@epic I have the 1810TZ and the G45 chipset very easily runs 1080p. Pretty much anything 2D will run flawlessly but of course 3D games are not recommended. The other good thing about this unit (esp. compared with the hp tx line) is that it runs relatively cool, it's light, and the battery lasts a hella long time. Just doing light surfing/email/etc. will indeed give you close to 8 hours, and playing videos you can easily get 4+ hours if you turn off your wireless.

Microsoft's had a couple of years to do a proper redesign of the XB360. They had the opportunity to put an HD-DVD player in it to compete with BR. They could've put Sony to bed for good with an aggressive stance. Instead, they've been basically sitting back and coasting on Sony's incompetence up until now.

The problem with that strategy is when your opponent wakes up, you need to be ready for it.

The DMCA has an exemption for interoperability, so it won't stop a determined 3rd party manufacturer who is otherwise working within the law. What will slow them down is having to reverse engineer and work around Panasonic code, which can be at any time modified to keep ahead of the "counterfeiters."

The press release has been "corrected," no blu-ray drive after all.

Mattel Mindf***
Awesome name.

When will they stop calling it ogg? Try NEVER. Because the extension is .ogg, and that's how a normal non-geek person identifies their files. Same thing with .avi's. The average person has no reason to care that the video codec is XVID or DX50 or whatever random fourcc code.

Read the article. The Blu-Ray switch is *manual*, which sounds like the hack works by masquerading the unit as a hardwired one-region player. Not as some kind of "all-region" beasty. The switching logic should be invisible to the disc.

You do realize that ebooks typically don't use power to maintain a static display, right?

What stops you from doing that is the fact that if you're going to cheat, it's much easier to do it other ways. E.g. you can copy DVD's much more cheaply from Netflix or Redbox.

Anyway, this product actually has a legitimate niche. This is for the guy who knows he wants to watch a particular movie, but doesn't know when he'll have time to do it. So he buys the Flexplay for $5 and keeps it at home, maybe for a few weeks, until he's got a couple hours to spare, and then unpacks it. You can't do that with your redbox because you're paying a dollar a day for nothing. And you don't want to do it with your Netflix because then your family is blocked from renting the videos they want to see while you're waiting for your spare weekend.

"Laying pipe" under the sea? Welcome to the Mile Down Club, SMD!