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Not blocked.

From charging whatever they want? Installing more spyware on their apps?

http://www.t3.com/news/angry-birds-knows-where-you-live

Piracy is what got the MIAA to change and improve for the better.

Just saying.

Also, the rack in the background looks messy, and not well thought-through.

Even worse, there's an entire PC World shop in the background, with all the aesthetics you'd expect from a shed full of overpriced printer cartridges and copies of Norton Antivirus at the grimmer end of Tottenham Ct Rd - there's a reason why most fashion boutiques do not open 'pop-up shops' in branches of Lidl or Walmart:

http://www.talkandroid.com/48645-pc-world-will-have-the-samsung-galaxy-tab-10-1-starting-august-3/

http://www.t3.com/news/worlds-first-google-chrome-zone-opens-in-london

Presumably the main job of the Google employees will be desperately trying to steer the customers away from the cheaper fully-functional netbooks 50 feet away in the main shop.

Incidentally, this is not the first 'Chrome Zone':

http://www.virginamerica.com/vx/chromezone

http://mwc2011.t3.com/2011/02/sony-ericsson-xperia-play-hands-on-pictures-with-the-psp-phone/

How in the world did you get +5 Insightful? And while making a claim for rationality at that! Let's break apart your comment, most of which is patently incorrect.

USB stick: You're kinda correct. Apple offers an adapter that provides USB. Source.

Office software: iWork (source) was announced and demonstrated at the keynote speech where they introduced the iPad and will be out on day one. Microsoft has indicated that they are considering the Office Suite for it (source). As others said, Omni Group is developing their software as well (source). The fact that you missed all of this doesn't speak well for your personal knowledge on the subject, since it's been covered quite a bit.

IDE: You're probably correct. Apple doesn't like interpreted code running on the iPhone (and presumably the iPad), so it'd be pretty hard to have an IDE that did anything useful. Then again, it wasn't exactly made for that sort of purpose (it's essentially a media consumption device, not a full-fledged media creation device). Also, IDEs are extremely niche. Not important to about 99% of the people buying it.

Flash and Java: You're right. Java I'm personally iffy on, but good riddance to Flash, I say. With YouTube already serving up h.264 videos with HTML5 and Hulu rumored to be prepping the same (source), I don't see this is an issue. And if you're a Flash application developer who doesn't want to learn Objective-C, Adobe put out a Flash-to-iPhone compiler months ago which should work with the iPad.

Price: $499 for the base iPad model, vs. $489 for the Kindle DX, which was about half the price the analysts were predicting, yet it does much more than the DX. Besides the obvious and numerous software advantages, the hardware is better (3.3GB vs. ~15.5GB usable space, better CPU, 3G only vs. 802.11a/b/g/n and 3G), with the DX's only redeeming factor being its eInk display (which is only useful for B&W text display). I fail to see how the iPad compares unfavorably in terms of price. I'd say it lands somewhere between "great bargain" and "perfectly reasonable".

Battery Life: The iPad gets 10 hours of actual use when watching video, which is the worst-case. It also gets "140-something" hours when just listening to music (source), and it can be in standby for about a month. That compares very well against a laptop, and decently against the DX, given the DX's different needs.

Connectivity: Seriously? It's got better connectivity than the Kindle and better than most laptops out there. 802.11a/b/g/n, EDGE, and 3G for the iPad. You're talking out of your ass if you say it lacks connectivity.

Usability: I don't know what you mean by "test editor", but if you mean a simulator for use on a dev machine, there is one, and it's already out for developers. As for usability in general, you're kidding, right? Even though there are always some that disagree, general consensus is that the iPhone is extremely usable (You've actually held one at some point, right? As a geek, it's worth handling and studying simply because of what it accomplishes).

Multitasking: You're kinda correct. The iPhone and iPad do multitasking, but it isn't available to third-parties, just first-party software (e.g. my mail gets checked and text messages get received while I'm playing games). Regardless, it's basically a straw man since push notifications meet the needs for most third party apps, while improved speed on

"it's unclear which of the various types they'll be"
It has in fact been clear what type they'll be for several months, since this was announced mid-August in fact: ColorCode blue and amber anaglyph filters. Even clearer since you could pick them up from Sainsbury's yesterday (and possibly before). http://www.t3.com/feature/channel-4-to-begin-3d-broadcasts-this-autumn

If anything it only brings the Internet under the rule of law and in line with most other social mediums.

And, you know, this could alleviate a lot of the "bring iTunes/Amazon MP3/Hulu to the rest of the world" complaints we get so frequently on Slashdot. Hell, I'd like to see Spotify in the US myself. But all too often you see labels balk at foreign markets and a lot of time (though not always) they cite lack of copyright control and enforcement in these countries.

So, yeah, it's horrible that we're getting ACTA/DMCA the world over but at the end of the day, the countries participating in this may actually think that they are doing something good for their constituents as consumers. And you know, they might be right. For people living outside the United States, would you put up with stricter DMCA-like rules if it meant massively more purchasing options for you? I can't say I would opt for this (as I'm living in the US) but I imagine if I were living in Korea I would support this if it meant I could purchase Amazon MP3s instead of relying on less than reputable sites for acquiring music.

While this global system for enforcing copyright may be initially overly harsh, I think we have to recognize copyright law enforcement in other countries needs to be increased before publishers, labels and film studios become comfortable with digital mediums as an equal and fair distribution method the world over.

To reiterate, I don't agree with some of these laws they are discussing. I hope that's why they're holding the discussions. But do not overlook the benefits and fail to weigh them against the costs as you consider this discussion.

However, I still feel that 75 years is way too long of a copyright term.

Emphatically agreed. While I'm being overly optimistic, hopefully the global community can influence the US positively in this respect.

Only big companies were allowed to make N-Gage games, and that shut out the indies. Also, they tried to implement a very complicated platform on very slow and buggy devices (like the N73).
Even EA critisied the N-gage platform: http://www.t3.com/news/nokia-n-gage-summit-ea-point-out-the-problems?=37094

http://www.t3.com/news/android-cupcake-1-5-update-to-enable-video-capture-for-g1?=38641

The hardware is capable, but the software is not yet willing. That will be changed, - see above.

Note that this is the EXACT same situation as the iPhone. You have been able to shoot video on the iPhone once jailbroken.

The Apple devices are the same, terrible audio quality especially if you consider the high price.

Actually, the audio quality of the iPod is generally regarded very highly

http://www.whathifi.com/Review/Apple-iPod-Classic-120GB/

http://www.t3.com/ipod-and-mp3-players/all-mp3-players/apple-ipod-shuffle-third-generation-review

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1857401,00.asp>

It's the piss poor earphones that have always let the side down. Swap them out for something better, and the sound shines through.

No, that's just a mock-up made by some creative people at T3: http://www.t3.com/news/sony-playstation3-slim-and-lite?=35165/