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In the old days only nerds/geeks would use/make 3rd party to change how Windows looks and behaves.

It's a clear sign how badly Microsoft has screwed up when even "normal folk" have to use 3rd party add ons to make Windows 8 more usable to them.

My boss even thought the Pokki menu came with Windows 8.1 (and so Win 8.1 wasn't so bad) when it actually came with his Lenovo:
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/lenovo-taking-windows-8-start-menu-battle-into-its-own-hands-1175163

There a link in this webpage (I didn't link it directly as there's also some interesting information on the first page too) saying that while they are not working together on a VR headset, they aren't enemies either, and Palmer doesn't mind if there is competition as he understands that it would be better for VR in general in the long run, to breed innovation.

Link: http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/valve-to-follow-oculus-rift-s-lead-and-demo-its-own-vr-headset-1200642

Cable only comes in at 720p. Blu-rays and game consoles are 1080p. For 4k I'd have to go buy all new movies and a 4k player...and that's not even including how close I'd need to be to the TV to see the difference.

Sony and Panasonic are working on a new physical disc, as is the Blu-ray Disc Association. HDMI 2.0 supports 4k resolution at 60fps, 30 channels of audio, etc. I would wait for these standards to mature - I don't want to suffer the same "HDTV ready" fiasco from yesteryear.

In those "best linux distros" I just discovered Qubes OS which achieves security (and privacy) through strong isolation.

See what kind of activities can be isolated, in a picture.

I think they got it right.

Not very portable: one need to run it on bare metal (along with 4GB minimum), nomads will bring along their laptop, at least (also: secure boot optional).

This is interesting and particularly relevant because it is the exact opposite to Ubuntu's theos. In ubuntu things you do on your local machine get propagated to the web. In Qubes OS, if I understand it correctly, things you do on your machine in one area, sites you visit in another (e.g. porn), and sites in a third (e.g. banking) will all be completely isolated from each other.

In those "best linux distros" I just discovered Qubes OS which achieves security (and privacy) through strong isolation.

See what kind of activities can be isolated, in a picture.

I think they got it right.

Not very portable: one need to run it on bare metal (along with 4GB minimum), nomads will bring along their laptop, at least (also: secure boot optional).

the supposed release date on Halloween

I thought that date was bumped.

So if we're talking science, and not tech blogger knee jerk crap, you want to compare Windows RT and Android and iOS. http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/tablets/microsoft-surface-rt-1085839/review/7#articleContent says "We looped a 1080p WMV video in the built-in app that ships with Windows RT until the battery died, a test we run on every tablet that graces the TechRadar testing lab. Under these conditions Surface lasted an impressive 450 minutes, equaling a gob-smacking 7 ½ hours. This is nearly two hours longer than the iPad 3, which suffers from powering that glorious Retina display." So on the same hardware, Windows blasted past iOS by two hours. Other than your title, and spooge of MS hatred, wheres the proof? Oh lets measure x86 vs ARM? Then ask the right question, Why is x86 less battery efficient than ARM? just type it in google because it's been an article a million times...

$6.

http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/analyst-iphone-5-lightning-connector-here-to-stay-1099003

I'm not 100% sure of how it works in Britain, but I think the way it works is that there is a tax/fee on recording media that then gets passed to an organization that dishes out the money to copyright holders based on a measure of popularity. If you bought a blank VHS tape you have already payed for the right to make copies of any video content that you have obtained legally. The terms of use for those copies are pretty strict, but they are legal.

We don't have a special tax on recording media in the UK, at all.

Until very recently (2012), it was technically illegal to make copies of anything you owned without the copyright owner's permission, though AFAIK no one was ever sued for it. Now you can. Unfortunately, you still are not allowed to break security measures, so ripping a DVD to video is still illegal. I think you can make straight copies, since you do not need to circumvent the security to do this. Most people in the UK thought making backups was not illegal, even prior to the new law.

The Wikipedia page on ripping is out of date and therefore wrong, though it is still illegal to rip DVDs because of CSS, it is not illegal to rip music from CDs. This page and this page have decent explanations.

Yes. And yes.

Steam boxes are just prebuilt PCs running the not yet released, but promised to be "free" SteamOS. The same page says it can be licensed to companies too, so I can't speak to exactly how gratis it is.

It seems the only real source of information is Valve's Living Room page and subpages, but this techradar article digests it pretty well.

That's just not true. You can get perfectly fine point-and-shoot cameras with all the advantages you ascribe to DSLR cameras. In fact, you can nowadays even get point-and-shoot cameras that will show you a clearer picture through the electronic viewfinder in the dark than you could ever get through a DSLR viewfinder with your own eyes.

Many of the compact cameras listed here will outdo many cheap DSLRs.

http://www.techradar.com/news/photography-video-capture/cameras/best-compact-camera-2013-34-reviewed-963985

And for lens changing needs there's a multitude of system cameras with similar features and interchangable lenses.

Nevertheless, I prefer my DSLR over my point-and-shoots too, but that does not have that much to do with the mirror and the analog viewfinder. And you're damn right DSLRs are not only for professionals. However, compact cameras are not only for amateurs either.

Also, in good lighting conditions those "pinhead" sized sensors (they're a bit larger than that) in mobile phones are just fine and when combined with a good lens many of them deliver the equivalent of the megapixels they're marketed to deliver. In good lighting conditions, that is..:) And due to the extremely long depth of field these tiny things offer, they're absolutely superb when it comes to "macro" photography and other types of photography that require a rather long depth of field. Proper (expensive:)) phone cameras will at F2 get the equivalent depth of view of your DSLR at F8, enabling you to take great sharp pictures in situations where your DSLR will require a tripod or (expensive) image stabilization.

The same goes for compact cameras with medium sized sensors, by the way. There really are quite advantages to small sensors and it is exactly for those reasons that professional photographers will every now and then choose to use a compact camera for specific jobs.

GTA V pretty much has that nailed and it runs on last-generation consoles.

Yeah, those old last generation consoles are just so ... ehhh, yesterday.

No -- wait! That really was yesterday, wasn't it?

(OK, so I've botched the dates. But it's funnier this way and besides you won't be reading this article in a month.)

GTA V pretty much has that nailed and it runs on last-generation consoles.

Yeah, those old last generation consoles are just so ... ehhh, yesterday.

No -- wait! That really was yesterday, wasn't it?

(OK, so I've botched the dates. But it's funnier this way and besides you won't be reading this article in a month.)

http://www.techradar.com/news/portable-devices/ps4-oculus-rift-rival-in-the-works-as-sony-announces-head-mounted-display-1177670?src=rss&attr=all

Moron. Those are all fake. Mobile phone touch interfaces don't have nearly the sensitivity to really read a fingerprint. You probably meant to link to something more along the lines of this: http://www.techradar.com/us/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/apple-patents-fingerprint-sensor-for-biometric-iphone-unlock-1104176

UI advances like GG are supposed to make driving with technology safer, not more dangerous. Let's be real: we're only a few short years from on-windshield HUDs for navigation, driving metrics, etc.

A few short years away?? This is an article from 12 months ago Top 5 HUDs in modern cars today

Its all bundled into the last sentence:

It looks like Mansfield has been held accountable for the TSMC production glitches and the persistence of Apple’s dependency on arch competitor Samsung for its most strategic components - the SoC heart and brains of its mobile devices.

I agree its pretty thin.

However when you look at what Mansfield was actually brought back for: (From tfa quoting Apple)

"Bob Mansfield will lead a new group, Technologies, which combines all of Apple’s wireless teams across the company in one organization, fostering innovation in this area at an even higher level. This organization will also include the semiconductor teams, who have ambitious plans for the future."

It looks like it was semiconductors, Wireless, and other sources say the list includes the speculated Apple Smartwatch project as well.

Well, the all of those projects are in trouble. Apple has had yet another in their long line of wifi disasters and had to issue emergency patches to the Air.

I suppose its not too hard to pick the biggest of these projects and pin it on that.

But other sources suggest TSMC was starting to push back on Apple's plans to have it manufacture all SOCs for them.

Apple asked to invest in TSMC, or to have TSMC set aside factory space dedicated to Apple chips, the executives say. TSMC Chairman Morris Chang rejected both requests because the company wanted to maintain its independence and manufacturing flexibility, the executives say.

It sounds to me like TSMC has other suitors knocking on their door.

At the same time, Samsung purchased a significant portion of Sharp, and upped its orders from them, which gives them just enough control of Sharp to prevent Apple being to leverage demands for price reductions from Sharp.

You quickly get the impression that Apple is getting the rope-a-dope treatment in the far east, and Samsung is one step ahead of them at every turn.

But can't you just put a sock over it? Congrats MS.. you get a first hand look at what the inside of my sock looks like... 24/7.

The Xbox One Kinect uses IR in addition to visible light. From this article:

Microsoft has even boosted the Kinect's infrared vision, which results in a number of dramatic improvements.

No longer will you have to play in a well and evenly lit room for the sensor to recognize your gestures, and conversely you won't end up with sunshine blooms interfering with the Kinect.

We were shown how it could still track a person's movements in a totally dark room as well as how a bright flashlight beam shone on the person wasn't even viewable by the sensor's IR mode.

On what sounded like a science-fiction-esque promise, we were also told that the new Kinect's IR capabilities would be able to track your heart beat, by detecting the flow of blood under the surface of your face.

So my guess would be that the sock wouldn't help much.

No iPhone older than the 4S

iPhone *4* (I'm running it on one right now!!). Can't you Apple Haters learn to read a spec sheet right just once?

So if your iPod touch is more than one year old

Then it may still work because the 5th gen iPod touch launched on October 11th, 2011.

Do you know what year it is now?

Then again, why the hell are you bringing the Touch into this when we are talking about Apple TV?

A newer AppleTV that supports games is not out yet but neither is the XBox one, so the point of ages of devices that support iOS7 is utterly irrelevant to my point or anything else. It's just your Apple Hater Tourette's forcing you to post anything you find slightly negative about Apple even if irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

Isn't the whole point of open source to take good ideas and merge them together?

What gave you that idea? There are many Linux window managers, Word Processors, Image Editors, etc. That diversity is both a strength and a weakness.

That is one long run-on sentence...... /offtopic

It should be pointed out that the no used games idea is not confirmed by Microsoft. It's just speculation by different writers.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/01/26/1829232/xbox-720-might-reject-used-games

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/gaming/consoles/xbox-720-won-t-play-used-games-says-report-1057564

(Too lazy to search for more links.)

Although I have no doubt in my mind that if M$ wanted to impliment such a DRM system, that they would do it. I don't beleve that M$ would be that dumb.

Specfificly M$ would loose out on alot gamers that way. Some people buy the games used, and some of them could not afford to play video games otherwise. Not to mention the Anti-DRM folks who won't buy the system at all if this is true. M$ *should* want to make money off of these people. If anything the fact that they have the system and some games, would promote the system to their friends / family / etc.

Also the more recent failings of DRM are still fresh in the public's mindset. M$ coming out now saying that the 720 would not allow used games, would cause a huge PR problem. Gamestop / EB Games / etc. would start a PR campaign against them, the Anti-DRM crowd would be up in arms, and the people who were burned on previous DRM schemes would be out in full force. I should not have to point out the backlash of the "#dealwithit" comments: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/04/05/1246233/microsoft-creative-director-doesnt-get-always-on-drm-concerns

I just don't see M$ being that stupid. Of cource time will tell if I'm dead wrong. In which case I'll second xQuarkDS9x's "Screw you Microsoft".

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/bluetooth-headsets-don-t-make-driving-safer-976296

My current desktop already runs circles around a PS4. It has half the performance of a GeForce GTX 680.

Interestingly, Cadillac was way out ahead in putting HUDs on the road with real drivers, but http://m.techradar.com/news/car-tech/top-5-huds-in-modern-cars-today-1092312 describes the HUD features on five different cars that can be bought today.

The Ford and BMW ones really start to show off how these displays can improve safety for average American drivers.

Applications no longer quit, instead they keep running in the background, if you click the red button.

Only a few programs in Mac OS X have ever quit when you closed the last window. "Quit" and "Close Window" have always been different commands. The ability to quit when hitting the "little red button" is only implemented in a few programs (but perhaps should be in more - people leaving dozens of programs running has been a problem ever since the multi-finder days of System 7 or earlier).

The "reopening" windows behaviour can be controlled from the "General" Systems Preferences control, and can be done on a case-by-case basis by using Option while quitting according to http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/how-to-tame-mac-os-x-lion-annoyances-1088025

I do like the goal of not having things matter if I am launching, relaunching, or just returning to an application that was in the background, but I don't think we are quite there yet, and being confident that I have completely closed an application and it is not going to do something weird when I run it next time is still important.

With all that said, yeah this is a bit of "iOSification".

I haven't noticed any defaulting to iCloud saving issues, but my work with Preview has got me very flumuxed with this auto saving and lack of "save as" type of thing. If I was doing it often I would really need to figure out a better work-flow than I am currently using. Changing file formats is a pain in the ass when needing to export, then find and open the new file to start working on it, for example.

Installing from non-registered developers does require a control-click-open rather than just a double-click, which is not too onerous in my mind.

But I share TekkieGod's concern that things could easily go too far in the direction of iOS. It is not there yet in my opinion, but I can see how it might go that way, and it also makes me nervous.

All this an a sainted device from Google

Except people [including myself have been incredibly impressed with having a high resolution; quad-core; small tablet running latest Android....and so are the reviews. Top searches on Google

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/tablets/google-nexus-7-1087040/review 4.5 stars
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/tablets/379261/nexus-7 3x 5 out of 6 and 1x6 out of 6
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/laptops/1297408/google-nexus-7 5 out of 5 User 5 out of 5 expert
http://reviews.cnet.com/google-nexus-7/ 4 out 5
http://www.wired.co.uk/reviews/tablets/2012-11/google-nexus-7 9 out of 10
http://www.theverge.com/products/nexus-7/5831 8.8 expert 9.1 User
http://www.laptopmag.com/review/tablets/google-nexus-7.aspx 4 out of 5
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2406552,00.asp 4.5 out of 5

I know you love Apple but right now Apple need compelling products, priced competitively not fanatics spreading lies. It simply tarnishes the Apple brand more, and its been damaged enough just lately.

Interesting thought, which has probably occurred to other people, of course.
I suppose the reason why we have not seen large-scale attacks on routers so far, (and maybe there are some out there already, undetected) is that it has just been easier to infect PCs and use them in botnets, with the tools widely available.
Would probably take a little more time and ingenuity to setup a net of zombie routers, with the need to tailor the worm or whatever a little to each model/software stack.
However, once it was in place, can you imagine the disruption? Most SOHO & home users don't know anything about their ISP modem/routers at all, and use them by default as their firewall. Imagine that *gone* tomorrow. An ISP trying to roll-out large-scale firmware updates via a non-tech-savy audience sounds like a recipe for disaster. (Although I suppose many of the later models support remote update...).
Since many users have no choice in their selection of ISP device, it is surely the responsibility of the ISP to make them secure...yeah, like it's their responsibility to get us all IPv6-compatible stuff too...don't hold your breath.

In the meantime, roll your own firewall box everyone, and while you're at it, do one for your friends and relations. It's cheap and fairly easy.
Here's a good place to start.
http://www.amazon.com/Building-Firewalls-OpenBSD-PF-2nd/dp/8391665119 (You don't have to use BSD, of course, most any flavour of *x will do)
Or just download a distro where pretty much all the work has been done for you.
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/7-of-the-best-linux-firewalls-697177

Of course, sitting smug and secure behind your shiny new firewall box will not help if you cannot access the net except via your compromised POS router. If you can, buy a decent one to substitute for the ISP-supplied crap.

I see what you did there.

This is the end of the motherboard era. LIke Mainframes (that are doing well, BTW), the motherboard has seen its heyday. Intel is de-emphasizing them in favor of processors for mobile, and AMD is looking pretty sad, see http://www.techradar.com/news/upgrades/graphics-cards/motherboards/computing-components/processors/computing/pc/why-the-pc-of-2020-could-be-bad-news-for-modders-1117302

As a desktop guy from way back (my 1st was a H89 that I built myself), I find this news to be depressing. However, the handwriting is on the wall. Once the volumes of desktops drop, the motherboard will become the exotic anomaly and hardware hacking will be the domain of the Raspberry PI generation.

Betteridge Violates His Own Law

and there's no remote desktop with a Linux server

Spending about 3.8753 seconds on Google would reveal that there are numerous Linux remote desktop clients which can be downloaded for use.

Odd, since Opera and UC Browser did very well on all counts on Nokia phones (and these were decent touchscreen phones with maybe a quarter of the power of an iPhone). I don't see why they should fail. Any links to the study?

google it. Here's one example: apple maps consumes 80% less data than google maps for the same 3D views.
http://www.techradar.com/us/news/software/applications/apple-maps-uses-80-less-data-than-google-maps-1101501

... Network Admins who have no clue. Like when just 4 years ago, Pakistan took down Youtube...
http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/dns/285152-pakistan-takes-youtube-down

Clearly this should be on the agenda for the new "Cyber Reserves" of the department of Homeland Security. If Google can be taken down by accident in parts of the world, then it certainly can be taken down on purpose. Route filters are your friends!

CYBER RESERVES: http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/department-of-homeland-security-recruiting-for-cyber-reserve-1109906

http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/20-classic-apple-app-store-rejections-654230

eg, a chess app rejected because the chat bubbles looked too much like Apple's, a audio streaming app update that is rejected for using "excessive data usage". The fact that updates get caught, and decisions reversed, to me kindof reinforces the whole 'whim' thing.

Apple doesn't have the money??

Sharp is ready to collapse!

Expertise I can give you.

Those phones look nothing alike. The iPad and Samsung tablet are clearly different - no chance of mistaking the two.

The Galaxy S, on the other hand, looks a hell of a lot like the iPhone. As the boys at TechRadar said last year, before all the news from the trial,

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/samsung-galaxy-s-689293/review

... there's no mistaking it â" the Samsung Galaxy S and iPhone 3G/3GS could very easily have been separated at birth.

From the all-black shiny front, to the curved bezel around the frame, to the single physical button (albeit a rounded square rather than a circle) and even the glossy back in a choice of white or black, there is no way Jonathan Ive wouldn't have felt at least a little miffed (or flattered) when he saw the Samsung Galaxy S design for the first time.

It's not a bad thing â" but apart from the Samsung logo just beneath the earpiece and a slightly larger screen, there's not much difference in the Samsung Galaxy S's appearance.

But fuck Apple, right? Even before they had the gall to exercise their own patents in court - after offering Samsung a deal - they had the hutzpah to operate a walled garden. Let's write them out of history.

"The issue is that it is not really economical to put together a computer from scratch, adding OS later, even if the OS if basically free".

The OEMs get huge discounts compared to the smaller box assemblers. Microsoft also gets to 'certify' the hawdware that it'll allow Windows to run on. This is equivilent to BP certifying what cars can be built and run on the (BP?) highways.

"For a short time, after Compaq reversed engineered the IBM BIOS and cheap components because available, it was cheap to buidl your own, but that was only because the markup on IBM and Compaq machines were very high and MS liscensing was very liberal".

Purely as an accident of history, IBM neglected to get an exclusive license for DOS so when later on Columbia Data Products were the first to clean-room the BIOS, Microsoft were more than willing to license DOS to third party companies like Compaq. "Which is to say we are not going to see a fully open source desktop anytime soon. Consumers want a unified experience that can only come form a corporate design"

Because MS leans on the OEMS to not put one out, they are only allowed to sell servers or hide the desktop version on their website ...

Best Linux distro 2012

Actually, the biggest problem with the pi was imbalanced import taxes. Importing the parts to make it in the UK would attract tax on all the parts. Importing the finished board to sell - didn't. Given the primary driver was keeping the cost as low as possible, this was a big problem, despite the taxes being pretty small. This is basically the playstation exemption; there are plenty of lobbyists for companies that import finished consumer electronics from china etc, saying we don't want to pay this tax. For the tiny UK electronic manufacturing base? Not so much.

But the iPhone 5 has huge scratch problems all over the back of the phone, especially compared to the iPhone 4, this has been widely reported, even on arrival of the product. Every other manufacturer did the smart thing as far as the actual camera lens is concerned, and recessed it so it couldn't be scratched. Not to mention even if the iPhone 4 has a similar problem it is far less visible. E.G http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/apple-says-iphone-5-scratches-normal-aluminum-products-222413716.html http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/schiller-says-iphone-5-scratches-are-normal-as-light-leaks-reported-1099691 http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/136835-apple-responds-to-iphone-5-scuffgate-scratches-and-chips-are-normal http://www.metro.co.uk/tech/913150-iphone-5-users-complain-about-scratched-phones http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/24/3381462/iphone-5-scuff-damage-aluminum That enough evidence, or are you saying you would rather a scratched case with a clear lens than no scratches at all (as on the iPhone 4)

There's other ones like Bing Maps already allowed. Apple's rules are so arbitrary that you never really know what they'll do.

Yeah, its almost as if these "rules" were made up by Apple Haters.

Or that there *are no fixed rules*, and your investment in creating an app is completely at the mercy of the whim (and unknown future business plans) of a single corporate entity.

Or that that is also made up by an Apple Hater.

There are, of course, *multiple* examples of rejections available if you look around:

http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/20-classic-apple-app-store-rejections-654230

reported by *iOS developers*, hardly the core group for "Apple haters". But in your world I suppose all of these are lies. It must be nice to be able to hold your opinion and not have to worry about reality.

As a long time and current systems programmer I would never claim any OS is virus proof. I never did make such a claim. The fact remains that Linux and OS X are far less susceptible to viruses than Windows.

I'm sorry, but you're not a very experienced systems programmer if you think any massive, monolithic operating system written by 10,000+ people over decades long periods is less susceptible to viruses than any other. If anything, after years of being lanced by virus writers, I suspect Windows has fewer holes and flaws than OS X. Even apple has the PR machine in reverse, after riding that misconception for years.

http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/paul-thurrotts-wininfo/security-expert-windows-7-secure-mac-os-140118
http://www.techradar.com/us/news/software/operating-systems/apple-tones-down-claims-regarding-os-xs-unassailable-security-1087070

This has been an issue of opportunity and bang for the buck virus writing. Security companies find huge gaping holes in OSX all the time, and eventually Apple fills them. If there were no such holes, why the fixes? Yeah, thats right...people don't fix what wasn't broken.

In the meanwhile, I've gotten exactly zero viruses of any kind on any machine in my household. We use free virus protection, don't surf russian porn sites, and don't click on any dialogue boxes that say "Kan I install my foobar mach 7 browser helper now?". I do see some malware occasionally on some extended family machines, but they were installing random free software, and frankly you can see some of the same problems doing that with a mac...

But the brain has to have a justification for spending too much money on something, so when the air comes out of the virus thing, I'm sure someone will find some obscure and likely incorrect reason to buy these things.

Apple has been unwilling to pay the licensing fees for several of Motorola's FRAND patents.

From now on, all of Samsung's products will be as confusing as the galaxy note 10. They won't have Apple's UX to fall back on anymore.

you see more of this,
http://cdn3.mos.techradar.com//art/mobile_phones/Samsung/GalaxyS3/Galaxy%20S3%20review/Screenshots/Samsung_Galaxy_S3_review_083-240-100.jpg

It never was "Metro", it seems. I found this article... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/10/metro_is_modern_ui_now/ Also found this, a bit off topic, but get ready for £the "Surface2"... http://m.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/tablets/microsoft-is-already-working-on-surface-2-tablets-1091358

What if the iPhone really is that innovative in the smartphone arena that only Apple can provide smartphones? Then they have a monopoly, and the DoJ tends to get upset with monopolies that appear to be unreasonably restraining consumer choice raising prices, or both.

Just ask Microsoft. They, arguably, have never recovered from the antitrust suit. Does Apple want to go down that path?

Apple didn't invent the smartphone, and I doubt they claim to. There were plenty of smartphones before the iphone - Nokia had e.g. N95 (and other N-series) and their Communicator, Blackberry had many phones, Sony Ericsson had their P900 series, HTC had Windows mobile phones. They behaved in different ways, and had many interesting styles. So obviously, there are many other ways than iPhone and iPhone OS to look and behave.

Samsung just put an awful lot of work into looking and behaving the same. Where the legal limit for copying goes I don't know, but Samsung wasn't exactly trying a brand new design they had been working on and polishing for the last five years... it seems as if they even copied marketing materials. And even today, there are many different ways. E.g. the Nokia Lumia 900 - it is a full screen touch mobile, but has its own design and user interface. I certainly wouldn't buy one - Microsoft has already said that they are obsolete - but they have put (different) thoughts into design and behaviour.

You've forgotten that in-app purchases make lots of money, it's a "holy grail" of businesses selling software. No longer do they have to worry about piracy and those nasty crackers eating into their profits, or of having to release teaser CDs, or even of having to worry about installing licence-checking software.

Now everything is free, except when you want to use it, and that gives them to opportunity to squeeze a lot more cash out of you than before. When a DVD was a single one-time $30 outlay, they lost money, now it's a $5 here, $5 there and eventually a £1500 bill

from that link:

I have a particular hatred of Outfit7's talking characters, whose apps' screens are minefields of "buy things!" buttons, but the nadir is probably Beeline Interactive's Smurfs' Village, a free app that includes in-app purchases such as a "wagon of smurfberries" for just £69.99. How do they sleep?

So yes, this has taken a huge turn for the worse. Money does that to things.

they never compete on price

Really? I was under the impression that they did just that with the first iPad. There were no ~10" tablets in "Android land" at that price at the time.

"Tablet PC makers shaken up by iPad pricing - Surprised by iPad's low $499 price tag"
Apple iPad: The Low-Price Leader?
Apple iPad Cheaper than Notebook Vendors Would Like

A Google search for "3D movie sales" seems to give quite consistent results:

• - "Hollywood was quick to jump on the 3D bandwagon, but ticket sales are falling." (The Guardian, UK)
• - "3D ticket sales are continuing to fall in North America" (Film Junk, NA)
• - "Despite a Huge Box Office Year, 3D Sales Are Slipping & Hollywood Worries" (BruSimm)
• - "3D ticket sales hit a record low in US" (TechRadar)

So your claim does not seem to hold water at all. In fact, just about every single source you can find will either show that 3D is consistently dropping across the board (not just 3D TV sales, but just about everything 3D), or will be some movie business people trying to convince themselves and others that 3D does rock, and people do want it despite the tanking sales..

What groupthink do you subscribe to, since your claims seem to counter reality? And why the accusations of groupthink against people who are pointing out the 3D failure?

Surprise someone has not mentioned MS Smartglass since it designed to give a second screen to games.
Granted it more show now than relality but it does point the way that multiple display can be used in games.

The latest Spiderman movie was recorded using Epic Red cameras
http://www.techradar.com/news/photography-video-capture/red-epic-cam-footage-of-amazing-spider-man-best-ever-964445