Shouldn't this be a KIRF?

Hopefully the seller will use the money to buy new carpet.

"take design up to eleven"? Designers round the world must be cringing at that. I'd say these take design down to zero.

I've used touchscreen phones and PDA's for the last 5 years-or-so (first was an iPAQ) and until the iPhone came-out I can't think of one phone or PDA that had: a silver trim around the front, a single button the front face below the screen, a completely smooth front face, the rounded corners...or any of the other things that were unique to the iPhone when it came out. It's pointless criticising this all the time, but it's equally pointless denying it.

In-flight noise cancellation can be easier to achieve as the in-flight noise from a commercial aircrafts engines and wind-noise is a fairly constant frequency and amplitude. It's likely any system would be much less effective across all frequencies and amplitudes. Maybe just Sony not wanting to over-market this feature?

Yep, they all look similar, but that's pretty-much what the Japanese market seems to want. Vodafone tried to sell more European designs in Japan a few years ago and they didn't really sell.

Japanese pride? With a name like "Olivier Van Wynendaele" I'd say it's more like Dutch courage.

Prokanda - I'm guessing you live in the US. MVNO's definitely do work here in Europe, and in many countries they've really shaken-up the market, forcing operators to cut prices. In some countries they're so successful they've almost put the operators out of business.

You'll need to buy some maxed out Lebanese Jeans.

So. erm, is it feasible for M-B to remotely switch GPS on? And if it is, how does that track the car - all it will do is allow the car to know where it is. And if all this is feasible, why did M-B build the functionality if they won't use it?

Wish I had an M-B to test all this out on.

Whatever the answers, M-B's decision is correct.