I am not surprised. When I held the camcorder in my hands at this year´s IFA in Berlin, it felt like a cheap toy.

I find it interesting, or should I say disappointing, that this long interview with Phil Shiller does not have the word "mac" in it once.

I personally would at least have asked about the overdue Mac Pro update. But then again, the press and mainstream audience doesn´t really care about the Mac Pro.

I held it in my hands today at IFA and I was surprised how cheap it felt. Very light weight and cheap plastic-feeling. Also: I don´t think there is a way to edit the video.
This is a consumer-toy, don´t expect more from it. The video-quality is sharp of course.

Huh?

Even if it is a "pet", what makes Sony think that people want a rolling, clapping cylinder as a pet?

I can not imagine ANY use for that thing. Then again, I´m not a robot-developing mad scientist.

I think the "selling your soul" comment was justified. Why? Because this man probably considers himself as an artist. But he took money to advertise Sony´s products in a videoclip of his song. Money is more important to him than his creative work. Ergo: He has no higher goals than money. Therefor: Sold his soul. :-) But maybe his dream was a load of cash to begin with.

On a different note: Isn´t it fascinating to watch them plan an advertising campagne for a product inside and advertising campagne for that same product. Wow, man... It´s like looking into a mirror reflecting a mirror. Or something.

It´s almost like a parody of a commercial. Only... not. It´s actually just a commercial. And people buy that song?

Justin, have you any idea how long it takes to encode 1080p into WMV? Just to give you an example: I encoded some private HDV-footage into 1080p lately. The clip was 10 minutes long and it took my P4 2.4 GHz THT WHOLE NIGHT to encode it! (over 8 hours)

So have fun encoding some 2-hour movies! For now, I will continue just buying HD DVDs in the store. But I have to say: Once you have an HD DVD burner and you can make lossless copies, things start to get tempting.

I can not imagine, that someone would perform a throwing move, lose grip on the Wiimote, the strap would tear in exactly that second AND it would still be flying directly at the sceen. Try to imagine that, it�s rediculous!
AND it happened only a day after the launch!

These people had a broken television and said: "Let�s buy us one of them 250$ Wiis and let Nintendo replace our TV for free!"
They could at least have waited a few days, so it would not have looked so obvious. :-(

Quote: "...there are allegations that iTunes 7 has become, slow, bloated, and a resource hog."

I thought the previous version didn´t run too well either. I only use iTunes for podcasts. I never use it as a music player on my 2,4 GHz PC because it takes at least 5 seconds to start up. I prefer the Windows Media player which opens much quicker. I´m sure that Microsoft has somehow reserved recources in the OS for the WMP but that´s fine with me.

iTunes also feels slow to me in general. For example, if I click on one of the small triangles to expand the submenu on a podcast, it takes a second to open that. And also to close it again!

Resizing windowspaces in iTunes also stutters.

These performance-issues were already there before the update. My PC is clearly not fast enough but then why can´t you swith to a less demanding version?

A software music player should be one thing first and foremost: fast.
And that is the ONLY important feature iTunes DOESN´T deliver.

No video inputs for that beautiful display?
No deal!

Quote: "You can play XBOX or WHATEVER you want on your iMAC wit this..."

No, you can´t!
The device you seem to be referring to is a USB solution for analog antennas, composite and S-Video. You can´t display HDTV over composite.
I´m talking about 1080i/720p via component or VGA!