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Ignore the resolution, look a the Pixels Per Inch (PPI).

(from http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html)
# 3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen multi-touch display
# 480-by-320-pixel resolution at 163 ppi

http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/17/nokia-n810-gets-official/
4.13-nch WVGA (800 x 480)
Which math + Google calculator: sqrt((800 * 800) + (480 * 480)) / 4.13 = 225.896441
225 PPI

(Sony's PSP clocks in at 130, the Neo 1973 is supposed to have a 280 PPI screen)

Now Apple's products both look very slick, and the screens are pretty okay. But put an N800 next to them, and compare the screen. You can really see where Nokia screen shines, and thats with reading text on the screen.

Here is an old article about. You can find a couple of wired third party ones that are slightly different. Why no bunch of wireless controllers? No clear reasons, but why would microsoft want to give up any more money? Remember, they SOLD these consoles at a loss.

No, it comes with full versions of games, and demos. The games listed in the description are full versions.

Apparently reading the tech specs requires too much of an effort for lots of /. readers.

From the article, The N810 uses an Arm 400MHz processor, versus the 320MHz used by the N800.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/17/nokia-n810-gets-official/

Rumors are flying around that Amazon is going to release their own e-ink device any day/week now. A version of it went through the FCC a while ago since it might have a wireless modem in it. It will probably be more expensive than the Sony, but might have the ability to download newspapers and magazines directly.

Bookeen is coming out with their own device any day now that's really similar to the Sony reader but will use different file formats. They all read RTF, TXT, etc... but if you want to buy a new book, it's likely to have DRM in the file. The DRM file format that the Sony uses is different from the DRM files that the Bookeen and Amazon Kindle will use.

The Iliad is bigger and can render letter size PDF files without the hassle of the smaller devices. It has wifi and a writable screen that you can take notes with... but it's supposed to be slower and more than twice as much money.

I want one really bad, but I'm waiting to see what Bookeen and Amazon finally release before I throw down my cash. Sure they're all kind of expensive, but you can load up with free classic books from Project Gutenberg and you'll save money in the long run (if you read a lot and are too lazy/busy to make trips to the library).

http://www.mobileread.com/
http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/11/amazon-kindle-meet-amazons-e-book-reader/
http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/03/kindle-edition-books-appear-on-amazon-reader-launch-imminent/
http://www.bookeen.com/
http://www.irextechnologies.com/

Rumors are flying around that Amazon is going to release their own e-ink device any day/week now. A version of it went through the FCC a while ago since it might have a wireless modem in it. It will probably be more expensive than the Sony, but might have the ability to download newspapers and magazines directly.

Bookeen is coming out with their own device any day now that's really similar to the Sony reader but will use different file formats. They all read RTF, TXT, etc... but if you want to buy a new book, it's likely to have DRM in the file. The DRM file format that the Sony uses is different from the DRM files that the Bookeen and Amazon Kindle will use.

The Iliad is bigger and can render letter size PDF files without the hassle of the smaller devices. It has wifi and a writable screen that you can take notes with... but it's supposed to be slower and more than twice as much money.

I want one really bad, but I'm waiting to see what Bookeen and Amazon finally release before I throw down my cash. Sure they're all kind of expensive, but you can load up with free classic books from Project Gutenberg and you'll save money in the long run (if you read a lot and are too lazy/busy to make trips to the library).

http://www.mobileread.com/
http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/11/amazon-kindle-meet-amazons-e-book-reader/
http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/03/kindle-edition-books-appear-on-amazon-reader-launch-imminent/
http://www.bookeen.com/
http://www.irextechnologies.com/

There's read-only support for ZFS, but the filesystem is still HFS+. Full ZFS support is supposedly coming at a later date. Engadget article

Today at CEATEC Sharp showed off its optical scanning LCD -- a 3.5-inch 320 x 480 portable display
with an optical scanner integrated into each pixel, making the screen capable of scanning business cards
and other visual information placed on its face.

Because it's missing. Might besomewhere on his desk.

Cost may continue to be an issue as well.

CC.

Clearly there's a demand for unlocked iPhones.

Note that unlocking the phone is not all that jailbreaking is about. Some people might not care about unlocking the phone, but might want to run some third-party apps, or just use a snippet from one of their own band's songs as a ringtone.

Note also that the "cat and mouse game" line was in response to a question about unlocking - see the question at 10:26 in the Engadget transcript of the UK iPhone announcement. At 10.37, he said, in response to a question about third-party apps, "Yes, we've already done that with Web 2.0. We're looking at more intimate apps. But people hold their phones to a higher standard than their PC. The more open you are, the less predictable."

(No, I don't want to think about more intimate mobile phone apps. Really.)

Oh, my mistake, they've actually said 235 patents,.

see here
and here
and here


But I do apologize for saying 135 instead of 235....

No, that's not correct. Samsung is shipping hybrid hard drives for over half a year now (see, for example, http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/07/samsungs-hybrid-hard-drive-hhd-released-to-oems/).

Recently, they even blamed Microsoft for the poor performance of hybrid hard disks on Windows Vista (in German, http://www.heise.de/newsticker/result.xhtml?url=/newsticker/meldung/97021&words=Samsung%20Hybrid&T=samsung%20hybrid)

there are supposedly photos here: http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/05/ipod-nana-spews-chest-high-flames-from-trousers-lawsuit-at/

I am noticing that the guy is pretty short on smoke damage for the kind of flames described. Burning plastic, which would be involved here produces copious amounts of sticky black smoke, and I'm not seeing much of any. Not to mention the fact that his pocket liner seems to be more or less unharmed. IIRC the burning temperature of Lithium is higher than that of cotton.

1. Enable Windows Firewall (by default on after some point).
2. Disable autorun.
3. Do be careful with mail attachments.
4. Use Firefox (use NoScript/AdBlock).
5. Update regularly.
6. In any case backup frequently.

What is now becoming clear is that many unlocked phones come through the upgrade unbricked, albeit re-locked. Considering that recognizing an unlocked phone should be a simple matter of a checksum, it seems clear that Apple was not intentionally "bricking" phones. There are reasons to believe that this is likely an unintended side effect of an update designed primarily to enhance iPhone security. If it was not intentional, Apple is in the clear, as they are under no legal obligation to debug an update to work with phones that have been modified in violation of warranty. And indeed, it seems that while Apple is under no legal obligation to do so, Apple sotres are restoring "bricked" iPhones. Moreover, it is not as if Apple failed to warn owners of unlocked iPhones that applying the update would likely harm their phones.

Yeah, because you know no one is going to clone the iPhone regardless of Apple's wishes.

And even if someone did, it'd be some fly by night company from a country like China with little intellectual property enforcement, not a huge American or European corporation like Intel or Nokia.

Obviously the iPhone is not only unrivaled, but unrival-able, and thus Apple's monopoly on iPhones must be restricted!

</sarcasm>

Yeah, because you know no one is going to clone the iPhone regardless of Apple's wishes.

And even if someone did, it'd be some fly by night company from a country like China with little intellectual property enforcement, not a huge American or European corporation like Intel or Nokia.

Obviously the iPhone is not only unrivaled, but unrival-able, and thus Apple's monopoly on iPhones must be restricted!

</sarcasm>

Yeah, because you know no one is going to clone the iPhone regardless of Apple's wishes.

And even if someone did, it'd be some fly by night company from a country like China with little intellectual property enforcement, not a huge American or European corporation like Intel or Nokia.

Obviously the iPhone is not only unrivaled, but unrival-able, and thus Apple's monopoly on iPhones must be restricted!

</sarcasm>

http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/15/100-olpc-xo-1-to-cost-at-least-188-over-200-in-uruguay/

so i guess that the moral of the story isn't to cook up such stupid ideas, put a price tag on it and THEN try make the project fit the price tag. it's poor managment if i ever saw it.

things cost as much as they are going to cost. I can annouce the $100 aeroplan with 100% first class seating for all, but it's still going to cost more then $100 no matter how much i wish otherwise.

I'm not sure where he got that either, but if you read between the lines, you can pick up this as a possibility. You can also figure out (by just looking at the Wikipedia entries), that this *isn't supposed to be possible now*.

Blu-Ray players will allow approved code to execute under a specific virtual machine. The specification for this virtual machine is specifically not known. It is forbidden to be known, actually, to prevent tampering. We have been assured, however that BD+ doesn't affect the state of the machine permanently.

Unfortunately, the current trouble with DVDs could easily be fixed by *removing* the need for this, by having firmware updates happen in the discs themselves, or by requiring internet access that's directed by BD+ to download new firmware (which is essentially the same thing as having BD+ do it, isn't it)?

Once you can do firmware updates, you can do what the GP is talking about, can't you?

Hopefully they'll just settle on a brand new Vii

Apple said that the iPhone UI was protected by tons of patents. Fortunately, the chinese won't care, and will once again show that a free market is superior to artificial monopolies created by patents.

Also, Nokia is working on an iPhone clone.

Unfortunately, given the current state of cell phone UI, I have serious doubts any of the other manufacturers will even come close to Apple's polish and usability.

I want it both ways - I want continued updates and improvements to my new mobile computer from Apple, and I want to be able to do other interesting things with my new mobile computer that fill a niche that Apple understandably wouldn't be writing software for.

Is it unreasonable for me, an Apple customer and shareholder, to want this?

When I'm buying a technology product, there are several factors that weigh into the decision. One is the quality of the technology. Just as important is the future outlook. Is there a good chance that missing features I want can be easily added later? Are there a lot of people, either in a company or on their own, working to improve it? Will I be able to adapt it to some niche problem that I'm working on that may not be important to most people, but is important to me?

Apple has a great technology, but lacking those other ingredients I just can't get too excited about the whole package. In a year's time, there will be other very similar phones on the market:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/29/nokias-iphone-no-seriously/

And some of those will likely be infinitely customizable. Nokia is already running with this Apple blunder:
http://www.nseries.com/index.html?l=campaigns,open

So Apple, am I going to feel like an idiot for buying into a closed platform when similar but open models come out from other companies?

Barring a shift in policy of some kind, such as a released api or "binary application approval program", I am thinking it's time to get out of AAPL and think hard before buying more Apple products.

According to engadget many unlocked iPhones are coming through the upgrade unbricked, albeit with loss of their hacked capabilities. It seems to depend upon how you unlocked your phone.

So the notion that Apple's software is designed to recognize (which should be pretty easy) and disable modified phones seems to be false. It sounds more like Apple simply didn't bother to test and debut the upgrade with all of the hacked configurations. And why should they? After all, when you choose to violate the warranty by messing with the "not user serviceable" parts of a device, you do it at your own risk.

I must agree with this Coward

Careful dude, some ACs are Klingons and would KILL YOU WHERE YOU STAND for saying that.

Some random university's network didn't have traffic shaping set up correctly. So? This is somehow newsworthy?

It's revenge. In the good old days slashdot reading admins could get a unlimited network connection and download torrents 24/7. Then undocumented download came in and they had to limit themselves to 90GB less a hard to determine safety margin. Some ISPs did shaping too, so unfavoured applications like torrents got crippled. This spoiled their fun.

Then Halo 3 came out and they see loads of people having fun playing it. But Halo is released by Microsoft and so must have a downside. And sure enough it does - the network has been slow recently and it therefore must be to blame. The solution is to cripple its network connection. The fact their users with XBox 360s got a taste of disappointment the admins felt when Comcase limited their downloads is an added bonus.

It's a bit like when Vista came out, some Linux sysadmin decided not to support the deprecated feature of DHCP it relied on, with the happy side effect of not allowing customers to use Vista.

The really funny thing is that whenever anything Microsoft does anything that in anyway stops people using Linux the people that do this sort of thing would be outraged.

I must agree with this Coward

Careful dude, some ACs are Klingons and would KILL YOU WHERE YOU STAND for saying that.

Some random university's network didn't have traffic shaping set up correctly. So? This is somehow newsworthy?

It's revenge. In the good old days slashdot reading admins could get a unlimited network connection and download torrents 24/7. Then undocumented download came in and they had to limit themselves to 90GB less a hard to determine safety margin. Some ISPs did shaping too, so unfavoured applications like torrents got crippled. This spoiled their fun.

Then Halo 3 came out and they see loads of people having fun playing it. But Halo is released by Microsoft and so must have a downside. And sure enough it does - the network has been slow recently and it therefore must be to blame. The solution is to cripple its network connection. The fact their users with XBox 360s got a taste of disappointment the admins felt when Comcase limited their downloads is an added bonus.

It's a bit like when Vista came out, some Linux sysadmin decided not to support the deprecated feature of DHCP it relied on, with the happy side effect of not allowing customers to use Vista.

The really funny thing is that whenever anything Microsoft does anything that in anyway stops people using Linux the people that do this sort of thing would be outraged.

With all the rumors floating around, I'm surprised this story's made it this far. Apparently, a day after the dreaded update, and no one's sure what's going on.

Fact or Fiction
Video
Gizomodo's take on this

Pick your poison?

For those too lazy to read the links, the reports have gone as such. If you're in the majority, a hacked iPhone reverts to a clean slate after the update. If you're unlucky, it refuses to accept sim cards, legit or otherwise. If you're super unlucky, you start with an un-hacked, perfectly legit phone that still turns into iBrick. 3rd party software is no longer in the menus but is probably still hiding somewhere in the phone itself.

What a mess!

A bricked iPhone can be returned for a full switch... Correct me if I am wrong, but its not like they can tell the phone has been "unlocked", as I have not opened this phone in any way, and as such have not voided any warrenty on the hardware.

If you check the comments here, you see one particular comment of interest:

Check you IMEI number on the back against the one on the activation svreen (behind the "i"). If you see 004999010640000 on screen you are screwed (for now).

You see, they can tell,

This is the problem. THe free sim unlock changed everyone's IMEI to 004999010640000 - so they are now checking the IMEI to when it was first activated to the SIM to ensure a match, and if you look on the back of your box, you'll notice your original IMEI #.

A bricked iPhone can be returned for a full switch... Correct me if I am wrong, but its not like they can tell the phone has been "unlocked", as I have not opened this phone in any way, and as such have not voided any warrenty on the hardware.

I haven't added any unauthorized software and the phone is still unusable. Apple is sending me a box it put it in so they can check if I hacked it for themselves. How sweet. 5 days from now I better get a working fun.

Engadget is reporting that most phones are being re-locked, not bricked. Seems like that'd be the expected behavior: re-install the OS and it acts like a clean OS. Then if you want to hack it again you can hack it again.

At least this time around there is an excuse for not RTFA for most!

The systems used by the dutch have be scrutinised alot and have been found to be exploitable.

In Ireland, many voting machines were bought off Dutch company Nedap - currently they do what most politicians do, and sit around idly doing nothing.

I use a recliner myself, but oddly enough it seems to work just as well for PC games as it does for console games. Hell, it even works fine for watching TV or movies, or even reading a book. The chair has never once made any indication that it prefers me to play console games. Somehow I doubt that your couch is any different in this regard.

How exactly do you use a mouse and keyboard from a recliner, while still reclining? Also, since we were talking specifically about gaming, watching TV and movies or reading a book don't really matter.

Obviously PCs can output to the same exact sound system your console does, and the same exact TV your console does.

Only if you have the right output equipment. S/PDIF is starting to become standard on many motherboards, but you have to have the right set of cables to convert from mini-jack to RCA, and your software has to play nice with digital output (DRM-aware apps will often refuse to play through digital outputs, for example). With a console like Xbox or Xbox 360, this is all built-in and you don't even have to think about it. Plug the cables in, flip the bit in the dash that indicates you have the correct capabilities, and go.

But of course, a high quality 24-30 inch monitor provides a much better experience than a TV with its painfully low resolution. Blurry and jagged 50 inches isn't quite as nice as smooth and sharp 30 inches.

A 50" HDTV at 720p has approximately the same resolution as many 19" and 20" LCD monitors (1280x720 vs. 1280x1024). 1080p is 1920x1080. Obviously SDTV (480i) or EDTV (480p) will be nasty, but in terms of Halo it's not a problem -- the Xbox 360 plays Halo 1, 2, and 3, and will upscale them to whatever output you choose (720p, 1080i, 1080p). Halo 3 natively renders at 720p and halo 1 and 2 natively render at 480p, but the hardware scaler chip in the 360 is quite capable. A little bit of searching online should turn up comparison screenshots of Halo 1 and 2 running on Xbox and on 360, showing how the 360's upscaling and FSAA increase the games' visual quality.

And why do you hunch over your keyboard and mouse? And how is that the fault of PC gaming as a whole? Nobody is forcing you to be uncomfortable while you play, most people seem to prefer being comfortable actually.

That was a bit of hyperbole, but the point I was getting at was that you can either sit at a desk with a mouse and keyboard, or you can lounge on a couch. Lounging, by definition, is more comfortable than sitting, so why not lounge? Some researchers at Microsoft are playing with ways to make mice and keyboards usable without a desk (check out the Soap mouse, but we have a long way to go before you will comfortably be able to use a mouse and keyboard while lounging on a couch without some sort of lap desk thingy (which have never worked all that well for me).

> You can't unlock the iPhone with a software only solution.

Tell you what. Mail me your iPhone and seal the hell out of the case. I'll send it back to you unlocked.

If the seal is broken, I'll also send you $500.

If the seal is unbroken, you can send ME $5000.

Deal?

> You have to physically hack your iPhone by opening it up and
> add/remove/alter electronic components to do so.

Even the original, hardware-assisted unlock did not add or remove elctronic components. In fact, the only modification that was made was raising one of the address lines so that the CPU would read memory in an unprotected area during boot up, allowing arbitrary code to be executed. This is a temporary modification and requires little more than a steady hand and an ultra-sharp paperclip. The current unlock is the same, except the arbitrary code is executed by means of a buffer overrun. That's right.

> You shouldn't be so quick with the "dumbass" moniker

Really? You wanna ask us again what a brick is?

> One of the videos posted on YouTube actually require a soldering iron
> for cyrin' out loud. How is that NOT tweaking the electronics?

You know, if I posted a video on YouTube of me smashing a car window with a brick so that I could hotwire it -- would that imply that ALL vehicles are stolen by smashing the window? Or would it imply that ONE way to achieve that goal was to smash the window?

> How is that NOT tweaking the electronics?

Finally, I did NOT say that people were not tweaking the electronics. I stated that that was not their GOAL. Their GOAL is to be able to run arbitrary software on the phone.

I think, perhaps before you run off at the mouth, that you should either become technically competent in the field you're talking about OR increase your reading comprehension. Both would be nice, but I think either would suffice.

He did say he rents movies at Blockbuster, which are now on Blu-Ray's side.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/17/blockbuster-chooses-blu-ray-is-the-war-over/

I couldn't find any numbers, but I did find some interesting information. GSM is the world-wide standard, with about 3/4 of the mobile phone users being on GSM. CDMA is mostly a US thing apparently.

Also, Verizon recently chose GSM for their new '4g' stuff.

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2007/09/21/verizon-adopts-gsm-standard-for-4g-network-cdma-limelight-fading/
http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/21/verizon-dumps-cdma-for-gsm-based-lte-in-4g-networks/

This is an odd move by any account, and nobody really knows what it means yet, but it doesn't look good for CDMA right now.

So while you may be correct about the US counts (and that's what the GP was talking about), by worldwide counts, GSM makes more sense for Apple to use.

Except that when I unlock my door, and disable the alarm on my car, I don't need permission, and it doesn't spy on where I'm driving.

You're a moron. Don't conflate the issue just to make use of fanboy and perpetuate the meme like so many around here do. You fanboy usage fanboy.

What lots of people were saying is that because Apple is an Innovator, the rest of the industry will follow suit and release SIMILAR products, upping the bar for features and UI, etc. Thus, we the general CUSTOMER will benefit as the whole industry has become more advanced and costs will go down due to the iPhone blazing the way. This is why free markets and competition are good, FYI. Just take a look at Nokia's latest phone in the pipe for release: http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/29/nokias-iphone-no-seriously/

Case in point.

My CAPCHA was "however" :D

I don't know. The fingerprint scanner probably isn't fool proof. And if you leave your fingerprints on the computer somewhere, you are likely leaving anything the thief needs to access the stuff.

When I got my first inkjet printer, I noticed that it printed differently then the dot matrix it replace. Soon, we were using the scanner to scan finger prints into the computer and printing them on to paper. We even played around with painting latex on the paper to see if we could wrap it around someone else's finger and leave a print behind that looked natural.

The bottom line was yes we could. I have seen tests on biometric security devices in the past that show they could be easily defeated much in the same way. So if your going to rely on the finger print scanner, then make sure you keep your finger prints off the computer when your not using it. You could be giving the thief the key to your super safe locks.

I've been doing all of those things, with the exception of the P2P voice development, on my HTC Universal (Orange M5000) for nearly two years now- and that was by no means the first device which offered this kind of functionality.

Please, if you're going to credit anyone with opening up the true power of Smartphones don't make it Apple.. any openness of their device is purely accidental, not unlike the Sony PSP, and is likely to be reduced more and more as they patch. With regards to actually promoting external developers to get things done on their phones they're leagues behind their competition, which includes the Windows Mobile based phones, Symbian, Linux phones, and the Palm offerings. At least we can get specs, APIs, and documentation from these, even if the phones aren't viewed in the same 'manna from heaven' light as Apple's product.

Hamburgers and French fries are feed into a human who then converts the biofuel into electricity by pulling on a string. OLPC will be powered by pulling a string: http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/24/olpc-will-be-powered-by-pulling-a-string/

I was not aware of that.

All I can find about it on Wikipedia is "2006", which could mean January, 2006, when nothing was known of the iPhone, or it could mean December, 2006, when I was seeing pretty detailed rumors about a touch phone that Apple was about to announce at MacWorld.

Of course I realize that.

Have you ever used any of them though?

The resistive touch panel PDA/phones I've tried just don't work all that well compared with the capacitive touch panel on the iPhone.

Then there's the gesture interface.

Just try the single-finger gestures on an iPhone (even the ones as simple as taps) and tell me that it's not dramatically better than an iPaq or a Treo.

Apple didn't think of either of those - they got them when they acquired FingerWorks (at least, that's the story as I understand it).

As far as I can tell after a little research, I shouldn't have brought up OpenMoko just because it lacks some version of that (maybe I'm wrong, but I certainly couldn't find any evidence that it's more than a standard single-finger resistive touch screen; by all means, please correct me if I'm wrong).

If you think that all the iPhone has going for it is looks, then I really wonder if you've ever actually tried one. The interface is incredible, and more intuitive than any other phone or smart-phone I've tried. For all the bitching I've heard about the keyboard, I've found it remarkably usable (then again, I may be biased because I've been using a TouchStream keyboard for years).

I certainly don't think that the iPhone is perfect (only 2.5G; no GPS; no voice dialing; crappy "Web 2.0" only 3'rd party software rather than an official SDK; various software issues like not having built in mail rules; goofy things like not being able to rotate between portrait and landscape when the keyboard is visible or in all applications; *cough* AT&T only *cough*).

Despite those shortcomings, it's not an exaggeration to say that the iPhone is easily the best smart-phone (or plain old mobile phone) I've ever used.

Beauty and industrial design is a plus, but the iPhone has so much more going for it than just that.

It seems to me that if either of us has been affected by this mythical "reality distortion field", it's you.

Maybe you need installable third party apps? Maybe you enjoy using an inferior interface? Maybe you'd rather trade usability for a few features that don't really matter much? Maybe it's kind of silly to ask leading questions to give people the impression that you think certain absurd things?

Who knows?

They disabled appointment entry for the calendar widget. That's really too bad, since I was hoping that this device could be the convergence of my Palm T|X and my iPod. Does anyone know if they crippled any other features of the iPhone? I would have bought one if it truly was an iPhone minus the phone. (I refuse to give AT&T $1500 on top of the not-even-subsidized cost of the iPhone.)

I guess the other thing I'm waiting for is an API for programmers. I like to store my passwords and PINs using encryption on my device. (1) Storing them on someone's server using their Safari-based web app won't work, and (2) Hacks people are using to write native apps aren't sanctioned and may stop working in the future. Sigh... C'mon Apple, open it up!

I seem to remember this. IIRC NTP won on a technicality, something like they got a ruling of infringement before RIM got the patents invalidated. So how are they back for more with the same patents?

Maybe you meant this.

Actually, no, according to this lawyer, ironically thanks to the greed of the record companies themselves :)

Sony just pissed themselves.

$487.99 for Blue-ray Vs. $150... wonder who will win that aspect to the format war?
The only thing that may limit this format is whether the movie companies will pick it up, and more importantly the porn industry.

Fourth contender.

Actually, there're already much smaller (maybe cellphone sized?) turbines on the way:

MIT Turbine on a chip

Sam

"Totalitarians (including most religious people) wants to forbid things because it's challenging them."

Which is precisely what you're doing: you claim that your views are the only correct ones, so anything that doesn't agree with them is by definition wrong, and should therefore be banned. Those who don't feel threatened and challenged by what others choose to believe don't advocate using force to make everyone else to conform with their views.

"We already do this for other things -- I can't sell a black box that I say can cure any illness, but I can sell a faith where I say a god can cure any illness. That's inconsistent and illogical."

You can sell items that make all sorts of ludicrous claims, and ask people to invest in companies which are based around what amounts to snake oil. Here are a few examples (there are thousands of others):

http://www.healingcrystals.com/
http://www.magnecare.co.uk/
http://www.lutec.com.au/
http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/04/steorns-orbo-fr ee-energy-machine-demonstrated-tomorrow/
http://www.doctorajadams.com/DetoxFootSpa.html

Many companies sell so-called "Long Range Locators" that can supposedly detect anything and everything remotely valuable from tens to hundreds of miles away. All of them are widely known in treasure hunting circles to be scams, because despite having lots of digital dials, expensive flight cases, and impressive looking instruction manuals, they're actually based on dowsing, and none of the the ones that have been independently tested have been able to detect anything. This web page has more information:

http://geotech.thunting.com/cgi-bin/pages/common/i ndex.pl?page=lrl&file=reward.dat

"That's inconsistent and illogical."

It would indeed be logical and inconsistent if your claims were true instead of being nothing more than easily debunked attempt pretend that there's a justification for forcing everyone to conform with your views that doesn't boil down to "any views that are different from nine should be illegal".

"I'm sorry to see that you have the same narrow mind that Stalin and Mao had"

LOL!

"Religious fraud should, of course, be subject to the same laws as any other fraud, with the same penalties. No special treatment, because there's nothing special about it."

It is treated in exactly the same way as the frauds in the links above, and all the many other bits of balderdash that are bought by people every day.