Will

I don't think its quite fair to equate real-time and Web 2.0. While programmers might be overly enthusiastic about adding a real-time function to their service, its still an adjective with a rigid definition we can all agree on. Ask anyone to define real-time, and I bet you they could give a pretty good description. Ask the average person (or rather, the average internet user) what Web 2.0 means, and you'll probably get something like "Uhhh, it has Ajax. And rounded corners. Also shiny things and drop shadows" which of course does not adequately describe what Web 2.0 means on and to the internet. This of course allows for more hype, because people can copy a small feature of Web 2.0 that adds nothing to their content and say they've gone Web 2.0. When you make your content real-time, you can claim with 100% justification that your content is now real-time, and after a very short 'hey look this is cool' period, we can start discussing whether or not real-time added anything to the content.

I'm with you, there are some pretty substandard apps coming from apples decidedly NOT "anything goes" approval process. Unfortunately though, google's attitude being better isn't going to translate to marketshare easily. The UI's and form factors, as well as the support community (and lets not even talk about marketing) of the two devices are completely different, and decidedly in apple's from most standpoints. You and I might want a more open platform, but most people buying Iphone don't really care about open standards. They want something that works well, looks nice, and has a wide range of apps (note this makes numbers important). And yes, sadly, some of them want a device with lots of fart apps. Until google captures more of these people, and I hope its getting there, Apple's platform is going to attract more of the talented developers making cool apps. Network externality's a bitch, but you can't deny its power.

No-one seems to have noticed; this paves the way for humanoid robots who can walk around speedily flipping through books and then either speak about their contents or provide dismissive robotic commentary. Science fiction coming to life! I, for one, am excited

I know price gouging, in layman's terms, means that you think the price is too high, which is different from the legal or economic definition. But it's still an annoying colloquialism, because it confuses people. Glad to see most of the comments are just "don't buy from Best Buy", because that's really the only thing you should say. Evidently the people at best buy corporate think (and their profits depend on it, so I'd bet on them rather than myself), that they'll make more money this way because people are willing to pay.

What? Velcro? Never heard of it, guess ill have to go buy a holder for my wiimote. Velcro with one sticky side?! That's just nuts!

Hah, i overslept, called my local stores, found out a lot of them had more people than systems alread, but then called the mall of america, who said they had plently (32, which is apparently more than most of the other stores most other place). So while other people had to get up early and wait outside in our 10-20 degree minnesota weather, I got up late and stood inside a warm mall, and still got mine pre-ordered.

Shouldn't C be the biggest circle?

-NDF

shouldnt "ammount of free time for gaming" be a parabola? old people have enough money, and they have lots of time.

Maybe they'll start hiring people to play the whole game. You'd be being payed for your ability to finish a game, and then tell them if it had sex, drugs, or violence.

Getting paid to wander around in a game looking for morally objectionable content? Sign me up.

I hate to say it, but no, i dont get tired of ww2 games. Even the formulaic ones. I mean I'm legitimately interested in the differences between games like red orchestra and the call of duty franchise, and the differences between brothers in arms and wolfenstein. Even the very similar ones are still fun, and the more similar they are to the best ww2 games, the better they are, even if they lack origionality.