The LG TV I turned on at my parens in law's place did exactly that - a dialogue in the lower right corner of the screen telling me that it needs/will upgrade itself promptly. I don't remember what I did then, but I remember being pissed about it!

Smart-TV concept is a ingenious strategy from TV makers to sell features to consumer when innovation doesn't sell or is lacking and when consumers are drowned in choice between TVs they can not differentiate between (except for the logo). I hate the concept, my parents in law seem to like it - they watch Netflix, even thought they have an iMac worth of hundreds of dollars in the other room, and could easily afford an AppleTV box anyway (they're fans of Apple and its products.)

Forgot #3:

3. Brightness per unit of distance - TVs give out far more brightness per square meter of illuminated area than a monitor. The dimmest plasma TV rivals the brightest monitors out there, and the newest and brightest LED LCDs that are sold in droves to the consumers today will burn your eyes out were you attempt to use them as monitor :-)

Differences:

1. Available sizes - far less choice of monitors above say 30", which is considered "small" for a TV
2. Different usage - TVs are meant to convey motion at the expense of still pictures (they usually do the latter adequately if not real well, however), while a monitor is basically for working, which puts ergonomy (read maximum brightness etc) at the top of priority list.

Besides, you don't get the market economy into account - we don't get the technology we geeks think is best - average users get the technology Ford thinks they will like - a TV that lets you watch Netflix, for one. Grandpa doesn't know his TV has a HDMI/Displayport input and that he can connect his laptop to it and browse the Internetz with a wireless keyboard/mouse combo. I do, and you do, but LG doesn't really consider us a big part of their intended buyer public. And this is how we have gotten to the point of applauding to the "brilliant" innovation of "smart" television.

Ford: "Behold, I give you the first in the world, a car with refrigerator!"
Public: "Woha, now I can refrigerate stuff while I drive!"
Geek: "Isn't it well, a car, with a refrigerator attached? I've had refrigerator installed in my car for years... What's new here?"

The thing is that, while you are absolutely right on all of your points, the main factor is image quality for intended usage - viewed from typical angular distance of 30-90 degrees or similar, TV of 30-55" size, first of all you will hardly find a computer monitor with sufficient luminosity/image brightness AND sufficiently little color distortion. Not to mention finding a computer monitor above 30" of size. Face it - not all of us watch movies from our working desk :-)

The truth is, TV makers have gone a long way of making sure the image is stable and TV-worthy. Computer monitor makers go for a bit different goal - individual pixel clarity at the expense of brightness and motion stability (I don't think computer monitors do anything with motion anyway, which is however not a bad thing per se, mind you).

Bottomline is, we need screens that let us disable all of the often unnecessary image processing (usually found in TVs), while giving us luminosity and color gamut of a good modern flatscreen TV, which computer monitors mostly don't give us (unless you plan on using an Eizo or some other made-for-photo-editing monitor).

And I agree - make analog TV tuner optional, and DEFINITELY forfeit and abandon the whole Smart-TV concept - its a gimmick TV makers have found which lets them sell us features at the expense of lack of innovation. Real innovation lies in f.e. Philips MothEye tech., black levels and color gamut, horizonal and vertical angle viewing etc - the usual things normal people notice.

Want Smart TV? Connect a screen to a computer that runs something that people are used to (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, etc), not a proprietary firmware capable of this but not that.

As soon as I read the line "...but can run most apps..." a feeling crept in that they most probably doing something wrong or had to make some hard compromises - just replicate the damn Android API, piece by piece, it is open is it not? "Most" today is a recipe for disaster - nobody likes almost working things. Jolla - talk with Google, certify Jolla as Android API compatible to a degree it is possible to actually "certify" for that kind of thing, and don't make yourself smaller than need be by stating "can run most apps". As a startup, you only have one shot at it, before you are shot back at - don't mess things up with inferiority in critical areas. Today it is not about hardware, it is about software - Android and iOS rule, and "most apps" means that you will win over "few" customers. Mark my word - unless you fix Androd compatibility, forget about it (and we will forget about you in 1-2 years.)

Maybe it is the new era of the industry - the likes of Steve Jobs forcing their will not only on the customers but on partners, subcontractors and even Apple board members, it seems that business leaders have recently got new hopes of being able to rule without having to listen to anyone. It's the grand decline of open source - as we now have closed source golden boys like Spotify, Android, Instagram, and whole app markets full of more or less polished apps, it seems that in many knowledgeable peoples eyes, open source has lost the battle. By virtue of demonstration, anyone can see that open source not always brings about the best product in desired time frame. So maybe Mark Shuttleworth had an epiphany ala Henry Ford - "F*ck users - what do they know anyway?! The forums are full of whineys, and Steve Jobs was maybe cruel but he made the apple golden again. F*ck users - Ima do it my way and show all of them how it is done." Whether he is the type to actually pull it off, remains to be seen.

Well, wouldn't it be cheaper if they instead had an air pocket inside, so they'd flow up to the surface for "factory recall"? :-) Better for the sea as well, isn't it?

Five years ago I was on a beach outside Malaga, Spain, about to take a swim in the sea. Diving under water I suddenly saw hundreds of more or less colored plastic bags floating around at different depths, like jellyfish. The sea was apparently full with those, at least along the coastline, to a degree. Some sort of tide bringing these I guess. Needless to say, the swimming experience was not particularly appealing suddenly and was cut short. It was disgusting. I am not really sure how to fix this problem today, but a price tag on each bag and a penalty for disposing of trash in inappropriate locations in general seem like a start to me.

> No one watches athletics for entertainment.

Really? Are you sure? Absolutely positively certain without doubt?

> Bolt still beats Gay.

To a degree - yes, I haven't said the good old human factor doesn't apply. But the two probably are on different diets etc, which make much difference inside their bodies and minds, as their bodies approach "max Q", so to speak. It's not the biggest factor, but especially in sports, the decisive factor doesn't have to be the biggest one, it just needs to make all the difference during those seconds or minutes you perform. My original argument cab be re-told as: atheles are like cars these days, it's the driver that matters, but also the kind of fuel that the car runs on, the engine oil, and various other fluids and solids that affect performance.

You're being naive. First of all he is human, so technically if he bests other humans, then he is by definition "best human". But you are probably implying "best physically unaugmented human", which probably excludes doping too, etc. But you have to look at it this way: except doping and attaching carbon-fiber prosthetic to yourself, there's a myriad of ways to augment yourself and still get qualified for Olympics. Drinking funny drinks, eating funny food which contain numerous "good" doping drugs that the commitee doesn't (and cannot) disallow, exercising so much that it blurs the definition of "human" - in short, modern athletes are no more human than they are products of if not breeding then definitely "growing" where they live by strict diets and discipline. Heck, they avoid sex before the races. Is that average human to you? It's worlds apart from an average human. My point is, you should take it very easy on "human" definition.

I say I don't care whether it's fair or not, precisely because Olympics today is like football - athletes are bought and sold, managers manage, an entire industry that deals with "augmenting" athletes legally has been established. If Oscar wins, he actually makes the world a more interesting place to live, which is what counts. He will be studied further, conclusions will be drawn from facts and not hypothesis, we will know more about our bodies. Other non-augmented athletes will try to beat him, just like man has tried to outrun beast back in the day - didn't stop him because beast was different from man.

Bottomline: fair fight is actually very boring thing in the long ron, it tastes like water. You don't want to only drink water, you want some excitement in it. You want a temporary shift of power and balance. Oscar gives us an excitement, even to his fellow athletes. And at the end of the day, he fights himself. While we watch. Don't you love a good show?

In reference to your last paragraph, are you implying that he indeed has an advantage over non-amputees? Otherwise, why is it unfortunate that the study wasn't published earlier?

Well said sir. And I say this again: I don't own an Apple computer, I have used them minimally/casually over the years, I have only typed on a Macbook Air once or twice in my life, and I have my own set of grudges against the iOS.

But you gotta hand it to those unapologetic Apple engineers, who refuse to let the generic reputation of computers troubled by years of silly mistakes speak for them.

If we'd be going to Mars, Apple would be taking us there without telling us to breathe and eat in turns and use the lavatory only when strictly necessary, while everyone else would be in the meeting room explaining it's not possible because it's too far away, there's the nastiest cosmic radiation, and it costs too much.

That's where you're wrong. You think you know what you're talking about but you don't. The innovation is not using different components, a child can do that with LEGO, doesn't mean they have innovated necessarily. Innovation lies within taking a different look on a thing everybody is looking at and producing a different product. It's producing things that seemingly come from fantasy alone that do their job, that do what people like and want. Innovation is when you ask the question "I thought this was not possible, how did they do that? Why doesn't everyone else do that?"

Like Apples patented magnetic power connector, like "unibody" aluminum cover, like backlit keyboard, like EFI/OFI instead of BIOS, like AirPort. And others.

There have been dozens of 13" PC models without an optical drive for several years now, none of them comes close to being as light and as thin as Macbook Air. And again, this is coming from a person who doesn't use Apples products, out of different reasons. Doesn't stop me from acknowledging the obvious.

Nobody prevents other manufacturers from striking darling contracts with Flash memory manufacturers and what not. Where there's will there's way. Instead they appear to be happily watching in mild jealosy as Apple sweeps customers off their feet time and again, growing with impatience until it runs out as they see their profits fall to the point it's obvious something has to be done about it. And they do. But it looks obvious - there's no denying it and no need to hide it - if it were the Olympics, we wouldn't be talking about them. Apple is the winner.

Heck, if Apple offered Macbooks with Windows preinstalled at Apple Store, it would wreak nothing short of a havoc in the bulky PC industry.

You have the logo issue the other way around. Indeed, people buy stuff with Apple logo on it - but it's because previously other people bought stuff with then unknown Apple logo on it and were pleasantly surprised and told their friends. Yes, that's why Macbook Air sells. Blame it on the logo.

That's good mileage! As for standard CPU TDP, who knows. Are you sarcastic? TDP is the wattage ceiling, and I am sure what they said is some marketing drone speak. It probably means a CPU with 15 watts of TDP, period. Your Intel Core Duo Txxxx has probably 25 watts TDP, for comparison.

Status-quo for PCs as of lately - the entire lazy uninspiring market just trails Apple, who, as much as I dislike the whole flashy iDesign, have been the only true innovators for years now.

As much as I like my Thinkpad, it often amazes me why if it's thin and light, has everything you need, then it has to run that iOS thing.

It looks like Apple are thinking, while everyone else just tries to profit riding the wave. Like rich estate owners who cannot be bothered to actually work anymore, because it's been so long they did, they have no understanding nor desire to do so, but they do want the money they lay claim to.

We are sold "business" laptops that are supposed to be our road warriors, that have gamer graphics cards in them for some idiotic reason, that get not just warm but burning hot in our laps (while we thought we could actually use them as well LAPtops you know), that come with a shitload of software crap someone either thinks we need or doesn't give a damn about, and on top we have Microsoft aggressively pushing Windows to us, which is at best a patch on a suit full of holes and stains. My point is: the PC industry as a whole is a mess, there is no direction and definitely no respect for the multititude of jobs people who work with computers these days do - it's like we are sold toys that we are supposed to use and throw out after a year. Everybody sings their tune, software is pushed to interpreted languages and the cloud which negatively affect one of the most important usability factors out there - latency. It's amazing we are not told that we shouldn't multitask because the new JavaScript OS is too slow to do that on todays Intel Core CPU.

All the while Apple at least is innovating. Maybe because that's what they long wanted to get away from - the messy juggernaut of the PC industry that is like a landfill of throwouts someone somewhere tries to fit together to give us the next best thing, for their 15 minutes of fame.

Gee, Intel, is it a coincidence you thought of finally shaving off a centimeter off the average laptop height 2 years after Apple, and probably half a decade after it began to be possible and the users began wanting it really badly after complaining of carrying five pounds of machine on average with them every working day?