The potential for mischief with this is AWESOME!

Day 1. Steam locomotive.

Day 2. Jet engine.

Day 3. Soundtrack from a pr0n.

Day 4. Stuka dive bomber.

Day 5. The sound of my missus grinding her teeth in her sleep.

Day 6. The sound of chalk on a blackboard, coupled with someone breaking up bits of polystyrene.

And just to finish the week off on a high note;

Day 7. Chronic wet flatulence interspersed with the occasional sob and/or groan.

This is fantastic!

Now I'll be able to call my therapist while driving my SUV down I-95 with a cup of Starbucks in my other hand! No more accidentally dialling my ex-wife - and that's a good thing because phone calls are included in her restraining order!

Thanks Apple, you're the best!

Title

I guess there's no need for me to check my calendar, is there.

Re: Insurance?

I wouldn't normally side with the insurance companies, but I would hope both.

I'm more worried by Stef's very valid point: Owner gets into a light fender-bender on the road. Like most pilots, (s)he's not qualified to certify airworthiness other than the walkaround and pre-flight, but decides it doesn't look too bad.

Takeoff, dangerous out-of-trim condition, and FLONK straight into a school for bunnies.

You'd hope most people would be more sensible than that, but all the evidence is to the contrary.

I don't have anything...

...to add, other than I find it a travesty that they wasted a perfectly good opportunity to use GOATSE as a project acronym.

"It *is* a Jesus phone!"

I have no axe to grind about iPhone, but my 6210 (which is right here on my desk) has taken a brief dip in an immersion header tank. And my K800i once got the full "seaside funfair" experience by spending an hour or so in my washing machine. Neither appear worse for the experience.

Admittedly they're much simpler devices than the iPhone, so I guess Apple gets a pat on the head for its apparent robustness in the face of moistness. But it's not unique.

Mmm. /Moistness/.

"He probably lives on a floodplain."

It's pronounced "Dam-foose", not "Damp house".

That was, incidentally, the name of a character in "Space: Above and Beyond", which featured... ...space marines!

Jackqui Smith must be *livid* about this.

"Somebody shut her up! She'll ruin *everything*!!!"

All I care about is...

...how many floppies will it come on? Will I need a pallet loader?

This is all very well...

...but it's not going to fulfill my Claire Grogan requirements.

No mention...

...of the IIfx? I had two of those beasties and they were simply awesome.

The only thing...

...he's going to be a BOFH of in future, will be his home PC. I sure as hell wouldn't employ him.

@ But

Me either. And I've never been in a situation where it would be tempting or necessary. So who *are* these people who are making Google millions of dollars?

Oh by the way, @ the article's author: I think you have your X axis and Y axis the wrong way around. The horizontal axis, X, appears to be showing position, not impressions. It's hard to tell because the thing is so small it's nearly illegible.

This is fantastic news!

Since this needs no testing, we can lay off all our dev and OAT people and save a fortune on their salaries! Thanks Microsoft - innovative as usual.

Oh and by the way; "Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack". "MDOP"? Seriously? You mean like Hansen?

"Mmm-DOP, doo-wah-doo-mop, dooba-dooba-dooba, MDOP, doo-wah-doo" etc. Splendid.

@Jeremy

"If Microsoft released a version of Windows with a built in timebomb that required you to buy a new version at a cost of around $180 in approximately 3 to 5 years, people would scream bloody murder. "

You're right - they would. And they'd be justified. But the comparison you've made is invalid.

The life of the battery isn't something that Apple have deliberately hobbled in some way, (well, we'll see once the machines are a couple of years old...), but it is a physical limitation.

The thing that people seem to be getting upset about is that to change the thing, you have to take your machine to some asshat with a vacant expression in a black rollneck sweater. The implication is that this is going to be pricey.

But look at that - it's apparently cheaper than buying a user-replacable Dell battery. And as our esteemed author points out, by the time these units need replacing they'll be out of warranty anyway, third party OEMs will be making replacements, and the world will keep turning.

The only problem I can see is if these (Apple) batteries don't live up to their promised specifications. THEN the consumer will have grounds for a complaint.

( Just for the record, the only Apple product I own is a Quadra 650. )

Flying submarine

Remember - there's way more planes in the ocean than there are submarines in the sky. Maybe you need to set your sights lower.

Great.

This presumably means we can look forward to daily status updates on Steve Ballmer's blood pressure or Gabe Newall's piles. Fab. Looking forward to it.

"Ecademy treats the privacy of its members as a top priority"

Replace 'members' with 'constituents' and VOILA! One instant, potted, post-data-leak government press release.

The people who say these things - do they still believe that it's in any way reassuring anymore?

Today, if you asked me to go back to a VT100, it would feel like being in prison.

No. If you were in prison, you'd get an X-Box.

No surprise.

'"well-manicured neighbourhood", close to the border with Mexico. '

Of course it is. they have a huge supply of gardeners to hand.

I call shenanengans!

There is no way that it's taking 15 minutes for these machines to start up.

I used to support a call centre environment, where the users were similarly monitored for timekeeping and penalised if they weren't taking calls when they should be. But they were let off if there was a technology fault (they had to back this up with an incident reference).

These people would deliberately lock their accounts out and raise a call for it, thereby buying themselves a few extra minutes first thing in the morning, or when they came back off break.

To resolve the password lockouts, we installed fingerprint readers. This worked for a few weeks, until the users realised that if you smear a little coffee or hand cream on the reader, it stops working. So they would log a call and sit back until and engineer came along with a cloth.

So forgive me if I am a little cynical about this lawsuit - it doesn't add up. And my experience of the users brings Hanlon's Razor swinging into action...

Why is it...

...that every time some organisation loses confidential data, the first thing they do is put a talking head in front of the camera who says;

"We take the issue of data security extremely seriously."

Well no - clearly you don't. Otherwise you wouldn't be standing there mouthing platitudes.

"The past had...

...some really cool feature ideas you want to resurrect,"

Yay! Bring back File Manager!!!

The FBI?

No point in them investigating this. The CIA will have covered their tracks far too well.

I think we need a new handle...

...available for anon posters to use. It should be "Sanctimonious Coward".

"not unlike IrDA kit "

Hope that's not really a valid comparison. Because if so, it'll suck mercilessly.

Set: Sony boardroom...

Sony Exec 1: Say, Bob - I just heard this great pitch; how about a film about illegal file sharing?

Sony Exec 2: Hmm - that /might/ work. D'ya think anyone would pay to watch it?

Surely...

...any device or system specifically designed to stop a mobile from working as a phone would be illegal in the UK under the 1949 Telegraphy Act?

Or would that not count if the phone itself is complicit in the act of pseudo-jamming?

@AC: "Pretty sure...

...that picture is illegal in the UK."

I understood (perhaps wrongly) that was only the case if the image was produced for sexual gratification. Since The Register is a benign entity incapable of sustaining an erection, it is not breaking the law.

If you're busily tugging away at it like there's no tomorrow until you pass out, then you probably are breaking the law.

But how does the government prove that?

Telescreens^W CCTV in the home FTW!