Faster hard drives

These hard drives use a different kind of memory, and don't have moving parts. Moving parts in computers are the parts that are most likely to break. Companies like Amazon and Ebay pay 10,000 dollars for special hard drives that use RAM instead of spinning disks, so that everything runs faster.

Fusion io will charge $30 a gigabite, so a 100GB hard drive would be about 3000 dollars. They will make huge profit as long as there isn't competition (and there will be - hitachi for example). Hard drives are super important for databases - and making databases this much faster changes what is possible on internet. For example, Google has 100,000 computers working together so that everything appears fast to the user. With these hard drives, it makes it possible bring more interesting applications to larger groups of people.

While there is no substitute for a good algorithm, it's nice when technology simply gets better (for those who can afford it).

One laptop per child becomes 2 laptops for 2 children

Since governments aren't writing checks for the one laptop per child, the world citizen can do it's part to share the information revolution with the developing world. Buy a 100 dollar laptop for yourself, and they'll ship one to the parts of world where it can benefit children the most.

See the full yahoo article.

Way Back machine - Whatisprogress.com from 2001

From May 2001:

The speed of the economy, the omni-presence of corporate media, and the complexity of our personal lives, has made many existing institutions of change (like education, our government, and even cultural norms) increasingly ineffective. Morality, the frame of reference for living, our paradigms, are being outpaced by technological changes.

Can technology, namely the web and computers, be used to provide a truly NEW service aimed facilitating the management of complex ideas? Or will traditional institutional models of corporate commerce and intellectual property reign again over the rare anarchy of the internet?

We believe technology will extend, enhance, and promote all life and harmony. This will be a site that thrives on the diversity of ideas without creating a flood of intellectual property. It will create new ideas by helping people manage large sets of complicated thoughts with large numbers of other people.

Lastly, we have faith in the anarchy of virtual reality as a safe and positive place for evolution of ideas.

Jonathan Hendler is living in Valencia, Spain

I've left United States to start a life in Spain. My Spanish is... well... getting better. Food is great, people re friendly, weather is pleasant. Valencia is a special city - artistic, gardens, more relaxed than Barcelona.

Valencia is very fireworks oriented, usually a couple
major celebrations a week. In March there is Fallas

Valencia's the home of the paella, Valencia oranges and the architect Callatrava