@Ian Yates. There is a problem with this.

I have very little sympathy for the woman concerned, however there is another issue here that many posters appear to be uninterested in. Any time there is an article here at El Reg about CCTV and the culture of surveillance in our society we get a shit-load of postings bemoaning (quite rightly IMO) this development. One of the points always made (entirely legitimately) is of course "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" - "who watches the watchmen?", to make sure that they do not abuse their position. What is very clear from this thread is that many of these "lovers of liberty" suddenly to not give a shit when the victim is an "acceptable victim" from their point of view. Their commitment to libertarianism goes straight out the window the moment they do not like the "victim". The conduct of these goons at that mall in utterly abusing their position ought to give us all pause for thought.

I would not say that it has been a lifechanging experience but........

.........I have installed it on two laptops, one conventional office pc and the HTPC I built for our living room. No issues at all even though one of the portables was already 2 1/2 years old (3 from launch) when W7 came out. Good, robust OS that has not given us here at Arctic Fox Hall any problems at all.

@AtomDreams: Time compression in fact..

Technological/Industrial development in this or that country does not follow the same timeline in each successive country that goes through the phase concerned. Britain was the first country to go through what historians now call the Industrial Revolution. The "dates" commonly accepted are from approximately halfway through the eighteenth century to about halfway through the 19th - by which time Britain was no longer primarily an agricultural nation. One hundred years. Do you believe that all the countries in Europe that followed Britain into the Industrial Age needed to go through 100 years of industrial development to achieve parity? Of course not. The fact that the Chinese are 15 years behind NOW does not mean that the "techno-time-gap" will be the same in, say, five years time. Take a look at consumer electronics, they've gone from merely being the Western Worlds low rent assembly line to being a major player in that area - in what? Bout ten years or so?

Re Holographic

Quite agree. Unless of course Google has made a secret breakthrough with Honeycomb that they have not yet announced. Ie. That devices equipped with that os project a 3D picture in space in front of the equipment? No, like you, I am not holding my breath!

-:)

A.F.

@Code Monkey. re. Correlation

Well I was going to say that if they are willing to pay Apple's prices..........but you kind of beat to it.

@akr re. "Oh please"

Let me see if I understand this, you bought not 1, not 2 but 3 Android phones that you say were total crap. I regret that I am almost forced to paraphrase an expression that our compadres across the pond are fond of. Once is an accident, twice is coincidence, THREE times makes you a....D'''head - if they actually were that bad....hmmm? I must obviously tell my good lady to throw her "rubbish" Desire in the bin now that I have read your words of wisdom.

@mhoulden. I agree entirely.

Indeed I cannot understand why or how something that is a non-physical variant of various marketing techniques that have been used for years can possibly be patentable. I realise that US patent law is different from the EU in general and the UK in particular but I cannot believe that it possible that the US patent office would accept this as a patent application? I mean, seriously?

@Ian Emery. You are quite right of course.

However let us be fair and punish according to the gravity of the respective offenses. Two dozen at the mainmast for endangering other passengers lives. For the truly heinous offense however of using an Apple product I fear that there can be no mercy. The yardarm awaits.

It would have been even better had the aforementioned pensioner had.......

............mugged him for his iPhone - how cool would that have been at school? Talk about street cred - or errrr perhaps not!

@56young: I could not agree more mate!

I note that some clearly feel that the kid's "freedom" was being imposed on or that they disagree with the rules about electronic equipment on planes. Well my view on this is that at the age of fifteen you cannot be held _fully_ accountable under the law for your actions. Unless our young "freedom lover" is willing to accept adult responsibility under the law for his actions OR his parents are willing to accept that responsibility (including accepting jail time themselves if he commits an offense that would be mean jail if an adult committed it) then he is NOT entitled to do as he likes. He is not in a position to take the view that the rules about electronic equipment are bollocks AND accept the legal consequences thereafter - he is a child. In fact he appears to be spectacularly spoil t child (high end smart phone at fifteen my arse!).

Such a phone would add a whole new threat dimension to.............

........"don't ring us, we'll ring you"! Or, if you want to start a small war, "get your people to ring my people"!

I agree with every golden word.

Got a third gen Kindle myself and I have to say that it is within in its price point and use context an absolutely brilliant piece of kit. I am not at all surprised that they are "storming off the shelves" at Amazon. I will probably be in the market for a tablet towards the back half of next year, but that will be for other reasons. Kindle et al have their place.

Though I strongly suspect that he now no longer feels.........

....that the product is "magical"!

Enough already! We've had our fun - Happy Christmas everybody, even fanbois (of ALL denominations).

Probably broke and hungry after having.......

....bought the iPhone.

That of course implies that Apple.....

....were so stupid in (according to this hypothesis) adopting the external antenna that they deserve to be sued and lose. Somehow I doubt that St SJ's cognoscenti would agree with this view!