There are already a few unofficial ports in advanced beta and threads on XDA developers indicate that everything works just fine. .

While I am somewhat disappointed by Samsung's lack of commitment to provide ongoing support such a successful product I am not sure this makes any difference really. Users who are not hacking their phones probably don't want such a radical upgrade. Users who are into hacking will get it unofficially.

Gosh how I loved that SSCSSHHHHHHH when it eventually did connect. In my mind I can still hear those bits pouring down the telephone line into my computer. Some modems (might have been pre 56k days) even let you keep the modem speaker on constantly so you could listen to your data all day long. The sheer nerdy joy of it.

As a parent who's eldest has just started secondary (high) school I say the sooner they move to e-books the better. Its not just about money. I am concerned about the weight of textbooks my 12 year old daughter has to lug around. They have lockers but regularly brings home 10kg or more of books for homework or study. The problem has gotten much worse than when I was a school kid because
a. Schoolbooks are bigger, glossier and consequently heavier and
b. Every subject now has a separate workbook which doubles up the number of books.

So I would welcome the transition to ebooks with open arms but I wonder if the technology is ready yet. On the hardware side battery life is critical. Between school time and homework the kids could be using the tablet for 8 hours a day. With even the best of current tablets that means forgetting to plug in overnight could lose you a whole schoolday. On the software side I am also concerned that the whole e-book industry is still a mess with conflicting standards and restrictive drm: "I am sorry but we won't be covering Lord of the Flies this year because you cannot get it in XYZ format".

"The publisher also provides the marketing, editing, proofreading, typesetting, illustrations and quite a few other services that the author cannot provide themselves."

This is an important point. Traditional publishers provided a lot of valuable services to authors not least of which were marketing and publicity. However in return for these services publishers asked a very high price - up to and sometimes even including all ownership of the creative work. They got away with this because of the monoploy power they held due to the huge barrier to entry caused by high printing and distribution costs. Ebooks have effectively eliminated printing and distribution costs and have undermined that entire business model. I don't think traditional publishers can continue as they are now that their main source of power is vanishing. The question as to who will take over from publishers as the dominant power in the market is as yet unresolved:

In my favourite scenario it will be the authors themselves. A small number of successful self published authors are showing this is possible and when a superstar like J K Rowling opts to self publish you have to take it seriously. Unfortunately the much larger number of poor quality self published works makes me suspect that most authors lack the knowledge and skills to critically evaluate, edit and market their own works.

In my least favourite (bud sadly more likely) scenario it will be a small number of (possibly only one) mega online retailers who will own the market.

As for the publishers, well everything they used to do will probably become just a service for hire.

I know that in Europe we have fairly strong advertising standards regulation and in theory every ad is supposed to be "legal, decent honest and truthful". I see the odd case of outrageous ads being challenged but for the most part we get exactly the same litany of gullible customers being sold products they don't need: €100 hdmi cables, ultimate broadband for Facebook browsing etc.

I am not sure that any amount of regulation can stop it. I have become quite resigned to the whole business and I accept it as a kind of ignorance tax. While I can be smug about the fact that I am knowledgeable enough about tech products to avoid paying this ignorance tax I am quite sure that in other areas where I am less knowledgeable I am probably duped into paying more than I should.

According to the article they want to take the stock options back so they can use them to attract new employees.

Surely the act of taking them back greatly reduces the attractiveness of any future options Zynga issues?

I'm a fan of Steam but I am a mad as hell that they let this happen. It is not as if they weren't an obvious target given the number of game companies that have been hit before.This is Valve's fault. They screwed up big time and a limp apology from Gabe Newell doesn't make me feel any better.

I picked up the bundle in order to play Frozen Synapse but I got several other games thrown in because I made a decent contribution. I never heard of most of the games but I have spent the last week playing them. SpaceChem in particularly is extraordinary. It is an extremely challenging puzzle game where you must build complicated machines out of basic building blocks in order to synthesise chemical compounds. It sounds naff but it is incredibly addictive. Beware though the challenges are very tough but I reckon it would suit the the nerd quotient of the average slashdotter.

My local library has been offering ebook lending for several years. They recommend Overdrive but the drm is just Adobe so you can use any ebook reader which supports adobe drm. You download the book in encrypted format and you get a time limited license which allows you to read it. After the 3 week lending period expires you cannot read the book anymore. There also seems to be a lockout in place so that only a one person can read a given ebook at a time. That sounds pretty silly but I guess it is a requirement of the publisher.

Its a pretty good system and I like being able to browse from home but the selection is still fairly poor.

Whenever I see an article like this about yet another scientist trying to create artificial life I wonder whether they have watched and read too much science fiction or whether they just haven't seen enough science fiction.

So you are saying that anyone who cannot hear the difference between standard cables and expensive premium cables must be a Britney Spears fan?

I think the Emperor isn't wearing any clothes.

Big disappointment recently when a young relative put together a crystal radio kit (from Maplin I think). When it didn't work I being the engineer in the family was called in to fix it. I took the scientific approach and calculated the centre to be bang in the middle of the medium wave band. After twiddling with it for some time and getting nothing I finally tried another portable radio with a medium wave band and was amazed to discover that not a single station was still broadcasting on it.

LegalZoom is only a software tool. Clearly the people posing as lawyers in this case are the customers who bought LegalZoom and used it to draw up lawyer like documents.

The solution seems obvious to me. All the users of LegalZoom must pay themselves the mandatory compensation amount. Less a cut of course for the lawyers who so helpfully pursued the class action for them.

After reading your comments about Nintendo Music I cannot help seeing a vision of a ferociously concentrating hard core shooter fanatic pulling off headshots in "Now that's what I Call Modern Battlefield Honor 77" while a jingly Marioesque soundtrack plays in the background.

It's quite a psychedelic image.

They are going to have a hard time finding a judge or jury who isn't addicted to some Apple product methinks.