I think both will be a success for different reasons.

Google has become a verb. So the average consumer seeing a Google tablet for £160 will be tempted.

As for Microsoft in the words of my wife who owns an iPad but hardly ever uses it, "at last I will be able to do Excel."

it's really that simple. Apple only needed their iPad to look nice to attract the average consumer. I know loads of non-tech people who bought the iPad without even checking if it could do what they wanted it to do or indeed even having a task they wanted to achieve with it.

US Netflix Content

I have been using this to access US content, not sure of the legality but works great. The range is much larger than the UK offering. I simply just changed my DNS server on my wireless router to theirs and all my devices now access US content

http://www.unblock-us.com

Social networking or weak pound driving sales? My money is on the later. Even Facebook cant undo thousands of years of economic tradition.

It's all about e-ink

If you have tried the Kindle or a competitor you will know it's e-ink which makes e-readers what they are. I would like to see a two-sided tablet, an e-ink side for ebooks and and a LCD screen on the other side for traditional tablet use.

In the meantime I think Amazon have the "ecosystem" to be a genuine challenger to the Apple iPad.

Couldn't agree more

As a consumer I just want a half decent Android tablet around the £200 / £250 mark. I just cant see value in a tablet costing more.

Entry level

I still think £300 is to high for entry level. I would like to see something under the £200 mark. It doesn't have to be all singing and dancing. If anyone could get a 8.9 capacitive screen, Wifi only, Android 3 device out at that price they would clean up.

Close shave

Only last night I was thinking of moving from Dropbox to Mozy to take advantage of the unlimted space as I ideally need about 300GB (50GB of which is criticial, the rest would be nice) which dropbox cant currenlty offer.

Another Dropbox fan

I use this too (as an online data backup rather than multiple device sync) and would recommend it. I back up my data to a USB disk but this is in case my house burns down or my PC and disk are stolen. The iphone app is very good too and it allows me to access my many photos from anywhere.

The only complaint is I would prefer to be able to select folders outside of the dropbox folder to backup.

Too big and dated OS

I had the pleasure of spending the day using an iPad at an Apple event and have to say for me it was too big and too heavy. Also the iOS on a tablet seemed a bit crap to be honest. I don't mind it on a phone but for some reason I didn't take to it on a tablet. I would actually like to see Windows 7 phone OS on a 7 inch tablet, the icons on a home screen model of iOS and Android feels a bit dated to me.

Hmmm

Says it all really

http://blippy.com/jobs

The market will decide

33 million netbook sales in 2009. Must be doing something right.

Who cares?

Who really gives a f**k about what appears on twitter? The sooner this web 2.0 bollocks dies a death the better. Remember there are over 5.5 billion people on earth who don't give a sh*t about sh*tter, sorry twitter.

Magic Beans and Toast

I have some magic beans and a piece of toast which looks like Thor if GGF are interested.

Stop. Lawyer Time

Looks like a case for the idea expression dichotomy. Do yourself a favour and don’t look it up.

It had been on the wain

Since Kevin Taylor took over as editor the magazine had been on he wain, his editorials were pretty poor and the main features were generally rubbish. the Barry Shilliday Linux column was terrible, trying to encourage people to try Linux with each article requiring an absurd amount of command typing to achieve the simplest of tasks. Fox, Kewney, Whitfield and Laing will be missed though.

No thanks

I for one wouldn't want to wait an hour for my Java based net book to boot up.

EEE B202 would be a better bet

I bought an EEE B202 for £70 less, it can run Windows XP / 7 / Ubuntu 9.04 if required, uses less power and is silent. It's bigger but still small enough to be attached to the back of a monitor etc.

A much better option in my opinion.

@OG

They take a look at the people who are swarming a ridiculous amount a day, connect to the swarm and take a look. A little bit of detective work would soon identify the illegal torrent users. Plus most torrents have a reasonably accurate name to allow people to find them.

BBC and technology news just dont mix.

Shocking sensationlaist reporting from the BBC. Just don’t go anywhere near porn and warez and you will be OK.

They are only kicking off the law breakers

More poor reporting. They are only going to throttle those breaking their terms and condition by downloading illegal material. If you download Linux ISOs via bit torrent then relax. If you use iplayer then relax it’s not bit torrent. If you download WoW patches via bit torrent then relax. If you download copyright material via bit torrent all day long then good riddance.

Doesn't make sense

" in this case, the parents of the young I Judge appear to have been spot on"

Why? they had no say in choosing his surname.

Google Adwords is the word

For a few pennies I managed to get my site www.aceruser.com (shameless plug) appear on the first page whenever someone searched for Acer Aspire One. And I only have to pay if someone clicks through. As this is a personal hobby site there is no way I could afford to advertise it any other way.

Can’t say fairer than that.

SSL wont help

Can we finally put the SSL / encryption myth to bed? Someone simply needs to download a torrent at the same time as you and they have your IP encrtpted or not. I for one would quite happily see people sharing illegal files booted off my ISP then perhaps people who download large amounts of legitimate data will not be penalised.

Disconnect them

Virgin are too soft, boot the obvious freeloaders off the network, that way those of us who use the higher speeds legitimately won’t be capped. I find it hard that people are anti this strategy even if you are an illegal downloader hogging the pipe surely you can see what you are doing is wrong and selfish.

Actually

Whilst we are all being smart arses it is a Contextual Spelling error. And it should be Disk not Disc.

I will be waiting

I will be waiting for the Linux version, as I imagine the savings made from not paying for the XP license will manifest itself in 2GB of memory and a larger hard disk. Ironically I will be replacing the Linux install with XP provided by my employer.

Does corporate adoption matter?

In essences (certainly in the case of my employer) it doesn’t make a difference whether corporates run Vista or not because they pay for it anyway as part of their annual software license deal. Where it really matters is the home market, people buying new PCs, and by all reckoning this has been a huge success. I use and like Vista on my home machines and it’s a nice consumer OS for email, web, photos etc. I use XP at work because it’s quicker and works well for what I do at work.

Ban them all

As a Virgin Media customer I think this is great, doesn’t go far enough for me. I would ban illegal down loaders as well. They are abusing the system, breaking the law and giving Virgin an excuse to throttle my bandwidth instead of investing in upgrading their infrastructure. All those outraged illegal downloaders threatening to switch ISPs then please do so.

Not over yet

Don’t think this is quite a big a deal as it first sounds. WB were producing both so HD and Blu Ray so it’s not quite switching camp. What HD need is a studio to switch. This will only happen if people by more HD players, which I think will start to happen because your average dumb consumer and shop assistant will not realise which studios publish to which format. You have to remember the vast majority of these players will be bought by plebs in Argos, Dixons, Currys, Walmart, Costco etc and it is these plebs who will decide which format wins not people like us who understand the differences.

Blu ray has been given a fillip by PS3 sales but this is a false position because PS3 owners had no choice to by Blu Ray or HD but people who are buying standalone players do and they are choosing HD. PS3 sales will start to slow down after the recent price cuts and before you know it sales of HD and Blu Ray players are not too different but HD sales are people who actually want to buy HD films where the majority of Blu ray player owners won’t be buying as many films because they are PS3 owners and predominantly interested in games.

As long as Toshiba’s arse doesn’t go come Easter I reckon it will be a different story. Plus I can’t imagine Microsoft will let Sony get one over on them. (Microsoft back HD in case you weren’t aware.)

That’s my prediction anyway. It’s all about holding your nerve.

Emperor’s New Clothes

Personally I think HD is a little bit a case of emperor’s new clothes. But if you are going to do it, signup for lovefilm who have a decent HD range and rent them out for about a pound a time depending on your rental plan.