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Are BlackBerry phones also headed toward rounding error?

Their manufacturer, RIM, is doing the Nortel thing, so quite possibly. More likely, they'll be bought out.

Flash and HTML5 JavaScript are managed environments; are they likewise headed toward rounding error?

What does that have to do with my observation that WP7, which is an operating system, not a programming language or environment, is already dead? We're already hearing the usual suspects chanting "just wait for Windows 8 on the smartphone!"

Considering that Nokia is now in death-spiral mode. They lost $692 million in the last 3 months alone. At that rate of cash burn, they are out of cash in another 6 quarters - and their cash requirements are only going to rise as they try to launch WP7 phones - it costs a lot to fill the channel, promote, etc.

The billion they got from Microsoft to go with WP7 instead of Android is gone, and they're still half a year away from selling a WP7 phone. Microsoft, having burned through several billion trying to get a foot in the smartphone ecosystem, is going to have to keep the cash flowing.

Considering that 2 out of 3 WP7 phones that were shipped are still sitting unsold on store shelves, it looks like there are now almost as many Android smartphone activations every day as all the WP7 phones ever sold - and Android daily activation rates are increasing by about 5.5% a month.

The only joke bigger than WP7 in the mobile space is Steve Ballmer and the Microsoft Board of Directors. WP7 isn't even on the radar in terms of being a threat to anyone.

I 'need' a UMPC due to a large amount of time spent travelling via train to and from work, that I could be spending productively. I've currently got a HTC Universal PDA mobile phone - allowing me to edit Word docs, Excel, surf the net etc while on the go. However, my phone contract's up in August, and I'm looking for the next ideal purchase - and I think I've found it!

The HTC Shift will provide a mobile phone in a Vista UMPC form-factor. apparently "it is about the same size as two DVD cases", yet features include "full QWERTY keyboard, 7" touchscreen, 1Gb of RAM and a 30Gb hard drive" (Source

I can't wait to have a look at it.

except of fm radio here you are

The whole show seems it may be a joke on the viewers, and not the people on the show... Apparently, Two are actors.

I hate point-by-point rebuttals, but there's really no other format to address your "proof."

no professional actor could possibly act as the contestants have for that length of time and with that level (or rather lack) of intelligence.

"Cut! Take two!" What? Do you think a fake reality TV show is bound by the "one take" rule of normal reality TV shows?

a lack of financial incentive for endemol the producers.

They've gotten their ad-revenue either way once the show's over and the joke's public. It doesn't matter to them.

the viewing public backlash and effect on future reality shows

Maybe they don't particularly care for reality shows (since they're the type of production company who uses scripts and actors to go about their business). Maybe they're actually contemptuous of their audience like many of suspect the creators of most reality TV shows that came after Survivor are. Maybe they're sick of reality TV as well and would like to see it die. Who knows?

While Endemol UK has a few companies that have done a lot of reality TV, the company doing Space Cadets is Zeppotron, a comedy producer. Many of their programs have a sort of in-your-face Dadaism about them. I wouldn't put it past a company like this to pull an Andy Kauffman on the British public.

and the absolute impossibility of keeping it a secret from the most voraciously carniverous press in the world.

You only have to keep it secret from the majority of your audience for six weeks or so since it's a short-run program. Even so, it's not the tabloids that have picked up on the issue so much as the nit-picky bloggers that big media still haven't got a good grip on yet. Besides, if you muddy the rumors enough, people may watch just to find out if it's a hoax or not. I admit that my only interest in the show is related to this, and I'd be watching it right now if I could just to see which way it goes based purely on the assumption that it is a hoax on the viewers. Otherwise, I'd have no interest.

oh, and a [i]complete lack of any realistic evidence to the contrary[/i].

Other than this? Come on, two of the contestants are actors, and that's nowhere in their bios! Do you think that's just coincidence?

We're still holding on strong. The whole thing, including the cadets, is a huge hoax on us, the viewers. Though the brits fell for this one too, so we'll call it even.

If I recall correctly, Ryan McBride did say he was an electrician but that "he had bigger plans"... or something like that. So maybe he is a wannabe actor?

And perhaps "Keri Hassett" just happens to look a little bit like the contestant called Keri.

Thus.... maybe you shouldn't be quite so cocky! ;)
You are treating the evidence of a single random website, as absolute hard fact. It may transpire that it is indeed correct and the whole thing is fooling the viewer, but my money is on this not being the case.

http://coolsmartphone.com/index.php?option=news&ta sk=viewarticle&sid=1981&Itemid=2

The hoax is that the british public believes that the participants are unaware of the hoax.

as pointed out, the participants are really actors, and the hoax is on you.

Two words for you: prove it.

This post from another thread seems to do so -- stuff confirming the participants are actors when the show claims they're not. Some counterarguments follow in the linked thread, but it sounds like a reasonable theory with fairly good evidence to me.

    Two points to the winner! :)

    I'm surprised no one else had said it..

    Now, where exactly would they find something of sufficent mass and density to simulate 1G on something the size of the space shuttle? They wouldn't, and actually be able to move it. :)

    But hey, if they want to believe, they will.

    When I was a kid, I went to Space Academy at the Huntsville Space and Rocket center, twice. It was fun. It was geared more towards beginners, but still, it was fun.

    Someone else linked This Page, which shows that the folks in the simulation aren't regular kids being fooled. They're actors being paid to act like they believe the whole thing.

    The simulation sounds really cool though, if it's as realistic as their site portrays.

We're still holding on strong. The whole thing, including the cadets, is a huge hoax on us, the viewers. Though the brits fell for this one too, so we'll call it even.

And then... the final twist.

Anything that threatens the big Telcom companies will get shut down by government. The companies will find some excuse, they can be used by terrorists, they will collapse an industry, they will cook your brians. The telcom companies have enough lawyers and lobbyists to thing of something.

These combine full phone functionality with a Pocket PC and wifi connectivity. And guess what, you can alredy get skpye for them! Certainly the mobile operators in the UK don't seem to be complaining about these and are offering their usual generous discounts on the full unit price

Can anyone say "cheap pda"?

As to open wifi ports there is an interesting discussion in the article as to the number of open wifi ports available in even a small area for this use. It even seems that some people are doing this DELBERATLY!