PS @ Gorgeous piece......

Being quite serious, I have always had a lot of respect for Nokia's hardware. I currently own HTC's Wildfire and am very pleased with the phone (in the context of the price and the fact that it is an entry level phone) and have absolutely nothing against Android at all. What I am really pissed off with is the fact that all the producers who build Androids are _very_ bloody slow to upgrade and because they will not release to full-price customers until their buddies (read the telcos) have further pissed around with the os and released it to contract customers. Poor mugs like me end up right at the back of the queue. I am still waiting for Froyo and we are now well into Q4? I will be in the market for a high-end towards the middle/ende of next year and my choice is almost certainly going to be between something like the N8 but with "Meego" or something from Samsung or HTC with WP7 (given that MS will be running the updates to all phones and only if "SP1" fixes a couple of issues - cut n' paste and so on that already have been discussed to death here so I won't bore everybody by enumerating them).

I look forward to next year. It is a pity, the N8 really is a lovely phone and I would be _very_ tempted right now if they had got the OS and the UI sorted. In fact if they managed that next year _and_ did a version with a physical keyboard I would be in pig heaven!

@Da Weezil

"I have huge reservations about my data being faffed around in a cloud - I expect it to be on a closed system away from identity thieves etc - thats not a new problem.. a former partner had a false claim made during 1983 at an office some 150 miles away."

Indeed and that is putting it very mildly. We can just see it can't we? You have a company whose very existence is dependent upon their database etc and they are going to trust the entire shebang to someone else. I suppose one could call economic Darwinism in action. Any company that stupid deserves to lose their system, have it high-jacked and held for ransom and/or auctioned off to the highest bidder. The technology cannot fully guarantee the integrity of current structures!

@Bazza who is "dazed and cofused". Dearly beloved bretheren, truly it is written.....

..................that "there is more joy in heaven at one sinner that repenteth than in nine and ninety just men". Verily, even when that sinner is a large tech company. Let us all rise and......

Apart from wishing to express my disappointment that we do not have a techie vicar icon I have to say that I am pretty amazed as well. We see of course that there are several contributions from those who are persuaded that we need reminding of the (admittedly lengthy and to a considerable extent, justified) charge-sheet against MS. They are mistaken. It is for many of us precisely because of MS' previous form that we are fairly amazed by these few but nonetheless interesting and positive straws in the techno-wind. I am _way_ to old to be anybody's fanboi and I left naivete behind several decades ago. I therefore simply express a pious hope that these aforementioned straws indicate that MS has actually developed sufficient corporate intelligence to have at any rate begun to understand the concept _constructive_ self-interest.

The icon? I just thought that my posting needed something a little bit surreal to match the feelings of incredulity that some of us are experiencing.

@Dazed and Confused

"If all these patents were enforced then Motorola might loose the multitouch interface, Apple would be reduced to sliding a few pips up and down strings."

Sorry, I almost choked over my coffee at the image of a certain gentleman being reduced to calling a press conference to tell everyone how wonderful the new iAbacus is!

@Wrong target.......... Indeed, Mrs Arctic Fox's little boy does not have an agenda.

My point should have been obvious and the MS/Apple counterpoint was primarily illustrative - I do not have in that sense an "agenda". I do not share the childish fanboi/hater obsessions with either MS or Apple that some people appear to suffer from. Apart from anything else I wrote in fact:

"........It does however appear to be a very widespread and damaging practice (pursued by _many_, usually large, companies)......."

May I ask what part of that you had reading difficulties with?

@JaitcH Patent "protection".

I think that the difference here is that with regard to Copyright all the big boys in Hollywood have a common interest in protecting their products outside the US. With regard to patent protection _within_ the US it has never been in the interests of the big boys within US industry to have a patent system that largely excludes vexatious litigation and ensures that it does not cost a small company its financial life to defend itself in court. For the Microsofts, Apples etc of this world the current system is perfect. They can scare the shit out of any small to medium sized company by accusing them of breach of patent or, contrariwise, rip off one of their patents whenever they feel like it safe in the knowledge that very few such companies will dare defend themselves since that would very often mean risking total ruin. It is of course a well known tactic against a small company that has been subjected to a genuine infringement to counter-sue alleging (usually largely falsely) that _they_ are the ones who have infringed. The intended message is of course "fuck with us and your company will end up sleeping with the fishes" (if I may be permitted to recycle a rather well known quote!).

@Thad. Thanks, I was just about to post the following........

"1. Express strong disapproval of; deplore.[Wordnet]

2. Belittle; "The teacher should not deprecate his student's efforts".[Wordnet]

3. To pray against, as an evil; to seek to avert by prayer; to desire the removal of; to seek deliverance from; to express deep regret for; to disapprove of strongly.[Websters]

4. Base verb from the following inflections: deprecating, deprecated, deprecates, deprecater, deprecaters, deprecatingly and deprecatedly.[Eve - graph theoretic]"

........and ask if anyone could help me by explaining how Apple had used that word in their press-release! Not being aware that "the trade" use it to mean something that is no longer good enough led to my being extremely puzzled about what they actually meant. Other than that they were in some way dissing java of course.

@Jim Coleman. Curses....!

I was just about to post that!

@Dave Foster

Yes, just got my kindle 3 (WiFi and 3G version). Slips into the inside pocket of my jacket without my knowing its there. Its perfect for the job (library in your pocket plus music, a little limited surfing, web-mail etc). Build quality and function contra price is a very pleasant equation. Horses for courses really. You can read, listen to music and check your e-mails. For the money its perfect. If you read a lot (I do) then not having to use a backlit screen is a real blessing.

Entirely agree.

It is in fact a fucking disgrace that employers actually feel that they entitled to sack you if you tell anybody what your salary is without their permission! There many _civilised_ European where if the employer tried that on, _he/she_ would end up in court. The thing I really do not understand is the number of lickspittle employees who will actual tell "well, you know, you can understand can't you?" NO I CAN'T! (Apologies for shouting but this kind of thing _really_ pisses me off).

And the company is the first to........

......shit on them from a very great hight when they "need" to make "efficiency savings".

@Havin_it

I vote we take off and watch them from orbit whilst they nuke it (if I may be permitted to coin a phrase!).

@Pesky floating point errors

"Then again - I suppose 13m could mean one or even two houses down, meaning fiery death at tea time for some hapless innocents and nothing more than a bad dose of tinnitus for the target."

A cogent point. Blast vectors are very strange beasts (blast structure is not conventionally symmetrical and the development of the blast from ignition appears to have some non-linear dynamics) - you do not have to be _that_ far off target (%-age wise) before your kill probability graph starts to drop a _lot_ faster than one might have thought. Bottom line is that _real_ accuracy is not an optional extra, either in terms of minimising collateral damage or in achieving the kill.

@David W.

"The irony is that people (probably here, too) will say that BluRay offers no quality increase over DVDs"

Dead right. The same ignorati who are probably playing their blu-ray film over a 32 inch 720p craptek TV from Walmart and howl that they can't see any difference.

@Ten years is a long time.

I think that you are utterly failing to take into account that the prices for blu-ray players and blu-ray films are dropping WAY faster than either VHS machines and film tapes did or DVD players and films on disc did. Ten years ago when DVD players had been out quite a while it was still common to have to shell out 30 pounds sterling for a main feature! Twenty years you were payng that kind of money for a main feature on VHS tapes. If we take inflation/purchasing power into acount at the equivalent stage in blu-ray's introduction cycle the fifteen pounds that you will typically pay for a main feature on blu-ray today and that you can get a perfectly usable machine for under 100 pounds we can see that all this howling about how its too expensive is total and utter bollocks. Blu-ray at the same stage in the introduction/production/marketing cycle is WAY cheaper than either of its two ancestor technologies. Christ, a _"cheap"_ vhs player twenfyfive years ago cost all of two hundred smackers! Twentyfive frakking years ago. The fact of the matter is blu-ray represents a much lower proportion of the average punter's purchasing power than either of the above mentioned. I just wish people did a little research before they repeat saloon bar cliches.

@Peter 52 Hate is perhaps a bit too strong.

El Reg writers frequently seem to enjoy being perceived of as "cool and cynical"! Having said that I must say that I agree with your points. MS' model may in fact be a deliberate strategy aimed at those who wish to be able to buy a mob from their preferred manufacturer but at the same time want the reassurance etc...etc... MS may be right, we'll see in the coming twelve months or so whether they are or not. Mine is a "Wildfire" by the way.l

@Ku Dead right.

I think that some people are forgetting the business market. If WP7 "talks" more easily and readily to windows based business systems that will be a major push for adoption of the OS. I have a "Wildfire", I like Android and am content for the time being. However when the time comes to upgrade, who knows?

@Rattus Rattus.

In many research institutions there is indeed legacy equipment (often connected to "legacy pcs" because they cannot "talk" to anything more advanced) and the reason for that is very simple. In my lab, for example, we have an old Dell connected to the control systems of a high pressure liquid chromatography rig. Those control systems need software that will not run on anything later than Win2k. Why have we not replaced it? Answer; because we would have to replace the _entire_ rig, pumps, columns, the sample feeders ect. ect. _in addition to_ the control systems and the pc. Ask the manufacturers of scientific equipment why there is so little reverse compatiblity. Oh and by the way, as you no doubt have begun to suspect given my little rant, yes replacing the whole system (which still works fine actually) would cost a fucking fortune.

@It's nice, but. I am afraid you are not going to like this but....

.......it looks as if we are talking about well over 700 pounds!

http://androidandme.com/2010/09/phones/the-samsung-tab-gets-a-price-pre-orders-and-launch-date/

I do not think that it will be "free" on contract any time soon either.