Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft and have to admit I'm a big Xbox 360 fanboy so I will not be fully objective on this topic.

Ever since Nintendo has annouced their new controller, I've had very big doubts about betting the console on such a concept. The controller in itself seems to be beautifully executed and more precise than any other previous attempt at a motion-sensing controller, but I fully agree with Peter Molyneux that for most players, the most confortable position to play is lying on the couch with the controller resting on the beer belly. Only the thumbs move, and they do so very little, which enables us to play for extended periods of time (not that we *should* play that long, but we do, and that eventually makes us buy more games). And I call that motion sensing too: the pad is very efficiently detecting very small movements of my thumbs...

Think what you want about Web 2.0, it is an unescapable change in the way the web will grow in the future. It is the convergence of several emerging ideas and technologies that individually wouldn't mean as much but that taken together make a real difference. These ideas are (paraphrasing Wikipedia and isolating the technical points from the business ones):

• "The transition of websites from isolated information silos to sources of content and functionality". This is the "programmable web", which enables a real web or network of applications to share information. It implies the use of open standards such as RSS and XHTML which make the blogosphere bigger than the sum of the blogs.
• "Open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use". This is the community aspect. It consists mainly of user-provided contents (that can range from user comments to fully user-created sites such as Flickr, Myspace or Wikipedia) that the users own.
• "A more organized and categorized content"
• "The resurgence of excitement around the possibilities of innovative web applications"

Wow, what a great game! I just finished Jade Empire in "evil mode". I'm very likely to do it again in "boy scout" mode. The immersion and richness of the universe are just amazing. The only thing I disliked is the tendancy Bioware has to explain to us that the evil path is somewhat as honorable as the virtuous one. I enjoy playing an evil character (I know the subtle difference between game and reality as almost every other gamer on the planet), but don't try to tell me that he's not evil. Some of the things they make you do in this mode are actually quite disturbing. I'm still waiting for the (good) game that will let you play a Dr. Evil-like character: evil, but in a funny way. Yes, Dungeon Keeper did that in a way, but that was a long time ago.

I just sent this letter to Scientific American. I'd be interested to have any informed opinion on the matter.

I’ve read the article about black hole computers with great interest, but there are still a few questions that I think remain unanswered.

The article makes it quite clear how black holes could be memory devices with unique properties, but I didn’t quite understand what kind of logical operations they could perform on the data.

But another, more fundamental question is bugging me ever since I read the article. From what I remember learning about black holes, if you are an observer outside the black hole, you will see objects falling into the black hole in asymptotically slow motion. The light coming from them will have to overcome a greater and greater gravitational potential as the object approaches the horizon, losing energy along the way and shifting to the red end of the spectrum. From our vantage point, it seems like the object does not reach the horizon in a finite time.

From a frame that moves with the object, though, it takes finite time to cross the horizon.

This is all very well and consistent so far. Enter black hole evaporation.

From our external vantage point, a sufficiently small black hole would evaporate over a finite period of time. So how do we reconcile this with the perception that objects never actually enter the horizon?