posted by Thom Holwerda on Fri 21st Nov 2008 00:11 UTC, submitted by Moulinneuf

I remember reading somewhere, some time ago about scientists working for NASA who regularly receive proposals for new space craft from what I respectfully refer to as "amateurs". One of those NASA scientists told an interesting anecdote, about how all of these amateur schematics have a big, white, empty section at the back of the ship, labeled "warp drive goes here" - with no details on that rather crucial little element.

These proposals for a free, ad-powered version of Windows always remind me of these stories from the NASA scientists. How would an ad-powered version of Windows work? Where do the ads go? How long would they appear? Can you click a close button? Are they text-only? Can they use Flash/Silverlight? Can they enlarge my pen1s?

It's an intriguing concept to ponder, but I'm just not really sure if there is an acceptable, yet profitable way of presenting ads all throughout an operating system. It's the big, white, empty section at the back of the operating system labelled "ads go here".

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