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Yeah but given your experience purchasing drives in quantity I'm sure you've noticed that while these rates change pretty wildly between manufacturers, more importantly they vary quite a bit between models and revisions. Google's drive failure report (now a bit dated, but I'd guess still relevant) was pretty informative:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/18/massive-google-hard-drive-survey-turns-up-very-interesting-thing/

Although it looks like there's a few more steps in this implementation than you'd like, Android has started doing this with Froyo. Here's the Engadget article that demonstrates pushing links from your desktop onto your Android phone.

Of course, this misses the "without missing a beat" part of your solution, but it's a start.

well, the 2.1 update is apparently only a month old, so it's pretty clear that HTC is running at least a version behind. I believe the Droid only recently got its update too, so this is not just an HTC issue. So while it's not fair to portray them as keeping up with the pace, can't you root any of these phones and run the latest version just without the SenseUI or whatever bells-and-whistles that HTC is adding?

There is one coming soon, Engadget just did a review: http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/01/meego-moorestown-powered-tablet-hands-on/

Meego 1.5 feels very nice and snappy on that 1.5GHZ tablet.

Also, in separate articles they said Asus and Acer were warming up to Meego.

How does the Huffington Post come up with details a /. contributor couldn't? Oh, yeah, he didn't rtfa. Anyway, there are a few examples of DIY tablets if you want to go through the effort, such as the Carbon and a Shanzai Tablet (btw, reading the root article translation of this is funny at times if you have brain leakages).

ok, but why are they working massive overtime? Is it because the job requires them to ("do it or you're fired") or is it the pay that requires them to ("If I don't pick up 6 extra shifts I can't pay my rent next month").

According to an article from someone who went "undercover" at the factory for awhile, people were picking up shifts because they needed the money. So maybe it will help.

I haven't had TV service in 3 years, all media has been through the XBMC and I've never had a problem with downloaded content not working. 1080p isn't a popular downloaded format, you search for any video content and 480i or similar DVD quality will be easier to find than 1080p. Unless there's a huge jump in cheap bandwidth 1080p will continue to be unpopular, especially with Comcast and Earthlink announcing monthly caps. Who'd want to waste 5gb on 1080p when 700mb 480i DivX suffices?

Like I said support is huge, you start putting the software on dozens of different kinds of hardware and OSes and you're going to have support problems. What happens when you post on a forum "1080p is jumpy"? Now they have to look at the cpu and video card and OS and other software and all these other potential problems, and while people might help you today with your dual core 1.6ghz atom in 5 years time they'll laugh at you and say your PC isn't fast enough and to upgrade.

I agree with one thing you said: "If that's just too much for you by all means keep your old XBOX too." I can give my parents a Xbox with XBMC on it and not worry about support because I know there's no problems with it, can you say the same about your $350 personal computer? If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Fragmenting the XBMC is the same mistake Android made: sure the OS is free, but the software that runs on your Android might not run on mine and many have speculated this fragmentation will destroy Android. Windows Mobile did the the same thing for many years and developers had to publish long lists of supported and unsupported Windows Mobile smartphones. That's one of the reasons the iPhone is so successful: every app works on every iPhone.

This will not end well for XBMC, this will push people off Xboxes and on to Boxee and other competitors because why bother with XBMC when you're already running a dual core PC? Might as well upgrade to Boxee or MythTV.

I don't mind the developers making a XBMC2 for modern devices, but to end support for the highly successful XBMC and close the forums and start removing things from the wiki is suicide and I can't believe they don't see that. What would happen if Sony or Microsoft announced they'd no longer support the PS3 or Xbox360 and they're focusing on next gen consoles? Think anyone that read that would buy a ps3 or 360? Sony's a genius when it comes to that: while M$ ended support for the Xbox, you can still buy a brand new ps2 and new games at most retail stores and it's paid off big, with 1.8 million Playstation 2s sold in 2009. Yes, Sony sold 1.8 million 10 yr old ps2s in 2009, and brand new ps2 games are still being released in 2010. See you don't slaughter the fatted calf as soon as the next gen comes out, and the fact that XBMC developers are doing so prove they don't care about their community and will drop you whenever it's convenient for them.

I am sympathetic to the idea of mandated hardware buttons and placement, buuuuuut ... I'd rather have tiered recommendations / human interface guidelines, because there might be a lot of cool applications for Android where a mandated layout wouldn't work, but a secondary recommended layout / alternative would. I'm spur-of-the-moment imagining an embedded display in a convertable's dashboard that's intended to have little chance for dust to get in. I don't have a convertable, and maybe that's a silly example, but Hey. I know that on many of my electronic gizmos, the actual electronic bits and display have outlived the life of the buttons.*

Want to be real awesome? Have touch-sensitive dedicated scroll areas off the display surface.

As long as we're thinking of the same sort of thing, that's one thing I look forward to in the (of-course-it's-delayed) Notion Ink Adam tablet. (Though I also worry that it will be distractingly bad, as when a touchpad on a notebook is oversensitive and leads to all kinds of curse-inducing pointer misplacement.)

timothy

* Another reason I hate trackpads :) When their "mouse buttons" fail or start to go wonky, the simple, elemental-to-human-life matter of click, Yea, whether left or right, can bring great wailing and gnashing of teeth and bashing of buttons.

Yes, because of course web/IM/email are the *ONLY THREE THINGS* done on any PC in an average home...

You win the unintentionally hilarious award for the day. The iPad actually supports or will support every single thing you mentioned!

1. Printing support may come as a part of the iPhone OS 4.0 SDK. If not, Google's Cloud Print Service could fill the gap.
2. The iPad is such a good 3D game platform that Nintendo declared Apple the enemy of the future.
3. The iPad itself is a solid media player, but you can also hook it up to your TV with Component or VGA cables.
4. Apple sells a Camera Connector Kit for the iPad. You can upload photos from an SD stick, and edit them in an App on your iPad.
5. iPhone OS 4.0 supports background tasks and multi-tasking, to the extent that you would even want to do that on a 10" screen.

The only thing you can't do on an iPad is rip movies and music, but that's kinda what the iTunes store is for. I'm not saying that the way you do it on the iPad is for everyone, and you specifically are certainly better off with a PC. My mom, on the other hand, finds the iPad a much eaiser way to achieve every item you mentioned.

Verizon was the last company investing in broadband infrastructure with their FiOS deployments. They've already announced that they're stopping. No more FiOS.

References:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/27/verizon-shelves-plans-for-future-fios-rollouts-relocations-to-m/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shelly-palmer/verizon-ending-fios-expan_b_516600.html

I have recently bought a Netwalker PC-Z1 as a replacement for my Zaurus PDA. Ubuntu Jaunty seems to work well on this device. Here is one review: http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/27/sharps-5-inch-pc-z1-netwalker-honors-the-zaurus-legacy/ Unfortunately it is aimed only at the Japanese market & needs to be converted to English.

Then it would have made more sense to link to the page that you looked at, rather than a Google search page containing a variety of devices. Something like this: http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/10/lenovo-ideapad-s10-3t-review/
(They didn't like it. Have you actually tried one?)

I guess I'll never understand then, I don't see the point of spending $300+ on such a niche product that will never compete with less expensive devices with more capabilities and better support. I haven't read one good argument for purchasing this:
--Emulator/Homebrew? Buy PSP.
--UMPC with keyboard? Buy a real UMPC for $350 or $275 or hundreds of others
--small HTPC with S-Video? buy a $3 cable and you can do that with a iPod Touch or iPhone

In fact, a jailbroken Touch offers almost everything the Pandora does except the physical keyboard, but I think the millions of apps make up for it.

Lovely accessed denied... just a snapshot of site:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Oa6IgGHvHHUJ:pandorapress.net/+site:pandorapress.net+pandorapress.net&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
That is Google cache version, not really helpful imo.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/20/gp2x-community-system-dubbed-pandora/
There is your engadget version, they always have nice pretty pictures there.

I completely agree, but there is no pro-Apple sentiment expressed in the article I linked whatsoever. It SLAMS Apple for continuing to use Foxconn's services.

Huh? From the closing of translated article on engadget (emphasis added):

This super factory that holds some 400,000 people isn't the "sweatshop" that most would imagine. It provides accommodation that reaches the scale of a medium-sized town, all smooth and orderly. Compared to others, the facilities here are well-equipped and superior, with employee treatment meeting standard specifications. Thousands of people flock here each day just to find a place of their own, to find a dream that they'll probably never realize.

This isn't a factory's inside story, but the fate of a generation of workers.

In case you haven't been paying any attention to what's going on in China, these issues are FAR larger than Foxconn or any of its customers. China is undergoing a massive population shift from poor rural areas into urban centers. Vast numbers of people repeating the old dream of "makin' it in the big city" -- but the economics and opportunities available to them conflict with those starry eyed dreams.

It seems to be worse on Apple's factories. See these videos.

I did. I RTFA too. You might want to do that. The videos are in chinese, and the images are disturbing, but if you read the article, it's starts to make sense. And what you just said is apparently completely made up by you. From TFA you linked to:

This super factory that holds some 400,000 people isn't the "sweatshop" that most would imagine. It provides accommodation that reaches the scale of a medium-sized town, all smooth and orderly. Compared to others, the facilities here are well-equipped and superior, with employee treatment meeting standard specifications. Thousands of people flock here each day just to find a place of their own, to find a dream that they'll probably never realize.

This isn't a factory's inside story, but the fate of a generation of workers.

This isn't the norm. Sounds to me like Apple must have done something already, lit a fire under Foxconn's ass, because the job, besides being low pay, isn't at all bad. What I'm reading from the article is that the social culture is being blamed for these suicides, not Foxconn's treatment of their workers under Apple's direction, as much as you'd like to believe that.

See the Chinese news reports cited below where the undercover reporter both connects the dots for you and, if you work for a living, gives you a terrifying glimpse of your future.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/19/the-fate-of-a-generation-of-workers-foxconn-undercover-fully-tr/

It seems to be worse on Apple's factories. See these videos.

Don't know if you all saw this or if it was on Slashdot at all, but Engadget has a full, human-done English translation of the article written by a reporter who went undercover at the factory.

First off, they are launching (Logitech) a set top box along side the Sony TV.

Secondly, I'd suggest actually looking into it. It looks quite powerful and packs a lot more than I think you're giving credit for. It's not just a browser on the TV... Check this out: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/20/live-from-the-google-i-o-2010-day-2-keynote/

http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/16/google-implemented-an-android-kill-switch-those-rascals/

Android has this too.

Erm tell that to Tomtom and a few others when it comes to FAT.

Printing from an iPad is a solved problem.

It could be a lot worse for Nokia if Apple is able to prove that the licensing fees Nokia requested from Apple for essential GSM patents turns out to be unreasonable. Nokia does hold GSM patents, which as part of a standard are required to be licensed under "fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory" terms. If Apple can prove that Nokia requested unreasonable terms from Apple for the GSM patents, Nokia may be in trouble with the ETSI.

If anything good comes out of this for future patent encumbered standards, it could be that the courts may be left to define what fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory actually means. As Engadget states in their coverage:

In reality FRAND is nebulous and undefined, with almost no specific rules for determining what a "fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory" license actually is. source

It would be nice if these cases were looked at as clear reason why we really need patent reform, but I doubt that's going to happen any time soon.

imo, this is the ONLY case in recent years that show how important patents really are and need no reform in this area. nokia (along with others like siemens, ericsson, etc) has spent billions of dollars into developing the technology that goes into your cellphone, whatever brand it is. if you want to use that tech and sell it to make a profit, you need to pay nokia. that sounds pretty fair to me. and you have to pay whatever they ask. if they ask too much, go use other tech like cdma. its not technically inferior or anything and is quite widely deployed.

...shouldn't it be Synaptics? Their touchpads have been multitouch-capable since Apple was still using PowerPC chips and the iPhone was just some obscure Cisco product.

According to Engadget,

Geohot promised a workaround for Sony's removal of the "install other OS" feature in PS3 firmware 3.21 and now Geohot has delivered...Geohot even says that the custom firmware might actually enable the other OS feature on the PS3 Slim, but he hasn't yet had a chance to try it out.

Okay, Airforce, here's your strategy:

1) Hire Hotz (Geohot), have him make the OtherOS feature work on PS3 slim hardware, and then
2) buy a few extra units to safeguard against Sony throwing another firmware/hardware update into the mix.

As a bonus prize you make a bunch of geeky hardware/software -hacker-types pleased with what you're funding, and goodness knows that you're always looking to recruit geeks for your cyber warfare divisions.

It could be a lot worse for Nokia if Apple is able to prove that the licensing fees Nokia requested from Apple for essential GSM patents turns out to be unreasonable. Nokia does hold GSM patents, which as part of a standard are required to be licensed under "fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory" terms. If Apple can prove that Nokia requested unreasonable terms from Apple for the GSM patents, Nokia may be in trouble with the ETSI.

If anything good comes out of this for future patent encumbered standards, it could be that the courts may be left to define what fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory actually means. As Engadget states in their coverage:

In reality FRAND is nebulous and undefined, with almost no specific rules for determining what a "fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory" license actually is. source

It would be nice if these cases were looked at as clear reason why we really need patent reform, but I doubt that's going to happen any time soon.

Until I can get a CableCARD PC tuner at Best Buy or Frys, all of this whining about Linux not supporting CableCARD is mindless nonsense.

You again! You're still as full of shit as ever. However since last time you spouted off your ignorant crap, Ceton has launched the pre-order for their InfiniTV 4 quad-tuner, which will ship in approximately 20 days. Ceton is a relatively small company at the moment so retail partnerships will probably take a while to materialize, but the card itself should be available from major online retailers (Amazon, Newegg, etc) once it officially launches at the end of this month. Price is $400, or $100/tuner.

Just today, Silicon Dust just showed off their 3-tuner device, announced a beta testing program, and availability of "in time for the holidays 2010". And since Silicon Dust's existing HDHR products are on the shelves at Fry's and other brick and mortar retailers, you can imagine this will also be available there once it launches. Price is still expected to be $250-260, or $83-86/tuner.

As I mentioned the last two times I had to put you in your place, the PC digital cable tuner market didn't really exist until last fall when Windows 7 shipped the ability to use DCTs without requiring a special OEM BIOS. Prior to that CableLabs had a lock on the market and nobody was interested in playing (ATI tried, but as of April this year they've completely discontinued their lame, expensive DCT offering). Opening up that market allowed for other players, but as the move was relatively sudden you have to allow time for development and manufacturing. Ceton is there now (CableLabs certification has been passed, cards are being manufactured in China for the pre-order run), Silicon Dust is actively engaged, and surely other tuner companies are eyeing the market to see how it pans out.

I have FiOS and until MythTV supports CableCARD, it's rather useless. A google of the site just turns up a dry wiki definition of CableCARD and a bunch of forum postings that degenerate into DRM-related poo flinging.

The forum postings are correct. In fact, there's only 1 tuner card in existence right now that supports CableCard and it's tied to it's hardware (you have to buy it with the machine, or at least, you're supposed to do that). Reasoning? CableCard and the networks in general are a bunch of filthy cronies not willing to license it out to a wider set of devices. However, that process is well under way and several companies are ready to sell their own CableCard tuners now that the requirements have been relaxed. I imagine MythTV (well, Linux in general) will be ready to hop right on this to take advantage of it so we can finally do away with all those STBs.

I have FiOS and until MythTV supports CableCARD, it's rather useless. A google of the site just turns up a dry wiki definition of CableCARD and a bunch of forum postings that degenerate into DRM-related poo flinging.

The forum postings are correct. In fact, there's only 1 tuner card in existence right now that supports CableCard and it's tied to it's hardware (you have to buy it with the machine, or at least, you're supposed to do that). Reasoning? CableCard and the networks in general are a bunch of filthy cronies not willing to license it out to a wider set of devices. However, that process is well under way and several companies are ready to sell their own CableCard tuners now that the requirements have been relaxed. I imagine MythTV (well, Linux in general) will be ready to hop right on this to take advantage of it so we can finally do away with all those STBs.

The more they waste time, the better it'll be for the german Neofonie to negotiate most european publishers for hts rival Wetab tablet machine.
Which may not be so bad ( Linux based, yes sir).

http://wetab.mobi/en
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/26/neofonies-wepad-tablet-shown-to-german-journalists-seems-legit/2#comments
http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/03/29/europes-biggest-publisher-embraces-the-wepad/

Use it to produce a home movie, you're okay.

Correct.

Use it to produce a indie movie, even with "pro" grade equipment and you're not.

Producing the movie does not require a license. Distributing the movie for pay would require a license.

Use it to produce a demo reel for your work, and you're not.

Producing with H.264 does not require paying a license fee. Demo reels generally are not distributed for pay or in quantities large enough to meet the thresholds for which licensing fees kick in.

Engadget had a good article that dealt with much of the H.24 licensing FUD that is going around.

You do realize that almost everything on your list is compete and utter trolling, right? An iPad can basically do almost everything on your list. It's not at all hard to come up with things that an iPad can't do, yet still you proceeded to dump a huge list of things that it can! Strawman argument, perhaps?

I can use its camera - iPad cannot

That's easy. Buy the iPad Camera Connector Kit and use a real camera. Oh, you meant a built-in camera on the Netbook? Those are universally crap anyway.... :-)

I can multitask - iPad cannot

This is, of course, coming soon.

I can install anything I want - iPad cannot
I can write a program and use it instantly - iPad cannot

Sure it can. You just need a $99 iPhone developer program membership. Or jailbreak it. Either way.

I can use various memory sticks - iPad cannot

Again, easy. Buy the iPad Camera Connector Kit. It supports memory sticks as long as they are capable of working correctly on low-power USB. In other words, if you can plug them into your keyboard, they should work. If they only work when you plug them into a computer, they won't.

I can dump my camera to it - iPad cannot

Apparently you haven't heard of the iPad Camera Connector Kit? Because that's exactly what it's for....

It has a real keyboard - iPad does not

I'm pretty sure you can connect any standard USB keyboard using the iPad Camera Connector Kit. At least that's what a number of folks have discovered.

Also, there's always the iPad Keyboard Dock that provides a standard laptop-sized keyboard (no keypad)

I can plug a real keyboard and mouse in now - iPad cannot

Again, I'm not sure it's officially supported, but the iPad Camera Connector Kit does this as long as you're connecting a standard HID-class-compliant keyboard and mouse. I'm starting to sound like a broken record here.

I can plug in an external monitor with hires - iPad cannot

Actually, yes it can. It can output up to 720p if you buy the iPad VGA adapter. Sure, it's not DVI, but if you wanted that, netbooks cannot, either.

I can use dual monitors on it - iPad cannot

On what netbook!?! I've never seen a netbook with anything more than a single VGA output. If you're going to compare an iPad to a netbook, at least compare it to a netbook that doesn't live in fantasy-land. Oh, you meant outputting something different than what's on your screen? Yup. iPad can. The app has to be coded to do so, but plenty of apps do this.

It has multiple USB ports - iPad does not

USB hub. $10 at Fry's. Seriously, you're not trying very hard, are you?

I run multi-boot OS's on in (Win7 / Linux) - iPad cannot

There are, no doubt folks working on that, too.... It's pretty much inevitable.

Except for the HDFury2: http://hd.engadget.com/2008/08/18/hdfury2-adapter-kit-tunnels-hdcp-laden-hdmi-content-via-componen/

HDCP compliant HDMI in, Audio Optical/Analog and Component/VGA&RGB out.

You liars are annoying. H.264 is still a closed standard and it does not matter how many Microsoft Partners tell you that closed is open or that open means "buy our stuff". H.264 fails on points 2, 3, and 4 of the formal definition of open standard:

1. The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit organization, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties (consensus or majority decision etc.).
2. The standard has been published and the standard specification document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a nominal fee.
3. The relevant copyright and patents for the standard are made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.
4. There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard

Canonical is free to re-sell proprietary standards, but let's not pretend that helping establish vendor lock-in was or is a goal of Free and Open Source Software. Oh, wait, Canonical is not re-selling H.264 except for the OEM editions. The rest of you are still on the hook for the bill because it is merely a distributor. I notice that the enGadget article on H.264 patents leaves out the price for the third category obligated to pay under patent law: the user. GIF should have been a lesson about software patents.

Obviously the Microsoft Party and its members have problems with the above definition and seek to disparage it and the process itself. Keeping the second version of the European Interoperability Framework clean, free from M$ damage, takes work.

[Apple] are well on their way to becoming the only viable choice in the market for portable electronic computers - just as they are for portable electronic music players - just as they are slowly becoming for portable phones.

Uhh, which universe are you living in?

Personally, I fear this won't be "middle path" so much as "Third Position."

Sounds like the third position is a compromise after all:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/06/fcc-outlines-new-third-way-internet-regulatory-plan-will-spli/

No need to worry.

They are not alone...

The BBC has this problem.

As does CNN.

Even Engadget has their finger on this pulse...

And the odd TV station.

And just plain odd sites.

The U.S. Army got in on this one.

And Rutgers University chimed in. Well, someone at Rutgers.

If your point was that Fox News got snookered, well, they are in good company. If your point was that this is jsut another example of Fox News incompetence, well, you can use the same brush to tar CNN and the BBC. Though what the threee have in common escapes me. Oh, wait, I know.

They all purport to deliver the truth.

Right.

Nice try though. Keep swinging. In baseball, succeeding once in 4 at bats will get you a decent job. In politics and Slashdot, you need much less. Way much less.

Engadget has a great summary here. The "third way" resembles what some were discussing in the earlier thread.

Nah, seems apple played a major role in the development of light peak, hence it's unlikely that it will be "enterprisy". But then again, FireWire was also mostly an Apple thing and never took off...

I seriously doubt the validity your remarks about "secure".

Comparing the results of the Pwn 2 Own contest, having similar attack surfaces and only lasting 2 minutes doesn't engender visions of "secure". In fact, it was Windows that people thought would last only that long.

Unfortunately the times in Pwn2Own mean nothing; the researchers work for months beforehand perfecting their attack and then simply implement it on the day. Often, the reason the macs get hacked first is that the researcher wants a new mac. No operating system is objectively secure; even relative comparisons are pretty meaningless.

I seriously doubt the validity your remarks about "secure".

Comparing the results of the Pwn 2 Own contest, having similar attack surfaces and only lasting 2 minutes doesn't engender visions of "secure". In fact, it was Windows that people thought would last only that long.

The white USB plug in the demonstration laptop looks rather Apple-ish. Any rumours here?

More than rumors: http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/26/exclusive-apple-dictated-light-peak-creation-to-intel-could-be/

My understanding is that Google realized this (albeit a bit late in the game) and has addressed this with the Froyo (Android 2.2) release, by making more pieces of the OS itself into the Market auto-updating framework, and apparently reducing their release frequency to once a year or so after Froyo.

Whether it all works out that way, we'll see.

Thing is, quite cheap and rather small laptops based on Intel CULV chips showed up recently; some of them certainly can do 10h, perhaps there are some with 12h. And they are fast, if needed.

Yup: http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/11/asus-ul80vt-review. I have a UL80vt, and get about 9-10 hours reliably (both linux and win7), and that's while running overclocked by 33%.

seems not perfect, but much more open and actually real contrary to what I thought initially...

http://wepad.mobi/en ,
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/26/neofonies-wepad-tablet-shown-to-german-journalists-seems-legit/2#comments ,
http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/03/29/europes-biggest-publisher-embraces-the-wepad/

The author does state in the article that he was mistaken about the amount of resources HP has, which amounts to at least $25 billion USD in cash on hand, at least 10x more than HTC and Lenovo (the other big Palm suitors from the past week) have in cash.

When compared to the other major companies in the mobile space, like Nokia, RIM, HTC, or Motorola, Palm seems like a very 'cheap' purchase in order to acquire an entire new line of business, along with their entire patent portfolio.

Additionally, it seems other articles mention the same patent concerns since Apple is now going after HTC (but not Palm).
http://www.businessinsider.com/apples-htc-patent-suit-could-be-another-reason-for-someone-to-buy-palm-2010-3
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/28/apple-vs-palm-the-in-depth-analysis/

Nah, she got fired.

Maybe we should talk to this guy.

We were lucky enough to do the reverse - switch from Comcast to Verizon FIOS. I have issues with Verizon too, but the price difference is significant. When I called Comcast to end their service they asked me for a reason. With great satisfaction I replied that they clearly were charging me too much due to their $22M video wall. I made a point of confirming that the agent documented the video wall in their record.