Are you filthy rich? Get ready for Windows Vista!

Microsoft has published the hardware requirements for Windows Vista, scheduled for release perhaps sometime this century. A “Vista Capable PC” must have a 800MHz processor and 512M RAM, and a DirectX 9  capable video card. If you want any of the goodies in the new Aero interface, you must have a 1GHz processor, 1G RAM, and 128M of video RAM.

Most consumer-level laptops don’t meet those requirements, and I wonder if companies will run to upgrade all their machines in order to deliver the Aero eye candy to all their office workers.

I wonder if the good old alliance between Microsoft and hardware manufacturers will still work. “What kind of stuff would you like to sell the suckers this year? We’ll be happy to make software that requires it.”

Technorati Tags: vista, digital-divide

A Roach at the Wheel

Artist Garnet Hertz has equipped his cockroatches with robotic vehicles. The roach uses a ping-pong ball as a mouse wheel for steering. They seem to navigate around obstacles just fine most of the time, but "roaches aren't the most predictable bugs".

As with technology so often, this experiment has philosophical implications. Accoring to Mr. Repetto of Columbia University, while robotics has always been about amplifying human ability, Hertz's device "gives roaches skills they wouldn't normally have, which brings up all sorts of questions, including many about responsibility and consciousness".

Hamster controlled MIDI device

Slashdot pointed out a cool student project at Cornell: Levy Lorenzo has built a MIDI device controlled by six hamsters. The music sounds much better than most music today, and the hamsters probably are more entertaining than most videos too!