A new phone buyer has a ton of options, between the iPhone, Android, Blackberry and hell, even webOS. For Windows Phone 7 to succeed, Microsoft needs to make a strong and compelling case that says "This is why you should buy a Windows Phone instead", but so far I haven't really seen it. The marketing message seems a bit muddled, focusing on the notion that people use their devices too much and that Windows Phone is all about using it as little as possible - an interesting idea perhaps, but not the strongest and most dynamic message. The real question is if there are a lot of people really dying for that - in theory you might think there are, but in practice people seem to be pretty happy with the way things are working.

I don't think the Windows Phone approach is bad actually - there is something to be said for a device that really streamlines the experience - but the question is how much the market wants it. I'd have to see evidence that iPhone/Android/Blackberry/webOS users are really dissatisfied with the current way of doing things (in the way that pre-smartphone users were with their regular phones).

I was wondering about that - read this story in the NYT, and seemed odd to me that the summary talks about the writer writing in "The Hindu" rather than where this was actually originally published.

mud.kp.

Libertines!

Yeah, that's always seemed like the craziest thing to me. Whenever I've been driving with someone with a luxury car and some expensive $2000 nav system built in, I've been kind of blown away that the system seems like something from 10 years ago, incredibly inferior to even the base model Garmin or TomTom units you can get for under $100. It really does seem like the only thing they have going for them is being integrated into the dash rather than a unit you have to put above your dash, but still...

Automakers still seem to charge ridiculous amounts for integrated navigation systems - the fact that you can pick up a GPS unit for under $100 doesn't seem to prevent them from charging $500-2000 for nav systems. Somehow I doubt they'll change anything here either. I figure that the thinking is they can charge a huge premium for the benefit of having a system integrated vs. just a separate device.

You don't need to lift both fingers for a left or right click. For a left click, all you have to do is click the mouse and it will register as a left click. The point is that for a right click, you have to lift your left finger (so that only the right half of the surface is being touched, so that when you click, it realizes it is a right click). To be clear, the Magic Mouse is not like the laptop trackpad (I noticed you mentioned left and right tapping). The whole mouse is still one large physical button, so you still have to click to register an actual click. I think this is why you're asking what you do with your fingers after that, and your concern that when you put your finger or fingers down it will register as a click.

No it wouldn't.

Mass Effect was rated AO?

Seems to run fine enough for me on my desktop - looking at it in both IE8 and Firefox 3, it seems perhaps slightly choppier (the bit with the quarters rolling through) compared to Firefox, but not dramatically worse.

In all seriousness, it will cause an interesting moral choice for those people then. As you said, there are people who genuinely hold those values, but I don't think it would be such an easy cut and dry decision for some of them if it could mean something like restoring sight. Or, say, even if not for them, but if the sight of one of their children could be restored. Not saying everyone would give in, but it would not always be an easy choice. Not to put it on the same level, but it's like how many people have an objection on paper to something like abortion, but when actually confronted with it, they don't always act based on their objections.

When your vision is restored is the baby jesus crying.

Gary Locke, although I don't believe he's been confirmed yet, but as far as I've heard he doesn't have any tax problems.

Come on, you know what I mean. Yes, you could buy a used car perhaps for $2000, but I'm talking about the cost of new cars. Either way, the point was about what most cars cost, and I was saying you shouldn't expect the market to price something to accommodate the people who don't really need or use that product much.

I have no idea what your tangent onto the issue of things being released into the public domain has to do with a discussion of the cost of new games though. And going into the public domain is not a requirement for the price of something to change over time. Most games go down in price very rapidly, especially now. Most games that are a year old are reduced in half or more.... a couple years old and they're usually slashed to a third of their old price or less.

I'm honestly not sure what point you're making about the extension of copyright and the price of videogames, because the cost of videogames drops much faster than would be relevant in terms of a copyright expiring or going into the public domain.

But isn't that kind of like saying "No car is worth more than $2000 to me, because I hardly ever drive"? It doesn't seem like the general value of something (as opposed to the individual value you would place on it) should be dictated by what the smaller minority of people who wouldn't use it regularly would be willing to pay for it.

Not saying you're wrong - I actually agree with you in general. As I've found myself playing less games, I've really cut down on paying $50 or $60 for a game when I know I won't play it for more than a few hours. I'll still buy a game if I know I'll get a lot of value out of it.

But my main point is, I don't think they need to reprice games based on people like you and I who don't play much and therefore don't find full price to be worth paying. Going back to my car analogy, I wouldn't expect them to start selling cars for $2000 to satisfy the small contingent of people who rarely if ever drive and therefore wouldn't pay more than that for a car.