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The reader doesn't need to be safe just the card, that stores your private key, it would not need to be bigger than a credit card or a usb key. Your chip and pin card should already do a challenge response.

This http://www.slipperybrick.com/2... has data entry any processing (power could be supplied by the reader) that is 7 years ago.

If readers became standard which they would if everybody paid this way then their would be no issue, the reader could even be wireless. I would be happy with that as long as a pin was entered on the device and was part of the challenge response. If you managed to get the pin from the device so what you couldn't make the transaction without the card.

One would hope you couldn't set such a thing up and not have anybody notice.

A three-man slingshot could be set up in ten seconds. Enough to deliver a fairly substantial payload.

dec 2006. 2 weeks before steve jobs even unveiled the iphone.. take a look at this picture on the following website http://www.slipperybrick.com/2006/12/lg-ke850-touch-screen-mobile-phone/ this following is from... june 2006 6 months before iphone unveiled. http://mobileanalystwatch.blogspot.com/2006/06/strategy-analytics-touch-screen-phones_30.html "Stuart Robinson at Strategy Analytics said, "The touch screen market in cellphones is nearly ready to take off, but before it can do so certain conditions must be met. First, the cost of touch screen technology must shrink from $5-10 dollars to under $3. Second, revenue-generating applications must be developed to differentiate touch screen devices from menu or icon driven phones. Finally the market requires a catalyst, such as the presence of an iconic touch screen phone in a Hollywood blockbuster, to generate demand." Strategy Analytics forecasts that "touch screen interfaces for mobile phones will remain at under 2 percent of total devices until such a catalytic event occurs, predicted to be at the end of 2007, at which point rapid growth will ignite interest in touch screen phones, growing the market to around 40 percent by 2012." Stephen Entwistle at Strategy Analytics added, "We expect most demand to come from finger-sensitive technology built into high-end feature phones. This will be a significant shift from today's wireless PDA segment, where most stylus-driven touch screen devices can be found." not only apple thought about making touchscreens finger tip sensitive. where then you need areas of design (think icons on your desktop) to know where to press your finger. so how are icons new and innovative?

I remember all the bitching when XP came out. "It has a Fisher-Price UI!" "I'll never use XP!" They used it anyway. Ten years from now, people will be bitching when MS changes the UI again.

It's a giant fugly start menu. BFD. /. is filled with supposedly intelligent adults; adapt to it like you're always telling other people to do.

Don't worry, for example here's already one happy user of the new Windows 8 UI.

...or the one from The Black hole? Not the orange one that looked like Zax fucked a dustbin (B.O.B. LF 28), the huge red one.

You know there were smart phones before the iphone. Sure apple made the UI simpler and had it flow nicely but they certainly didn't invent it. Its just windows mobile 2003 with application shortcuts on the front page (instead of pressing start all programs). I don't know why I'm even bothering with you its like trying to convince a religious fanatic the earth isn't 4000 years old.

Really now? Apple didn't just make the UI simpler, they completely changed it.

Name one phone before the iPhone that had a browser that people actually wanted to use?

Name one phone before the iPhone that had a useable, non-stylus-oriented touchscreen interface?

Name one phone before the iPhone that had a useable, non-stylus-oriented touchscreen keyboard? Whether you personally like it is immaterial. Name one. This and this is what a "touchscreen" phone looked like before the iPhone. BTW, I have one of those Treos. It is the biggest POS on the planet. The UI freezes up constantly for seconds at a time, for no reason, even when just using the hardware "joystick", and while you can sort of use the touchscreen with your finger, with the exception of the dialpad, the UI features are definitely designed for a stylus. And if you touch the "end" button for more than a fraction of a second, it disables the phone (takes it off line) completely, and with no confimation dialog. You usually only find out when you haven't received calls for a few hours, and people bitch you out about "never answering your phone".

Name one phone before the iPhone that had random-access voicemail?

Name one phone before the iPhone where the phone manufacturer defined the feature set, not the Carrier?

If the iPhone wasn't a game-changer, then why have so many other phones since the iPhone desperately tried to copy it?

If the iPhone wasn't a game-changer, then why did Google's Android immediately abandon its shameless clone of the Blackberry interface and form-factor in favor of a shameless clone of the iPhone's "Springboard" and the iPhone form-factor? Same thing goes for most Windows Phones, which HTC has even become desperate enough to sell for a PENNY, LOL!!!

Sorry. It is the Windows Phone and Android fanbois that are in serious, almost delusional, denial; not the Apple fans.

On this planet maybe.... http://www.slipperybrick.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/stpd.jpg

http://www.slipperybrick.com/2009/06/the-power-shelf-holds-your-gadgets-while-they-charge/

I have had a device EXACTLY like this for over 10 years now. I bought one in 1999 at a strange thrift/junk store.

Glad to see the patent system not checking to see if something exists already.

If they housed their functioning laser in something that looked like this, do you not think Paramount would go after them?

That sure helps with application defined 16 x 16 pixel ToolStripButton objects that drop down when you click a tiny arrow, or something silly as the close tab button on (insert tabbed document supporting application).

Actually, yes, it does. If you're running Vista or 7, changing "text size" will scale up all UI, including 16x16 toolbar buttons. In XP, it technically does that as wel, but in reality applications have to support it, and too many don't. In Vista/7, in the latter case, they get bitmap-scaled.

And then tell me Windows 7 touch interface needs only a bump in text and window frame size.

I didn't say that. I merely suggested a way to treat one specific problem out of those that you have listed. I'm not claiming that it is enough to make tablet experience with Win7 match iPad or Android.

From what I've seen, anyway, touch in 7 (which actually dates back all the way to XP Tablet) was developed for a combination of touch and keyboard input (hence why all XP tablets have full-size keyboards that fold one way or another). From personal experience, it's actually most impressive on those HP touch desktops.

I've also used this toy for quite a while - it runs XP. Scaled up, the UI was quite usable even with just fingers. With its original size, you'd need a stylus (which it had). Is my Android phone better at that? Hell yes. But it still can't do a lot of things that even Everun could do, much less a full-size Win7 tablet.

Right.

I'll just leave these here.

Note that I don't really have any problem with violent video games, per se, I just wanted to provide some crystal clear counter examples to your assertion.

I have a (vaguely-defined) threshold for what I consider acceptable, but I won't be out proposing legislation or other censoring measures. Personally, it's more an issue of the overall tone of the game, rather than a body count or how graphic the violence is, that determines whether or not I consider a game appropriate. I'm a big fan of the Half-Life series, (for example) but don't find much enjoyment in Max Payne. (Although that may be as much to do with the gameplay as the violence; I prefer more puzzle-oriented games to the marginally-interactive movie.)

i always liked how those keyboards looked. the moto droid keyboard is okay, better than a piece of glass, but i would love to have bigger more defined buttons like that. i sometimes miss the keyboard on my old green LG, but i am getting over it...

This looks kinda purple to me....

Every new house is required to be wired for smoke detectors.

Perhaps every new house, but mine certainly isn't. I have to change the 9-volts regularly.

Honestly, I can only think of one application where not needing a power cord for a 50cm distance is all that helpful:

Take a walk through your house some time, and look at every last little gadget in the house, and count how many batteries (replaceable or rechargeable, embedded or removable) you find. I bet you'll be surprised.

a "charging pad" to recharge your mobile devices by just setting it on the pad, without having to mess with wires and connectors. However, I don't think this is likely to happen for a long, long time

Huh? That's already here. And inductive charging has been used in electric toothbrushes for ages. The difference for this is that you actually have range.

This wouldn't be your desktop PC 3.5" hard disk drive or a 2.5" laptop drive. This would be an server-class hard disk drive the size of a briefcase

Network attached storage

Lacie hard disk drive

The problem is, it probably didn't look like a piece of computer equipment and ended up being moved somewhere totally different.

If you don't want to sound like a luddite then stop talking like one.