Sunday, July 25, 2004

Second Post-Apple Newton Life?. An anonymous reader with a lot of time on his hands writes "As seen on Slashdot b e f o r e, the Newton refuses to die. Since Apple discontinued it, it got ATA, WiFi, BlueTooth, ZeroConf and even a NES emulator. Now, several mac news sites r e p o r t, Newton users founded an association with John Sculley, who pushed the Newton at Apple, as its honorary president. They're organizing a conference in Paris in September. How long until all these users switch to new hardware?" [Slashdot] I'm a Newton user, and I won't be switching to new hardware until the new hardware can do at least as much as a Newton can. I'm not holding my breath for that to happen. Given the current trends in PDA technology, I expect it will be at least ten years before any other PDA can match the technology the Newton had eight years ago. And that's being optimisitic; given the trend of today's "pocket organizer" type PDAs being replaced by more sophisticated cell phones, it's entirely possible that the very concept of a true PDA may actually be lost, in which case it might be centuries before another device matching the capabilities of the Newton appears. 4:07:37 PM    comment () Brazil: Woman turns in 1,300 guns in cash-for-arms amnesty. A woman has turned in nearly 1,300 guns to federal police, responding to a government campaign for citizens to surrender privately held weapons. The woman had kept the guns at home since her father, an arms collector, died eight years ago, federal policeman Wagner Castilho said Saturday. Police did not identify the woman, who is expected to receive up to 200,000 reals (U.S. $65,000) for her arsenal turned in Friday. The government is paying Brazilians to surrender their weapons in an effort to reduce the country's murder rate, one of the world's highest. [FirearmNews.com] That foolish woman is certainly losing out on hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of dollars. There is no way that a large gun collection like that has an average value of $50 per gun. More likely even the cheapest guns are worth ten times that. 4:03:28 PM    comment ()

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