"Free"

Like the "free" software I can theoretically use by now being (apparently) an MSDNAA member? The stuff that will cease to be legal the moment I cease to be a student?

Yeah. I gave the crack up years ago. "First hit for free" is quite common in some business models, so I hear.

Dom Joly

Comedian. Made a lot of money sticking oversized Nokias to his head and shouting.

Oh, and the occasional Apple device:

http://www.promisingsomuch-deliveringsolittle.com/ipad-and-the-trigger-happy-cold-open

Privileges there for a reason

"Enable the administrator account and logon as adminstrator.."

Oh god, please no. The one singular thing that Microsoft did right in Vista/7 (by, err, ripping unixland off blatantly) was limiting the amount of time that users are logged in as root, and making their own version of sudo.

And you're suggesting a measure that would turn 7 into a pretty version of XP, with all programs given permission to write to any file anywhere?

At least you listed them separately...

...because Mono is anything but .NET.

So..

..you get a high-definition 720p image of someone's head wandering past the screen, and 48khz professional quality hollering and cheering from the dumb fucks who just have to go to a cinema on the first day of a new release and pretend it's a football match?

Exothermic Gel

Also known as sodium acetate or, to potato snack companies, "salt and vinegar flavour".

Shouldn't be too hard to get hold of, or just buy the hand warmers pre-made. I don't know if they'd last 45 minutes though.

Eh?

You do know that you have to pass Google's "Compatibility Police" before they'll license the proprietary Marketplace app to you, right? It's how they stop this mysterious "fragmentation" thing that you speak of, but which Android seems to not suffer from.

Now you can hack your own Linux/Dalvik VM into a phone if you like. It just won't be called Android, nor have the Android Marketplace. At least, not unless you want a few legal love letters from Google's sharks.

Selective blindness.

"The question is whether people want Windows on their phone, and whether companies really want to give Microsoft any more money than they have to already."

Notice use of the word "companies", and stop jumping to conclusions. It doesn't suit you.

Have you downloaded half of the free Apple apps?

Enjoy your iAds, and I can't see Microsoft resisting the lure of an entire ecosystem of users and developers to wring licensing fees out. You think Microsoft haven't seen the money that Apple and Google get from their respective Marketplaces?

http://marketplace.windowsphone.com/Default.aspx

http://developer.windowsphone.com/Help.aspx?id=97b2f7de-11d1-44a6-95eb-266823452d7e

As you'll see they're a little more friendly than Apple's stance on advertising, but don't think that Windows Mobile 7 will be anything other than "Me Too" with .NET. In fact, I imagine it'll tie up quite nicely with Bing. The question is whether people want Windows on their phone, and whether companies really want to give Microsoft any more money than they have to already.

Google has Schmidt, also known as 1 of 7. Apple is a personality cult where it is Our Way Or The Highway, and you can go anywhere you want to with Windows today, as long as you're willing to empty your pockets whenever Microsoft feel like holding their users up by the legs and shaking. All of those companies want your search results, your favourite tracks, your purchase history and any other data they can get their hands on because the profiles of a billion users together are worth quite a really large amount of money.

So who do you choose? Borg Drone, Jesus or Chair-botherer?

You get +1

Mostly for describing an earth-shaking kaboom as "like slapping a soggy pudding".

What this guy said.

Android is pretty pointless without the Marketplace, unless you think people (by this I mean normal people, not computer geeks) are going to do the "adb install some_package_v323.34.456.apk" fandango.

If you want a new Droidpad, make sure it's 2.x

You might get most things working in 1.6, but as of right now there are several apps that won't work in 1.5 (like for instance, the Angry Birds beta). Take a quick look at this page:

http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-versions.html

As you can see, 1.6 is slowly being squeezed out. 2.x has near-as-dammit 75% of the market. It won't be that long before developer look at the figures, and find themselves unable to resist using API toys that are only available from 2.x onward.

I thought once you get to Google's size...

...you don't so much buy bandwidth, as negotiate a peering agreement.

Walled Garden?

Is that the same app store that allowed a tethering app in disguised as a flashlight app?

Wonder what other Apple-approved apps are hiding stuff?

Now that seems like a viable idea..

..don't try to eliminate the bend; use it!

I'm sorry.

I can't see you. You're completely implausible.

Of course, to comply with the GPL..

..would mean making the source code available. How much does it cost for a server these days? At least, one with enough bandwidth for a few thousand people to be snarfing source code every month?

Even clubbing together with a few of your mates and using their cablemodems to seed the source via torrent could end up being a pointlessly complex exercise, once word gets around that you're selling software that is available for free.

Beta

See title. I'm sure it'll be sorted by the time it's ready for "proper" release. If it's not, you can lay the blame at the feet of the developers, not the OS. And are you saying that the iToy, iToy2, iToy3, iToy3gs, iToy4 and iToy Super Large Edition are not disparate devices with wildly differing specs?

Just think. If it was still in development for the Jobsian touchtoys, nobody would be playing it yet.

And no, no downvote from me. Takes a little more than simple ignorance for me to make with the little red 1.

But he does take his helmet off in the comic.

At least, in the comic adaptation of the film. Bit difficult to keep your uniform on when you've been dishonourably discharged and thrown in the clinker, eh?

Also yes, lots of interesting characters from 2000AD that need films making of them, and don't forget Starlord!

Yes.

Or do you think that DS games should be more expensive than PS3 or Xbox 360 games? They still need to be developed, regardless of the specs of the target system.

Ever tried to pierce a compressed gas canister? You might need DU cannon rounds...

"3)Hydrogen cars? What a joke. Not only does it take electricity to produce hydrogen, it is wayyyy more flammable than gasoline. If it does catch on fire, you cant see the flame. That's why firefighters were trained to wave broomsticks in front of them in a suspected hydrogen fire. If you are too stupid to even learn this, well you will burn in an event your hydrogen car catches on fire(if you don't die in the explosion)No thanks"

Hang on, what? So you have a choice, in the event of a tank breach, of dying by hydrogen flame or dying by petroleum BLEVE. Well, what a choice that is.

Do you know how armoured the average compressed gas canister is? How about "enough that you can slam into a brick wall fast enough to reduce yourself to a stain on the crumpled bodywork"? By then I don't think the manner of your conflagration is going to matter.

Yes, hydrogen requires electricity to produce by electrolysis. It can also be produced anywhere, say in sunny countries where solar is feasible. Or by a nuclear power source. Petrol, on the other hand, can only feasibly be produced by the fractional distillation of rock juice. There are other ways of making usable liquid fuel, such as methanol, however they also tend to use boatloads of electricity. By the way, methanol also burns with a near-invisible flame (I've nearly burned myself playing about with the stuff on a nice summer day), so you're about as fucked with that as you are hydrogen. What I would suggest for both types of fire is "if it feels all burny hot, get away from it quickly".

Hydrogen and fuel cells are probably about the best way you're going to get kilowatts of instant-on 'leccy into your car in an easily rechargable form. At least, until someone invents batteries that have the charge cycle of a capacitor, and all fuelling stations have their own miniature power stations (possibly powered by a gas pipeline) to deal with the demand.

Symantics?

Is that the thing that throws popups in front of full-screen apps and slows my computer to a crawl, while routinely forgetting which applications I've allowed access to the Internet?

Gets in my way all the damned time.

UK _based_ site...

...international news.

Or had you not noticed yet?

If you read my post...

...you'll see that I said the only thing wrong the electric vehicles is the batteries. I know they are bulky and limited, but fuel cells are vastly less so.

Still, not taking range into account, even with the bulk of a battery the electric motor puts out much better power:weight. You can see this on a small scale with the more recent RC aeroplanes out there. Sure, you can get a .40 methanol engine with an 8oz tank and it'll keep you flying at a sedate pace for maybe 15-20 minutes. Or you can put an electric motor in the same airframe and get 5 minutes of truly insane performance, even with that chunky 3-cell LiPo taking up weight. Think about it.. aircraft, especially little model aircraft, are somewhat sensitive to weight. In the last few years, brushless motors and lipo technology have made them not only the equal to methanol engines, but actually surpass them in power and responsiveness. Only disadvantage is.. as already mentioned.. the batteries, in this case taking an hour and a half to charge between 5 minute flights. Or maybe, for more ground-level endeavours, you can search youtube for the RC model car that, using a similar-sized motor and battery pack, gets over 140MPH. No, not a typo or "scale speed". One hundred and forty miles per hour. That little toy goes faster than some peoples' full sized sports cars!

Fuel cells will be the electric motor's saviour, and could transform personal transportation. There are already pipe networks travelling across many countries, and I'm sure some of them could be co-opted for hydrogen use. Even if not, building an infrastructure like that is an investment that should pay for itself once the government starts taxing the bejeesus out of electrolyzed water.