finisterre

I doubt that Kurzweil has truly been granted "unlimited" access to Google's resources. His title of "director of engineering" sounds impressive, but there's so far little indication he will be a very senior figure at the company.

Blindsight seems to be a powerful demonstration of how a brain can perform high order actions - e.g. respond to social stimuli such as facial expressions - without consciousness. It's a reminder that many things we think inseparable from self awareness and consciousness are no such thing. Perhaps you could consider a person with blindisight to have been "downgraded" to the condition of a mammal without consciousness.

"I can't overstate how affective a good metaphor (or good, well revised writing in general) can be in persuading others."

Muphry's law[1] strikes again.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law

Zipcar already operates basic peak/off-peak pricing, with weekends being pricier per hour than during the week.

> Marc is a smart dude but those predictions > are fairly obvious going forward.

He's probably smart enough not to give away his best predictions.

The article cites Apple's roving check out approach as an attempt to "solve line issues". Isn't this close to the most inefficient way to organize the checkout/queuing experience in terms of creating uncertainty and the need for everyone (even their staff) to move around? I can see that it has a lot of psychological value, though.

> our very consistent feelings toward privacy

Except Zuckerberg knows that our feelings about privacy aren't all that consistent. People have become more willing to share personal information online; things that previously caused public outcry about privacy have become normalized.

Zuck's confounding privacy settings aren't (completely) to blame. Facebook and other online social tools have led us to genuinely change our feelings towards privacy.

Where does that slide come from? Is the rest of the deck available?

The price drop - from $500 to $300 - is the most significant new 'feature' here. These devices just aren't ready to replace a conventional laptop yet for most people. I've got a Samsung one and it struggles with complex websites and sometimes hangs, too. I wonder if even $300 is too much.

Credit cards act as a buffer between steady salary income and patchy spending. Many people both in the US and Europe live within their means across the whole year, but take a big holiday or trip in the summer and spend more in one month than their usual disposable income. Having a credit card makes it easier to accommodate lumpy spending like that.

Right. IBM still invests in "technical breakthroughs or research level computer science knowledge" at well funded labs. The two biggest are at Almaden, CA, and Yorktown, NY.

Like any lab looking at fundamental science, it's hard to judge how much of that activity leads to profit. Some research groups do also make/sell products that are cutting edge, though, on a consulting basis. E.g. the storage group in Almaden makes insanely large custom storage systems for very big - often federal govt - clients.

I wonder if the Mint team ever thought of going that route; they were/are very well placed to lead users into this model. Once you get used to the idea of being able to see all your accounts and varies metrics in one place it's obvious to appreciate being able to push data the other way and instigate transfers and bill payments from that nice central hub. Maybe the complications of getting the banks on board was the barrier.

True. But consider Google's effective inflation rate. A lot of things they care about - say, Palo Alto real estate - are getting more expensive faster than 3 percent. That money is losing value. Spending on acquisitions or otherwise investing in the business should yield a far better return.

Blekko's "search engine monte" provides blinded results from their own search as well as from Google and Bing [1], so you can perform your own experiments.

1. http://blekko.com/ws/hacker+news+/monte

> You can't simultaneously have an invite system > and a huge marketing push.

I don't think Google has done a huge marketing push, yet, considering how big a product this is for them.

They've done little press and haven't bought advertising online or in the real world - something they did for Chrome. They've so far done pretty much the minimum a company of such scale could do for a product this big. It was inevitable that a lot of people would want to join as soon as they heard of Google's plans.

I have a feeling that the marketing push is very much still to come.

One reason for this is that food prices are only one component of restaurant prices. You're also paying for the wait staff, brand, surroundings and a lot more.

I didn't claim that Facebook would take all the profits in such a scenario. Of course Microsoft would have a valid claim to some profits from a joint venture, the two companies would strike a deal over the exact split. As has been noted in other threads, though, even a small share of the search market can be worth a lot.

Facebook don't need to take on the huge capital cost of launching a search engine. They can take advantage of the fact that Microsoft already did.

Facebook can enter the search market by deepening the connection between its data and Bing's technology, and then making some UI changes.

It may be that Autodesk wants to be part of the personalized design/customization/fabrication movement. Earlier this year they released PhotoFly[1], a consumer-focused application that creates very impressive 3D models from photographs. They also work closely with Shapeways, which prints out 3D models at low prices.

1. http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/photo_scene_editor/

That's a step few people will bother to take, just as is the case with most vacation rentals. A credit card is enough ID for even commercial operations.

Her only real mistake was to leave her "passport, cash, credit card...grandmother’s jewelry...camera, iPod, an old laptop, and my external backup drive...birth certificate and social security card" in the apartment. It seems they were locked in a closet, but removing them from the house altogether would have taken a lot of the sting out of this unfortunate experience.

Bing has a similar feature and one that might have more life given MSFT's relationship status with Facebook.

Don't forget about pixel quality (it's understandable because the industry has been encouraging it for years).

A 6MP sensor would produce a fantastic 10"-diagonal print if its pixels weren't affected by noise and it was combined with a high quality lens. Unfortunately sensors of that resolution are typically small (=noisy pixels) and placed in point-and-shoot cameras (=cramped, low-quality optics).

ADA is needed because the number of disabled people in the US isn't large enough for the free market/competition process to play out as you suggest. It will never be economically efficient for private enterprise to look after the needs of some groups, hence legislation is needed to ensure their needs are met.

A few months ago Facebook started aggressively suggesting users make it their homepage. Perhaps this is evidence that campaign worked.

There is also no way of knowing how many of the 400,000 actually saw the initial call to action.