People used to freak out that Google was reading their mail when gmail displayed targeted ads. This seems to think that people have gotten over that (admittedly silly) paranoia, as opposed to just having lost steam. The feeling that your audio is being parsed seems like it will make people even more nervous.

However, Skype is another company that I don't fully understand the profit model of, since I've never given them a penny, and if their service started to cost, I would drop it rather than pay. I've embraced video conferencing wholeheartedly, but I can also let it go pretty easily. I have no idea what the demographic of the people who pay is.

For a long time, paying Skype was a cheap way to call people who did not have computers. But all you can eat phone plans and the pentration of computers into at least the rich nations has killed that.

(A lot of people in poor nations who cant afford computer computers have smart phones with unlimited text and rely mostly on texting, plus whatever browsing they can afford on their phones. That includes a fair number of homeless people in poor nations - at least according to my Doctors Without Borders acquaintences).

And I don't think the objection that will kill them is privacy. People seem to put very little value on privacy in practice. It is that the ads will either interrupt conversations, or if they make them low key will be totally ineffective on not a serious revenue source. Or it could be both. Maybe they will find a form that people will put up with. But I have my doubts.

That's a bummer about te walking/transit directions. I've only used/needed it once when I was in SF but it worked so perfectly. I hope they figure it out so it's available.

How will the ads interrupt conversation?

If you are doing video chat and a full color video ad you both are seeing takes up your vid chat space that, sure seems like an interruption. Even worse if it has sound, though I cant believe MS would be that foolish.

The articles I read said it was for audio calls. And the ad was visual. I'd need to see your source to get a feel for how obtrusive you're thinking of, because the scenario I read about is flouted by closing your eyes.

I shouldn't be thinking about buying paper clips, much less a printer, but does anyone have any opinions on OKI Data or this [link] laser all-in-one? My HP All-in-One is nickle-and-diming me in ink costs. I have a cheap Samsung B&W laser, but it's almost out of toner, and it thinks it has a paper jam when it doesn't about two-thirds of the time. Also, a sheet feeder for the scanner is really tempting for going to paperless records.

Okay, see, THAT'S the problem.

My commands in Opera have stopped working predictably. I do command T to open a new tab? Instead it prompts me to pick a file to open in the current tab.

So I try and do it by using the File menu, and it closed the window I was currently on instead, which makes me hesitant to test and see what the other crossed over commands are. I keep dumping myself into full screen mode, for one. That's probably something to do with copying and pasting.

Short of me somehow having converted my keyboard to Dvorak or something (which I clearly haven't, since I can type) I have no idea what's up, since keystrokes and commands are predictable in Firefox.

Unrelatedly, does anyone know what the URL is for google's search by image? I'm currently getting to it by going to images.google.com and then clicking on the camera. But the camera doesn't show in Opera, and whichever browser, I'd rather book mark that directly, instead of being an extra mouse click away.

My HP All-in-One is nickle-and-diming me in ink costs.

My Lexmark All-In-One is kicking me in the nuts in ink costs. I cannot recommend Lexmark. Given that all I ever print out anymore is shipping labels, I just want a cheap little B&W inkjet with cheap ink that doesn't seize up every ten minutes.

Yeah, a lot of printers are sold on the razer and razor blade theory. Cheap printer, expensive cartridges or ink. Don't know what the exceptions are. One thing, I have learned one can find inexpensive generic cartridges on Amazon. Won't make your inkjet work better, but will save you ink costs. My last cartridge was $17 with a lifespan projected at 5,000 copies. A name brand HP cartridge with the same capacity is $105. Typical generics are $50. So search Amazon really saves. So far the cartridge has been working trouble free for two months and I have no reason to think I won't get the specified number of pages out of it at the least.