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the iPad still can't fit into your pocket.

I hear Apple is equipping their store employees with larger than usual pockets. What, that's been done before?

3. As a techwhore, I know enough about Apple's products to realise they're not worth the money being asked for them, unless it was important to me that an electronic gadget needed to match the outfit I was wearing on that particular day.

You're obviously trolling, but seriously, where does this idiotic meme come from? Macbooks are white or unpainted. Meanwhile, over at Sony, the Vaio Fall Collection (this is no joke) are available in black, gold, glossy carbon, bordeaux red, sangria red, striped, wavy black, wavy white, arabesque black, arabesque gold, crocodile black, and crocodile pink. FUCKING. CROCODILE. PINK. So you're clearly an asshat who doesn't know the first thing about accessorizing your computer to your wardrobe, since you should obviously be running Win7 if you have to match your PC to your boots. And by the way, you'll pay as much or more for a Vaio as you will for a Macbook.

Are you sure it uses MJPEG? According to the spec part in reviews 1 2 3 they all say that the Sony DSC-W350 encodes video only in MPEG-4 (which is also owned by MPEG-LA). Even Sonys website for the camera states (under Features) that it records video in MP4. It takes photo's in JPEG, but according to all 4 of these sites, its videos are in MPEG-4 format.

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StoreCatalogDisplay?storeId=10151&langId=-1&catalogId=10551 That Sony!

Note that I said "get a proper alarm clock for redundancy" - redundancy being the key word there. If you're relying on a single device and your job is *so* sensitive that being late to work once, with no history of tardiness, will get you fired (this was the scenario the troll I responded to suggested), the sensible thing to do is to NOT rely on a single device to make sure you get up on time.

I actually do have a wind-up alarm clock (momentary power drops occur frequently-enough where I live that it's an inconvenience, and before getting the wind-up, I had overslept because a power outage killed my alarm clock), and remembering to wind it when I go to bed is pretty trivial: it sits next to my bed, and the gears make a soft ticking sound, so I can tell quickly if it's running. I also have one of these which has worked well for me so far. It charges my iPhone, and will wake me up to music stored on my iPhone, and is easily grabbed from my bedside in case of an overnight call. And it doesn't rely on the iPhone's time/date functions at all.

PS, Sony's page I linked already features the GoogleTV, so I guess they are serious.

I can't speak for google TV, but playing from Netflix is great. It's very convenient, and the HD stream looks better than DVD. (I do still have a PVR connected as well, but it's linux so it can't play Netflix). I doubt google TV will be a better computer than a PC-based PVR with a wireless mouse/keyboard, but then again I didn't think the iPad would catch on either :)

So Nintendo rolls out the best thing in handheld games since the first Gameboy, and suddenly 3D is bad for children. What a coincidence. I suspect that this is just an underhanded PR attack against Nintendo by one of its rivals.

That is highly doubtful, considering Sony already offers 3D Bravia televisions, 3D Bluray players, and a firmware upgrade to enable 3D on the Playstation.

So Nintendo rolls out the best thing in handheld games since the first Gameboy, and suddenly 3D is bad for children. What a coincidence. I suspect that this is just an underhanded PR attack against Nintendo by one of its rivals.

That is highly doubtful, considering Sony already offers 3D Bravia televisions, 3D Bluray players, and a firmware upgrade to enable 3D on the Playstation.

for scribbling margin notes, highlighting, syncing notes with PC/mac - and more, the Sony Daily Edition perfectly fits the bill. That device is the right size, feature list and perhaps the correct price point. Sony should be peddling that to the universities to finally gain some respectable foothold in the e-book industry.

If using RAID for mirroring drives, well, you must also consider the fail rate of drives, as it is all about fault tolerance, no? It is reported that SSDs are far more durable, so the question should be, what does it take to match the fault tolerance of HDD RAID with an SSD RAID, and only after that, can we truly compare the pros and cons of their performance sacrifices.

On a side note, you can now get a sony laptop that comes equipped with a RAID 0 quad SSD drive.
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=8198552921644570897

I assume you would only do this with SSDs, given that they have a much lower failure rate than HDDs.

Some websites have user-friendly URLs, such as "www.apple.com/macmini/". You don't even need to click that link to know what it's about.

Other websites have dumb, half-friendly URLs, where they add the backend technology inside the URL, such as "http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/mice_pointers/" (what's with the "index.cfm" in the URL?). If they fix that problem, all the links pointing to the current URL will break. If they ever change technology, it's also going to break the links from other websites.

And then we have the URLs designed by web monkeys, such as the link for Dell's new Adamo laptop: "www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/adamo/topics/en/us/adamo-onyx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs". What the HELL is that thing? Even if we forget the parameters at the end, look at the path of that thing! I don't care how your crap is organized on the server, the URL should be much simpler than that!

And last, we have completely brain-dead URLs that seem to be created for computers only, without any chance of figuring out what kind of content is waiting for us on the other side of that link. Crap like "http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=16154&SR=nav:electronics:computers:notebook_computers:shop_compare:ss". We're lucky to see "notebook_computers" in the parameters, sometimes it's just a database reference number.

But even with crap URLs like that, unless you have to spell it, write it down or read it on a (paper) page, such links can be hidden behind simple anchor text such as Sony Laptops.

Twitter is its own problem, they should be the ones to fix their own mess. Someone could start a service similar to Twitter but without counting HTML code as being part of the X characters limit, which seems to be what the fuss is all about.

I think it is more about making themselves happy.

Don't get me wrong, people are mostly dumb, but not THAT dumb.

Given that people will happily buy $2000 laptops from Sony for $4500, I'm not so sure about that.

... for a netbook to ship with a trackpoint instead of a damned touchpad.

Vaio P Series. Beautiful and small. Unfortunately, it is terribly expensive.

Um... [tap tap tap]... hello? Ever tried this thing called Google? Amazing what you can find...

Computer monitor with HDMI input

DVI/HD Audio to HDMI with audio converter

You can argue that they aren't TVs but there are devices that are advertised as TVs without tuners designed for use with Cable/Satellite. Here is one (notice the category it's under)

I have a Sony PRS-505. I use calibre to manage it. No need to deal with any DRM at all. Calibre will format text and RTF files into the LRF format for the reader. You can also use various online converters to convert from PDF to Word and then use Word/Write to convert to RTF or plain text..

Either paying a whole lot more (than the currently subsized price of the Kindle) or not having the option to buy it at all, since Amazon would have realized up front that developing it wasn't going to be profitable.

For some reason I didn't think that $299.00 was much more than $359.00, but I'm no economist.

Now, if you're including the lifetime service to Sprint then yeah, I can see some bit of a savings, but if they're charging you for the book download in the first place...

iPod Touch (or else, Sony Mylo)

1. $229 new from Apple, or you can get it cheaper used on eBay, Craigslist, etc.

2. The screen is large and has great resolution.

3. Contrary to what other commenters have said, the iPod Touch / iPhone browser is excellent. Very easy to use, and renders web pages very well. Even pages with a lot of Javascript work just fine. While true that it does not support Flash, I think that is fine - especially for the use you describe. Most importantly, it allows for very quick navigation to favorites/bookmarks, and allows for easy scrolling through lists, zooming, etc.

4. Someone (you) could write a dedicated iPhone/iPod Touch App that does just what you want, potentially improving over the basic web interface. This is not necessary, but is a nice option to have. Alternatively, one can use the free iUI Javascript/CSS library to make the web app that you mention work even better on the device.

5. It's here to stay.

6. It has a decent camera. You could snap a shot of the ISBN number, cover, etc. if that turns out to be useful.

Potential downside: If you need to enter a large amount of text, say for your queries, then you should test the device first and see if you feel comfortable with the on-screen keyboard. Personally, I don't like it much - if you do have to type a lot, then something with full QWERTY keyboard buttons might be better.

Alternative: Sony Mylo

1. $199 (free shipping from Sony Style)

2. Full physical QWERTY keyboard.

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=3711&N=4294965990

Simple solution, add a built-in LED book light to the device.
It's a LED so it is low power. It's even lower power when you consider it will only be used in a dark environment where not much light is needed. And it's off when there's enough external lighting.

Good; except - where are you going to put that light? Remember, those things are thin, and the screen is almost right there at the surface. There is very little space to put the LEDs into. In fact, Sony had tried - and look at how ugly the result looks. Quite an eye strainer, too - too bright at the edges, too dim in the middle, and overall very uneven. But I don't see how they could do any better.

Now there are some third-party gadgets which attach to the book and give enough light to read properly - but those are noticeably larger, so you probably wouldn't want to have them attached to the book all the time.

Good point. I don't think many cameras run Linux, but if they did, I would expect them to be next.

Oh but there are... For example this one. From Sony none the less.

PRS-700BC includes built-in LED reading light and a touch-screen and virtual keyboard for quick annotation or search, and it'll read PDF, though current MSRP is $399.99 USD. I imagine it'll drop in the near future, to compete with comparable or improved features on the Kindle 2, which is selling for $40 less. Here's a detailed comparison vs Kindle 1, and a new comparison vs Kindle 2

Primary competitor to the Kindle has no wireless at all and ranges from $300-400, the same price range.

The iPod has forced every other mp3 player maker out of business!

Yeah, all the other makers except for Microsoft, Sony, Creative, SanDisk, iRiver, Archos, Toshiba, and a dozen generic Asian manufacturers...

If you like KDE apps, which I don't. There's just something about the interface and menus and what not that I just can't stand. Oh well.

Back on topic, I personally use rawstudio to import from my camera do some basic adjustments and then export to gimp. And mono be damned, F-Spot is a perfect iPhoto replacement. I've played with lightroom and aperture on vista and leopard respectively and find both work well, but just don't justify their pricetag for me.

There are plenty of options, and they should all be available in most distro's repos, so just try them all (even the KDE stuff). I used synaptic and searched "camera" and installed anything that looked decent. I found dcraw liked my camera better than ufraw even though ufraw lists my model as supported and dcraw does not... So as always, YMMV.

Dell's Vostro line of cheap laptops and desktops for small business feature "no trialware":

• No Trialware.
  Customers said they hated Trialware, so we took it away. Vostro systems come without annoying Trialware pre-installed. You only get the software you want.

• Fresh Start(TM)

  Opt for a Fresh Start(TM) and your VAIO PC will undergo a system optimization service where specific VAIO applications, trial software and games are removed from your unit prior to shipment. Fresh Start(TM) safely scrubs your PC to free up valuable hard drive space and conserve memory and processing power while maximizing overall system performance right from the start.

I didn't see anyone mentioning this beast at all.

Basically it's Sony's answer to people who have too much money and not enough common sense. Share's the PS3's XBR system, holds 200 Blu-Ray discs and has a 500GB hard drive. Reading the owner's manual there's a lot to dislike (DRM everywhere), but I can see the people that they are targeting, and it does look 'cool'.

Same with some links and a few extra comments (in []):

Panasonic Viera P905i ([A phone with 854 x 480 display] Think of it as the world's smallest "big-screen" TV)
Raon Everun UMPC (Ultra-mobile PC - a micro laptop)
Samsung 'Soul' SGH U900 [another phone]
NEC ValueStar W (Vista Media Centre that's extra quiet)
Toshiba ApriPoko Robot ([only a prototype?] This 11-inch-tall robot--which looks like the love child of a bird Pokemon and the Pillsbury Doughboy--is actually a voice-activated remote control)
Sony VAIO G2 [Google translation (super-light laptop with all the normal features)
Fujitsu F705i [thin waterproof cell phone]
Aigo USB Dongle (HD receiver [very small -- e.g., for laptops])
NEC LUI (LUI stands for "Life with Ubiquitous Integrated Solutions - basically a combination of media server and PDA or laptop)
Face Bank (Wave a coin in front of the bank's eyes (actually light sensors), and it opens wide to swallow your loose change. Afterward, it looks so pleased that you half expect it to emit a contented belch [okay -- this thing is REALLY weird])

I'm usually very pro Apple, but I'm not so sure of the Air in this situation.

How about this (and I realize I'm probably going beyond what the OP was looking for budget wise, but it might be a good solution):

Consider a Sony VAIO UX Micro PC. It weighs 1.2Lbs (a bit more with the large capacity battery which gives you the 3-7 hours of up-time) and should be able to be kept on you all the time.
It includes : 2 Built-in Cameras (front: 0.3M pixels and back: 1.3M pixels) Built-in microphone (for web-logs, or email home?), a biometric fingerprint scanner, and has a USB port (for dumping other data as you go?)
Sony lists Upgrade features as " 48GB Solid State Drive for faster performance, large capacity battery and Bluetooth® GPS receiver". Again, cost is a factor, but the solid state drive would extend battery life, the large capacity drive boost the uptime from 1.5-3.5 hours to 3-7 hours (I imagine use of the built in WiFi and Bluetooth is the killer), and a Bluetooth GPS receiver so you can use this handheld for mapping also.

It has a built in MemoryStick Duo slot for your "backups" According to NewEgg a Sony 128MB card is ~12$ and there are 256B and 512MB cards for ~18$. (FYI: 1GB are ~25$, 2GB are ~35$, 4GB are ~50$, and 8GB are ~100$)

Yeah, its not as much or as cheap as a DVD, but the MS Duo should be enough to back up the next great novel easily (or more depending on how much space you decide to purchase), it should cost as much to ship as a letter (dont forget a ziplock baggy or some static bags to slip them into when you ship them off) and I would imagine you'd be able to replenish as you travel (tourism being what it is).

Another choice might be the Same idea as the Sony Vaio, but in a laptop (versus handtop) form-factor. ~2 lbs, 2xUSB ports a PCMCIA slot, 10.4" screen, 802.11a/b/g 8 hour battery and a built in SD slot for flash-memory (for backup in place of the required DVD drive).
NewEggs prices on SD memory are: 1GB ~5$-30$, 2GB ~9$-38$, 4GB ~18$-60$ (the wide variance is due to different classes of product, and deep competition in the marketplace I assume). Take the same precautions as above of bringing a whole mess with you, and shipping them home in a baggy and a sturdy envelope (maybe a bit of cardboard) and they'll probably pay for themselves over CDs in terms of survivability and shipping charges. They also have an even higher likelyhood of worldwide availability since so many electronic devices use them.

Also consider getting one of these: Laptop Solar Panels. It will run more than most people want (heck, the "Economy" model is $600, but if you're going to be sitting in the remote locations you mentioned, then you might want to be able to power your electrical equipment (including whatever laptop you end up bringing. The other downside (besides the price), is that it is an additional 15lbs (10 for the panels, 5 for the power center), so unless you NEED power, you might not want to bother.

Look at the link. HD-DVD may be manufactured by Toshiba, but the software on the discs, HDi, is an MS thing. Or here is another link. The fact in question is reference point 24 under the "Attempts to avoid a format war." In this case, Toshiba = hardware development, Microsoft = software development. Even though royalties are involved with Blu-ray, the consortium decided Java was the way to go and didn't want to deal with Microsoft and HDi.

I'm not defending them, but there are worse companies than Sony, and personally Microsoft is worse. Rootkit this, proprietary that, ad nauseum... Have you used Windows? Sony does have some nice products. This looks neat. Expensive, sure, and plenty of geeks around here I'm sure could build a 'better' one, but still for a non-geek with money, probably a solid purchase. prompt for comments about the MacMini, EyeTV, MythTV, box in the basement/closet/garage, with 2TB of RAID5, 4GB RAM, *NIX flavor of the day, etc... Like I said, for the non-geeks with money.

It would be irresponsible not to mention the Sony VAIO LT, which predates the new iMac and every other machine mentioned here -- all-in-one, wireless peripherals including low-profile keyboard, glossy widescreen display, etc.

they do - try this link to the VAIO FZ-290 laptop - http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/SYCTOProcess?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&LBomId=8198552921665234522 . there are other laptops on their site too.

his has one revolutionary part, that is not available anywhere else (to my knowledge) that is the display.

(I wrote this up for the bookpeople mailing list....)

The local Borders store set up a display w/ one of these yesterday and I spent a while playing with it. Initial impressions:

  - nice size, _very_ thin
  - crisp, sharp greyscale display --- very readable
  - uses GPL software (there's a list of utilities in the user manual as well as notes on where to d/l the source for the software)
  - decent interface w/ sensible buttons and okay layout
  - supports pdf, txt, rtf, bmp, jpeg, gif and png files as well as the proprietar? BBeB books (.lrf and .lrx)
  - plays mp3s
  - switches from portrait to landscape and back quite easily
  - nice magnification mode

On the downside:

  - ~2--3 seconds to switch from one page to another sometimes one gets a distracting flashing
  - sometimes one gets ``ghosting'' if the new page has a lot of white space where text or image was before
  - the text H&J when displaying text files and .rtfs is _awful_, allowing widows and orphans and pages to end on a hyphen
  - the font used for displaying rtfs uses oblique, not italic for emphasis
  - sidebars of some of the text font characters, ``i'' most egregiously is not good resulting in poorly spaced text
  - urls in .pdfs which break at a line end become two distinct hyperlinks (this may be a problem in how the user guide .pdf was created)
  - while one can play an mp3 while reading, controlling the mp3 functions require going all the way back to the main menu --- would've been better to've over-ridden the number buttons for use as audio controls while an mp3 is playing.

One can't help but wonder if the status bar at the bottom can be turned off --- it displays a persistent page number --- perhaps people will format .pdfs especially for this and leave page numbers off?

More information on the reader at:

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=16184

Apparently this is an updated model and the text updating used to be even slower.

Borders didn't seem to have a mechanism for selling BBeB books in their stores though which is strange since they can be stored on memory cards (Sony proprietary sticks and SD memory cards).

William
(who found it inspiring enough to want to put some more effort into getting his Fujitsu Stylistic to boot off of a compact flash card in a CF-IDE adapter, since he uses that to read a _lot_ of ebooks and the hard drive noise is distracting (and to make them, see http://members.aol.com/willadams/portfolio.html which includes my version of _The Book of Tea_ which is in the TeX Showcase))

Last time I checked, their players came with Sony's own ripping software. The Walkman Bean description actually says "Transfer Personal Downloaded Music and CD Recordings":
Walkan Bean @ Sony

went home to relax. Popped the latest Bruce Springsteen CD in her RCD-W500C and proceeded to burn a copy for her mom - who happens to be a big fan. http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=11037552

Many reviews keep stating that the PS3 may still be the best Blu-Ray player on the market, and entry-level Blu-Ray players start at $500. Many people don't care about Blu-Ray right this second, but after seeing a movie in true 1080p, I'm ready to buy a new TV and a PS3. For $500 I'm getting a good Blu-Ray player, with the gaming console/media server/web appliance thrown in for free.

Make sure you buy the Sony Remote. You CAN control the movie playback with the 6 Axis, but the interface is Ass-tastic. Also "Planet Earth" is still the Best to show off your HD display... (sound not so much, but Visually, it's breath taking...)

Most gamers don't see it that way, and that's fine. But for me, it is actually quite a value.

If you act quick you might be able to get a 60 gig PS3 for $350 and would still be eligable for the 5 Free BluRay Movies.

Many reviews keep stating that the PS3 may still be the best Blu-Ray player on the market, and entry-level Blu-Ray players start at $500. Many people don't care about Blu-Ray right this second, but after seeing a movie in true 1080p, I'm ready to buy a new TV and a PS3. For $500 I'm getting a good Blu-Ray player, with the gaming console/media server/web appliance thrown in for free.

Make sure you buy the Sony Remote. You CAN control the movie playback with the 6 Axis, but the interface is Ass-tastic. Also "Planet Earth" is still the Best to show off your HD display... (sound not so much, but Visually, it's breath taking...)

Most gamers don't see it that way, and that's fine. But for me, it is actually quite a value.

If you act quick you might be able to get a 60 gig PS3 for $350 and would still be eligable for the 5 Free BluRay Movies.

The PS3 was nearly even in sales for one month (July) which also saw a "price cut" (really a closeout price). Xbox 360 saw a price cut this month (an actual price cut, not a phasing out of a version of the console), so we'll have to wait and see what the August numbers look like. The 360 also had several big games this month (Bioshock and Madden08 -- say what you will about people buying the same game year over year, but Madden is a huge system seller), and the Halo 3 madness is already gearing up which should drive sales at least through the holiday season. The PS3's increase in sales was a fluke, nothing more.

August will likely show a PS3 spike and Here's why. This deal also can be combined though with the 5 Free BluRay movies offer.

The software charts however will paint a different picture as you stated. There are simply more (and better) games on the 360.

This US version (sonystyle.com) looks awfully similar for $3300

No, it's not: http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet /ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&lang Id=-1&productId=8198552921665089229.

"Ew, Vista." "But it doesn't run OS X." "Ew, Sony."

Bleh. Just realize that your iMac isn't as utterly mindblowing and revolutionary as you believe it to be.

Disclaimer: I own an ultralight notebook, the smallest MP3 player I could find, a tiny car, and a Wii. I should be the target market for these things.

However, they really didn't bother to actually test market these things before putting them out there. For one, the lack of a keyboard really limits usability. Heck, keyboards are becoming standard on phones these days. To not have a keyboard on a laptop replacement is silly.

Two, they don't fit anywhere. They're way too big for a pocket, so you have to put them in a bag or backpack. At that point, you might as well just use a 3 lb Sony Vaio Tx, or a 4 lb Lenovo v, or a 4.5 lb Dell Xps or one of many other ultralight portables out there. And really, that's the key: laptops are losing weight as fast as the balance between performance and price will allow.

But worst of all, they never really had a use. They all take time to boot, so there isn't much use as a dayrunner. They have no keyboard, so word processing is out. And forget photoshop. What, exactly, are you supposed to do with one? Play halo? Web development?

Ultimately, all of the tasks that were supposed to be delegated to the UMPC were actually far better served by high-end phones. Need e-mail, texting, intranet access to a client database, and synching to a desktop? Just get a treo. They're about 1,000 dollars cheaper, and they fit in your pocket.

While I was intrigued by the concept, I won't be shedding a tear for the UMPC. They were far ahead of their time. Which is to say, someone was pushing them early in the hopes of making a quick buck.

I mean, if I can find it doing a 30 second search over at Sony, why can't the author, rather than implying that Blu-Ray players will be $1000 until 2008. The Sony BDP-S300 is due to be released in Summer 2007.

Here:
    http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity /eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-S tart?ProductSKU=BDPS300

XPS is nice enough, my wife has the M1710.

The SZ series, which I personally have and love, is a bit more expensive, but clocks in at 4.1lb, $1951 gets you your CPU, 2GB 533mhz RAM, 160gig, ABG wireless, DVD-DL RW. For $99 more you can get it with integrated WWAN (ie EvDO from Cingular I think. Doesn't look at all bad (though of course Macheads will take it as blasphemy that any is even /compared/ to the Mac: http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/EINTERSHOP.enfinit y/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_CTO-Start?ProductSKU=W1NBS P07-A&catname=cpu_VAIONotebookComputers_SZSeries).

Tons of SDTV's have component input. HDMI is right out, but component has been on every SDTV I have bought in the last 5 years or so. Sure you pay more for these SDTV's with component inputs, but they do exist.

For example: http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity /eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_BrowseCatalog-Start?Categor yName=tv_27to32TVs&Dept=tvvideo

this is something i would consider buying, except that unless someone else is picking up the tab its somewhat overpriced. nevertheless, if what you want is extreme portablity with all the functionality of a 'real' computer, this is the ticket

Sony PRS : http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity /eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-S tart?ProductSKU=PRS500U2

Irex Iliad:
http://www.irextechnologies.com/products/iliad

If you finance your PS3 through SonyStyle.com, you get $100 off your purchase. This is effectively the same as the $100 price drop they'll announce in spring 2008, except you don't need to wait a year.

What surprises me is that the Sony Reader has received so little public attention. I tend to keep up with gadgets and have a personal interest in electronic paper tech, but I didn't even hear about that product until very recently.

That thing is definitely on my wishlist... after the iPhone... and a new laptop... and a DSLR... and a Wii... and an updated video card... and updated ASIC design software... snow tires... Oh, bother.

However, hearing that Sony itself has been pressuring the porn industry away from the Blu-Ray format, it seems they've shot themselves in the foot and mooted their brand from competition.

This comes as absolutely no surprise to me. For some inexplicable reason, Sony has an insatiable desire to push and try to control its own formats at any cost, no matter how irrational or self-defeating it might be. For instance, MiniDisc. Nobody really ever believed it would take over from the Compact Disc (hey, it's the same thing, only smaller, with lossy compression, and incompatible with the thing everyone already standardized on 10 years ago!), but did that stop them from trying to push it? Oh wait -- why am I talking about MiniDisc in the past tense when Sony is still trying to sell them?

Anyway, MiniDisc was nuts, and it had ATRAC, which they insisted on to the exclusion of MP3, and for no reason. But that isn't all. Think about Memory Sticks. The digital camera market is pretty big. Sony is a major player. Do you think they offer any cameras that use something more standard like, say, SDCard? Why, no they don't. Other manufacturers are flexible about things like that because it might, you know, be what the customer wants. But Sony? No friggin' way they'd ever use a non-Sony format when a Sony format exists, even if it's virtually a fringe format.

Oh, let's see. Can I go on? Oh yeah, how about PSP movie format? That was a big success, wasn't it? Well, maybe not. What about Sony PlayStation (the original) game discs? Were they regular DVDs? Nope, special PlayStation-only discs (although the PlayStation could play regular DVDs as well).

Basically, somebody at Sony has a thing (I would say fetish, but that's too easy) for proprietary media, and no matter how many times they fail at it, they don't get the message, and they keep trying again and again. They want to control the media, the physical media. They are like Microsoft, except that they only try for the vendor lock-in and fail at it every time; in that sense, they are like Microsoft's idiot brother.