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The "PC guy" uses (ta-da) an Apple iPhone.
(Picture in the link below. Article is in Norwegian tho)
http://www.itavisen.no/sak/787188/PC-mannen_bruker_iPhone/

Check out the updated list at http://itavisen.no/php/art.php?id=526832 (Results from speed tests done by the readers of IT-Avisen). "Snitt nedl" is the average download speed, "Antall målt" is the number of testers, "kr/mnd" is what you pay each month in NOK. I have "Telenor Online ADSL Turbo (16000/700)" ($78,5 USD/month), and download speed peaks between 1.1-1.2 Mb/sec according to Hellanzb). Quite happy about it, zero downtime during the six months I've been using it.

At a huge uproar in local websites and discussion groups they eventually turned tail. The core of the matter was they denied access to www.skandiabanken.no if your browser reported Linux as OS.

I sent them en email myself, explaining my dad was interested in Linux when he saw how light and fast the XFCE window manager was. just to give them some innsight.

A side notice, recently Skandiabanken was taken over by a bigger company, DNB NOR, I guess they where less idealistic then the original founder.

http://www.itavisen.no/php/art.php?id=361469
http://groups.google.no/group/no.samfunn.forbruker /browse_thread/thread/0dbf8be53f1809af/78c055355e1 7f145
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?showtopic=681622

If you haven't read about the brain implants for vision, then read this. The photo of the implant doesn't seem to be showing up in the article right now, but there's a sketch here. Suffice it to say, your friends are going to look at you funny, at least until Apple releases the iBrain, which by my calculations won't be before 2042. Of course, Apple's main innovation will be that they'll make the implant white, and advertise it so that people think it looks cool.

NextGenTel is not the only ISP in Norway that theatens network neutrality.
The ISP CanalDigital give a lower priority to p2p-packets between 5pm and 11pm.

Norwegain link: http://www.itavisen.no/php/art.php?id=340607

NextGenTel follows NRK
By André Lorentsen,
Wed 4. okt 2006 kl. 04:00

NextGenTel customers can now again see NRKs web-tv in full speed.

Norways second largest broadband supplier, NextGenTel, reduced in June the transfer speed from NRK.no to it's broadband customers. The motivation was to cut costs.

- We cannot increase the capasity on our lines at the same pace as the free offers from NRK, said marketing director, Morten Ågnes in NextGenTel in a comment to Forbruker.no.

Fotball viewers pays

But the football leage have always had full speed.

The football league is a payment subscription service, and then we get paid to transfer the programs to our customers, was the comment from the marketing director.

Network manager Bjarn Andre Myklebust in NRK did not like the new strategy from NextGenTel. TV2 and NextGenTel have always had a very good relationship.

- We don't like that our products get a lower quality when being delivered to the end user, and I guess the customers don't like it very much either. Our principle is that we deliver a high quality product to every broadband companies. From there on it's their responsibility, Myklebust says to NRK.

Crossed customers

To show where the responsibility was, the web director of NRK.no published a message to the customers of NextGenTel. At the same time the maximum speed on NRK's web-tv was reduced to 650 kbps for NextGenTel's customers.

The strategy paid off. Now NextGenTel has changed it's mind and have set the capacity back to the same level as before the reduction in June.

- I got a phone from NextGenTel tuesday morning. They told that they had received some negative feedback from their customers, and that they had realized that this wouldn't work, Myklebust proceeds.

Roles

He claims it was important for NRK to use this case to underline the roles between content producer and distributor.

- It is important for us to show that we deliver content, and that it is the distributors that have to make sure the customers get what they already have paid for.

The case have also lead to renewed dialog between NRK and NextGenTel.

- We are in dialog about long term planning when it comes to transfer speeds. We also evaluate the possibility of a commercial cooperation about paid content from NRK, Myklebust says.

If it has all of the capabilities of a standard OEM PC then isn't it a PC?

Not exactly.
Right now, someone at MS is looking at the apextreme PC Consloe and thinks that the next XBOX should have that capibility as well. My guess would be that it would function like the apextreme more than a PC.

They are also watching Sony as well. They have been thinking for a long time to Turn the PS2 into a PC. (Sorry No English, with these pics at least) If Sony doesn't do it with the PS2 then possibly the PS3. Doubtful, but who knows.

If they did build it so it performed much like a PC, with LAN Parties becoming more mainstream, something like this would be intresting, especially if it keeps the same footprint. An XBOX is big but it's still smaller than most PC's and if it can do play anything a PC can play, why lug a PC when you could lug a smaller, lighter XBOX.

on the dev side of things though, PC developers would worship this thing like a god, primarialy since a system like this would be completely standardized hardware wise. (that is if MS makes it so you cant upgrade it.) Thats one of the reasons the XBOX is so crash free. Since every XBOX is the same internal wise, they only have to make sure it works on that hardware alone. On the minus side, however you would see the devs standardize on XBOX Next first, PC second. So their games would probably run with less errors on the XBOX next then on a PC, even though the PC was the main target.

The norwegian market for broadband has a good deal of variation, depending on where you live (rural vs. city) and even what part of the cities you are in (some parts has access to very high-speed broadband and has had it since the end of the nineties).
You can find a total overview on this URL:
http://www.itavisen.no/art/1302634.html
kr/mnd will show the price, they also rate it as a bang-for-your-buck. For comparison, you might do quick and dirty convertion for about 7 kr pr. US dollar, and 8 kr pr Euro.

Overall, broadband in Norway is now cheap and availiable in most parts. However, since we are still dominated by a few big players, development and deployment of new DSL standards are slow (they wish to have a dividend on their initial investments before moving on..).

Yep, it's a taco. But it's not that bad, actually.

Read somewhere that they are using wma file format only (norwegian) ..

Just in case you like watching videos better than looking at pictures...

Quite true, it could be using a very bright LED, and a mask that would be cheaper, initially I thought that a laser would solve any focus/perspective issues, but looking at this video Iv'e changed my mind. Putting the unit on flat surface cures that. Yep I think it may well be a mask, much simpler and cheaper. Add a couple of detectors and away you go.

An article on ITAvisen.no claims that IBM is considering to bundle this watch with new computers in the Asian market.

Well, according to this article (in norwegian), it was a 15-year old guy named Jon Johansen from Thor Heyerdahl high school, in Vestfold, Norway, who cracked it (He's a member of the group MoRE (Masters of Reverse Engineering), mentioned in the Wired article).

Not at all that anonymous if you ask me :)
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Ilmari