Regardless of whether you’re in the Google camp or in the Microsoft camp, I think it’s a fair statement to say that these differences of viewpoint accurately reflect each company’s core strength and focus: Google wants the browser to grow to subsume the desktop; Microsoft wants the desktop to grow to subsume the cloud.

This was the concluding paragraph in a post by Danny Thorpe of Microsoft (and formerly Google).

His post is itself a rebuttal on Dare’s article: Live Framework (LiveFX), Is it Microsoft’s GData or Something More?:

A number of LiveFX’s additional features such as synchronization and resource introspection which have no analog in GData are fairly interesting and I wouldn’t be surprised to see these ideas get further traction in the industry. On the flip side, the client-side Live Operating Environment is a technology whose benefits elude me. I admit it is kind of cool but I can’t see its utility.

Danny answers:

The answer, in a word, is “offline.”

The local Live Operating Environment (local LOE) is what makes running mesh-enabled web applications on the desktop, outside the browser, possible. The local LOE creates and manages a sandboxed execution environment for the mesh app, just like a browser would for an HTML+JavaScript or Silverlight application but without the browser UI frame looming overhead.

It seems like a trivial thing, whether or not the browser frame surrounds your app UI. Does it matter? The answer is yes - having your app surrounded by browser UI constantly and forcibly reminds the user that this isn’t a real app, it’s just a web page with lipstick.

The Live Framework local LOE is a client application that works like a browser. It may even create an instance of the browser internally (I don’t know the internal details of the LOE) but it is fundamentally treated as “not the browser.”

I am trying to wrap my mind around this all myself :)

• Neoformix - Discovering and Illustrating Patterns in Data (tags: blog data visualization text stats)
• whoismanu? - photoblog serving fresh homemade photographs - iQ2 WordPress Photoblog Theme iQ2 is a WordPress photoblog theme that fully integrates with the PhotoQ Photoblog Plugin. (tags: wordpress theme photoblog)
• AdapterWatch - monitor your network adapter AdapterWatch displays useful information about your network adapters: IP addresses, Hardware address, WINS servers, DNS servers, MTU value, Number of bytes received or sent, The current transfer speed, and more. In addition, it displays general TCP/IP/UDP/ICMP statistics for your local computer. (tags: windows sysadmin network tool tcpip)
• USBDeview - View all installed/connected USB devices on your system USBDeview is a small utility that lists all USB devices that currently connected to your computer, as well as all USB devices that you previously used.
  For each USB device, exteneded information is displayed: Device name/description, device type, serial number (for mass storage devices), the date/time that device was added, VendorID, ProductID, and more…
  USBDeview also allows you to uninstall USB devices that you previously used, and disconnect USB devices that are currently connected to your computer.
  You can also use USBDeview on a remote computer, as long as you login to that computer with admin user. (tags: windows sysadmin tool usb portable)
• teliad - Il mercato dei link testuali (tags: ads textlinks)
• A List Apart: Articles: A More Useful 404 (tags: webdesign usability tutorial tips 404)
• sunkencity.org: flickredit FlickrEdit is a Java Desktop application that allows you to display and edit your photos in a variety of ways. It also allows you to download/backup or upload your photos to and from Flickr. FlickrEdit is written in Java and it uses flickrj framework to access Flickr. (tags: tool software pictures photos photography flickr)

Oscar sent in this cool looking Arduino powered robot. Apparently it was built by a group of 16 year olds for a soccer competition. The translated site has a lot more information about the ArduSoccerBot.

More about ArduSoccerBot: Arduino soccer robot

Next year is going to be a big year folks, we'll see more investment and emphasis on alternative energy than ever before, this will be our "space race" and our "moon landing". The children of today will be the ones who will shape the next decade and the next century. As a parent, a friend, a mentor or just someone who is giving a gift this holiday season - instead of a plastic toy or nik-nak I'm going to ask the you consider giving something that might just spark the attention of a young mind that will be called to solve our energy needs.

We all know we will not be able to sustain a future on a fuel (oil) that's going to eventually go away and/or become more expensive. No one really likes dealing with the Middle East for the most part and other nations like China and India are going to drive demand through the roof, we're going to need to diversify our energy needs. It's not going to be a lot of us reading MAKE right now, it's going to be the children of folks reading MAKE.

Solar, wind, biodiesel, nuclear - these are all things we explore in the pages of MAKE, online, in our videos and with the kits we carefully select for our Maker Shed. We're not going to get out this current crisis with the same thinking that got us here, we need to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers, it's going to take decades - 8 to 12 year olds today will be the ones who will need to rise to the challenge. Will our education system do enough? No - we'll all need to do something. It's a daunting task and a seemingly impossible challenge, and that's why I know we'll do it - if it was easy, it wouldn't be interesting.

Entrepreneurs will see this as a wonderful opportunity to start new and amazing companies, I'm positive there are going to be more incentives to do so starting next year. We're talking jobs, new industries, tax breaks - it's going to happen, but everyone needs to do something. It might just be tinkering around with a solar panel in your neighborhood to get folks interested, it might be modding the Prius you just bought - a new era in energy independence is going to happen, not overnight, but I am 100% positive it will happen and it will be makers (and their children) who lead the way.

I've put together a gift guide of all the cool and interesting alternative energy kits and resources - check it, maybe send it to a few friends... if you think a young person might have what it takes to change the world, this might be the spark that starts it off... People always ask "how can we get started" - this is just one of the ways.

Solarspeeder Kit
A quick Solaroller that can cover 3 meters (10 feet) in under 40 seconds in direct sunlight. Simple to construct and a great project for beginners!
Price: $25.00

Also check out:

• Solarengine kit.
• Solarengine Upgrade kit.

Gallery: ASUS Eee Top

Filed under: Desktops

ASUS Eee Top launched, loved by children and product waifs originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 04:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.