I think this is only going to get worse as things improve. When all you can make are low quality, tiny objects, of 1 (maybe 2 or 3) colours then nobody really cares too much if you copy their designs as you can't do anything terribly useful with them. But as the price comes down meaning they become more widely accessible, and the quality and size of output improves I believe companies and individuals will quickly become very interested in lobbying for IP laws against these printers.

Not that I want those laws mind you but given the way they are behaving with things such as movies and music I think it's inevitable.

Now if they could so similar for the Studios we may be onto a winner.

(Note: I realise the studios haven't been found to be doing this but why should we let something like that stop us? Little things like facts don't seem to stop the studios pulling similar stunts.)

I think this presents an exciting opportunity for MS.

What they need to do is create a competition where entrants have to propose the best idea for what could be done with all these unsold devices. The catch is thought that your idea must use all the devices.

That way they can get a lot of publicity and also get rid of all that stock in one go.

So ideas could be for instance:
- laying them all down in a big grid to make the worlds largest disco floor, then breaking the record for largest number of hipsters dancing on it in one go.
- Getting them all to run a SETI program
- Developing a plot for a movie that involves saving the world from an invading army of highly efficient worker class aliens by clicking the keyboard onto millions of Surfaces at exactly the same time.
- I'm sure you can come up with better ones...

Interesting. I would have thought Chrome would have been a better fit for the laptop but I guess Intel is keen to push Touch and Android is much better suited to that end.

I wonder too if this is a ploy to encourage MS to lower its prices too?

To me it looks like Intel is pushing touch as a must have feature to try and get everyone to upgrade but I see it mostly as a fad myself (kinda like 3D TV). It's kinda interesting but ultimately not upgrade worthy.

Though if someone implemented it in such a way that it really did add value then I would be happy to change my mind.

Get ready to see SEO (Submission Engine Optimisation) specialists cropping up and making a fortune off lazy students.

Or should that be ESO (Essay Submission Optimisation)

And new websites such as LOLEssays where you can see examples of the most ridiculous essays people actually got top marks for.

I assume that anything they learn from this research will be openly available to anyone and not encumbered with patents?

Obvious solutions aren't always the best. But better solutions often seem obvious in hindsight.

If all we ever did was just the most obvious solution I don't think we would have progressed anywhere as far as we have.

Well I didn't say AppleTV specifically. I just said that I used it and liked it so "A" wireless solution (but not specifically an Apple one) may be worth investigating and those others you suggest such as DNLA are perfectly fine examples.

Personally I like a wireless solution as I don't need to have a cable (either on my person or hanging off the TV) and I can easily have the device with me on the couch (or wherever) to control it. What I personally prefer could very well be different to what you personally prefer. Doesn't mean either is wrong or better or whatnot, just that we have different values.

I often like to think about these things in terms of activities or outcomes rather than features. The problem with thinking in terms of features is that you lock yourself into a specific implementation (which is often sub optimal).

So instead of saying "I need HDMI" I would instead say "I need a dead simple way to have my screen show up on any external screen."
Now HDMI may in fact be the answer but maybe there is a better way. For instance AppleTV works very nicely for me with all my devices to the TV. I'm not saying we should all install AppleTV's just observing that a wireless solution could be very convenient too. We should explore alternatives rather than just diving into the immediately obvious solution.

All so it can be viewed by Bings non existent users.

With the way the environment is going I think it is entirely possible for us to find many jobs for them that may indeed become essential to our survival. They would become Mass Urban Environment Curators as such and be responsible for the planting and maintaining of plants everywhere. Not just plain planting them though but managing them in useful and interesting ways to give us much more than just aesthetic and clean air advantages.

And I'm sure we could find many more interesting jobs for people that involve creating surroundings that are both more sustainable and contributing to our overall happiness.

We just have to start thinking creatively.

My guess is that they feel if they can disrupt the services of banks it will in turn disrupt the functioning of many organisations that rely on those banks for financial services. This would have a negative effect on the economy as a whole (which is already in bad shape) and possibly get the attention of the government to do something to stop it.

Now, I don't feel this is actually going to work like that but that is my best guess at what they were attempting.

Or maybe they figured a lot of banks higher ups are friends with politicians whom they could go crying to to make it stop.

No, no, no. Blue is the basic version. Screen is the new name for Pro.
If you just have Blue then you get a plain blue screen with nothing on it. If you upgrade to Blue Screen then you get a nice border around the blue panel and if you also buy Word then you may get some words representing the error message on that Blue Screen.

Have you noticed that lately MS's broad strategy seems to be 'Do whatever Apple does'?

It wouldn't surprise me if MS's yearly releases are timed to be a few months behind OSX releases to give them time to copy whatever Apple releases.

The thing is, when they sell to a corporate this doesn't matter. The corporation just creates their own image and drops that on every machine as standard.

The next largest market is not us techies but Joe average. Now yes, they do make money by pre installing this crapware but it also gives them an advantage. On the packaging they can show off that their machine comes preinstalled with this large list of software (highlighting various well known names). Joe average will tend to make his purchasing decision based on which machine has the largest list of features and the biggest numbers (works the same for stereos, TV's, etc). That's why all this tech comes packed with useless features that more often than not reduce the experience and performance. If you want to outsell the competition, sadly, this approach works.

This is why this trend is not going to change anytime soon.

You can win by not taking this approach (and Apple is probably the best example of this) but your product has to be well polished and typically you will be aiming for the upper market who more often than not doesn't fall for these marketing tricks.