I think how improved IE is will largely depend on how serious they feel the competition from alternate browsers like firefox are. A few years back when they set their sites on netscape IE did show some innovative qualities at the time. I'll admit that their business practices worked to crush netscape too, but for a period of time IE was a top of the line browser. Hopefully firefox will be seen as enough of a threat and bring about some real innovation from IE's browser team again. Competition is usually a good think and hopefully a browser war between IE and firefox will improve the internet experience of everyone.
I think Mono may actually be a good think for Linux. One of the things that keeps many people using Windows is that they don't want to give up their current application set to learn the open source equivalents. A project like Mono has the potential to to allow developers to simultaneously target both Windows and Linux, which may lead to more Windows apps running on Linux and in turn more people willing to consider running Linux. Also, C# is a nice language to program in.
I think GM foods and other GM plants are two seperate matters. With crops that people may eat, the possible benefits are huge for nations with starving or nutritionally deficient populations, such as has been seen with golden rice. Thus the benefits could possibly offset the potentially adverse environmental side effects. Modifying plants because somebody is too lazy to mow their lawn is another matter, since the benefit to risk ratio is likely not in the same class.
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if instead of a blue pigment they expressed GFP (green flourescent protein) and created roses that could glow in the dark.
The National Academy of Science makes its PNAS papers open access after 6 months.
Check out the following: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8003/ and http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8061/
With the ever growing popularity of networked and distributed computing, I think a technology like this may yeild some real benefits.
I think how improved IE is will largely depend on how serious they feel the competition from alternate browsers like firefox are. A few years back when they set their sites on netscape IE did show some innovative qualities at the time. I'll admit that their business practices worked to crush netscape too, but for a period of time IE was a top of the line browser. Hopefully firefox will be seen as enough of a threat and bring about some real innovation from IE's browser team again. Competition is usually a good think and hopefully a browser war between IE and firefox will improve the internet experience of everyone.
"and even went so far as to question Microsoft's motivation as profit." Isn't that the motivation of almost all business.
I think Mono may actually be a good think for Linux. One of the things that keeps many people using Windows is that they don't want to give up their current application set to learn the open source equivalents. A project like Mono has the potential to to allow developers to simultaneously target both Windows and Linux, which may lead to more Windows apps running on Linux and in turn more people willing to consider running Linux. Also, C# is a nice language to program in.
I think GM foods and other GM plants are two seperate matters. With crops that people may eat, the possible benefits are huge for nations with starving or nutritionally deficient populations, such as has been seen with golden rice. Thus the benefits could possibly offset the potentially adverse environmental side effects. Modifying plants because somebody is too lazy to mow their lawn is another matter, since the benefit to risk ratio is likely not in the same class.