I have a bad feeling about this…

Dibold Media Player?!?
Yes, this is an ATM that has re-booted and defaulted to the base OS. That would be Windows… Come on people! Realize that you should use the right tool for the right job! Sure, you can haul lumber and roofing tar in a sports car but you would be a fool for doing it! Something that needs to be bullet proof, like and ATM, needs to run from and embedded system that upon a fault defaults to somthing that people can’t get to. The kids were able to bring up the media player now but what happens if the next unit that goes belly up lets the user gain access to transaction records (card numbers?) or even the internet (who knows how long a device like this would remain un owned on the ‘Net!) And yes, Dibold makes electronic voting system… I would like to know if anyone has looked into the ‘relationship” between them and Microsoft.. “Your building an electronic voting system? Here, we would like for you to use our nifty one size fits all OS. Don’t worry, its secure…” Give me a break…

March of the Machine Monkeys

Rise of the cyber monkeys
I for one welcome our new cyber monkey overlords…
I think this is a fantastic step in the right directions. Once the hardware interfaces are human rated this could be the next big step in technology. Everything from the classic idea of a teleoperated space probe to prosthetics limbs could be realized with something like this.
(Thank you agent Greg for this update)