Make the device a tablet, and make they keyboard optional. Provide a nice leather or fabric pouch that folds open and holds both the tablet and the keyboard when you want a full laptop.
Other than that, I think the EEE PCs are pretty close already.
Why is this patentable? People in Europe routinely use cell phones with multiple connectivity options. There are WiFi/3G phones and dual SIM card phones. You can use wireless carriers, callbacks, long distance dial-in, or VoIP over WiFi or 3G. And phones have some logic to pick cheaper combinations. If you really push it, you can manage to get two SIM cards and WiFi into the same phone.
You don't need array mics for good speech recognition: binaural people are a walking example that you don't.
No, the problem is with crappy speech recognition software. Array mics are just a workaround until the software improves enough so that they aren't necessary anymore.
I think blaming Apple is giving them too much credit. There were half a dozen companies offering machines with graphical user interfaces around the time the Mac came out. Apple wasn't the first and they weren't the most successful one either.
What I really blame Apple for is not doing a better job on the software architecture. The original Mac's toolbox copied much of Xerox's user interface apperance, but almost nothing of the elegant architecture. Even the NeXT machine that came out a few years later was a poor imitation of Xerox's Smalltalk environment.
Why not try that "gay bomb" again that the military had started? It was supposed to be a chemical weapon that turns armies into horny homosexuals, with the effect that fighting immediately ceased and a gigantic orgy would commence. They were somewhat vague on the issue of "friendly fire", but either way, people would stop getting killed.
Imagine: no more bloodshed on the battle field.
Now, if it got into terrorists hands and they constructed a "dirty bomb" out of it, that might be a problem. But considering that cities like New York and San Francisco are already safe from this kind of bomb (what's it gonna do?), the risk is fairly limited. OK, they might hit a Southern Baptist convention, but that would be an acceptable risk.
The US government has done this for decades and nobody has ever complained. In fact, I'm sure that if you asked the average American, they'd be all for it.
No, they aren't screwed. Comcast isn't throttling you, they are lowering your priority relative to people who use less bandwidth. Since the people who use less bandwidth use, well, less bandwidth, you'll probably not notice anything.
Also, I doubt YouTube will result in any changes in priority; the bandwidth is so low.
If you supply a household with a dozen members with a single line, however, perhaps you should consider buying multiple lines.
Your argument would make sense if there were comparable numbers of 5% and 100% users (I'll stick with your "5%" figure for the sake of argument), but there aren't. Almost everybody is a 5% user, so the economics of the system are based on the 5% users. The problem with the 100% users is that they degrade service for others and generate support calls.
Also, Comcast never promised you that you can use your line at 100% capacity; in fact, your terms of service effectively tell you that you can't.
What it actually means is that if you run bandwidth hungry applications over an extended period of time, you get a lower priority than your neighbor.
That's a reasonable policy given that the line is shared. And you probably won't even notice, because, by definition, if your neighbor gets higher priority, they are using less bandwidth, hence they won't interfere much with your traffic.
"Most likely to create such a coherent flow they would have to be some very strange structures, maybe some warped space time. But this is just pure speculation."
It's worrisome when scientists start sounding increasingly like Star Trek technobabble.
A dialog in the web browser that contains some gobbledygook is generally either something you can safely dismiss by clicking wherever you like, or you have lost already by the time they show up.
Those dialogs that actually grant something permission to do something unsafe are designed by people who actually worry about bad press for their software (e.g., Java etc.) and try to be clear.
However, more generally, Yes/No dialog boxes should probably just be removed from UI toolkits; they are almost always bad and not needed.
As is often the case, Europe is a few decades behind the US. You can expect the patent system to deteriorate in Europe until whatever the fix that the US comes up with will be adopted in Europe as well.
Obama's positions were vague before, and they are vague after; they have to be, it's the process. And it's not like you can sue the president for not sticking to his campaign promises.
What you should go by is what the candidates have done before with their lives. And, to me, Obama comes across as clearly the better candidate.
McCain has serious ethical problems, he seems to have a problem with his temper and making rash decisions, and I don't trust him with control of the military. I think he would also be a bad representative of the US to the rest of the world. Palin is even worse, both in terms of ethics and record.
What makes you say I want him to wreck the country?
(1) Because you stated that you don't think that Kerry or Gore would have been done better than Bush (How could they have done any worse? And, despite the rants of Republican lunatics, Democratic presidents have generally done a lot better than Republicans in the last several decades), and (2) because you talk about politics in terms of "I just don't see him doing what I want done".
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Apple has entered this field; it's called the MacBook Air.
It's expensive, it's heavy, and it has limited connectivity options.
Make the device a tablet, and make they keyboard optional. Provide a nice leather or fabric pouch that folds open and holds both the tablet and the keyboard when you want a full laptop.
Other than that, I think the EEE PCs are pretty close already.
Why is this patentable? People in Europe routinely use cell phones with multiple connectivity options. There are WiFi/3G phones and dual SIM card phones. You can use wireless carriers, callbacks, long distance dial-in, or VoIP over WiFi or 3G. And phones have some logic to pick cheaper combinations. If you really push it, you can manage to get two SIM cards and WiFi into the same phone.
You don't need array mics for good speech recognition: binaural people are a walking example that you don't.
No, the problem is with crappy speech recognition software. Array mics are just a workaround until the software improves enough so that they aren't necessary anymore.
Wow, virtual worlds, locating people, natural language processing! What obvious, old idea do you want to copy today, Microsoft?
I think blaming Apple is giving them too much credit. There were half a dozen companies offering machines with graphical user interfaces around the time the Mac came out. Apple wasn't the first and they weren't the most successful one either.
What I really blame Apple for is not doing a better job on the software architecture. The original Mac's toolbox copied much of Xerox's user interface apperance, but almost nothing of the elegant architecture. Even the NeXT machine that came out a few years later was a poor imitation of Xerox's Smalltalk environment.
Why not try that "gay bomb" again that the military had started? It was supposed to be a chemical weapon that turns armies into horny homosexuals, with the effect that fighting immediately ceased and a gigantic orgy would commence. They were somewhat vague on the issue of "friendly fire", but either way, people would stop getting killed.
Imagine: no more bloodshed on the battle field.
Now, if it got into terrorists hands and they constructed a "dirty bomb" out of it, that might be a problem. But considering that cities like New York and San Francisco are already safe from this kind of bomb (what's it gonna do?), the risk is fairly limited. OK, they might hit a Southern Baptist convention, but that would be an acceptable risk.
It's rare to see a concept as technical as open-source software in a federal funding bill.
Open Source is a legal and business concept. You'd hope that a few hundred lawyers would be able to figure that one out.
The US government has done this for decades and nobody has ever complained. In fact, I'm sure that if you asked the average American, they'd be all for it.
No, they aren't screwed. Comcast isn't throttling you, they are lowering your priority relative to people who use less bandwidth. Since the people who use less bandwidth use, well, less bandwidth, you'll probably not notice anything.
Also, I doubt YouTube will result in any changes in priority; the bandwidth is so low.
If you supply a household with a dozen members with a single line, however, perhaps you should consider buying multiple lines.
Your argument would make sense if there were comparable numbers of 5% and 100% users (I'll stick with your "5%" figure for the sake of argument), but there aren't. Almost everybody is a 5% user, so the economics of the system are based on the 5% users. The problem with the 100% users is that they degrade service for others and generate support calls.
Also, Comcast never promised you that you can use your line at 100% capacity; in fact, your terms of service effectively tell you that you can't.
So suddenly any large use of BW is illegal?
No, if it were illegal, they'd throw you in jail.
What it actually means is that if you run bandwidth hungry applications over an extended period of time, you get a lower priority than your neighbor.
That's a reasonable policy given that the line is shared. And you probably won't even notice, because, by definition, if your neighbor gets higher priority, they are using less bandwidth, hence they won't interfere much with your traffic.
I download and upload a lot of audio and video and I don't have any problems.
Did you try calling their customer service?
Based on moderation, looks like Microsoft's PR department is also modding things down on Slashdot again.
It's worrisome when scientists start sounding increasingly like Star Trek technobabble.
A dialog in the web browser that contains some gobbledygook is generally either something you can safely dismiss by clicking wherever you like, or you have lost already by the time they show up.
Those dialogs that actually grant something permission to do something unsafe are designed by people who actually worry about bad press for their software (e.g., Java etc.) and try to be clear.
However, more generally, Yes/No dialog boxes should probably just be removed from UI toolkits; they are almost always bad and not needed.
I highly recommend Tuffmail. I've been with them for several years, and their service is excellent, both technically and support.
As is often the case, Europe is a few decades behind the US. You can expect the patent system to deteriorate in Europe until whatever the fix that the US comes up with will be adopted in Europe as well.
Looks like Microsoft's PR department is trying to generate buzz for another boring OS.
Amen. Seriously, why the hell can't another company put out a product that beats the iphone?
In part, because a big part of what makes the iPhone simple is that they cut out a lot of important functionality.
The Mail application, for example, is easy to use, but it's quite tedious.
Correct, but when it comes down to it, any strategy a provider adopts is going to have problems.
I don't see any problems; the provider shapes the traffic such that other users aren't bothered.
at worst, they find new and interesting ways to shape your traffic and prefer certain types of applications and protocols over others.
If they shape the traffic by looking at packet contents, it's bad. If they shape the traffic based on statistics, it's fine.
This is why the US liberated them! We wanted them to be free!
Advise your MBAs on how to make money with open source, because you are going to lose fighting it.
Obama's positions were vague before, and they are vague after; they have to be, it's the process. And it's not like you can sue the president for not sticking to his campaign promises.
What you should go by is what the candidates have done before with their lives. And, to me, Obama comes across as clearly the better candidate.
McCain has serious ethical problems, he seems to have a problem with his temper and making rash decisions, and I don't trust him with control of the military. I think he would also be a bad representative of the US to the rest of the world. Palin is even worse, both in terms of ethics and record.
What makes you say I want him to wreck the country?
(1) Because you stated that you don't think that Kerry or Gore would have been done better than Bush (How could they have done any worse? And, despite the rants of Republican lunatics, Democratic presidents have generally done a lot better than Republicans in the last several decades), and (2) because you talk about politics in terms of "I just don't see him doing what I want done".