (slipped out by a Phillips executive during a CES keynote).

Paramount and Universal will be doubly screwed now until they come to Blu-Ray - no-one will buy HD-DVD titles in any numbers to speak of, and lots of people may shy away from any SD DVD's until those studios move to Blu-Ray and produce an HD title to buy. I know I had stopped buying DVD's for over a year now, thinking that anything I liked enough to buy could wait for on HD.

How about electricity for every child?

I hadn't paid attention to this at the time, but they're apparently still selling them online: http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/17/blockbuster-chooses-blu-ray-is-the-war-over/

The consumers already descided. Blockbuster supported both then discovered that more people bought blue ray by a significant margin.

The previous articles putting the two in a dead heat could do so only by discounting the number of PlayStation 3 owners by not counting it as a player even though most of the time when I ask for blue ray player prices they just tell me to buy a PS 3 in case I ever want to play games. Without the PS3 the number of players is almost even with the PS3 the numbers are deep into Blue Ray's favour.

Why anyone thought that fudging the numbers was a good move is beyond me.

• Individual chips can be identified by the characteristics of the radio transmissions.
• Chips can be cloned. In England, Biometric passports were already cloned.
• The shielding is not well enough if the passport is closed. So companies start selling stronghold bags.
• Its possible to track people. Tags can possibly be read in distances of meters.
• Forgery of digital passports could become a lot easier.
• The worst case scenarios of a data breach are a nightmare.

• Schneider
• Dutch RFID epassport cracked
• How to clone a biometric passport

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
Examples:
-No DirectX 10.x API for WinXP or Win2k. (The nature of the API to be a higher-level Application Programming Interface, I'd forgive not developing for Win2k as it is no longer for sale, but there's NO good reason to deny the API in WinXP, other than to force clearly Planned Obsolescence)
-No IE7 for Win2k. (interestingly, Firefox still bests ALL versions of IE..)
-No Support on your year-old PC for Full Windows Vista use. (Again, why? Even Apple and Linux have pretty eye-candied desktops working on older hardware)
-No to the Sale of WinXP to OEM (non-Business) customers this month http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/12/microsoft-pulling-oem-windows-xp-next-january/.
-Etc... (insert your own here)

I know that in my present line of work, my colleagues and I write meticulous research reports for our multi-million dollar clients.
Our clients specifically require us to NOT use *any* MS Office 2007 file format; We are to utilize 'not newer than MS Office 2003 format'. (Typically Excel, Access, and Word formats are used).
Our clients have gone on to clarify, specifically, that the Office 2007 file formats are incompatible with the older MS Office versions and necessitate needless corporate updating for their thousands of internal users, (not to mention the client has decades of reports on file that get updated every 10 to 20 years, often utilizing the original editable report document).

I too will soon be installing in Open Office very soon. (Hopefully the Excel 2003 formulas and those dating back to Excel 2.0 all work properly in Open Office?)...
It appears that this "update" is not so much for security or even for ease of development (because it WAS previously WORKING in situ). It stragetically forces users of the older versions of MS Office to update to the new version (or rather adopt the new format) due to interoperability issues.

If MS Office 2003 did 'it' before and it does not do 'it' now, post-SP3... that is *Intentional*, not "For Your Protection".
-This would be akin to IE8 not opening 'older' web page formats at all because they used some older and (potentially) unsafe format of html, CSS, Scripting etc.. it deemed unsafe!

Those things ought to be in bubble-packs at the local drugstore, alongside the cheap calculators, electronic dictionaries, and other low end electronics. This wouldn't stroke Negroponte's ego, but it would get the things out there in volume. Soon enough, they'd be available all over the world, purely on price.

They're doing pretty well on volume now. They have a brand-new factory, and last month they planned to ship 150,000, then 80,000-100,000 every month after (source).

Where are they going? I just did a bit of hunting. Uruguay ordered 100,000 units(see wiki) and Peru ordered 260,000 (see this post, near bottom). According to the "country news" section, Mexico's also placed some order; I think 100,000 is the minimum order size. 150,000 to 170,000 individual G1G1 orders and 15,000 for Birmingham, Alabama, for a total of around 400,000 G1G1 laptops (see interview), so I believe they have solid orders for 800,000 laptops.

Hopefully when they've had success with those 800,000, the other countries that originally intended to be part of the launch will get back on the bandwagon. So while I'm not a manufacturing expert, I would guess the difference between 1 million/year and 2 million/year isn't going to hugely affect the cost.

That TomTom picture was a hoax, as mentioned in a posting the next day. The other add-on could be real though!

Disclaimer: I work in HD-DVD.

1) DRM

Standard DVDs have that. Worse, they have region coding, and many of them have additional crap DRM schemes, mostly designed to corrupt the disc in just such a way that computer players, or rippers, won't be able to read it, but normal set-top players will. I say "crap" because this necessarily is retardedly innaccurate -- Sony put out some DVDs this way that wouldn't play with some of their own DVD players.

Now, Blu-Ray has mandatory AACS and optional BD-Mark, and I think it also has region coding, though I'm not sure. HD-DVD has optional AACS (though it'll be on almost all discs, and is currently required to get at persistent storage), and no region coding -- and if the studios would wake up, it also has the ability to have the disc react to the player's preferred language, making the need for region-specific discs entirely obsolete.

2) The ability for the players to "phone home".

That's going to be true of any software. If you're that worried of... well, first off, what are you worried about? That someone will know what movie you're watching?

But really, no one's going to release a movie which requires Internet access. In fact, not all Blu-Ray players have it, and while all HD-DVD players have an ethernet jack, I strongly doubt any of the movies will refuse to play without an Internet connection.

Now, suppose your worst nightmare comes true -- you plug it into the Internet, it phones home, and the studio tells it not to play that disc. All it takes is for you to unplug the network and wipe persistent storage for that title, and you can play the movie again.

3) Any other "feature" that makes it more difficult for the consumer. By this I mean anything that forces the user to do something he does not want to like the PUOPs on standard DVDs. You can be forced to watch previews when you start a disk without having the option to skip forward or advance the track. I expect HD and Blu Ray to be worse in this matter.

Technically, yes. Specifically, the script in HD-DVD can prevent all key input, and then control the playback. If a studio were really stupid, they could show you an animated Goatse and prevent you from doing anything except pressing stop -- and they could delay the stop for two seconds.

However, you suggest that the studios have learned nothing from DVDs. That doesn't seem to be the case -- I work in HD-DVD, and we get discs from all the major studios who are doing that format. None of them do the "You wouldn't steal a car" bullshit. The worst they do is give you a little "This is HD-DVD" commercial before the main movie, which is entirely skippable. The longest thing that's unskippable is the ten second or so studio logo, which, let's be honest, your player is going to take much longer to boot up and to start that disc.

I agree that it's nicer to put that choice back in the hands of the consumer, but I don't think they're practical issues anymore, only idealogical. And if you've been avoiding them because of that, I doubt you're one to judge the "insignificant increase in video quality" -- it is significant. I was completely surprised when I first saw it, especially on a series like Heroes.

Do I need that level of resolution to watch a tv series or most movies? Maybe I will like the difference on a few action movies, but until the price is under $200 for a player and the cost of movies is on par with standard def, I will not upgrade.

Beat you to it.

Last I checked, there are HD-DVD players under $200. There was one that sold at Wall-Mart for $99 for a weekend or something, but I think they still have players for $150. If you already have an Xbox 360, the HD-DVD drive is under $200, and it will plug into a computer (though I'm not sure if you can use it to play movies on a computer).

So the only thing keeping you from upgrading is the cost of the disc itself. Worst case, you can Netflix them, and the movie prices are dropping.

"Currently there is no copy and paste for example. How do you do it with just a touch screen ui?"

http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/09/fake-iphone-cut-and-paste-demo-loves-you/

See, legally the copyright expires, of course. But technically it doesn't. If a copyright holder places "technological measures" to prevent someone from copying/accessing a work, then as long as the measures continue to function, you are legally prevented from using the material once is has entered the public domain, because the "technological measures" are given force of law.

Nice try, but:

a technological measure `effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, prevents, restricts, or otherwise limits the exercise of a right of a copyright owner under this title.

Once something has slipped into public domain, it no longer has a copyright owner to protect the rights of. The technical measures would still be in place, but they would not be given the force of law after the expiration. CSS, Fairplay, PlaysForSure, and to an extent AACS and BD+ have all been broken by groups working underground. If commercial entities would be able to reproduce public domain works for profit, the force behind the cracks would increase tenfold.

As much as I hate the DMCA, it doesn't give an indefinite term to copyright. I suppose it's possible that an unbreakable DRM could be created (though I doubt it), but that's not the force of law.

So it seems that the oft-rumored handset from Google has taken that final leap into the "confirmed" column, though it may not be quite the be-all, end-all device we were expecting. Isabel Aguilera, Google's chief executive in Spain and Portugal, has admitted that the searchmeisters have some mobile goodness in the works but appeared to play down the project, noting that the phone is just one of 18 R&D initiatives the company currently has underway. Furthermore, she mentioned that Google's mobile skunkworks were designed to make their way into developing countries, suggesting that this may not be the Samsung sourced, iPhone-killing monster we'd been getting an earful about as of late. But hey, if Apple intends to turn the iPhone into a multi-device franchise, Google's entitled to do the same, is it not?

Even worse... It seems that these are exactly the same models (maybe with different drive capacity) Infrant has been selling before being acquired by NetGear.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/21/netgear-expands-readynas-line/
http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/03/netgear-acquires-infrant-to-boost-storage-offerings/
http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/12/infrant-releases-the-readynas-nv/

How much does it worth to re-brand a product by a name-brand company? A Slashdot post.

Even worse... It seems that these are exactly the same models (maybe with different drive capacity) Infrant has been selling before being acquired by NetGear.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/21/netgear-expands-readynas-line/
http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/03/netgear-acquires-infrant-to-boost-storage-offerings/
http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/12/infrant-releases-the-readynas-nv/

How much does it worth to re-brand a product by a name-brand company? A Slashdot post.

Even worse... It seems that these are exactly the same models (maybe with different drive capacity) Infrant has been selling before being acquired by NetGear.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/21/netgear-expands-readynas-line/
http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/03/netgear-acquires-infrant-to-boost-storage-offerings/
http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/12/infrant-releases-the-readynas-nv/

How much does it worth to re-brand a product by a name-brand company? A Slashdot post.

"give us multitouch tablet Macs (sorry windos fanboys, microsoft could pull it off technologically, but it wouldn't be useable)"

Actually, Microsoft have been developing a multitouch screen, not the coffee table thing with multiple cameras looking at it, but one for laptops by using infra-red LEDs & sensors embedded in the back of the LCD screen. It was shown in the recent episode of The Gadget Show.
More info at Engadget

Engadget has an interesting article about this, with some good insights into why this might simply be a publicity stunt by FSJ.

Have a look:
Fake Steve Jobs gets takedown letters from Apple... or not

Well, they did recently make a little girl cry

Who needs a tax to pay for the boxes? The federal government will auction off the freed analog spectrum for around $30 billion. It can subsidize a lot of $50 converter boxes for those who still use antennas and care enough to continue getting a signal over the air. If there's one market that government has a right to screw with, it's the airwaves.

Wind doesn't always blow

This link is only to give an IDEA of what I'm talking about; no one need reply to tell me it is vaporware, or wrong for x,y, and z reasons.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/26/maglev-wind-turbines-1000x-more-effiencient-than-normal-windmill/

FTA:

...benefits include the ability to generate power with winds as slow as three miles per hour...

Ok, Im not a spectrum expert here (IANASE?), so I dont know all the possible and impossible uses of the band are. But MY personal belief is that if Google wins this thing, it will mean a whole new future of cell and multimedia technology. With Android on the horizon, the possibility for video technology to be broadcast on this spectrum, and a "do no evil" corporation behind its implementation we as consumers could see a major change in how we use and most importantly PAY for cell phones.

I could VERY easily see Google offering about five models of cellphones, all with user-modifiable environments with broadband TV access, internet, and of course cell (or wifi or some such combo). A recent interview with the CEO of HTC suggests there are some big plans with Android/Google/HTC. This would all be possible with a low unlimited usage fee (say $50 unlimited cell access, $75 unlimited TV/internet, etc.) Maybe you will see some sort of music site popup over this or integrate it with Google's music info site. This will of course be highly marketed and everyone will flock to it. Maybe not everyone will get to use it and it will become a tester in some markets sort of like gmail beta when it was first introduced. This sort of thing is usually looked at skeptically (think when 3G first rolled out after many delays, all the complaints and grumbles) but by Google will be looked at as the hippest thing since white bread!

This of course over time will force the other cell providers to change their scrupulous business practices or be satisfied with greatly reduced user-base. Which of course is more incentive for these other companies to get their hands on it over Google.

It seems to be infrastructure and other base technology is already in place for it, so immediate rollout could happen, of course in that interim introductory period additional infrastructure can be added to beef up the spectrums inevitably high usage!

This is all of course simple musing, but looking at Google's past and their current state coupled with their desire for this spectrum leads me to believe there is a plan for it and its big. I look forward to this possibility... hope it comes true. Now if anyone can punch holes in any of this please do so now.

You can have three paintings on the wall, a phone, a radio and a TV, which all have different IR patterns. Then when you point you Wiimote on the phone painting, the Wii mote will see the pattern and tell your computer what you are pointing at. The computer will then activate the Twinkle (sip) on your computer and you can interface with it.. :-)

Using the motion sensors to answer calls might be a bit awkward (some minutes into the clip).

If Nintendo says they need 5 months advance notice, they had it. http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/12/nintendo-planning-to-milk-its-wii-shortage-through-the-holidays/

Yes they are leaving money on the table, but it is also a known business practice to create increased demand with intended artificial restrictions on product availability. The iPhone is the most recent example of this.

Gift guides for most of the family.

I think they're still working on one or two more. Not sure.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/11/toshiba-launching-scib-batteries-in-march-5-min-charge-10-year

According to this article, hybrid cars will be the first use for these batteries.

As long as the energy density is comparable to current Lithium-ion batteries, then this will be some pretty cool tech.

Google's Android may be getting all the headlines, but the venerable LiPS (Linux Phone Standards Forum), which launched to much fanfare in 2005, is rolling out the specs.

From what I understand, the LiPS had been "stuck in committee" with no real progress until Google announced Android. Then all of the sudden, there was a flurry of activity.

Specs are nice, and it's good to see progress, but the slashdot summary seems to have a distinct "look at LiPS, it's better, it has SPECS!". That's great, but..here's a prototype device running Android, and let's not forget the OpenMoko people, which have not only got a so-close-you-can-taste it physical device, they've got a pretty sorted software package as well, which runs on a couple of existing phone/pda widgets. The OpenMoko stuff and the Palm/HP/etc PDA stuff (I forget the proper project names, sorry!) is quite open and documented. The Linux-on-handheld boys have had working software out there for *years*.

Welcome to the party, boys. Beer's been had, chips are gone- there's some frosting left on the cake platter, though. Same thing to Google- it's nice that they have shiny prototypes, but if they're so open-source, why couldn't they work with any of the existing groups? Ah, I love the open source world: why help someone else, when you can re-invent your own wheel (anyone remember the days of Freshmeat's front page being literally FILLED with mp3 players software?)

For the $1 trillion spent on the Iraq boondoggle,
the U.S. could have installed 900,000 30 story windmills,
enough to provide all U.S. electricity needs
(although some more needed for equivalent energy needs of vehicles).

Each 30 story windmill costs about $1 million.
Building these windmills, the U.S. could reinvigorate its manufacturing and invention.
Indeed, the U.S. might even catch up with the Chinese who can now
reduce those 900,000 windmills to 1000 vertical cylinder Maglev turbines,
suspending each windmill over 60 acres with super magnets,
http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/26/maglev-wind-turbines-1000x-more-effiencient-than-normal-windmill/
The Chinese windmills will cost $50 million each,
so U.S. electricity needs could by met by 1000 of these
windmills for less that $1 trillion.

The economist notices numerous externalities to the use of oil and coal
-- the most serious externality currently being oil's inducement to wars.
Incidentally, the first working windmill was in Persia (Iran) in the early 600's AD.
It seems foolish to waste $1 trillion in Iraq -- in what country should the U.S. invest its tax dollars?
The same $1 trillion would solve U.S.
electricity needs and potentially all its energy needs (when converted to other forms),
promote research, and found an industry based in U.S.
Doesn't the U.S. consider Manhattan-like projects and Landing-on-the-moon projects anymore?
The U.S. should have a Manhattan-like project for various energy sources.
Why isn't the U.S. spending $100 billion per year on energy research?

A Hong Kong Director for Citibank once asked me why Americans don't value their money
as much as people in countries like China value their money.
Hong Kong recently reduced its maximum income tax to 17 percent,
and continues to have no sales tax.
A country should spend its money wisely,
otherwise it should not be in the business of spending money,
whether on wars or on research.

Many people get agitated at words like "alternative energy".
What source of energy will the world use in 300 years?
Will people then talk about "alternative energy"?
No, their only choice for energy 300 years from now will be
energy we now call "alternative energy".
Shouldn't we at least consider future technologies,
technologies that we will eventually have to use anyway?

...why not make some maglev wind turbines?

http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/26/maglev-wind-turbines-1000x-more-effiencient-than-normal-windmill/

FTA: a field of 1,000 current wind turbiens takes 64,000 acres and powers 500,000 homes. A magleve wind turbine takes ~100 acres and powers 750,000. It uses neodymium rare earth magnets instead of electromagnets and, being maglev, doesn't lose power to friction.