How many “screens” do we need to limit paging so that the operator can access desired data fast.
How big each screen? How reliable for 24/7 operation?
Why not use several screens, representing one thing at a time, so that several operators can see the same thing simultaneously?
How about limiting the amount of "passive" information (non-changing states etc.) and clutter, and focus on what changes?
Etc.
The problem isn't necessarily in the technology or the availability of such, it's in the application of it.
But I think the most important concern you raise, is that of hardware and software lifespans. Windows XP has just set a record in the Windows world for how long it's been available in retail without a replacement version, yet four-and-a-bit years is a pitiful amount of time. IBM provides a longer life-span -- decades -- for their hardware and software (s/360 through zSeries, AS/400), but you pay the price.
And this brings me to my prediction for future dSLRs: the product release cycle will slow down again, bringing lifetime up for the semi-professional and professional models. I'm unwilling to commit to a timeline for this, since I don't think we're even half-way in technical improvements in todays cameras (as evidenced in an earlier vision I posted here). Maybe twenty years from now?
I would have thought that advances in computer technology would have a lot to contribute to the viability and safety of nuclear power plants. Unfortunately, people often take an emotional stance on an issue that might have been a responsible concern in the distant past, but ceases to be relevant, or at least as relevant, as technology advances. I'm thinking about the consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The plant was an obsolete installation even by the standards of that period.
That is an oft-repeated statement, but it wasn't really the problem. The Chernobyl plant was by no means unique (except for being the source of a horrible, ongoing disaster), and at least for the following decade or two, many other plants from the same design template (if you could call it that) were in production use. Unless I'm mistaken, many of them still are; few of the ex-USSR states have been able to afford upgrades or replacement energy generators.
I think we should move forward with nuclear energy. Australia's in an ideal position to take full advantage of the potential of nuclear energy, but doesn't, presumably for political reasons rather than sensible environmental, economic and scientific reasons. We have the uranium; we have the remote, geologically stable regions for waste disposal; we even invented processes for containing radioactive waste, such as synrock, but we do nothing but burn huge quantities of coal, which we also have lots of.
Uranium is a scarce resource. If Australia wants to bet on nuclear energy, thorium reactors seem the safest course right now.
As for waste disposal, no satisfactory solution has been implemented yet, as far as I know. I have a few suggestions as to how you can warn future generations over a time span of 100,000 years, but I bet they aren't popular. I also know about a safe place for waste disposal, but nobody seems inclined to spend the resources to send the waste into the Sun.