I see this sentiment a lot whenever class action lawsuits are discussed, but as a lawyer that has absolutely nothing to do with class action lawsuits, I would like to point out that one of the biggest purposes of class action lawsuits that people normally overlook when complaining about them is the deterrence effect.

Class action lawsuits are basically one of the most, if not the most, expensive form of litigation a company can endure. Even though due to the number of plaintiffs, in the end each person might only get a $10 gift card, the combined cost to the company of that are staggering.

In this case, it would be taking Sony to task, and hopefully Sony would see the error of its ways and back down. Even if that is not the eventual outcome, it sends a message to all the other bad guys out there, if you engage in this type of shenanigans, you should think twice because it will cost you dearly.

In a way, the lawyers who bring the suit are acting as private attorney generals, punishing wrong doing that may not rise to the criminal level, but affecting large swaths of the populace in a tortious fashion nonetheless. While no doubt the lawyers involve need to be incentivized to engage in this activity somehow, whether they should be rewarded as richly as they are for it currently is another issue entirely...

I don't see this as killing the electronic photo-book market at all. This thing at cheapest is 3 times the highest end of the range you quoted. Many people are not in the market for this thing but would like to display pictures.

It does seem like a good computer for mom though.

It's also an eBook reader with a traditional LCD display that burns your eyes as you stare at it for hours, as opposed to all the actual eBook readers that use e-ink displays which are frontlit, like paper, or a book.

That's what's impressive about this Nokia solution. It's the first free solution that allows for downloading the map database to your phone for offline usage.

Without a doubt the market for standalone GPS units will survive, but the question is in what form. It would be a huge loss for Garmin et al if they're reduced to making rugged specialty GPS devices while smartphones take over the lucrative in-car navigation that represents 99% of consumer usage.

The advantages of a GFS device with a data connection are numerous. Live traffic, live updates, live information (such as gas prices). Those are all download-oriented, but many of the promising usages are bidirectional communication-oriented. Live display of other cars on the road, live traffic tracking through precise vehicle placement. Plus all sorts of other Big Brotherish stuff that is less pleasant.

These advantages are compelling enough that we've already seen movements towards getting a cellular radio in standalone GPS units. However, those haven't seen much traction because who wants to pay another monthly fee for their GPS. Once the smartphone based GPS applications become mature, the standalone manufacturers are in a world of trouble.

Sure, I would absolutely love a computer that has one of those things, no one seems remotely interested in producing a powerful computer (non-netbook) that uses one.

I have also seen nary a word on an external monitor that uses one.

That's why I'm (for now) hoping someone could hack an e-reader to use it as an external monitor.

Absolutely! A lot of these e-readers are running Linux of some flavor such as Android, and I remember reading news about both the Nook and the Kindle having been rooted.

Something that would pretty much instantly open my wallet would be if one of these could be setup with a driver to connect it to a computer and used as an external display. To compensate for the slow refresh, maybe every time a certain key combo was pressed, the contents of the window with focus would be mirrored onto the e-ink display.

I do pretty much 99% of my reading on my computer now. I would definitely pay to have a less eye-strain inducing supplementary display.