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According to the CNET reviews I saw,located at http://reviews.cnet.com/external-hard-drives/hp-media-vault-mv2020/4505-3190_7-32104518-2.html the actual 5GB copy tests they did show it being faster than the rest, even one other system using RAID5

I'm Canadian. I pay a levy on all blank media to pay for the possibility that those materials might be used - at some point - to hold copyrighted materials.

I've paid for the content, and I am damn well going to get my money's worth.

The tax doesn't pay "for the content," it simply gives you the right to make copies of the media you already own, and the Canadian Recording Industry Association tried to sue to take that away from you a couple of years ago. Read the Copyright Act. It doesn't say what you think it does.

A judge refused to give Canadian record companies the names of 29 people accused of file sharing a few years ago, and agreed with the Copyright Board that file sharing "appeared to be legal". Maybe that's what you were thinking of. I'm not sure that decision still stands.

They even provide back-end infrastructure for apps that need to do background communication.

Coming in September, 2008!. Oh wait...

You quoted one source, not multiple

How about if I quote MS's own Live Labs team? Or perhaps another source or yet another one? or one more?

Just because you may not want to hear the news does not mean that it does not exist.

how often does this bullshit have to be trotted out, only to make the poster (In this case, AC) look like a moron?

http://news.cnet.com/Microsoft,-Novell-spar-over-Linux-agreement/2100-7344_3-6137444.html

Now stop it already

OR you could just simply install XP OEM with any random XP OEM license, without actually buying XP OEM, and use telephone activation and explain that you are downgrading from Vista, and MS will give you an activation code. Assuming, of coarse, you are downgrading from vista business or ultimate.

http://news.cnet.com/The-XP-alternative-for-Vista-PCs/2100-1016_3-6209481.html?tag=nefd.lede

For the truly lazy, this article describes how to use Miro, the open source media player and download app to find and download TV series from the Internet via BitTorrent.

Be aware, in the article one VITAL step in the set up process is left out, but IS covered in the comments.

Set it up and let it run in the background. No more compulsively checking trackers, Miro does it all for you.

Again, bull shiat. Use google before stating "recent developments."

USB 2.0 was released in April 2000.

Those licensing fees were announced in May 1999.

In Jan 1999 Apple announced that it would be $1 per port. As far as I know it's always been $1 per port. Now I don't know of any devices with 10 ports on them (Making the licensing fee $10). Here's a CNET article from the same time.

Both were before USB2.0 was released and considerably less than what you claim.

I preferred the description of the damage that was released a couple of days ago on CNET-

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-10120215-76.html

"A resistive zone developed in one of the electrical connections, creating an electrical arc that punctured one of the helium enclosures around a magnet, according to an analysis by CERN. The warming helium expanded in the vacuum enclosure of the central subsector of the pipe, damaging the vacuum barriers separating the central subsector from the neighboring subsectors."

Geordi La Forge couldn't have said it better.

how would data parallelism negatively affect a test that is designed to measure a system's performance in supercomputing applications--a field which is dominated by problems which involve processing extremely large data sets?

if vector processors do in fact perform poorly on LINPACK benchmarks then that would mean LINPACK performance is not a good indicator of real-world performance, but that clearly isn't the case as vector processors consistently perform quite well in LINPACK suite measurements.

vector processing began in the field of supercomputing, which during the 1980's and 1990's were essentially the exclusive realm of vector processors. it wasn't until companies, to save money, started designing & building supercomputers using commodity processors (P4s, Opterons, etc.) that general-purpose scalar CPUs began to replace specialized vector processors in high-performance computing. but now companies like Cray and IBM are starting to realize that this change was a mistake.

even in commodity computing the momentum is shifting away from general-purpose scalar CPUs towards specialized vector coprocessors like GPUs, DSPs, array processors, stream processors, etc. when you're dealing with things like scientific modeling, economic modeling, engineering calculations, etc. you need to crunch large data sets using the same operation; this is best done in parallel using SIMD. using specialized vector processors (and instruction sets) you can run these applications far more efficiently than you could using a scalar processor running at much higher clock speeds. the only downside is that you lose the advantage of using commodity hardware that's cheap because of their high volume production. but if companies like Adobe start developing their applications to employ vector/stream coprocessors, then that will boost the adoption of these vector processors in the commodity computing market, which will increase production volume and lower manufacturing costs.

Speaking during SanDisk's second-quarter earnings conference call, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Eli Harari said that Windows Vista will present a special challenge for solid-state drive makers. "As soon as you get into Vista applications in notebook and desktop, you start running into very demanding applications because Vista is not optimized for flash memory solid-state disk," he said.

This is due to Vista's design. "The next generation controllers need to basically compensate for Vista shortfalls," he said.

"Unfortunately, (SSDs) performance in the Vista environment falls short of what the market really needs and that is why we need to develop the next generation, which we'll start sampling end of this year, early next year," Harari said.

Harari said this challenge alone is putting SanDisk behind schedule. "We have very good internal controller technology, as you know...That said, I'd say that we are now behind because we did not fully understand, frankly, the limitations in the Vista environment," he added.

Now that is what I would call a ringing endorsement!

oy. Seriously...if I were a developer that was considering writing an app that could be construed as "killer", the #1 turnoff would be Apple's ability to cannibalize my work.

What recourse, if any, would there be if Apple decided to yank my $XX app off the store, only to have the same functionality trumpeted in a new firmware release? (like they already have done)

Futhermore, Apple chooses when and where to enforce their store rules. Google is allowed to break rules. Would a small development firm be so lucky?

There just isn't enough incentive or security to develop something much more useful than a game, ringtone, or eggtimer.

Google is offering a mobile OS that is going to eat Apple's lunch.

The richness of applications in an open environment will eventually surpass whatever Apple has to offer.

Check any Linux repositories: thousands of applications, the top 100 lets say of a very high technical standard, many other good enough for large amounts of people, all of them susceptible of improvements that can closely follow the needs of the users. This enthusiasm will be pushed by the commercial muscle of Google, which means marketing. Great combination that Apple is counteracting with putting a minefield in front of would be iPhone developers. Brain dead policy.

Also Apple's music players are becoming more restrictive, now that finally shops and labels are realizing that DRM is an abomination the need to have an iPod to play music is going to be non existent by end of next year.

If iPods have to compete based on features only (and not in the tie in to the iTunes store) Apple may be for a nasty surprise, since there are plenty of players out there that are immensely better devices (bar the interface, but several mobile phones are providing very good ones, which will find their way to music an d media players)

In synthesis they are going to experience the PC revolution all over again: Linux will take the desktop in an uneasy stand off with Windows (yeah, I know, but people used to laugh also when I told them Linux would be a commercially viable OS by now, which is embedded and server markets, I firmly believe the Penguin will have the last laugh in the desktop as well, the EeePC and friends and the financial crush may play a big hand on this), their players will no longer be as attractive and their computers will be too expensive, again.

Most people forget how close Apple was to go under, they have forgotten that at some point MS had to put some money to help them out (really, not joking: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html ) and this all was because the stubbornness of Apple to stick to close standards for everything they did.

Apple hit the jackpot with the iPod by following their typical close the door policy for iTunes, but once that advantage is gone I just don't see that they have the necessary culture to thrive in an environment in which open standards and perhaps code will be the norm.

"Sony to lay off 8,000 full-timers, 8,000 others"
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10118970-92.html

We're entering some sort of technological dark ages - the honeymoon period is now over.

The mainstream regulation committees have taken interest in these type of subjects and as usual, the ignorance/commercial interests is/are beginning to shine through.

Nah, not really. Those self same interests have been shining bright for over a decade.

I don't know what happens in the UK and the rest of Europe, but I know here in australia they have already passed an amendment to the freedom of information act to *exclude* the internet blacklist from any FOI requests.
http://www.efa.org.au/2008/11/15/filtering-pilot-and-acma-blacklist-not-just-illegal-material/

Yep, thats right. The AU govt is planning on increasing the blacklist of banned websites by an order of magnitude (that they will admit to, but now it will be difficult to tell), and they have taken steps to make sure there can be no oversight

We all know how well this works, don't we.

That scares me more than the actual censorship.

It's one of those "what a product represents" things. The Zune is immediately uncool at slashdot because Microsoft, newsflash- Microsoft make some decent products. Rated Excellent at cnet- http://reviews.cnet.com/mp3-players/microsoft-zune-120gb-third/4505-6490_7-33259222.html?tag=mncol;lst . Reality check, this is a good mp3 player that he got free, I'd be concerned if he went out and spent $250 just for a different make.

*sigh* I wonder if this means Sun is going to pull out of Orbit [slashdot.org] and come up with some J2ME version of JavaFX?

I don't know about Orbit, but a JavaME version of JavaFX is definitely in the works. And to clarify, JavaFX Mobile will be provided to handset manufacturers as a binary distribution, for which Sun will charge a per-unit royalty.

Can you also point me to where the rainbow-powered unicorn factories are?

They used to be here on Slashdot...

Because the license costs a high volume OEM about $60 and they bundle -$70 worth of free trial crapware that only runs under Windows, so the Windows license comes at no cost to you and the OEM makes an extra $10 in the bargain. That's why a Linux box and a Windows box price out the same in practice.

The Mac is designed with built-in technologies that provide protection against malicious software and security threats right out of the box. However, since no system can be 100 percent immune from every threat, running antivirus software may offer additional protection.

Windows Vista is full of "protection", but I use antivirus on that as well. I love MacOS X, and I'm sure it's more secure, but there will be viruses and other malware on MacOS sooner or later.

By the way, isn't it ironic that Apple is still offering ClamXav for download on their own website?

You'll be lucky if it's just the NVidia software failing They have had issues with their hardware..

I had terrible problems with my new Vista Laptop, until the hardware (except for the HD with the OS on it) was replaced with another "identical" machine. No problems since.

So don't be too quick to blame the OS.

The first issue I have with this study is that if you're going to buy electronics products based on their waste, you're starting at a low point. E-waste in particular is nasty, and even recycling it ends up poisoning a lot of people if it's not done properly. Here's a link of a cnet article talking about Chinese problems at recycling centers. The issue is the heavy metals like lead, chromium, cadmium, nickel, etc. Recycling may occur that is more damaging than putting the metals in a landfill. It's stupid for Greenpeace to single out Apple for "not recycling" when "recycling" is of dubious helpfulness if not done properly, and this is a sympton of the industry as a whole.

As for the specifics, it seems like a lot of the bad ratings of Apple are coming from the fact that they won't disclose timelines, or explain how various numbers are accounted. How do they know that the timelines published by "green" companies aren't complete bullshit? Also, I suspect they aren't giving enough credit to Apple for what it has done and focusing instead on what it hasn't. E.g., Greenpeace gives no indication why Apple's renewable energy purchases are in the "bad" category, were they not enough or what? They give Apple no credit for having a timeline to put their Ireland manufacturing facility on 100% renewable. Also, they give Apple a "bad" rating for not disclosing how much recycled plastics they use in their packaging some of their products. Hello?! The plastic in the packaging are some plastic bags, it's trivial, the rest of the packaging is cardboard and styrofoam. Greenpeace will look like idiots if the reason Apple doesn't report recycled plastic content in their packaging is because they aren't using any plastic at all in some product packaging.

Although I can sympathize with Greenpeace, I think we've all been annoyed by the secrecy or control-obsessiveness of Apple at some time in the past. Maybe Greenpeace is just expressing its views that Apple's secrecy in this case is not acceptable.

WARNING: iPhone 3G browsing speeds may be impeded if you're an idiot.

According to PC Pro, those were Wi-Fi speeds - they use a 3G iPhone, but the WiFi connection.

"The video was shot using a standard iPhone 3G over a Wi-Fi connection, using sites and files similar to those shown in the advert."

Are we to believe that Apple was demonstrating "really fast" over WiFi and not 3G?

CNet ran a similar test comparing the ads to iPhone use, last year. He lags a little behind, and I get the sense that he wants to prove that iPhone is "all that" just as badly as PCPro wants to prove it isn't. With a remarkable lack of prescience, he concludes that nobody could accuse Apple of false advertising. http://cnettv.cnet.com/2001-1_53-28172.html I'm vague on the iPhone timeline, but I think this was before the iPhone had 3G.

Me, I could care less but the wife's iPod touch and her BlackBerry are both slower than the ad and faster than the "anti-ad". And I'm sending this over an "always on, always fast" broadband connection that drops out from time to time and hangs on pages and other content at random intervals with no pattern. We bought the service knowing it could be very good at it's best, but not be at it's best all of the time. I see 17 complaints agains an iPhone and think to myself "... And... ?".

Batteries are a big profit center for companies. One of the things we worked hard on the OLPC to achieve is extended battery life.

You can trade somewhat lower capacity for longevity. Basically, if you are charging the battery, and take it to full charge, you are in fact damaging the battery slightly. So we don't fully charge the battery, so we can get many, many more cycles out of them (we use LiFE, batteries as well, which are much safer than LiIon.

While this may be true for the "get one" and machines used to woo givers, it's not true for those that the kids in 3rd world countries actually get. They get their XOs with nickel-based batteries, and horrible battery life is one of the main complaints.
4 hours max with brand new batteries, and 2 hours for a slightly used machine if not running WiFi seems typical.

Of course, I'm not saying that presenting the givers with a different machine with different batteries is bait-and-switch. No, siree...

Have you tried the second link in the summary ? http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-10107675-76.html

Adds reader gillbates: "She now faces up to 3 years in jail and $300,000 in fines -- a troubling precedent for anyone who has ever registered with a website under a pseudonym."

how so? i register on websites with pseudonyms all the time. this does not trouble me at all (other than the fact a grown woman would conspire with her daughter to bully a neighbor's kid, especially a young girl with emotional problems).

the problem isn't with the interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in this particular case. the problem is with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act itself. this incident actually resulted in the death of a girl and was motivated by deliberate malice. a maximum (which are rarely handed out to members of privileged social groups) of 3 years in jail and $300,000 doesn't seem any more ridiculous than handing out such punishments to well-intending security experts.

i would be more disturbed by the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act being applied to non-malicious teenage hackers breaking into un-secured government networks out of curiosity. if they can be faulted for "damages" that include the time spent investigating the intrusion and fixing the pre-existing security flaws, then certainly a grown woman can be punished for causing the death of a little girl.

in any case, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act needs major reforms, and perhaps making such ridiculous laws applicable to the general population will open people's eyes.

I think you've misspelled "Windows NT" as "Linux".

This bug actually applies to Win 9x, rather than to NT[1]. I'm led to believe that the reason is that MS used an int as a millisecond counter in VMM[2]. At 49.7* days, the int wraps, and Windows panics.

The bug was not discovered until 1999. Reportedly, that's how long it took for someone to convince Microsoft that they actually managed to keep Windows up for 49.7 days.

* Yes, the number is 49.7, not 47.9.

[1] Windows may crash after 49.7 days[3]
[2] Windows crash after 49.7 days, Automatically... Do you know?
[3] That's right: it's cited, bitches!

"...he quote's obvious link to copyright law rather than patent law.."

Survey says ... ZZZZ!!! Sorry

Q in interview was: "In recent years, there's been a lot of people clamoring to reform and restrict intellectual-property rights. It started out with just a few people, but now there are a bunch of advocates saying, "We've got to look at patents, we've got to look at copyrights." What's driving this, and do you think intellectual-property laws need to be reformed? "
http://news.cnet.com/Gates-taking-a-seat-in-your-den---page-4/2008-1041_3-5514121-4.html

Wow. This is coming from Matt Asay ( http://news.cnet.com/openroad/ ) who writes the OSS blog for Cnet, routinely blasting people for not being open enough, and routinely praising Alfresco for their OSS efforts.

I love the Netflix feature. The only problem I had with it was that only 7 of my 11 playable videos in my queue actually showed up on my 360. The rest must have been owned by Sony, who in typically Sony douchebag fashion, refused to allow Sony videos to be streamed to 360's. Other than that, it worked flawlessly for me. I loved that the setup was so simple (just enter a simple one-time code when you're logged into your Netflix account and whalla, you're all set!)

Insert disk. The movie plays.

That is the out-of-box experience your customers are looking for and it is the only thing they care about.

The geek is 1% of your market and he will always be bitching about something.

Sony's 18-inch Blu-ray laptop is our portable home theater favorite

So, if you trash the hard drive and install an empty one.... you're hosed? No MacOS for you?

Not every Macintosh boot drive will have a valid MacOS image. Selling, and restricting, the retail package to "Upgrade" pretty much obligates you to sell a "clean-install" version, undercutting the "we only sell upgrade packages" argument. Labelling the packages "Upgrade" but not enforcing any kind of technical measure against clean installs is called lying. If that "Upgrade Only" proviso becomes part of a body of evidence in court, it'll be refuted in 30 minutes by opposing experts. (See also "Internet Explorer is an integral part of Windows".)

Making the difference, a not inconsiderable $750 - the Mac is a third more expensive than a Dell that gives twice the 3dmark performance. (this is what we're discussing remember).

If you're so insistent on discussing that Dell with the Macbook, then the Apple blows it out of the water on a price comparison, since the Dell was 4480 USD (MSRP) and is now about 3349 USD. I guess you didn't bother to read the article and see that it's the special SLI configuration with a pair of Mobile 8800M GTXs. If you're doing a price comparison with the cheaper M1730s then you'll need to find benchmarks for them since they use a different graphics set up e.g. these CNet benchmarks. I have'nt seen link yet for performance of the 17" MacBook Pros; only the new 15.4" ones.

Of course if you're going to make this comparison, then you have to acknowledge that the weight of the Dell (10.6 lbs, twice that of the Mac, along with twice the thickness) renders it unsuitable for mobile use and if you're factoring in sale prices, you need to take a look at Apple's refurb store a well. Compared to the 2099 USD Dell, the Mac has twice the level 2 cache, twice the VRAM and a faster processor. The Dell wireless is also inferior, supporting only g, compared to a/g/n for the Mac and Bluetooth (along with Firewire 800) is missing. Add these in as far as possible, bump the graphics from the single 8700 w/256 MB to the dual SLI version, ignore the sale discount since we could get that in the Apple refurb section and you find that the Dell is 2749 USD - 100 USD cheaper than the Mac, which is a negligible difference (less than 4%). The Dell will have higher framerates in games, but be far less portable (and lacking in Firewire 800) and chew your batteries up twice as fast (based on how long they last playing a DVD). It should also be remembered that the current 17" is quite old and wasn't updated when the other MacBook Pros were.

So, what exactly do you want to discuss?
* The very expensive custom Dell with the high benchmarks vs. an old 17" MacBook Pro?
* The cheaper dual SLI Dell vs. an old 17" MacBook Pro?
* The non-SLI Dell vs. an old 17" MacBook Pro?
* A Dell vs. an old 17" MacBook Pro, each with custom configuration to match each other's specs as closely as possible?
* A Dell on sale vs. a 17" MacBook Pro from the refurb store (i.e. on sale)?

So far you've picked a cheap Dell, on sale, given the benchmark for the most expensive one and compared it to a full price MacBook with extra stuff added to match the Dell's configuration without getting the Dell to also match the MacBook's. Now, is it just me, or does that seem a little like tilting the playing field ridiculously in favour of one side? We'll forget about you giving the Mac price in Australian dollars and assume that wasn't trolling.

If you compare full price products, specced to match each other, the Dell is slightly cheaper, better for gaming, but worse for high speed I/O and more of a movable desktop than a laptop i.e. gamers are better off with the Dell, but everyone else is probably better off with the Mac.

With space you have no internet (i.e. road) and TTLs are too high to use the same technology we use here.

You might think so, but it *has* been shown to work. I mean, don't tell me you never heard of the pigeon protocol?

Then turn it off. If you don't want search results, set "browser.urlbar.maxRichResults" to zero in about:config. If you want the old appearance try oldbar. I actually found that Firefox 3 was a tiny bit faster than 2, so I'm happy.

For more information look here and here.

And the CNet article mentioned in the above: Apple's 802.11n accounting conundrum

The company says accounting rules known as generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) force it to ask for money for the download.

"During the past several months Apple has shipped some Macs with the hardware to support 802.11n, but the draft of the 802.11n specification was not complete enough to create the required software," Apple spokeswoman Lynn Fox said in an e-mail to CNET News.com. "Now that the draft specification is complete, we are ready to distribute the software to make the 802.11n hardware in these Macs come to life."

But because the company has already recognized all the revenue from the sales of those computers, it has to now charge customers at least a nominal fee in order to establish the value of its software upgrade and satisfy an obscure accounting regulation known as SOP 97-2, said Fox.

I don't fully agree with Stallman regarding cloud computing, but if you add Microsoft's usual strategies to storing all your documents with them (lets take their word that any browser will be able to use their web office) some danger could be there.
At least with Google's one i can download the docs in OpenOffice/Word/RTF/HTML format, thats the other "compatibility" that MS Web Office should provide too.

Points:
1) Hardcore gaming is not a concern of the majority of Windows users (and XP outperforms Vista there anyway). Linux has plenty of games (and at least in Ubuntu they are MUCH easier to install and do not have confusing and arbitrary DRM restrictions) for "casual" gamers, which the majority of Windows users are. The hardcore folks I will admit need Windows.
2) In Ubuntu I don't download drivers, It configures that for me automatically in 90% of the systems I installed it in (well over 50 systems - admittedly that last 10% really sucked).
3) I run MS Office and Outlook using Crossover. I really don't need to since I have never had problems using Open Office. We use Exchange 2007 sooo. I have to run Outlook + I actually like MS Office.
4) Ummm I think you better fact check. In business Linux is highly respected. Almost everyone and their mother is MS certified. I am as well, But I can also support Linux. This makes my skill set more desirable than a MS only admin: I can provide a much wider solution set to projects that may require interoperability or have small budgets with large requirements. Linux is good for business - and it is installed on appprox. 1 in 4 new servers. LINK: http://news.cnet.com/IDC-Linux-server-sales-to-hit-9.1-billion-in-2008/2100-1010_3-5479681.html
I think Linux will continue make inroads as long as Microsoft continues down the road of "bigger is better" and continues to annoy users with registration nightmares and empty marketing ploys. Business-wise, the Server 2008 platform has some great features,and certainly is very competitive but their home market will continue to lose ground to OSX and Ubuntu if they don't start improving the average user's experience.

Here's an example of how Ballmer views the world.

Despite acknowledging that WebKit's open-source nature is "interesting," Microsoft's chief executive elaborated on why he says the software giant is sticking--at least for now--with its Trident rendering engine for Internet Explorer.

"I think there will continue to be a lot of proprietary innovation by us, and other people, inside the browser itself," he said. "A company like ours needs to have (its own) rendering service. It is important that we have a browser that embraces (Internet) standards but also allows us to have innovative extensions, even before the standards bodies go there."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10090118-75.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

So MS make innovative extensions to IE and then wait for the standards bodies adopt it??

He's completely ignoring FOSS here. He seems to have lost objectivity, especially if you read the rest of the article.
Doesn't look like MS is going compliant any time soon.

So let's see, Linksys makes generic crap. I'm not completely impressed with my NETGEAR device so I don't think they're that great either. Don't even get me started on how bad Belkin's stuff was. D-Link sounded good, but now this?

Netgear was the one that set the time to a hardcoded ntp address, every hour on the hour. As more and more were sold, they started crushing the ntp server with an hourly packetstorm. They couldn't load balance, either, because it was a hardcoded ip address.

Linksys makes generic crap, although I just dropped my linksys router (twice... stepped on the cable) and it's still chunking packets like a champ. Plus, you can get OSS for them even today.... although they don't have as much flash as they used to so the software is a bit more limited.

I use WPA2 AES with a 128-bit key, but even the 'advanced' DD-WRT v24sp2 router firmware I'm using had TKIP as the default. I think it's for XP compatibility, but SP3 includes WPA2 and PNRP now.

CNN already uses holograms. /snicker

Even in your CNN linked article they say that this isn't hologram at all...

TED has a decent video on the possibilities of tissue regeneration. Not to difficult to imagine more generalized use soon.

Not sure how easy it is to turn up the gain but how hard can it be to strap a can-tenna to one of the new mind controlled video game controllers?

CNN already uses holograms. /snicker

What's really sad is that Yahoo's CEO Jerry Yang had a lot of support from employees who feared that Microsoft would can them. The threat of their revolt was in part what drove Microsoft away.

Now he's turning around and repaying them by announcing a second around of layoffs that will total about 10% of the workforce. Source. Looks like everyone got the raw deal out of this. It makes you wonder if Yang even had a plan for Yahoo post-merger.

I thought the same thing (minuscule market share), until I saw that in Q4 2007, the iPhone had a 30% market share of smartphones.

It's since dropped, but I have no idea what's happened since the 3G model came out. Point is...it's not remotely minuscule; they're second or third.

The other point: the market is pretty diversified between Palm, Windows Smartphones, Palm OS, Symbian, and others (like the Sidekick, running Hiptop OS.) If several companies colluded and blocked Opera, THAT would be an anti-trust action.

Ummm...considering that Asus has done announced they will have a EEE priced at $200 next year,why on earth would anyone get screwed with such a long term contract to save $100? Personally I'll wait and see what the $200 Asus looks like.

At $200 retail it becomes free with contract - which will no doubt be a selling point.

If it is a decent device (for me, that's a 10" screen, plenty of memory, 16GB SSD or fast HDD, bluetooth) and data service is reasonably priced I'd get one as a laptop replacement.

Ummm...considering that Asus has done announced they will have a EEE priced at $200 next year,why on earth would anyone get screwed with such a long term contract to save $100? Personally I'll wait and see what the $200 Asus looks like.

ironically, IBM is the one who did business with the Nazis during WWII.

Not too surprising following the incident in which Diebold voting machines were hacked using a key image in an advertisement:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-6153328-7.html

Oh yeah - I knew that sounded familiar!
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/06/1627220