mmmmm retinal projection...

This is insanely cool. Near real time translations subtitled and beamed onto your retina. Who doesn't want one? while I get the impression this will (initially) be like the voice recognition software of the late 90's (ie requires a fair bit of work for 50/50 results) it has several features that are very significant.

The actual translation system is the not too surprising amalgamation of voice recognition and translation software. While both these technologies have been around in vague forms for the last 10 or so years it has only been in the last 5 years that they have become truly viable. Voice recognition interfaces are pretty common now on dial in services (eg for national rail) and while they do get it wrong from time to time they are pretty good. The same goes for translation, most things can be translated by, for example, google translate; it may have some interesting turns of phrase but the fundamental message gets through and this is a free, web-based tool.

The most exciting feature of this though is the retinal projection, this is something that has been slowly emerging of the last year or so (either as micro screens or direct projection) and is one of the last technologies needed to achieve complete augmented reality. We nearly have complete internet data coverage (it may not be fast but there are fewer and fewer places where I can't get some sort of net) and with technologies like 4G, BT openWorld (all BT customers can jump onto free open net connections from BT) or the cloud all poised to become very common it shouldn't be too long before people are wondering how they coped without being able to access wikipedia while walking down a street.

Augmented reality is a while off yet (and still limited by battery life) but as more technologies start to use it (see the phone app layers) it is fast becoming reality. I would say that within the next 10 years at the latest people will have augmented reality headsets (most likely glasses) and that they will be common within 15 years. As a technology I suspect that it will be similar to voice recognition in that for the next year or so everyone will be claiming to use it with no actual utility. After that, and especially with things like the translator specs, it will start to re-emerge as general utility, to steal an idea from Charles Stross: wouldn't it be cool to have a map of the city your in over-laid on your vision and then be able to watch the progress of your bus towards you?

This is, I think, the most significant part of these glasses: not so much what they can do (which is very cool) but that they represent a protrusion of what so far as been a fun toy in labs into useful utility.

Future history of Windows

This is a nice opinion piece on the possible future of computing under the "good enough revolution" in which (apparently) people will realise that they don't need all the gunk and extras that windows and new pcs offer and in fact buy to replace not upgrade.

This seems plausible as a general idea. The market share for Linux, while still not huge (less that 1% I think), is still slowwly growing. With netbooks making good use of the free and lighter running Linux it is possible that they will carve a niche for themselves. That being said the soon to be released Windows 7 marks is specifically targetted at netbooks and with most computers still pre-installed with windows I think 2025 quoted is a little optimistic for Microsoft's death.

Amusingly this is a rare time in which this is published from XP (I refuse to run F/Vista) although 7 does look nice. Every time I log back onto windows it annoys me now - in fact the only use I have for it now is gaming and I'm hoping that with some summer work I can shift to wine for this.

All in all the next 10 years may be make or break for Linux as a major OS (ie greater than 1%). One way or another it will continue but if it can't make it big during a recession its going to be a wait for the stranglehold of microsoft to lessen; which would be a nice thing if only because a computer hegemony is one reason viruses happen.

because this isn't asking to be abused

Seems like someone has made a way of allowing remote signing (click here).

This isn't remote verification but actual remote pen and paper signature. It is a triumph of engineering and haptic research but really cans the signature as a method of verifying the authenticity of a document or similar.

Most depressingly this is being used and allowed by governments.

I wonder if its possible to extract someone's hand writing style from their signature? I wouldn't be surprised, while they're very different motions they share certain components... would be a fun experiment if nothing else.

I suppose this is going to force the fact that a signature is in no way a secure method of identification.