B&N are showing incredible naivity, stupidity or greed. While Spring Designs were careful to protect themselves and act with honor, B&N have behaved in a manner that shows them to be clueless about IP law, most probably because this is their first hardware venture.

Assuming B&N have sinned then here is not only to Spring Designs prevailing but the public should boycott B&N until justice is done.

No shit!

Hopefully Apple will adopt this rather than do their own thing, else we may see incidences of exploding MacBook AirPower laptops that will lead Apple to charge a shocking premium for repairs that will spark a battery of complaints...

(Terribly sorry, upun my soul...)

I forgot something very important! A real viewfinder. Older people are not used to previewing their shots on an LCD. The Nikon P50 has one. And another key benefit is that each button is single task. Just press the TRASH button to delete an image. The only exception is the normal double function of the D-PAD, but those features are rarely used as Mums tend to shoot on full auto! As the P50 is based on a lower resolution sensor, it produces very clean images too and is very fast. The 640x480 movie mode is great for family get togethers too. And today, you can get the camera for under £100 ($150) if you shop around.

Having been in the same position several times and spent ages walking around London's gadget haven (Tottenham Court Road), where I toyed with every camera I could find, I ended up with the Nikon P50. Not the latest Nikon, but it met my Mum friendly requirements: a) Shutter release priority. Meaning, there was no separate playback mode, just a push button to start image playback - as opposed to a slider or switch that would disable the shutter release, confusing Mum. b) Good sized hand grip so if the shakes set in, she can keep it steady, something that's hard to do with the smaller cameras. c) Takes regular AA batteries so she can pop into a shop if they die - or insert rechargeables that I give her once in a while. d) Takes great pictures. e) Can be connected to a TV for family get together viewing. (No PC/Mac at her place.) f) Minimal controls to reduce confusion. g) Obvious ON/OFF button/switch. So far, the P50 has worked out great. It even tones down overly bright images when Mum shoots into the sun. My only issue is the LCD is smaller than todays nice large 3" screens and the mode dial can (like any camera) slip out of position from Full Auto, so a locking mechanism would be great. Hope that helps!

It's odd that Stevie is not appearing, as it would mean something to the show organisers. Hope he is ok. Either way, trade shows are very different from branded retail stores because competing vendors can sometimes attend too, and this provides for a more impartial experience. Apple seems to be doing the garden wall thing with bricks and mortar as much as electronically. Let's hope Steve is ok anyway.

I for one, welcome...

Indeed, puts us in a bind. We registered ophone.com (in what was nothing short of a co-incidence) a few days after Apple registered iphone.org. Like the rest of the world, we had no idea Apple were even considering a phone back then. We registered the domain after deciding that an open source technology based device would be exciting. Anyway, we're close to choosing Android as a basis for our ophone. As a footnote, it is amazing how the Chinese can sometimes fail to take trademark or copyright law into account.

Sony lost their way the moment their founder passed away. While they have and continue to excel at miniaturization and build quality of their mid to high end gear, they have become less honest in the way they introduce and market their products.

A good example is the way they are promoting Blue Ray in the Sony showrooms, here in the UK. They present a side by side comparison of DVD vs Blue Ray using a split screen. The DVD image is of appalling image quality - - not even as good as a VHS image of 15 years ago. It has obviously been degraded.

And customers are supposed to believe this? It's not even necessary, Blue Ray is not massively better than DVD, but it is better, so why not let people compare to a genuine DVD signal?

The launch of the PS2 and PS3 were massively over hyped. I am no MS fan boy, but having seen the XBOX 360 and PS3 side by side on countless occasions, the resolution / lack of jaggies on the 360 blows the PS3 away. If in the UK, just pop into a PC World and compare racing games on each platform.

I don't know why people don't just buy a Nokia E71. No, it doesn't have a huge touch screen, but it is incredibly reliable, multi-tasks like a dream (simply holding down the Home button allows one to view and select between running apps), has a surprisingly usable tactile keyboard, has a radio, WiFi (G), 1500mh battery for multi-day battery life (even when used a lot), some great downloadable apps, a fun and useful built in GPS SatNav, a versatile audio player (that in my view, is speedier to navigate than any iPod - cannot comment on the Storms), it is still the world's slimmest smart phone and well, the E71 just works so well. I don't work for Nokia, but have played with the Storm and the Bold, and the latter is a lot more usable. It appears RIM put some great work into the look of the Storms case and GUI, but failed on usability by not performing use case scenarios before launch. This is all ammo to Apple (and some Nokia models) who/that will succeed based on the mistakes of their desperate competitors. Storm 2 anyone? Slide out mechanical keyboard, faster processor and a touch screen optimised GUI.