As long as Microsoft had a decent standard, that could be implemented without patent/IP-rights, I don't even care that much. A workable standard people follow is better that a perfect standard that 70% of deployed browser instances promptly ignore.

Slashdotted before a first-post. That's unfortunate.

The flip-side of course is that if the company is submitting their code for security checking, they're paying at least some attention to security. The company that doesn't care may have many many more vulnerabilities.

I was just searching for this same thing today and a friend of mine suggested this product:

http://www.netsys-direct.com/proddetail.php?prod=NH-310CEKIT&cat=27

It's a 200Mb ethernet-over-coax solution that makes use of existing coax installs and uses traditional cable. We'll be testing it soon for a 200 metre install.

Our University is looking at switching, and a bunch of students have opted to move early, since Google's offering the services whether we switch entirely or not.

Our contract says they give us free service, and explicitly says they do *NOT* mine our emails for anything, ever.

Hah, well played. I saw these after I posted blindly without previewing, and groaned.

Specifically, they're designed for different interaction methods. A phone is meant to be used in one hand (zero, for handsfree), and held to the head (or in a pocket for handsfree). A gaming controller is meant to be held in two hands for maximum expressivness. A two-handed interface works best when the hands are relatively fare apart, meaning a set of controls on each end of a "stick" device, implying a horizontal interface. A one-handed device, or any device with a screen in general, is meant to be used vertically, so the screen is as far from the hands as possible, for maximum visibility.

Touch-screen interfaces are sub-optimal two, since you end up obscruring the display by using it.

Actually, they legally can't in Canada.

From http://techreview.eatuniverse.net/2010/01/24/rogers-disconnects-data-services-to-g1-users/ :

"Some of you may recall legal precedence for this kind of issue, dating waaay back to the 70’s when Bell (then Northern Telecom) tried to force its customers to use Bell branded phones, and tried to attach a special fee to modem/fax use. The courts ruled against Bell, and the CRTC jumped in and made all sorts of rules to prevent telecom’s from requiring proprietary hardware, on standardized networks. This does, legally, carry over to GSM carriers. GSM is GSM. If your phone supports GSM on the frequency of a carrier, the carrier must provide a signal. Period."

I'll add a note that this approach isn't 100% proven. We don't know for a fact that the mods are sending the same information to Rogers contained in the build.prop files as the Rogers firmware is sending, or that the mods are even sending that information at all.

However, I do endorse this approach for lack of better ideas, and my phone is connected in spite of being on CyanogenMod.

I'm not sure if the network reset itself or the build.prop fix is responsible, but I'll take what I can get.

"will not work on Telus in those modes"

2g = won't work. 3g = will.

Agreed!

I'll add that there has been some luck fooling it by installing the CursorSense 1.2 mod, which is based on the Mandatory Update itself and reports the same or similar versions of just about everything.

Personally, I'm not that keen on switching mods unless I absolutely have to, though I do rank it as a better option than going with the mandatory update firmware.